June | 2010 | Valentina Expressions

Talking To The Shoes | Valentina Cirasola | Designer

20 Jun 2010 2 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #HighHeelsShoes, #ShoeBox, #ShoeCloset, #ShoeStorage, #ShoeStyle, #ValentinaCirasolaAuthor

For someone who is used to walk every day on high heels is not easy to fall off the shoes. It takes balance, full concentration and a lot of attention to where the feet are going. On high heels, women cannot afford to be clumsy, or they will lose their “good impression”. High heels dictate a straight up posture and a very feminine coquetry attitude.

During the centuries, shoes gained more importance and became more visible as the skirts became shorter. They went from being simple strips of cloth to wrap around feet so the feet wouldn’t have to touch the ground directly, to the leather sandals the Romans wore. There were shoes on stilts as high as 20” to get through rain and muddy streets and then there were heels from low to medium made of wood. Shoes with heels in the XVII Century were made of silk, brocade, embroideries, and laces to be matched with the colored silk stocking.
Leather boots also came into fashion, high up to the knees and above. In the ’60s Mary Quant invented the forever young “mini skirt” and high boots became an adorable addition. I wore them both shamelessly.

Shoe heels also grew in height according to the forever changing fashion rules.

In Venice, the red heel for both men and women was considered a very sexy element of the shoe and it was an “attention grabber”. Showing the red heel from underneath the dress meant looking for trouble!

Shoes are a fetish, status symbols and the tradition of a nation. Some are real object d’art, some are impossible to wear (see the skeleton stiletto in my photo).

Their magical power is to turn the feet, a nonsexual part of the body, into a sexual excitement. That’s why we can’t have enough of them in all colors and styles. In Italy, during my growing up, I had a new pair of shoes at the beginning of the school year, generally brown, one new pair for Christmas in black for the elegant gatherings with family and friends and one pair of sandals for the Summer. Three pairs were all I had and they were supposed to last at least a couple of years. All the people I knew had the same custom or just about. Now, living in America, I cannot begin to count how many pairs of shoes I own and just like everybody else, I fell under their spell.
(Vertebrate heels by Dsquared )

Growing up in Italy, I often accompanied my fancy young aunts in their shoes shopping. I remember the salesperson asking if they wanted two strings or three strings sandals. The merchandise in Italy was never and still isn’t exposed for the customers to reach, touch and try on. Salespeople are there to find what you are looking for, they are your gofer. Sandals with two strings were a best seller, more exposed the feet were the sexier they looked. To me, now living in America, it isn’t any more a question of how many strings, it’s a question of how many pairs I can fit in the shopping cart and I like it! Thanks for all the choices available to me.
We all have such an irrational obsession with shoes that we must plan the right space for them in our homes.

One of the relevant aspects of my profession as a designer is to know how people are going to use their container furniture from kitchen and bath cabinetries to closets. I must know all their habits in order to design their wellbeing and comfortable living.

How to make a morning dressing process less stressful and be able to choose the right shoes for the right outfit without stirring ourselves crazy?
(Photo left: BH&G)

Take a photograph of one shoe per pair, print it from your computer and stick it on each box of shoes. It will be easier to find and match them with the outfit. Shoes will be talking to you much easier, instead of you losing time finding them. A walking closet, of course, is an ideal solution, where clothes and shoes can be displayed as your own shopping store. As an interior designer working in remodeling all kind of spaces, it is very important to me and to my clients to have an organizational team at our disposal. The team is made of professional organizers who know how to get us through an elimination process easily and painless before we start any demolition and remodeling project. This is my precious added value to my customers.
A simple order is the foundation of all good things.

Fashion Services

https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is an interior designer, in business since 1990 and a former fashion designer. She helps people realizing their dream spaces in homes, offices, interiors and exteriors. Valentina is also a published author of three books:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0

Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Sailors Are In Town | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

12 Jun 2010 5 Comments

by Valentina in Friday Fashion Tags: #EuropeanFashion, #NauticalColors, #NauticalFashion, #SailorStyle, #StripedFabrics

Stripes again! It seems as every other year stripes want to be vacationing with us in the Summer. This year white and blue stripes are everywhere with a touch of red and gold. The new city relaxed elegance is not about common striped t-shirts, white short pants, and white tennis shoes.

(Cropped jacket Polyvore)

It is about combining elegant daytime jackets with gold buttons, or decorative vintage passamantery with city shorts and sandals propped on high heels.
(Ellie Anchor Pin Up Hell Pumps)

Nautical theme and cruise time will give us the refreshing feeling of elegant nights spent at the Yacht Club, even if we don’t go on any vacation. Treat yourself with these small luxuries!

In your home this Summer relax with beach style décor. Create a cottage easy living with coastal breezy colors. Keep it sophisticated, then any beach accent can be added. (Photo left BH&G).

The fabric on the chairs embellished with mother of pearls buttons makes an elegant beach feeling.
It is just right to host casual parties in semi-formal settings. The slip-on covers can be changed in the fall with autumn colors for a different mood.

Change the look of any mirrors with an incrustation of seashells that you have brought back from the island vacations and if you didn’t go to the island lately, any gift shop or import shop in your town will have shells of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Shells look very happy on coffee tables in decorative glass vases, even more happy if they are repurposed in your garden as decorative elements, or as a potting solution.

Molly Wood Garden Design

(Photo right: Giant shell planter -Photo Sunset)

In your backyard, it is easy to create a party for two, a romantic evening tête-a-tête. Use a red and white striped cloth to cover a small bistro table. Cover the seat of a swing and all the cushions around with Sunbrella fabric in stripes and anchor print fabric. Serve a delicious salad in a large clam-shaped bowl. Light candles everywhere, uncork a bottle of Italian prosecco, or a Bellini if you like and a romantic night on the Italian Riviera awaits just outside your backyard. Don’t’ forget to wear one of those nautical shoes as in my photographs. High heels look even better when laying down…..I mean on the grass…..

Please forward this article to anyone you think might be interested in reading it and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Thank you. Ciao,
Valentina

Fashion Services
https://valentinadesigns.com/services#fashion-services

Valentina Cirasola is an Italian Interior and Fashion Designer, working in the USA and Europe. She marries well fashion and interior in any of her design work. She loves to remodel homes and loves to unattractive spaces into castles.
Valentina is so far a published author
Amazon: http://goo.gl/qNxXrB
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Appear At The Balcony, My Love! | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

06 Jun 2010 3 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #ItalianArchitecture, #ItalianBalcony, #ItalianCustoms, #ItalianLifeOnBalcony, #ItalianLifeStyle, Balcony, Italian-Life

Letters to Juliet, the latest film with Vanessa Redgrave and Italian actor Fabio Testi that every girlfriend of mine is talking about.
(Verona Balcony photo
http://www.freefoto.com/images/14/14/14_14_82—Romeo-and-Juliet-Balcony–Verona-Italy_web.jpg )

The film is based on “What if you had a second chance to find true love?” and of course there is no better place to talk about love than from Juliet and Romeo’s famous balcony in Verona. Hollywood’s ability to prompt women to dream still amazes me. The Italian sceneries in the film are so beautiful, the golden aura of the Mediterranean projected on ancient walls and stones contributes to the romanticism and fantasy. Juliet and Romeo’s balcony is the focus of the last scene that makes the story ending into “they lived happy forever after”. To a realist like me, it was just a nice few hours at the cinema.
But what prompted me to write this small piece is the balcony, a piece of architecture that pushed me back in time, when I was a young woman, constantly in love with anybody who walked.

Yes, it all happened on the balcony of my mom’s house and when my mom was a young woman, most “seen and being seen” happened on the her mother’s balcony too.

In Italy a balcony is a lived space, an added space to the house, or apartment. We Italians sit on the balcony to admire the view whether we have one or not and if we don’t have a view, we scrutinize our neighbors. We get to know them and all their family problems, somehow the balcony doors are always open. We cultivate small orchards on pots and every possible cooking spice, along with flowers. Colors, colors, colors burst from Italian balconies. Among the few produce planted on balconies, tomatoes take first attention, they are a must in the Italian cuisine.

Balconies in Italy are also used to hang clean laundry to dry in the open air, clothes dryers are not popular at all. Naples is one of the most renowned and characteristic city of Italy for its clothes hanging over the streets, leaving to the imagination of the passers-by observations and comments of who could wear those clothes. With a pulley, clothes span from one balcony to another, serving two different families on both sides of the same street.
Hanging clothes to dry from balconies is a practice most popular in the the South of Italy where climate is warmer and people colorful.

On balconies Italians “mettono tavola” meaning they set an outdoor table and dine al fresco, mostly at night, when they can be refreshed in the cool night air, after a long day of Summer heat. It is an excuse to participating also to the night life of people strolling down below in the street. While all of that goes on in the street, up in the balconies, people carry on with their lives until the small hours of the night, as if nobody sees them. In fact, when the weather is really hot it is not uncommon to get a mattress and sleep on the balcony.

To cut down on their routine tasks, housewives lean on balconies and drop a basket down below to the local family owned grocery shop, or drug store to get the small items needed for today’s cooking. The grocer puts in the basket all she needs and the basket returns upstairs, payment for that merchandise comes later. The basket is always attached with a rope to the rail of the balcony ready to be dropped down at any request. On the other hand, women at home, regardless of the busyness of their lives, always have time to spend a few minutes on the balcony to pass along a recipe, or a gossip with the next balcony neighbors, or at best a taste of their cup of coffee.

On Italian balconies young women, who are learning the art of coquetry, show themselves off to potential boyfriends, almost like showing off what they have to offer. The young girl coming out of their shells and new at this game, do everything in their power to attract the young man’s attention they are interested in. They appear at the balcony at the same exact time the young man is passing by, because they have studied him and learned every move he makes…..Suddenly, something falls down from the girl’s balcony, just when he is passing through……oh Heaven!….he is looking up….

In America we don’t socialize through our balconies. Actually only upscale homes have balconies, but nobody uses them, they are only there for beauty and to pay more taxes as exterior spaces. Some are even fake, no exit to it, only a rail attached to the walls as a suggestion of balcony. Our privacy is precious and guarded with sentinels, but when we go to Italy, funny, we like how everything evolves over there, even when people enter our lives through balconies without permission. My life in America is so different now, without that closeness to the neighbors and their lives. I truly miss my Italian balcony, a fabulous piece of architecture, that has been the protagonist of love stories through centuries.

So, let’s ask ourselves that “What if?”.

Valentina
www.valentinadesigns.com

This article was also published on:
L’Italo-Americano Weekly Newspaper and Italian American Heritage Foundation paper.

*******

Valentina Cirasola is an interior and fashion designer, in business since 1990 helping people with design challenges in both Europe and USA. She helps people realizing their dream spaces in homes, offices, interiors, exteriors, restaurants and more. Check out her books on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w

Sweet Dreams | Valentina Cirasola | Interior Designer

02 Jun 2010 4 Comments

by Valentina in Home Designs Master Tags: #BedroomInteriors, #BedroomStyle, #DecoratingBedroom, #HomeFashion, #ValentinaCirasolaDesigner, Colors

Boy, did I sleep through the month of May, or was I having too much fun celebrating May, the national month of sleep? I wished that was the case. Actually, I was very busy with presentations and planning people’s home to build in the next few months, that I forgot to write this piece of information on time.

(https://omf.net.au/Products/Detail/2079)

Sleep is not static, movement is a natural part of sleep.
“When we are upright, our lower back and neck have a natural curve held in place by our postural muscles. In sleep, these muscles relax and we must depend on our mattress for support” , says Dr. Eric Grigsby, nationally recognized pain management physician.
European companies have been very attentive to inadequate sleep and to address the issues of back pain and discomfort during the night. They have developed bed systems with a unique blend of ortho-engineering and mattresses that will help resolving problems of sleepless nights. There is one particular bed Dux Bed that comes to my mind. It is made of thousands of springs contouring the body to help the spine rest in a natural position. The bed works while the muscles take a break. Swedish steel springs provide better contouring for the body, reducing pressure points which can help improve circulation.

(Photo above http://neurostis.com/dux-bed)

A mattress should do a few, but very important things:
It should suit the individual instead of one-size-fits-all.
It should provide an excellent support no matter how soft or firm the mattress is.
It should be comfortable and resilient for its entire life.
It should be motionless, not full of bounce and its components should not have sag formations.
A mattress intended for a couple should be tailored with a dual-adjusted mechanism for lumbar support and personal comfort zones.
Let’s not forget the feature of lower humidity and comfortable sleeping temperatures.

Aside from the bed technology, we should think of getting relief from the comfort of bedding and environment as part of your sleeping treatment.
Italian linens are renowned for beauty, lusciousness and how their delicate textiles treat our skin. Most Italian linens are made of a blend of cotton and linen.
Cotton being a breathable fabric is used in the interior face to touch the skin and all the other fibers including silk are used on the exterior faces for beauty. The good cotton is not about thread count, but about the quality of the longer fibers used in the weaving process.
Linen yarn has a fresh feel, a silky shine and high resistance. Linen can absorb water up to 20% of its weight without the body feeling any humidity, thus it is most appropriate in warmer climate.

(Frette bedding)

Frette is one of the Italian brand that comes to mind for its superior linens, bedding and elegant sleep wear. As I always say: “If you can’t roll in bed with an Italian lover, you can at least roll in Italian sheets”. When it comes to personal comfort, soul nourishment and health, quality matters.

I am here to help with any challenges you might have with your sleep, or your sleeping environment.

Please forward this article to anyone you think might be interested in reading it and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Thank you. Ciao.
Valentina
Interior Designer since 1990.

http://www.valentinadesigns.com

Valentina Cirasola, in her career has helped a variegated group of fun people realizing their dreams with homes, offices, interiors and exteriors.
Check her books available on
Amazon: http://goo.gl/xUZfk0
Barnes&Nobles: http://goo.gl/q7dQ3w