InstaGlam - Dolce & Gabbana

Welcome to LBM and Mirabelle's brand new series, InstaGlam, which explores brands that celebrate the beauty of life on Instagram! We start off on a strong and vibrant note with Italy's dynamic fashion duo, Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana.

D&G Alta Moda Collection, AW2015-16

There is something warm and generous about the Dolce & Gabbana brand, a little like a seasoned Italian mama: warm, spicy, friendly, coquettish, hands-on, streetwise and nurturing all at once. And no better way to appreciate it than via Instagram, where both D&G and Stefano Gabbana go beyond the call of fashion duty to share inspiration.

D&G Alta Gioielleria, Palazzo Gangi Valguarnera, Palermo

It is a sunny, vibrant, joyful, technicolor celebration of life, where the D&G man, woman and child lust for life. It is a far cry from certain couture houses out there that have a clinical, rigid, no-frills, monochrome approach to fashion and lifestyle, season after season. D&G is actually more than a fashion brand, it is a lifestyle umbrella.

Elements of nature, religion (Alta Moda Collection), tradition, artistry, and couture wizardry combine their threads to compose a tapestry of covetable craftsmanship with faerie-like, romantic, folklore and bohemian accents. Much detailing and ornementation are at play and those wearable works of art manage to pique our curiosity and send a message to those fast and furious fashion creators who have sent the high street bland and drab.

In our troubled times of transience and fickleness, and under the globalised aseptised world that elites are pushing us towards, D&G spells Italian heirloom, old money, oodles of originality, opulence and a waff of quirky flamboyance, not to mention an ode to cultural enrichment through the rediscovery of culture. In other words, they bridge past and future, like their flagship retail store on Via Montenapoleone in Milan.



Moreover D&G does not rest on their laurels. Their marketing and brand management is savvy, edgy and responsive. When a couple of months ago D&G faced a backlash due to their supporting US First Lady Melania Trump who proudly and consistently wears their outfits, Stefano Gabbana, a fervent admirer of Melania's style and persona, responded to his detractors boldly. He pre-empted any call for boycott on their part by actually launching a... #BoycottD&G campaign through social media as well as a matching tee-shirt range! No adverse publicity, just a smart move; what appeared risqué at first immediately brought limelight, coverage, and ultimately served the brand in a positive fashion! Well done!

D&G is fashion that sings and flutters and seduces like the Italian language itself. This is fashion lifestyle by a life-loving duo, and you can feel, breathe and eat it all you like! Bellissima pasticceria della moda!

D&G Sneaker Patches

Sweet Dreams are Made of This

Traditionally the lead-up to Christmas is sugar-coated bliss. Codename indulgence. It sees confectioners, chocolatiers, pâtissiers and glaciers (*) whip up a frenzy to a feast for the eyes and the palate. In order to experience the finished article, gently shoo the words away from this page for the photos to do the talking, as an inspirational appetizer. If you are dreaming of a white Christmas, you have it here in layers and textures... Layers of whipped cream and peaks of meringue and lashings of royal icing, for the layers of wool and other fabrics are unnecessary: they may safely remain cosied up in drawers!

Calissons d'Aix by La Maison Jouvaud

Amandines by La Maison Jouvaud

The pastry industry at large is empowered at Christmas: excellence is its byword. From muted sweet nothings to the more elaborate gâteaux, excellence seeks and excellence finds! Dusting off classic recipes, resurrecting old favourites, piping a soupçon of innovation into tradition, or throwing caution to the wind in order to surpass itself within the Christmas logs department.

Dacquoise is a great starting point!

Angelina Paris is sooo jolie! (pict source from top left: 1 * 2 * 3). Montage by LBM, assisted by PicMonkey.

French Christmas logs are likely to be nipped and tucked these days, turning their ephemeral works of art into edible covet pieces of couture. Traditionally every pâtissier worth their salt (and sugar) produces a Christmas log masterpiece every Christmastime. The idea is for the log to stand out and get attention. And if it does, it will end up gracing the pages of fashion glossies and reaping accolades. Art meets the palate, fashion gets eaten up... Call it as you please. We end up with a couture collection of innovative, eccentric and even totally crazed-up edible outfits for a log! Talk about edible design unleashed... The sample below is on the conservative side, but Elle has 33 more for you to gawk at!

L'Instant Féérique by Thiriet, via Elle

(*) glaciers = ice cream makers

A Week-End Wonderweb 07-05 (Accent Colours)

Domestic, commercial, industrial or culture-dedicated interior/ exterior walls come to prominence with accent colours: if thought out carefully and applied strategically in order to avoid any bad taste errors, those areas of motif or brighter/ darker colour issue a bold statement of presence and modernity, by playing with natural daylight (or lack thereof) for depth, luminosity and general effect, further asserting the building's existing character, and outline existing features - or create detail.

Sources (top page down):

• Harlequin, part of the 'Anoushka' upholstery collection
• KML Design (Katrine Martensen-Larsen), 'Living Daylights' (picture by Stuart McIntyre)
• Elle Decor, LookBook (style: contemporary living room), 'Lori's Law of Order' (by designer Lori Graham, picture by Erik Johnson, Nov 2007 issue).

American Bubble-Gum

Brownies, donuts, cookies and muffins... These are words that need no description, no explanation and no translation (they are untranslated, and maybe even untranslatable). Taking France as an example, those words have invaded our dictionaries and vocabulary like in their day 'jerrycan', 'week-end', 'chewing-gum', 'rock 'n' roll', hamburger and other terms of welcome (or imposed) American endearment. They are understood by most of us, maybe bar the centenarian living in seclusion in a remote village. Brownies, donuts, cookies and muffins have advanced onto our shores with ease but has this advancement brought progress to mankind? I wonder...

Creeping up our bakery counters, gaining column inches in food magazines, chosen by the cool-on-the-go, these cakes have won an incredible battle pit against France's honed, skilled  and world-reputed pâtisserie tradition, a battle of easy over fiddly, plain over tasty, fast over slow, filling over fancy, cheap over less cheap, a battle of taste, a battle of texture, a battle of colour. This battle of grub, of stodge, against delicacy was no charm offensive and I don't think it was ever meant to be.

Despite the fact that there is more to American specialities than Brownies & Co., the latter have succeeded in ramming Americana further down our throats. They are another example of what I call 'American bubble-gum', a cultural model that promotes a vision based on mass-consumerism (and this is not simply related to food), levelled expectations, levelled taste leading to its aseptisation, itself leading inexorably to loss of taste. And the loss of taste gives credence to a taste for insipidity.



Chocolate Mini Sparkle Doughnut by Starbucks: vector of propaganda?

I deplore the levelling of traditional French pâtisserie values to the so-called mass-market appeal, based on the promotion of universal uniformity and mediocrity of taste and experience to an audience of un-afficionados. By un-afficionados, I mean those French people and foreign visitors alike who do not seek, either out of choice or ignorance, the appreciation or savoir faire behind our expertly-skilled pastries, which are an integral part of our heritage at large. And through this we all are the (un-)willing witnesses to the levelling process of cultural difference.

This erosion of cultural difference is reflected further with mass-tourism. Instead of satisfying one's curiosity and embracing cultural difference, mass-market tourism will seek false reassurances by encouraging the readily availability of fast-food products that are familiar to all (beyond our American pâtisserie theme, but fully endorsed by the American food model), from pizza to kebab, from burger to pannini, from brownie to cookie, a commonly understood culinary language ('culinary' being an exaggeration). This levelling, led by the American model itself, threatens to enlist irrevocably our European youth (and their parents) who seem either happy to embrace it, indifferent about it, or resigned to accept it... I have chosen to raise my voice about the whole thing, and so be it if I have offended some of my readers. Please, I am no anti-American, but that doesn't mean I am ready to accept (and swallow) anything America throws at me.



Brownies au Chocolat Blanc et Noix de Macadamia by Elle à Table

P.S: I haven't mentioned the much-lauded cupcakes in this article on purpose. Because - in contrast with brownies, donuts, cookies and muffins - their elaborate colourful presentation demonstrates a certain amount of skill and talent, although the basis for the cupcake itself remains plain and easy. Cupcakes are 'couture cakes', as I like to describe them. The secret to their success lies in the decorative expertise of the cook/ baker, resulting in an individual, even unique style. Therefore for these reasons, I would put the cupcake in a higher league to that of Brownies & Co.