Nr°13 Image of the day

Friday in Lille: walking in the rain after our Louvre-Lens visit.
One of our favorite fashion hotspots Serie Noire, had this fun eye-catcher on the corridor ceiling when you enter the shop.
Real punk history, sticked on the walls by stylist and party queen Fanny, so told me Olivier, owner of this rock n' roll store.
The labels? Are they punk? Well, let' say: Chloé, Balmain, Céline, Dior Homme, Ann De Meulemeester, Kris Van Assche, Barbara Bui, Acne, Haider Ackermann,Isaac Sellam Experience, Rick Owens, ...
Punk attitude, Yeah!




http://www.serie-noire.fr/ConceptStore/
http://serielllnoire.tumblr.com

Sergio cooked for my birthday-a life inspiration day

Booked 10 months upfront, but finally: the day I was looking forward too. My birthday December 11th, and Sergio was going to cook for me!
We arrived at 12 o' clock, in that strange little town called Sluis. Frequented in the weekends by loads of Belgians looking for cheap clothes and decoration stuff, 'volks' like we call it, and in the middle of this chaos: Sergio's 3 star heaven for the elite....



And yes, we felt privileged and part of the fabulous food elite when we left 6 hours later.... OS IS one of the best restaurants in the world.


It was our first time at Oud Sluis(really) although we visited Sergio's Pure C already 4 times, with some sleepovers in the Strandhotel and it's little beach house. We have our love for Ibiza in common with Sergio and Pure C feels a bit like home .


But let's start with the appetizers....


Even the butter in Oud Sluis is an adventure. Butter mixed with healthy algues.
Glass wear and porcelain so beautiful and made by different designers (Piet STOCKMAN, STUDIO JOB,...)
Bring back the Fall, as a remedy against the ones who don't like the Winter cold...


The wine was for me the revellation of the day. Great choices, amazing taste, surprising combinations... The girl sommelier found the exact balance between interesting product information and a good story. Not too much, just enough. And, the saké you see on the picture: one of the best we ever tasted.



The green mushroom and others

The golden crab.

Another special, rough presentation.






One of the many desserts, every one of them a mouthwatering festivity. And, that means something for me, a non desert  person.




Damien Hirst meets Sergio Herman. Chocolate skulls like brothers next one another.



Did I mention is was my birthday? We did at the reservation 10 months ago, and they remembered! A white porcelain cake with white candles made by Studio Job arrived at my table, and after blowing all!! the candles, the cake was removed. Underneath another sweet treat by the master himself, just for me. (Ivan and I split the dish off course!)
Peace for my birthday, with a golden box, a white peace sign and some ice pearls of a black plate. Designed pour moi!
And more.....
And more... This one was ' A mouthful of cherries'
The final touch, for the final touch. Gold again to end a golden day with delicious food from a fantastic team.
Part of the menu.


Sergio's restaurant is not too posh, there is an open kitchen, 'un atmoshpere décontracté' and the staff is in a relaxing way very sweet, young and mucho professional. All in blue jeans,a black blazer jacket and...the Music For Life badge, an initiative from a Belgian youth music radio Studio Brussel on dementia awareness.




And, was Sergio in his kitchen? Off course!
Did we meet? Off course.
We chatted about food, his stardom and his latest very cool book on 'kot food': student food made in student homes. This means low budget, XL creativity and weird combinations... Sergio pimped some of these student recipe's and made them 'touched by his' signature. 
Great little booklet, no nonsense, like Mr Herman is in real life.

Thank you Sergio and team for a lovely extended birthday lunch, and we hope to see you back in Sluis, or maybe in La Chapelle Antwerp.

Kate

http://www.sergioherman.com/en/oudsluis/about/
http://www.lachapelleantwerp.com
http://www.strandhotel.eu/fr/resto-bar/

Nr°12 Image of the day

Louvre-Lens, this means the famous Louvre museum in a tiny, (in)dusty little town called Lens. We visited this new born yesterday with the kids Iman and Maui.
So, the image of the day needed to be our son, posing in front of the museum, in the pouring rain....


The museum 'satellite' is been open for a few days (December 12th 2012), and The inhabitants of Lens don't have a clue what is happening lately: 'bus loads' of people landing in their village, looking for that brand new, all ready famous museum by the Japanese architects SANAA: Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa based in Tokyo (SANAA associated with architects Imrey-Culbert (New York) and landscape architect Catherine Mosbach (Paris)).
SANAA is a Japanese architectural company, noted for their ethereal designs. 
The size? 28,000 square meters of usable space built on two levels, with semi-permanent exhibition space covering at least 6000 m².
Top pieces? Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People as the star exhibit in the first tranche of paintings on view, And leonardo's The Virgin and Child with St Anne in this first temporary exhibition.

More images: as the exhibit was so crowdy, the weather so shity, we didn't make that much pictures. We go back this summer, when the first hype is over, the sun sets the architecture back in value and the green landscape architecture is more finished...

Here are some of the rainy, crowded pictures, as an appetizer...












Nr°11 Image of the day

I know guys, it's been a while.... Blame it on the X-Mas vibes, the family diners, the gift rush and many more excuses, but hey, I'm back!
You know by now, I'm not really a winter type of person, so my 'back-in-business-picture is a summer image. 
Why I think this should be the image of the day? Well, Verne send this one as 'a holiday office closed message'.

Note with the image? "Thanks for a nice 2012. We wish you a super 2013!"

Photography, Studio Verne
From "Blankenberge" © EugeenHerman 1990
This photo is made by very good friends of mine: the boys from Verne Photography: Eugene and Herman.
Not a recent one but an image from the amazing series of beach portraits made in 1990! They captured perfectly the time frame of that moment, and to be honest, Ivan and I stroke a pose at that same beach in Blankenberge for the exact same series...
No idea if this picture still exists, but I remember it as it was yesterday.

New website by the way: very much worth visiting!
http://www.eugeenherman.com 

Nr°10 Image of the day

Image of the day, no, more a picture of the night: One image of the Muse concert of last night.
As we could expect: a wall of sound, the older songs were as ever mind blowing and quite overwhelming and the absolute hero of the night: the intriguing and time-spirit-catching projections. Bold decor, very effective and very Muse.





Design and art are not the same-a life inspiration story

I love the guys and girls of Designboom. Their selection of good design is definitely there, but this morning when I spotted this 'designs' I was quite surprised about their comments on this story: 
"Garbage cans turned into 'living containers' by philipp stingl". And "Essentially, these 'living containers' 
testify to an active and creative lifestyle for the old age without
 compromises."
Well guys, to be honest. This is an art project, an eye opener about people treated like garbarbage. The homeless, the elderly....
The idea that a designer (someone who shapes use full objects for society)could bring out these containers for real street situations, please!
Again, as a project to let people think about situations and visualize that process in life size objects: great.
Could also work for an ad campaign, statement wise. 

living in containers


Nr°9 Image of the day

This stunning picture takes you by surprise, because of the incredible colors, that are really 'unreal'. They take over the image, and besides the fact that the model is a real beauty, and the fashion styles hard to forget, it's the color explosion that takes the lead in this story.  
The series is called Dream Sequence and photographer is London based Madame Peripetie. One to follow.


Dream Sequence and photographer is London based Madame Peripetie
Photo Madame Peripetie 
And she's not only strong in multi facet coloring, her monochrome pictures are as strong as the others. Love it.


Photo by Madame Peripetie

www.madameperipetie.com