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ABOUT
- Lauren Tennenbaum is an artist whose work has been used in countless editorials, by stylists, for Vogue Italia, V Magazine, commissioned for Lady Gaga and utilized by Nike.After graduating Vassar College, where she majored in Cognitive Science and Art History, she launched the blog (IN)DECOROUS TASTE as an outlet for her artistic vision, creative philosophy and (sometimes futile) aesthetic experiments. To achieve the vision, she and her collaborator Lydia Koch paint (walls, furniture, canvases, backdrops, finishes on wood and metal), photograph and style, design and construct textiles, accessories, jewelry, leatherwear, shoes, interiors, and graphics. Photography and styling is also by Lauren Tennenbaum and Lydia Koch unless otherwise indicated.Lauren’s style has been informed by a diversity of influences. She spent a semester studying architecture in Denmark, and she has studied art at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the University of Pennsylvania.She has been infatuated with Byzantine Churches, romanced by sleaze and flirted with everything gaudy, glamorous, weird and eccentric. She hopes her projects convey her sense of humor, whimsy and excitement.“I care less about getting the aesthetic “right” and more about capturing a sense of delight. Opulence is found, not purchased.” Her mantra is a maxim from one of her favorite taste-makers, Geoffrey Bennison: "Always put something mad on top of something very good, or something very good on top of something mad." Lauren believes that the fun (and style!) is in finding the balance, or saying to hell with it.Contact: lauren.tennenbaum@gmail.com
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Posts
- Feb 10, 12
Three years ago today, we started this little blog. Three years of sticking it to good taste, swinging from chandeliers and roasting harlequin chickens. Happy birthday, baby (IN)DECOROUS, we've had a few follies.
We painted: Rooms (And rugs. And commodes. And pillows. And zebras.)
And bags.
And chairs. A love affair with chintzbegancontinues.
We roasted.
We pasted:
We did some heavy lifting:
Our chairs played dress up.
And so did we. A love affair with lucitebegancontinues.
We wrote. About Florine:
And gabbed. About Tom Ford's tractors:
We marveled. About the man who, over the course of a lifetime designed a set of furniture for the gods, in the obscurity his own garage.
We wished we could eat rocks (rocklets?).
We painted bars. And boozed.
And boozed.
And sometime while we were boozing, Saskia De Brauw wore our harness on her head in Vogue Italia...
We made our first pair of shoes.
And then we made more.
So, cheers to us.
And to you, dear readers, for following all this time. - Jan 13, 12
Wink wink.
Are we cyborgs? When misplacing your cell feels like losing a limb, I wonder if it's actually a phone, or more like a third arm or possibly an external brain supplement. Eyephone, indeed.
I created these little beasts from hornback caiman crocodile and polished galuchat (stingray). Not to toot my own horn(back, ahahahaa) but I also hand painted them. What was unexpected was how lovely the gold turned out over the stingray. It glistens like a gem. - Dec 25, 11
Happy holidays!!!
Clearly, I love sparkly crystal as much as the next person but I'm sort of sick of "elegant" silver trees. The Plaza has a tack-tastic, vomitous pink thing in their lobby (has anyone else seen it?) It had Betsey Johnson pink presents underneath it and I think it involved zebra of some variety. It was radioactive, and so, I was taken with it for all of three minutes before I realized there were about three ornaments on it and the whole thing is plastic. But kudos to them for going for in-your-face color. Enough about trees. Mine are always better. - Nov 29, 11
Pantomime is best defined by its use of the object illusion... the illusions created are conventional objects we are all familiar with; rope, stairway, or door... The anecdotes make up the stories which can happen to all of us... The pantomimist ingeniously changes from one role to another, cleverly creating a world out of nothing. The audience delights in seeing something that isn't there and is more than willing to give itself up to this world of make-believe. This quality of magic and fantasy is pantomime's greatest appeal.
Actor-mime Leonard Pitt on miming as an art formThe latest crystal incarnation, inspired by the stark and dramatic mime aesthetic. - Oct 30, 11"...I knew I had discovered a man of fine breeding after I talked with him an hour. I said to myself: 'There's the kind of man you'd like to take home and introduce to your mother and sister.'" He paused. "I see you're looking at my cuff buttons."
I hadn't been looking at them, but I did now. They were composed of oddly familiar pieces of ivory.
"Finest specimens of human molars," he informed me.Meyer Wolfsheim, in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
And this, I've made from the finest specimen of human hair.
Inspiration can come from many places; in this case it was in the form of a weave. The entire piece looked so beautiful and bizarrely elegant hanging from the chandelier that I wondered why designers haven't explored this medium more thoroughly. I realize it's remotely disgusting, but really, is it?Above photograph: Daniel Lehenbauer, modeling by Henrietta at Next Model Management, Hair & Makeup by Alice Malone. Hair dress and collar, headpiece (IN)DECOROUS TASTE. - Jul 24, 11
On Friday, I celebrated my birthday and so,
hosted a little dinner for my nearest and dearestused it as a giant excuse to make a really unabashed tablescape complete with several things that probably should not make it onto a birthday table. Like skull votive holders. Honestly I would never subject a friend (unless equipped with a healthily sick sense of humor) to this sort of memento mori dinner ensemble, but... It's my birthday and I can dress my table as the inanimate embodiment of Morticia Addams if I want to.
I took my cake very seriously! All cakes should be at least as large as your upper torso. Rule of thumb. - Jul 01, 11
- Jun 30, 11
I was cleaning out my closet earlier, extracting all of the winter woolens from the mix (I guess I'm finally willing to concede that it's no longer January?) when I realized that I don't wear half of these. Possibly more. Why?
Because I have a blazer-buying problem! Here's the issue: In theory I think I like blazers, but when it comes to choosing an outfit for something that counts, I cannot stomach this particular garment. Why?
It's not a lack of quality, or for that matter quantity or variety of style: I've got wools and silks, linens, blends, white blazers, pink blazers, blacks and bouclés, gold buttons, zipper fronts, shoulder padded and shoulder moulded, "boyfriend" and sexy secretary. I could pull of Annie Hall or 80s power-bitch with equal ease!However, in those situations that induce real moments of self honesty, when I'm standing in front of my closet nervously tearing through shelf after shelf, both naked and late, I might not know what to wear, but it seems that I sure as hell know what I can't wear. This higher Buddha-of-a-self that I seem to possess has instantaneous radar for any and all things that may cause me to feel ill at ease. And on the topic of blazers, this smarter-me tells me the same thing every time: "@#$(*@#$& THAT SHIT!" Beautiful. Alas, this wise creature likes to skip out on my shopping excursions, though, and therein lies the problem, and the reason that this is even a problem in the first place!
From time to time I'll wear them out, but only to undertake something like grocery shopping, and in situations where I anticipate minimal human interaction. Because this makes a lot of sense: "Oh, I should wear more of what makes me really uncomfortable!" Because that's style.
You know what I have to say to that? FUCK IT!
I like a challenge, but this is one challenge that just isn't worth it. Epiphany of the day: Personal style is a matter of being brutally honest with yourself. And honestly? Blazers; they make me feel like a HUMAN CINDERBLOCK (okay, rationally it's ridiculous, so much for that). In any case, I don't want to conduct my life feeling like a cinderblock. Can I? Yeah, sure. But I don't want to, and I'm guessing that distinction is where "style" resides. If you don't like it, ditch it. That's style.
Do you ever feel like someone else in a particular style of clothing or interior?
Film Stills from The Great Gatsby, 1974.
John Singer Sargent, Fumée d'Ambre Gris, 1879-80
Dress, Hattie Carnegie
Dress, Madeleine Vionnet, 1914 - Jun 29, 11
- Jun 28, 11"Every arrival [to the Fabergé shop in the late 1800s, early 1900s] was reason enough for a state occasion. Sleighs noiselessly deposited their loads. By some quickened footstep, half-waltz, half-slide, the door-keeper raced the customer to reach the inner door, and always succeeded in getthing there first. It was the prelude to what was to take place inside.Of the interior, one can only say there was nothing much of style about it, there was no scheme of decoration sufficient to distract from the purpose for which the room had been planned, namely to sell the wares of Fabergé. Imagine a straight line from the clock down the centre of the room, allot the portion on the right of this, as you look at the picture, to articles of jewellery and that on the left to articles of fantasy and you have the room divided for its work.The rattle of the door has been heard and up jumps Carl Gustavovitch and takes a peep from behind the partition, to see who is coming in. He inclines his head and takes the proffered hand across the counter. One or two words of greeting, a joke maybe; the customer gives some indications what he wants— a flower, perhaps... The Craftsman turns about (he is standing just to the left of the clock as you look at it), slides opened a mirrored door, thinks a moment and takes out two white holly-wood boxes.These he places on the counter with the catch towards the customer. He opens one and waits a moment. He opens the other and waits again... When surprise— which is the alpha and omega of everything that is 'Fabergé' — has been overcome, so far as is possible with the flowers nested in their boxes, and the customer has noted the fixed prices on the tickets, the Craftsman lifts from out of its box the flower which appears to attract the customer. He holds it poised on the tips of his fingers and just far enough from his body to gain the full effect of exhibition, and his hand becomes the fulcrum for display, first to the right and slowly back again. " from Peter Carl Faberge by Henry Charles Bainbridge
An enchanting description, right? I've been thinking a lot about the experience of purchasing lately, and so, working on my own packaging. As a consumer, you're always told that in the end, it's the product that counts, and of course this is true on some levels, but there's something to be said for that magical fuzzy feeling of receiving something that's just beautifully wrapped and presented. And, no matter how many times I'm warned against "paying for the packaging," (as if this is morally reprehensible?), if I can be completely honest here — I'm okay paying for it.
The art of living "well", if that's something that matters to you, is often times (for a non-Rockefeller, at least) an exercise in living better than your means should afford you. Enter the practical necessity of knowing where to buy, and how to recognize, things of quality and style when they're divorced from the bells and whistles of their packaging and presented in unsavory contexts (thrift shopping, prime example). It's made my life a whole lot more stylish than it should rightfully be.
But sometimes, it's nice to throw caution (and wallet) to the wind and indulge in the whole experience, packaging and all. After all, how much fun would Ladurée macarons be without the gilded lattice?
Bag and body harness from (IN)DECOROUS TASTE. - Jun 27, 11
- Jun 24, 11
Have you seen Ellen Rogers's beautiful fashion photography? I love the decadence and otherworldly-ness of her images, textures, and colors.
All images via Ellen Rogers . Head crystal pieces by (IN)DECOROUS TASTE. - Jun 23, 11
- Jun 22, 11Just look at him! There he stands,
With his nasty hair and hands. See! His nails are never cut; They are grim’d as black as soot; And the sloven, I declare,Never once has combed his hair;Anything to me is sweeterThan to see this Struwwelpeter.Sieh einmal, hier steht er – Pfui! Der Struwwelpeter!An den Händen beidenLieß er sich nicht schneidenSeine Nägel fast ein Jahr. Kämmen ließ er nicht sein Haar.„Pfui!“ ruft da ein jeder:„Garstger Struwwelpeter“
From Der Struwwelpeter, a collection of German fairytales. My (very German) grandmother used to read these cautionary tales to me when I was a child. And this one, is just the beginning... - Jun 21, 11
- Jun 20, 11
A quick stop to Sally Beauty and roughly $15 yielded this bizarre track of human hair. (Disclaimer: the platinum one (on the table) is acrylic! Woe to you who have naturally glowing locks. Disclaimer two! Do not under any circumstance wikipedia the process of harvesting these human hair extensions if you have even the slightest inclination that that sort of thing might make you squeamish...)
At first I wasn't quite sure what to do with it, because I really don't have confidence in my ability to sew, glue, weave, or otherwise attach this thing to my head in any permanent fashion. So, I did what any industrious girl who has no intentions of looking like Paris Hilton does with fake hair, and I ended up making a massive pony tail out of it! Marvelous! It's huge! Like a full-on second head!
Designers and artists speak all the time of things like proportion. Heads are not immune to these games of proportion.
And, just in case you have any desire to make it yourself (really? Let's be friends!) it's quite easy. Just buy one of the tracks of hair intended for sewing, and a little bottle of weave glue. Apply the weave glue to the tracks (the fabric-y part at the top) and fold the weave over itself in half, and then in half again, and again, until you have something that you can roughly manage to pin around your ponytail. - May 09, 11
I used to be one of those people firmly against the idea of wearing sleepwear outside of the house, but here I am in my new silk jammies, without even the slightest intention of wearing them anywhere even near a bed. How silly I was.
The funny thing is that they're from Victoria's Secret, past season, on eBay. But they're silk and inexpensive (under $50.00 for the set? Just search "Victoria's Secret silk" on eBay), so no one's the wiser... - May 03, 11
Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. -Ira Glass
- May 02, 11
- Apr 28, 11
Ooooooh I have news! Can you believe that the (IN)DECOROUS TASTE harnesses are adorning the heads of all of the models in the decadent "Wasted Luxury" shoot in Vogue Italia March 2011? And they're on the cover, too! Lit up with glorious head-lights (...no, literally). I'm excited!
Harnesses aside, it's a jaw droppingly gorgeous shoot. Shot by Steven Meisel, styled by Panos Yiapanis. Featuring models Julia Saner, Saskia de Brauw, and Milou van Groesen. - Apr 26, 11Still kickin, oh yes I am. I'm working on lots of new things, and there will be posts galore in the coming weeks. We have lots to catch up on.As the curtains opened on the avant-garde opera event of 1934, Virgil Thompson and Gertrude Stein's Four Saints in Three Acts, the audience faced a vast sign of the production's cutting-edge modernity: fifteen hundred square feet of sky-blue cellophane was draped from the sides and ceiling of the stage, creating a semitransparent cyclorama, glittering under bright white lights. The stark artificiality of the stage design proclaimed its relationship to the modern world and its unsurpassed hold on the new: 'The cellophane set, brilliantly lit to evoke a sky hung with rock crystal, defied comparison to anything the audience had ever seen. 'Some thought that [Florine Stettheimer's] costumes outdid the Ziegfeld Follies, and one quipped that the sets were 'Botticellophane.'" Plastic, that most twentieth century of materials, here transformed the stage into a powerful blend of art, glamour, and the latest technology. We've lost, in the intervening decades, the ability to read the early-century semiotics of plastics, and particularly of cellophane.For now: the spring collection is up at the new shop: shop.indecoroustaste.com . I know, I keep moving the thing around. But really, I think you'll find that this is much easier to use/navigate. Let me know what you think?
- From Glamour in Six Dimensions: Modernism and the Radiance of Form by Judith Christine BrownCredits: Thank you Cristin for collaborating/modeling/photographing and putting up with MADNESS.
These are the latest iteration of the (IN)DECOROUS TASTE spiked lucite platforms. This time, I built up a secondary platform for for the foot. It looks like a mattress, just delightful.
Fend off attackers with panache!Crystal chandelier harnesses, nude leather harnesses, and clutches available here. - Feb 14, 11
Oh yes, we do convention just peachily over here at (IN)DECOROUS TASTE.
A box of chocolates....(Giant delectable gumdrop rings in crystal and hot pink by Zina Sparkling)
A glitzy jewel or fifteen...
A drink (poison) ...
And...
(No, they didn't. But they surely SHOULD have!!!)
Happy INDECOROUS (no parentheses here, ha!!) V-Day! - Feb 06, 11
Sir George Sitwell had a Tom Ford moment (or is it the other way around?):
"Sir George Sitwell (1860-1943), head of that endemically eccentric family, had seven rooms he used as studies at his family mansion in Derbyshire where he occupied himself in writing such masterpieces as 'The History of the Fork' - none of them ever finished. His chief interest however was landscape gardening. He employed 4,000 men at one time to dig him an artificial lake in the grounds, with wooden towers sticking out of the water from where he could survey his various projects. To improve the view from his study window, he had Chinese willow patterns painted on to his herd of white cows. And a sign on his front door read: 'I must ask anyone entering the house never to contradict me in any way, as it interferes with the functioning of my gastric juices and prevents me sleeping at night.'"
Now, off to watch the rest of the Keeping Up Appearances marathon. Haha superbowl, WHAT?
John Singer Sargent, The Sitwell Family, 1900
Quote from Oddballs and Eccentrics by Karl Shaw. - Feb 05, 11
I love silk scarves. Wear one as a turban: you're a diva, Joan Crawford. Wear one as a scarf, you've gone the other way: it's bon chic bon genre! Use it to tie up your beaux, you're a luxe-ified Marquis de Sade. Instant glamour!
The problem is, I am certain that these scarves are reproducing in my closet, slowly choking out the rest of my accessories like WEEDS and planning to stage a revolution.
They demand attention, these weedy wonders. When I see the massive, heaping, slippery pile of them, it occurs to me a shame that there aren't enough days in the week to wear them all, unless I change turbans at four hour intervals and that requires more commitment to the cause than even I'm willing to make.
Which brings me to my preferred solution: the enormous silk scarf pillow. I love their drama. Like Norma Desmond, these pillows (if you can even call them that) are larger than life. The size makes them a visual production of grand proportions.
So, onto the (IN)DECOROUS drama class:
Select a pillow insert size and cut a square of lining one inch larger around than the pillow. I used a 26" pillow, so my square was 27"x 27". Round the corners (you can use a cup to trace the rounded edges). I used a simple cotton fabric as lining. (And, if you're looking for something even larger, it's definitely possible to find 36" square inserts...)
Lie the lining on the scarf and center it. Pin it in place, and trim the edge.
Then, make the back of the pillow by cutting two rectangles from the lining. You want them to overlap. So, divide the length of the pillow in half and add around 5 or 6 inches of fabric to that number to get the length of each rectangle. For this 26" pillow, that would mean two rectangles, both measuring 27"x 18.5". The 18.5" thing isn't an exact science though, so don't sweat it. Place the lining on the fabric you plan to use for the pillow back, pin it and trim it. Round the corners so they match up with the front. Fold the middle piece over and hem it.
If you're using edging (you don't need to), pin it onto the pillow front (good side), facing inward towards the center of the pillow. Then pin the backs onto the pillow, good sides facing in. So it's a big pillow sandwich. When the whole thing is pinned, it should look thoroughly inside out.
Sew it. By hand...by machine... either way works. Was that clear?
So next time your scarves start acting up, put them in their place. Few things make me as happy as dramatic proportions.
