"knife in the water"

"with age comes beauty" isnt true for most things in modern society, but ive noticed, that when you put some effort in finding artefacts with a true origin, and solid craftmanship, it pays off in the end. The pleasure i get from slicing herbs or cutting just anything with my chefs knife is worth telling you. The thing is, choosing a carbon forged knife is somewhat like deciding on getting a pet, its a commitment for a long period of time. Carbon is an organic material, that is sensitive to the passing of time and is very soft compared to steel, so it needs sharpening a lot more often, but on the other hand its easier to sharp, and is that really a problem? I like sharpening my knife before i start cooking, helps me get in that Bocuse mood. The other thing with carbon is that its sensitive to water, so you cant use the dishwasher, which is good, and the aestetics, as the blade gets used, it stains and shifts in colour, it truly gets even more beautiful the more you use it, and that, isnt common today.

My knife is a Sabatier K 8" chiefs knife from producers Aîné & Perrier in Thiers, France.

Cigarette brands

I previously mentioned Liggett & Myers as a good pack of cigarettes for Le style neglige but it would be interesting to hear if there are any other suggestions?

Components of beauty: 2

"A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? "
Oscar Wilde

Watching someone sitting alone at a cafe, smoking a cigarette, always catches my attention. The smoke lingering in the air, the satisfied but blank look on the persons face, its all something mystic about the scene, who is it, whats his or hers mission? The cigarette once a upperclass luxury transformed itself during the last century, through pictures and movies whe've seen it in battlefields, bars, crimescenes you name it. The cigarette became the trade mark of the antihero and the rebel sometimes in the 1950's, much thanks to hollywood. Today it once again, in these nonsmoking days, gives its owner that antihero look. I guess for the careless fashion approach its the perfect fashion accessory, the associations go to the rebel and the upperclass which fits together well with Le style neglige. When it comes to brands the most classic would be Gitanes but i would say that in creating Le style neglige one should avoid beeng a copycat, as the uniqeness is part of the aura. So i would recommend some other brand less recognized, maybe L&M!

C'était un rendez-vous

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast"

Ernest Hemingway

This film is one of my personal classics, the light. Nothing can compete with Paris in the morning around 05:30. Claude Lelouche mounted a camera on his car and drove thru Paris in 1976. Theres a lot of rumours surrounding the film, maybe its Claude who is the driver, maybe its a formula 1 star? maybe its a mercedes 450SL V8 or a ferrari 275GTB...

Claude Lelouch : Ferrari @ 140mph through Paris
Uploaded by danbizet. - Dramatic race and crash videos.

Interiors

I stumbled upon this fantastic dining hall in Berlin a couple of years ago. The old mirrors with their somewhat broken reflections gives this space a certain feeling, that the room is just waiting to be filled with people, cheering, and enjoying themself

Components of beauty: 1

"The slept-in shirt"

One of the signature pieces of the decadent look is the wrinkled shirt. I prefer the colour white, mainly because it is the best for the slept in look, wrinkles and stains will highlight themselves on a white shirt much like an expressionist artists rich slabs of colour on a blank canvas. The white dress shirt also has the ability of versatility, it can give its owner a certain air of elegance so that with a white shirt on you could easily blend in with the aristocrats, and at the same time its highly functional at the low end bar or with the hipsters on the street corner. But i think the white shirt looks its best after a couple of days usage, the sharp white colour gets a little dampend and that makes the feeling of being overdressed dissapear. Cotton is the quality of choice.

Le Style Négligé

"When something starts to fall apart, things change"

Browsing thru the works of Christopher Alexander you realise that its first after we humans take something in possesion that we start to feel comfortable with it. This is much true when it comes to buildings and landscapes but its also true for the things we wear, the things we read, the things we see and the things we hear. Psychology would explain this phenenoma as " the mere exposure effect", the more you´re exposed to certain stimuli, the more you come to like them. Take a moment to think about the things you love in your life, are the melodies of your childhood still lingering in the songs you listen to on your Ipod? The familiar gives the promise of security which in turn gets your guard down. The other side to this story is the fact that to the outer world, your love of certain objects makes you recognizable, wear your favorite jacket until it falls apart and everyone will know what to expect, no surprises. This is consistency and leds to the merging of owner and object. Now the owner of the object posses the qualitys of the object and vice versa. So smoke Gitanes all your life and you will become a part of history