I checked out a cute little book about fans :)
The Fan by Valerie Steel (ISBN 0847824462), she has an impressive bio of fashion publication (I would link you to her webpage but her page has viruses). The book pictured with my flag fan (an early western type of fan often seen in Italian portaits) and dance fan (pink one).
This is really a gorgeous book full of color images of fans from all diffrent times and places, along with descriptions of the materials used to construct them. But the commentary is quite short and lacking, I felt that many intresting and prominent facts were left out :\ A history of fans is outlined and many intersting quotes are included along with a few 'fan language' guides. It is a lovely quick read and worth checking out from your local library (or resquesting your lib. to interlibrary loan it for you).
It inspired me to try painting my own fan! I'm no artist so it truned out no where near as lovely as those in the book ;p I painted a sea and sky scene with little silver star sequins.
A fan decorating craft meet-up would be very cute. Blank craft fans can be bought from craft stores and in larger quantities from places like oriental trading company. :)
Sweets deco and painted fan.
The fan maker Pierre Duvelleroy lists: Holding a fan in the right hand in front of the face as signaling-follow me :P
Me with a fan from a fashion show last year :D I was soo hot in the backstage area and very grateful for my fan! My boat is tilting :o
I've always found secret "social languages" vastly interesting. Though I frequently wonder how much of these languages were actually used, since it seems really easy to send mixed messages or signal the wrong person by accident.
ReplyDeleteOne of the other "languages" I find really fascinating is that of parasols. Apparently, they can be used to convey just as much meaning as a fan can. It's incredible!