Tag: instagram

William Mclure is an Artist and Interior Designer.  You may have seen his inspiring apartment many times since it has been surfing the web for a couple of years.  Many sites have posted about his beautiful Birmingham apartment and its constant changes.  I can’t find anything more pleasurable than seeing how artists and designers keep on changing and rearranging their homes.  And they don’t do it because they get bored, no.  After all who says that a home is ever completely finished.  Our own taste is constantly developing and once we get more confident about our own choices in Interior Design or in anything else in life for that matter, our results are more stunning.  Of course this latter gets more noticeable in someone with such taste as William Mclure.  His design aesthetic is a mixture of that ideal combination of old and modern classic pieces -elegantly casual with zero stiffness.  When it comes to his talent as an artist, he is all modern in a very classic way.  His paintings resemble a bit of Cy Twombly with a sum of cubism.
William Mclure design belle vivir interior design blog

William’s Instagram account is of great entertainment.  His ability to create all these beautiful vignettes is impressive.  And he can’t stop still, it seems.  He is constantly changing his home when he is not moving.  I honestly had to spend a good couple of hours figuring out which of his apartments was the most recent one.  I think I got it right though.  Let’s look at them… shall we?

I think that first picture has all the goodies it needs and then some more.  William got eight of the Regency style chairs for $300 bucks on Craiglist.  This time his apartment has more of a global feel with exotic accessories.  I love.

William Mclure gallery wall

I absolutely love this space.  The gallery wall is a beauty on its own but the classic black table contrasting with the white Bertoia chairs is simply stunning.

William Mclure living room

This is his new or latest living room, at least until yesterday, lol.  The space is an industrial loft which William was able to make into a cozy and elegant home.  Love the neutral tones and the touches of black.  Every home should have a dose of black.

William Mclure apartment 3

This time the selection of the furniture is a bit more on the modern side with more elegant pieces like the Regency style chairs.

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Instagram has become more than a social platform where to share images and showcase our work, aesthetics or ourselves.  For many, it can also be a very resourceful travel guide to find everything from best destinations to visit to hot and hip restaurants to explore.  Instagram is more than a travel guide and besides the trolls that rely on low tactics of following to then unfollowing to gain follows back for a day, it’s still a fun social platform to be part of.  So of course it’s uber magical to experience Christmas via Instagram with its endless source of virtual travel experiences on steroids.  One minute you are outside Atlanta Holiday House and the other you are in the lobby of Claridge’s Hotel in London.  For sure Instagram has its pros and cons, you may have heard about Selena Gomez erasing her Instagram app once she realized she had become the most followed person on the social platform, “As soon as I became the most followed person on Instagram, I sort of freaked out,… It had become so consuming to me. It’s what I woke up to and went to sleep to.” Selena Gomez told vogue.  Now that. Is not healthy.  There are a lot of sad stories out there about people who accidentally died while taking a risky selfies, others go as far as almost getting naked for a few more followers.  Is that really necessary…?  I prefer to take things as they are… a simple social platform that can provide great source of inspiration.  There are other things in life that are far more important… like family, health, food on the table, friends, and most importantly enjoying our surroundings.  As I’ve been saying for years our surroundings influence our deepest being.

Christmas via Instagram belle vivir

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Amanda Brook 1 via belle vivir

Amanda Brooks is known as a writer, contributing editor at Condé Nast Traveler and AD and ex fashion director at Barneys New York.  What you may not know is that she is a great Lifestyle Architect too.  If such title exists, she’s earned it.  Amanda Brooks is a New Yorker who moved with her family to the English Countryside and had created an idyllic countryside life style.  All with absolute no previous experience.  It all started when Amanda decided to take a year break from the hustle and bustle of her busy career in the City and moved with her family to the farm where her husband grew up in Oxfordshire, England.  Yes, she traded attending front row fashion shows, dressing head to toe in designer clothes and attending the fancy after parties for the calm and charm of the English countryside, complete with horses, sheep, pigs and pretty gardens.  The one year became years and now is the family’s permanent residence, as she told AD where their Farm was featured.  Amanda also told AD that she is currently writing a book about the whole experience.   Her Instagram account is like a dream no one would like to wake up from, at least not me, full of beautiful and inspiring images from nature, gardens, dogs and her children.  You can also appreciate snippets of her home, Fair Green Farm, and how unpretentious and beautiful she decorates it.  Everything looks so livable and tangible… yet so tasteful.
I love to hear stories like this because it’s all but a reminder that the real pleasures in life are about substance and whatever fills your heart.  It’s about what makes you wake up in the morning with a full heart.  Of course all better when done in style, as Amanda shows us.

Amanda Brook farmhouse via belle vivir blog

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Lauren Santo Domingo, Co-Founder of Moda Operandi is a lady of many hats.  Stylish socialite, fashion business woman, co-founder of Moda Operandi and contributing editor to American Vogue.  One of the things I admire the most about Santo Domingo, is her originality when it comes to fashion choices.  You may say, well she has all the money in the world to do that but if you pay attention money doesn’t buy good taste, to say the least.  I follow Lauren Santo Domingo Instagram and I laughed at her simple but clear previous bio profile  “Why be boring…”  She recently changed it.

Lauren Santo Domingo, Co-founder of Moda Operandi - belle vivir

The native New Yorker began her fashion career as an assistant at American Vogue.  Then Santo Domingo became the PR director for Paris-based furrier J.Mendel, where she helped launch the brand’s ready-to-wear collection, working for Barcelona based Puig Group she served as lead of the PR department of Carolina Herrera.  Then managing editor and then contributing editor for Vogue.  Her most recent innovative project, which most fashion aficionados know, is the luxury e-site Moda Operandi which she co-founded in 2010 in collaboration with former Gilt Groupe executive Aslaug Magnusdottir.  This ingenious new way of shopping “allowes avid shoppers to pre-order a select edit of catwalk looks directly after they ware presented during fashion week through a series of online trunk shows, turning a six-month wait into an exciting ‘buy-now’ experience” BOF.  The site is a great platform to new up and coming designers, which I love very much.

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Charlie McCormick's garden via belle vivir

Are you ready for the eclipse today…?  We aren’t since we couldn’t find one single special glasses available… Then I thought why not record the eclipse with my cellphone and look at the phenomenon on the screen while it’s happening…until I read somewhere that the rays can damage the phone?  So I gave up without hesitation.  Picture below, Charlie McCormick’s Garden.

Charlie McCormick's Garden dog looking out the gate with dahlias flowers belle vivir

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Our holidays in Provence are coming to an end.  After two very relaxing weeks we are ready to pack and head back home.  This time around we were able to visit charming little towns that we missed the last two years as well as also revisiting those others that we can’t miss.  I’ll be posting more about our trip soon.  Over many glasses of rose, good food, fields and fields of lavender and this place intoxicating beauty, the possibility of buying a small property in our future has come up more than once in our conversations.  But, for now, we just keep visiting and returning as often as we can…

 

Hollidays in Provence, belle vivir blog

 

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