BEAUTY: Clothing--Di Petsa

London Fashion Week started this past week and I have been swamped with other things, but found time today to sit down and ogle the offerings so far.

I could have sworn I previously posted something about Dimitra Petsa and her eponymous line Di Petsa but I can't find anything in the archive. So here we go:

Dimitra Petsa is a Greek designer who graduated from Central Saint Martins (the storied London instiution with alums like, oh, Alexander McQueen, Sarah Burton, Stella McCartney, John Galliano, Gareth Pugh, Riccardo Tisci, Grace Wales Bonner, Kim Jones, Simone Rocha, Craig Green, and Richard Quinn to name a few). Ostensibly a womenswear designer, she pioneered the "wet-look" dress worn by loads of celebs...but she inserts a handful of men's looks into her collections as well. Much like how Dolce and Gabbana use the culture and long history of their native Italy as a touchstone and endless source of inspiration, Petsa's hyper-sexy, sometimes breast-bearing shows always refer somehow to Greece and the mythology of that ancient land.

The brand's logo is a cross that resembles Poseidon’s trident and this Spring Summer '26 collection at London Fashion Week referenced the god directly on a tee shirt. The precious few male looks featured pieces evoking ancient Greek warrior-wear, and even one of her signature wet-look dresses for men!

https://dipetsa.com/

BEAUTY: Painting--Vassilis Karakatsanis

I am entranced with Vassilis Karakatsanis' series Urban Behaviours. The flirty gatherings and groupings of people and the resulting frisson rising up from them feel subtly erotic. And his use of color and pattern is wonderful. The silk-screened feeling of the faces reminds me of Warhol and the color and pattern use remind me of the graphic illustration style of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" previously here and here.

https://www.v-karakatsanis.gr/

The Inward Significance

"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
--Aristotle

BEAUTY: Architecture--The Summer Cave House

In these waning days of summer up here in the northern hemisphere, let's look at a stunning summer house on the Greek island of Santorini on the Aegean Sea. Created by Kapsimalis Architects, the Summer Cave house was built around an existing cave house carved into the volcanic rock. The new house now covers 1,760 square feet and includes a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, a hammam and a sauna. The second level terrace includes an infinity pool and an outdoor dining area...which must be spectacular at night.

https://www.kapsimalisarchitects.com/

BEAUTY: Photography--Petros Koublis

In his series Advaita (which means "non-duality" in Sanskrit), Greek photographer Petros Koublis shows a visual representation of ideas he outlines in his artist statement for the series:

It moves, it does not move. It is far and near likewise
It is inside all this. It is outside all this
That is full, this is full. Fullness comes forth from fullness
When fullness is taken from fullness, fullness remains
--Isha Upanishad

Everything is a flow, a constant one, coherent, continuous, perfect. A stream that never remains the same, yet so complete that it never changes. It is a space that expands under our perception, throughout the world, imperceptible and vast, continuous and indefinite. Consciousness is pouring out of this space and when it experiences it again, this time through the body, it feels like water poured into water. It is because they share the same nature, they’re inseparable and indivisible. It is like the waves that emerge as a single entity, but only for a moment, before they merge back into the ocean they appeared from. We are also very much like these waves. We surface for a moment and then merge the Universe. The Self is present before all forms take shape, solid and coherent, in a motherly connection with the whole existence, unmanifested within the absolute.

Everything is real only if it is perceived as the Self. Otherwise it is an illusion. The experience of the Self, this fundamental feeling of oneness, is the experience of Love, the openness of the heart. To come to this realization one gets into the state of a lover, one who has a mind only for the beloved. It is because in Love there is no sense of difference, there can be no separation to be experienced anymore, but instead there is only a transcendence of duality, a sense of infinity, the core of everything. Love is a realization, content and continuous, which is revealed as the absolute nature of Beauty when it is facing outwards and the real nature of Joy when it is facing inwards. There is indeed a wisdom in Love that the mind cannot claim.

Infinity is movement and stillness occurring together, simultaneously, in an undivided, perfectly inseparable way. It doesn’t change its form because form is something that takes place within its essence. It doesn’t get revealed because, instead, it is the actual force that reveals everything else. The world arises dependung on our consciousness and our senses arise depending on the world. They both arise and collapse dependent upon each other. There is no distance in between, no duality, not two things separate. Everything is happening inside of us, space, time, form, every aspect is unfolded inside our consciousness. They all manifest inside the infinite ocean of the Self, everything suddenly arises in the wind of consiousness stimulated by the waves of the Universe. We generate the flow, we merge with the flow and we are the flow.

We are the recipients but we are also the Universe.

http://petroskoublis.com/

BEAUTY: Painting--Christos Tsimaris

Christos Tsimaris' fascinating, painterly work runs between loose portraiture, abstraction, and studies of everyday mundane objects. I get a little bit of a Francis Bacon vibe...

Top to bottom: Boy With Chair; Call Me; Monument; Sticky Tape; Untitled (keys); Untitled Nude; Untitled; Wild Dog

http://www.christostsimaris.com/index.html

Just watched...

…an unintentional double feature of the same story: “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” and the newest remake of “Clash of the Titans.”

Based on a popular series of books for children, “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief” is a film for children as well. It has a cute storyline, some very good special effects (the effect for satyrs with human upper bodies and animal legs has come a long way just since Mr. Tumnes in 2005's “The Chronicles of Narnia”), and a big-name cast featuring Sean Bean (“Lord of the Rings” trilogy) as Zeus, Kevin McKidd (HBO’s “Rome” ) as Poseidon and Uma Thurman as Medusa. It’s cute enough in a predictable way. It follows a modern day Perseus—a young man named Percy, in honor of the original Perseus, who is the son of Poseidon and a human mother—as he slays Medusa, defeats the Hydra, escapes from the Lotus Eaters and infiltrates Hades to rescue his mom.

“Clash of the Titans,” the 2010 remake of the 1981 film of the same name follows the original Perseus from Greek mythology as he slays Medusa, battles giant scorpions, and defeats the Kraken, a deadly sea monster created by Hades, God of the Underworld. The digital special effects are light years away from anything in the original film which unfortunately featured unintentionally comical stop motion puppetry—but hey, that’s what they had to work with then. This cast features Liam Neeson as Zeus, Ralph Fiennes as Hades (with a nose this time!—shout out to Voldemort!), and Sam Worthington (“Avatar”) as Perseus. It was a good time, but also predictable.

But of course it was predictable to me since I have loved Greek—and Roman myths—since I was a young child. My mother had a book—I don’t know where she got it or why, since she wasn't really interested in such things—called THE STORIES OF THE GREEKS. I started to read the adventures of the mythological figures of Greece at an early age and was captivated by them. This led me to check out more and more books about Greek mythology on our weekly visits to the library. And of course when I found out that the Romans worshipped the Greek pantheon under different names, I was fascinated, and had to read all about them as well: I spent hours learning the Greek vs. Roman names for all the deities. I even made a family tree of the Greek gods and how they were related using my crayons on that large-format scratchy manila paper kids used then. I taped it to the wall above my bed.

I still have that old copy of THE STORIES OF THE GREEKS and I get it down from the shelves of my library often to reference a particular figure or adventure. I treasure it…thanks Mom!

Recommend the films? For your eleven year old boy, yes, he will enjoy “Percy Jackson.” For you, you might enjoy “Clash of the Titans”—or you might not. See it only if it is something that attracts you. Otherwise, move on.