On the Hermès site right now, you can download PDF patterns for six versions of the dog collar bracelet to print and make yourself. Just go to the Hermès site, click Travel the world of Hermès, and choose Surprises from the menu (vertical orange bar, top left). Note that different country sites might have different versions!!
If you don’t find them, or if they take them down (they don’t stay up there forever, ladies!), you can get them here.
During WWI, Léon Bel, creator of La Vache Qui Rit, saw the design above on trucks that transported fresh meat to the troops at the front. The troops named this cow the Wachkyrie, a play on the German word Walkyrie, to annoy their adversaries.
When the time came to design his packaging, Bel recalled having seen this design and decided to use it as a starting point. He asked Benjamin Rabier, the original Wachkyrie artist, to make him a friendly cow that would appeal to the public. Thus the Vache Qui Rit… And it was Léon Bel’s wife who asked them to give the cow earrings!
If you speak French, read the whole story and see some great vintage Vache packaging at Ma culture confiture and learn more about Benjamin Rabier’s role at ROCBO.
You could win a pad of G. Lalo vergé de France stationery plus a two-pack of Clairefontaine mini notebooks! Offer ends August 31, 2011.
Exaclair, Inc. is well known as the distributor of Clairefontaine paper products in the U.S. For over 100 years Clairefontaine has been renowned for making the best writing paper in the world. Other French brands distributed by Exaclair include Rhodia, Quo Vadis, Exacompta, J. Herbin, G. Lalo, Brause, and Decopatch. Exaclair’s extensive product lines include notebooks, notepads, journals, weekly and daily planners, social stationery and invitations, note cards, and fine art papers. They also import sealing wax and fountain pen inks made by J. Herbin, the oldest name in pen inks in the world.
Go to the Community home page to see how to win. If you don’t win, it’s OK! You’ll find gorgeous Exaclair products at our Amazon Store!
G. Lalo, the Parisian social stationery manufacturer since 1919, became throughout the years the stationery of reference both in Paris’ high society and in the royal courts of Europe such as Sweden, Holland, Monaco and Belgium.
G. Lalo products and many other French stationery brands are distributed in the US by Exaclair, the company that is providing our August 2011 giveaway. Find Exaclair paper products at the Francophilia Amazon store!
France Telecom said today that it was shutting down its ground-breaking Minitel service, the proto-Internet that brought online shopping and chat rooms into millions of French homes in the 1980s.
Read the rest at PCMag.com.
In France mention of the Duralex brand prompts nostalgia. Many primary school canteens still use Duralex glasses with a serial number (from 1 to 48) on the base, giving each child a fictitious age and making the “eldest” at each table responsible for filling the water jug.
via Guardian Weekly, seen @ndwillis