Gnome Vomit

Alan Rickman as Vicomte de Valmont and Lindsay Duncan as Marquise de Merteuil, Les Liaisons Dangereuses (RSC, 1985).

Austrian fashion designer Emilie Flöge, 1900s She was Gustav Klimt’s muse, lover, and lifelong companion. The necklaces were gifts from Klimt.

Coco Chanel is often heralded as the sole designer to revolutionize modern womenswear, and it’s true that she popularized trousers and comfortable two-piece suits at a time when upper-class women had limited sartorial options. But by the time Chanel opened her salon at 31 Rue Cambon in Paris in 1910, Flöge had been producing cutting-edge designs in Vienna for several years, already carving out new roles for women in the industry with her empire-waist garments, wide sleeves and intricately-detailed panels inspired by Hungarian and Slavic embroidery, marking a departure from the restrictive, corseted dresses that were the mainstays for the time.

In 1904, Emilie and her two sisters opened the fashion house Schwestern Flöge on Vienna’s bustling Mariahilfer street—an unusual venture for three unmarried, thirty-something women to take on then. Klimt and Flöge’s relationship was also extremely unusual: they were romantic partners that never got married nor had children, and maintained a level of independence unprecedented for the time.

“The film scintillates with the colors, sounds, and textures of Georgia: magisterial vistas of the Caucasus; precise displays of folk dance and dress; a-capella polyphonic singing; delectable shots of freshly baked shoti bread and big plates of khinkali soup dumplings; and the custom of the supra, the hours-long ritual of communal eating, drinking, and toasting.”