1981 Adam Ant Costume, From The V&A.

1981 Adam Ant costume, from the V&A.

After starting his career in a punk rock band in the late 1970s, and acting in Derek Jarman's punk film Jubilee, Ant's musical and artistic direction changed after hiring Malcolm McLaren in 1980. McLaren's assistance in redefining their image resulted in the piratical theme that became a hallmark of Adam and the Ants, despite McLaren subsequently persuading the rest of the Ants to leave and form a separate band, Bow Wow Wow. After regrouping with a new backing band, Adam and the Ants became one of the most successful British acts of the early 1980s; their image and style of music was at the forefront of the burgeoning New Romantic movement.

Ant advised in the design of all his own costumes, indebted to historical, military and tribal dress, working with stylists and costumiers. This one is perhaps the most widely known of all, having been used for the publicity photographs and promotional video for the single, Prince Charming, and later on tour. There are two shirts, two pairs of breeches, two wigs and two scarves, not identical but in similar styles, all worn in different combinations on tour. The gold and black striped shirt and the dark silver leather breeches were worn for the publicity photographs and in the video.

It was pretty tops, actually.

OTP: The Doctor and his Spoon.

Marina Bychkova. Surviving, 2011. 

A porcelain tribute to breast cancer fighters and the choices they face.

In the growing awareness of Breast Cancer, a disease which appears to be the inevitable side-effect of womanhood (though males can also develop it, but a lot less frequently), this doll was my attempt at working through my own personal fear of it, and facing up to the possibility that one day I could be amongst hundreds of thousands of women who develop it. I can only hope to be brave, like so many other women.

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Via Art from Suburbia

Flintlock pocket pistol

Place of origin: London, England (made)

Date: ca. 1680 (made)

Artist/Maker: Wornall, Edward (maker)

Materials and Techniques: Zebrawood and steel

In late 17th- and early 18th-century England such small single-shot pistols with a flintlock mechanism (one of several types of mechanism) were carried for protection. It was designed to be carried in the pocket of a travelling coat. Like other English pistols of this type, it has no trigger guard or steel furniture on the butt (grip).

Silver mounted Sabre

Dated: first quarter of the 20th century

Place of Origin: Daghestan

Measurements: overall length 85.5 cm

The sword a curved, single-edged blade grooved at the centre, engraved with woven bands at the edges. The silver hilt is decorated with nielloed floral motifs, while the “S”-shaped quillons is ending in the shape of lion head. The pommel is also shaped as a lion head, while the grip has a bone medallion richly pierced with floral motifs. The silver-plated wooden scabbard is decorated en suite.

Source: Copyright © 2014 Czerny’s International Auction House S.R.L.

Ernst Haeckel, A variety of Ammonite forms, Sea Shells & Ocean Corals; Kunstformen der Natur / Art Forms of Nature (Lithography, Autotype print), c. 1904.