I love these two pics of Choupette, the pampered white Siamese cat of designer Karl Lagerfeld. Given to Lagerfeld by model Bapitiste Giabiconi as a Christmas present, Choupette boasts a superb collar of white fur, a penchant for Louis Vuitton luggage, and the attendance of not one, but two lady's maids, who in addition to being at Choupette's beck and call, also keep a daily diary of Madame's moods and ennuis. Choupette has inspired fashion collections (her deep blue eyes being cited as an inspiration for Chanel's spring 2012 couture collection, which consisted entirely of shades of cornflower blue), collaborated on a make up collection with Shu Uemura and this Fall, there is a book out exclusively on Choupette.
So, given the above, I think it is fair to say that Choupette is at least one of the world's chicest cats, if not the chicest.
Love that pillow
I've been there...
To return to the main subject of this blog, Chinese embroidery has also had its share of famous felines. In the 1950's, embroidery artisans in Suzhou, China, such as Gu Wenxia (顾文霞) and Yu Fuzhen (余福臻), developed a now iconic style of cat embroidery that has spawned a thousand and one imitations. From what I can recall, my seven or eight year old self was also first drawn to the art of Chinese embroidery by a photograph of an embroidered double sided cat extending its paws into a bowl of gold fish that I found in a tourism book on China's old canals. Here are a few favourites:
A Pair of Cats (雙貓). This piece is actually by my Chinese embroidery teacher.
White Cat's Frolic with a Grass Hopper (白猫戏螳螂)
White Cat's Frolic with a Grass Hopper (白猫戏螳螂)
Gu Wenxia (顾文霞)
Yu Fuzhen (余福臻)