Showing posts with label Scala Regia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scala Regia. Show all posts

03 October, 2015


"Steam Room" for Scala Regia paper magazine.

To get a copy send an e-mail to:
contact@scalaregiamagazine.com

20 November, 2013

Scala Regia Magazine#0 will be out next week! 


Pre-order yours at: subscriptions@scalaregiamagazine.com

19 November, 2013


Scala Regia Magazine#0 will be out next week! 


Pre-order yours at: subscriptions@scalaregiamagazine.com

23 June, 2010

Interview Nº8 - Aymeric Bergada du Cadet

"The french were bred to die for love" but apparently Aymeric Bergada du Cadet has different plans...

Discovering him feels exactly like acquire a new item to a cabinet de curiosités. His aesthetic and sense of style are a complete rarity nowadays, which put him on the spotlight of our attention. When I first looked at him exuberance and decadence from a lost world immediately came to my mind, characters like Dorian Gray or la Duchesse de Guermantes seemed to be present not even on the way he looks but also in the way he acts.

No one better than himself to tell us all about it..
Who is Aymeric Bergada du Cadet?
I don't know, long time no see.

How would you describe your style?
It could be like a 19th century opium smoker baron who goes out to a 70's disco party. My style is a weird interpretation of history. I m playing with dandy and diva style, mixing them together. I can also play with old, bad taste like 70's b movie
women or 90's couture, which I style in a more serious, chic way.

On shopping. What criteria do you follow?
I just have to fall in love with a piece! To be honest in general my only limits are synthetic fabrics, sports wear and other "practical" clothes. In general i buy only vintage except for really special pieces.

Do you consider yourself a rara avis?
Yes and no! there are not many people who are theatrical to this point but i know a lot of other exotic birds who have a really personal sense of style.

Where do you find inspiration to set up your toilletes?
In general it just comes together while i'm dressing, I see the inspiration when I am finished. I can be inspired by a lot of things: movies, specially silent and 30's and 70's movies, historical characters…
I am inspired by all types of overly decorated men. Gypsies, maharajas, princes, old army uniforms, hussards, napoleonian army, 70's old gay queens, magicians, vampires…….but also sometimes women. I love playing with caricatures.

What are your current ocupations?
I am a stylist. I do jewellery and costumes and I have a performing troup who is called House Of Drama, we do events, shows and a lot of different creative things…

What is lifestyle?
To act in life.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
My friends and champagne or to be locked in a room with a book and Stravinsky.

Your most marked characteristic?
My attitude!

How do you regard fashion?
I am always interested in discovering new things and it's good to see new creations, but I think it's important to be detached in order to be really creative.

What is style about?
Fashion is about the clothes and style is about the way you interpret them. Fashion is always moving but style stays, it is only reinvented.

Who are your dead references?
Marchesa Casati first, because I think it's difficult to find more theatrical and extreme way of seeing life as she saw herself as a work of art. Her lifestyle was her only way to express. Marlene Dietrich also for the beauty of controlling her image to the extreme.
I m not fascinated with natural beauties, I am more impressed by people who make themselves beautiful...
Also Rudolph Valentino, Erté , Gustave Moreau, Yves Saint Laurent.

And living ones?
Grace Jones and Catherine Baba, who is one of the most flamboyant and beautiful people I know.

Your favourite historical characters
Louis II of Bayern, for his amazing sense of style. I am really touched by his dramatic life.
Also Comtesse de Castiglione as I am mad about the Napoleon III period.
I fancy Francis I and the demi-mondaines of the beginning of 20th century in Paris.

Your most treasured belonging?
I love all of them, I'm attached to beauty. It's impossible to choose.

The future?
Fabulous.

How would you like to die?
With a good look and a Sarah Bernhardt pose.

What is your present state of mind?
Historical and hysterical.

What is your motto?
The people around me.

Tomorrow in Scala Regia:

Interview nº 8
Aymeric Bergada du Cadet

17 June, 2009

Who Killed Society?

"Who killed society? It wasn't Scala Regia. Glamour lives on this blog if nowhere else... just take a look at the list of tags at right. I was weeping by the time I got to "Baroness Thyssen-Bornemisza", "Tita" to friends and freaks like me who used to obsess over Vanity Fair articles and the Suzy column. What's not to love?"

 - Nick Olsen

18 November, 2008

Scala Regia

Scala Regia (Royal Staircase) is a flight of steps in the Vatican City and is part of the formal entrance to the Vatican. It was built by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger in the early 16th century, to connect the Vatican Palace to St. Peter's Basilica, and restored by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1663 to 1666.
The site for the stairs, a comparatively narrow slither of land between church and palace, is awkwardly shaped with irregular converging walls. Bernini used a number of typically theatrical, baroque effects in order to exalt this entry point into Vatican. The staircase proper takes the form of a barrel-vaulted colonnade that necessarily becomes narrower at the end of the vista, exaggerating the distance. Above the arch at the beginning of this vista is the coat of arms of Alexander VII, flanked by two sculpted angels.
Finally at the base of the stairs, he placed his equestrian statue of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. It is meant to display the event, before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge when at Saxa Rubra north of Rome along the Tiber, Constantine sees a vision of the cross with the words In Hoc Signo Vinces (In this sign, you will conquer). The phrase appears prominently placed as a motto on a ribbon unfurled with a passion cross to its left, beneath a window over the Scala Regia, adjacent to the statue of Constantine. Emperors and other monarchs, having paid respects to the Pope, descended the Scala Regia, and would observe the light shining down through the window, with the motto, reminiscent of Constantine's vision, and be reminded to follow the Cross. In Bernini's statue of Constantine, he is awed and his horse rears, as Constantine realizes that he will win only with the power of the Christ. The moral of this story would not have been lost upon royal visitors to the pope, or for that matter, Cardinals accompanying a deceased pontiff's cortege, who are meant to see the leader of the church as the embodiment of the divine power that over-rules the kings of the world. This theme is often repeated in Vatican artworks such as Giulio Romano’s fresco of The Battle of Milvian Bridge, located in the Sala di Costantino ("Hall of Constantine") as well as the marble relief in St. Peter's of Algardi’s Fuga d’Attila.
Pope Clement IX later installed a sculpture of Charlemagne in the opposite portico of St. Peter's Basilica as a pendant to that of Constantine