Some time between 2008 and now it became socially acceptable to wear Worishofer sandals. They’ve replaced Crocs as the ungainly (it would be unkind to say ugly) but practical casual shoe of choice. These German-made sandals have been photographed on hipster-starlets like Michelle Williams and Kirsten Dust and are being sold, in an array of thirty-three colors, right alongside Thunderbirds and Chuck Taylors, at every cut-rate shoe store on lower Broadway.

The most popular style of Worishofers, the basic slide, reminds me of the classic Dr. Scholl’s exercise sandals. Like Scholl’s, Worishofers were developed by a physician in the service of orthopedic health. Unlike Scholl’s, Worishofers are entirely structureless; they’re lightweight and feel more like slippers than street shoes. Scholl’s have smart hardware: a sliding metal buckle and rows of bolts pinning the narrow strap to the sculpted oak sole. Worishofer sandals look like they’ve been glued together from scraps of vinyl. They don’t have the gorgeous object-quality that the most alluring shoes have.

August 03, 2012 by Nalina Moses

What was it was like for George Harrison, a talented musician playing in a band beside two men who might have been the greatest pop artists of all time? And what was it like for Francoise Gilot, a talented painter living with a man who might have been the greatest painter of all time? The most recent of the Gagosian Gallery’s thrilling, museum-quality Picasso shows, Picasso and Françoise Gilot: Paris–Vallauris 1943–1953, makes one wonder. The show is organized in three parts: two galleries with Picasso’s work from that period, a gallery with photos showing the life of the two artists together, and finally, a gallery with Gilot’s work. As we entered that room a gentleman behind me declared, “Well, she was no Picasso,” an assessment that seemed terribly unfair.

Gilot’s work is serious but there isn’t enough of it at the exhibit to get a strong sense of what her deep interests are. Picasso’s work, on the other hand, illuminated what we already know of him. There are lovely, colorful paintings of Gilot, their children, their pets, and their toys, scenes lighter and more joyous than we thought he was capable of. But the most moving pieces in the show are Picasso’s two drawings and painting, all titled Femme Designe, that show Francoise at work. Today Gilot is remarkably good-humored about the time she spent with the master, however much it overshadowed her own work. She thinks she made it through those years because she had a strong sense of herself, and, as she puts it, “He did not try to destroy me." She remembers that Picasso supported her work at first but lost interest as she began to gain recognition. But there’s a tenderness in his depictions of her as an artist that I’d like to understand as an endorsement, however complicated it was.

August 01, 2012 by Nalina Moses

While I have not caught Olympic Fever, I watched the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony with considerable interest. There was an outcry about the uniforms Ralph Lauren designed for the American team because they had been manufactured in China, yet none at all because they were unflattering (lumpen blue berets, white loafers with bobby socks) and heavily branded (logos on both cap and blazer). The Brasilians, who wore fitted yellows and green separates, were the best dressed team; they gave off joy and heat. The British, in space-age white-and-gold jackets, missed the opportunity to do something entirely unironic (Chariots of Fire white flannels) or entirely ironic (trenchcoats and Hunter boots). Instead the Bermudans, in white dress shirts, navy jackets and red Bermuda shorts (identical to those they sported, brazenly, at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver) took both those prizes. At the center of it all Usain Bolt, in slim yellow trousers, looked fittingly majestic carrying the Jamaican flag.

But my favorite costume was the little cap-sleeved A-line dresses the young women carrying the country signs for each team wore. The fronts of the dresses were printed with a crowd of contemporary faces, which were meant, I think, to represent the crazy and happy diversity of city of London, the Games, and the whole wide world. I don’t know who designed them or the signs themselves, which floated above each girl like a halo. The get-up reminded me of the dresses Hussein Chalayan has crafted out of wood, fiberglass and Tyvek, which are less like garments than contraptions. There’s something cerebral, innocent and eccentric about these little Olympic dresses that, for the overscaled, overblown event, was exactly right.

July 30, 2012 by Nalina Moses

After taking in the Kremlin’s immense, impersonal government buildings, arriving at Assumption Cathedral, which is tucked deeper inside, is like falling back in time. Its exterior is a battered, undressed stone that evokes a pre-Christian desert landscape. And its interior – every square inch – is covered in jewel-hued frescoes that tell the story of the church. These aren’t like the frescoes in Renaissance churches, that open windows into fictive space. These are paintings stacked one upon the other, wrapping the walls and crawling up onto the ceiling vaults. Populated with flattened figures in airless gold backgrounds, they’re like very sacred cartoons, rich with knowledge from another age.

The way the embellishment overwhelms the architecture made me think, as I had many, many times during my trip, that Russia not part of Europe but part of Asia. In many ways the country reminds me of India. It’s huge, deeply diverse in culture, and moving boldly into the new century while also remaining stubbornly the same. In Moscow there’s a barely-concealed sense of chaos coursing below the streets that once senses could, at any moment, simply erupt. This latent (and sometimes not) disorder seems like an essential part of the culture.

July 29, 2012 by Nalina Moses