Lena Hoschek

My Leena introduced me this afternoon to another Lena - Lena Hoschek, fashion designer from Austria. It's one of Leena's favourite places to buy sexy, feminine, original, rockabilly inspired clothing with a touch of fetish to them. This gorgeously decorated boutique is for women who want to be seen and admired in all their glory! Think Betty Page - she is all over the walls, and is an obvious muse to the talented designer. It was sooo delightful to step into the dressing room which is an exquisite boudoir of sassy and feminine luxury. YUM. Think I'd better to hint to my husband that we pay a visit for my 40th birthday this year!!

Dr Sketchy's Anti Art Class

If you like drawing and fancy a Life Drawing class with sexy burlesque dancers for models, then Dr Sketchy's Anti-Art class is a must for you!

I went to the last one with a friend and it was so much fun. 3 hours of sketching sexy models in wild poses, including little competitions on the way to win some gorgeous looking books... No, I didn't win one, but one of my drawings was selected as a contender...

Held once a month at White Trash Fast Food at Schönhauser Allee 6-7, 10119 Berlin Mitte. Check the website for details.

a new mask

Thomas bought me this beautiful mask the other night from the wonderful fetish store Boutique Hautnah, at Uhlandstrasse 170, where I've been looking for pieces to complete an outfit for a performance.

I can feel new artwork coming on...

Salonkatzen

The other day I was showing my mother and aunt around my old 'hood of Prenzlauerberg, and I finally (after 2 years of eyeing it!) went into a cute little boudoir of lingerie delights for the inner sex kitten... Called Miau Miau (dessous) and Chat Noir (Mode), it is beautifully decked out inside to make you feel like a pampered queen. Sexy lingerie, slips and accessories abound - definitely worth a peep.

Tatau Obscur

Just around the corner from our place is a wonderfully exotic and gorgeous tattoo parlour, and I mean "parlour" in the old fashioned sense, called Tatau Obscur. Run by Berit Uhlhorn, pictured, it is a deliciously decorated feast for the eyes, part kind of 1950s diner/café, part exotica boutique, part art gallery downstairs and tattoo parlour upstairs. Every detail has been considered so that you literally walk into a "world".

Some seriously talented female resident tattooists work alongside guest artists and the outcome is without fail unique and yes, obscure!

Feather Fascinators with Ruby Rouge

Today I met a gorgeous British girl who goes by the name Ruby Rouge. She was teaching me and another lovely artist Leena how to make our first feather fascinator. Ruby had a very successful London business for Burlesque accessories and has now relocated to Berlin to pursue other creative interests. We had great fun rummaging in her vast treasure box to create a little bit of fantasy, me for my upcoming wedding and Leena for use in her painting work.

Next on the list is how to make Nippel Tassels!

Sang Bleu 5

My friend Liz Ham in Sydney and I are two of many contributors to the new issue of sexy Sang Bleu magazine. Look out for all of me somewhere in the 600 page tome of delights... I am looking forward to seeing it very soooooon...

Wundervoll underwear

Yummy sexy feminine lingerie by German brand Wundervoll is something I discovered during Berlin fashion week recently. I adore the Berlin-based label's vintage-look high-waisted panties and soft jersey bras...

Wundervoll was selected as the only German label for the exhibit "Undercover - the evolution of Underwear" which runs at London's Fashion and Textile Museum from June 12 through September 27, 2009.

Kurt Schranzer

The other day I received an email from Kurt Schranzer, a dear artist friend back in Queensland Australia whose work is exquisite - both his sexy, homoerotic drawings and his current project The Great Walls , involving artisanal techniques of marquetry passed down by the men in his family. His work is held in collections worldwide and has been exhibited widely internationally.

Kurt is one of the subjects of my ongoing series of tattoo portraits and our shoot together several years ago reigns as one of the most entertaining by far!

Emerald Pillow

Nina Field (Tim Kliendienst's wife) makes the most beautiful, sexy, to-die-for lingerie under the label Emerald Pillow. Her designs are truly exquisitely erotic, with great names too, and make you feel like a sex goddess! Let the goddess out to play, I say... You have to go to the site to see the raunchy pics.

Nina also makes beautiful bridal wear under the label Petal. She is one to watch!

Berlin artisan Hinrich Kröger & Scott Matthew

Another of my favourite Berlin artisans is Hinrich Kröger, a ceramic artist with a lovely shop/atelier in Gipsstraße Mitte. His work is delightfully whimsical, erotic, often eccentric and lovingly handmade. He is also represented in New York.

I discovered his atelier by happy accident. I passed it one day on my first visit to Berlin back in 2007 and saw outside the door a flyer for a gig by a sublimely talented friend of mine from Australia, New York-based singer/songwriter Scott Matthew, whose profile has risen since his appearance in the film Shortbus, for which he wrote and performed the music. So I had a little flash of excitement because I had not seen Scott for a very long time and I went in and told Hinrich that this is how I was drawn in. And since then I have bought a gorgeous birdy vase for my mother and I own a beautiful cat teacup for my morning tea!

Francesca Woodman

For some reason, I feel the urge to gather together influences at the moment and here seems like as good a place as any... I'm certainly not the only one who finds the accomplished work of Francesca Woodman inspiring... perhaps it's something that appeals to the female in me, who was once a girl and who is still navigating her identity as a woman. I find her work so hauntingly beautiful, as if she knew all along her fate (early death by suicide at age 23). She seems to somehow inhabit two worlds in her photos to me, that of the one she lived in and that of the spirit realm, a fleeting presence on earth, and so photography was a perfect vehicle to express and capture these brief moments in time. During her short life (1958-1981) she was prolific but only a small selection of her output has been shown.

I have noticed how many of the women photographers I admire have used or do use their own bodies to explore their identity/sexuality/inner world, and they have silently given me 'permission' to do so too, at various times... Cindy Sherman, Lorna Simpson, Nan Goldin, Sophie Calle, to name a few that come to mind now...

http://photoarts.com/journal/romano/woodman/