PENELOPE PITSTOP
'Glamour Girl of the Gas Pedal'
Pink: the colour of
romance, babies, and pretty girls; the
colour of sugar and spice and all things nice; the colour of femininity and charm. And, the colour of Hanna Barbera's iconic pink lady: 'Penelope Pitstop', the very pink, lady driver in 'Wacky Races'.
With
her pink race car, pink racing uniform, and pink tights, she's the
very embodiment of all things pink and nice. What other woman could come to
mind as the embodiment of this colour than the lady also described as
the 'The Glamour Girl of the Gas Pedal' And, so, having painted my mirror head to toe in fluorescent pink, I named my mirror after her.
'Penelope Pitstop' Mirror
by Flavia Brilli
BIG is BEAUTIFUL
Opposites attract, and, if you are petite like me, big and tall is mesmerising: Tall people, tall buildings, tall mountains; since, all these things serve to emphasise my smallness. And, so making big mirrors was inevitable. And, it was inevitable I would want to make the biggest mirror I could make. And, then, inevitable I would need the biggest venue to showcase it in. When one day, the promoter from the Superclub 'Ministry of Sound' popped his head inside my shop door and invited me to showcase my mirrors in their Chill Out Room, a match in heaven was made.
'Ministry of Sound' Nightclub, London.
300,000 clubbers pass through the doors of 'Ministry of Sound' each year making it
one of the most successful SuperClubs in England and Europe.
one of the most successful SuperClubs in England and Europe.
SAVAGELY KITCH and SEXY
A Little Bit of Neoprene Goes a long way..
Penelope came about during a period when I was making very large mirrors, between 7 to 8ft in length, but in addition to these large sizings, I was also experimenting with 3 dimensional forms. My aim was to make a mirror that was tactile like upholstered furniture: something you could touch and squeeze, as well as, look into. So, I combined my mirror making skills with my upholstery knowledge and designed a mirror that embraced both these disciplines. Of course, I couldn't paint the finished product, it would have to be upholstered in a fabric. And, something suitably eccentric and sexy: a little bit of neoprene would do the trick.
Bronze Neoprene bikini
For those of you not familiar with this wonderful material, it is the material often used to create scuba diving wetsuits. Of course, for those of us with a rampant imagination it could be put to use for other things: such as covering eccentric mirrors.
The Ministry of Sound loved the idea of this new technique and having seen in my shop a large mirror called Zeppelin done in this way commissioned me to make a logo upholstered in neoprene.
'Ministry of Sound' Logo
Left, Ministry of Sound Logo; Right, Upholstered Logo with double Mirrors in Bronze Neoprene.
Mirror designs by Flavia Brilli
Copyright © 2018. Flavia Brilli. All rights reserved.
