Blue jeans, Denim, Denim blue, Dye, Indigo, Levi, Levi Strauss

Denim : The Story of Blue Jeans

31st July

Denim is one of the most widely used fabrics in the world and denim jeans are the most popular indigo-dyed garment produced today – they have been for decades. Indigo dye is the dyestuff in denim that creates its distinctive deep blue colour. The word indigo originally comes from the Greek word ‘indikón’, later ‘indicum’...

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Nordic Summer Living with YCB Magazine

24th July

Today, the Blue & White Company is featured in the wonderful YCB Magazine in their Lifestyle and Woman & Home section.  It was huge fun working with the great team at YCB and we were very happy to share our love of blue and white, as always!   The products selected by the Editor in...

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Algae, Anna Atkins, Cyanotype, Female photographer, Photography, Plants, Prussian blue, Royal Society, Seaweed

Anna Atkins: The first female photographer

1st July

 “Looking at Atkins’ book today, what is most striking is not the outlines of the algae, however beautifully and delicately they crawl across the pages; it is the glorious depth of the Prussian blue backdrop to the images.’   Photography has always been on the cusp between science and art. Someone like Anna Atkins has...

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ABF The Soldier's Charity, Royal Military Academy Sandhurst

Heritage Day at Sandhurst

18th June

We spend time travelling around Oxfordshire and nearby counties taking our pop up shop to events. Yesterday, the Blue & White Company joined the annual Heritage Day at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in Surrey. On this day each year, the academy opens its gates to the public and military families to enjoy air and...

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Blenheim Palace New Business Competition

15th June

We are delighted to share that the Blue & White Company was recently shortlisted in Blenheim Palace’s new business start up competition. This exciting initiative, organised by the Palace in collaboration with the FAB Accelerator team in Oxfordshire, was a new venture for 2018 and forms part of Blenheim Palace’s commitment to work with and...

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Ashmolean Museum, Japan, Koganei in Musashi Province, prints, Utagawa Hiroshige, Vincent Van Gogh

Utagawa Hiroshige at the Ashmolean Museum

15th May

The Japanese have always considered Mount Fuji to be the greatest symbol of Japan. This print which is at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, shows one from a series of Hirsohige’s 36 views of Mount Fuji, a homage to his country but also to his contemporary Hokusai and his series with the same title (c.1833)....

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A Morning Walk, Aesthetic movement, blue and white, blue shadows, Bridge of Sighs, Doge's Palace, Filet et Barque, Florence, John Singer Sargent, Monet, Old Masters, Rio dell Angela, Sargent, sensory experience, Venice, watercolour, white lanterns

Drenched in the Light of Sargent

11th April

John Singer Sargent was born in Florence in 1856 and spent much of his childhood travelling around Europe with his family, to Italy, France, Spain, Germany and England, soaking up different cultures.  John’s mother, Mary Newbold Singer, was a watercolourist and recognizing her son’s enthusiasm for observational drawing, encouraged him to pursue art. It soon...

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15th century, 20th century, Albert Dürer, Barbara Hepworth, blue, blue and white, blue gowns, classical representation, draughtsperson, drawings, Giovanni Bellini, hands, Henry Moore, Hepworth, hospital, Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, movement, oil wash, orthopaedic surgery, parthenon frieze, piety, postwar Britain, sculptor, St Ives, surgery, surgical process, tendon, transplant, ultramarine

Barbara Hepworth’s Hospital Drawings

9th March

Faded, monumental figures loom out of a haze of muted blue and white tones. Classical in representation and with an air of piety, this drawing looks as though it could be a fresco by an Italian master, fading away on the wall of a stone chapel. In fact, Trio (Tendon Transplant) is from a series...

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camera obscura, Dutch, Golden age, Netherlands, Rachel Ruysch, Renaissance, Ruysch, seventeenth century, sixteenth century, Still life, The Dutch East India Company, Willem Kalf

Dutch Still Life

2nd February

Still life has been a key genre in the canon of Western art since the Renaissance, with its ‘golden age’ flourishing in the Netherlands during the seventeenth century. In this genre, a selection of objects such as crockery, flowers, food and game are arranged most commonly on a table or platform. This style was once...

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dyed wool, handwoven, Harris Tweed, heritage, landscape, Outer Hebrides, tradition

Weaving the Landscape

11th January

Inextricably linked to Harris Tweed is a strong sense of heritage and tradition, or as it is known in Gaelic, dualchas, and a passion for making by hand. This knowledge and expertise has been inherited through generations of crofters, with many people over the centuries contributing to a unique process that remains so intertwined with...

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