Sonia Rentsch : Dictionary of a Still Life Stylist - Construct

Today's Guest Blog from Sonia Rentsch is a fantastic view on what it is like to live and experience life in the city. Building works, busy cars, always changing and lots of lipstick. Walk through any city and you will see all of those things. -Jenny x

con·struct vt

1. to build or assemble something by putting together separate parts in an ordered way 2. to create something, such as a theory, as a result of systematic thought 3. to draw something accurately using given measurements

Image styled by Sonia Rentsch, photograph by Willem-Dirk du Toit

I believe that cities, well, the good ones anyway, are built upon a thousand ideas that never stop growing. The ideas I mean, not the cities.

Like a lot of city-dwellers, often I can look and look at the built city surrounds and forget to see them for what they really are: things that are constantly changing with light and motion.

The best thing about this city is that it didn’t get there alone. It started as an idea built of blocks and lipstick but through trial and error what looks like chance - the casual reflection of skyscraper and cars - is actually the calculated construction of whimsy.

Apparently, some anthropologists think that lipstick mimics the flush and swell of sexual arousal, which is why women in many cultures colour their lips.

I don’t know what they could be talking about.

- Sonia x