Tierra Unica is a destination blogsite focusing on world travel, entertainment, cuisine, news, popular culture, sports, business, technology, humor, and events from around the world with an emphasis on the USA and South America (Peru, Argentina, Brazil, etc).
Here are the wives and girlfriends of seven of the top footballers in the world in a photo session for the Umbro World Champions Collection for the upcoming 19th FIFA World Cup, South Africa 2010. Each one of these seven girls and the jerseys they are wearing represents all the current and former World Cup champions in the history.
Football Shirt Culturewrote - "The wives and girlfriends of seven international football stars have been shot by legendary photographer Rankin for a stunning global advertising campaign to promote Umbros new World Champions Collection.
Abbey Clancy, the girlfriend of England striker Peter Crouch, has joined six other women who, like her, currently or previously have either dated or married an international footballer. And to make it even more relevant to this summers event, each girl represents one of the seven countries that have ever won the worlds biggest football tournament - Argentina, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Italy and Uruguay.
The striking image Rankin has produced is based on an iconic campaign run by Umbro in 1967, which famously featured girls cheekily wearing football shirts as dresses. For 2010, the campaign has been brought right up to date with the girls modelling the Umbro World Champions Collection. This truly inspired football range has been designed in collaboration with some of the hottest international artists, each hailing from the same country as each model. The twist in the brief to them was to base their design on the tailored silhouette of the Umbro England home shirt. I thought the idea of creating a modern interpretation of the Umbro advert from the sixties was an interesting concept. The girls in the campaign all look stunning and they were a pleasure to work with. Im extremely pleased with the results, says Rankin.
Rankin spent two days photographing these beautiful women. Argentina is represented by Luli Fernandez and has been designed in collaboration with Buenos Aires based record label, ZZK Records. Brazil is represented by the wife of Julio Cesar, Susana Werner, wearing a shirt designed by Fernando Chamarelli, an illustrator, visual artist and tattoo designer from Sao Paolo.
Model and TV presenter, Abbey Clancy, wears the England shirt. Abbey is striking in a shirt with a crest designed by Ben Eine, one of Englands most prominent street artists and graffiti pioneers. I loved the shoot with Rankin and the opportunity to be a part of recreating the famous Umbro advert from 67. The crest design is a really fun take on a traditional, regal crest, said Abbey.
Charlene Suric, girlfriend of France & Arsenal left back Gaël Clichy, is wearing the French shirt, designed in collaboration with Andre, the Paris based graffiti artist and international fashion authority.
Germany is represented by Julia Godicke. Julias shirt has been designed by Marok, Berlins legendary magazine mogul and cultural icon. Alice Bregoli is married to Alberto Gilardino, the Italian and Fiorentina player, and will be featured wearing a shirt designed in collaboration with Italian comics author, illustrator and artist, Tanino Liberatore.
Finally, Uruguays inaugural 1930 and legendary 1950 World Cup wins are represented by Zaira Nara, who dates Uruguay and Atletico Madrid striker, Diego Forlan. Zairas shirt crest was designed by Martin Albronoz, a mixed media artist from Montevideo.
Trevor Cairns, Chief Marketing Officer from Umbro explains why the brand took this direction. Looking back through our imagery archives, we discovered that Umbro used girls to promote their shirts in the World Cup year of 1966. We have used the wives and girlfriends of players who represent the Champion nations to model our new shirts. This is an irreverent, fun and Umbro way to showcase these great products, to celebrate global football culture in a World Cup year and to give a nod to our own history and heritage.
The Umbro World Champions Collection of football shirts and T-shirts is available from leading independents. RRP £70 for the Limited Edition box (including poster of all the crests signed by the artists, the shirt, story booklet about the inspiration behind each design and a crest pin badge), £50 for shirt, £25 for T-shirt. nike football shirt culture adidas puma umbro"
A set of pictures and images from the Peruvian documentary "Ollas y Sueños" (Cooking Up Dreams) released in August, 2009 about the 500 years of fusion (mixture) cuisine in Peru.
Peru is the birthplace of world fusion cuisine and the cultural mixture and miscegenation (marriage) of ancient native cuisines with that of several different types of cuisines of four continents.
Ask.com wrote - "Thanks to pre-Inca
and Inca heritage and to Spanish, Basque, African,
Sino-Cantonese, Japanese and finally Italian, French and British
immigration
(mainly throughout the 19th century), Peruvian Cuisine combines the
flavors of
four continents. With the eclectic variety of traditional dishes, the
Peruvian
culinary arts are in constant evolution, and impossible to list in their
entirety. Suffice it to mention that along the Peruvian coast alone
there are
more than two thousand different types of soups, and that there are more
than
250 traditional desserts.
The great variety in Peruvian Cuisine stems from three major influences:
Peru's unique
geography,
84 of the 104 possible life zones on Earth according to Holdridge
Peru's openness and
blending of distinct races and cultures
The incorporation of
ancient cuisine into modern Peruvian Cuisine"
Peru - A Food obsess Nation
Peruvian Cuisine is one of the main driving forces of Peru’s rapid economic development in the last 15 years, and
growing national pride. Similar to France, Spain, Italy, and Japan, cuisine in Peru, and the people
that make it, are respected at all levels of society. It is the most
revealing aspect of Peruvian society, more so than music, art, or futbol (soccer). Guarango's De Ollas y Sueños, (Cooking Up
Dreams), is a beautiful filmed released last year which opened to much domestic and international acclaim. The film follows
Peruvian Cuisine around Peru and around the world.
Peru is
considered one of the most important center for the genetic diversity of the world's crops:
Choclo (corn), 35 varieties
Tomatoes,
15 species
Potatoes, Peru is the birthplace of the potato. The Ancient Peruvians (pre-Inca
civilizations) cultivated and domesticated the potato almost 10,000
years ago. Of the roughly 4,500 varieties of potatoeson Earth, 3,000
are indigenous to Peru.
Sweet Potatoes, 150 varieties
Peanuts are native to Peru and were taken by Spanish and Portuguese merchants
to Africa.
Cooking Up Dreams (Trailer) - Ollas y Sueños: This excellent documentary about the Peruvian Cuisine movement and the hottest food trend world-wide over the last few years was released last Fall in Lima, Peru. It will premierefor the first time in the U.S. this weekend in New
York, Chicago, Texas and Toronto. This movie is about the 500 years of cultural mixture or miscegenation (not fusion) of Peru with respect to it's rich gastronomical history, culture, migration, and it's various foods and cuisines within the country and abroad.
San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gatequote - "NO CON-FUSION HERE: "The very first place there was
fusion cuisine was Peru." -- Chef Patricio Gaston Herrera, relating
how New World and Old World cuisines melded nearly 500 years ago with
arrival of "invaders" -- the Spanish."
The premiere will take place on
Saturday April 17, 2010 at the Havana Film Festival in Manhattan, New York,
an important showcase for Latin American cinema. I've seen this
excellent film about Peru & Peruvian Cuisine. It is a must see!!!!
Details of Cooking Up Dreams (Trailer) - Ollas y Sueños:
Feature Documentary: "Cooking Up Dreams"
Original title: De Ollas y Sueños
Directed by: Ernesto Cabellos
Produced by: Televisión América Latina (TAL) and Guarango Association
Format: HDV 1080i60
Release date: August 2009 (Lima, Peru)
Images of Peruvian Cuisine and the international & domestic chefs in the documentary:
"Mesa de Chefs" (The Chefs Table)
Picture of Teresa Izquierdo (Afro-Criollo Peruvian Cuisine), Gaston Acurio (Haute-Peruvian Cuisine), and Hector Solis (traditional Criollo Peruvian Cuisine).
Bernardo Roca Rey - restaurateur, local newspaper owner, and one of the founders of the "Novo Andino" (New Andean) cuisine movement in Peru and abroad dating back to the early-1980s.
Peru is the birthplace of the potato. The Ancient Peruvians (pre-Inca civilizations) cultivated and domesticated the potato almost 10,000 years ago. Of the roughly 4,500 varieties of potatoeson Earth, 3,000 are indigenous to Peru.
Ernesto Cabello - Peruvian film director of Ollays y Sueños (Cooking Up Dreams)
Johnny Schuler - Pisco (Peruvian Brandy) ambassador, President of the Peruvian Pisco Association, TV personality, Pisco entrepreneur, and big investor of the U.S. Pisco market.
In Peru, there are hundreds of variety of "Choclo" (Peruvian corn).
The world famous "Choclo Blanco Gigante de Cuzco" (giant Peruvian white corn of Cusco). The delicious "Choclo Cusco" is the biggest corn in the world, they grow abundantly around the Valley of the Incas.
Top celebrity chefs leading the Peruvian Cuisine world conquest movement - Peru's Toshiro Konishi (Peruvian-Japanese Mixed Cuisine called "Nikkei"), Spain's Juan Mari Arzak (haute Spanish-Basque Cuisine), and Peru's Gaston Acurio.
Peru's Gaston Acurio- The #1 celebrity chef in all Latin America, owner of La Mar Cebicheria Peruana, Astrid y Gaston, & Tanta restaurant brand, TV personality, and leader of the Peruvian Cuisine movement world-wide.
Ferran Adria(haute Spanish Molecular Cuisine) - The #1 celebrity chef in the world, owner of Bulli (highest Michelin rated restaurant in the world), and now follower of Peru's Gaston Acurioand Pedro Miguel Schiaffino.
Pedro Miguel Schiaffino - Leader of Peru's haute Amazonian Cuisine movement, chef professor, and owner of Malabar in San Isidro, Peru (Food & Wine Magazine's 4th best bar in the world).
In all the years I've played, coached, and watched competitive football; I've never seen a sculpture of a global sports athlete like this one in Catalonia, Spain. There have been bronze sculptures of football legends like Maradona, Pele, Bobby Moore, Di Stefano, and Batistuta over the decades but never one made of chocolate!
Brooks Peck wrote:
"In Catalonia, children are given a chocolate cake called a "Mona" as a gift at Easter. And whichever kid got this one better like diabetes because that's what you'll get if you eat a lifesize chocolate Lionel Messi complete with Ballon d'Or. Given how tiny the real Leo is, this sucker looks like it has to be bigger than him, though. It certainly weighs more. At 115 kilos (253 lbs.), it could probably crush the little Argentine with its head alone."
Here is the head close-up of the dead-eye stare.
I wonder if people are going to eat the "Chocolate Messi"?
With the much anticipated 2010 Winter Olympics in British Colombia, Canada just a few weeks away. The eternal question pops up again but with a twist in last month's DVD release of docu-drama classic Downhill Racer. The film asks those of us with some talent and ability - "How fast must a man go to get from where he's at?"
The 1969 sports classic movie "Downhill Racer" starting a very young Robert Redfordtries to answer this pondering question that all of us with a crumb of talent and ability ask ourselves everyday. How much ambition to you have in you to take your talent and ability to the next level? Can you take it to the highest level in your chosen field or career? At what cost?
What if you get to the top and you find out you never really left from where you started?
What gets me about this classic sports/love movie is that Gene Hackman has hair!!!
According to Hollywood critics, Downhill Racer is the best sports movie ever produced with some of the most spectacular ski scenes ever filmed. It is not really a sports movie par se (Olympic downhill ski racing is just the setting), but more of a romantic drama told in documentary style in exotic ski locations like the Lauberhorn at Wengen, Switzerland and the Hahnenkamm at Kitzbuhel, Austria. Also included were Megeve, France and St. Anton, Austria.
25 year old former Swedish glamour beauty and actress of the 60's Camilla Sparv in 1965.
Here is what Image Entertainment wrote about the movie:
"Astonishing Alpine location photography and a young Robert Redford in one of his earliest starring roles are just two of the visual splendors of Michael Ritchie's visceral debut feature, DOWNHILL RACER. In a beautifully understated performance, Redford is David Chappellet, a ruthlessly ambitious skier competing with an underdog American team in Europe for Olympic gold, and Gene Hackman provides tough support as the coach who tries to temper the upstart's narcissistic drive for glory. With a subtle screenplay by acclaimed novelist James Salter, DOWNHILL RACER is a vivid character portrait buoyed by breathtakingly fast and furious imagery that brings the viewer directly into the mind of the competitor."
Very Short List wrote last month of the new DVD release of Downhill Racer:
"Just weeks after Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
made Robert Redford into a megastar in 1969, the actor turned up in a
very different kind of picture—a documentary-style movie about a
fearless skier with an all-consuming desire for Olympic gold. Downhill Racer
(available from Criterion 11/17) shows Redford at his early best:
outrageously charming, naturally physical and unrelentingly sexy.
Much of Downhill Racer—which was directed by Michael Ritchie, who reteamed with Redford in 1972 for The Candidate—is
a sort of thrill ride: Cameras mounted to actual skiers provided
bird’s-eye footage of what it’s like to careen down slopes at what
looks like a million miles an hour. Sure, there’s a love interest, and
a rival or two, but the film focuses mostly on the development of one
great undisciplined athlete into a bona fide star. Plus, Redford’s
coach is played by a young Gene Hackman, who gives us a peek at the guy
we love so much in Hoosiers."
32 year old Robert Redford on location in the Swiss Alps for Downhill Racer in 1969.
A young 40 year old Gene Hackman with hair - Un joven de 40 años Gene Hackman con pelo!
This is the part of the Prince Claus Funds Awards presentation in Amsterdam, Netherlands yesterday Wednesday, December 16, 2009 in which it showcases the work of 2009 laureate Latin America celebrity chef Gaston Acurio from Peru. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, her family, and some 600 royal guests tasted delicious Peruvian Cuisine!
Castellano (Español)
Esta es la parte de la presentacion de los Premios Principe Claus de los
Fondos en Amsterdam, Holanda, ayer Miercoles, 16 de Diciembre,
2009 en la que muestra el trabajo de 2009 del celebre chef Latino Americano Gaston Acurio del Peru. La Reina Beatriz de los Paises Bajos, su familia, y unos 600 invitados reales comieron la deliciosa comida Peruana!
Foto del diario Clarin en Argentina - Modelos en Londres, Inglaterra invitan a los clientes a entrar a la zona 'Para
adultos' de la Gruta de Santa en los Grandes almacenes Westfield de
Londres. (EFE)