New step in YSL's marketing strategy : an improved website.

Yves Saint Laurent adapts to new technology by launching a new online site. On www.ysl.com, users can learn about the news of the brand and directly discover the new creations of Stefano Pilati exclusive animations.


Last September, YSL had already published a free magazine, Manifesto, mainly distributed in big cities. Today, the new site echoes this initiative by revealing an animated version of the website, featuring the top Gisele Bundchen who already represented the brand during their last campaign.


The website also features a series of short films showing the capsule collection, Edition 24, signed Nick Night. These short cut, had been made last July on the shooting of the campaign Edition 24, posted on http://www.showstudio.com/.

Even the music genius, that I admire so much, Antony Hegarty has been a contributor to the site : http://www.showstudio.com/contributors/12670


Meanwhile, Yves Saint Laurent opens an online shop, exclusively in the USA. Accessories and men's and women's collections will be available to enhance the development strategy sales of the French brand in the American market.


To learn more :
www.ysl.com/
http://www.showstudio.com/

Who's got the power ? The Power 100's list by ArtReview

Extracts by Georgina Adams :


"Everyone loves lists, and lists that combine power, money and art are simply irresistible. The ArtReview Power 100 has established itself as the anxiously awaited, obsessively examined signpost to who's in, who's out, who's hot and who's not in the contemporary art world today.
Selecting the top 100 movers and shakers in this shifting landscape is inevitably fraught with difficulties. Who wields more power : a top art dealer with a network of galleries or the director of a major museum ? How do you compare influence to India to influence in New York ? How do you evaluate money in a market where pricing transparency is non existent and deals are sealed on a handshake in a back room ? Does the (purported) sale of a £50 million diamond-encrusted skull make its creator more important - or just a lot richer ?
...


The truth is that the world of contemporary art, which was once an esoteric microcosm has expanded enormously. It has expanded both through the number of people engaged in it and geographically.
...


This whole world of curators, critics, architects, dealers, advisors and collectors owe their positions, their influence, and indeed their livelihoods to the artists who create the art. But could the artists be successful without the curators, critics and dealers who nurture and promote their careers ? The Power 100 reflects this interdependence, with its strange juxatpositions of the academic, the commercial and the creative."

But who is the first ? who is the first ?

Guess ?

1. Francois Pinault

2. Larry Gagosian

3. Sir Nicholas Serota

4. Glenn D. Lowry

5. Eli Broad

6. Damien Hirst

7. Charles Saatchi

8. Jay Jopling

9. Steven A. Cohen

10. David Zwirner

To learn more :

www.uploadlibrary.com/artreviewdigital/index.html

Pop Art Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London

Self-Portrait Andy Warhol, 1964. Acrylic, silver paint and silkscreen ink on canvas, 508 x 406mm Stefan T. Edlis Collection © Licensed by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ARS, New York and DACS, London 2007

This major international exhibition, held at the National Portrait Gallery in London, from 11 October 2007 to January 20 2008, is the first to explore the role and significance of portraiture within Pop Art, one of the most important and popular artistic movements of the twentieth century. Presenting a visual dialogue between American and British Pop, the exhibition focuses on key portraits by leading artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Peter Blake and Richard Hamilton.
Pop Art flourished in Britain and the USA during the 1950s and 1960s and was closely connected with the rise of consumer culture. For that reason Pop is usually seen as being concerned with the depiction of objects. Pop Art Portraits takes a different view. It shows how Pop artists reinvigorated and redefined portraiture, creating new kinds of portraits: from those depicting recognizable sitters, to portraits with a hidden or imaginary subject.
The exhibition is divided into six sections, including screenings of Warhol’s influential Screen Tests and a secular ‘chapel’ devoted to portraits of film star Marilyn Monroe:

Origins of Pop Art
Portraits and Style
Fantasy
Pop Art and Film
Marilyn
Innocence
Experience

This exhibition is really well made, and all the pieces are the ones you've seen in every book. I really liked the Andy Warhol portrait used as the official visual of the exhibition, as well as the silver Elvis, both by Warhol. Screen tests are really not to be missed. But the exhibition is not only about Warhol, and most of the famous artists of Pop Art are displayed.
To learn more :
www.npg.org.uk/popart/popart_home.htm

VIVIENNE WESTWOOD RETROSPECTIVE HELD IN MILAN

35 years of eccentricity and underground fashion. A big retrospective dedicated to Vivienne Westwood opened during the Milan fashion week in Palazzo Reale.


The Palazzo Reale in Milan was the perfect craddle to welcome the Scottish kilts, the Sex Pistols tees, or the metal chain's dresses displayed in the show until January 20, 2008.
The exhibition "35 years Vivienne Westwood fashion" opens with a black shirt designed in leather, showing small bones connected by metal chains. The tone is set.
Everything became when she was helping her boyfriend of the time, Malcom McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols, designing clothes for Johnny Rotten and the musicians of the group.
She then moved to a store on King's Road in London, which quickly became legendary.


Today, there are 150 creations are displayed in a very a rock'n roll way. Queen of provocation, her first fashion show was shown in 1981 and entitled "Pirate," a subtle blend of sensuality and eccentricity. At 66 years, she is still on the frontrow. She presented her latest collection on 1 October 2008 in Paris. Marilyn Manson and Dita Von Teese rank among the various role models that have been featured in her add campaigns... still rock'n'roll !

More info on:
http://www.viviennewestwood.com/
http://www.arthemisia.it/