This creative combo paid tribute to Prada, LV, Moncler and McQueen with the recreation of iconic dresses in ... food for the next issue of Garage magazine! It looks good and yummy !
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Haute-Food: artist Fulvio Bonavia and former Vogue editor Giovanna Battaglia collaboration
This creative combo paid tribute to Prada, LV, Moncler and McQueen with the recreation of iconic dresses in ... food for the next issue of Garage magazine! It looks good and yummy !
Grayson Perry - The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman
Grayson Perry, the controversial contemporary artist and RA Turner Prize winner has curated an installation of his new works alongside objects made by unknown men and women throughout history from the British Museum’s collection in London. He spent two years working on this collaboration with the BM.
The artwork explores a range of themes connected with notions of craftsmanship and sacred journeys – from shamanism, magic and holy relics to motorbikes, identity and contemporary culture. Vases covered in witty captions, elaborate tapestries and the centrepiece, a richly decorated cast iron coffin-ship, are on display alongside objects from the past two million years of culture and civilisation.
‘This is a memorial to all the anonymous craftsmen that over the centuries have fashioned the manmade wonders of the world… The craftsman’s anonymity I find especially resonant in an age of the celebrity artist.’ the artist said.
Until 19 February
Versace for H&M: Behind the Scenes
I am really excited by this collection. I've been a fan of Versace for years and I am sure it won't be disappointing. I've already spotted interesting pieces. Surely Versace as a brand had its low moments but today's re-birth is of great interest to me.
Donatella has been blamed a lot but I think she's done a good job, given some of the tragedies of her life... RESPECT !
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Lou Reed: 'The music I've done with Metallica is the best thing done by anyone, ever'
I really like the cover of "Lulu", the album released by Lou Reed and Metallica.
"In Lulu, Reed reaches back to the depiction of women from an era when uninhibited sexuality demanded punishment, usually through death or the onset of madness. Wilson suggested otherwise, but Reed looked to Louise Brooks's portrayal of Lulu in the 1929 film Pandora's Box. He looked, too, at Marlene Dietrich's Lola in The Blue Angel – the ultimate femme fatale, who leads Professor Rath into a sexually induced madness, in which he crows like a cockerel. "I never forgot that image," Reed says." said the Guardian.
I think this visual is beautiful.
Reed said: "The version of the Lulu music I did with Metallica is awe inspiring. It’s maybe the best thing done by anyone, ever. It could create another planetary system. I’m not joking, and I’m not being egotistical."
I look forward to listening to it...
Exclusive interview with emerging fashion designer Etienne Derœux
Meet Etienne Derœux, an emerging French fashion designer who recently presented his debut S/S 2012 collection in Paris at Six Showroom, which features an amazing sense of purity. His approach of fashion is intellectual and that's what I found really interesting...
When is your brand born?
The Brand was Born on april 1st 2011.
Who, from the fashion or "creative world" do you take your inspiration from?
I read a lot, I watch a lot of movies, I listen to a lot of music, I go to many exhibitions.
I try to nourish myself with what I see, what I discover, that's my inspiration in everyday life. Besides That, 'My Dear Bomb' by yohji yamamoto is a book I often go back to when it comes to Fashion, as well as Madeleine Vionnet's and Mme Grès' works among others.
Can you tell us a bit more about your background please?
I decided I wanted to do fashion quite early but really decided to give it a try when I finished high school. I started as an intern at Jean Louis Scherrer Haute couture in Paris with Stephane Rolland when I was 17. Then I moved to Australia where I took short courses in Fashion to prepare my entrance exam to Antwerp royal academy. In 2008 I entered Antwerp fashion school where I stayed one year, then moved to La Cambre in Brussels.
After two works experiences at Peter Pilotto in London and Matthew Ames in New York, I realized that the condition to my freedom of expression and creativity was to be my own boss and to launch my own label.
Can you tell us about your latest collection?
My Spring summer collection is based on three major inspirations which are 'L'être et le Neant' a book written by Jean-Paul Sartre, the work of photographer william Eggleston and elementary geometry book for children.
Through these topics I was willing to create a collection of elegent basics along with innovative shapes, with very high quality finishes and materials.
The main purpose of my cloth is that they can be worn either in a casual or a more classy way, since their goal is to suit the body and adapt to
different kind of styles. Each piece in the collection is conceived as an extension of the personality made to bend to the desires of the body they dress up. It's about being what you want to be thanks to cloths, not being ruled by a piece of fabric.
What do you think about French Fashion's scene?
The french Fashion scene is a bit antithetic, the contrast between the big houses and the young designers is obvious, there's no such things as the British fashion Council, The Ecco Domani foundation, the CFDA or even big awards to support small French fashion structures.
In beetween Hyeres festival which is a great place for a designer to be discovered, and l'andam price for confirmed talents, there is nothing in between, when designers would actually need help to grow. That blocks the French Fashion scene in my opinion, and influential new designers have troubles to emerge.
It's actually an economic nonsense in a country where the fashion and textile industry is so important.
Have you had any support from other fashion figure?
A lot of people are showing me their support and interest. Some people are fashion related, some aren't. I'm making clothws for people, not for fashion figures.
What are you expressing through your designs?
A desire of freedom and novelty at first, and also a way to consume fashion differently.
I refuse to use synthetical fibers in my collections, so everything is basically 100% pure natural fibers. I also number every garment by hand and limit my production to 100 copies of each styles to preserve rarity and exclusivity for my clients.
Are you showing at Paris Fashion week?
I'm presenting my debut S/S 2012 collection in Paris at Six Showroom.
What projects do you have upcoming?
I'm currently working on my winter collection, there are new challenges because I'm willing to develop some exclusive knits for this next season, and also start working on shoes that can be produced and sold in the future.
I also have a photography project to illustrate my collection that i'd like to present to festivals for fashion and photography in order to introduce a different vision of my work.
then about more down to earth projects, I need to find a Press agency and to work on my website and E-shop.
Where can we find your designs?
My Designs will be available at 'Hunting & Collecting' in Brussels, 'Front row' in Moscow and at www.etiennederoeux.com from january 2012, and hopefully, there are more stores to come.
To finish with, what would you wish to this blog and what do you think about it?The only thing I can wish to a blog is that the internet forever stays this perfect place for self expression.
I'm proud to be featured among all those prestigious topics and I hope my work will be better known thanks to this article.
More info on: http://www.etiennederoeux.com/
Photo credits: ©Tine Claerhout Photography
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Quote of the week: Patrizia Reggiani, Gucci heir's ex-wife
"I'd rather cry in a Rolls than be happy on a bicycle" Patrizia Reggiani, Gucci heir's ex-wife, serving a 29-year sentence for ordering Gucci heir's murder.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Seen at frieze 2011, Perrotin booth
Elmgreen and Dragset's untitled, life-sized morgue wall and dead body sculpture at the Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin booth. Courtesy of Artinfo.com
Glamour of the Gods night at the National Portrait Gallery of London - the report
On Friday night I went to the free special evening organized by the National Portrait Gallery Late Shift Extra: The Glamour Factory around their Photo Exhibition Glamour of The Gods.
The stakes were high: you could have a retro hairdo & make up and then be photographed in a star pose, hear talks about Beauty, watch Top Hat, a Black & White movie with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, etc.
Being in love with all things retro, my main draw for coming was the 30's hairdo & make-up which I wasn't able to do at the last Vintage Festival held in August at SouthBank Centre due to the never ending queue of like-minded women dying to look like a cinema star. So there I was, starting to queue for my long awaited retro make up and hair-do at the National Portrait Gallery when the staff told us there was no point queuing, because all the "free" tickets had been sold out.
Right. I wasn't going to let that ruin the evening so I decided instead to go for a talk entitled "What is Beauty?".
Danny Rees from the Wellcome Library explained how large eyes and high eyebrows helped considerably in perceiving people as beautiful (which I guess also explains why so many women spend fortunes on making them seem bigger with make up AND why actresses at the time always had their eyebrows reshaped with a pencil). He also explained why smiling is so important and important it is to master faking it for stars. Basically a smile on a face is something you see from afar. So if you don't know the person in front of you, and they start smiling, it sends us the message: "I'm no threat to you". You can tell if someone is genuinely smiling if their eyes crease as they smile. If they're forcing a smile, only the mouth smiles and the eyes remain static. Then he went on observing that in movies generally the bad guy is always ugly and the good guy is always good-looking which could be an interpretation of something much older. Greek Philosophers Sapho & Plato thought that if you're beautiful inside, you're beautiful outside. But then I kind of remember Manson was not too bad and still was the serial killer everyone knows. So there goes Plato.
Then I went to hear a talk by Dr David Gems (Institute of Healthy Aging, UCL) entitled the Immortality tour. He was taking the example of a son who couldn't deal with his mother's death and decided to freeze her. After all f you bury someone you're sure they will decay whereas if you "freeze" them you keep the tiny hope that science will be sufficiently advanced to revive your loved ones while you're still alive... I didn't see the rest as I had to meet a friend of mine. And off we went to watch the movie Top Hat. I had personally never seen a Fred Astaire & Ginger Rodgers movie. Top Hat is one of these intrigues à la Marivaux where someone is mistaken for someone else and everybody finds out at the end their error... I marveled at the dance, the moves, the singing, the incredible decorum of the Italian scenes & also the clothes. Ginger Rogers is wearing magnificent dresses (Gosh, that white feather dress!) all along the movie which made me wonder how she could manage to dance in them. But all seems effortless. And it's a great comedy.
In the end a nice evening even though I will have to find yet another retro event to have my hair and make up done in a Glamour of the Gods way!
June Caravel.
Monday, October 10, 2011
The current lack of creativity
I won't be writing about Lady Gaga because there's nothing else to say rather than she's just a "sponge", stealing from Madonna to David Bowie, artists that she supposedly "admire so much" but to add to this topic, this weekend emerged the story that Beyonce has been accused of copying a routine from two of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker's productions.
Writing in a Danish blog, Keersmaeker says, "I didn't know anything about this. I'm not mad, but this is plagiarism... This is stealing. They took pieces from Achterland and Rosas danst Rosas. It's a bit rude, I must say. What's rude about it is that they don't even bother about hiding it. They seem to think they could do it because it's a famous work... Am I honoured? Look, I've seen local school kids doing this. That's a lot more beautiful." Well said Anne Teresa !
Now this morning I discovered this Dolce e Gabbana ad copying an Yves Saint Laurent ad back in the 60's (let's note that for the first time, a fashion brand steals another...).
I wonder is there a serious and appalling lack of creativity in today's fashion and music industry? I do think so...
Friday, October 7, 2011
The Laurence King Editions publish "The Book of Skulls," a book exclusively dedicated to the religious symbol that is the skull.
Faye Dowling had the will to gather some sort of directory of skulls and she managed to gather skulls from all backgrounds: from the jewels of Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen to the work of Damien Hirst.
Forgotten and then reused, the skull has a full role in our daily lives sometimes failing to lose its original meaning and initial symbolicism. But its visual power and beauty are timeless, and that's what the book intends to sublimate presenting 164 works by artists as diverse as Wes Lang, James Hopkins, Alan Kane or Stephanie Henderson.
Gerhard Richter at Tate Modern
I hear this retrospective of the German painter Gerhard Richter provokes the wahou factor!
Spanning nearly five decades, and coinciding with the artist’s 80th birthday, Gerhard Richter: Panorama is a major retrospective exhibition that groups together significant moments of his remarkable career.
Since the 1960s, Gerhard Richter has immersed himself in a rich and varied exploration of painting. Gerhard Richter: Panorama highlights the full extent of the artist's work, which has encompassed a diverse range of techniques and ideas. It includes realist paintings based on photographs, colourful gestural abstractions such as the squeegee paintings, portraits, subtle landscapes and history paintings.
Gerhard Richter was one of the first German artists to reflect on the history of National Socialism, creating paintings of family members who had been members, as well as victims of, the Nazi party. Continuing his historical interest, he produced the 15-part work October 18 1977 1988, a sequence of black and white paintings based on images of the Baader Meinhof group. Richter has continued to respond to significant moments in history throughout his career; the final room of the exhibition includes September 2005, a painting of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York in 2001.
I wish I could see it!
Yves Saint Laurent Retrospective in Madrid
Until January 8, 2012, the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid presents the first retrospective of Yves Saint Laurent in Spain, an exhibition in collaboration with the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent based in Paris. On display is a comprehensive review of 40 years of creation by the master.
Florence Müller is the curator of this exhibition which showcases 150 models, essays, prototypes and production drawings, and Nathalie Crinière designed the scenography, which replicates themes from the exhibition held at the Petit Palais in Paris.
Florence Müller is the curator of this exhibition which showcases 150 models, essays, prototypes and production drawings, and Nathalie Crinière designed the scenography, which replicates themes from the exhibition held at the Petit Palais in Paris.
Ed Ruscha, Detail of notes from Notebook. © Ed Ruscha.
The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute announced today the joint acquisition of over seventy photographs by artist Ed Ruscha as well as his Streets of Los Angeles archive, including thousands of negatives, hundreds of photographic contact sheets, and related documents and ephemera. A portion of the material will come to the Getty as a promised gift from the artist.
One of the most influential American artists working today, Ruscha moved to Los Angeles in 1956 and has continued to live and work here, incorporating the citys architecture, streets, and even its attitude into paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs that are known for their graphic directness.
This combined acquisition by the Getty Museum and the Getty Research Institute now makes the Getty Center the preeminent resource for understanding the role of photography in Ruschas practice and will make this aspect of the artists work more widely accessible, locally and internationally. "I am humbled and elated to have my work go to the top of the hill," said Ruscha.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Courtney Love looks stunning in the November issue of Vanity Fair
Courtney Love looks amazing in this Vanity Fair shoot. I am still investigating what she's wearing but if you have any ideas, let me know... and don't pay attention to what you can read about her comments on Kurt.
Also, have a look at Courtney's universe in the below short film by Jason Bell... Love the visuals.
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Boris Hoppek is a great artist
I love the artist's ability to create good art with what seems little resources ! It rocks !
Monday, October 3, 2011
Air France "L'Envol" choreographed by Angelin Preljocaj
My long-time hero Angelin Preljocaj choreographed this beautiful commercial for Air France and I think the result is marvellous (Yes the male dancer is Benjamin Millepied).
The values of trust, tranquility, release, the qualities of the company are successfully conveyed...
Quote of the week: Mick Jagger on Facebook
Quote of the week: "I spend way too much time on Facebook."
Mick Jagger.
Mick Jagger.
Exclusive interview with Spanish designer Roberto Piqueras
I had the chance to interview with Roberto Piqueras, a Spanish emerging fashion designer who recently launched a 1992's Barcelona Olympic Games inspired collection.
When was your brand born?
My brand was born in 2007 when I moved to Madrid
Who, from the fashion or "creative world" do you take inspiration from?
One of my favourite fashion designers is Jean Charles de Castelbajac.
Are you originally from
Yes, I am from
Can you tell us about your latest collection and the impact of the 1992
In 1992 I was 7 years-old and I witnessed how everyone around the world was talking about
What are you expressing through your designs?
I wanted to show the funniest parts of clothes and fashion. I waned to design something
relaxed, not pretentious. This is why my brand looks “sporty” and “streety”.
Are you showing at
This time for the Summer 2012 collection I am going to be showing in
What are your upcoming projects?
Well, last week I won a prize with Burger King and they are going to help me work on my brand and show my new Winter 2012/13 collection during London Fashion Week. So right now I need to move there from
Where can we find your pieces?
In Barcelona you can find it in KR Store, in London at Primitive London, in Hong Kong at Voulez Vous & Gallery de Vie, online on my own onlinestore and soon on http://boysboysboys-shop.de/ and http://www.saturdayguy.com and for new summer 2012 season you can find it at WUT Berlin in Tokyo.
To finish with, what would you wish to this blog?
I wish an endless of posts with a lot of visits and love.
photos by César Segarra ( cesarsegarra.com )
More info on: www.robertopiqueras.com
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