ART IS ALIVE: Tori Amos

Showing posts with label Tori Amos. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tori Amos - Night of Hunters cover revealed

Sunday, May 8, 2011

Tori Amos’ new album: Night Of Hunters

I am beyond excitement to know that the great Tori Amos is releasing a new album which will be out in September!

Here’s how Tori describes the new record:
“It’s a 21st century song cycle inspired by classical music themes spanning over 400 years. I have used the structure of a song cycle to tell an ongoing, modern story. The protagonist is a woman who finds herself in the dying embers of a relationship. In the course of one night she goes through an initiation of sorts that leads her to reinvent herself allowing the listener to follow her on a journey to explore complex musical and emotional subject matter. One of the main themes explored on this album is the hunter and the hunted and how both exist within us.”

It sounds really interesting but let's wait a little more!

Friday, March 5, 2010

A bit of Tori at London Fashion Week - Bernard Chandran

I was so happy at the Bernard Chandran's show because not only were they giving Ferrero Rochers ;-) but also because among the crowd, was the talented Karen Binns, Editor and Publisher of What?! As Creative Consultant, Karen styled Chandran’s Autumn Winter 2010/11 collection.

Not only is Karen the Editor and Publisher of What?! but she's Tori Amos' stylist. And Tori Amos was then a bit among us at this show. What?! was on every seat and featured the beautiful, the amazing, the unique and so smart Tori. I've written about Tori in the past and how inspirational she is. I feel very close to Tori because we share the same references: TOOL and Viktor&Rolf.

She's been in my heart for a long time now and will always be.

Enjoy the pictures of the beautiful magazine and the Edito from Karen:

"One the cover of this issue we have my long-time friend and sista Tori Amos, which I guess speaks for itself. She is one of the most insanely attractive people of our time: singer, songwriter, producer and a true Goddess. Knowing and hanging out with Tori is like flying on a silver carpet with candied apples and red wine. She has been an inspiration to my creative being for the last 17 years. Tori is the true channeler of our times, her success is not from the size of her wardrobe but from the spirit of her blood. Her Goddess is always on tap.

She was born with that 'thing' you just can't purchase, manipulate or steal - it's orginial without a price. Not forgetting to mention her dedication to her charity/hotline RAINN - Rape, Absue, and Incest National Network (www.rainn.org)" Karen Binns.

The Bernard Chandran's catwalk was very interesting, with plenty of references to the Japanese Noh theatre. Very elegant. The music was also very funny. I am not sure a lot of people understood it. But I did since I am French ! Judge by yourself:

And now my video:

More info on: http://www.what-mag.co.uk/

Sunday, March 25, 2007

I LOVE VIKTOR & ROLF

In their beginning Viktor & Rolf were laughed at, or at least misunderstood, when they were explaining that their vision of fashion would be closer to contemporary art, than couture.
Today Viktor & Rolf are critically acclaimed and every medium needs to create a buzz around them, if they want to stay in. That is definitely because Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren are really talented artists, and therefore fascinating.

I know their artwork and design from a very long time, before flowerbomb, before the Tori Amos’ show, and of course before H&M. Thus so as to get rid of the "frustration" I feel around them getting mainstream, I will try to give them the credit they deserve and explain my vision of their art, with a long and decent post on that blog.

But first thank you Viktor & Rolf for fascinating me.

Tori Amos

In fact those designers have well integrated that the boundary between fashion, design, architecture and fashion is blurred. This can be first seen in the their physical resemblance. They consider themself as a single designer, in the direct line of contemporary artist such as Gilbert and George for example, who they are often compared with. Both born in 1969, as they pretend, in the Netherlands, life put them in the same class at the Arnhem Academy. Since then, Viktor&Rolf have been rethinking what fashion and art should be, mixing absurd element, constantly playing with clothes and fabrics, inventing real shows, and fascinating objects, or visuals of their shop.

Milan shop windows.

Viktor & Rolf made their first trip to Paris with Le Cri Néerlandais, a group of Dutch fashion modernists who were said to be the new Antwerp Six. After the disbandment of the group, Victor & Rolf carried on together, and were launched with remarkable success at the art and fashion festival in Hyères, where they won three prizes. That was in 1993.

The following year, they made their debut at the L'Hiver de L'Amour couture exhibition in Paris. But it was seven years before Viktor & Rolf produced their first commercial collection, Stars and Stripes. In between, they have refined their style with ballooning silhouettes, layered collars and experiments with tuxedos. And from having originally said they wanted to create everything out of nothing, their predilection for sampling fashion history is growing stronger: Dior's starched New Look is traceable in an ironically stiff Barbie skirt in Bells (2000), Balenciaga's cape silhouette is used in Black Hole (2001), and YSL's Le Smoking pops up here and there. Viktor & Rolf celebrated their tenth anniversary as fashion designers in 2003. However making money was necessary so as to have the chance to continue creating, in order to survive. In that context and open to any form of creation, their perfume “FlowerBomb” came out and has been a commercial success. L’Oréal helped them to make that product reality. In 2003 again, they increased their output and myth, moving into menswear.

In 2004, they moved again to the art field, exhibiting in Tokyo and Stockholm. And that is in 2006 that they became stars when they collaborated with H&M presenting a mini-collection around the topic of marriage. That was the first time H&M was selling a wedding dress. The wedding between art and fashion, the wedding between two individuals becoming "the single designer" they are...When one starts a sentence in an interview the other one finishes it, performing again, or just trying to make fun of the asker, as an Andy Warhol would have done...

At the same time of the presentation of the H&M collection and in a logical way, they launched their first perfume for men : "Antidote". The presentation was a real show, where Rufus Wainwright was invited to sing. We can remember that Tori Amos was also invited to one of their haute couture show. The launch show for "Antidote" was fascinating since it was orchestrated around a ballet of men wearing tuxedos and dancing a waltz. The same concept was once again explored : two men becoming one, Viktor & Rolf being the same person, art and fashion too.