I was thinking about yesterday’s post and recession style slogans and, while looking for a topic that could tie in nicely with it and maybe also touch upon my fashion and cinema obsession, Avsh Alom Gur came to my mind.
The London-based designer and freelance fashion consultant has so far created quite interesting collections in which glamour and street styles combined.
Gur's A/W 09 collection, presented in February during London Fashion Week at the Vauxhall Fashion Scout catwalk, is a mish-mash of optimistic looks and it also includes jumpsuits and evening dresses featuring ironic sequinned graffiti-like credit crunch slogans.
While I found rather interesting the tapestry-like floral prints in warm Autumnal colours and knitted dresses worn on top of ethereal long gowns that created clever contrasts between different fabric weights and densities, I must admit that it's the long tiered dresses and lavish ball gowns with exaggerated crinoline skirts in pale pink or with ballerina prints that caught my cinematic eye.
Both are indeed inspired by the costumes created by legendary Irene Sharaff’s for Deborah Kerr in Walter Lang’s 1956 film The King and I.
Sharaff - who, having won in her career five Oscars (one also for The King and I) is second only to Edith Head who received eight Academy Awards - designed indeed also the pink satin
hoop ballroom gown Kerr wears as she sings “Shall We Dance?”. Rather than being about the recession, Avsh Alom Gur’s A/W 09 collection is the perfect antidote to it, since it reminds us all that fashion’s main purpose is mainly to make people dream.
If you’re heading to Venice in the next few months and want to see some interesting installations and artworks connected with the Biennale check out The Fear Society - Pabellón de la Urgencia, a project by the Region of Murcia curated by Jota Castro.
From change to terrorist attacks, the future and financial crisis, all types of fears were tackled by the various artists who used their work to mirror the main issues of the frightening times we are living in.
One of my favourite installations connected with this project is Rainer Ganahl’s.
In a way Ganahl's work could be defined as "politically fashionable" and it's also linked with previous projects Ganahl presented at the Venice Biennale.
Inspired by the conflict in former Yugoslavia, Ganahl presented in 1999 an installation comprising 50 T-shirts entitled “Please, teach me ... 50 languages spoken in countries that don't have any Pavillion at the Venice Biennial”.
More T-shirt art followed with the Bush administration that inspired Ganahl to embroider on top of traditional "I (HEART) NY" T-shirts George Bush’s idioms.
The popular New York T-shirts recently reappeared in the current Fear Society project, but this time Ganahl simply painted on them words, terms and slogans associated with the crisis, from "Collateralized Debt Obligation" to "Credit Crunch", "Lehman Brothers", "Foreclosure" and "Credit Swaps".
While the T-shirts are exhibited on dummies, on the floor the artist has spread hundreds of red lipsticks, condoms and Rossana candies (a post will be dedicated to the legendary Italian Rossana candies one days and on my fascination with their bright ruby red paper that led me to make some accessories with them a while back) scattered around to form a big heart that calls to mind the symbol of the “I love NY” T-shirts.
In an interview on his site Ganahl explains that these products are profiting from the current crisis and have seen their sales volume increase by 30%, that’s why he decided to use them.
The installation is completed by a video in which Ganahl introduces himself in Chinese and goes through his project clad in a "I love NY/AIG bonuses" T-shirt, pretending he has worked for American insurance and financial service company AIG.
The Fear Society project is at the Arsenale Novissimo, Tese di San Cristoforo, Tesa 92, Venice, until 4th October, but if you fancy one of Ganahl’s T-shirts you can buy them through Artcycle and support in this way the 2010 Fashion in Film Festival (FFF).
You can get to know more about this project by reading my interview with Marketa Uhlirova, FFF director and curator, on Dazed Digital.
When I usually get bored or pissed off about something, I usually take refuge in experimenting with different materials, trying to come up with ideas for my own accessories and things like that.
In the last few days too many people and things annoyed me, so I have been following a different personal project to distract myself, developing an idea for a digital print.
I have always been fascinated by the transformations some materials can go through, and I found absolutely intriguing designs such as those ones created by Hussein Chalayan for his "The Tangent Flows" collection or by Martin Margiela for his 1997 exhibition at the Rotterdam-based Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Chalayan buried fabric with iron filings in a garden and dug it up six weeks later to see how the rusted iron had stained the fabric, while Margiela studied the processes of decay by saturating his designs with a growing medium called agar, spraying them with green mould, pink yeast and bacteria and then leaving the moulds and bacteria growing on the clothes.
In both the cases new clothes were transformed into old clothes, but in the latter the moulds and bacteria almost collaborated to the design project creating special patterns on the fabric. My original idea was developing digital prints with rotten fruit, but a rather clever worm disrupted my plan, showing it had more fashion sense than me.
The worm living inside my yellow apple hasn’t simply dug up a hole in the fruit in the style of the more famous “Very Hungry Caterpillar”, but it has been tracing quite an interesting path under the skin of the apple, leaving a brown trail behind it.
When you digitally retouch photographs and images of the apple by blowing them up and blurring them, the worm’s tunnels look like batik-style prints.
I guess that the idea of having a garment with a print made by a worm could have a metaphorical meaning: worms help with the process of decomposition, but by wearing a dress with a worm-made print it would be a little bit like having a worm digging out tunnels under your skin while you're still alive or it could be seen as a reference to the rotten corpse of global fashion capitalism.
Besides, in a world that tries to constantly make new things look extremely old and worn out by aging them, adding a patina of decay via a print genuinely made by a worm would probably be refreshing.
While I'm thinking about further metaphors between the decay/decomposition themes and worm prints, my designer worm has silently kept on digging its way through the apple and freaking out random family members and visitors who are encouraging me to throw the apple away to avoid the worm escaping from it and making its way through more fruit or plants lying around the house.
For the time being, though, I think I'll continue my experiment: I just want to see what my very hungry designer worm will do if it's left to its own devices for a few more days.
I find indeed amazing the way power influences fashion, but it’s also influenced by fashion at the same time.
I followed on the Internet different news programmes from various countries covering the G8 that took place in L’Aquila a few weeks ago and it was interesting to notice how the Italian ones seemed to be the most superficial.
I guess Italian audiences didn’t really understand what the leaders decided or discussed at the meeting, since all the news programme focused their attention on the dresses worn by the First Ladies and the presents Berlusconi gave to the guests (from pens to a G8 Belstaff jacket signed by Berlusconi…dear me, that’s a scary thought!).
I also found rather silly a piece published on The Telegraph that praised Sarah Brown's three wardrobe changes (one more horrendous than the other...).
By reading some articles you really thought that, rather than a chance to talk about the real problems of the world, the meeting was a great opportunity for the leaders and their partners to show off their wardrobes.
Italians always do it better, though, and politics, fashion and advertising were combined together in a great Machiavellian plan: the wife of the right-wing Rome mayor gave out as presents to the First Ladies ethical designer bags (obviously paid by the Rome municipality and not by herself...), a subtle way to convince Michelle Obama & Co. that Italians like fashion, but also respect people (if only it were true...), while indirectly advertising the AltaRoma event that took place a few days after the G8 and during which new bags from the same designer were presented in conjunction with a United Nations project.
If you want to know more about how fashion influenced politics, check out my interview on Dazed Digital with Jennifer Farley and Melissa Marra, co-curators of the “Fashion & Politics” exhibition that opened a few weeks ago at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology .
The exhibition - that will be on until 7th November - examines the fashion and politics link over 200 years.
Don't worry, though, luckily it doesn't include any "Berlusconi for Belstaff" jacket.
I went through some of my old records yesterday and found an early 7" from the Strawberry Switchblade.
I already mentioned the Glaswegian duo in a previous post, though in that case I remembered them in connection with other music icons who displayed a great style sense.
Yet, yesterday, while I looked at the record cover, I could only think about two words "Gothic Lolita".
Undoubtedly Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall's fashion sense must have influenced not only their fans, but also entire fashion/music/style movements.
Their polka dot tiered dresses, tulle skirts, lace tights, heavy make up and cascades or ribbons and flowers in their hair developed in more recent years into a slightly more disturbing mania that at times turns into a ridiculously hilarious obsession (I swear to you I had tears in my eyes while watching documentaries and videos about the Italian version of the "Gothic Lolitas"...). It's at
shame that, though quite a few blogs or sites mention the girls in
connection with the Gothic Lolitas, the duo is not acknowledged in
proper books about specific fashion trends that have become popular in
recent years and I'm not referring here only to the infamous Lolitas, but also to the comeback of a few 80s trends. I found the following interview with Jill and Rose on YouTube and I felt I just had to post it: it's brief and rather silly, but the interviewer asks the girls quite a few questions about their clothes so it’s interesting from a fashion/style point of view.
There are quite a few Saints' Days in the Italian calendar that are considered as rather important.
Some of them are celebrated nationally and provide Italians with an extra day of holiday or two, but also give people the chance to rediscover particular traditions, since a few celebrations are accompanied by specific rituals such as processions and religious services, or special meals and foods.
I was named Anna after my maternal grandmother so St Anne's Day (26th of July) was always celebrated in my family. I admit that, when I was very young, I used my name day to extort a few presents from my family, but I justified my greed with the fact that my birthday falls on New Year's Day, so my Christmas and birthday present usually merged leaving me with (almost) nothing else for the rest of the year.
Anyway, despite not asking, I got a present from my brother today. Well, actually I got four little presents, four soft vinyl zipper pulls from the Mr Shane Jessop Vs Kidrobot's "Things that Hurt" series.
Members of my family, close relationships and acquaintances know that I can become passionately angry about some specific topics (one is politics...) apart from being extremely stubborn and ready to beat up people who annoy me.
I know, that's not very lady-like, but I admit I had a more terroristic attitude about life and people when I was younger and it's in honour of my, well, latent violence that my brother got me a dark green bomb, a bright orange missile, a silvery razor blade and a little bag of money (well, you always need a little bit of money to get on in life, especially if you want to invest it in your creative projects....).
The idea behind the zipper pullers and the "Things that Hurt" jewellery designed by Tarina Tarantino (click here and scroll down to see it) is actually redefining the notion of pain and giving peace a chance. I have incorporated the zipper pulls into a bracelet I often wear, so that I can remember to moderate my temper and give peace more than just one chance.
You can get the pull zippers from the Kidrobot Shop page, though my brother got them from a French shop called Les Princes de la Bulle, specialised in design toys. The shop has got its own MySpace page and also sells on eBay.
If you have been following this blog you may have realised that millinery is one of my personal interests.
I do like vintage hats but my favourite hat remains a military beret from the Italian army that I stole my brother when he finished his military service.
I had it for over 15 years now and for over a decade it has wonderfully protected my head through many violent rainstorms, especially in Glasgow.
Throughout the years the beret attracted a lot of attention, in fact it also attracted the unwanted attention of a weird guy, an ex-British army soldier and ex-French Foreign Legion member who tried to guess at a bus stop in Glasgow where the hat came from (apparently he could guess where a beret came from its colour, shape and way it was worn…). I thought nobody else in Glasgow could compete with my beret, but I was obviously wrong.
The images show a man wearing a rather interestingly sculpted hat.
Frank thought it was rather clever the way the man chose for his impromptu hat a material in the same colour, though in a slightly different shade, of his jacket, but I found rather amazing the way he seemed to have sculpted the hat in a rather architectural way (undoubtedly the shape helps the rain drops sliding down...).
He could have worn a plastic bag or a newspaper sheet on his head to protect himself from the rain, but he seems to have made an effort.
It looks like a wonderful example of impromptu urban millinery, don’t you think so?
A team of film experts (among them also British director Ben Robinson who appeared in a previous Diabolik-al post on this blog) is a present putting the final touches to the programme of the Tribeca Film Festival in Doha, Qatar.
Modelled on the New York City Tribeca Festival, the event promises to be rather exciting since it will offer the chance of seeing films by both established and debuting directors and it will help building cultural bridges between different cultures.
On the festival site you will find an interesting list of TFF films from the region that will allow cinema lovers to be introduced to various themes, directors and actors.
My favourite film from this list is Maryam Khakipour's Siah Bâzi: The Joy Makers (2005).
Some of you may remember it since it was premiered in North America at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival.
When this film came out it actually made me think about the political situation in Italy and how, just a few years before Khakipour's film was released, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi banned from the State TV all the comedians who made fun of him. In a way, despite the film told a story that happened in another country, I felt I could somehow relate to it.
Siah Bâzi is the name for a traditional Iranian performance. Its players usually performed in people’s homes so that in this way they could satirise any kind of government. Yet the troupe on which Khakipour’s documentary is based worked in Tehran's Nasr Theater.
Siah Bâzi actors usually play different characters, who are somehow similar to the characters from the Italian Commedia dell’Arte. They are dressed in bright costumes, sport heavy make up rather than masks and play well defined roles.
One of these actors is called “The Black” for example and acts a little bit like his Italian counterpart, prankster servant Harlequin. "The Black" comments upon society and makes a satire of the political situation in Iran, representing in a way ordinary people (you can see a very short clip featuring "The Black" here).
In Khakipour's film when the Iranian government orders to shut the theatre, the members of the Nasr Theater company find themselves wondering what will happen to them - careers as cab and truck drivers or tea servers are looming in - and to their country.
The film is even more relevant in the current political climate in Iran, but it also makes viewers ponder a bit about irony, humour and satire in their own countries and about how different political powers tried to kill them for their own sake.
The Doha Tribeca Film festival will take place from 29th October to 1st November 2009 and be presented at Doha’s new Museum of Islamic Art and in cinemas across Doha.
This is a box of Sicilian minerals I saw a while back at my brother’s. I always liked minerals, especially pieces that looked from the outside rather dull but, once broken, they revealed a wonderfully bright universe made of different shades and nuances and of amazing crystals.
When I saw the box I was actually struck by the electric blue coveline, the green-turquoise malachite and the orangey mimetite.
I also loved the smooth texture of the black obsidian pieces.
On a closer inspection I decided I was mesmerised by each single piece, even the rather simple white calcite, the brownish pumice lava and the sparkling crystals of the sulphur and ematite rocks. I thought I could dedicate a post to a couple of the minerals one day, maybe focusing on their colours or texture, but then I found Cala Ossidiana’s swimwear collection and decided to combine in a single post the mineral inspiration with a brief analysis of this brand’s creations. "Cala" literally means “beach” and “ossidiana” stands for "obsidian", the smooth black mineral so common on the Aeolian Islands and in particular on the Lipari island.
This mineral was used even during the Neolithic era and, by exporting it, the island became rather wealthy.
Unfortunately, though, the mineral became less vital to the economy of the island around 2500 b.C. when metals were discovered.
Cala Ossidiana’s 2009 swimwear collection features bathing suits in black, bright turquoise and white that remind me of obsidian, coveline and calcite.
One of the inspirations behind the collection was obsidian flowing from volcanoes in Lipari, but I think that minerals didn't only influence the main colours chosen for the bathing suits and bikinis, but also the motifs that characterise some of them.
The 2009 collection features for example one swimsuit available both in black and bright coveline blue characterised by a knotted motif on the back that makes me think about the configuration of crystals in minerals; the design of a solid black Lycra bikini with chiffon-like mesh inserts reminds me instead of the texture of obsidian.
Cala Ossidiana Creative Director Anne Pachan is also a knitwear expert and she has developed her own consulting knitwear business, so the knotted motifs of her swimwear could also be a reference to the experimental spider web-like knits that have currently become so popular in many recent collections.
Pachan added a touch of humour to the collection through a lighter inspiration, poolside memories from the 80s with girls from diving teams layering one costume on top of another.
You can keep up to date with Cala Ossidiana’s latest news by following Pachan's blog.
The latest Cala Ossidiana collection is available on NJAL's site.
There's only one dilemma left to solve now: shall I have to return the mineral box to my brother?
While I try to sort out my "mineral dilemma", I'm going to leave you with this montage from Michelangelo Antonioni's L'avventura(The Adventure, 1960) that features quite a few landscapes surrounding the Aeolian islands.
The exhibition “Undercover – the Evolution of Underwear”, that opened last month at London’s Fashion and Textile Museum (FTM), chronicles the development of underwear from functional item to weapon of mass seduction, while offering a glimpse of the newest and most innovative lingerie products.
To celebrate the main theme of the exhibition and also raise awareness about breast cancer, La Perla, the lingerie company founded by Ada Masotti in 1954 in Bologna, has produced a limited edition boudoir macramé mask (£29) and a delicate leavers lace corset-style cuff (£25) to be sold exclusively at the FTM shop. All proceedings will go to Breast Cancer Care, the charity that has been providing for over 30 years information and practical and emotional support to women affected by breast cancer, reaching out to over 1 million people every year. “La Perla has been instrumental in taking lingerie from a merely functional level to a vital part of the fashion universe, while representing the style and quality of made in Italy products,” Beatriz Ferretti, La Perla Communications Director, recently explained me via email. “Through our products we try to highlight femininity and enhance the female body and Breast Cancer Care raises awareness about a condition that can strike a part of women’s body, so we realised the charity was our ideal partner in such a project.”
The mask and cuff were designed by the La Perla creative team that was faced with a main challenge: creating small accessories with the most precious materials inspired by the company’s previous collections.
“The mask was made with the soutache technique that allows to create beautiful swirling arabesque motifs, while the leavers lace cuff was directly inspired by the design of corsets,” Ferretti told me. While choosing the materials and styles for the two accessories was important, the main aim of the project remains fighting against breast cancer, promoting early detection. “We have already taken part in other charity projects and we hope in future to develop further international collaborations along these lines,” Ferretti explained, “our mission is being women’s allies and help them taking care of their femininity, so we genuinely hope this project will contribute to raise awareness about breast cancer.”
“Undercover: The Evolution of Underwear” is at the Fashion and Textile Museum until 27th September 2009.
