Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

Of Futurists and Futuristi: David Koma A/W 2010-11

The first thing that came to my mind when I first saw David Koma’s Spring/Summer 2010 collection was Stephen Willats’ PVC dress with variable sheets.

Originally created in 1965, Willats' designs were made up of a series of differently coloured PVC panels that could be zipped up together to create coats and dresses, while geometric Perspex elements could also be applied to the panels to customise the garments and the wearers or the people who interacted with them could insert into the clear plastic panels of the dresses a series of purposefully designed words.

Willats’ "Multiple Clothing" project was a sort of sociological study that combined together cybernetics and self-organising systems.

Koma’s predilection for appliquéd glass decorations in vibrant shades of blue, red and yellow made by artisans based in Saint  Petersburg, and his "cyborg-meets-Art Deco" jewellery pieces first made me think about this connection with Willats.

For that collection Koma claimed he had taken inspiration from architect Antonio Gaudi and art nouveau, but also from one of his fashion heroes,  Pierre Cardin.

References to the Italian-born designer and to his futuristic creations were clear in the three-dimensional glass reliefs applied by Koma on the fabric that created innovative architectural and curvilinear motifs on body-hugging mini-dresses and tops.

After seeing various celebrities - Megan Fox, Cheryl Cole, Beyoncé, Rihanna and Lady Gaga included - wearing David Koma's dresses, I was honestly worried to see what he would have come up with.

It's indeed unfortunately very easy for young designers to burn out after being favoured by famous singers and actresses.

Yet the 25 year old designer born in Georgia, grown up in Saint Petersburg and currently working in London where he also studied and where he won the Harrods Design Award with his 2009 MA graduate collection at Central Saint Martins, showed celebrities are not all and proved he is completely focused on his work and on how to incorporate interesting inspirations in his designs.

Unperturbed by the many celebrities who picked his designs last year to appear on TV shows and stage performances, Koma presented one of the strongest collections showcased during this edition of London Fashion Week.

Last Friday on the runway of the Vauxhall Fashion Scout show, Koma left behind his colourfully futuristic designs and turned to a more arty type of futurism.

Behind Koma’s sculpturally tailored black, grey and nude body-con dresses with zig-zagging motifs and jagged edges in wool, leather and suede that ran around the body, breaking it up in halves, revealing the skin underneath and turning it into an iconic part of the design, behind the silver and gold zips twisted and whirled around the body to create stegosaurus-like spikes, there was the art of the Italian futurists and in particular of painter, sculptor and illustrator Fortunato Depero and of Umberto Boccioni, painter, sculptor and theorist of the Futurismo. 

Koma's zig-zagged designs called to mind Depero’s painting "Fulmine Compositore" (Lightning Composer, 1926) and his sketches for pencil ads (1925).

The spikes made out of zips reminded instead of Boccioni’s studies in the continuity of space and his sculpture "Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio" (Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913).

In the latter Boccioni harmonised speed and force into a sculptural form, creating a figure that strides forward leaving behind fluidly aerodynamic ripples, curves and lines.

In his designs Koma did the same, trying to recreate the movement in Boccioni statue and that perfect synthesis between human being and machine.

As Koma's models walked across the runway the designs they wore turned into three-dimensional portraits of a powerful body in action and the zip spikes gave a sense of visually strong dynamism.

It was refreshing to see such tailored interpretations of futurism and, hopefully, in his next collections Koma will come up with more intriguing incarnations of equally interesting inspirations. 

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Visions of Darkness and Alchemical Tempests of Light

If you love black, you probably also like the work of Pierre Soulages. There is at the moment an interesting retrospective at the Paris-based Centre Pompidou about the French painter, engraver and sculptor famous for celebrating in his works the black colour and studying the effects it gives out when light reflects upon it or when the colour is applied to different textures to create in this way interesting contrasts.

Darkness turns into brightness in Soulages’ monochromatic paintings in which the artist developed his outré-noir concept.

The latter was actually the first thing that came to my mind after seeing a few collections for the Autumn/Winter 2010 season that prevalently focused on the black colour.

The first collection is the one designed by Canadian Rad Hourani.

Having launched his label only three years ago, Hourani’s story is a successful one and in New York he presented a convincing – both from the design and the retail point of view – black collection.

His silhouettes are still not well-balanced since matching skinny trousers, cycling shorts or leggings with rectangular jackets didn’t always work, but Hourani is on his way to develop a precise and controlled aesthetic through asymmetrically symmetrical motifs criss-crossed by zips.

Layering jackets and tops one on top of the other and zipping/unzipping them to create further layered origami-like effects was a clever trick as it didn’t allow you to discover where a garment began and the other ended, while, incorporating in the same jacket leather and wool panels or adding glamorous notes thanks to rows of sequins, gave the wearer a sort of tactile experience à la Soulages.

Hourani clearly derives some of his gothic-noir inspirations from Rick Owens and at times there was a lack of variation, yet he seems to have enough talent to get free from his influences and find his own way.

In London Hannah Marshall opted for a black and midnight blue palette for her designs in stretch velvet and leather that at times called to mind the 80s.

There were interesting references to strong and powerful icons such as Grace Jones in the second skin body suits with cut outs and slashes and sculpted shoulders and in some cases Marshall took further the idea of conceptual armours seen in her previous collections, designing mini-dresses encased in a sort of orbiting structure made of concentric circles (you can obviously already imagine Lady Gaga in it...).

Yet, though there were one or two interesting inspirations, Marshall will have to strengthen her tailoring skills which at the moment are still rather weak.     

There was definitely more variation at Jean-Pierre Braganza's catwalk show where black was alternated with maroon and with graphic blue, orange, black and white prints that evoked Alexander McQueen’s while metallic studs and beads, feathers and leather inserts were used as decorations.

Yet the best thing about Braganza’s slightly sculptural collection that referenced sci-fi and the new architectural language of Walter Gropius, was the fact that it featured designs aimed at a younger and hip audience and garments with a relaxed and softer silhouette that may appeal to more mature women.  

Everything started with black at threeASFOUR with a collection inspired by alchemy, since this colour evoked the consistency of lead, iron and tin.

The palette moved then onto mercury, silver, copper and gold. Bronze braided structures enveloped the body, radically altering it while body stockings and leggings provided a clean silhouette when worn over coats, dresses and tunics characterised by coiling motifs that called to mind the consistency of molten metals.

The atmosphere was almost militaristic as the dresses were shown by models landing on the runway en masse as if they were aliens invading the earth.

As a collection it was maybe a bit too avant-garde, but it will surely provide and an interesting alternative to the next season's darker designs.

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From Halston to Marios Schwab (via The Eyes of Laura Mars)

Roy Halston Frowick is usually considered as the designer who put American fashion on the map.

Born in 1932 in Iowa, Halston moved to New York City in the late 50s and started working as a milliner.

After shooting to fame when Jacqueline Kennedy wore one of his pillbox hats at her husband's presidential inauguration, Halston moved on, becoming a fully fledged womenswear designer well-known for his minimalist and streamlined creations, rather popular among celebrities such as Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Elizabeth Taylor.

The designer died in 1990 and, in recent years, attempts were made at resurrecting his fashion label.

In 2008 it was Marco Zanini’s turn, though things didn’t work out and he was soon replaced by a team of designers. Then came the appointment of a new creative director, Greek-born and London-based Marios Schwab.

The recipient of the Young Designer of the Year prize at the 2006 British Fashion Awards, Schwab became rather popular in the last few years for his interesting creations characterised by striking sculptural elements.

Schwab presented his first collection for the seminal American label during the latest edition of New York Fashion Week, launching it with a warehouse installation in Manhattan’s West Side.

Apparently both the inspiration for the collection palette – comprising electric blue, saffron yellow, bright red, emerald green, aubergine and more muted shades such as light and dove grey – and the set design came from cinema and precisely from 1978 thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars directed by Irvin Kershner.

It was somehow impossible not to wish that such a film could have inspired maybe a slightly more nightmarish and visionary/visual chaos à la Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen, but everything was rather tamed, as if the main inspiration for the collection hadn't been developed as much as possible and as well as it could have been.

The stylised violence fashion photographer Laura Mars injected in her images in the film was indeed missing (unless you consider the cut out motifs as metaphors for slashes...) while the attention focused (at least on the set of the installation) on mirrors, important elements in Kershner's film.

There were very few references to Halston, apart from the echoes in the long and fluid evening halter-neck dresses. Indeed, in his attempt to modernise the label Schwab decided not to check out the archives, coming up with short dresses with sculptural details, cut out motifs or appliquéd beads and crystals.

The designer made an effort, but some of the shapes and silhouettes and innovative materials such as neoprene used next to wool, leather, silk jersey and crepe satin, reminded in their almost architectural details of Schwab’s own designs.

A yellow belted cape called to mind 70s fashion while the short grey coats with fur inserts and sleeves and leather brown dresses were distant references Halston’s more muted palette for his hostess uniforms.

The felt helmets didn’t convince, but interesting notes were added by the boots with slits, sandals with chunky padded straps and sculptural jewellery by Jacqueline Rabun.

As a whole the collection wasn’t bad, but it lacked variation and it wasn’t enough to resurrect a fashion line, in the same way as it’s not enough having enlisted actress Sarah Jessica Parker as the "creative consultant" (a job usually involving a celebrity checking out what's in his/her own wardrobe and mixing it with something found in a defunct fashion house archives or seen on fashion magazines...) for the Halston Heritage line.

Begging celebrities, actresses, models, singers, TV presenters and other obnoxious famous people to jump on board and design a collection doesn’t always guarantee high sales in the shops: it would definitely be much more refreshing to leave famous people where they are and let young and talented designers do their jobs.

That said it would also be advisable not to resurrect defunct fashion houses: better to have a glorious past than an embarrassingly disappointing future.   

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The Colour of Pomegranates Vs Alexandre Herchcovitch

Cinema lovers will certainly know the unique work of Soviet Armenian film director Sergei Parajanov.

Censored, banned and arrested in his country, Parajanov was instead revered by the international community of directors - comprising Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut, Luis Buñuel, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Andrei Tarkovsky and Pier Paolo Pasolini - for the visual quality and power of his films.

One of Parajanov’s most famous films, universally considered as a masterpiece, is Sayat Nova, shot in 1968.

Banned by the Soviet censors, the film was re-edited by Parajanov and renamed The Color of Pomegranates.

The film is an unconventional biography of Armenian gusan (a word used to describe a folk singer-songwriter and poet) Haroutiun Sayakian, better known as Sayat Nova or “King of Songs”, born in 1712 in the village of Sanahin.

Sayat Nova’s life is indeed told through Parajanov’s imagination and visions as a long series of tableaux, from the poet’s childhood spent working as apprentice to a weaver, to his role as royal musician and poet at the court of Heracle II, his life as a monk and his death.

The film became famous for Parajanov’s use of vividly bright colours, symbolisms, religious iconography and elaborate Armenian costumes and accessories (created in collaboration with Georgian painter, graphic artist, costume designer and theatre set decorator Elena Akhvlediani), employed as the main elements to tell a visually powerful story.

The tableaux that form the narration are almost woven one after the other, forming a cinematic tapestry and evoking the art of weaving, and important trade in the Armenian peasant community. 

Fashion is something definitely less hieratical compared to a film such as The Colour of Pomegranates, but it was interesting to see how Brazilian designer Alexandre Herchcovitch tried to inject into his usually urban and sporty designs a little bit of Parajanov’s art.

Moving from the director's work, Herchcovitch embellished his dresses with chains, studs, appliquéd motifs and embroideries that called to mind folk costumes; created contrasts by matching casual red and black plaid tops and jackets with heavily embellished trousers; overloaded silk printed shirts with cascades of scale-like sequins; reinvented crocheting by decorating it with rubber details and crystals and adding a few frayed hems and completed the looks with elaborate headdresses adorned with thick wood chains.

It was maybe a 'punk meets Yves Saint Laurent's 1976-77 'Ballets Russes' collection meets The Colour of Pomegranate' collection, but it worked rather well and it showed that Herchcovitch has grown up and become able to mix urban and casual with more stylish, opulent and elegantly cinematic inspirations. 

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Rag and Bone Girls: Rodarte A/W 2010-11

Rag and bone men always fascinated me. Over ten years ago, when I first visited the Sharmanka Gallery in Glasgow I silently stood in front of one of the kinetic sculptures made by Eduard Bersudsky called “Rag and Bone Man” and contemplated it for quite a few minutes, trying to spot all the little objects the artist had incorporated in that unique piece.

Ragpickers collected rags and scraps to transform them into other things or trade them and that’s why - cultural critic Walter Benjamin docet - these figures are a sort of inspiration for creative types and in particular for fashion designers.

Creating something new while scavenging the old, reusing ideas and materials from the past are often seen as the first stages of a fashion designer’s modus operandi.

In many ways Rodarte fit this image and they can be considered as “rag and bone girls”.

Kate and Laura Mulleavy seem to be able to pick up every kind of fabric and material and incorporate them all together in one of their designs: floral and checked fabrics are mixed with ethereal chiffons and soft silky textiles; cobweb-like knits are matched with lace and woollen plaids.

Everything is wrapped, draped and layered on the models’ bodies while the edges and hems of the garments look tattered and torn, fragilely fraying, as if the garments had been eaten by very original and stylish moths.

The Mulleavys followed again their signature style in their A/W 2010-11 collection, leaving behind their fierce amazons this time and looking for different inspirations in the Texas-Mexican border town of Juarez and in the local shift workers heading half asleep to their factories in the early hours of the morning.

Rodarte’s girls had therefore hastily dressed while still sleeping and that was the explanation behind the layered cardigans and wrapped jackets worn on ethereal and romantic dresses.

The general mood was lighter and more optimistic with delicate floral dresses and skirts worn with embroidered sheer leggings and matched with intricately loose knitted sweaters and crocheted cardigans.

Hems lengthened this time and the palette lightened including faded earthy tones and more romantic shades such as opaque apricot and nude.

It was definitely less apocalyptic than their Spring/Summer 2010 collection, but the spooky ghosts of Juan Rulfo’s seminal and unsettling novel Pedro Páramo seemed to be echoed in the immaculate white evening dresses with fringes of pearls that closed the show and in the fluorescent patterns and fluorescent heels of Nicholas Kirkwood for Rodarte shoes.

Undoubtedly the Mulleavys are gifted with the vision and imagination young minds have, but they are somehow committing one mistake, repeating themselves.

Able to replicate their wrapped and tattered patchwork designs in hundreds of different versions, textiles and colours, the design duo should now maybe prove that, apart from wrapping fabrics around the body and create some wonderfully swirling motifs that even Valentino wants to copy, they are also able to actually cut clothes.

Original and intriguing, the sisters should maybe stop for a second and ponder about "Quicktake", the exhibition that currently celebrates them at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.

It's time for the girls to realise that in the dynamically and relentlessly fast world of fashion, it's easy to shoot to fame and even easier to burn out, exactly like the charred remains of their designs that close the "Quicktake" installation.

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Muted Stripe Comeback

If you leaf through fashion history books that feature designs from the mid-to-late 1800s, you will find quite a few examples of vertically or horizontally striped dresses.

Chintz and muslin dresses in colourful and cheerful or more subdued stripes or with striped sleeves were in fact rather popular at the time, especially in dresses characterised by fitted bodices and voluminous skirts.

I’ve always been fascinated by such designs and I also have a small collection of interesting black and white images from this period of time, comprising drawings and photographs, that are quite useful if you want to draw comparisons and find connections with contemporary collections.

I actually resorted to these images after seeing some of the looks for the next season.

During Copenhagen Fashion Week, Stine Goya employed large vertical stripes in her trousers and jumpsuits characterised by a loose and relaxed silhouette and in her sharply tailored skirts.

The Danish designer matched such pieces with black or grey garments, while bursts of vibrant mustard yellow, intense cinnamon and delicate wisteria added lively splashes here and there and prints of dreamy and barren landscapes called to mind the main theme of the collection, entitled “La Ville Fantôme” and inspired by landscape photographer Ansel Adams and painter Georgia O‘Keefe, the artists who met for the first time in New Mexico in 1929 and shared a mutual love and admiration for the natural world.

Stripes got horizontal in New York: Marc Jacobs' collection featured a fur top and skirt in a sort of striped tweed pattern while a striped cropped jacket in shades of light and dark grey provided a break from the military mood on the Marc by Marc Jacobs' runway (take note, that's the sort of garment you will see soon at a Zara/H&M near you...).

It was also interesting to see the stripy treatment being applied to fur.

Dennis Basso designed rather classic voluminous fox fur coats and jackets completed by alligator and raccoon mitts, but added a bit of innovation by replicating striped motifs in chinchilla capelets, coats and cropped jackets.

Basso's experiments weren't as innovative as Chado Ralph Rucci's though.

Rucci is well known for the exquisite and sophisticated details of his designs and for the techniques he employs to create them.

In his collection for the next season the designer played with sheer/matte dichotomies, mixing tulle and jersey and applied fur stripes on an organza coat, allowing the wearer to reveal a little bit of skin and employing in this way the old stripey trick to create a sort of optical illusion and achieve a sexier look.

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A Furry Affair: from Copenhagen to New York Fashion Week

Animal rights campaigners may not like the news, but real fur has definitely become fashionable again.

Twenty-five years ago a fur coat or jacket was conceived as a status symbol since it proved you were wealthy enough to afford such a luxurious garment.

As time passed and people became more environmentally conscious, furs went out of fashion: ladies clad in furs at opera opening nights were often pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables, paint balls and other assorted staining and offending weapons.

As a consequence, guilt free ecological furs became rather popular: in the last few years shops were flooded with well-crafted imitations of furs, but also with extremely cheap ones in 100% synthetic fibres produced by big clothing retailers, the sort of garments that could turn you into the Human Torch out of the Fantastic Four if you wore it next to an open flame.

Most ecological furs failed in their attempt to recreate the softness, warmth and lusciousness of the real thing and, soon, consumers turned again to the real thing.

Nowadays even consumers who try to respect animal rights seem to prefer the real thing, opting for vintage furs, since, after all, it’s probably more ecological reusing a second-hand fur coat than buying a new ecological fur made in China exploiting the local population.

The latest Autumn/Winter 2010 fashion shows have confirmed that buying vintage is not enough, though, and furs seem to be back with a vengeance on many runways.

The most interesting thing about this fur comeback is that many designers who opted for it actually tried to use it in innovative ways or to carry out quite interesting "furry" experiments. 

You may approve or disapprove using fur, but it must be acknowledged that quite a few companies have reached new stages in the production of fur designs, coming up with extremely light coats and jackets that can be easily folded in a case, creating intricate intarsia looking motifs by shaving fur or employing the material in conjunction with alternative fibres.

During the latest Copenhagen Fashion Week – one of the most interesting editions organised so far that managed to attract many journalists from quite a few different countries, despite it coinciding with New York Fashion Week – the largest fur skin auction house and the centre of the international fur trade, Kopenhagen Fur, organised a fashion show to introduce the most interesting and innovative fur based designs by local labels and brands.

A graduate of London’s Royal College of Art, milliner Søren Bach developed in the last two years couture collections including extraordinary fur designs that were often featured in many editorials.

One of his designs was also showcased during Stephen Jones’ "Hats: An Anthology" exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum.

At Copenhagen Fashion Week, Bach sent out on the runway models clad in fetishistic rubber body suits wearing on their heads extravagantly oversized ushankas, towering black headdresses with red rose motifs matched with arm pieces and ball-shaped bangles, white berets and white and red fur roses worn around the head in the fashion of a crown of thorns.

E&L Lundqvist, a company specialised in exclusive accessories, turned its trademark floral hair clasps, brooches and decorations into colourful fur roses worn as headdresses, bracelets or to enrich sock garters.

Both Elise Gug and Whiite focused on experimenting with extremely light and functional pieces, turning fur coats into light short sleeved cardigans or thin and cropped astrakhan jackets, while Benedikte Utzon went for an almost couture approach showcasing extremely short or long astrakhan dresses.

Louise Amstrup mixed her dresses and shirts with prints evoking nuclear explosions with frayed knits and scarves decorated with bits and pieces of fur and worn with see-through tops and well-tailored skirts and trousers and integrated black feathers to create rather theatrical designs.

While renewing womens’ fur-based designs can be trick, bringing innovation into menswear without falling into tacky traps is even harder.

Yet young Danish designers showed they are perfectly able to do it and their final results were in many cases much more intriguing than what you see on the runways of more established designers.

Christian Westphal used fur and astrakhan inserts in his biker’s jackets worn with drop crotch pants. The contrast between the fitted silhouette of the jacket and the relaxed shaped of the trousers could have been a disaster, but Westphal balanced it all well.

Already known for his well fitting tailored designs, David Andersen decided to take his experiments further by shrinking his silhouettes even more.

Andersen's sharp jackets, sweaters, gloves and leggings decorated with hundreds of metal spikes were references to his fascination with punk.

Yet the black fur stoles draped on the shoulders of a red jacket or wrapped around his models' necks in the fashion of a voluminous knitted scarf conjured up visions of modern and rebel dandies.

More fur trends were spotted on the New York Fashion Week runways.

Carolina Herrera showcased as usual designs aimed at more mature women, yet she opted for interesting combinations of camel and sable in her jackets and coats, while Thakoon Panichgul revolutionised classic designs by using a mix of different furs, from mink to fox and raccoon.

The designer employed fur to line his bomber jackets and boots, wrapped it around the ankles of models wearing horse skin shoes, used it to decorate sleeves and hoods and create contrasts with other materials such as wool.

The best results were achieved in fur patchwork jackets, tiger print dresses trimmed with matching fur, cropped jackets paired with see-through tops and furry hooded jackets-cum-capes worn with ruffled mini-dresses.

Thakoon managed to infuse into his fur designs a much needed exuberance and youthfulness, opting for a gentle fullness rather than an unnecessary bulkiness. 

The same could actually be said about Bibhu Mohapatra’s fur designs, though while most Thakoon's looks were more casual, Mohapatra's were more elegant and stylish, and this was also due to his cinematic references.

The designer claimed indeed he was influenced by Bertolucci's Il Conformista and Lang's Metropolis: there were actually echoes of the former in the perfectly-cut suits with fur collars and the voluminous fur coats in powdery tones that reminded of Anna and Giulia's style in Bertolucci's movie; Lang's masterpiece was instead hiding in the robotic yet sexy designs with asymmetrical lines and corset-like details.

Among Mohapatra’s best experiments there were tailored cardigans and coats trimmed with fur.

Marc Jacobs is definitely a genius, but this definition should be attributed to him not because of the extreme originality of what he does, but because he manages to sell the fashion media practically everything he does and says.

After his colourful collections inspired by the 80s showcased in front of celebrity packed audiences during well-staged and immaculately styled catwalks, rather than talking about depressing financial or creative crises to justify his no fuss-show, Jacobs claimed new is so passé and you don’t really need to create new designs continuously. Simply genius, especially after McQueen's death and the loss of the last designer able to create truly extraordinary fashion shows.

In a way you wish the media listened more to tortured talented artists  stuck in a creative rut (who may not have any financial backers...) than to Jacobs. 

The designer turned to his own archives, pillaging and remixing them, coming up with a rather conservative look comprising A-line coats, delicate cardigans enriched with embroideries and sequins, thick Aran sweaters paired with mismatched velvety calf-length skirts and accessorised with ankle socks and low-heeled pumps.

Voluminous fur-collared coats abounded and so did small, medium and large handbags that looked like sporrans or were covered in mini-fur pompoms, and matched with the most subdued looks in grey tones (the main palette of the collection interrupted every now and then by a splash of lemon yellow) to make them look more luxurious. 

As a whole the collection was the physical incarnation of  the soundtrack: the latter featured different versions of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", and the former showed a reinterpretation of a few successful looks that will sell well because we're all too scared to actually ask Jacobs, if it's so passé creating something new, why bothering doing a new collection that looks like a womanly and subdued remix of your best ones when you can wear your vintage Marc Jacobs?

There is a very thin line between innovating menswear and ridiculing it and Thom Browne has sadly managed to step over to the dark side.

His designs weren’t spared the "fur treatment" but, while in Copenhagen young menswear designers focused on sensible and wearable yet innovative creations, Browne went for outlandish and unnecessary experiments.

After shrinking the silhouette, the designer shortened the trousers even more and dilated jackets and coats, turned jumpers into maxi-dresses and decorated his outerwear with braids in his signature red, white and blue stripes.

While some of the results were rather pleasant to the eye, the cropped trousers, jackets and, well, dresses, with fringes of raccoon tails, the "Jacqueline Kennedy meets David Crockett" pillbox hat complete with tail and fur trimmed coat with fur collar worn with matching earmuffs (the perfect look for the nerdy pimp...) were enough to turn a passionate fur lover into a staunch animal campaigner and should be filed among the worst fashion crimes ever committed against many defenceless raccoons.

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Book Review: My Wonderful World of Fashion by Nina Chakrabarti

It’s usually rather difficult to find a fashion book that appeals to both children and grown ups: the former are usually not so interested in proper fashion books and may actually be tempted to start ripping out the pages of expensive books or colour in stylish black and white images; the latter, being passionate about extremely arty and, at times boring, thick volumes, may not be enthusiastic about "dress up your paper doll" activities. 

Having maybe identified a gap in the market, Nina Chakrabarti came up with a book entitled My Wonderful World of Fashion (Laurence King, 2009) that has the potential of becoming a favourite among many fashionistas.

The Calcutta-born and London-based illustrator who studied at Central Saint Martins and the Royal College of Art, filled the pages of this reasonably sized volume with fashion inspired drawings and activities that the readers can complete.

The book features "join the dots" sketches that will reveal cute shades, blank pages on which the readers will be able to draw their favourite/most extravagant footwear, create intricate prints for textiles, dresses, tights or headscarves or design their favourite bag, hat, gloves and masks.

Through her drawings and illustrations, the author also gives practical suggestions to the readers on how to tie dye a T-shirt, customise a jacket with patches, beads and sequins or make button, safety pin and paperclip accessories.

You could argue that some of the suggestions are maybe a little bit too obvious, but you must remember that the book is also aimed at young readers who may want to try a few fashionable experiments and wear them as soon as possible.

Chakrabarti also pays homage to history with her own renditions of the best moments in fashion, from Elsa Schiaparelli’s shoe hat to Salvatore Ferragamo’s leather and cork ankle-strap multi-coloured platform sandal designed for Judy Garland in 1938, Hussein Chalayan's wood and metal corset, Tokio Kumagaï’s surreal flats inspired by Constantin Brâncuşi’s statue "The Kiss" and Marc Jacobs's mouse pumps.

Chakrabarti’s illustrations and activities - mainly based on object compositions and featuring intricate patterns created using pens, felt tips, pencils and inks (some of you may have already seen her illustrations on different magazines, book covers and adverts) - will keep busy many underage fashionistas while providing endless hours of fun to creative grown ups who feel fashionably childish at heart. 

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Alternative St Valentine's Day: Vic Godard Vs Robert Desnos

I hate St Valentine's Day. Why can't you tell your dear one you love him/her without buying them a heart-shaped something? That remains a mystery to me.

If, like me, you're hoping to do something slightly more alternative that could maybe involve music and books, tune in tonight at 8pm (UK time) on Radio Joy and listen to punk legend Vic Godard reading from Robert Desnos’ novel Liberty or Love!

I've always been absolutely obsessed with Vic Godard & the Subway Sect, first because I spent my life feeling like a complete outsider anywhere I landed and used to see this band as a group of outsiders happy not to fit in and generally laughing back at the mainstream; second because I'm convinced I once passed an English exam only because I therapeutically listened to the Subway Sect's anthology "Twenty Odd Years" while preparing it. I interviewed Vic a couple of times in the past and his humbleness and openness made me love his music even more than I already did.

In case you've never heard of Robert Desnos, you'd better try and check out his works now. This year also marks his 100th birth anniversary (he was born on 4th July 4 1900 in Paris), so you can (re)discover him while celebrating this event.

Desnos was one of the first Surrealists together with writers Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard and André Breton and developed with them a writing technique that investigated the subconscious and involved drifting into a hypnotic trance and writing and drawing under it. 

Desnos used to work as a literary columnist for the newspaper Paris-Soir and first started publishing his poems in various magazines while his collections of surrealistic aphorisms and poems were published in the 20s.

In 1927 he published La Liberté ou l’amour! (“Liberty or Love!”), but the book that was considered as obscene and immediately censored by the authorities.

A few years after Desnos broke from the Surrealists' rigidity of Breton and dedicated himself to writing radio scripts, such as Complainte de Fantomas (“Fantomas’ Lament”, 1932).

During the German occupation of Paris, he wrote under different pseudonyms a series of essays that mocked the Nazis that got him arrested. Desnos was sent first to Auschwitz, then transferred to other concentration camps and eventually taken to Theresienstadt where he contracted typhoid. The poet and writer died in 1945, a month after the liberation of the concentration camp where he had been deported.

Liberty or Love! is a bizarre, obsessive and mysterious tale à la de Sade that follows the erotic vicissitudes of Corsair Sanglot in pursuit of his love Louise Lame, so it's an ideal read for a truly alternative St. Valentine's Day, but it's also perfect for all those people interested in erotic novels and censorship.  

Desnos was one of the inventors of radio communication, so it will be very apt to listen to his book being recited on the radio. 

In case you miss tonight's broadcasting, don't despair, it will be later on archived here.   

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Berlin Film Festival's Homage to Vittorio De Seta

I was pleased to see that the programme of the Berlin Film Festival (until 21st February 2010) features one of the short documentaries shot in Siciliy by Italian director Vittorio De Seta.

In his essay “Sicily on the big screen” (in the anthology La corda pazza, 1970), written at the end of the ‘60s, Italian writer Leonardo Sciascia divided in three genres the films shot in Sicily.

According to him, there were films in which the theme of love triumphed; films in which the region was seen as a mythological place and movies in which the region was portrayed as a place offended by the stereotypical accusations of the inhabitants of the mainland who saw it as a rough place ruled by criminal organisations.

If you apply this division to all the Meridione d’Italia, that is that part of Italy formed by the Southern regions of Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Puglia, Sardegna and Sicily, you will realise that nowadays it’s probably possible to follow only two trends in films shot in the South of Italy: the first trend sees the South of Italy as a mythical place, the second features films focusing on sociological and political themes.

The vision of the South as a mythical setting was already delineated in films such as The Earth Trembles (La Terra Trema, 1948) by Luchino Visconti, Stromboli (1950) by Roberto Rossellini or Bandits of Orgosolo (Banditi di Orgosolo 1960), the first feature-length film by Vittorio De Seta.

Born in Palermo in 1923 from an aristocratic family, De Seta started his career in the film industry after the war, as assistant director and screenwriter.

Between 1954 and 1955, De Seta shot six poetical documentaries in Sicily: Lu tempu di li pisci spata (The Time of the Swordfish, 1954) about swordfishing in the Strait of Messina; Isole di fuoco (Islands of Fire, 1954) that shows the Aeolian Islands during one of the most violent eruptions of the Stromboli volcano (the documentary received an award at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival); Surfarara (1955), an exploration of the life of the miners working in the Sicilian sulphur mines located in the province of Caltanissetta; Pasqua in Sicilia (Easter in Sicily, 1955), on the Easter celebrations in the areas of Messina, Caltanissetta and Enna; Contadini del mare (Peasants of the Sea, 1955), on tuna fishing in Granitola, and Parabola d'oro (Golden Arc, 1955), on the thrashing of wheat.

In the documentaries, the Southern regions of Italy are portrayed as charming yet scary places where nature prevails over man, often causing panic and terror.

De Seta, used the camera to anthropologically chronicle fragments of archaic civilisations: fishing, harvesting, working and religious rites and celebrations regulate the lives of the people portrayed in the documentaries. Each camera frame turns into a beautiful painting or an intense photograph: the documentaries following the lives of fishermen are probably the most interesting ones since they show fishing as a ritual dance, a deadly battle between men and fish.        

Between 1958 and 1959 De Seta shot another four documentaries: Pescherecci (1958), featuring the Sicilian fishermen of Lampedusa; Pastori di Orgosolo (Shepherds of Orgosolo, 1958), that chronicled the daily lives of Sardinian shepherds working in Orgosolo, in the province of Nuoro; Un giorno in Barbagia (A Day in Barbagia, 1958), on the jobs carried out by the women in this area of Sardinia while their husbands worked as shepherds far away from their families, and I dimenticati (The Forgotten, 1959) about the celebrations in honour of Spring in the village of Alessandria del Carretto, Calabria.

Bandits of Orgosolo, De Seta’s first feature-length film was influenced by these documentaries since it followed the vicissitudes of two shepherd brothers, Michele and Giuseppe.

The film was hugely influential on Jack Nicholson used it as the inspiration for the script of Ride in the Whirlwind.

In the following years, De Seta dedicated himself to directing more films and achieved a discreet success with a TV series shot in the ‘70s, Diario di un maestro.

After a gap of at least twenty years, he directed another film, In Calabria, in 1993, in which he went back to pondering on the lost identity of the South of Italy.

In 2006 he completed Lettere dal Sahara (Letters from the Sahara) on an African migrant in Italy and two years ago he shot Articolo 23 (Article 23, 2008), one of the episodes for the collective film All Human Rights for All.

De Seta’s works and in particular his documentaries have been rediscovered in the last few years.

A while back he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Istanbul Film Festival.

Martin Scorsese, who considers De Seta as one of the fathers of world cinema, defined the Italian director as “an anthropologist who speaks the language of a poet” at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival.

In that occasion Scorsese also remembered how an Italian producer gave him as a present for his sixtieth birthday, seven De Seta documentaries and, while watching them, he felt extraordinarily moved, as if he had travelled through a legendary and mythical place, a sort of Paradise Lost.

I do hope that also the audience of the Berlin Film Festival will enjoy De Seta’s work, feel transported to a Paradise Lost and maybe ponder a little bit on the eternal conflict between the North and the South of Italy, on those social and economic differences that still cause racist anti-Southerner feelings in the North of the country.

I think that De Seta's works could even provide wonderful inspirations for fashion designers: if only Dolce & Gabbana would stop conjuring fake visions of Sicily in their coppola hats and think about reusing the colours of De Seta's documentaries and even those images pulsing with passion and vital energy of people suffering, struggling and fighting for prints, they would probably be genuinely Sicilian and less pretentious.

Vittorio De Seta's Contadini del mare (Peasants of the Sea) will be screened on 17th February 2010 in the section "Culinary Cinema" of the Berlin Film Festival.

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