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

When Fashion Meets Religion: Three Examples

Continuing the thread started with yesterday’s post, let’s focus today on further religious inspirations in fashion, analysing three different examples.

The first example is a chasuble created in 2005 by Italian designer Nanni Strada (one day I will definitely dedicate a post to her, promise!).

For over 40 years, Strada carried out extremely important projects and researches that merged fashion with architecture, creating experimental garments and accessories.

For this sacred garment she took inspiration from Medieval vestments and gothic architectures, but employed technologically advanced techniques to make it, coming up with a laser-cut chasuble in crêpe de chine polyester with a gold cloth inner layer.

The designer created therefore a contrast between the original inspiration and the techniques employed to actually make the garment that in its shape, colour combination and minimalist cut out motif wouldn’t maybe look out of place on the set of a sci-fi film.

Contrasts characterised also Versace’s Byzantium-inspired designs.

I actually mentioned the latter a while back in a post about Christopher Kane’s A/W 10 collection, so let's try to rediscover them a bit.

Versace reworked in some of his collections from the early 90s monumental crosses and elements inspired by the Ravenna mosaics.

His interest in heavy metallic embroideries found an affinity in the opulent and gilded Byzantine mosaics.

The designer created contrasts by decontextualising Byzantium’s traditional gold, transforming it into a glamorous material for sensual designs that, delighting in excess, verged towards the kitsch.

A Virgin and Child image borrowed from Byzantine mosaics was transformed for instance by Versace in a polychrome beaded and embroidered decoration for a halter top that included beads, stones, braids and golden lamella spirals (Autumn/Winter 1991-92 collection - see third image in this post) matched with a motorbike leather jacket emblazoned with colourful crosses.

Icons and crosses also characterised the screen-printed twill scarves (part of the same collection) that featured 23 rich and bright colours.

The Greek cross motif came back a few years later, in Versace’s Autumn/Winter 1997-98 collection, in black leather dresses with asymmetrical necklines and in his evening gowns in gold-tone oroton.

The latter could actually be considered as the best transposition of the Byzantine mosaic imagery into fashion.

At the same time this design represented one of the first successful experiments in transforming Medieval armours into contemporary fashionable designs. 

The third example in this post requires a short explanation about Catholic processions.

It’s not rare to see during religious processions in Italy, statues of the Virgin Mary or of a particular saint entirely covered in little gold objects, or wearing a sash on which different medals are pinned.

The gold objects – from necklaces, to pendants, bracelets and earrings – are tokens offered by a believer for a grace received or are sometimes objects that belonged to somebody who recently died and are therefore offered in their memory.

In the picture posted here you can see for example the procession in honour of Our Lady of Loreto in Capracotta, a village in the Molise region.

I first saw this procession when I was a teenager and I still remember I was totally fascinated by the statue’s costume, hair and gold objects since in my hometown I had never seen anything like that.

Now let’s move from religious processions to Dolce & Gabbana’s A/W 10 collection.

Quite a few collections presented by designers during the latest edition of Milan Fashion Week had one aim, re-establishing Italy at the forefront of the fashion world thanks to its sartorial traditions and quality.

Bearing in mind these two reference points, Dolce & Gabbana opened their catwalk show with a black and white video of their team working in immaculate couture coats.

Reinventing their timeless classic designs, going back to their roots and traditions, the duo took a step back into the past to get a glimpse of the future.

Models walked down the runway wearing sharply tailored jackets, skirt suits and sensual black dresses from the D&G archives.

Religion and the design duo’s Sicily – albeit in its fictional version populated by sensual widows with Monica Bellucci’s body (the sort of Sicily that magnificently works at retail level and that made the design duo’s fortune abroad...) – were prominent.

Years ago the duo turned rosary beads into necklaces, but for the next season they went for Miraculous Medals, images of a sorrowful Virgin Mary and of Raphael’s cherubs (the sort of medals you were given as presents for your First Communion decades ago – now it’s all about getting the latest model of mobile phone…) transformed into earrings or pendants for necklaces or pinned on tops, bodysuits, jackets and handbags in the fashion of votive offers pinned on the garments of holy statues.

Gold and silver heart-shaped pendants calling back to mind ex-votos were instead pinned to the waist creating draped motifs on burnt red and oil green velvet dresses (for ex-voto fashion and inspiration, please revert to this previous post – I think D&G must have see Bizet's Carmen at Milan's La Scala last year while creating this collection...).

I hope this post has provided you with further ideas about how religious art, architectures or traditions can inspire fashion design.

Decontextualisation in all these example is of vital importance, but if you want to push a little bit the boundaries go Roberto Capucci’s way: as remembered in a previous post the Italian designer disassembled phosphorescent rosary beads and incorporated them in some of his designs from a previous collection.

Capucci's religious decontextualisation remains my favourite: I’ve always had a soft spot for phosphorescent rosary beads as they were extremely popular when I was a little girl and, growing up in the 80s, I just thought they were absolutely in fashion with the most excessive and kitsch trends of the time (no, it never occurred to me then that they were actually made to pray in the dark...).    

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Inspiring Religious Architectures

Architecture and design often appeared in previous posts in this blog in conjunction with fashion.

Swarovski is among the companies that has tried in the last few years to spark up a dialogue between art, architecture, design and fashion through different projects.

At the recent Milan’s Fuorisalone, a new Swarovski Crystal Palace exhibition presented new pieces by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka, France-born but Tokyo-based Gwenaël Nicolas, Belgian architect Vincent Van Duysen, Dutch architectural lighting designer Rogier van der Heide and Swiss-born, San-Francisco-based designer Yves Béhar.

You can read further about the event in this article I did for Dazed Digital that also features some feedback from three designers involved in the project.

One of them, Tokujin Yoshioka anticipates in the interview some of his future projects, in particular his solo exhibition entitled "Tokujin Yoshioka_Spectrum" that will open in May in Seoul and that will feature his "dream architecture" project entitled "Rainbow Church".

The project dates back to when the architect was in his early twenties and went to visit the Chapelle du Rosaire, also known as the “Matisse Chapel”, in Vence, near Nice. 

Painter Henri Matisse designed the bronze crucifix on the altar, the candle holders and tabernacle, the stained glass windows based on three main colours - yellow, blue and green - the wall murals and even the priest’s vestments (copies of the latter are part of the Collection of Modern Religious Art at the Vatican Museums in Rome, but their maquettes are stored at the Centre Pompidou in Paris). 

“I was engrossed in the beauty of the light that the chapel created and experienced a space filled with the light of Matisse," the designer stated in a press release, "Being bathed in the sunlight of the Provence, the stained glass with Matisse’s vibrant colours suffused the room with colours. Since then, I had been dreaming of designing an architecture where people can feel the light with all senses.”

The project - that will feature a 9 metre-high stained glass window formed by 500 crystal prisms that will be filling the space with rainbow colours - interestingly reinvents religious architecture and could be used as the starting point for a fashion collection. 

Exercise for fashion design students: Yoshioka reinterpreted Matisse's work in an architectural and contemporary way, incorporating in his designs crystal elements.

Wonder in which ways can religious architecture (note: from any religion) influence and inspire fashion design.

Think about alternative ways of combining sacred architecture and fashion that may go beyond the mere use of stained glass windows for prints (as that has already been done...), avoid borrowing from nun styles à la Yves Saint Laurent (A/W 2010 collection) and remember not to fall into the colourful traps of religious catwalk shows à la Fellini. Just stay focused on the external architecture and the internal design elements and see where they may lead you.   

"Tokujin Yoshioka_Spectrum" is at the Beyond Museum in Seoul, Korea, from 1st May to 30th June 2010.

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Thoughts for an Alternative Make-up Campaign

Rejoice: as you may have heard, the new face of Giorgio Armani Cosmetics has been chosen, it’s 26 years old Dutch model Lara Stone.

Fashionistas will certainly remember her previously appearing in campaigns for Calvin Klein, Jean Paul Gaultier, MaxMara, Jil Sander and Givenchy, just to mention a few, and modelling for the Pirelli calendar.

Stone - chosen for being “seductive, sensual and modern” and for embodying in Armani’s words “the feminine ideal of our time” - was photographed for the campaign by David Sims, and styled by make-up artist Linda Cantello.

Well, honestly, who cares. Let’s put things straight, I don’t have anything against beautiful women and I don’t have anything against Armani make-up (in fact I even wear it and not because there’s written Armani on it, but for its quality), but I’m sort of tired of the usual make-up campaigns.

Yes, I know, the sales from make-up lines and fragrances allow designers to keep on making clothes and accessories, but I also feel that campaigns should actively involve real women. Ah, I can already hear many designers shouting at me, complaining that real women are too short/tall/skinny/fat/etc, so definitely not Pirelli calendar material.

I would even masochistically add that, apart from being too short/tall/skinny/fat/etc, most of us also have skin problems, no matter what we eat and how much exercise we take. Happy now?

When I talk about actively involve real women, I mean genuinely doing something for them, organising for instance interesting events in connection with the launch of a make-up line, and not just trying to sell them a product.

Just on example? Why don’t you organise a mini-tour or even a series of workshops with a famous make-up artist in some selected hospital wards where there are cancer patients recovering? While a lipstick or eye shadow may not give you back your pre-operative body, some tips and suggestions given by a professional can help restoring a little bit of self-confidence that many patients lose and we all know that recovering, is, first and foremost, a psychological process.

Do you think that this is such an idealistic, bizarre, utopian idea? I guess you’re not really into fashion then. Fashion is indeed supposed to be about all these things, it’s about optimism and creativity, two things that, unfortunately too often, cancer patients forget about because of their health conditions.

While a fashion house is not a charity, many designers should actually sit down and wonder, who buys clothes and accessories (well, at least the more affordable ones), people or actresses?

We all know that the latter are often freely supplied with designer items so that they can be photographed wearing/carrying them and the next day their images can be bounced back and forth from one email box to another, can be published on millions of papers, magazines and blogs, and eventually convince us to buy that specific garment or that bag. Which leaves us, ordinary human beings, to support and sustain a fashion house and a designer’s luxuriously extravagant life, and I guess that most of us would be happy to see a designer actively involved in improving other people's life.

So, dearest fashion designers ready to launch a new make-up campaign, ponder a bit about you can do for women through engaging ad campaigns. Investing in the community may hurt your wallet a bit (though never as much as investing in a beautiful actress or model does...), but doing something to make society a better place - to paraphrase that Mastercard advert (sorry to use credit card ad semantics, but it’s often the only one many fashion designers understand…) - doesn’t have price. 

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Pleats (and Folds!) Please: Tine De Ruysser

A graduate of Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Tine De Ruysser moved to London to pursue an MA at the Royal College of Art where she is currently finishing her PhD.

While attending her jewellery design courses, inspired by Dutch artist Nel Linssen and keeping firmly in mind Paco Rabanne and Issey Miyake’s work, De Ruysser developed interesting projects based on folding metallic materials, pioneering an electroforming technique and creating wearable origami pieces like sculptural copper and polyester capes and bracelets that can be turned into bags.

The artist based on the same principle a project originally designed for a Bank of America exhibition: banknotes were created to replace gold, so, De Ruysser wondered, why not reusing them to make jewellery pieces?

Opening her own workshop and collaborating with other artists in an academic environment are among De Ruysser’s future plans. In the meantime, she is also focusing on new pieces to showcase at the “Collect 2010” exhibition, opening in May at London’s Saatchi Gallery.

What prompted you to become a jewellery designer and specialise in this field?
I first started studying product design, but, realising product designers don’t get to make the things they design, after one year I stopped and changed to jewellery design since this discipline allows you to develop and make your own things.

How did you come up with your trademark fold up technique?
During a long journey through my jewellery courses, it sort of happened accident after accident. The first accident happened while I was enrolled in my course at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp: I started folding paper there and created one folding pattern. During my MA at the Royal College of Art I made the folding material in metal but, since I hadn’t done it in the right way, I decided to go back and pursue a PhD to develop and improve it.

Do you feel that architecture influences your work?
That’s probably subconscious since my father is an architect and we used to travel around when we went on holiday looking at different buildings. I guess that architectural inspirations also enter my work because origami patterns are geometric, architectural and characterised by mathematical rules.

What fascinates you about the folding and pleating techniques?
What I really like about the former is that you can take a flat sheet of material and, by folding it, turn it into something three-dimensional, so it becomes more interesting and acquires an extra flexibility. It’s surprising and almost impossible to show this in the pictures, but the movements of the material, the way it moves when you pick it up and wear it, are actually the part of the design that I like best.

What inspired the banknote jewellery?
The first piece I made in that series was created for an exhibition at the Bank of America in London. I decided to do something with dollars as a comment on our times and that started it all up. I made one piece for that exhibition, but then I realised there was much more to investigate, so I started creating more pieces.

Do you conceive your accessories as jewels or as wearable pieces of art?
Ever since I started my course in Antwerp I’ve been taught that jewellery, and the way contemporary jewellery is made, especially if you go to an art school, can be compared to making a wearable work of art. I think that jewellery is art that you wear, and, while the concept is important, the final piece must be beautiful and wearable. 

Which pieces do you prefer, the wearable ones or the conceptual ones?
I sometimes think I have a split personality since I love them both. I really like the metallic foldable shapes which don’t have much of a concept, but focus on form, movement and material, but I also like the most conceptual pieces. The banknote jewellery collection is a favourite of mine at the moment.

Is there an artist or a designer who inspires you in your work?
There are several people: Nel Linssen was very important for me, since she inspired me to start working with paper and then everything evolved from there. From a fashion perspective I guess innovators such as Paco Rabanne or Issey Miyake with his pleated pieces and collections are very important for my work.

You showcased your pieces at Flow Gallery in London and at Galerie Handwerk in Munich, will you be at any fashion/art events in the next few months?
I’m making new work for the "Collect 2010" exhibition at Saatchi Gallery. Being part of all these different events is fantastic, it’s sort of what I dreamt of doing one day and I’m honoured that people like my work well enough to want to show it in these places. At Collect I’ll probably be exhibiting objects for the table.

Is there a material you would like to experiment with one day?
I’d like to use glass, but not for jewellery pieces. I’ve been working on objects made using plywood and textiles, to create folded metallised objects in wood that retain a certain degree of flexibility. I’m actually experimenting with the latter at the moment to see how I can use this material at its best.  

What are your plans for the future?
Once I finish my PhD I would like to teach, have my own workshop and make my own designs, possibly collaborating also with other artists in this sort of context. I really enjoy being in an educational environment and being able to communicate with other people and learning from them.    

How many collections do you design every year?
I don’t really want to join the fashion rush with two collections a year, I am a jewellery designer, not a fashion designer and, while I would like to provide pieces every now and then for a catwalk show, I do not intend to follow the routine of two collections a year. I would prefer to go my way and let people get back to me when they feel like it.    

Where can we buy your pieces?
The easiest way is to go to a gallery and buy them, but if you want to buy a piece and you’re not near a gallery, you can always contact me through my site.

Tine De Ruysser's work will be showcased at the Galerie Handwerk, Munich, from 23rd April to 5th June 2010, and at the "Connect 2010" event, Saatchi Gallery, London, from 14th to 17th May 2010.

All images in this post are taken from Tine De Ruysser's site.

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Emergency Update

A brief follow up to Saturday’s post in support of Emergency is due as the three Italians - Marco Garatti, Matteo Dell'Aira e Matteo Pagani - arrested on charges of involvement in a terror plot to assassinate the governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, were released yesterday and declared “not guilty”.

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini stated they were released on the basis of an agreement between the Italian and Afghan governments and that Italian authorities will investigate further in case new elements emerge.

Five out of the six Afghans arrested were also released while one of them remains in jail, suspected of having hidden the weapons in the Lashkar-Gah hospital.

While the odyssey that involved the three Emergency collaborators is over, doubts and questions remain about why there was this attempt at framing the Italian NGO and who’s behind it.

In a press conference organised yesterday, while hypocritical Under Secretary to the Council of Ministers Gianni Letta claimed the Italian government had scored in this mission another victory (as if this was a football match...), Frattini highlighted how important it was for the Italian government (that first doubted Emergency’s innocence and demanded to know the truth about its involvement in the case…) to maintain its diplomacy throughout the investigations, reminding us that the Emergency operators spent the last two days in a new structure in Kabul, a guest house, and not in a jail. The Minister forgot to tell us if the guest house also had free Wi-Fi in its rooms.

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Hooray for Sabina Guzzanti's Draquila at Cannes

Many Latin and Greek authors - among them Aristophanes, Lucilius and Horace - produced astonishing pieces of satire. 

Later on, Molière coined a definition of this genre, stating that satire “castigat ridendo mores” (criticises customs through humour).

Satire may have been a popular genre in the past, but, in Italy, it became a cause of concern since Silvio Berlusconi appeared on the political scene.

Soon after he was elected as Prime Minister, Berlusconi - also the owner of Italian private TV channels, newspapers and of a publishing empire and, as Prime Minister, able to influence the Italian state broadcaster Rai - literally purged the airwaves of whoever dared to say anything against him, among them many journalists and comedians.

One of the victims of the purge was Sabina Guzzanti. Sabina’s name has always been linked in Italy to satirical TV shows in which, together with her brother Corrado and her sister Caterina, she mocked left and right-wing politicians and show-biz icons.

The Berlusconi curse abated on Sabina in November 2003 when her programme RaiOt was cancelled after just one episode.

The title of the programme echoed the pronunciation of the English word “riot”, but also stood for “Rai Eight”, a sort of eighth TV channel free from any political influence that Sabina hoped one day would exist.

Entitled “Weapons of Mass Distraction” and dedicated to censorship and information, the first episode of the programme featured a monologue by Sabina about Berlusconi’s TV monopoly and an analysis of the Legge Gasparri (Gasparri Law), a law meant to reform the Italian means of communications that took its name from the previous Minister for Telecommunications Maurizio Gasparri.

Sabina’s 2005 film Viva Zapatero! - dubbed by many critics as a documentary in Michael Moore style - was the story of how RaiOt was censored, and how, a few days later, Berlusconi’s company Mediaset sued it for damages for her jokes on the Gasparri Law (as if Mediaset were the press office of the Ministry for Telecommunications...), and for causing losses to the company in the stock exchange on the morning after the first episode of the programme was broadcast.

RaiOt was never broadcast again despite a judge issued a sentence in its favour.

Sabina the “jester” - as she defines herself - interviewed for Viva Zapatero! many prominent Italians such as late journalist Enzo Biagi (himself fired from Rai for having invited in his programme, broadcast before the 2001 elections, actor and director Roberto Benigni who poked fun at Berlusconi), Nobel Prize Dario Fo and comedians Beppe Grillo and Paolo Rossi, and also spoke to British comedian Rory Bremner and French group Le Grand Guignol, drawing comparisons between satire in Italy and abroad. 

Viva Zapatero! was Sabina's way of documenting the state of the mass-media and of freedom of speech in Italy, but it was also meant to spark up a debate and wake up that part of the Italian population caught in a Berlusconi-induced slumber.

I've always admired Sabina, her work and her incredible transformations achieved through perfect make up and costumes and often screened clips selected from her work at lectures on the political situation in Italy or during courses about women and Italian cinema. 

I was therefore very happy to hear that her new film, a documentary entitled Draquila (released on 7th May in Italy), will be previewed in the Special Screenings section of the Cannes Film Festival.

This time Sabina chronicles what happened in L'Aquila after the town was destroyed by last year's earthquake and analyses the corruption and business/political interests in the post-earthquake reconstruction (Prime Minister Berlusconi & Co never missed a photo op while visiting L'Aquila...).

While shooting, Sabina often turned for help to the Internet community and the title of the documentary, a pun on the words Dracula/L'Aquila, was indeed suggested to her by social network users.

When Viva Zapatero! was presented at the Venice Film Festival, it received a 15-minute ovation. I hope that Draquila will once again stir people's consciences like Viva Zapatero! did. Italian speakers can keep updated on Sabina and Draquila by following her video posts here.   

  

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Solidarity to Emergency

Thinking that life is all about clothes and accessories is a major mistake. There are obviously more important causes than just spending money for such things, and one is helping other people. In fact that could be defined as a truly stylish cause.

It would be selfish to think that everything goes perfectly well in our world just because fashion weeks are still taking place, a new fragrance by our favourite designer has just been released and we can afford the latest trendy bag on the market.

Previous posts in this blog have been dedicated to topics that, some may deem, do not fall into the “art, fashion and style” categories, from politics to the financial crisis.

But I consider such topics of vital importance in our lives: remember that we can’t talk about art, without talking about the cuts to the culture funds approved by some governments, while writing about fashion without considering the most exploitative sides of this industry would mean lying.  

So today’s post is dedicated to independent neutral organisation Emergency, the Italian charity that offers free-of-charge surgical-medical support to civilian war victims.

A week ago three Italian doctors working for Emergency, Matteo Dell'Aira, Marco Garatti and Matteo Pagani, and six Afghans were arrested in a combined raid carried out by Afghan police, intelligence agents and the NATO-ISAF military forces in the Lashkar Gah-based Emergency hospital, in the south of Afghanistan on charges of involvement in a terror plot.

Authorities said bomb vests, weapons and grenades were found at the hospital and that the nine suspects planned to assassinate the governor of Helmand, a province in the southwest of the country. One of the doctors was also allegedly paid thousands of euros to get involved in the plot.

The charity stated the people arrested are innocent and have been framed: Gino Strada, the founder of the organisation, highlighted in recent interviews that it is illegal to take weapons into the Emergency’s hospitals and guards on the doors make sure the rules are respected. So the weapons were either introduced by the soldiers who arrested the doctors or entered the hospital after the guards were corrupted.

This is probably a plot to frame the organisation since, keeping faith to the main principles of the medical profession, it provides assistance to everybody who needs it, regardless of their political affiliations. 

Since 1999, Emergency provided medical support to over 2,500,000 Afghan citizens, while the Lashkar-gah centre, founded in 2004, has treated over 60,000 of patients, one third of them under the age of 14. 

Solidarity goes to Emergency, to its doctors and to all the people engaged in humanitarian work in war-torn countries.

A demo in support of Emergency is taking place today in Rome, starting at 2pm in Piazza San Giovanni. To sign a petition or actively support Emergency, please visit the charity's site.

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Cinematic Furs: Fendi@Design Vertigo

It can be difficult to manage to find a connection between fashion and cinema while being immersed in an interior design and furniture fair, but Italian fashion house Fendi just provided me with a wonderful excuse to indulge in my fashionably cinematic obsessions thanks to art project Design Vertigo, launched in collaboration with Design Miami/Basel.

Design Vertigo (open to the public from 2 to 7pm until 18th April at the Spazio Fendi, Via Sciesa 3, Milan) is a sort of development of two previous events, Craft Punk and Stereo Craft and features four different installations. You can read further about the event in an article I wrote for Dazed Digital.

So where's the cinema connection? Well, the installation created for Design Vertigo by British artist Graham Hudson - entitled “An insignificant extension in space and a considerable extension in time” - features a two storey scaffolding structure inspired by theatre balconies that incorporates Fendi bags and is populated by dummies clad in Fendi furs.

As Design Miami Director explained me in the Dazed interview, the pieces were selected by Hudson and herself from the Fendi archives.

Some of the furs appeared on the big screen and were worn by famous actresses such as Gwyneth Paltrow (in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums) and Madonna.

The Fendi fashion house always had some strong links with cinema and throughout the decades provided fur coats, jackets and accessories for many different films, collaborating with very famous directors.

In 1985 the Fendi sisters provided for Liliana Cavani’s The Berlin Affair (featuring costumes by Alberto Verso and Jusaburo Tsujimura) a 40s style mink fur coat that incorporated thin leather strips.

What always made me jealous about the Fendi sisters was that they worked with costume designer Piero Tosi and tailor Umberto Tirelli, two of the most talented artists in the history of Italian cinema.

Tosi and Tirelli chose, together with Silvana Mangano, a Fendi wardrobe for the main character in Luchino Visconti’s Gruppo di famiglia in un interno (Conversation Piece, 1974) after seeing a Fendi catwalk show.

Some pieces were made by the fashion house exclusively for the film, in particular a cropped astrakhan jacket designed by Tosi and shaped on the actress’ body (a piece that resurfaced in some of the designs for Fendi's A/W 2010 collection).

In the film there were also further pieces picked from a Fendi collection like a silk dressing gown with sable lining.

Being Visconti totally obsessed with the costumes, the director asked the Fendi sisters to be particularly precise with the belt of a trench coat: according to Visconti, an entire camera shot would depend from that belt that had to cinch the waist of the main actress in a beautiful way.

The legend goes that the Fendi sisters employed twenty sable skins to make the infamous belt but the final effect Visconti wanted was achieved.

The fashion house also worked with Visconti on L’innocente (1976), creating a brown mole piece in collaboration with Tirelli.

A section of the 1985 Fendi-Karl Lagerfeld exhibition in Rome was dedicated entirely to cinema and included pieces from Vincente Minnelli’s Nina (1976), Mauro Bolognini’s Lady of the Camelias (1981), Franco Zeffirelli's Traviata (1983) and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America (1984).

Many years have passed and more collaborations were added to Fendi’s portfolio. Fur fans who would like to explore the Fendi connections with cinema may want to check out the designs appearing in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part III (1990), Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence (1993), Alan Parker’s Evita (1997), Giuseppe Tornatore’s La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano (1998), Harold Ramis' Bedazzled (2000), Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums (2001),Lee Tamahori’s Die another Day (2002), Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale (2002), Pitof’s Catwoman (2004), Benoît Jacquot's Princesse Marie (2004), David Frankel's The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Michael Davis' Shoot Em Up (2007) and Peter Webber's Hannibal Rising (2007).  

Though supplying furs, clothes and accessories for films remains the house's main connections with cinema, in more recent years Fendi has also been involved in film production, through First Sun, founded by Silvia Venturini Fendi. 

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Rebel With a Pop Cause: Jeremy Scott

For the last fifteen years American designer Jeremy Scott has been provoking fashion critics and fashionistas with his Pop-meets-Surrealism aesthetics.

When he presented his first collection in Paris in 1995, the Missouri-born designer shocked his audience showing chic’d out car crash victims.

A few years later, for his Autumn/Winter 2001-02 collection, way before the financial crisis threw us all into a deep despair, he dared mocking consumerism in his “American Excess” collection that featured dollar bill cocktail dresses.

Junk food, phones, road signs, gasoline pumps, Cadillac cars, Mickey Mouse and futuristic cartoons à la The Jetsons were cleverly incorporated season after season into the tongue-in-cheek and kitschy prints, knitted motifs or tailored yet cartoonish silhouettes of his designs.

Scott’s skills at reinventing a Pop Art aesthetic for contemporary fashionistas scored him collaborations with seminal brands such as Adidas, Longchamp and Schott.

For his Spring/Summer 2010 the designer – currently living in Los Angeles but showing his collections in New York – took his inspirations from Flintstones prints.

Black prevails instead in his Autumn/Winter 2010 collection that is infused once again with his witty irony: bejewelled crosses appliquéd on dresses and bodysuits, sporty yet sensual body-con designs and cone bras are indeed used as references to fashion victims, Chanel’s iconic L(ittle) B(lack) D(ress) and legendary pieces à la Gaultier, reminding us that, maybe, fashion shouldn’t take itself too seriously.

The next issue of Zoot Magazine, that should be out soon, will include a photo shoot featuring Jeremy Scott’s designs accompanied by a Q&A I did with him. I’m enclosing here just a couple of questions to give you an idea about what it will be about.

Photographer Mike Kobal is the author of the photo shoot and of the brief video you find at the end of this post as a teaser to the interview and shoot. Mike explains on his site how he shot it using with Canon’s T2i camera, playing a bit with colours, saturation, contrasts and sharpness.

Can you tell us more about the inspirations and themes behind your A/W 10 collection?
Jeremy Scott: The collection is a tribute to fashion itself, an open love letter to my favourite “F-word”, “Fashion”! It moves from the concept of the idea drafted by a designer on his or her sketchbook to the first toile coming alive in the studio and touches upon the industry clichés – from fashion victims and the age-old debate between fashion Vs style to the brand worship of consumers, rampant coping of originals and the acceptance of the fake. In a nutshell, the collection tells through the different designs all the most relevant stories from the history of fashion.

The new collection also features a few black dresses: could we consider them as reinvented versions of Chanel’s 1920s “little black dress”?
JS: Yes, Sir! That’s exactly what the point is: the black sweater dress that appears to be simple from the front has “Little Black Dress” knitted in bold letters on the back side of it and that’s intended to be the literal manifestation of the little black dress!

You have a passion for knits: if you could come up with the most extraordinary knitted piece what kind of material would you use? Maybe a 24K gold yarn?
JS: That’s very Rumpelstiltskin of you! I guess I’m onto much simpler designs and I’m happy with plain old wool and cotton!

To Earth I Come:Jeremy Scott SS2010:Canon T2i, 550D from Mike Kobal on Vimeo.

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Brief Interior Design Round Up from Milan

Architecture and interior design fans converged from yesterday upon Milan where the Salone Internazionale del Mobile (International Furniture Fair) and the more avant-garde Fuorisalone are at present taking place.

To keep updated you can read some pieces I wrote for Dazed Digital that are connected with these Milan-based events: Ilaria Venturni Fendi (you may remember her from previous posts) is not part of the main events but she will be leaving her showroom open to present the new Carmina Campus accessories and interior design pieces (read more about them here).

Maison Martin Margiela is presenting during the Fuorisalone two pieces, the "Groupe" sofa and "Emmanuelle" chair, produced for the first time by Italian design company cerruti baleri (previously Baleri, then bought by Nino Cerruti, so it incorporates fashion fabrics in its pieces; you can read further about this collaboration here).

My favourite collaboration so far presented in Milan is the one involving the international students from the MAS Luxury programme at the Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (University of Art & Design – ECAL), Swiss music box company Reuge and the Campana Brothers.

With the help of the inspiring Campana Brothers and the know-how of Reuge, students came up with amazing music boxes (check out the "Feuillage" one in the images, courtesy of ECAL/Reuge, in this post - it can be reconfigured into a necklace).

You can read the piece about this project here. 

Important note for readers/students interested in a career in luxury product design: Head of MAS Luxury programme Augustin Scott de Martinville, who is also part of the design group Big Game, highlighted to me that the MAS Luxury course is unique, and that there is only one institution that has a course similar to ECAL's MAS Lux, the Richemont Creative Academy in Milan (please note that this is a school within a company, so that's different from a university).

The ECAL will also be presenting further collaborative projects involving international luxury companies and designers in June.

The Salone and Fuorisalone events run until 19th April.  

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