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

If Here Lies Love, Where Are the 3,000 Pairs of Shoes Lying?

People involved in the creative industries are often struck by rather bizarre or controversially demented ideas.

For example, Jean-Louis Sherrer’s fashion house included Nazi insignia in its 1995 couture collection and there were often gangster connections in Dolce & Gabbana’s collections that seemed to be unfortunately timed with Mafia murders.

History also left us with enough controversial works of art or films on which we could maybe write not just one essay, but entire books.

Yet the history of controversy wouldn’t be complete without a list of songwriters and musicians who dedicated tracks or music compositions to dubious characters.

Undoubtedly Madonna contributed in turning Evita Peron into a style icon and a fashionable saint.

From an artist, director, fashion designer, musician and writer’s point of view the bad character is always more fascinating than the good one.

I completely agree about this: telling the story of a psychopath is probably more intriguing than recounting the life of a saint, especially from a psychological perspective. Yet it can be difficult to tell the story of a controversial historical figure.

What made me ponder about this topic is the latest music release by David Byrne featuring Fatboy Slim, a collaborative double CD inspired by Imelda Marcos and  featuring 22 tracks recorded together with artists such as Florence Welch, Martha Wainwright, Cyndi Lauper, Sia, Santigold, Tori Amos and Róisín Murphy.

The release is also available in a special edition that also features a DVD with archival footage and a booklet.

The album, entitled "Here Lies Love", the epitaph Imelda Marcos would like to see engraved on her gravestone one day, is supposed to be a conceptual project (amazing what you can do nowadays under the "conceptual" label...) about the life of ex-Philippine first lady and her servant Estrella Cumpas.

Byrne first started working on it five years ago with a musical in mind and took the project first to Australia in 2006 and then to New York in 2007.

The main idea behind this project, focusing on Imelda's early life, came to Byrne after seeing a TV documentary in 2003.

The widow of former President Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Remedios Visitacion Trinidad Romuáldez, also known as the “Steel Butterfly”, became more famous as a young woman for her beauty and passion for singing.

A beauty pageant winner, she married in 1953 Ferdinand E. Marcos who became in the mid-Sixties the 10th President of the Philippines.

In the early 70s Marcos declared martial law to remain in power and abolished the Philippines' 1935 constitution. Marcos's regime was toppled by the four-day People Power Revolution in 1986.

The twenty-one years of regime gave the entire world the chance to get to know better Imelda. A kitsch dream in pastel colours, Imelda had a penchant for dresses with sharp blade-like puffed up sleeves (think Snow White-meets-The Jetsons) and led and extremely glamorous life until she was forced to flee the Philippines with her husband. 

Imelda left behind a fashionable treasure comprising hundreds or furs, handbags, dresses and, allegedly, 3,000 shoes (including footwear by Salvatore Ferragamo, Christian Dior and many other popular designers - later exhibited in a museum; the final shoe count apparently amounted to slightly over 1,000 pairs).

But while Imelda's passion became legendary and shoe addicts all over the world started calling themselves after her, for many others it became impossible to reconcile her luxurious extravagances with people's poverty in the Philippines. 

The shoes – the detail that made Imelda famous all over the world – are not mentioned in Byrne's project, mainly because the album sort of stops before 1986.

In fact while "Here Lies Love" also features political references to martial law (the track "Order 1081"), the music seem to be more focused on rediscovering Imelda's early years, her passion for music and her past as, ahem, Studio 54 disco queen.

It's undeniable that the album contains from a musical point of view some interesting ad catchy bits and pieces that mix pop, disco, folk and lounge inspirations (thank you Norman Cook, we all wish we had your record collections to sample and play round with...), but I'm struggling to find the most radical aspects behind it. 

A social climber and egomaniac with an extravagant lifestyle, a vast collection of jewels and art works and a fetishism for shoes, Imelda committed many crimes against fashion, but even more against human rights.

So I guess for the time being, as bizarre and controversial as Byrne's project may sound, I think I'll stick to Big Audio Dynamite's '2000 Shoes'. Hopefully, I won't live long enough to see Mussolini's speeches and Berlusconi's crooner songs remixed, remastered and repackaged. 

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Subway Sect Inspirations

If yesterday’s post made you feel a little bit nostalgic about punk, but you’re finding hard to fashion your resistance look, read my Q&A with the Subway Sect’s Vic Godard on Malcolm McLaren on Dazed Digital and see if that may provide you with further inspirations (what about uniforms à la Subway Sect, mixed with atmospheres from Alain Fournier's novel Le Grand Meaulnes, from which the Sect allegedly took inspiration?).

If you want to get further inspirations from music, Vic Godard will be playing with the Bitter Springs on 24th April at The Wilmington Arms (69 Rosebery Avenue, London, UK) while the next Subway Sect gig is on 14th May at the Buffalo Bar (259 Upper Street, London).

Special thanks to Vic for taking his time in between the recordings of Subway Sect’s new album “We Come as Aliens” to answer my questions.

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Fashioning Resistance

The world of politics always attracted me, yet I never tried to get into it because I tend to get very passionate about political and social issues and I’m sure that debating about specific topics with some of my opponents and adversaries would have led me to an early grave.

I have noticed, though, that one great way to talk politics without getting a heart attack in my case is to analyse it in a context that also involves fashion and music.

It’s indeed undeniable to spot connections between different political movements, fashion trends and music genres.

One day I will hopefully rediscover in this blog the ominous influence of Fascism on fashion (and film!), but for today let’s stay focused on the punk movement, considering also McLaren's recent demise.

If you are interested in rediscovering the connections of punk with fashion, music and politics and you happen to be in London next week, don't miss the exhibition ‘A Riot of Our Own’, part of the Riot, Race and Rock & Roll section of the East End Film Festival (EEFF), that is taking place in London two weeks before the next General Election.

The exhibition will showcase bits and pieces from the archives of Graphicsi, that is Ruth Gregory and Syd Shelton, who were members of the Rock Against Racism (RAR) Movement.

The archives include photographs and other materials from 1976 to 1981, relating to the RAR movement that involved at the time black and white political activists, musicians, artists, graphic designers, photographers, actors, writers and fashion designers, all of them joining forces to fight against racism and the National Front.

The EEFF will also offer the chance of joining a debate about political issues and culture chaired by Mark Steel and follow documentaries and films related to punk and politics, such as Robert Heath’s SUS, based on Barrie Keefe’s 1979 play The Long Good Friday.

This year the festival programme is particularly exciting and will take the audience on a long journey through different countries, from Great Britain to Poland, Romania, Russia and Slovenia, touching upon different issues, human rights included.

If you don’t have the time to follow the entire event and you are interested in punk, social issues, religion and rebellion, try at least to see Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam (2009).

Directed by Omar Majeed, the documentary - a mix of punk mayhem, humour and sarcasm dealing with issues such as Islamophobia and hypocrisy - follows the Boston-based band The Kominas on tour, introducing to the audience their tour mates and fellow bands, Vote Hezbollah, girl band Secret Trial Five (imagine a crossover between The Slits and Le Tigre, with songs about world leaders being eaten by zombies - genius), Al-Thawra and Sarmust.

The documentary tries to trace the birth of the Islamic punk scene, inspired by Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores (2003, turned into the eponymous 2008 film, directed by Eyad Zahra), definitely the only book out there where you will find riot grrrls and burqas in the same page.

Exercise for all the fashion design students reading this post (all the others, go and listen to your favourite punk records to get into a riotous mood): think about ways to channel resistance and generate empowerment through clothes and accessories. Wonder how catwalk shows can incorporate cultural politics and how artists and musicians may inspire your designs (think also about groups from the taqwa scene and how they are fashioning their image).

Fashion design students coming from countries where contemporary resistance movements have adopted a particular colour to express their ideas (example: Thailand and the red shirts; Italy and the purple movement, etc), wonder how you can use those colours in your designs to spread out powerful protest messages against repression and censorship.

"A Riot of Our Own" is at the Vibe Gallery, London, 23rd-30th April; the East End Film Festival runs from 22nd to 30th April. You can keep updated with the East End Film Festival also by following it on Twitter.

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Fashion Bravery: Milan or Karachi?

Contrary to what the fashion media want you to believe, bravery in fashion doesn’t mean wearing the entire contents of your wardrobe together nor trying to match clashing shades and patterns in just one outfit.

Adopting extreme styles just because some pop stars do so, should instead be considered as a fashion crime and not as the ultimate example of a reckless and indomitable spirit.

So what could be considered genuine fashion bravery in our times? Well, let's see. In the last few days Italian fashion houses got together and announced they were ready to schedule a seven day fashion week for the next season.

After the controversies surrounding Anna Wintour’s annoyingly insistent requests to reduce and reschedule the Milan Fashion Week catwalk shows according to her needs, such news should be taken as a miraculous cause of jubilation.

Maybe Italian fashion designers have finally managed to wake up and show the rest of the world they still have something to say and they are also interested in saving an industrial system in danger.

“The agreement by the major designers, which protects the emerging ones as well, has been reached with the mediation of Camera della Moda and demonstrates that we Italians, if we really want it, are perfectly able to assert ourselves without fear in order to enhance what the world acknowledges to be a rich and inimitable creative heritage,” stated Giorgio Armani.

Deep down in my heart I really wish I had seen Italian designers asserting themselves “without fear”, as Armani claimed, to come up with such a decision. I’m sure the final agreement was taken after an extremely violent meeting that involved blood, vitriol and a few guns pointed at each others' heads.

Anyway, I'm afraid that’s not bravery, but just a first step towards changing some of the rules and restore the fame of the so-called "Made in Italy" and of Milan.

Yet there is still a lot to do in Milan. The city is currently run by an opportunist right-wing mayor, Letizia Moratti, a woman with zero fashion knowledge who thinks that being photographed at trendy parties proves her allegiance to the industry.

Moratti is not alone though in her "fashion crusade": she is indeed helped by the pretentiously tanned cashmere-clad culture councillor Massimiliano Finazzer Flory.

Virtually unknown for having done anything that can be defined as mildly "cultural" apart from a list of his boringly monologues he inflicts on Italian audiences every now and then,  Finazzer Flory is also known in Italy as the “culturista” (in English “culturista” means "body builder" – but in this case the word is used as a pun, a reference to culture and body building since Finazzer Flory used to be a fitness instructor before miraculously turning into a local culture superman...).

Only last year the culture councillor with a dubious cultural past managed to offend the local designers claiming they don't do much for Milan (pissing off in this way the various fondazioni some designers have that pump up their money into events organised in Milan). This year the tanned culturista has turned into a fashion expert and is currently involved in organising and supporting a prominent fashion and film festival that will take place in Milan in May.

But wonderful icons of decadence such as Moratti and Finazzer Flory are almost nothing compared to the racist, fascist and homophobic head of the Northern League Party, Umberto Bossi, a man with a medieval frame of mind and a penchant for starring in demented Medieval films (Barbarossa by Renzo Martinelli - warning: avoid it!) who would like to become one day mayor of Milan and turn it into his little feud.

I can almost imagine Bossi as mayor of Milan spreading a little bit of his Dolce Stil Novo semantics and refined gestures in the capital of fashion and embarrassing the (already embarrassing) Italian government during international events such as the local fashion week (imagine how wonderfully stylish it would be to remind Anna Wintour & Co of his perennial hard on, like he has embarrassingly done with his audiences at the most disparate political events for years and years…).

Fashion thrives when and if it is constantly bombarded by internationalist inspirations and collaborations and, at the moment, many Italian designers are simply surrounded by a damaging narrow mindedness and by their own lack of initiative.

What Italian designers just did to fight back against Anna Wintour’s dark forces is definitely not to be filed under the fashion bravery category, so where can we find some courage in fashion?

Probably in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest and most cosmopolitan city, a place that often ends up in the papers because it’s only a two-hour flight from the northwest, the heartland of al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Fashion designers, models and organisers recently agreed that Pakistan Fashion Week – a show featuring designers from Pakistan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, and conceived as a follow-up to a first event held in Karachi last November – still had to get on even though it was scheduled to take place just a few days after the American embassy in Peshawar had been attacked in a suicide car bomb and gun attack.

The event took place last week, presenting a mix of haute couture and urban designs that symbolised in many ways the many contradictions and tensions of the country.

The most important thing about Pakistan Fashion Week is that it represented in many ways a blow to the Taliban.

For the models involved walking down the runway in clothes that exposed parts of their bodies was indeed a way to oppose the Taliban regime in a country where most women cover up or are often confined to the house.

This event proved there is so much more behind fashion than just a few beads and crystals applied on a garment to make it look more desirable. 

Our designers and models should maybe look up at their colleagues in Pakistan and remember that, while beauty is in the eye of the beholder, bravery is in the heart of those who fight in the name of freedom and strong ideals.

As for Umberto Bossi, could somebody please lock him away in a castle in a faraway land?

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(The Shoulder Shape of) Things to Come

Moving from yesterday’s post and the pessimism/optimism surrounding futuristic fashion designs, I'll try to have a brief look today at some shapes and silhouettes inspired by the futuristic scenes from H.G. Wells’ Things to Come (1936 - you will find the entire film embedded at the end of this post, but you can also download it here), produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies.

The film starts in 1940 when a global war breaks out. Mankind keeps on fighting for decades, forgetting the purpose of the war, and eventually civilisation goes back to a sort of barbaric Medieval state.

The mission of rebuilding society is left in the hands of the Wings Over the World, a scientific community that manages to create a new future for mankind.

Yet, on the eve of man's first flight to the moon, an opponent of the progress raises the population against the system.

From an architecture and fashion point of view the second part of the film is obviously more exciting than the first.

The long sequences showing the technological progresses and human achievements (roughly from 01:06:00) culminate with images of minimalist Art Deco buildings crisscrossed by transparent tube-shaped lifts.

The 2036 architectures shown in Things to Come reappeared in their darker and gothic incarnations in modern films that often presented us with a dystopic vision of the future, from Blade Runner to the more recent Metropia.

From a fashion design point of view the first interesting costume appears on the screen when pilot John Cabal lands in 1970 in Everytown.

Cabal wears one of the first examples of futuristic uniforms that incorporates a rigid armour-like breastplate and is characterised by some interesting details around the shoulders (you can see it rather well around 40:30 - in this point of the film it allows you to make comparisons also with the costumes of the other characters, in particular Roxanna's, a mix of witch, gypsy and vestal look, and the Boss' militarist-meets-shepherd attire).

When the story moves to 2036, costume designers John Armstrong, René Hubert and painter Cathleen Mann (credited in the film as the Marchioness of Queensberry) opted for a mix of classic and futuristic inspirations.

The technologically advanced inhabitants of Everytown wear classic togas complete of traditional Roman garments such as the stola (a rather awkward feature especially if you are supposed to dynamically drive a  spaceship wearing it...). Women also wear a sort of tiara-shaped headband in the fashion of Roman ladies.

The costumes feature two modern elements, a metallic belt that cinches the waist and oversized shoulders.

These features are also integrated in kids’ clothes, though the latter seem to be characterised by less exaggerated shoulder shapes.

The reasons behind the designers opting for such classic references are almost easy to spot: costume designer Cathleen Mann was a painter, and therefore well versed in the world of classic art (she was the daughter of painter Harrington Mann and her works are held in different museums all over Europe) and the film also features classic statues (favoured by Art Deco trends) made by one of the characters who opposes progress, Theotocopulos.

For what regards the shoulder shapes and silhouettes we have instead to turn to fashion history. The latter teaches us that emphasis on the shoulders always meant one main thing, giving a certain empowerment and superiority to a garment and to its wearer.

In the 80s, the age of power dressing, shoulders were huge, almost to indicate the wearer was in charge of a situation.

In the last few years, and in particular from the Spring/Summer 2006 season, quite a few designers focused again on the shoulders.

The shape of the shoulders became of fundamental importance in collections such as Martin Margiela and Nicolas Ghesquière at Balenciaga's. Both the maisons opted for structured pushed-out or built-up shoulders in their designs.

Margiela gave an almost triangular shape to the body in the house's Fall 2007 collection by inserting supports in the shoulders that called to mind the attire of American football players.

The final sharp silhouette that resulted was quite striking, and further contrasts were created through clashing colour combinations such as black/white and fluorescent shades. 

Terminator and Tron may have been behind the double-layered shoulder line of the Balenciaga's Spring/Summer 2007 collection (reminiscent for some of its shoulder details of Cabal's uniform in Things to Come), but the high-tech inspirations in this collection were somehow infused of classicism (remember the drapey toga looking shirtdresses from this collection?).

Well-structured shoulders also reappeared in the silicon and latex pieces designed by Rachael Barrett and favoured by Lady Gaga, rather interesting examples of where the shoulder obsession can take a fashion designer when and if it is combined with modern materials.

So here’s a little exercise for the fashion students out there reading this blog (all the other readers please free to go and enjoy the film in the meantime...): wonder what would it look like a world led by Technocrats in 3036 and try to create designs that show particular attention on the shoulders.

Play with tailoring techniques, embroideries (why not using with bits and pieces of the script and of the final speech by Oswald Cabal who ponders about mankind conquering the entire universe or nothing...) and embellishments; combine Medieval armours with elements stolen from robots and droids and think about what kind of devices a new breed of Technocrats may incorporate in the shoulders of their suits.

Try to go for an extreme appearance but don't forget experimenting a bit with materials while making sure the final result is wearable (most of us do not have Lady Gaga's lifestyle...). To get further inspirations, watch again the Things to Come scenes showing the architectures characterising Everytown in 2036.

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What Will Your Supermodern Wardrobe Be Like?

Inspired by a personal research I've been carrying out on futuristic fashion trends, in previous posts in this blog I have written about cosmic fashion, analysed futuristic inspirations in some of the collections for the next Autumn, explored futuristic architectures in vintage accessories, dreamt about scientific photo shoots and drew comparisons between specific sci-fi or futuristic films such as The Transatlantic Tunnel or Flash Gordon and fashion.

I've always found rather fascinating the fact that many designers from the past attempted predictions about future fashion trends.

Architects Alison and Peter Smithson devised in 1956 their House of the Future project for the Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition.

Their house mainly comprised plastic structures and was inhabited by men and women clad in fantastical outfits like cute dresses with jagged edges and wearing hairstyles sculpted out of industrial resins.

In the art world, Salvador Dali suggested a surreal look for 2045, while André Courrèges, Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin were considered in the 60s at the forefront of space age fashion.

Nowadays, many contemporary fashion designs inspired by futuristic trends still borrow a lot from the more established and successful space age creations from the 60s or at times seem to be entirely lifted from costumes seen in sci-fi films.

Undoubtedly, research is considered as one of the most important points for contemporary fashion: think about technologically advanced fabrics or the integration of specific devices such as mp3 players into jackets or computer screens into bags, tricks devised by fashion brands in collaborations with companies such as Eleksen (I did a piece a few years ago about this topic, you can check it out here, though that's in Italian), but so far there haven’t been any designers coming up with amazing attires for the year 2050 or the next millennium. 

One of the main reasons behind this lack of extremely futuristic designs is obviously the fact that we live in fast-changing times and what was fashionable and technologically advanced last year is now considered as obsolete.

There is something missing, though, in many contemporary futuristic designs and that's maybe the exuberance and humour of some fun experiments tried many decades ago, like the creations shown in this video from the 30s.

In 1970 Rudi Gernreich was invited to curate a show about Future Fashion for the Osaka World’s Fair and came up with an extremely dystopic vision, presenting a male and female model with shaved heads and bodies who lied naked on the floor after removing all their clothes.

The aim of the controversial show was reinforcing the designer's statement about unisex fashion - an idea perfectly embodied by the wardrobe of the Moonbase Alpha crew in the 1975 TV series Space: 1999, designed by Gernreich - while shocking people with futuristic predictions that evoked the death of fashion. 

There is a bit of pessimism à la Rudi Gernreich in the revolutionary designs inspired by contemporary challenges such as pollution, environmental catastrophes, global warming or physical assault, like the ones covered by Andrew Bolton's book The Supermodern Wardrobe. 

Apparently, integrating communicative technologies into our garments or making sure new fabrics can adapt to extreme temperatures, isn't saving us from the fears and the uncertainties of the future. 

Yet I do feel that it would be interesting to try and predict a supermodern wardrobe for the future that would be slightly less pessimistic and more fun, and would be based on the optimism of new discoveries rather than on the aftermath of too many apocalyptic catastrophes.      

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Stealing from the Plagiarist (on Malcolm McLaren's Death)

Malcolm McLaren’s recent death threw me into a pensive mood about illnesses and the state of the art, music and fashion industries.

My angry thoughts about cancer could fill up many pages, but, for the time being, I’ll leave my personal pessimism in a limited area of my brain and focus on what McLaren has left us.

Genius or voluble charlatan, saint or satanic figure, cultural anarchist agitator or unbearable plagiarist and opportunist, it’s undeniable that controversial McLaren influenced culture on a global level.

Like him or not, he undoubtedly had a talent for spotting trends and fads and for generally causing mayhem.

In fact you would probably struggle to find one single person nowadays who may be considered a genuine troublemaker à la McLaren.

Every day we are bombarded with different cultural stimuli, images and inspirations, but, essentially, we live in a bizarre cultural limbo in which there are no real anti-establishment forces spreading revolutionary messages. Very few artists can indeed be considered as true inspirations for the art, fashion and music industries (do me a favour, don’t even mention me Lady Gaga, a deranged product of a sick mainstream faking an underground orgasm, the bastard child of McLaren’s motto “cash from chaos”).

Born in 1946, throughout the '70s McLaren passed from co-owner with Vivienne Westwood of the Kings Road-based Teddy Boy clothing boutique Let It Rock – later Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die and, by the mid-70s, transformed into the S&M heaven Sex (later Seditionaries) – into manager of the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols.

What followed – Maoist costumes and hammer and sickle flags; safety pins and bondage trousers; playing on the Thames and at the 100 Club's Punk Festival with the Subway Sect and The Clash; Bill Grundy; punk and fetish – is recounted in hundreds (or maybe thousands) of books about history, fashion, style and music.

The 80s brought to McLaren new ventures and inspirations (the New Romantics, Adam Ant and Bow Wow Wow), more fashion connections (the shop World’s End), and new discoveries (hip hop through the 1983 hits 'Double Dutch' and 'Buffalo Gals').

Even the 1989 album, "Waltz Darling", technically a flop since it only got to number 30 in the charts, featured a track, 'Deep In Vogue',  that somehow brought something exciting with it, like the striking pose dance so popular in New York's gay clubs that a year later Madonna turned into an even more popular craze.

Willi Ninja dancing in the 'Deep In Vogue' video (embedded at the end of this post since, after all, this is a fashion blog) represented for me the perfect synthesis between classical ballet, avant-garde and postmodernist dance and martial arts (the dancer strengthened his connections with the world of fashion by appearing in runway shows for Gaultier and Mugler and teaching models to walk on the runway).

McLaren in the meantime never failed to astonish, but recycled himself in multiple ventures, doing a song for Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 2 and co-producing the 2006 documentary Fast Food Nation. Last year he also came back onto the fashion scene with a collaboration with a streetwear brand, a limited collection of clothes and accessories (mainly T-shirts, hoodies and sneakers) featuring his early artworks.

“The popularity of punk rock was, in effect, due to the fact that it made ugliness beautiful,” McLaren once stated and surely the clothes that went with it - included the stilettos with protruding spikes you could buy in the 70s from Sex (and that would still be popular on today’s runways...) - helped turning not only ugliness but also fetishism into something desirable and even marketable.

Probably without the Sex Pistols we would have fewer fashion designers and iconic safety pin looks nowadays, while S&M rubber suits and accessories wouldn't constantly appear on the pages of many fashion magazines (Vogue Italia included). 

Yet what's left of McLaren after his demise? Well his quotes, such as the ever popular “Be childish. Be irresponsible. Be disrespectful. Be everything this society hates”, are currently being tweeted and retweeted ad nauseam, making me wish that rather than just retweet it, people would abide to it a little bit more in their lives.

In fact I wouldn't mind seeing more people stopping to ponder for a while and thinking about genuine ways to break the rules, generate controversial ideas and make them happen, or invent and reinvent new things and then - why not? - destroy them, McLaren style. Guess that if stealing is, like he used to say, "a glorious occupation, particularly in the art world,” McLaren the plagiarist would really be happy to see us "stealing" from him his most outrageous behaviours.  

 

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Filming Fashionable Vonnegut Visions

There are uncanny connections between medicine, architecture and fetishism in the designs created by Kat Marks.

The 24-year-old Canadian designer currently based in London, mainly focuses on creating body pieces in rigid materials such as plastic, that, inspired by her own experiences of wearing a scoliosis brace, are also characterised by sculpturally sensual forms. Marks’ pieces transform the body, exaggerating shapes, creating robotic extensions to the natural silhouette and playing with the masculine and feminine dichotomy.

Born in Alberta, Marks has a conceptual approach to her work that blurs the boundaries between art, fashion and film. So far she has created two collections, “Infundibulum” and “Yugas Elder”.

The latter was also featured in an eponymous film directed by Daniel Shipp, produced by Goran Boskovic and showcased at Nuit Blanche 2009. Marks is at present developing her third collection that, inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Cat’s Cradle, will feature ten designs in plastic, leather and textiles.

In the meantime, she has just completed a new film, “The Granfaloon”, shot with a team of artists comprising self-taught videographer from East London Paul Bates, Canadian sound designer Goran Boskovic, Ukraine Fashion Week make-up artist veteran Julia Wilson, hair stylist Shinya Fukami, stylist Kalina Pulit and model Ashleigh Halliburton. Conceived as an experimental study in fashion presentation that erases the boundaries between photography and film, “The Granfalloon” evokes in its title, eerie atmospheres and futuristic body pieces featured, the dystopic world of Vonnegut’s 1963 novel.

Where did you study fashion design? 
I moved to Toronto, Canada, when I was 19 years old to follow the BA in Fashion Design at Ryerson University. There I learnt everything I know about producing high quality designs since the courses at Ryerson are very focused on technical subjects such as pattern cutting. At the same time, my course allowed me to explore the more creative aspects of this profession. This meant that, when I finished my studies, I had already produced a high standard collection that was later on showcased at Toronto Fashion Week. The collection featured three thermoplastic braces – or corsets – that got very positive feedback. After Ryerson I moved to the London College of Fashion to pursue an MA in Fashion Artefact. The MA used to be a jewellery course, but now it focuses on creating innovative fashion pieces such as body corsets and luggage and, in my case, plastic girdles.

Who has been the greatest influence on your career?
When I began my education in fashion at Ryerson, I wasn’t too sure about my creative potential. In my second year I tried to explore it in depth also thanks to a very special professor, Sandra Tullio-Pow who completely supported me in my journey of discovery. At the time, I was studying formal wear and decided to take it to the extreme starting to use foam to create exaggerated shoulders. Sandra followed my experiments and pushed them further, helping me to become even more confident in what I was doing. At the moment my colleagues from my course and from the MA in Footwear Design, as well as Professor Dai Rees at London College of Fashion, are inspiring me. Last but not least, my family has also been incredibly supportive, turning into a great inspiration.   

Which is the most interesting and stimulating stage of your creative process?
I think that the research stage is very important since it is quite broad and touches upon many different aspects. I tend to avoid looking at trend forecasts or historical fashion when I create. Instead I often use as a starting point medical or scientific theories. My research also involves exploring visual references, like art and photography. For example, I’m currently looking at the Impressionists and at Jan Saudek’s photography. I usually try to surround myself with images that may trigger that special ‘feeling’ or ‘emotion’ that I want to embody in my work. From there I start sketching and sourcing materials and create my pieces.
 
Which aspects of Kurt Vonnegut’s work inspire you the most?
I often start designing after reading a novel, as one sentence or word may catapult my mind into creative mode. I am inspired by Vonnegut’s fearless use of fantasy and of extreme scenarios and fictional worlds. I use them as a motivating force to explore fashion with reckless abandon. My current work is, for example, influenced by his book Cat’s Cradle and by the “karass”, a group of different people who, unknowingly, work together to do God’s will.

In your previous designs you employed plastic, polyurethane rubber and resin: what fascinates you about such materials?
My experiments with plastic began in my final year at Ryerson. I was interested in connecting medical back braces for scoliosis and fashion. I wore a brace when I was young for two years and this experience had an impact in my life, influencing also my career. A Toronto-based craftsman produced my designs in ABS thermoplastic. At present I’m producing my own plastic artefacts as well as working alongside the talented Stephen Diaper. I’m mainly employing Perspex, though I’ve broadened my vision introducing also leather in some pieces. I never explored this material before and I find it rather interesting. I am combining the two to create fantastically beautiful fashion accessories such as the harness and pelvic girdle featured in my new film.

How did you come up with the collaboration with Daniel Shipp?
I wanted to explore film as a method of presenting my designs that could have been considered an alternative to photography. Daniel has been a great influence on me and I am so proud to have worked with him since I learnt everything I know about producing a film from his professional approach.

In which ways does the new project differ from your previous one?
My first film was based on my interest in developing a narrative, a story line, while understanding at the same time the importance of scenography. The film was all in stop motion; we had roughly 15,000 photographs that we edited down into a 4-minute clip. I guess my first foray into fashion and film was more based on artistic expression and on coming up with a beautiful representation. My current project, “The Granfalloon”, is much shorter and it could be defined as an avant-garde fashion film. It features a colour palette that includes beige, muted grey and murky dusty rose, muted shades compared to the previous project. For this project we worked with HD cameras along with post-production techniques to create interesting visuals, but I think that the best thing about this new venture is that it has allowed me to build a team of professionals interested in discovering how to create fashion visuals that can move an audience. 

How would you describe the body piece that appears in the new film?
As you can see from the film there are two thigh flaps that brace the inner thigh. These flaps have activated some controversial conversation for what regards their purpose and their statement as some people said they had a sort of phallic shape. The Perspex, leather and resin harness and pelvic girdle weren’t actually meant to represent this, but I realised they sparked an interesting dialogue and some people called the design ‘cod piece’, ‘chastity belt’ or ‘fashion diaper’. I found such descriptions amazing and I hope I’ll be able to come up with more thought provoking pieces in future.

Many designers are expressing themselves through videos and shortcuts nowadays: do you feel that there is a renewed interest in fashion and film?
Films are an obvious next step in fashion representation: many designers are using films as an alternative to catwalk or in conjunction with a catwalk show, developing relationships with film professionals – directors, cinematographers, composers, makeup and hair artists – to create personal films that fit their brand, creative expression and story. I do feel that fashion and film complement each other a lot because they present us with a story in motion that cannot be recreated through photography. Besides, with the rising popularity of online fashion magazines and blogs, this is the perfect media to present fashion.   

What’s your favourite film genre?
I’m really influenced by the work of David Lynch and David Cronenberg and would like to be able to collaborate with them one day. I’m continually searching for story lines and visual references that surprise and shock me. Cronenberg’s 1996 Crash depicts some powerful strong, sensual and beguiling female characters. These women are my muses, they populate my fantasy world, they are the sort of women who should be wearing my designs. Among the actresses I would love to see wearing my creations there are Deborah Kara Unger and Tilda Swinton. 

How many fashion films will you be shooting for your MA thesis collection and will they be linked one to the other?
I will be producing a triptych that will be shown at a gallery exhibition. The three different films will be produced by the same team behind my current project and will all tie in together, though they will be visually different from my current film. In fact they will be more feminine, dramatic and alluring.

Do you see yourself more as a conceptual fashion designer or as an artist who is pushing the boundaries between art, fashion and film?
I am first and foremost an idea person. I want to design fashion that is influential, innovative, well crafted and pioneering. I think my ideal customers will be people who are into pushing the boundaries of fashion design. As a designer, I am interested in using all mediums – from film to photography, gallery exhibitions and catwalk shows – to display my work. Each serves a different purpose and a different customer and each is useful to spark a new dialogue. 

What would you like to do in future? Would you like to open your own studio and maybe work as a costume designer for films?
As a fashion designer, I would like to see my work on the catwalk, in film and on influential persons. Yet I also want to broaden my audience through different media, from film to photography passing through catwalk shows, and work with other artists who may help me conjuring up my visions. This is why I want to use my final year collection on three different levels: in film, in a gallery environment and in a catwalk show. After that I will be looking into different possibilities, from working for a high profile fashion house to creating bespoke fashion artefacts and starting my own label. 

Granfalloon from The Wonder Years on Vimeo.

All images courtesy of Kat Marks

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Comparative Studies in Sci-Fi Fashion: Flash Gordon Vs Ashley Isham

Throughout the decades, the sci-fi film genre provided great inspirations for many fashion designers.

Fantastic worlds, undiscovered planets and mysterious aliens constantly offered a virtually unlimited source of inspiration for what regarded the cut of specific garments, the shape of some accessories or the materials employed to make them.

Yet, at the same time, we could argue that a sci-fi saga or the different remakes of particular sci-fi films can offer us the chance to study and explore various fashion trends. A good example is offered by Flash Gordon films.

This post is just an extract taken from a longer essay I've been working on and therefore briefly focuses only on three Flash Gordon films, but I hope it will provide you with some interesting inspirations.    

In the 1936 version of Flash Gordon, directed by Frederick Stephani and featuring Buster Crabbe as Flash and Jean Rogers as Dale Arden, planet Mongo and the costumes worn by its inhabitants are a strange mix based on the antique/futuristic dichotomy.

In the film Flash ends up fighting in an arena surrounded by soldiers clad in Roman armours; Emperor Ming seems to favour capes in the Oriental fashion decorated with modernist geometric motifs while Egyptian inspirations prevail especially in the draped motifs of women’s costumes, reminiscent of Egyptian kalasirises and pleated skirts traditionally worn from the waist to the ankle.

This clash between old and modern trends in this film from the 30s perfectly reflects the passion of the Art Deco movement for everything modern, but also its attraction for traditional and primeval forms such as images from Egyptian fashion and exotic inspirations coming from the Far East. 

Sets and costumes changed when Flash moved to another planet: in Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938), directed by Ford Beebe and Robert Hill, there are fewer references to Egypt, while female characters are clad in long evening gowns decorated with sparkling beads or fashioned out of shiny lame fabrics.

Azura the Queen of Magic had first appeared in a Flash Gordon comic strip in 1935, dressed like a vamp, in a bikini and a transparent cape. Yet in this film both Azura and Dale wouldn’t look out of place at the costume party that takes place on the zeppelin in Madam Satan.

Both the women wear bejewelled or lame gowns that borrow a lot of elements from the most fashionable designs of the time and that somehow also remind of Garbo's costumes in Mata Hari.

Mike Hodges’ 1980 version of Flash Gordon was a triumph of garishly bright colours and amazing costumes, courtesy of Danilo Donati (mentioned here and there in a few previous posts published in this blog over the last two years), better known to film and fashion connoisseurs as Federico Fellini’s costume designer.

I was five years old when Hodges’s film came out and I still remember sitting in the cinema theatre and hating every single minute of the booming soundtrack that annoyingly and violently shook me out of my costume-induced stupor.

Donati was one of the most talented Italian costume designers, well known for using the most bizarre materials to create outlandish pieces.

Flash Gordon naturally gave him the chance to play with some extraordinary characters and fashion unique designs for the Hawkmen and the Azurian Men or the Sandmoon, Cytherian and Aquarian girls.

Red and gold prevailed throughout the film, but Donati seemed to favour especially for the main female characters beaded and sparkling looks à la Mata Hari (check also the pagoda style shoulders of many looks and the rich tiaras and headdresses), mixing them with the most fashionable 80s trends such as tight body suits and reusing some Art Deco inspirations for some details of the sets such as the ziggurat shaped lamps you see scattered here and there (check out the following compilation of clips taken from the film embedded from YouTube).  

Ashley Isham’s Autumn/Winter 2010-11 collection provided an interesting fashion synthesis of these three Flash Gordon films.

When the collection, entitled “Flash!”, was presented during the latest fashion week in London, footage of early Flash Gordon films was projected on a LED screen, while the soundtrack from Mike Hodges' movie could be heard in the background.

Isham channelled the future through green, purple and black plastic skirt suits, dresses and trench coats decorated with geometric motifs created by incorporating in the designs fabric in dark gold and bronze nuances (the perfectly updated looks for Mariangela Melato's General Kala, maybe?). 

Suits in shiny lame fabrics characterised by rigid high collars in Ming-style provided the link with the second part of the catwalk show.

The latter mainly included long evening vestal-like dresses and gowns in dove grey, bronze and metallic shades with sculptural corsets or rigid structures that jutted out from the hips matched with fringed boleros decorated with sparkling epaulettes or worn with bold jewellery or armour-like gem encrusted shoulder pieces.

While the collection also featured a few romantic evening dresses in printed chiffon, Flash Gordon red prevailed in the long gowns with appliquéd motifs and metallic braids, elements that somehow called to mind also the looks from the 1938 film and that seemed to be updated versions of Donati's 1980 designs.

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Italian Heart, London Mood: Aroma 30

The last time I spoke to Aroma30’s Michela Fasanella, the young Italian designer had just launched her minimalist all-white collection in Milan.

Quite a few things have changed since then: Fasanella moved to London and, letting the moods and the weather of the English capital seep into all aspects of her work, she created a collection based on a palette that mainly features black and powdery beige nuances with just a splash of grey.

Employing geometry as a generative force and twisting and bending simple geometrical forms and lines, the designer came up with designs characterised by essentially simple silhouettes, but embellished with complex folds, pleats and draped motifs that create intricate and sculptural shapes around the shoulders and the breasts or build volumes in unexpected areas of the body.     

What’s the main theme behind your A/W 2010-11 collection?
The balance between geometric and soft shapes in nature. I really wanted to concentrate the more elaborate and stronger features and motifs in the details while keeping the silhouette clean and wearable. That’s why I came up with only nine designs, opting for a sort of capsule collection focused on a few looks with a strong message.

What inspired the palette for the new collection?
This is the first collection since I moved to London and I’ve been really influenced by the colours and moods of this city. The sky in London is often grey and cloudy and gives a cold shade to everything. That’s something I really love about this place, so it was only natural for me to use this sort of cold palette for my new designs. 

Some designs feature more intricate details compared to your previous collections, do you feel your style has changed in the last few seasons?
I would say that my previous collection was extremely simple and clean since I wanted to explore a minimal approach to garment construction and focus on soft contrasts. For this collection I explored the possibilities offered by handmade techniques and this allowed me to experiment with exquisite craftsman details that could highlight my style in a better way and come up with clean designs, such as a black jacket incorporating in its stark structure ruffled frothy details created by cascades of cotton ribbons. 

There are some architecturally geometric elements and motifs in your new designs: do you feel that such disciplines entered into your new collections somehow?
Yes, definitely. I’ve been really influenced by geometry and by the way you can create amazing shapes. In architecture as in nature, geometry is a key to balance and harmony.

What kind of fabrics did you choose for this collection?
Wool gabardine, silk satin and cotton. I wanted to use two different materials such as wool and silk since the former creates very easily shapes and architectural structures. Silk can instead help you coming up with some wonderfully luscious draped motifs. 

What is influencing your creations nowadays?
I’m quite attracted by a monastic approach to things, a kind of anti-materialistic way that leads me to ignore what’s not necessary. I’m also into Renaissance portraits, especially when they are painted with dark colours and you feel a sort of dramatic atmosphere oozing from the canvas.

In February you were featured in London’s On|Off exhibition: did you enjoy it?
Yes I did. I got some really positive feedback about my collection and about its wearability. I didn’t know what to expect since it was the first time I was exhibiting in London, but I was really impressed by the attention people showed for my designs. I’ve also seen quite a few designers that I really liked: Roksanda Ilincic is definitely among my favourite ones. Among the fashion designers exhibiting at On|Off I really enjoyed Brooke Roberts and Derek Lawlor.

What are you working on at present?
I’m working on the moods for the next collection. I’m still at an early stage at the moment, but I would also like to focus on some “extracurricular” activities and projects that aren’t strictly connected with my collections and that may involve collaborations with other artists. 

Photographs by Emma Engkvist
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