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

Can Italians Still Do It Better? Yes, We Can, Says Gucci

Crises – may they be political, financial or social – usually disrupt people’s lives.

Yet it’s undeniable that, while they push us to dramatically and drastically redefine our goals, projects and ambitions, they also prompt us to find new solutions to our problems. 

Take Italy: despite what Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi may want you to believe, the country is lying in a deep social, cultural and political crisis.

Unemployment rates are constantly going up, while politicians are investigated on a daily basis by the authorities or end up in jail for corruption and affiliation with criminal organisations (again on a daily basis). Just a couple of days ago, Italian banking group's chief executive, Alessandro Profumo, resigned over Libyan state bodies increasing their combined stakes in the UniCredit company.  

Interestingly enough, though, in these chaotic and rather confusing times, fashion designers in Milan re-organised themselves for the first time and came up with a much more balanced calendar.

In this balmy September, the ghost of Anna Wintour shaking her chains like the evil spirit of a bleak present and an even bleaker future for Italian fashion and dictatorially disrupting over the phone the catwalk calendar, seems to be a distant memory.

Who knows, maybe Mario Boselli, head of Italy's Camera Nazionale della Moda Italiana (Italian Chamber of Fashion) had to threaten at gun point some of the designers, but if he did so, maybe that was the right thing to do.

There have been some big changes in the Milan presentations: bland lingerie and swimwear collections have been excluded from the main calendar and the shows moved to the 16th-century Palazzo dei Giureconsulti and three other venues.

A timid attempt at democratisation has been tried by installing big screens that will allow passers-by to watch the shows (and maybe one day we will see again fashion shows at the local railway station in Nicola Trussardi style...).

Even Dolce & Gabbana found themselves almost admitting that we must give space to young designers by opening a new store, Spiga 2, where people will be able to buy also the creations of young designers, including among the others Erkan Çoruh, Yigal Azrouel, Cooperative Designs and Sophie Theallet.

The biggest surprise on the opening day of Milan Fashion Week came from Gucci, though.

Ready to see the umpteenth collection inspired by sex and rock’n’roll, fashion critics were instead confronted by a new elegance, well balanced, carefully styled and based on one of the main principles of Italian fashion, high quality.

Fashionistas who registered a few days ago on the Gucci site were also allowed to watch live the catwalk show and browse through the videos shot in the backstage and outside the venue, while their pictures taken with their own web-cams were used as props in and around the venue.

Giannini seemed to hit all the right notes, from the beginning of her very coherent show. The designer must have been leafing through 70s-80s fashion magazines, paying particular attentions to the colours, moods and atmospheres in Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton and David Bailey’s images.

As if they had stepped off a fashion magazine page with a Bourdin shot, the first few models - in perfectly slicked back hairstyle and glossy red lipstick - walked down the runway in looks mainly based on the orange-violet-jade green-turquoise palette accessorised with gold python belts and clutches decorated with tassels. 

Then the mood moved to the desert and Marrakech with nude shades and obvious references to Yves Saint Laurent.

The iconic Saharienne or safari jacket was transformed: what we saw on the runway was a slightly cropped and fitted version of the original jacket, decorated with multiple layers of fringes, whipstitched or enriched by woven and intrecciato motifs, employed also in some of the tops and in most of the boots, shoes and oversized bags.

The jackets and tops were mainly matched with fluid silk or soft leather  drop-crotch trousers and there was something tribal à la Lanvin in quite a few looks, especially in the over-embroidered knits, the chunky-breastplates and jewellery.

Then the mood changed again and the vertical fringes became thin horizontal leather strips held together by tiny eyelets and covering tops, jackets and skirts.

The show wrapped up beautifully with luxurious and densely elaborate (check out the fringes of feathers, beads and tassels in the last image of this post) and exotic evening dresses in the same palette that had opened the show, orange, jade green, violet and gold. 

The most striking thing about this collection was that each design and each material employed - from leather to snakeskin, satin and silk - screamed luxurious high quality and sophistication.

Giannini may have seen the Yves Saint Laurent retrospective in Paris while working on this collection, may have heard about the YSL retrospective exhibition that will take place at the Jardin Majorelle in a couple of months' time or about the Biennale d’Art Contemporain starting in December in Marrakech. Yet, in many ways, it doesn't matter, as Giannini delivered a more or less flawless and highly saleable collection.

It would be naïve to see a rebirth of Italian fashion after just one successful show and quite a few days before seeing what designers have up their sleeves for Paris Fashion Week.

Yet it is time to sit down and start considering what is going on in the various fashion capitals. So far New York has proved it is has quite a few overrated designers, unconditionally supported by the American media.

London has so far encouraged anarchic creativity, while bizarrely repressing it at the same time through the sponsorship programmes that have reabsorbed many young designers (but try to take the sponsor out of the young designer’s catwalk show and the whole sand castle collapses...).

No matter what your young and hip British publications and bloggers say about London fashion, there is a huge problem in the English capital: most of the fashion designers 1) are just given the impression they are free to create; 2) do not have a clue about building their own business and often struggle to understand what really means to break the boundaries.

We have seen commercial collections during New York Fashion Week and a pile of bright and fun colours in London, yet we haven’t seen any astonishing presentations (in fact there was probably more pomp, fun and extravagance at Alexander McQueen’s remembrance service…), quality and tailoring.

Many established Italian designers know the cracks and faults of the other fashion capitals and, hopefully, rather than sabotaging each other, they will be so clever to use their knowledge for their own advantage.

Giannini already did so and while one successful Italian catwalk show and collection is definitely not enough to scream about an Italian Renaissance, maybe not all is lost and Milan can still regain the attention and importance it once had. For the time being, Anna Wintour’s ghost should maybe go and rattle her chains somewhere else.

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The Wrong Girls on the Motorcycle

What made Rebecca in the novel The Girl on the Motorcycle sensual, irresistible, strong and independent?

Correct, the black leather suit. When the book was adapted for the screen, Lanvin provided Rebecca with a simple yet striking body suit that soon became an iconic piece for all the fans of the fashion and film connection.

I sometimes struggle to understand why certain designers find extremely difficult to convey an image of sensuality, confidence and power just through tailoring, without adding an unnecessary amount of decorations such as metal studs and spikes.

I love everything metal/metallic, but, honestly, there is a limit to the amount of spikes you can carry on a garment.

Yet it is a common mistake to think that if you’re a woman and want to look glamorous, strong and independent, you should also have a wardrobe full of clothes covered in metal studs.

I assume the woman Christopher Bailey at Burberry Prorsum had in mind for his Spring/Summer 2011 collection doesn’t fly very often, otherwise most of her clothes covered in protruding spikes, would be seized by the police before she boarded any plane as they would be considered as improper weapons.

You could argue that Bailey's woman doesn’t fly because she rides a bike, but it remains a mystery how she can drive a motorcycle without ruining its leather seat or scraping its shiny bodywork with her studded trousers.

If she doesn't drive a motorcycle, maybe she walks, you say? Unfortunately, judging from the models struggling on their high heels or from the ones who decided to remove them and walk barefoot, Bailey's woman doesn't even walk.

What the hell is it that she does, then? Hopefully, she thinks.

Doubts aside it was somehow a shame that high quality pieces in leather and snakeskin accessorised with belts and clutches in vivid shades, softly draped dresses and elegant trench coats with double pleats were almost obliterated by the amount of black, beige and silver tight leather trousers or rather leggings, biker jackets with protective padded inserts covered in spikes, studs and gobstoppers and the occasional yet avoidable leopard print top.

This is definitely not a collection for everyone, given the prices, but also the shapes and silhouettes, yet, for once, you feel almost happy to leave to silly celebrities the pleasure of going around in shoes that aren’t made for walking and jackets made heavy by a ridiculous amount of spikes.  

Before Bailey, Marios Schwab attempted an approach at biker chic gone gothic during London Fashion Week.

His collection mainly featured lingerie-like dresses in pale pink, blue and black with lace inserts or prints of tattoos scribbled here and there and esoteric symbols, from crosses and pyramids to all-seeing eyes.

If Schwab learnt about lingerie from his father who used to engineer women's undergarments, surely you couldn’t detect that from the sartorial accidents that happened on the runway (read: nipples and breasts showing when they weren't meant to make an appearance...).

In fact even lingerie has a structure, indeed the more perfect it is, the better what you put on top of it looks like.

It must be said that there won't probably be a queue to grab the lace-edged pink pale dresses with Masonic Lodge symbols (though they may be a hit in Scotland....) and, while there were no biker jackets in sight, there was one pair of leather trousers and one pair of (badly cut) Bermuda shorts, and Schwab went back to form with a few leather mini-dresses with stretch inserts at the bust.

If you are into the bike look and are going to follow the fashion circus to Milan, check out the one-night exhibition “The Sisley Art Project” taking place tonight at the Palazzo Bovara in Corso Venezia, 51.

The event (on until 11 p.m.), organised by the Sisley brand to benefit the Andy Warhol Museum will indeed feature biker jackets customised by different artists (among them Ronnie Cutrone and Walter Steding; graffiti artists Fab Five Freddy and Lee Quinones; Stefano Castronovo, Rita Ackermann, Duncan Hannah and Tom Sachs).

Probably you will find this exhibition much more fun than some of the S/S 2011 collections allegedly inspired by bikers.

As a woman, I feel indeed rather tired about designers trying to convey romance and toughness through their collections.

In fact I think I will punch the next designer who will tell me he has been mixing and merging "visions of toughness and femininity" or tackling the "hard Vs soft dichotomy", mainly because the idealised kind of tough yet romantic, strong yet fragile woman (who doesn't even seem to have a proper role in our society) they are trying to design for doesn't exist in real life, but it's only a ghost haunting their little minds.

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Jonathan Saunders and the Erwin Blumenfeld Palette

I’ve had Erwin Blumenfeld on my mind for a few weeks and I wanted to dedicate him a post at some point, though I didn’t have the time to do it so far.

It looks like Jonathan Saunders’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection will give me the chance to pay homage to Blumenfeld since the fashion designer borrowed the palette for some of his designs from the iconic photographer.

Born in 1897 in Berlin, Blumenfeld first moved to Holland in 1918 and, in 1936, he went to Paris.

Interned in a concentration camp during the German occupation because he was Jewish, in 1941 he managed to leave for the States.

Here he became famous for his fashion photography during the 40s and 50s, working for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Look and Collier’s. Blumenfeld had always loved photography, but considered it more as a hobby rather than a job, at least until 1920 when the leather goods business he had started in Amsterdam closed down.

The photographer recounts in his autobiography Jadis et Daguerre (published by Robert Laffont in 1975) how he arrived in New York and, after borrowing some money, he bought a $19,75 suit and went to visit Carmel Snow at Harper’s Bazaar.

The famous editor, her bare feet resting on a desk covered in photographs, was surrounded by her staff and her artistic director Brodovitch.

Happy to see Blumenfeld but without even mentioning the war that had separated them as it had never happened, Snow sent the photographer to the magazine’s studio to take some pictures for the September issue.

Blumenfeld spent the entire day working in the humid studio and, exhausted, fell asleep at midnight.

The next morning somebody brought him a letter from Snow that announced him that, since he had used their studio to take the images, she was going to detract $100 for each photograph (mind you, this sort of things still happen in the fashion industry...).

Blumenfeld shot in black and white his more personal images, while he used colour for the photographs destined to fashion magazines, creating a fantasy world of impossible beauty.

His images in colour borrowed a lot of their nuances, especially that contrasting mix of red, green, pink and beige, from paintings.

There was actually an exhibition that took place in the early 80s at the Musée Pompidou in Paris that featured some amazing images taken between the 40s and the 50s by the photographer.

Blumenfeld also shot pilots for beauty commercials between 1958 and 1964. I’m embedding two collages of his pilots here to give you an idea of the "Blumenfeld palette", but you will find the entire Blumenfeld film archive on the SHOWstudio Blumenfeld project page.

There were echoes of Blumenfeld's images in Jonathan Saunders’ S/S 11 collection.

The designer opted for a casual and sporty look that had also something elegant and refined about it. 

There were no mirrors and veils à la Blumenfeld, but the floral abstract patterns appearing here and there and the prints of peeling walls (for further inspirations involving peeling walls View this photo 
I took of the walls at the Venice Arsenale) in pale blue on dove grey, bright orange and dark yellow backgrounds could somehow be seen as reinterpretations of Blumenfeld's most successful techniques, included rippled glass, projections, back lighting, multiple exposures and solarisation experiments.

Stripes of dove grey, green, orange, yellow and beige were mainly used for long straight skirts and pleated short skirts and the models with their sophisticated looks and red lipstick recalled a lot the elegant women portrayed in Blumenfeld's pictures.

Saunders provided an alternative to his short, sexy and revealing chiffon dresses with knee-length skirts and halter neck dresses, well-cut jackets and a black column dress with a white bustier.

As a whole the collection was feminine without being extremely romantic, and minimalist without being boring, with essential details clarified and colours emphasised, just like in a picture by Erwin Blumenfeld. 

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Happy Anniversary…Laser!

Lasers are inevitably connected in the mind of many of us with sci-fi novels and films.

Yet, since Theodore Maiman ignited the first laser flash in May 1960 and laser pioneer Charles Townes received the Nobel Prize four years later, laser technology turned into a reality, bringing innovation and progress into different fields and becoming a part of our everyday lives.

We indeed employ laser for applications from the storage and transmission of data to advanced medicine, thermonuclear fusion, holography and even fashion, a field in which laser-cutting technology has allowed designers, among them also Zac Posen and Michael Angel, to create intricate patterns in fabrics as different as leather and neoprene.

One of the latest designers to turn to this technology was Christopher Kane who included in his Spring/Summer 2011 collection (more about it later on...) also some vinyl coated laser cut leather suits in neon colours.

Lasers allowed designers to experiment widely, creating technologically advanced showpieces: we all have fond memories of Hussein Chalayan's laser dresses from his Spring/Summer 2008 "Readings" collection that sent out beams of lights thanks to custom made brass hinges that moved by small servo motors (I'm republishing at the end of this post a video on the making of the dresses and one of the designs in action).

In the last few years quite a few designers and artists have been developing projects with lasers and the human body, among them also Australian Danielle Wilde who has focused her work on the possibilities offered by dynamically extending the body with light.  

2010 is the International Year of the Laser and, if you want to celebrate the 50th anniversary of this technology and you happen to be in Scotland, head tomorrow (at 7:30 p.m.) to the Fraser Noble Build of the local university where Professor John Watson will be speaking about the new developments and applications of the laser in science, industry, commerce and our everyday lives.

Yes, I know, some of us are pretty busy with the various fashion weeks, but, I'm sure that, if you are a fashion designer, a mind-expanding lesson on lasers will provide some interesting inspirations for your collections.   

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And the Ballets Russes Danced On: David Koma, Erdem, Meadham Kirchhoff S/S 11

Since last year there have been quite a few exhibitions, tributes and ballet performances to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Ballets Russes.

At the end of the week, the Victoria and Albert Museum will celebrate the centenary of the first performance by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes with the opening of a major exhibition entitled “Sergei Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909-1929” (running until January 2011).

The event will mainly focus on the company's designs, costumes, choreographies, music and art, showcasing different objects, including accessories and theatre props.

Fashionistas will be happy to know that the museum is offering also a dedicated shop to celebrate the event with exclusive items such as scarves designed by Erdem incorporating costume designs by Léon Bakst for Narcisse (1911), L'Oiseau de feu (The Firebird, 1911) and La Peri (1915), a "Diaghilev" fragrance by Roja Dove and a T-shirt by Tata-Naka inspired by The Firebird.

To my great satisfaction Ballets Russes fever has descended also upon the London Fashion Week runways, inspiring some of the collections showcased yesterday.

David Koma’s tight bodice and full skirt designs called to mind in their neutral palette Degas’ paintings, with a touch of Giorgio De Chirico’s costumes for the Ballets Russes’ Le Bal and Proteé.

The young Georgian designer focused indeed in the first part of his collection on pale colours, adding architectural elements and motifs such as rigid pleats in the light pink skirts of his short dresses or in asymmetrical tutu-like snakeskin skirts incorporated in a dress or worn as belts.

Koma then introduced designs that  included zigzagging motifs in black and white that seemed borrowed from the Russian Constructivists, geometrical elements and gold or black python inserts that were maybe derived from Vladimir Tatlin's abstract sculptures and that brought back the collection into the realm of futurism and cyborg-like armours Koma has favoured up to his previous collection. 

Erdem Moralioglu's collection was rather romantic, but deep down it had a strong connection with the Ballets Russes, with a couple of references to costumes as well. 

Erdem’s lace and florals weren’t missing, but they were inspired this time by an experience that will make jealous every fashion design academic, costume/dance fan and museum curator.

Erdem followed indeed the work of Jane Pritchard, co-curator of the Victoria & Albert Museum's Ballets Russes exhibition, and was even allowed to touch (hopefully with proper gloves on...) some of the costumes.

Seeing the costumes preserved in calico inspired Erdem to come up with ethereal white designs showcased while  Petroushka's soundtrack could be heard in the background (by the way, thumbs up for the music choice...).

The neutral colour and structure of the first few designs - mainly white lace dresses, at times embroidered in red matched with Nicholas Kirkwood's sandals in a floral prints covered in tulle that tied up the calf like ballet shoes - echoed the attire of ballerinas.

The floral harlequin patterns of some dresses - created by juxtaposing photos, Monet-like paintings, digital images and flowery patterns - seemed instead to be a reference to Léon Bakst's costume for Harlequin, a character from The Sleeping Princess (1921), or to José-Maria Sert's costume for the Giampaolo character in Le Astuzie Femminili (1920 - remember the velvet coat with floral patterns?). 

It’s undeniable that there was some repetition in the collection and a bit of editing wouldn’t have hurt, yet it was interesting to see how an intense inspiration such as the elaborate and colourful costumes of the Ballets Russes led to a well-balanced collection and how Erdem managed to escape any kind of attempt at overloading his designs even when Swarovski crystals appeared here and there on the harlequin designs.

Ballerinas must have been also on Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchhoff’s mind while working on the Spring/Summer 2011 collection.

A ballerina from a music box sat on top of the crown by milliner Nasir Mazhar matched with the opening ensemble hinted at children's dreams, but the glittery pink and pale blue legwarmers worn with colourful sparkling sandals matched with frayed pink knitted dresses, T-shirts and jackets with slogans and yellow pleated dresses with geometrical cut out motifs (the best designs out of this collection and maybe a colour borrowed from Henri Matisse's costume for the Chamberlain in Le Chant du rossignol?), hinted at a sort of lost innocence and at punkish/gothic ballerinas.

Maybe if Petrushka were a female puppet living in our confusing times, she would go around dressed like this and listening to punk tracks rather than classical music. Who knows.

I guess what we really know for sure is that, while in the past designers like Yves Saint Laurent were inspired by the more folkish or exotic aspects of the Ballets Russes' costumes, contemporary designers seem to be going beyond the costumes, discovering the heritage they left us through exhibitions and trying to reinvent and reinterpret the art of the Ballets Russes for modern women.

In a couple of weeks we will see if this inspiration has somehow reached also the designers showcasing their collections in Paris.

For the time being, it looks like the Spring/Summer 2011 season may be another glorious "Saison Russe".  

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A Glimpse of "Genuine" in Cooperative Designs' Spring/Summer 2011 Collection

I analysed in a previous post the power of Caligari-inspired prints, also mentioning other films such as Anton Giulio Bragaglia’s Thaïs and Robert Wiene's silent horror film Genuine: Tragedy of a Strange House (1920), usually known as Genuine: The Tale of a Vampire.

Cooperative Designs’ Spring/Summer 2011 collection made me think a lot about the graphic sets seen in these films.

The new collection includes knits mainly based around a limited palette featuring black and white, burnt orange and red that call back to mind the colours used by the Bauhaus, the art of Natalia Goncharova and the Moscow Futurists and the work produced by Russian state art and technical school Vkhutemas and by one of its teachers, constructivist painter Aleksandra Ekster.

Yet there is also something in the geometric and abstract figures creating chaotically interesting and patterns featured in this collection that evokes the sets and costumes created for Genuine by Expressionist painter César Klein and the work of scenarist Carl Mayer.

Genuine features a stylised décor, a sort of confusing forest of painted cardboard characterised by a dreamlike atmosphere that mesmerises the watcher.

The film plot deals with a strange character named Lord Milo who buys in a slave market a woman called Genuine, who was the priestess of a secret sect.

Milo keeps her confined in a sort of tropical grotto surrounded by exotic plants in his house, taming her most aggressive instincts, but, soon, Genuine finds the way to free her uninhibited wild exoticism and her savage lust, turning once again in a dangerous femme fatale with destructive instincts.

Genuine tried to emulate Caligari’s success, but didn’t manage to do it, yet the madness and conflict in this film are perfectly symbolised on a visual level through the lavish images, the zigzagging motifs of the sets and the rich and bizarre costumes.

Indeed actress Fern Andra wore some extraordinarily exotic garments in the film, among them also a knitted bodysuit (check out the 44-minute condensation of the film embedded at the end of this post around 06:38).

In Cooperative Designs' S/S 11 collection there was an interesting emphasis on overloaded, complex, dynamic and abstract distortions that break the perspective and cause confusion and anxiety, and on the sort of Expressionist jagged and irregular shapes that usually convey strong and unsettling emotions.

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Interiorising Fashion Design: Mary Katrantzou S/S 11

I shouldn’t really be complaining if, after hoping to see some kind of collaboration between the world of interior design and fashion, somebody eventually decides to experiment a bit and tries to merge the two fields.

While working on her Spring/Summer 2011 collection, designer Mary Katrantzou must have been leafing through entire collections of Elle Décor, Vogue Decoration and House & Garden, with the occasional issue of Architectural Digest and World of Interiors thrown in.

Her S/S 11 designs in her trademark hyper-real colours featured indeed digitalised views of sleek and modern living rooms and balconies and windows opening on blue skies, gardens, swimming pools and views of cities by night.

Each design seemed to have a very special, almost 3-D depth with a few images creating quite clever experiments in perspective.

There was also something slightly surreal about the dresses: some of them featured chiffon curtains hanging around the hips from concertina-pleated pelmets or fringe curtains hanging around the front of the dress that, moving as the models sashayed down the runway, gave the impression that a gust of wind had entered in the imaginary rooms printed on the dresses.

In some cases pelmets were turned into epaulettes that framed a print of a window, while rows of colourful Swarovski crystals were used to decorate some of the details.

Interior design also characterised some of the materials employed: there were indeed shorts and skirt suits in a fabric reminiscent of Vienna straw, a material traditionally used for chairs. Accessories weren’t spared the interior design treatment and they included oversized chandelier and candelabra necklaces.

The collection, that also featured lampshade-shaped skirts that will hopefully remain in the realm of the showpiece, probably borrowed some of its optical illusions from René Magritte's works.

As a whole the designs looked beautiful, but, if analysed in depth, the collection shows once again there is a problem with many young designers out there: they often tend to take one inspiration and safely stick to it throughout their collections, often repeating themselves. 

Katrantzou mainly limited herself to the most blissfully elegant spaces she spotted in the best interior magazines, that is living rooms (anybody up for a print of a messy kid’s room or a wardrobe full of clothes? Not so stylish, you say?), probably finding their perspectives easier to adapt to her silhouettes, the main reason why there were no trouser suits on the runway.  

Surely the designer has a great imagination and also knows how to use colours in a strikingly original way.

Yet it's undeniable that Katrantzou's vision of over-the-top interior design glamour was at times as immaculately chic, polished and cold like those clinically spotless houses belonging to the rich, affluent and wealthy that you see on the pages of many interior décor magazines. 

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Elaborating Inspirations from Bora Aksu's Empire of the Ant Women to Emilio de la Morena's Lucio Fontana

I have a suggestion for all the universities across the globe offering courses in fashion design: what about adding a new subject such as “On finding inspirations and being able to tackle them in an interesting way and to intelligently elaborate with the press about your collections”?

Yes, I agree, maybe that’s too long for the name of just one discipline, but I honestly think we desperately need something like that.

If you work in the creative industry you know that, at times, finding inspiration can be difficult especially in the fashion field where almost everything has already been (more or less) done.

Yet, once you find that smashing idea, that clever inspiration, it can be hard to tackle it in an innovative way and then explain somebody else what you tried to express by using it.

Indeed in my experience I have seen two different reactions to the question “Where did you get the inspiration for this collection?”: a vague and puzzled expression that superficially said “I don’t know, it just happened”, or a rather convoluted explanation that involved several works of art and being three years old and seeing an elderly aunt wearing a crimson hat at a family funeral while everybody else was dressed in black. 

Take Bora Aksu’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection, showcased a couple of days ago during London Fashion Week.

Seen from a distance, the intricate silhouettes, surface elaboration, tulle, silk, brocade and lace inserts and padded bits and pieces looked extremely interesting, especially matched with tights printed with what looked like the membranous texture of insect wings.

Then Aksu explained that the inspiration for this collection - mainly based on a black and grey palette with splashes of vivid red - came from observing a colony of ants on a summer afternoon.

It was then that you realised that the wing-like motifs on the tights represented the patterns left by ants, while the sinuous padded motifs on the body-con dresses accessorised with woollen ants (apparently hand-crocheted by Aksu’s aunt…) that crawled on the wrists and the heads of the models were references to an ant’s anatomy, head, trunk and metasoma included.

Aksu usually likes playing on contrasts and finding balances between different elements in his designs, so he threw in the mix delicate ruffles as a reference to 50s lingerie and corsets, though this inspiration sadly generated an unnecessary amount of romantic frilly tops and apron dresses, disrupting the image of ant-woman the designer had conjured up through some of his strongest silhouettes.

So here comes my initial disquisition about inspirations, how to tackle and explain them: indeed, you wished Aksu had maybe elaborated a bit better the ant theme, that was maybe developed in a very literal way in some cases, generating also a few unnecessary repetitions. 

You honestly feel that things would have worked better if he had thrown in the mix 1954 American black and white science fiction film Them! by Gordon Douglas with its gigantic irradiated ants, trashy Joan Collins selling real estate deals in an area taken over by giant ants in Bert I. Gordon’s 1977 Empire of the Ants and H.G. Wells eponymous 1905 story. 

I'm sure that, in this way he would have had the chance to play a bit more on the fear that mutant women may generate, maybe creating a slightly more thrilling collection, with stronger shapes and more marked contrasts between black and different shades of grey.

Then there is the curious case of Emilio de la Morena that proves fashion comes in cycles and we are at the moment copying – oh, sorry, I meant to say, paying homage to – the 60s.

The designer was indeed inspired in his collection by Argentinean artist Lucio Fontana’s slits.

Band Aid-like perforations supposedly evoking Fontana's holes were another big theme and there was emphasis on sculptural pieces highlighted by Scott Wilson’s chunky jewellery pieces.

There were some hints at architecture, but the Fontana inspiration prevailed, especially in the dresses that seemed to be constructed by using 6 canvases with the iconic slits, two forming the front and back of the dresses and four for the skirt. 

Now, professional fashion journalists know that fashion designer Mila Schön was among the first ones to be inspired by Lucio Fontana who actually created in 1961 yellow and black designs with slits and holes for Bruna Bini and Giuseppe Telese's atelier. 

The artist’s works also resurfaced every now and then in other collections, even more contemporary ones, throughout the decades.

Emilio de la Morena is a young designer, with a group of supporters comprising fashion journalists and bloggers as young as him who weren’t born when Schön was borrowing from Fontana’s works or who aren't too bothered about fashion history because they think it’s all so old, irrelevant and boring, and this explains why some critics may end up considering this collection as extremely fresh and innovative.

Yet elaborating the Fontana inspiration a bit better would have probably allowed Emilio de la Morena to reach out for the dimension behind the canvas like the artist had tried to do, rather than just recreating Fontana's slits and holes on the fabric.

You could argue that there are still a few days left and plenty of designers to see during London Fashion Week, and the capital has therefore got the time it needs to show all the anarchic and bizarre potential that other fashion capitals do not have. Who knows, there may even be designers who will reach out for that extra spatial dimension Fontana was aiming for and even manage to elaborate their main reference points and inspirations in a truly original and fresh way.       

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African Nostalgia: Between Authenticity and Fad

In the maelstrom of pseudo-Oriental designs, asymmetrical garments and minimalism gone boring that was New York Fashion Week, a subtle yet steady trend emerged, Africa.

Fashion-wise the trend started in 2009, but more people, designers included, paid more attention to it, also thanks to the World Cup that indirectly inspired events such as the "Into Africa" exhibition at London's concept store The Darkroom featuring objects and accessories created by London-based designers moving from African art and textiles.

For what regards the Spring/Summer 2011 collections inspired by Africa, while in some cases there seemed to be a genuine interest in this theme, in others the influence was limited to moods and colours.

Yet it must be highlighted that there wasn’t any kind of revolutionary approach à la Jean Paul Gaultier in the designs presented.

Designers approached Africa from two different points of view: some of them seemed to display a "colonialist" attitude to the subject, others looked instead at traditional prints and tried to use them in garments characterised by modern cuts and silhouettes.

Badgley Mischka and L’Wren Scott fell for example in the first category.

Mark Badgley and James Mischka moved indeed from the decadence of British settlers living in Kenya in Michael Radford's film White Mischief that inspired elegant evening wear, surface elaborations, embroideries and more practical high-waisted shorts and tops.

In between one safari look (read a sheer jacket matched with white blouse and trousers) and the other, L'Wren Scott tended at times to relapse instead into the Far East theme with gold kimonos, and, while some of the dresses evoked the bright colours of the sky and the sunrise in Africa, their shape, cut and silhouette called to mind The World of Suzie Wong rather than African savannahs and veldts, with occasional abstract prints taken from photos of palms.

African prints and fabrics provided instead more variation to different fashion designers and brands, among them L.A.M.B., Petrou Man and Suno.

Gwen Stefani used African prints in structured jackets with short sleeves, cropped tops matched with plaid drop-crotch trousers, T-shirts with layered ruffled sleeves and tiered mini-dresses.

Africa was also evoked by the colourful necklaces and bangles that accessorised the various looks.

Nicolas Petrou provided instead an option for menswear in his designs inspired by school uniforms and Africa, combining tribal and ethnic prints and hand-sewn light madras with Western inspirations and fabrics such as denim and twill for a collection that echoed heritage and vintage looks.

The fact that the prints for the designs included in Max Osterweis and Erin Beatty’s fashion label Suno borrowed from the brightly colourful Kenyan fabrics of "kangas", wasn’t the only connection with Africa.

Osterweis is indeed a passionate fan and collector of kangas and Suno’s garments are actually produced in Kenya by a talented and skilled workforce.

As a further homage to Africa, Suno's presentations often seem to display connections with the photographs of Malick Sidibé or the more recent fashion street images portraying Johannesburg youth by Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko.

Suno's designs are usually based on contrasts: different fabrics and prints were mixed in the S/S 11 collection in more casual and sporty pieces such as beach wear, but also in cocktail dresses,  accessorised with rows of necklaces, stacks of bangles and belts (all characterised by the Swahili aphorisms usually printed on kangas) and fabric wedges and flats (created in collaboration with Loeffler Randall), but there were also a few minimalist pieces such as white laser-cut shorts and dresses.

African inspirations arrived also at London Fashion Week yesterday with a presentation during Vauxhall Fashion Scout of Bunmi Koko’s “Matriarchy” collection (analysed in a previous post in connection with masks), that includes tie dye prints and tribal inspirations.

I’m honestly in two minds about some of the African inspirations seen so far.

It would indeed be interesting to see some fashion designers coming up with a project that could have some positive effects on Africa and inspire other businesses to launch new ventures that could improve people's lives (well, you could argue that Suno is actually already doing it...).

Menswear fans sound enthusiastic about Petrou’s collection, yet, there have been designers who explored in the past in a better way the potential of African fabrics and weren't reviewed with magniloquent and grand words (by the way, does anybody remember Joe Casely-Hayford designing in 1995 the exhibition "The Art of African Textiles – Technology, Tradition, and Lurex" at London’s Barbican?).

If you think about it, African designers have been carrying out experiments mixing traditional fabrics with modern silhouettes for a while, though they rarely make it into the pages of the main fashion magazines.

Besides African men and women living away from their home country often mix in their everyday attires traditional prints with garments from industrialised countries without turning to an overpaid stylist every time they get out of the house.

I wonder what will happen in future to African inspirations in fashion and if there will be further fashion houses interested in developing products in conjunction with local artisans and designers.

Hopefully looking at Africa won't just be the umpteenth elitist and colonialist trick of the fashion industry that will end up creating further socio-economic tensions between our rich and developed countries and the African continent.

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Cutting Architectural Shapes: Cynthia Rowley and Chado Ralph Rucci S/S 11

It was somehow impossible for me not to think about a few projects seen at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice while looking at some of the designs for the next Spring/Summer 2011 season.

In the Education section of the Hong Kong pavilion I saw for example a model that challenged the classical notion of college campus thanks to its compact and environmentally innovative architecture.

The project, developed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and the administrators of Chu Hai College, is called the Compact Campus Building and it's a unique structure since, while respecting the site and demanding climatic conditions, it also embodies the college educational philosophy.

Moving from the interaction of different disciplines, the project focuses on the relationships between the various departments, reinforced through spatial and visual connections.

Usually a building has a sealed outer layer, but in this case the layer is deconstructed creating in-between spaces that open and close reducing the volume of conditioned space.

In this way the building - characterised by a sort of hole-y structure - leaves most of the site free, recreating a sort of natural environment.

The holes of the Compact Campus Building came back to my mind when I saw images of Cynthia Rowley's Spring/Summer 2011 designs.

Mainly focused on putty grey, ice blue and green shades with occasional splashes of red and orange and a few prints as well, Rowley's new collection features indeed skirts and dresses characterised by series of holes or appliquéd cabochon buttons in different colours creating dotty graphic motifs on the fabric.

Though at times the designer repeated herself a bit too much, the collection was well executed.

The designs featuring the perforated motifs were actually more interesting, since they allowed the skin of the models to become an integral part of the look.

The hole-y designs worked particularly well when matched with sheer and matte sweaters.

The architectural elements were enhanced by the metal and enamel barrette necklaces and the rectangular hair clips gracing the models' hair.

There was definitely more variation at Chado Ralph Rucci, but there was also an uncanny resemblance between some of the designs and the works of the Greg Lynn Studio as exhibited also in Venice at the Austrian Pavilion. 

Directed by Los Angeles-based architect Greg Lynn, this is one of three studios teaching architectural design in the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. 

Austria focused on the "Under Construction" theme at the Venice Architecture Biennale, presenting new visions and prospects for modern cities, all characterised by an optimistic approach.

Most of the projects presented at the Austrian Pavilion also had a futuristic quality about them, resembling in some cases spaceships rather than buildings.

Considered a provocative architect, Lynn has been mixing in his work cutting-edge technology, contemporary art and science fiction aesthetics with architectural form. 

Lynn's works are usually projected into the future and, a while back, the architect was also involved in the project "Other Space Odysseys", inspired by the 1969 moon landing and exploring how scientific expeditions, satellite launches, and space tourism had an impact on our lives and relationship with the planet.

The perfect structure of Chado Ralph Rucci's designs, the way he played with tulle inserts, sheer and matte fabrics, or added airwave-shaped embroideries on the sheer hems of skirts and jackets, made me think a lot about Lynn's buildings.

The designer also tried to create more affordable and casual pieces such as cotton dresses and jumpsuits.

Yet despite the sporty feeling of some pieces, tailoring was impeccable (if there is one designer who knows about tailoring in New York, that's Rucci) and the clean silhouettes often made you think about space uniforms and modern buildings rather than casual wear.

Raincoats and jackets had bell-shaped sleeves that added special volumes; skirt suits and dresses with sheer inserts seemed to have been ripped, deconstructed and then reconstructed like buildings through detailed surface elaborations.

As a whole the collection - enhanced also by accessories such as sheer short gloves - could be described as architectural space age couture, blending design, technology, craftsmanship and some principles from the aerospace industries.

For further futuristic and architectural inspirations check out the book Greg Lynn - Form - I'm embedding here a brief video showing some pages of the book.

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