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

Filming Chalayan's Ideas

Last year, while preparing a questionnaire for a Hussein Chalayn interview for Zoot Magazine, I decided to include in the list of my questions also a very traditional and rather banal one, the classic “What would you have been, if you hadn’t been a fashion designer?”

Indeed I often found myself wondering while thinking about Chalayan if he would have preferred to be an architect, an engineer or maybe a scientist.

Yet the designer’s answer was less technical and more creative than I had thought, he simply stated “Maybe something to do with music or film.”

When I pondered a bit about that answer I realised that it was almost obvious: apart from working as a fashion designer, from 2003 on, Chalayan directed art projects, including short films “Temporal Meditations”, “Place to Passage” and “Anaesthetics", representing Turkey at the 2005 Venice Biennale with the project “Absent Presence”, featuring Tilda Swinton.

Moving between art, fashion, film, performance, science, architecture and technology, the designer mixed one medium with the other, collaborating with professionals from different fields - musicians, textile and product designers included - and exploring innovative ways of representation that also questioned production and consumption.      

Last week, Chalayan launched a new installation at London’s Lisson Gallery. Entitled "Üzgünüm Leyla" (“I am sad Leyla”), the installation (running until 2nd October) revolves around a film of Turkish pop singer Sertab Erener singing a piece of Turkish classical music accompanied by an Ottoman orchestra (slightly reminiscent of another musical element, the Bulgarian choir singing during the "After Words" Autumn-Winter 2000-01 collection presentation) and features other elements - the music score and a 3-D nylon sculpture among them - deconstructed from the project. 

Tonight another installation, entitled “B Side” (running until 23rdc October), opens at London's Spring Studios.

The installation mainly reunites three different projects, "Micro Geography: A Cross Section", "Anaesthetics" and the Spring/Summer 2009 collection "Inertia".

The first project comprised a glass observation box divided in three sections symbolising Air, Earth and Water, with a rotating figure inside surrounded by video cameras, and was commissioned by Dutch gallerist Han Nefkens for last year's "Art of Fashion" event at Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum ; the 2004 film "Anaesthetics" focused on everyday situations from air travel to the preparation of Japanese food, while the fibre glass moulds for the Spring/Summer 2009 "Inertia" collection perfectly represent the main theme of that collection, the consequence of speed in modern life. 

Chalayan will launch his next collection in a couple of weeks' time in Paris, presenting it to the press and buyers with no proper catwalk show. Even though the presentation will be rather intimate and won't maybe focus on technology or evoke complex and futuristic three-dimensional cityscapes like the ones seen in Hussein Chalayan's 2003 video installation "Place to Passage" (see extract embedded at the end of this post), I'm sure it will be interesting and inspire new narrative paths into fashion and art.  

After all, as he explained in the interview I did for Zoot last year, "I am more an ideas person. The idea is born first, the aesthetic is innately there in everything I do and a collection is very much about a narrative, a form of storytelling involving different themes which evolve from, or react to, the idea before. They can be monumental themes which I arrive at gradually. The shows are designed to be a cultural experience for the spectator with sections reading as chapters.”

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Studies in Wood and Porcelain Collages: Rodarte S/S 2011

There is one experiment I would like to do one day and that’s seeing the reaction of a classically trained tailor or dressmaker in front of a Rodarte collection.

Would somebody with a genuine knowledge of garment construction spot any imperfections or say that these are simply flawless designs?

Would a technical audience use the same grand words of the fashion press or would they spot some kind of unconvincing element in the draped motifs or in the fit and catalogue the breast plates out of their latest collection as flights of fancy? Who knows.

Hailed as the next big thing to come out of America and to have a solid impact on European fashionistas as well, the Rodarte sisters somehow keep on amazing me for the extraordinary reactions they always get from the media.

Indeed, in the maelstrom of fashion confusion and ready-to-wear blandness that is New York Fashion Week, Rodarte represent more than a simple breath of fresh air.

The apocalypse being over and amazons being (almost) extinct, Rodarte finally decided to leave Darwinism and horror behind to focus on nature, redwoods, interior design and their origins, that is Northern California.

Marc Jacobs went back to the 70s in his Spring/Summer 2011 collection; Rodarte sort of opted for the same decade, but mixed it with the principles of the Arts and Crafts Movement that refused artificial and ornate things, favouring an approach to simplicity in form.

This explains the trunk and wood prints - or rather wood panelling/pallet prints - in different tones such as dark brown, earth and cork, that turned into a recurring yet not extremely original theme if you think about Madeleine de Rauch’s wood print dresses from the 50s (View this photo).

Applied also to shoes that displayed in their carved wood and metal platforms a sort of Medieval derivation (which showed again a connection with the Arts and Crafts Movement’s interest in Medieval design, but were also somehow reminiscent of Alexander McQueen's last collection), the wood theme was more interesting when applied to skirt suits that seemed to be carved out of wood, yet at times it also looked rather autumnal, especially when matched with plaid shirts with qipao fastenings.

As much as they tried to get away from their first and successful trick of cleverly mixing different fabrics and textures together, Kate and Laura Mulleavy relapsed into their signature collage style, reinventing it a bit, especially in the blue and white designs that betrayed an Oriental inspiration derived from Ming porcelain vases (their shape was also reused in the skirt silhouettes).

In their quest for tailoring purity, the Mulleavy sisters experimented with rigidly sculptural peplum jackets that looked like modern reinterpretation of Dior's Bar suit, including also in their collection blouses sliced around the torso that left the skin exposed, jackets with cut-out shoulders, apron dresses and high-waisted trousers.

Yet not everything was as cozy as a wood panelled house, after all, once an Amazon, always an Amazon and a mix of tribalism and primitivism came back first in the dresses characterised by rigid slates of a sort of foamy material with a faux crocodile skin print, climaxing in the golden designs that evoked in their structure and breast plates the looks of Roman goddesses clad in bronze armours.

Could this be a hint to their next collection  (or maybe an idea for the costumes of one of those Hollywood blockbusters about Roman history that throws historians into a pit of despair)?

The future seasons will tell. In the meantime, still divided between dressing modern and edgy women and reinventing a wardrobe for Boudicca the queen of the Iceni people, the Mulleavys have carved for themselves enough space in the fashion media and in the buyers' hearts, while gaining also the attention of the LVMH giant.

In fact I suspect that being absorbed by the latter would actually benefit Rodarte and maybe inspire the girls to find more cohesive inspirations and tone down a bit their warrior moments. 

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Botanical and Floral, But Not As You Knew It (Wayne, Chris Benz, Carolina Herrera, Monique Lhuillier, Halston, Marc Jacobs)

Flowers are definitely one of the most predictable themes in fashion. Decade after decade we have seen floral prints on various runways, while more original designers like Roberto Capucci and, more recently, John Galliano for Christian Dior, reused the theme to wrap up women in sculptural fabric petals.

The botanical and floral theme came back also in New York, but with a few twists.

Venus flytraps provided Wayne Lee with the basic inspiration for a sporty collection with a botanical edge.

Skirts had petal shapes, ribbed details on viscose tops called to mind the texture of leaves, tongues of fabrics hung from dresses and tops like some floaty and mysterious undergrowth, while scuba diving-like trouser suits and leather corsets matched with safari shirts and leather shorts provided the perfect look for the urban man-eating femme fatale and were probably metaphorical references to carnivorous plants.

But while at Wayne’s colours were muted and neutral, Chris Benz remained faithful to his passion for bright nuances.

Floral skirts, jackets, tops and cigarette pants in shades of orange, red and electric blue or with prevailing splashes of yellow appeared here and there throughout the collection matched with platform shoes designed by Alejandro Ingelmo.

The theme worked better though when it was limited to one floral garment in one look. 

Rather than mixing traditional Korean designs with botanical plates, Carolina Herrera should have maybe stuck with one inspiration and made sure she used it in a more subtle way.

The Far East seemed to inspire straw hats and origami-like elements such as the flat obi belt bows and the neat folds decorating the sleeves and shirts; prints of flowers accompanied by their names and origins appeared instead on trousers, skirts and dresses.

In some cases the flowers were appliquéd on judo jacket-like dresses (note: obi-like belts and judo jackets will become a trend come next Spring - there have been quite a few on the New York runways already), creating a sort of 3-D effect or an entire page of a botanic catalogue was printed on a sumptuous evening gown.

The best designs were probably the ones in which the inspiration wasn’t too literal, though, and flowers were used as embroideries or employed to create original shapes.

Fabric swirls and petals covered quite a few of Monique Lhuillier’s designs, though the best ones were the evening dresses with hand-painted magnolias and the gowns in which nude corsets contrasted with skirts covered in bright flowers, like hundreds of appliquéd red poppies. 

Marios Schwab went back to the classic 70s Halston silhouettes in his second collection to try and rejuvenate the iconic fashion house.

There weren't extremely big steps forward, but the designer also used here and there a sort of muted orchid motif in his sequinned designs. 

I can not deny the fact that I admire Marc Jacobs for the way he cleverly pilfers inspirations here and there, chops them and mixes them in a big cauldron and then gets the unanimous approval of the fashion media.

It's undeniable, Jacobs is the Fatboy Slim of the fashion industry. Take for example the Spring/Summer 2011 collection: while thinking about it, Jacobs must have seen the “Idealized History of Fashion” exhibition at Paris' Musée des Arts Décoratifs, an event that somehow reassesses the 70s, then he mixed it with further inspirations such as New York babes, Studio54, Yves Saint Laurent (actually featured in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibition), Missoni zigzagging motifs (you wonder if Missoni took this as a homage or as being ripped off...) and a few 70s film icons such as Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver (by the way, can costume designer Ruth Morley get a credit for this collection?) . 

Working like the talented scavenger he is, Jacobs mainly focused on coral, peach, pink, terracotta, ochre, lilac and mauve shades, adding a few touches of gold in the glittery platform shoes, including in his collection satin high-waisted trousers and shorts, billowing liquid silk dresses and jumpsuits with slits revealing the models' pants and knit dresses.

There were occasional references to the Guy Bourdin palette, and glamour was definitely high on the list, also thanks to massive wide brimmed straw hats, 70shairstyles and heavy make up.

The flower theme was mainly used for the accessories, with models wearing oversized fabric or leather flowers in the hair, around their necks, on their shoulders or around their waists.

With so many looks and inspirations, Jacobs can definitely be considered like the best cocaine rush the contemporary fashion industry will ever get: he hits, confuses, thrills and causes temporary euphoria. But, you're warned, the comedown may leave you desperately empty.

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So Mugler, What Will You Look Like?

The rumours that have been going around for a while were finally confirmed: stylist and fashion editor Nicola Formichetti is the new Creative Director of French fashion house Thierry Mugler.

Formichetti will basically oversee designers Sébastien Peigné, head of womenswear, and Romain Kremer, head of menswear, and the first collection will be launched next year, for the Autumn/Winter 2011 season.

It’s easy to wonder what we will see on Mugler’s runway: new versions of robotic women, gender bending looks, more motorcycle designs, another Madonna and child on the runway or oppressive corsetry and punitively restrictive clothes of the kind that enrage feminists? Who knows.

Judging from what we saw (so far and also) yesterday on Lady Gaga at the MTV Video Music Awards (meat dress included...) Formichetti will provide us with a lot to talk about. At the same time the celebrity stylist should maybe try not to forget that excessive theatricality made Mugler, but eventually destroyed him as well making him forget fashion in favour of performance. 

Taking into the future Mugler, though, won't be easy, but I hope Formichetti will look a bit more at technology and science (what about focusing on something along the lines of the "Anatomique Computer" collection?) and also relaunch Mugler's photographic style.

Formichetti has definitely got the energy and imagination needed to be at the helm of such a fashion house and is capable of producing very visionary work, so we will surely see something amazing on the next Mugler runway. It remains to be seen if what will be produced for the next Autumnal season will also be wearable.

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Optical Elegance: Lacoste S/S 11

It’s somehow ironic that in a fashion industry that has gone terribly wrong and seems to be more or less unanimously considering Victoria Beckham as a real fashion designer with an impressive knowledge about dressmaking and the female form (so, who was Christian Dior?), some sportswear companies are actually coming up with more interesting and elegant ideas than many fashion houses.

This is for example the case with Lacoste. In his last collection for the sports label after ten years, Creative Director Christophe Lemaire went back to the brand's roots, drawing inspiration from the career and early successes of tennis champion and brand founder Jean-René Lacoste.

Lemaire found a new kind of elegance in looks that seemed to be borrowed from the 1920s or from Cecil Beaton’s iconic photographs, matching streamlined modern polo shirts with pleated trousers, studying the potential of clean lines and employing perforated fabrics that had something architectural about them in dresses and mini-skirts.

A sense of exoticism was added to the collection through bright colours such orange or red and fuchsia, ample kimonos and beige, brown and tobacco safari jackets matched with leather visors, rope belts and stacks of sculptural wooden bangles.

There were a couple of graphic T-shirts aimed at a younger market that looked rather redundant and out of place, and the straw hats didn't seem to display the perfect proportions of classic Panama hats, but the collection excelled in the garments that showed a clear derivation from the Bauhaus and modernist architecture, like Robert Mallet-Stevens' Villa Noailles.

Mentioned by the designer as one of his inspirations, the villa, located in the South of France, resembles a ship stranded on a slope and also features a rather unusual garden designed by Gabrile Guevrekian characterised by an extreme manipulation of the perspective. 

Lemaire also mixed perspective distortion and Op Art, coming up with modern and minimalist pieces.

Who knows, maybe he even watched Elio Petri’s La decima vittima while designing this collection, since the black and white tops with a motif that called to mind Victor Vasarely’s “Vonal KSZ” also resembled the mysterious optical art-like targets that director Petri used in the set for Lidia's house to hide secret spaces and rooms.

Lemaire is definitely one to watch as he prepares to take his new role as Creative Director at Hermès.

Successor Felipe Oliveira Baptista should maybe start worrying as it will be difficult to do better than this.

In the meantime we are left with a final question: will we finally see models smiling also at the next Hermès runway like we did at Lacoste's?

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New York Fashion Week and the Rage of Caliban

In many ways I admire American fashion critics. I do because they seem to be able to support their own industry with grand words even when such words are used to describe average ready-to-wear designs that rarely have anything fresh or exciting about them.

Italians are very different: we tend to demolish most of what we produce, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad. This is essentially why young and talented designers often end up making a name for themselves in another country before being “accepted” in Italy and eventually hailed as fashion heroes.

Things seem to be very different in America, though, and this is essentially the reason why, while there wasn’t anything extremely striking during the first two days of New York Fashion Week, just by reading the feedback on some publications and sites you get the impression that, if you weren’t there, you’ve just missed the second coming of Christian Dior. 

The attention of the world was turned in the last few days on the 9th anniversary of 9/11, on Pastor Terry Jones threatening to burn copies of the Koran and the debate about building the mosque near Ground Zero, but the major preoccupation around Lincoln Center must have been finding the right words to describe in original ways a series of more or less average fashion designs.

You would think that after the umpteenth “fluid” dress, repetition fatigue would have caused enough stress to journalists and critics and they would have found difficult to look for exciting words to turn something average into something unique and unseen before.

Yet some of them keep on displaying more skills than linguists: neutral colours are described as a careful research for clear lines, purity and minimalism; jersey garments piled up one on the other become a versatile trick and not a tiring layering exercise; sheer and matte garments juxtaposed in the same design, like we saw in the 90s, are metaphors for a harder-edged yet sensual look while, rather than displaying a lack of knowledge in fabric choice, opting for just a couple of types of fabrics means sublime unpretentiousness.

They say Caliban became enraged at the sight of his own face in the mirror and dealt with the problem by smashing the mirror. Some critics seem to deal with the matter in a similar way, but, rather than smashing the mirror, they just hide what they wouldn't like to see under a thick layer of rhetorical excess.  

If you are a fashion connoisseur, if you know the technicalities behind a garment, the most disappointing aspect of New York Fashion Week is definitely the lack of an in-depth knowledge of tailoring techniques, disguised in fluid dresses and garments in which annoying ruffles and strange appendages are added here and there, pretending they create interesting asymmetrical motifs.

Most of the labels showcasing their new collections in the first two days of New York Fashion Week, seem to produce fashion for the Project Runway fan, the Twitter maniac and the Generation Gaga, that is something trendy and fast that doesn’t last long and is aimed at uneducated customers who have lost the ability to recognise a carefully designed pair of trousers or a well-designed shoulder line.

Christian Siriano is the emblematic example of what is going on in fashion at the moment: he is a young designer currently hailed as extremely talented who should be given the chance of growing up and mature before actually launching his own collections.

This is why I find it difficult to justify the existence of many fashion brands: it’s hard to spot the difference between the designs they produce. Still I admire the way some critics enthuse about some collections, spotting sculptural miracles in a fold and finding beauty in blandness.

Sure, there were interesting moments here and there during the first catwalk shows: a romantic mood was in the air at Jen Kao’s thanks to the designer’s cashmere crocheted dresses and embroidered pieces matched with feet wraps that created a sort of fake bobbin lace/macrame effect that gave the impression the models wore Roman coturni.

Peter Som focused instead on arty inspirations including Peggy Guggenheim and op art, though at times they got out of control, resulting in extremely bright aqua tops with appliquéd orange tweed patches.

Also Jason Wu moved from art, mentioning Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes among his influences. Milhazes's "Popeye" paintings were clear references in some of the appliqued motifs on tops and skirts, and, while the evening dresses decorated with petals of fabric looked pretty - though definitely not new design-wise - Wu should have maybe toned down a bit his use of sheer fabrics.  

Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs displayed a little bit more variety compared to their previous collections.

Opting for strong Amazon-like women, they mixed leather dresses and pleated kilts with cotton or sheer tops and also came up with floral dresses with prints of headless statues.

Aggressiveness was enhanced by Alejandro Ingelmo’s spiked high heels, though they should have cut back on shorts.

Sophie Buhai and Lisa Mayock at Vena Cava focused on casual elegance achieving it via halter neck dresses and tops, but you wonder why they had to include in the collection also rather unflattering and unnecessary dungarees.

The most puzzling trend seen so far at New York Fashion Week remains what could only be described as the "bondage parachutist look".

This annoying trend set to arrive in a high street shop near you pretty soon (after a few fashion bloggers will start raving about it obviously...) consists in a series of useless harnesses, straps and such likes hanging from a garment or crisscrossing it in a rather annoying way.

The best example of this look was seen on Rag & Bone's runway where straps and zips crisscrossed trousers and harnessed bras, that will look rather unflattering on all women who are not models, were matched with tailored jackets.

Overrated Alexander Wang wasn't immune to the trend and, while the main theme of his collection was supposed to be building sites - and that was clear in carpenter's jackets, splashes of paint, scribbled prints and gold bands mimicking duct tape - the thin fabrics employed for the rather unconvincing loose and relaxed dresses called to mind parachutes and so did the straps that crisscrossed the back of dresses and jumpsuits.

In a minor way also Gary Graham was caught in the parachutist trend, though in his case the designs revolved around a palette of olive green and light beige with splashes of vivid red here and there.

In some cases the overall effect was that of a Holly Hobbie doll living in a post-apocalypse era who, after surviving a nuclear attack, starts making her dresses out of parachutes, resulting in several bits and pieces of fabrics hanging here and there from a dress, jacket or a pair of trousers.  

There will probably be further interesting examples of bondage parachutists during New York Fashion Week, but, hopefully, there will also be collections worth of the excitingly grand words that some critics have been using to describe what we saw so far on the NY runways.

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Venice Film Festival Awards Alienation (…and Premieres a Costume Orgy)

Desperately sorry for all the fashionistas who didn’t see it coming (or rather not coming...), but Black Swan only won Mila Kunis the Marcello Mastroianni Award for emerging actress at the Venice Film Festival, so no major prizes for this film (next time, try to focus more on the plot and on the actors rather than on the popular designers who made the costumes…).

The Golden Lion for Best Film went instead to Sofia Coppola’s Somewhere, the boring and extended version of Federico Fellini's visionary "Toby Dammit" (in Tre passi nel delirio).

As she went on stage to get the award the director kept on saying she couldn’t believe it (neither could I…), while many critics felt rather disappointed at the results.

Somewhere doesn’t indeed shine for originality and freshness, though it manages to alienate its audience pretty well. Easy to wonder if there were any kind of pressures from Medusa or if Louis Vuitton has been giving out little presents to its party (and it's also not always bad to have your ex as the jury chairman...).

For what regards the other prizes, Alex de la Iglesia’s Balada triste de trompeta won the Silver Lion and the award for Best Screenplay; the Jury Prize went to Jerzy Skolimowski’s Essential Killing that also won Vincent Gallo the Coppa Volpi as best actor, while Monte Hellman scooped the Lion for an Overall Work for Road to Nowhere.

Yesterday’s Persol 3-D award went instead to Avatar by James Cameron and How To Train Your Dragon directed by Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois.

In the end it looked like the Orizzonti section of the Film Festival - with a jury chaired by Shirin Neshat - included fresher and more intelligent ideas that touched upon vital issues and were suspended between documentary and fiction, such as Verano de Goliat by Nicolás Pereda (Mexico), The Forgotten Space by Noel Burch, Allan Sekula (Netherlands), Coming Attractions by Peter Tscherkassky (Austria) and Tse (Out) by Roee Rosen (Israel).

The evening is now closing with Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, a new adaptation of Shakespeare’ play that includes in its cast Helen Mirren, Russell Brand, Alfred Molina and Alan Cumming.

Tonight's world premiere marks the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s play, but Taymor's film presents a twist in the original plot since it features a revengeful and powerful sorceress, Prospera, as main character. 

The film also features an orgy of rather dark and interesting costumes designed by three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell.

Curious to see if The Tempest's gothic grandeur will inspire any fashion designer the mood for future collections.

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Going Down the 3-D Path

The late 70s/early 80s proved exciting years for early 3-D experiments both in films and in print: if you were a kid around these years, you may remember films taken from Japanese anime series such as Rittai anime ie naki ko Remi (Homeless Child Remi) or children’s magazines with pages featuring 3-D illustrations accompanied by the ubiquitous paper glasses with red and blue lenses.

Time has passed and three-dimensional animation has tremendously developed, changed and advanced.

Being 3-D the most perfect medium when it comes to fashion since it allows you to explore a design from different angles and perspectives, there have been quite a few application of this technique in fashion.

As you may remember, Dazed & Confused's August 2009 issue featured a three-dimensional shoot with Marios Schwab’s Autumn/Winter 2009 3D-inspired collection, photographed by Terry Tsiolis.

The idea of using 3-D fashion images was promptly reused here and there, even in a recent catalogue by Italian brand Fornarina.

Vogue Italia - always the last to jump on the bandwagon, but definitely the best at copying ideas and regurgitating them in style - included in its September 2010 issue a 20-page 3D photo shoot by Steven Meisel featuring Miranda Kerr.

3-D technology also inspired innovative approaches to fashion presentations to different brands: Burberry Prorsum showcased its A/W 2010 collection in a technologically advanced way, offering the chance to carefully selected guests in New York, Paris, Tokyo and Dubai to watch a 3-D live stream of the show in specifically designed venues.

For the next season the fashion house is instead aiming at adding another dimension to its previous technological experience: on 21st September customers in 15 different countries will be able to watch the London catwalk show live in Burberry flagship stores thanks to the Retail Theatre, a technologically revolutionary concept set to offer consumers a sort of ultimate experience in modern luxury through high definition screens and sharp sound.

There is definitely a 3D trend going on at the moment, but I also think that the best inspirations for the fashion industry won't be coming from designers, but from cinema, 3-D animation studios and even architecture.

I have explored in a previous post Wim Wenders's 3-D film for SANAA, but at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, there was also another project that employed three-dimensional techniques. 

The Australian Pavilion offered indeed innovative photography mixed with 3D rendering techniques in the project entitled ‘NOW and WHEN Australian Urbanism’.

Using ground-breaking 3-D stereoscopic technology, the project investigates Australian landscapes from new perspectives through oblique stereo aerial photographs taken by Co-Creative Director John Gollings and architectural visions for the future presented by different architects and rendered in 3-D by FloodSlicer, a pioneering Australian studio.

"There is a sort of 3-D trend and this year has really seen the most viable explosion of this technology in the whole world,” Gollings - who worked as fashion photographer for twenty years before going back to his roots and architectural studies and switching to buildings - recently explained me in an interview. "All the technology is pushing towards 3-D: scientists and doctors are using it for example in medicine, to do operations and find their way through the human body. I think in future, after achieving quantum computers 3-D holographic technology, rather than having a flat screen on their walls, people will have a have a life-size holographic recreation of the world you’re looking at inside your living room.”

As I write the last touches are being added to the awarding ceremony of the second edition of the Persol 3-D Award for the most creative 3-D stereoscopic film of the year at the 67th Venice International Film Festival.

The jury, chaired by horror director Takashi Shimizu and comprising Jim Hoberman and David Zamagni, will award the film (the list is long and includes James Cameron's Avatar, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Lee Unkrich's Toy Story 3) that has used stereoscopic 3-D in the most creative way.

The award will be assigned tonight, followed by a presentation of Taikong xia 3D (Space Guy) by Zhang Yuan, the first 3D stereoscopic film from mainland China, and by Shimizu's, Senritsu meikyu 3D (Shock Labyrinth 3D), inspired by the Labyrinth of Horrors at Fuji-Q High Land amusement park, near Mount Fuji.

Three-dimensional technologies may still have to be improved, yet fashion should definitely keep an eye on the developments that 3-D stereoscopic information in motion may provide us with as I'm sure this technology will offer new levels of interest and innovative applications and inspirations to designers.

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Living by His Eyes: Beaton - The Art of the Scrapbook

Some people claim there is art in everything, others that there in an art of doing everything more or less well.

Surely Cecil Beaton was an exception: there was definitely art in everything he did, but he also had a very special skill, a sort of art in composing perfect images and putting together inspiring scrapbooks.

No wonder then that publishing house Assouline decided to release a volume dedicated to Beaton's wonderful collages.

Introduced by James Danziger, Beaton – The Art of the Scrapbook is a 392-page volume dedicated to a man who was also a chronicler of fashion, style, people and places.

Born in 1904, Beaton often stated his interest in photography began when he was three and saw a photograph of actress Miss Lily Elsie. He was given his first camera when he was 11 and, from then on, he never stopped taking images.

Having learnt to study the effects of light on his own face thanks to a device called Automatic Self-Portrait Release and encouraged by Diaghilev’s positive comments about his work, Beaton opened a studio in a former family house in Sussex Gardens where he started getting his first sitters.

He became rather popular and, little by little, his images acquired a refined, elegant and stylish quality about them. 

In 1928, Osbert Sitwell wrote in the introduction to the catalogue for the photographer’s first exhibition: “Mr Beaton is now the stern nemesis who transmutes his various sitters into so many flowers, simple or orchidaceous.” 

Fame arrived and Beaton often appeared in the columns of society papers; he also started working for Vogue and became the official photographer of Queen Elizabeth II. 

The war gave him the chance of getting a different perspective on life: working for the Ministry of Information Beaton took pictures of ordinary people – the most famous image from this time portrays a young child with a bandaged head and a rag doll sitting in a hospital bed – bombed places and, when he was sent to the Far East, his images became perfect examples of photojournalism.

The post-war years brought new work for Vogue and a marriage proposal to Greta Garbo, that the actress promptly refused.

As a new generation of photographers arrived on the scene, Beaton concentrated on films and costumes, continuously reinventing himself throughout the 60s and the following decades, until he died in 1980.

The scrapbook pages collected in this thick tome are selected from the forty-two volumes owned by the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s in London and are a sort of revised version of the 1937 anthology Cecil Beaton's Scrapbook.

There was no way to arrange the pages in a chronological order since Beaton kept on going back to some of his scrapbooks in different years, adding bits and pieces here and there, so there are no precise dates, though we know that the books were completed between the 30s and the 60s. 

As a result the pages are an inspiring orgy of icons and images: there are pictures of Hollywood stars, ballet dancers, paintings and dressmakers embroidering the Queen’s coronation robe and gown; Hitler and Mussolini meet in one pages, geishas in colourful attires appear in another.

Some section display an obsession with Greta Garbo and images of eyes, others are mixes of different pictures from the guests to Beistegui’s ball to the Swiss guards in the Vatican, followed by clowns and gentlemen; Charles Henri Ford in a body suit and flamenco dancers; and Capri in the 60s; Grace Kelly, Picasso and Pavlova; clippings from newspapers; busy streets from a Japanese metropolis, peaceful gardens and ruins à la Piranesi and dinner invitations and Christmas cards from the Royal Family.

There is poetry and sophistication in these pages, and a sense that, through this form, Beaton satisfied his addiction for images but also his passion for art history.

From the scrapbook pages it is clear that the artist had in his mind a new kind of aestheticism: he collected images, arranged them in a collage format and manipulated them.

A photographer and innovator, Beaton brought a new style into the art of the scrapbook and, like the final instalment of his diaries published in 2003 was considered a true gem for its witty tone and elegant form, the scrapbooks will prove equally interesting and really compelling for fashion designers, photographers and artists.

This edition also features some wonderful pictures, including portraits of Lucian Freud, Mick Jagger, Audrey Hepburn and Jean Shrimpton, and a poetically elegant image taken in 1948 featuring models wearing Charles James gowns in an 18th century French room.

“I live by my eyes,” Beaton wrote in his diary a year before his stroke and this volume really proves that the dandy photographer truly did so, always managing to inject in his work an amazing energy and vitality that turned into the inspiring force for many generations of artists who followed him. 

Beaton – The Art of the Scrapbook will be out in November 2010.

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The Power of Geospaces...in Prints?

While waiting for New York Fashion Week to kick off, I have been wondering about what we will see on the different runways.

Will we see any special colours, shapes, silhouettes or prints? We'll discover it soon.

What I do hope is that there will be some interesting and inspiring connection with technology. I would for example love to see printed on silk garments one day images by German artist, photographer and video director Hubert Blanz.

Born in 1969, Blanz has been inspired in his recent work by urban environments and architectural sites, creating interesting images that often feature highways and streets.

There are rather beautiful images for example from different series of his work, like Boxenstopp and X-Plantation.

Roads and highways bend, twist and intertwine in the images that are part of the Roadshow or Monokultur series, creating optical illusions, misleading our perceptions and deceiving our brain’s visual system, depicting scenes that provide an alternative to reality.

At times Blanz experiments in his works with the geometry of perspective and with anamorphic points of view.

From 2000 on, almost working as a digital cartographer or an alternative town planner, Blanz experimented with digital cities and spaces using electronic components, creating analogies between the source materials and the morphology of a urban landscape.

Though such densely scattered urban agglomerations look rather intriguing, I find the images from Blanz’s Geospaces more apt for fashion projects like prints on silk garments.

This series is an investigation of "geographical shapes in space" that employs printed circuit boards and integrated circuits.

The boards - layered and perforated - form complex urban environments that create aerial and spatial continuities in texture and shape and call to mind satellite images.

I find these impressions of alternative cityscapes interesting and inspiring and I’m sure they would create intriguing fashion inspirations, while sparking up also dialogues about self-deception, realism and architecture.

For further inspirations taken from Blanz's work, check out the international group show entitled “Identity II: Forming Identity” at Fotogalerie Wien in Vienna until 29th September.  

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