I'm republishing today a feature about Japanese label Facetasm that I recently did for another publication.
Facetasm, the name of Hiromichi Ochiai’s men and women’s wear brand, originates in the French language: it comes indeed from the word “facet”, indicating one of the flat polished surfaces cut on a gemstone, but also the many facets occurring on a crystal, symbolically referring to various perspectives and approaches to life, style and fashion. Yet, while the name may somehow have a European flavour, Facetasm’s essence is quintessentially Japanese, in perfect Tokyo style.
Since founding it, Ochiai worked at combining different aspects together in a cross-cultural and transnational mix typical of Tokyo’s youth.
Facetasm S/S 2011 collection moved for example from a socially sensitive theme, “Minority”, and featured Native American totem poles with abstract patterns reminiscent of Moroccan tiles, while for the A/W 2011-12 season, Ochiai blended American culture with moods taken from Gus Van Sant’s films.
Usually Ochiai tends to express all his ebullience and optimism in his Spring/Summer collections, using bold prints and colours, while he often opts for layering clothes in his Autumn/Winter collections to hint at the sadness and nostalgia triggered by the wintry season. This endless “pick and mix” approach allowed the brand to grow steadily, becoming increasingly popular.
Facetasm’s latest collection, launched in March during Tokyo Fashion Week , was inspired by the things that surround us and that live inside us. Ochiai tried to focus on the existence of those things and to understand how we react to our surroundings or how we impact upon them.
This abstract concept was translated in the new collection by layering garments in different textiles and materials: bright coloured tartans were mixed with leopard prints; shearling shorts were matched with thick woollen jumpers and coats accessorised with Facetasm’s trademark nylon padded scarves in pop shades.
Sharp silhouettes borrowed from couture were combined with urban moods, resulting in women’s red herringbone biker jackets-cum-capes or men’s denim and wool capes, that reminded Ochiai’s fans how the designer’s modern education is actually steeped in tradition.
“I established this brand five years ago, after studying at the Bunka Fashion College where also Yohji Yamamoto and Junya Watanabe went, and where I specialised in textiles,” Ochiai says. “After that I spent eight years at textile company Guildwork. They work for Japanese fashion houses such as Comme des Garçons and Undercover and this experience allowed me to get to know different fabrics.”
Facetasm’s designs may be utterly contemporary and Ochiai stated in the press release accompanying his A/W 2012-13 collection that he dreams “about the future”, but he also seems very keen to get inspirations from the past and in particular to rediscover traditional Japanese skills.
“A while back I collaborated with a very famous traditional Japanese embroidery company to create a varsity jacket with a colourful image of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper,” he explains.
The jacket (View this photo), together with his garments inspired by the lights on Christmas Trees (View this photo) and characterised by coloured dots on a black background that looked like taking an acid trip in Yayoi Kusama’s multi-dotted “Infinity Mirrored Room”, were probably the most photographed designs during the “Versus Tokyo” event at the latest Pitti.
The latter featured 20 young yet very successful Japanese brands selected by Yuichi Yoshii, maverick buyer and owner of the iconic cafe and deli Pariya and of concept store The Contemporary Fix.
“I brought my ‘Pop' line at that special event, with pieces that featured graphic patterns (View this photo), optical prints and embroideries inspired by street cultures and subcutures,” Ochiai states. “Yet what I want to do through my garments is expressing something that may be embedded in people’s collective unconscious, for example images taken from nature, like I did in previous collections with prints of quiet Japanese woods, the same woods that also inspired Hayao Miyazaki. I would like to express these deep feelings in my garments, so that I can create something different and strong in fashion that can be enjoyed by the wearer daily.”
Jeanette Au grew up in New York City as a second generation Chinese-American and graduated from the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music and Performing Arts where she studied painting and drawing. She left New York to study performance, printing, video and digital media at the San Francisco Art Institute, but ended up training in knitwear design at the Academy of Art University’s MFA programme.
The strong colours - including sapphire, silver blue, garnet, ruby and copper - intricate 3-D patterns and textures characterising her collection are inspired not only by the nuances of the Ballets Russes’ costumes, but also by musical compositions that accompanied the corps de ballet's choreographies, such as Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”.
You started as an artist, but then decided to train in knitwear, what prompted this decision? Jeanette Au: I decided to train in knitwear design when I realised that knitwear could blur the boundaries between art, craft and fashion and be a medium where a dialogue could be pushed and challenged. Contemporary women artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, Janine Antoni, whose work deal with the body and who use sculpture or fabric as mediums, were also influential in my choice. These women created pieces suspended between the grotesque and the beautiful and challenging traditional notions of beauty always inspired me. The work of Turkish artist Pinar Yolaçan, her depictions of elderly women dressed in tripe and chicken heads or her S&M Leigh Bowery-esque Venus of Willendorfs, recently had a profound influence on me. While I design, I am always aware of this duality and contradiction, of this fine line between these two different moods, plus I enjoy having a sense of humor in fashion. Can you tell us more about your creative process? Jeanette Au: I start off researching my inspirations that usually come from different sources, from watching a film or reading a novel to seeing a contemporary art exhibit, taking photos or hearing a musical score. Once I have the direction and the mood, I choose the colors and source the yarns and materials I want to use. Then I start experimenting with various techniques to create the textures that reflect the mood and inspiration. How did you feel at showcasing your collection at the Academy of the Art fashion show? Jeanette Au: I received a lot of positive responses from the audience and the press at New York Fashion Week. I felt that my work resonated with people on an emotional level because the colors and textures were overwhelming and reached out to all the senses. I felt that my audience “got it” and that my communication through fabric and form was effective and this was very important to me.
Can you tell us more about your collection, is there a theme behind it? Jeanette Au: My collection took root in my fascination with the Ballets Russes and Serge Diaghilev’s collaborative efforts with artists such as Vaslav Nijinsky, Léon Bakst and Igor Stravinsky, who helped constructing an exotic and imaginary “other”, a fantasy created for Western desire and consumption. Thinking about dance, music and visuals converging, I tried to translate this type of multi-sensory decadence with rich, shimmery, sensuous and textural knits. "Le sacre du printemps" (The Rite of Spring) ballet and score was also a major theme and inspiration, as I imagined the patterns reflecting light, moving and changing colour according to Stravinsky’s dissonance and Nijinsky’s pigeon-toed staccato movements. My muse was the heroine from the film “The Red Shoes”, a ballet dancer whose personal and professional struggle imitates the tragic ballet that she performs based on the Hans Christian Andersen’s cautionary fairy tale. She’s asked why she desires to dance and she answers “Why do you want to live?” For her, living is equated with being able to create her art form and I related to this feeling and struggle while I was working on this collection. What kind of materials did you use for this collection? Jeanette Au: I used mohair, wool, synthetic and metallic yarns to create the knitted fabric. I wanted to focus on the craziness that could be accomplished only through knitwear, so I only used materials that I could knit with. What are your future plans? Jeanette Au: I have plans to design accessories for an eco-sustainable company and I will be working on custom orders from my collection. I would love to work with Kenzo or Rodarte one day because both brands produce strong knitwear.
I'm continuing the thread that I started in yesterday's post, republishing interviews that I recently did for Zoot Magazine with some of the graduates of San Francisco’s Academy of Art University. Today it's Farida Khan's turn.
Born in Pakistan and currently living in Qatar, Farida Khan received a Higher National Diploma in Fashion Design from Edexcel BTEC, completing her MFA degree in Fashion Design through the Academy of Art University’s Online Fashion Program.
Ideas of unconventional beauty were the starting point, but Khan mixed this theme with technological inspirations, creating dresses with well-defined shapes using wool gabardine, coated denim, polyurethane and punched leather.
Who has been the greatest influence on your career choices? Farida Khan: I find Belgian designers very inspirational. I admire Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester and Raf Simons. Alexander McQueen’s career is also very impressive and I have deep respect for the legacy he has left behind.
How do you find your inspirations? Farida Khan: In a word, I would define myself as a “Metamodernist” as my inspirations try to go beyond postmodernism. Reforming, restructuring and reinventing are the driving forces that keep me inspired. Premeditation is generally never a norm when I develop ideas in my sketch files. I fill many pages with self-created paper cut-outs, automated imagery and surreal writings finding the standout elements that relate most to my mood. I hardly ever work with a single mood board. Fabrics become the focus for development and research at a very early stage and stay so until the actual making of the designs.
How did you feel at showcasing your collection at the Academy of the Art fashion show? Farida Khan: Working with Simon Ungless, the Director of the School of Fashion, as my mentor for the graduate collection has been a very exciting experience. Showcasing this collection at New York Fashion Week does full justice to the hard work put in by the students and by their lecturers. I have received due attention and it has been really positive. I feel this is only the beginning of an exciting journey ahead of me.
Can you tell us more about your collection, is there a theme behind it? Farida Khan: Acute interest in dissolving values about traditional gender specific clothing and trying to find beauty in unconventional places motivated me to develop an understated yet technically complex collection. It is an attempt to rebel against what is generally conceived as awe-inspiring beauty. I wanted to define both today and tomorrow's designs by developing classic pieces - in wool, cotton, coated denim, state of the art polyurethane and punched leather - that somehow represented the beginning of a quest for innovation. This collection represents for me the beginning of a radical journey that I will devote myself to throughout the length of my career. I tend to always rebel, yet I never forget to pay homage to the traditionally tailored pieces that never fail to fascinate me. What are your future plans? Farida Khan: I have been encouraged to go onto further studies at European fashion schools and I am seriously looking at this option for career development. I would then settle down in Paris. I dream about working with Raf Simons one day! The Academy of Art University has provided me with excellent training. I am confident I can use this foundation to further enhance my career path.
From today until Friday I will be republishing interviews with some of the San Francisco’s Academy of Art University graduates (Wu Di, Farida Khan and Jeanette Au). I recently did these interviews for Zoot Magazine.
Graduate shows have turned into the most exciting events of many fashion weeks, the places where you can spot real talents and see genuine innovation and fashion creativity at its best, with no marketing restrictions and anxieties about sales.
Central Saint Martins’ MA graduation show may steal the scene in London, but the graduation show put on by the Academy of Art University has become since 2005 a steady appointment during New York Fashion Week for the American and international fashion industry professionals.
It is undeniable that, fashion-wise the San Francisco-based institution has gone from strength to strength. Internationality set the mood during The Academy’s latest fashion show, with nine designers coming from all over the world and presenting their unique and distinctive vision.
Clean lines and dark shades dominated: Amy Bond transformed complex shapes inspired by construction into minimalist silhouettes, creating practical silk georgette, silk charmeuse and Schoeller-Aeroshell dresses in a neutral palette based on gray, ivory and black with splashes of aubergine, while South Korean Kate Y.K. Lee moved from architecture designing garments defined by a sculptural and sharp silhouette.
The study of philosophy and the Greeks’ theory that beauty is about symmetry, proportion and harmony, provided Xiang Zhang with the main theme for his collection.
Focusing on Plato’s theory stating that the highest form of beauty can be explained by principles of mathematics, the young designer layered his ethereal silk mohair dresses and tops characterised by a basic rectangular shape, on white shirts and matched them with sand cashmere coats.
Layering was also the keyword to unlock the collection of pattern maker Jade Juanyu Liu. The latter moved from French collage artist Damien Blottière, a master in creating shadows and spaces through layers. Liu played with different fabrics and materials - wool, jersey and fur - to reproduce Blottière’s technique in her gray, black, and copper bonded microfiber tops and dresses.
Taiwanese-born graphic designer Deanna Pei-Ju Lo opted instead for a collection based on black and navy blue shades inspired by masculine shapes and silhouettes and more specifically by the look of Teddy Boys, but employing luxurious fabrics including lambskin and cotton velvet, hinting at femininity through her choice of materials.
A honourable mention goes to South Korean pattern maker Donghyuk Dan Kim who presented the only menswear collection in the show.
Vintage military uniforms and the American West were the starting points, but the designer managed to reinterpret these garments in a uniquely modern way coming up with oilcloth shirts, leather vests, and jackets with padded areas and leather inserts, alternating cotton leggings to sensible pants, playing with volumes and reinventing the classic military oilcloth cape into a modernly urban piece.
Interview with Academy of Art University graduate Wu Di
Born and raised in China, after graduating from Shenyang Normal University and starting her design studio in her home country, Wu Di decided to continue her studies at the Academy of Art University and pursue an MFA in Fashion Design.
Her graphic collection, inspired by geometric figures and by the work of artist and printmaker Aaron Coleman that mixes patterns found in nature with man-made technological and architectural elements, features versatile pieces such as coats or dresses with parts that can be zipped off to become functional jackets or separates, and elegant cashmere and double-face wool knits with angular silhouettes and asymmetric tweed patches matched with pencil skirts.
Who has been the greatest influence on your career choices? Wu Di: I started to enjoy fashion design as a child. I remember I liked making clothes for my dolls. My mum also played an important role in my choices since she is a great knitter. Among the contemporary fashion houses that I like there are Céline, Lanvin and Calvin Klein.
Can you tell us more about your creative process? Wu Di: Before designing, I research a lot my inspirations. I also carry out a lot of researches about fabrics both visiting stores in person and searching things online. This is a really interesting part of my design process. Then I do some sketches and small samples of the details in my garments. I try to make sure that all the elements - design, fabrics, colours, details - go well one with the other and then I start making the entire collection. How did you feel about showcasing your collection at the Academy of the Art fashion show? Wu Di: I was so excited to get this opportunity and be part of New York Fashion Week. I was feeling nervous because my collection would be the first to be showcased on the Academy of Art runway. Therefore, I really wanted it to set a great mood for the entire show. My family, friends and my professors from the Academy of Art University gave me a lot of support and encouragement. I got great feedback after the show and that really made me happy.
Can you tell us more about your collection, is there a theme behind it? Wu Di: I was inspired by architecture and by the work of Indianapolis-based artist and printmaker Aaron Coleman and his use of complex geometric patterns and shapes. The collection features angular silhouettes and geometric patterns, which I created using cashmere knits and double-face wool. I opted for luxury fabrics in the entire collection.
What are your future plans? Wu Di: I want to get a job in a company doing high fashion women's wear design. This will allow me to keep on studying while being immersed in the real fashion industry.
It is very rare to come across a fashion designer’s biography or a book about a specific fashion designer not peppered with pretentious and irritating parts or written in a rather snobbish style.
In a world that has propelled the fashion designer from the drawing or the cutting table to interstellar fame, it can indeed be difficult to find a book by a fashion industry insider with their feet firmly planted on the ground.
The couple, genuinely admired by a bunch of art, fashion and even architecture critics, journalists and museum curators, became definitely more famous three years ago when First Lady Michelle Obama donned the by now famous Isabel Toledo lemongrass lace ensemble on Inauguration Day.
Now, a recently released book by Penguin’s imprint Celebra, devoted to books on or by Hispanic celebrities, tells the story of the Toledos, exploring the inspirations behind their work.
Roots of Style: Weaving Together Life, Love, and Fashion - illustrated with Ruben’s elegant drawings - starts in Cuba where Isabel was born surrounded by the love and affection of family and friends and by a quiet yet mesmerising house presence, a sewing machine that belonged to her grandfather’s first wife.
Isabel spent in Cuba an idyllic childhood, surrounded by strong female presences, from her mother to her aunts and neighbours, all independent women with their own distinctive style and personality.
In 1968, after the Cuban Revolution, her parents decided to move to the United States. A new chapter opened up in Isabel’s life. While perfectly managing to integrate herself in this new culture and environment in which freedom was the key word, young Isabel developed a new obsession, sewing, and a genuine passion for cutting patterns.
Soon sewing her clothes became from a child’s hobby, a form of communication: going out at weekends and discovering the New York dance scene was the perfect excuse to keep on creating clothes and experimenting with patterns.
Meeting in high school shy art student Ruben Toledo, like her a Cuban refugee, and falling in love with him, also opened new doors, as they started collaborating together, finding a way to mix art and fashion.
This part of the book will prove particularly interesting for readers interested in the New York scene: through the Fiorucci shop Isabel and Ruben met indeed key characters including Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. Working at Unique Clothing Warehouse, Ruben assisted Grace Jones who came in shopping with Issey Miyake and also sold Devo their iconic orange nylon jumpsuits.
The couple also started collaborating on Arias and Nomi’s performances, designing sets and costumes. Spotted by Madonna’s stylist Maripol, who was at the time also in charge of finding young designers to showcase at Fiorucci's, they were offered a prime spot in a concession stand at the store where they enlisted the help of a very special sale assistant, model and filmmaker Suzie Zabrowska.
Orders from Henri Bendel and Patricia Field’s shop followed, the fashion media spotted the new designer and eventually the first catwalk show arrived in 1984. From that moment on the Toledos kept on growing, developing a designer’s alphabet, offering innovative fashion solutions to women eager to experiment with their wardrobes and eventually gaining a cult following.
From sharing a studio with Warhol’s muse and assistant Benjamin “Ming Vase” Liu - who also managed to score the couple an appearance on Warhol’s TV show 15 Minutes, introduced by artist and photographer Peter Beard (from a swing...third clip embedded in this post...) - to special performances in Japan and catwalk shows in New York and Paris, the story of the Toledos’adventure develops like a dream come true.
The designer also writes about her work at Anne Klein and her collaborations with bigger retailers such as Target and Payless ShoeSource, conceived not as a way to go global, but as an opportunity to offer to a wider audience the chance of buying a piece designed by Isabel Toledo.
The design process that led to the creation of Michelle Obama’s dress is obviously included, even though, design-wise the parts about the exhibitions at The Museum at FIT are probably more interesting since they tackle vital principles in Isabel Toledo’s vocabulary, from Origami to Shape, Suspension, Shadow, Organic Geometry, and Liquid Architecture.
The book often highlights how the designer builds her creations - even the earliest ones from her first collection, such as her experimental red, black and white aerodynamic denim dresses and coats - from the inside out, working like an architect, using patterns as if they were an architect’s blueprint and employing her knowledge of fabrics, stitches and materials (warning: after reading Roots of Style, you may want to burn volumes that chronicle the rise to fame of obnoxious characters such as Tom Ford...ever read the tale about how Ford created his first circle skirt?)
There are obviously further fashion and art stories that readers will find interesting: from Isabel interning at the Met while former Harper’s Bazaar editrix Diana Vreeland was the consultant at the museum’s Costume Institute, an experience that allowed her to admire, study and touch historical creations, help installing exhibitions and discovering the Costume Institute Conservation Laboratory with its expert seamstresses, to designing costumes for performances and dance troupes (such as Twyla Tharp’s) and working with Ruben as artists in residence at the Pilchuck Glass School.
While the book mainly focuses on the Toledos’ personal experiences as artists, it also indirectly poses important questions that regard the entire fashion industry.
In one chapter Isabel talks about the “first come, first served” sitting arrangements at her shows, so that a fashion journalist would end up sitting next to a drag performer, museum curators next to textile manufacturers and so on.
Yet this very unusual but open arrangement probably inspired by the democratic atmosphere of the early discos when club kids mixed with celebrities, does not exist anymore, elitism is indeed the norm and the rule and it’s encouraged at fashion weeks all over the world (don’t be fooled by the “high profile” blogger sitting in the first row: right because it’s a “high profile blogger”, he/she is not a sign of democracy…).
The designer also mentions here and there the importance of the fashion journalists’ curiosity in discovering her, and of the will to spot and nurture new talents, things that rarely exist in the contemporary fashion media, more interested in continuously discovering the “next big thing”, but definitely not caring about letting this new brilliant discovery grow up and develop.
“The idea that designers should be encouraged to explore raw concepts and take creative risks was almost extinct, because it was seen as too financially risky,” Isabel Toledo states about her decision to drop out of New York Fashion Week in the late 1990s, slow down and create collections at her own pace rather than at breakneck speed.
“The fashion scene shifted to the entertaining, slick theatrical productions of the fashion shows themselves. The emphasis was no longer on the clothes; in fact the spotlight seemed to be on everything but the clothes (…) Today, with the fashion world’s corporate race to expand businesses to be bigger and bigger, the quest for guessing the ‘right’ fashion answers becomes everyone’s leading concern. (…) Designing minds need time to nurture original ideas and allow them to develop. This is like replanting a forest: if we don’t allow enough time for this important natural process, we end up with open ground that is barren of new ideas.”
There are parts that may have been edited such as the digression on the concept of time and the last few pages with a bullet list of suggestions (“consider wearing your longest bulkiest items instead of packing them” is a bit of an unnecessary piece of advice to a generation of people who has been travelling on cheap flights and has literally been wearing their entire wardrobes piled up on them to avoid paying extra luggage…) and the style of the book is sometimes slightly fractured (this may have been caused by different ghost writers working on it...), but Ruben’s drawings perfectly manage to illustrate the story and provide an acceptable level of distraction to those fashionistas who may not like reading.
Towards the end of the book, the designer anticipates she is working with Ruben on a new exhibition to be held at the museum of Miami’s Freedom Tower, symbolically considered as the couple's very own Ellis Island since 450,000 Cubans passed through it between 1962 and 1974.
What will it be like? Nothing is revealed, but you can bet that it will blend art, fashion, architecture, imagination and fantasy, a winning combination of interests and disciplines that makes the Toledos more similar to intrepid Italian artist and designer Bruno Munari than to anybody else currently working in the fashion industry.
In conclusion, though, it must be highlighted that Roots of Style is not a book about the Toledos being rare drops in the bland and vast ocean of the fashion industry, but it’s a volume conceived to inspire its readers with a very important message for all the young fashion design students out there: be authentic to your work, take care of the smallest details in your business and, above all, remember that you don’t have to turn into an instant overnight success manipulated and exploited by the dark corporate forces of the fashion industry.
"Roots of Style: Weaving Together Life, Love, and Fashion" by Isabel Toledo is out now. An event about "Roots of Style" featuring Nina García, Fashion Director of Marie Claire, and Isabel and Ruben Toledo, will be held on 29th March 2012 at El Museo del Barrio, New York, from 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm. You can check out the details here.
I must admit that, when a few days ago I heard this piece of news, I thought it was a joke of some sort, and was somehow also surprised that no fashion publication wrote about this story (even though they always seem to have time and space for rather useless news involving celebrities and such likes…).
So, what’s the story? Well, last year a Dunfermline-based garage called D&G Autocare was apparently threatened by Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana over the use of the “D&G” name. The dispute found its solution only a few days ago.
But let’s start from the beginning, David Hunter and George Simpson, owners of the D&G Autocare garage with nine branches around Fife, Scotland, tried to get their name registered as a trademark last year. The main aim for the two mechanics was preventing others from cashing in on the success of their business.
David (D) and George (G) didn’t really expect to see any problems arising from their application to the UK Intellectual Property Office. Instead, in December 2011, Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana lodged a “notice of threatened opposition” to their trademark.
The trademark agents of the Italian fashion house claimed indeed that the garage name conflicted with their own trademark, leading to confusion among consumers and asked them to withdraw their application.
Yet, rather than getting scared by the harsh tones of the letter they received from the trademark agents, David and George decided to get on with the case and fight them off, enlisting the help of a solicitor.
Essentially, the legal battle ensued since, while there are several trademark classes, Dolce & Gabbana registered the D&G name across all the different trademark classes, including class 12 which covers vehicles and vehicle parts, even though there are no vehicles/vehicle parts registered in their own name. Asking for proof of Dolce & Gabbana's presence in the car industry was indeed the key for the mechanics' solicitor to sort out the matter.
The Italian brand also offered not to oppose to the trademark application as long as the word Autocare appears with its D&G logo and the two mechanics do not apply for a registration outside Great Britain. Yet the offer was received by fax at the end of February, a day before the objection period ended and, since Dolce & Gabbana failed to make their formal objection in time, the two entrepreneurs can now use the chosen name.
This is not the first time a famous brand threatens a smaller one (Scotland seems to be prone to this sort of incidents like the one involving McDonald’s forcing a Scottish cafe owner to drop McMunchies as the trading name for her business establishment...).
Yet in this case the story sounds quite bizarre as it assumes that consumers of a fashion giant such as D(olce) & G(abbana) are probably so naïve and, well, thick, that they can’t even see the difference between a fashion item, a fragrance or accessories marked D&G and an a car garage in Scotland.
Apart from supposing that their consumers are not able to distinguish between a pair of overpriced denim trousers and an MoT, the other embarrassing point for a company as big as D&G is that of threatening with closure (in time of crisis) a relatively small yet thriving business or threatening legal action against someone smaller than them hoping they would have backed off and given up the fight.
I guess that the lawyer of the two mechanics may have probably fought off the Italian brand just by pointing out the differences between the font used by the fashion house and the font used by his clients, which leads us to wonder, what about the millions of fake made in China "D&G" T-shirts you find all over the world, many of them spelling out not only the letters "D&G", but also messages such as “Dolce & Capanna”, in exactly the same font that characterises the fashion house logo?
Wouldn't it be more sensible to try and track down who prints them, probably exploiting also the workers who make them (yes, that would be extremely expensive and complicated, but at least it would be a sensible fight...)?
In a way, this story is rather funny: though very sensitive about their trademark, Dolce & Gabbana often used in the T-shirts for their own collections logos, names and images linked with other brands, including Fiorucci (D&G S/S 2010 menswear collection - View this photo - ok, in this case they may have been able to use it since they are friends with Elio Fiorucci and they probably came up with an agreement with him), Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Mickey Mouse (D&G A/W 2011-12 menswear collection).
You wonder if they paid to use them or to use images of Marilyn Monroe in Dolce & Gabbana's A/W 2009-10 Schiaparelli derived womenswear collection. And if they did not pay in this case, taking advantage of Monroe's personality rights expiring, did they pay to use images of Maria Callas and of opera programmes from La Fenice in the D&G's A/W 2009-10 womenswear collection? And what about pilfering Madonna's "Who's That Girl?" look in their A/W 2011-12 collection? Did they have to pay her for that or was that a "tribute"/"homage" and should we consider a tribute (or mere pilfering) also their A/W 2011-12 starry garments, a mix of Walter Albini and Krizia's designs?
In conclusion, while the story of two Scots mechanics fighting off Dolce & Gabbana in a legal battle does not sound that glamorous to end up in the news section of many important fashion publications, it has maybe set an interesting precedent that should make us think about the use of specific trademarks and the relationships between big brands and their consumers.
Maybe D&G will have to be more careful from now on: if there will ever be any mechanics inspired workwear on their runways, David & George will know who to sue and for what.
As stated in the first post about the project, I do hate throwing things out and generating unnecessary waste, so the bits and pieces of the postcards that were not used to decorate the collars were reapplied on the original collar boxes that will be used to ship the collars to friends or to create cards and labels. In this way nothing is thrown away but everything is reused and recycled. Off to the post office then...
The collar project that started on Monday closes today. In yesterday's post we left the protagonist of my story in the middle of the 1944 Vesuvius eruption so let's move from there.
As soon as shades of lapis lazuli blue appear in front of her eyes, the explosions stop and the earth does not shake anymore. Instead of the box of lapilli in her lap there is now a bowl filled with a fine ground-up powder.
She looks around herself and realises she is standing in front of a wooden table. On top of it there are bowls filled with expensive azure blue lapis lazuli pigments and eggs ready to be mixed in; there are pieces of painted glass and little jewels waiting to be glued onto a painting; gold leaves and thin pieces of gold are set next to a reddish sticky substance - the bole - to be used to apply these rich and decorative elements.
This must be the table of an artist from the mid-1400s. Has a wealthy patron maybe commissioned a new painting to be covered in gold leaf to display the glory of his family.
She hears some scraping sounds behind her, turns and finds a man scratching gold leaf on a painting with fine patterns to make the light reflect more brilliantly off the surface.
The painting shows a religious scene, it's the Annunciation, with Gabriel the Archangel wearing a bright pink and gold embroidered gown studded with precious gems kneeling in front of the Virgin Mary clad in a red tunic and a blue mantle, sitting in a porch characterised by a powerful perspective under a starry ceiling. The bright colours and the light contribute to add up to the mystic and sumptuous scene.
Could this be Fra Angelico, the Blessed One, patron of artists, she wonders, admiring the rich details of the work he is completing.
She looks at the stars blinking on the ceiling of the portico in the painting and the stars suddenly transform into tiny dots that keep on multiplying in front of her eyes. In this new hallucinating vision she understands that she has been the protagonist of a strange and visionary adventure that brought her through time and space and let her discover that, within herself, there was a goldmine of memories of other lives.
While this visionary adventure did not reveal to her the final meaning of her existence, did not unlock any cosmic formulae or the ultimate secret of the universe, it has in part liberated her from the oppressive fears, anxieties and boredom that riddled her existence.
She reopens her eyes and goes back to the reality, to a world gone bland, to a world gone wrong. Yet she feels blessed with a special inner peace, she is like a child about to start on a journey, eager and curious to see where her imagination will take her in future.
"Where shall I go? Who shall I be? What shall I see?" she wonders, looking out her window.
Outside the pale pink clouds set against the blue sky are assuming a subtly orange shade, while the afternoon sun sprinkles gold dust on the tender leaves of Spring.
Want to re-read the story or check once again the collars? Go back to the beginning, or just make up your own story on a collar taken from an old shirt, decorating it with whatever materials you have in the house or with images taken from your favourite postcards.
The collar project that started on Monday continues today. In yesterday's post we left the protagonist of my story in the middle of the 1944 Vesuvius eruption so let's move from there.
...Smoke rises from the crater extending for miles, the earth shakes with tremendous roars and a few minutes after each quake, debris blown out of the crater start hitting the ground.
She is on board of a B-25 bomber flying over the crater. The entire plane vibrates as she passes over the volcano. She sees the streams of red lava at the rim of the crater forming outflows of vivid orange molten rock.
Lava flows down the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, splitting into devilish tongues extending towards the surrounding areas. Fiery coals shoot thousands of feet into the air, the sky lights up and is bright for miles around. It's a blazing inferno, the world around her is on fire.
A rock hits her windshield, cracking it, and she starts precipitating, a silent scream rises and dies in her throat. She closes her eyes in fear, but when she opens them again she is back on the ground, wearing a steel helmet and a sheepskin jacket for protection from the falling material. She is sitting in an open truck together with a group of people being evacuated.
Everything boils around her, a rain of black stones of all sizes falls in great quantity, completely covering the ground, hitting the trees and breaking their branches; the crater spits lava that, running in streams, leaves behind only devastation.
A man and a woman sitting next to her are carrying a small religious figure under a glass dome. They are covering their heads with a large heavy basket to protect themselves from the deluge of rocks and volcanic ash. The man puts his hand in his jacket pocket, takes out a small red box and puts it in her hands.
She looks at the volcano and sees clouds passing across the top of the mountain, then turns to the box. It looks old and, on its cover, a typewritten label spells out in Italian “Lapilli from the Vesuvius eruption, 22/26 March 1944”.
She picks the rocks one by one to examine them and lingers on the covelline piece. She looks at it closely, trying to get lost through the intense indigo blue shades of the rock, but, slowly, the covelline mutates colour, assuming a different shade of vibrant blue, more similar to that of lapis lazuli.
Where will this new shade of blue take her? Follow the final installment of the story on tomorrow's post to discover it.
The collar project that started on Monday continues today. Please check out yesterday's post to see where we left the protagonist of my story.
A tremendous earsplitting roaring noise shakes her out of her erotic reverie. She’s suddenly enveloped by a grey mist. Grey turns into soft shades of pink. Little by little, the pink becomes more intense and intoxicating. There are explosions in the background and the setting suddenly changes.
Are these bombs going off or maybe shells exploding? She thinks she may be witnessing a war scene, but it's actually an eruption. She remembers her grandfather telling her about the March 1944 eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
The Second World War raging, the Allied forces stationed at Pompeii Airfield thinking it was an ordinary air raid, but then watching awestruck as the rocks and cinder dropped from the sky, exactly like it had happened in 79 AD when an eruption killed thousands, covering them in ashes, turning them into empty human moulds.
In her vision she sees the Vesuvius belching dense and billowing smoke; the rumblings grow louder, the flame and sparks fly higher in the sky. The mountain is angry, but, ironically, this terrible scenery is also quite beautiful. The destructive ash plume comes down in a grey and pink rain.
With the eye of her imagination she sees hot ash, cinder and volcanic rocks blanketing the 340th Bombardment Group's B-25 Mitchell bombers in the airfield, burning the fabric control surfaces, glazing, melting and cracking the Plexiglass windshields, causing permanent damage to the gun turrets.
It's a frighteningly phenomenal vision. Cinders and ashes rain down on her, and her feet are suddenly trapped in thick layers of ash, piling up on the ground like grey and black snow.
The smoke assumes a new almost artificially shocking pink shade, and she feels as if she were fainting, suffocating like the inhabitants of Pompeii, intoxicated by the mephitic vapors that accompanied the falling debris and that caused deliriousness before killing them.
Will she die in this brightly coloured vision of an eruption or will she be transported somewhere else? Follow the story on tomorrow's post to discover it.
