If you're making lists of Christmas presents for family members and friends who work in the fashion industry and you're looking for something not too expensive, yet clever and useful, or if you work in fashion and you're on the lookout for the perfect diary to take you through next year in a less disorganised way than usual, look no further than the Fashionary Planner.
The latest product by Penter Yip, the fashion and graphic designer behind the Fashionary (remember the previous post about Yip's handy fashion-related stationery?) is a functional and practical 16-month weekly planner (164 pages).
The planner also features several pages containing useful fashion information regarding body measurements, patterns, figure poses, trade show events and so on.
The diary is the perfect tool for planning and referencing since the left page allows you to write down all the week's appointments, while the right page is complemented by a ruled page for notes and ideas.
The Fashionary Planner doesn't have any fixed date, but contains the 2013-14 calendars, so it's also a flexible product (price: US $23.90; free worldwide shipping).
The Fashionary online shop also has a wide range of fashion-related stationery ideal for Christmas presents: apart from the well-known Fashionary Men and Women sketchbooks that combine extensive fashion information and figure templates (available in two formats, A5 and A4), there are the clever sets of Sticky Memo Pads - Womens Top/Bottom/Figure; Mens Top/Bottom/Figure.
If you go to fashion fairs for kids' clothes such as Pitti Bimbo, chek out the extremely useful and brand new Sticky Memo Pads for Kids Figures (price for any sticky memo pad: US $8.90).
Note for those ones who really can't do without a bit of glamour at Christmas: there is also a Fashionary (Womens only) Red (US $24.90), that includes the usual content, but a cheerfully festive ruby cover.
The current version of the Fashionary is updated with 35% more content (among the new additions/the parts that were extended there are the accessories, fabrics and seams and stitches sections) compared to the previous editions.
Having personally used quite a few Fashionary products, I can assure you that they are extremely functional and handy for fashion designers, but for many other professional figures (journalists included) working not only in the fashion industry, but also in other fields, such as costume and set design.
The “Umbrian king of cashmere” entered with his Solomeo-based company the Milan Stock Exchange in May 2012, announcing at the time that he had asked his confessor Father Cassiano to become a member of the Board of Directors.
Since then the company increased its sales especially abroad (sales in Italy went slightly down) and earnings for the first 9 months of this year amounted to more than 17,000 million euros. In a way, Cucinelli's “Made in Heaven” intentions seemed to be paying back.
Then, just a few days ago, more good news arrived: Cucinelli stated that his workers will receive a very special Christmas present, 5 million euros earned from the company's shares.
The entrepreneur told Umbria24 that the money, to be considered as a family gift to all those workers who grew up with them since the company was established 34 years ago, will be divided among his 783 workers. While this seems an admirable and unique gift especially in times of crisis, critics claim there may be something else behind it.
On 12th November, just two days before the general strike in Europe, the Perugia section of the left-wing Italian trade union Cgil claimed Cucinelli's company doesn't care about the labour conditions of its workers.
The trade union stated it is not even possible to talk about rights inside what they call the Grand Ducato di Solomeo (the Grand Duchy of Solomeo), since no workers' representatives can be elected and no meetings are allowed. In a nutshell, the trade union would like to see what's truly happening among and behind the cashmere yarns and knitting machines at the company.
Cucinelli highlighted how the gift has no connection with the trade union requests, but it's something he had on his mind for a while.
This special gift - in money and not shares as somebody had stated - will apparently arrive before Christmas, making sure that further debates against the Umbrian entrepreneur will be silenced.
So is Cucinelli truly a modern saint, an enlightened entrepreneur à la Adriano Olivetti (Cucinelli often claimed that his company is founded on ethical principles, labour quality, and ancient Greek and Roman philosophical ideals)? Or is he just trying to buy the workers' silence? The doubt remains.
In the meantime, according to rumours, after announcing this very special Christmas gift for his workers, Cucinelli also gave them the possibility to meet the trade unions inside the Solomeo-based HQ. Maybe this could be a story with a happy ending for both the entrepreneur and the workers inolved: the former may have got his profits, and the latter may get their bread, and, hopefully, their roses too.
In the last few years Italy has been the black sheep of the global fashion industry. Critics indicated different reasons behind this fall into disgrace, from the production being moved to other countries offering cheaper labour to Milan Fashion Week losing its glamour and gloss to various alternative and younger fashion events mushrooming every year all over the world; from the constant financial crisis that won't go away and that destroyed too many historical companies to established brands turning to trendier collaborations with famous hight street retailers, forgetting in this way their origins, work ethics and strong research culture. Yet this is just one side of the coin.
There is indeed another side of the coin that shows how there are quite a few Italian companies working hard, researching, experimenting with new advanced technologies and finding new ways to create innovative designs. Bond Factory is among them.
While there is a lot of talk about futuristic technologies that may or may not be employed in the fashion industry and that are still at the moment at the beta stage, Bond Factory has actually developed the thermowelding technique at such high levels to reach a perfect balance between aesthetics, elegance, accuracy and quality.
Established in Italy in 2000 by Anna Maria Di Rienzo and Dyloan Studio's Loreto Di Rienzo, the company has turned into a successful venture, becoming well-known among some of the best designers and brands on a global level, including Jean-Paul Gaultier, Alexander McQueen and Reed Krakoff, for being among the first and best ones to experiment further with thermowelding, melting for construction, ultrasound melting, taping, press bonding and laser cutting.
Originially developed in the early 1900s in the military and aviation sectors especially to allow operativity and waterproofing in critical conditions, thermowelding is currently applied to a wide degree of garments from sportswear and outerwear to lingerie as the technique can modify texture and structure eliminating seams and traditional sewing.
The company also launched a collaborative collection entitled “Bond-In Italy” - a pun on the more traditional “Made in Italy” label - with Milan-based Gentucca Bini. Structures and constructions are emphasised in all the garments in which tailoring skills are replaced by technology and materials with different characteristics are combined together to reach a new degree of functionality. The collection is the result of a joint effort between a designer known for her structured architectural garments and an innovative company and proves that Italy has still got a lot to offer, especially when it comes to high quality and research.
What's the main aim of the project with Gentucca Bini? Loreto Di Rienzo: Creating a unique synergy between a designer and a manufacturer and obtaining excellent results, using traditional materials and combining them with innovative technologies and, last but not least, launching a research project that can inspire also other designers.
Some critics claim that new technologies may end up homologating design, do you think that this may be a tangible risk? Loreto Di Rienzo: No, the same technology employed by different designers and countries can lead to radically different results. In Italy we have something unique - a tradition in Italian design and creativity combined with highly skilled manufacturing companies - and this allows us to produce really exclusive garments.
Some of the designs made employing thermowelding and bonding are very architectural, where does this trend come from? Loreto Di Rienzo: Gentucca is actually an architect and in this case we used very innovative technologies including techno jacquard and techno embossing that allow us to create three-dimensional shapes in a garment.
Did you ever quarrel about a design that was part of the collection or about the techniques that had to be employed? Loreto Di Rienzo: We did, but our debates and discussions always had as main aim that of improving the project and bringing it to a higher level.
What's your favourite piece from this collection? Gentucca Bini: The shoulder pad, it's a patent pending design and it represents the essence of the collection, the final synthesis between traditional tailoring skills and innovative technologies. The shouder pad is also the consequence of the collection itself since, when we started working upon it, we never thought about it, it just happened during our research. The shoulder pad is thermally shaped and it allows a designer to substitute traditional tailoring materials and elements with a very light technology. This specific shoulder pad is a universal product, it has a lower cost compared to traditional shoulder pads and can be adapted to any kind of garment since it's extremely light, so it's ideal for a soft and completely destructured jacket. It is a product made by a designer and a company that can be produced for other desigers as well. I do think this is the final key to a really modern way of thinking and this will be a new type of genuine collaboration that the fashion industry will be looking at in future.
There is a long debate about the state of Italian fashion and the made in Italy production, when did Italian fashion started its decline? Loreto Di Rienzo: When designers started forgetting about the manufacturing side of the business and began considering it only as an added cost. Business gradually became more important because there are countries that offered lower prices forgetting that fundamental mix that can allow you to progress in style and not just in the manufacturing of a mass product. I think that looking back at the content of a garment and at its intrinsic value is the solution to re-establishing Italy as a key player in the fashion industry.
Gentucca Bini: I think that the euphoria and the ephemeral emotions that were caused in fashion by an absence of contents are slowly coming to an end. The '80s came after the exuberance of the '70s and they were characterised by a strong lack of contents; the '90s were rather uncertain years in which anything was considered as possible and admissible, but now we are really going back to try and understand the real substance of a product. The genuine essence of a product is not a single button, but the construction made in a certain way, the structure and the materials employed. The other thing that damaged fashion was the relationship between a designer and a company that was often seen not as a collaborative but as an exploitative relationship. In the case of this collection we had a collaborative venture similar to the ones you see in industrial design, you have a designer's idea combined with new skills by a professional manufacturer who uses advanced techniques.
Do you think that Italian designers still "do it better"? Gentucca Bini: I think the question is not if Italian designers are better than others, but we certainly have a tradition in making things in Italy and we do have a different approach to materials.
Despite new collections and garments being relentlessly produced every season, originality and desirability are often lacking in fashion, how can we bring them back? Gentucca Bini: To make the perfect dish, you must have all the right ingredients and mix them in proper quantities. In the “Bond-In Italy” collection we have excellent ingredients – from the garments designed and made in Italy to the new technology. But we also have other important points – tradition, history and memory. So, for example some shapes and forms are directly connected to Italian irony, while the surreal belts with the hands call to mind Schiaparelli's designs. One of the main aims of this project was indeed replacing some tailoring skills with technology while keeping traditions alive and using our own history as a propeller. I believe that this balanced combination between tradition and advanced technology is the recipe to a new type of desirability in fashion.
At the moment which are the best markets for your designs? Gentucca Bini: Europe, but also Asia. The Asian market seems to like a lot the shapes and proportions of my designs. I work a lot with Korean clients for example; Korea is a country that has a great avant-garde attitude and this allows people over there to quickly generate, but also spot, very interesting and exciting trends.
For further information on the new technologies employed by the Bond Factory, check out the book "Bond-In. From Technology to Fashion", edited by Dyloan Studio in collaboration with the IED Research Centre, and published by Gribaudo.
All images courtesy of Gentucca Bini/Dyloan/Bond Factory.
One of the most obnoxious trends for this sad fashion year that is very luckily dying away remains the flower crown.
Sported by Lana Del Rey, seen on various runways and adopted by too many fashion aficionados gone twee at summer festivals and at other random occasions, colourful, fun and easy to make, the hippie flower crown mainly donned to prove you're a bohemian Mother Earth figure in a sweetly twee kind of way even though you buy toxic clothes made by exploited workers for high street retailers, hasn't actually got very cheerful origins.
To rediscover the early origins of this accessory you may have to visit Room VII and Room VIII of the Gregorian Etruscan Museum at the Vatican Museums in Rome.
This section features materials from the 9th to the 1st century BC, and follows the progressive and definitive converging of the Etruscan cities into the structure of the Roman state.
The history of the Etruscan people is narrated through ceramics, bronzes, but also jewellery pieces documenting the art and craft skills of this ancient civilisation. Beautiful and unique gold objects for dress and body decoration made with great technical and creative ability by the Etruscan goldsmiths during ten centuries are displayed in two rooms.
The pieces showcased here were made employing a series of different techniques, including casting, beating into sheets, creating threads for the twisting of minute golden strips, finishing with punches or chisel and granulation - a lovely technique that some jewellery makers relaunched in more recent years and that consists in making tiny balls of gold and applying them to a piece of jewellery with microwelding.
The Etruscans also made the earliest gold crowns and, among the objects employed for personal adornment showcased in this section, there are quite a few pretty crowns, some decorated with small gold ivy or acorn leaves (first half of the 4th century BC), others with laurel and oak leaves (second half of the 4th century BC).
The most unusual one was made using gold and enamel leaves and enameled ceramic berries (second half of 4th century BC; fifth image in this post) and while some of them had a decorative and ornamental purpose, quite a few crowns on display here made with detailed gold oak or laurel leaves were part of the grave goods found in tombs (mid-4th century BC).
Jewellery pieces are among the most beautiful but also useful objects to help us discovering fashions and customs from other times. For example, Diodorus Siculus stated about the Etruscans that they “held a sort of record as regards ostentation in their way of living” and this is clear from the pieces on display at the Vatican Museums.
After seeing these pieces and thinking about contemporary trends and accessories you easily wonder what will be written about our civilisation in a few centuries' time. Will any future critics or historians say for example that we were clueless about where specific fashions and trends came from and that we adopted them carelessly, without generating or creating anything new or original despite having discovered innovative technologies and techniques? Time will tell...
Crisis can have different effects and causes but they have in common a high degree of exchange market pressure. While the debate about how did finance cause the crisis, what should we do to manage its effects, and did the crisis involve culpable irresponsibility or misjudgement by groups like investment bankers and regulators is still rife, the main consequences - including recession, job losses and widespread suffering at various levels - continue.
Culture has suffered from state spending cuts to the arts and cultural institutions, an assault that damaged quite a few independent artists unable to find the funds needed for their projects. Dutch artist Dadara tried to fight back the trend in the early 2011 by launching his Exchanghibition Bank. Originally created to fund his own projects, the bank soon turned into an ongoing investigation into art and money, the role of banks in our lives, capitalism and economy, offering a fresh perspective on the current financial system, totally alienated from our society.
Little by little, the Exchanghibition Bank became an art project in itself, a sort of itinerant exchange managed by Dadara himself very aptly clad in a rather interesting futuristic banker suit that betrays his arty origins in the paint splattered trouser hems and shoes.
The bank allows to change Euros into other types of banknotes designed by Dadara himself and printed in bright colours on holographic foil with values going from zero to infinite passing through one million. The banknotes - that can be bought also from the artist's online shop - will very aptly expire on December 21, 2012.
After taking his rather unique bank and Transformoney Tree project to the Burning Man event in the Black Rock Desert at the end of August, Dadara stopped in November at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and at Geldmuseum in Utrecht.
You first launched The Exchanghibition Bank to finance your own projects: in which ways did the crisis, the current financial system completely detached from society and the hopelessness of the economic situation influenced your project? Dadara: When I launched my Exchanghibition Bank at the beginning of 2011 I announced that I started my own bank as an artist, because governments had no money for Art, but lots of money to bail out banks. When I started I was mostly obsessed by art, and it somehow puzzled me that art seemed to be mostly valued because of its financial worth in our society. I mean, when do you ever read about art on the frontpage of a newspaper? When a Picasso gets sold for a hundred million bucks, or a Warhol for forty million, or the Lehman Brothers Bank goes bankrupt and their art collection gets auctioned for millions. But what does that say about their spiritual, artistic or social value? So it started by looking at the value of art. I wasn't that interested - yet - in money, because, as so many artists, I come from an anti-money background. But a lot has changed since: as a true bank director I became fascinated and even obsessed by money! As an artist you need to study your material: when I use acrylic paint, I have to learn how it works, when I use explosives, I have to learn about them, and now that I was using money, I needed to study money. And that's when I quickly became fascinated by this abstract material, not backed by any tangible asset, existing in a purely virtual way, and created as debt with one click of a button by banks. So, in a way, there was very little to be against, or anti-money. It's just an agreement, a form of energy, which, when it is exchanged, has value. But we don't want to exchange it, we want to hoard it on our bank accounts, and treat it as something special. And at the same time it influences all our perceptions of value.
Money-wise which was the most shocking thing you found out while doing the background research for the Exchanghibition Bank project? Dadara: Money has become such an abstract tool that it seems to have become totally detached from our real society. It is shocking to see how for some people in the financial industry these numbers have become more important than real lives and people, and the fact that their decisions might hurt lots of people have never bothered them. I think that, just as in medicine, ethics should become an integral part of banking. It's also in a way shocking to see how little value the money has that banks produce. The fact that money is created as debt out of thin air doesn't make it look very valuable, but it is shocking that because of that same debt people might lose their house and other possessions of real value. Most recently, I was fascinated by the Rolling Jubilee initiative, which originated from the Occupy movement, and which is bailing out people instead of banks, but was shocked to realise that debt has become a commodity which is being traded, and there are markets where people trade debts. But in this case, it is great that debt can be bought for very little money by the Strike Debt movement. And of course the way money works, makes us increasingly turn nature into product, and human relations into services, and I wonder how long we can continue doing that.
There is a strange and perverse connection between art and money: from private rich and wealthy collectors who often buy artworks according to trends without really understanding much about art in general, to galleries exploiting artists. From an artist's point of view what's the most alienating thing about this relationship? Dadara: I have been creating art since I was a little boy, and have always done this because of an inner urge - I had to create. It's part of myself. The reason for creation is not earning money, but then again in this world we need to earn money. I like to compare the world to a giant playground, but at the same time we are playing on parking lots, and when we can't fill the meter we get towed away. The auction Damien Hirst organised himself in 2008 of his work was fascinating for me: it raised over 100 million British Pounds, and almost 40% of the buyers had never bought contemporary art before. And, as I mentioned before, it almost seems to be the only reason for mentioning art nowadays, the fact that it makes a lot of money. But I think art is very personal, and emotional and spiritual, and can have great social value. And all these values are as, or even more important than, financial value. So there seems to be a growing gap between “the Art World", and "the Artist's World". For years I used to destroy my big projects. I feel that when a project, or art, a new youth movement or a new piece of music comes into the world it has a certain kind of power, or magic. Eventually that magic fades, and it turns into a business, and starts earning money. In order to preserve that magic, I blew up projects, set them on fire, or smashed them to pieces, preserving that energy, and turning it into a kind of Urban Myth.
Art can unite, but money definitely divides – in your opinion, when does money unite? Dadara: I think money would unite, if we would realise that whenever we use money, it's not a one-way transaction. We do not just buy something from someone, we give something back as well - money. And when we realize that money is just an agreement, and can be used as energy to make things happen, we should realise that the act of giving the money is as important as receiving what we bought. And we should only give it to those we love, and do things we love. Also using money as a means of exchange instead of this magical thing, which seems to have taken control of our lives.
In a recent talk you mention the KLF, in which ways did they inspire you? Dadara: In 1994 the KLF decided to quit the music industry, and did so in a very radical way. They also destroyed their back catalogue, so people could not order their records anymore, and then, after paying taxes, had one million British Pounds left. They took the money with them to a small island off the coast of Scotland, and burnt all in a fireplace. For years, I didn't know if I thought that it was brilliant or stupid, but when, after many years, I still could not make up my mind, I decided it was great. It was a gesture that made me think and that also costed me lots of money, because it probably was influential in my decision to destroy quite a few of my artworks. Years later I found some video footage of a talkshow, filmed shortly after they burnt the money. People from the public were upset and told them that they should have thought about the kids in Africa who don't have food. And they replied: "We did not burn any loaves of bread, we just burnt pieces of paper". In retrospect that is pretty visionary.
There is an interesting fashion connection in your Exchanghibition Bank installation as you wear a kind of futuristic banker-meets-artist suit, did you design it? Dadara: I designed the suits in cooperation with Thera Hillenaar, who is a fashion designer blurring the line between art, fashion, and performance, and also my girlfriend. We also cooperated on my Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia project which was a border control checkpoint to enter your own Dreams, and was operated by the Department of Dreamland Security. All their employees were dressed in pink brain combat fatigues, and I, as the Head of the Department, was wearing a big pink brain jester hat. So there is definitely a connection between “fashion”, if that is the right word, and my work. I like to combine various disciplines, and I am increasingly combining painting, design, sculpture, installation, and performance.
You recently took your Exchanghibition Bank to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, but also to Amsterdam Central Station and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam: what was the reaction of people and what are you working on at the moment? Dadara: I like the combination of cultural places, such as the museums, but also reaching the 'real' world. After all, money is something that all of us are using every day, so it's important to reach a lot of different people: we also operated the bank at Occupy and in shopping centers. I also think that art is a great way of raising questions about aspects of our society, and only operating in the white cube environment of the Art World can make raising those questions a bit too harmless, too safe. The context of the placement of a piece is important, and adds to its meaning. I also started a new Art as Money project: the Transformoney Tree. The Transformoney Tree is a tree, which has the Exchanghibition banknotes hanging as leaves from its branches. Participants can glue real money onto the tree itself. By gluing real banknotes onto the tree itself, and drawing on them, these banknotes become financially worthless, but get turned into art. This interaction transforms the tree, but also our own perceptions of value, art, and money. It’s an exchange of value in a world, where only financial values seem to get valued. But isn’t what we value most “priceless”? Interaction with the tree could help us with the shift from a fragile mono-money-culture to a diversified world of many alternative currencies, providing tools for exchange of various forms of value as a necessary alternative for our current debt-based-system, which focuses on infinite economic growth on a finite planet. Are the roots of this tree the roots of all evil or the roots of all happiness? Hopefully, they’ll become the roots of a new consciousness. It's amazing and beautiful to see how much impact it has on people's life when they draw on a banknote. Even though everybody uses money every single day, rarely do people think about what it is, how it may be refined or redefined and changed. It's just a tool, and tools can change in an ever evolving society, but money has always been presented to us as an absolute given fact. By drawing on money, people regain power, and look in a total different way at what it is and represents. That alone I think is a big accomplishment.
Image credits:
Drawing by Dadara; money paintings courtesy of Dadara and Famous Auctionhouse Image 5, 10 and 11 by Dadara Image 2 by Eric Bouvet image 4 by Kees Spruijt
The Sunday Comparison column comes back today with another brief juxtaposition, this time between Alexander Wang's Spring/Summer 2013 footwer and Roger Vivier's iconic "Ara" sandals.
In his latest collection Wang tried to pull garments apart exposing their structure, almost revealing the "skeleton" supporting them. This is the main reason why his designs were characterised by clinical panels of fabrics criss-crossed by thick and crude suture-like seams that at times turned into slashes and splices or that were simply erased using see through fabrics.
In his search for minimalism Wang created sandals and boots that in some cases looked like male dress-sock garters. The thin belts that formed the structure of his knee-high sandals and that mimicked the exposed structure of his garments called to mind '60s footwear and in particular Roger Vivier's 1968 "Ara" sandals (minus the parrot head).
While you could easily point out the differences between the two models, it would also be pretty easy to spot the similiarities. Yes, it's true, fashion comes and goes in circles and what was fashionable in the past will probably be fashionable again pretty soon, but modern collections often give the consumers a strange déjà vu sensation and the impression that creating a genuinely original collection - for different reasons including lack of time, money and will to research - is becoming almost impossible.
From today and hopefully on a weekly basis, Irenebrination will follow the vicissitudes of the workers from the Chieti-based Sixty company through a documentary that could be considered as a joint venture between this site and the local workers.
A successful clothing company manufacturing products aimed at young people, Sixty was founded in 1989 by Wicky Hassan and Renato Rossi. Things went pretty well for the first ten years and the company expanded launching new labels and lines and opening shops in other countries.
A series of questionable bizarre financial operations started roughly ten years after it was founded, on 31st December 1998, when Sixty sold all its labels to a Luxembourg based company and bought, just a few hours afterwards, the distribution rights for the same labels it had just sold. While the main aim of these transactions was transferring the label royalties in countries where you can easily have tax reduction, this operation was also the official beginning of a new phase marked by a reckless expansion also in other sectors, wrong style choices and consequent bad sales.
Hit by the financial crisis, the company was bought in the summer of 2012 by a mysterious Asian investment fund called Crescent Hyde Park (CHP) with legal offices on the Cayman Islands. CHP acquired the entire company but its plans on the future of the company and of the brands it produced - Miss Sixty, Murphy & Nye, Energie, Killah and Refrigiwear - are still unclear.
The main victims of this situation are the Chieti-based workers, 414 people currently fighting for their jobs and protesting in a caravan outside the company HQ. The Irenebrination team has spent and is spending some time with them to understand who they are and what they are fighting for, while exploring other issues related to this situation such as the Made in Italy Vs Made in China dichotomy and the impact that a job loss in Chieti, Italy, can have on a global level.
Sixty used to own quite a few stores also in other countries and some of them have closed down, while orders for the Spring/Summer 2013 season were recently cancelled by UK retailers as the company wasn't able to deliver the garments.
The documentary is entitled “Sixty Shades of Unemployment”, a pun on the name of the brand and on the popular erotic novel. Even though deeply sad about the situation they are living in, the workers wanted to have a sort of bitterly funny twist to their story (fashion is erotic in many ways at least from what they tell us on glossy and glam mags, but there is nothing erotic in this story with too many rather mysterious twists...) that's why we opted for this title.
Our main aim is to serialise the documentary (a work-in-progress since the story is unfolding as we write and shoot made with absolutely no funds) on a YouTube channel we opened with that purpose, “60Shades” . We do hope indeed that this format will become a vehicle for the workers to let their stories and experiences be heard on a global level (the doc will be in Italian with English subtitles), but will also be an opportunity for the watchers to listen to the workers' sharing their views about the fashion industry and thoughts about the death of research in fashion and the consequences of companies becoming more interested in generating massive profits than in creating real jobs and original products. Enjoy.
The 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale wraps up on Sunday, so I'm republishing today a feature I originally did for another publication about the Torre David installation that won the Golden Lion for the Best Project.
Visitors to the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale (until 25th November) may find themselves surprised when, upon reaching the Corderie of the Arsenale will find themselves inside the Venezuelan 24-hour restaurant Gran Horizonte.
This temporary social space rebuilt using humble materials will allow them to socialise and rest while discovering in this common ground a project by architects Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner and their teams at U-TT (Urban-Think Tank) and ETH Zurich, in collaboration with photographer Iwan Baan, and curated by Justin McGuirk.
The project revolves around the Caracas-based Torre Confinanzas also known as Torre David, designed by Venezuelan architect Enrique Gòmez. After its developer died and after the collapse of the Venezuelan economy in the '90s, a vibrant community installed itself into the forty-five-storey office tower recreating inside it living spaces that currently form a sort of city within a city.
The project ponders upon the possibilities of adaptable architecture expanding on real people's needs. Baan's photographs of the Torre residents (there are currently over 750 families living there) could be used for both architectural and social studies. In Baan's images there are for example children playing downstairs and people praying in the church area or living intimate moments of their lives.
Critics compare the place to a vertical slum, but the story told by this installation is definitely not a sad story about poor people as Baan's images are not used in negative ways, but are employed to highlight the dignity of the Torre David residents.
The tower is also conceived by the architects involved in the project as an example to understand many other urban failures and as a way to try and imagine an alternative future in which design may be put at the service of people's needs.
Together with many other spaces scattered all over the world and employed by local communities in more or less the same way as the Venezuelan building, the Torre David represents indeed an example of informal living that may inspire new modes of vertical mobility that could be applied to other spaces all over the world, as explored also by Brillembourg, Klumpner and Baan in the recently published volume Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities (Lars Muller Publishers).
Interview with Photographer Iwan Baan
How did you meet up with U-TT? Iwan Baan: I was in Caracas two and a half years ago for a Moma exhibition for which I photographed different projects. One of the projects I was shooting there was this cable car that Urban-Think Tank designed in Caracas and that connects the favelas with the formal city. That's how I met with them. While I was there they showed me this skyscraper that stands in the middle of Caracas, a 45-storey office tower that was thoroughly occupied and I thought that would have been a very interesting project to document, even though they told me it was very difficult to get the people living there photographed as they don't want to meet outsiders. One of the guys from the office went there weekly to talk to people and introduce ourselves, then, nine months later or so, we came back and started working in the Tower, documenting things and speaking to people.
How did you come up with the installation format at the Venice Biennale? Iwan Baan: It started from talks with the curator and the architects, we really wanted to bring Caracas to the Biennale and we thought that a restaurant it's a kind of common ground where people can share company and food and have a nice time. We wanted to recreate a little bit of atmosphere from Caracas, so we even brought the sign of the Gran Horizonte 24-hour restaurant to Venice, and we rebuilt the place in the same style people built their own spaces in the Torre David.
Is there one image among the ones you took that is particularly meanigful to you? Iwan Baan: It's hard to choose. Maybe the image of the façade that allows you to see how everybody individually built in between the concrete columns of the building their own private domain and they did so in different styles. This is really fascinating in a way since the façade changes constantly.
What struck you the most about this very unique community? Iwan Baan: The fact that 3,000 people built themselves out of nothing a completely working city. In Venezuela it's difficult for people to get housing - 60% of the population in Caracas lives in slums - and for people to organise themselves in this way was in my opinion also very touching. It was difficult to even make the first step inside the Tower, but, once we were in, we saw how incredibly proud these people were about what they had made by themselves. We found ourselves in front of a group of people with no class who completely fell out of the formal system and had to organise themselves and create for themselves a place where they could live. We thought it was also relevant with what's happening at the moment on a global level: because of the crisis, many places, including office buildings in city centres, became vacant and people could actually use them to live in. The Torre David is an extreme example, but it's interesting to think about it as an ingenious model that we could bring to other city systems. There are of course a lot of problems also in the Tower, it certainly isn't an ideal situation, but it's so much better especially if compared to the favelas.
How did you feel about the installation winning the Golden Lion for the Best Project at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale? Iwan Baan: It came as a big surprise especially because there are a lot of projects in this event by famous architects and artists. I'm quite new in this field as I started doing architecture photography around 6-7 years ago a little bit by accident, before I used to do more documentary photography. This project for me was very exciting because it brings together two worlds, telling a story of ordinary people in a documentary way with architecture in the background.
Interview with architects Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner
What inspired your research on the Torre David? Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: U-TT came out of several years of research and work in the informal communities of Caracas. Over the years, our focus has honed in on different typologies and morphologies of informal built environments not just in Caracas or Venezuela but all over the world. We believe that the future of urban development hinges upon finding bridges between informal and formal growth. It's this intersection where we believe cities are at their best – where residents can find more equal opportunities for sustainable urban living. For several years, we observed what was happening at the Torre and began to see it as an iconic and remarkable example of one type of informal growth – literally the “informalization” of a formal skyscraper. There were lots of rumors about its recent history and current inhabitants, but we always prefer to investigate for ourselves. Once we gained entry and spent a few days inside, we knew that it was worth some serious attention. It struck us as a logical step in our line of architectural and urban research. We are fortunate enough to be conducting research out of the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich, which progressively provides so much support to in-depth projects like this one. We elaborate upon these ideas in our book, Torre David: Informal Vetical Communities. But we also want to stress that it's important that architects, designers, or anyone does not romanticize the story and existing conditions of the Torre and its community. We must acknowledge that just like the barrios that compose a large portion of Caracas' built environment and the slums which are a growing portion of urban development all around the world, there are real problems facing residents in terms of infrastructure, access to long-term financial investment, and of course land tenure. But it is also unique in its verticality and semi-autonomy. We think it could serve as an urban zone or site of experimentation on a large scale, partnering with academia, private firms and government to try out novel approaches to making better vertical architecture.
Which was the most challenging aspect of this project, did you find it difficult for example to win the trust of the Torre David community while working and researching there? Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: It was challenging at first, as the residents have had some unpleasant interactions with outsiders – particularly those who show up asking to document the space in some capacity. They feel that both local and international media has not portrayed them in an honest manner, and as a result have a rather closed-door policy. However, after about a month of explaining what U-TT is and what our motivations were, we were granted limited access to begin surveying the structure and talking to residents. Over the course of the year and a half we've been engaged there, our relationship with the residents has become much more collaborative. We have attended numerous community meetings, presenting our research and design proposals for making the space safer, more comfortable, sustainable and productive. Our design process is always contingent on community engagement and participation, so receiving this kind of access and establishing mutual goals is necessary. We still try to be sensitive to the precarious situation that the residents are in, and we have been in constant communication with residents since our installation in Venice opened and we're hoping that this increased exposure leads to something productive for the residents and the city as a whole.
Torre David is a space in constant change as people move in and rearrange it in accordance to their needs, is its constant mutability one of the main reasons that could turn it into a valid architectural example to adopt even in other communities? Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: The Torre David presents a remarkable opportunity for experimenting with new strategies to retrofitting existing architecture, incremental city development and mixed-use programming in vertical density. The ways in which residents have adapted the existing structure has provided us with numerous lessons about what does and doesn't work. Indeed, some experiments have proven to be successful, such as removal of windows on certain parts of the façade that provide excellent ventilation in the absence of air-conditioning or communally negotiated partitioning of open spaces into separate residences. However, other forms of development have not worked, such as one residents' attempt to create a brick manufacturing business in the basement of the Torre several years ago that proved to be economically unprofitable. Residents have come up with many ideas to solve certain deficiencies, and there is a willingness to leverage this creative impulse to try larger scale experiments, some of which involve making the Torre more autonomous in terms of resource consumption and energy production.
How was it working with photographer Iwan Baan on this project and how did you come up with the restaurant idea for the Arsenale? Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: Iwan is a pleasure to work with. His philosophy toward photography is very much in sync with U-TT's ethos – he believes that context is tantamount to understanding any building or site. He understands that spatial documentation must take into account the surroundings, history, local culture and current social life of a place. He was curious about the Torre and when he came to Caracas in 2011 to photograph one of our projects, the FAVA School for Autistic Children, he came with us to the Torre. Over the course of the next year and a half, he was able to come back and do a thorough documentation of the structure and community. His photos - many more than appeared in Venice - are part of our book on the Torre. When it came time to plan our installation in Venice, we primarily set out to create an environment that would truly foster common ground. It's easy to fall into the trap of making just a conceptually or aesthetically interesting space that addresses the notion of common ground head-on with lucidity and intelligence. But we wanted to create real, useful common ground, not just comment on it in a didactic manner. So 8 months ago, when we were starting to discuss ideas for the installation with Justin McGuirk, we thought of our Caracas office's favorite meeting point after work - Gran Horizonte, a 24-hour restaurant near our downtown office. By recreating elements of Gran Horizonte in Venice, and inserting the story of the Torre, which in itself is a story about common ground, we hope visitors will feel engaged and involved. And ultimately, the name Gran Horizonte signifies to us the grand horizon of the future of architecture in the Global South. "Gran Horizonte" is also the name of our feature-length film, coming out next year, pieces of which take place in the Torre. Segments of the film also appear in the space on old TVs and a large projection.
How did you feel about winning the Golden Lion for the Best Project at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale? Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner: We are honored and thankful to the jury, the crowds that populated our space and tried the arepas, and of course to the residents of the Torre, who worked with us for over a year on the research that went into this installation and in the related book. We did a smaller photo exhibition with Iwan in the Torre several months ago, and when we received the enthusiastic approval of the residents to take the show on the road, we knew we had to do them justice. We're grateful that this installation achieved that goal.
The book "Torre David - Informal Vertical Communities" will be launched on 10th December 2012, 6 pm, ETH Zurich, Main Building, Semper Aula, Floor G, Room 60, Ramistrasse 101, Zurich.
Images credits:
Image 1-7: Gran Horizonte/Torre David installation in Venice by Anna Battista
Image 15: From left to right - Alfredo Brillembourg, Iwan Baan, Justin McGuirk, Lorenzo Ornaghi (Italian Minister of Cultural Heritage and Activities), Hubert Klumpner and Paolo Baratta (President of the Venice Biennale). Photograph Giorgio Zucchiatti, Courtesy of the Venice Biennale Press Office
Shoes are a key item in everyone's wardrobe, from fashion victims to ordinary people with no interest in following trends.
Yet there's shoes and shoes and in Belgian Anne Poesen's world another type of footwear – mainly influenced by architecture and following the principles of civil engineeering - is definitely possible.
Poesen usually employs in her footwear rather unusual materials including wire steel, woven carbon and kevlar fibres, and often moves from the pure shapes of architectural features such as bridges for inspiration.
A passionate shoe fan since she was a young girl, Poesen got to the fashion industry after a BA and an MA in Civil Engineering and Architecture at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. After following a course in footwear design at Ars Arpel in Milan and working as a pattern maker for La Perla, she started collaborating with prominent companies including Terra Plana, Parc and Avance as shoe and bag designer and became a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts Sint-Niklaas (SASK).
A mini-exhibition entitled “Luvmyshoes” and recently opened at the Waalwijk-based Nederlands Leder & Schoenen Museum (Dutch Leather and Shoe Museum) rediscovers Poesen's designs from 2003 onwards.
Poesen's studies and personal interests in architecture are reflected in all her foowear, from her first experiment, the “Trix” sandal, passing through the elegant “Bow” and the ironic and fun “City Walker” sandals that look as if an embossed map of a city had been wrapped around the wearer's foot, to the “21H12T” shoe in white woven glass fibres designed for a Belgian architect and also exhibited at the SONS (Shoes Or No Shoes?) Museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium.
As a child, were you already fascinated by shoes? Anne Poesen: Yes, I always wanted to design footwear since I was a very young girl. I used to look at shoes in shops and make shoes for my dolls and for myself. I even remember developing my own pattern making system for shoes. Since I don't come from an artistic family even my parents couldn't understand where that came from!
How come you studied civil engineering and architecture rather than fashion design? Anne Poesen: Both my parents are scientists and my father is a university professor, so they wanted me to do something that could grant me a “proper” job, since fashion is generally considered as a more artistic discipline. They were worried also because at that time there were no courses in shoe design and there is no footwear manufacturing in Belgium so there are not many jobs in this sector. Architecture has always been one of my interests, so in the end I opted for civil engineering and architecture at the University of Leuven. I loved studying, but my passion for footwear seemed stronger, so while at university I started exploring the possibilities that my studies could offered in other fields. I eventually came up with my first shoe, the “Trix”, in which you can clearly see the influence of architecture. It's a very simple sandal in which the heel and the sole are made from just one piece and one single strap folds between the toes and the sole. It looks a bit like a chair and it's made out of carbon fibre and rosewood, materials that are also used in designing furniture. As I said I designed the "Trix" while I was studying and a Dutch shoe maker, René van den Berg, made it since at that time I didn't have any proper shoemaking knowledge.
Do you ever regret studying civil engineering and architecture? Anne Poesen: No, I don't. My background allows me to look at things from a different perspective compared to people who only studied fashion and also to question and analyse things in a much more in-depth way. One of the things I've always loved is the knowledge behind the shoemaking process. I guess that's because I have a sort of analytical mind, but that's what you learn when you're studying to become an engineer – organising yourself and finding a solution for every problem. Thanks to my studies my designs also look simple, even though, if you look closely, you realise there is a lot of work behind them and I also try and employ more experimental materials, combining aesthetic qualities and structural solutions together. The “Bow” sandals that I originally made for myself moving from bridge constructions are for example made with a special kind of wire steel covered in sole leather that can bend and then flips back to the original position. This is the only way you can make such as shoe, because if you made it with a different material, the bow would lose shape after a while, so it's only possible to come up with that shape using this elastic material.
Do you feel that some of the solutions employed in your designs are directly borrowed from your studies? Anne Poesen: In fashion the clothes hang on the body, but in shoe design you have to physically carry a person, so you have to take into account other shoe-related issues such as the balance, the structure and the weight of a person. These are the same question I would ask myself if I were working as an engineer and I think this crossover between architecture and shoes is what makes designing so interesting to me.
Do you prefer working as a freelancer or for other companies? Anne Poesen: I like both as they allow me to have different experiences. I never had the ambition of making my own collection and I'm not even sure I would be the right person who could have her own collection - at least for the time being. I'm not an arty person who makes thousands of drawings a day, if I have an idea, I really want to work it out, analyse how I can make it better and improve it. I like the overall process, the fact that you can go from idea to final product. At the moment I'm working for a commercial company and this is a completely different experience compared to what I did before. But I like this side of shoe designing as well, since it shows you how things work in real life and at the industry level and it allows you to follow the entire process from design to pattern and sample making till the product comes into the market.
Is there one particular design of yours that you saw being developed at a higher level and that you felt particularly excited about? Anne Poesen: The first City Walker shoes I made were developed from three of my passions – footwear, architecture and Milan, where I lived for one year. Then I developed the shoe with a company from London in China. As you may guess this was a completely different experience compared to that of making a classic shoe in Italy or Portugal as these shoes are made using biodegradable EVA, a kind of foam, so they are made in a mould. While working on this project my engineering skills became very useful as I could talk with the people from the factory about the density of the material, the hardness, the thickness, the percentage of foam and the elasticity. I remember they were almost shocked to see a young woman who knew so much about the technical details behind the footwear and this made me proud as I felt I was applying my knowledge at a very high level.
What do you hope visitors coming to the exhibition at the Nederlands Leder & Schoenen Museum will bring home? Anne Poesen: I hope my designs will make them smile and prompt them to think differently. Usually when something is well designed, balanced and aesthetically pleasing, you feel happy or peaceful about it. This is what I'm trying to do with my designs - injecting into them that perfect balance that only a carefully thought product has and also adding to them an unexpectedly fun twist.
It may be extremely difficult for most of us leading quiet and calm lives trying to put ourselves in the place of those people who went through major disasters and lost their dear ones and their homes during such tragedies.
Natural phenomena such as deadly earthquakes, tsunami and massive storms have become rather frequent, prompting us all to realise how personal lives may easily change in just a few tragic seconds.
While the shock of losing everyone and everything is an indelible psychological and physical scar for those who went through it, there are tiny glimpses of hope in the aftermath of such events.
These moments of hope were the inspiration behind the research for the Japanese Pavilion project “Architecture. Possible here? Home-for-All”, winner of the Golden Lion for Best National Participation at the 13th Venice International Architecture Biennale.
Commissioned by Toyo Ito, the project moved from one main aim, gifting a home to all the people who lost theirs during the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. Yet, what started as a project for a biennale, soon turned into a discovery process and an opportunity to ponder a bit about the future of society and architecture.
After the first talks about the project, the team involved - including photographer Naoya Hatakeyama and emerging architects Kumiko Inui, Sou Fujimoto and Akihisa Hirata - visited the disaster victims and their temporary housing sites in Rikuzentakata only to be confronted by a completely new reality: survivors had found new ways to create living spaces and recreate their human bonds.
Modern architecture has so far been considered and rated for its originality expressed by the individual and distinctive vision of the architect, but the team behind the project realised that in these areas the main problem was the possibility and necessity of architecture.
Further dilemmas revolving around themes such as art, design, modernism and contemporary spaces arose, prompting the team to go back to the sites were disaster survivors had established their quarters and develop an intense dialogue with them.
While the main purpose of the team was at the very beginning that of creating a new architecture, it soon became clear that it wouldn't have been possible without talking to the locals and listening to their complex expectations and suggestions.
Eventually, one of the survivors, Mikiko Sugawara, together with a group of other people who had started using a tent as a small gathering place, showed them the way towards a sort of universal architecture, built not on style but on people's experiences, memories, needs and hopes. The damaged areas represented indeed a new society taking shape: though fragmented, it already had a sense of community and a strong will to get together.
Realising there was no precise concept and no set direction for this project, though there was a lot of courage from the locals, the team started using the materials that were lying around the area, creating several models of houses (the various steps of the project are showcased at the Japan Pavilion in Venice) that featured different elements, extentions, balconies and spaces ideal to gather and congregate.
The story of the Takata-Matsubara pine forest that had been entirely washed away by the tsunami also provided a great inspiration: local people used the forest as a place to visit and relax, so the new project, a sort of shared house and gathering place that somehow recalled in its structure the Ugoku-Tanabata floats for the Rikuzentakata Tanabata Festival, was made with torn up, swept away and salt damaged trees and built on memories of lost homes.
Though temporary, the structure - made together with local people to create an exchange between builders and residents - symbolises not just recover, rebirth or the power of architecture in rebuilding society, but the positive values behind a new type of architecture not made "by oneself for oneself", as Toyo Ito states, but built on the genuine needs of human beings, a place where people looking for a home can gather, share meals and support, recreating a sense of community.
The main principle behind this process - individual effort transcending individuality - could actually be very inspiring also when applied to other disciplines.
Creating something without thinking about the actual needs of the final users (or of the final consumers, if you think about fashion) does not offer a fresh approach to design and does not allow us to enter a modern era since it does not provide us with a view of what the future of a discipline (be it art, architecture or fashion) or of society may be.
