Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology: January 2013

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Sukiyake Western Django: Miharayasuhiro A/W 13

Fashion can be a funny business in many ways: the minute you exclude from a season the influence of a specific film or exhibition, they end up popping here and there as if by magic. Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained may have been filling the pages of newspapers, magazines and the Internet, yet with designers projected towards a high-tech future or a neo-dandy revival, we didn't see many references to Spaghetti Westerns. Then, rather than arriving via Sergio Corbucci or Tarantino, Django reappeared in its Japanese incarnation on Miharayasuhiro's runway.

Entitled “Chinpira” Miharayasuhiro's collection was based on a punk-meets-gangster character, but, while the designer's modern sharp suits perfectly evoked images of arrogant criminals, the eagle and dragon embroideries called to mind the attire of The White gang in Takashi Miike's Sukiyake Western Django (2007; Tarantino had a cameo role in it; if you're interested, the costumes in this film are by Michiko Kitamura).

Miharayasuhiro's eagles and reptiles were maybe references to the animal iconography favoured by juvenile delinquents and by the yakuza. Yet layered looks on the runway also called to mind the layered costumes in Miike's film; besides, at the core of the film there is a town prospering in gold mining until the two clans start fighting over it and Miharayasuhiro's collection also featured dragon scale-like motifs embroidered with real gold on the suits and on the jacket lapels.

In a way you could almost say there was a sort of Sukiyake Western Django mood hovering on the collection, but there weren't any specific costumes borrowed from the film.

Maybe we will see instead the costumes for Tarantino's Django Unchained on some of the future runways. Sharen Davis (who did some great work on The Help, the big-screen adaptation of Kathryn Stockett’s novel) designed them, so we'll see what happens in the next few weeks also for what regards womenswear shows.

In the meantime, if you want to go down the Django way, well, remember this is a sort of saga on its own in the Spaghetti Western genre, so there is more than just one Django film to watch.

Tarantino moved from Sergio Corbucci's 1966 iconic film with Franco Nero starring in the main role and with costumes by Marcella De Marchis and Carlo Simi (the latter also worked on many Sergio Leone films, so he's a good option for Western inspirations).

Corbucci's film was followed by many different movies such as Django spara per primo (1966) by Alberto De Martino, Il figlio di Django (1967) by Osvaldo Civirani, 10.000 dollari per un massacro (1967) by Romolo Guerrieri, Bill il Taciturno (1968 - last image in this post) by Massimo Pupillo, Django il bastardo and Una lunga fila di croci (both 1969 and both by) Sergio Garrone (1969), to mention just the Italian ones.

A good idea rather than getting inspired by the costumes is looking at the posters of these films in different languages; a great alternative is instead letting the soundtracks do the trick for you. Luis Bacalov and Franco Migliacci 's "Django" (1966) with vocals by Rocky Roberts is an unbeatable example.

With many thanks to Kutmusic for digging out of their archives the posters for this feature.

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“Mannequin - Le Corps de la Mode” @ Paris' Les Docks

Mario Bava’s films Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace, 1964) and Il rosso segno della follia (Hatchet for the Honeymoon, 1970) looked at visual deceptions and dichotomies between animate bodies and inanimate dummies, body alterations, fashion and death.

In Blood & Black Lace in particular wickerwork and metal cage dummies become often interchangeable elements with the dead bodies of models Isabella, Nicole, Peggy, Greta and Tao-Li, who, from vitally important workers of a couture house, turn into disposable things.

Borrowed from the French language, the word "mannequins" originally referenced wickerwork dummies used to display garments in a dressmaker's workshop.

As the decades passed and the fashion industry developed, designers started using living models, yet the "inanimate" implication remained.

Early professional models wore indeed a black undergarment in rigid silk or satin at times with full-length sleeves so that flesh was not exposed.

These blacks slips often gave the models the undesired appearance of inanimate dummies.

Lucile was the first designer in London to abandon the practice of wearing undergarments and who opted for fashion shows and presentations that resembled those of her French contemporary Paul Poiret.

It took a few more years before the faces and names of professional models were revealed by couturiers and a few more decades to see them turned into supermodels, muses and icons.

An exhibition entitled "Mannequin - Le Corps de la Mode" ("Model Bodies - The Crux of Fashion") organised by the Musée Galliera in Paris, will be exploring through a wide range of images and objects, the history of models from inanimate "mannequins" to cover girls and sex symbols, passing through supermodels and girls next door.

The museum is still under renovation, so this exhibition - originally produced by the Rencontres d'Arles for its 2012 edition - will be opening at the new cultural centre Les Docks in February.

"The model is at the heart of fashion photography; it traverses its history, it is a remarkable common thread to read fashion photography," exhibition curator and coordinator of the Musée Galliera photography collection Sylvie Lécallier told Irenebrination.

"I worked on the pictures we keep at the Musée Galliera as I know them well. Then I looked into the collections of other museums or directly from photographers, collecting images that were necessary to complete the purpose of the exhibition."

The photographs included also look at the relationship between the presentation of women and femininity and consumption as fetishism, better summarised by Walter Benjamin as the "women as consumers Vs women as consumed" dichotomy.

The event will include over 100 images of models shot by Horst P. Horst, Erwin Blumenfeld, Henry Clarke, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Nick Knight, Corinne Day and Juergen Teller.

The latter is Lécallier's favourite photographer.

"His 'Go-Sees' series is subtle, it offers a unique look at young women who want to become a model," she states.

"Juergen Teller is always questioning photography and his work is very intelligent. The most iconic image featured in the exhibition will be instead the one portraying Kate Moss taken by Corinne Day for The Face in 1990. This is one of the first images released of Kate who was 15 years old at the time of the shoot. This image marked the history of fashion photography."

The exhibition will also feature life-size objects, garments and accessories, and the visitors will find some of them pretty unusual.

"We will have a dressmaker's dummy which dates from 1905 and that seems completely distorted because it reproduces the silhouette fashion gave women at that time - the S silhouette", anticipates Lécallier.

Yet, while the S silhouette is by now a nightmare from another time, the modern fashion industry has found new ways to reinvent the female body.

Idolised as goddesses of beauty, contemporary fashion models often preserve an aura of artificiality as their sculpted bodies are retouched through digital manipulation before becoming part of carefully studied glamorous shoot published on glossy fashion magazines.

Even though "Mannequin - Le Corps de la Mode" doesn't strictly look at models as emissaries of a system of exploitation, reification and alienation, the images included could still be seen from a sociological point of view.

"Though this is not an exhibition with a sociological purpose, it definitely poses sociological issues about the representation of the female body," concludes Lécallier.

“Mannequin - Le Corps de la Mode”, 16th February 2013 - 19th May 2013, Les Docks - Cité de la Mode et du Design, 34 quai d'Austerlitz, 75013 Paris, France.

Image credits:

Model from Paquin, Anonymous, 1917, Copyright Galliera/Roger-Viollet

Paul Poiret and his models, Anonymous, 1925, Copyright Galliera/Roger-Viollet

Model Bettina, Henry Clarke, August 1951, Copyright Henry Clarke/Galliera

Model Nicolle Meyer, Charles Jourdan campaign - Summer 1978, Guy Bourdin, Copyright Guy Bourdin with kind permission from the Michael Hopper Contemporary Gallery, London

Model Kate Moss, Corinne Day, 1990, Copyright Corinne Day/Galliera

Kristen McMenamy 3, Juergen Teller, 1996, Copyright Juergen Teller with kind permission from the Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York/Galliera

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Moondust Will Cover You: Walter Van Beirendonck's Menswear A/W 13

It is somehow always a great coincidence for a fashion designer when the theme that inspired a collection becomes popular around the same time that specific collection is showcased or arrives in the shops. This is more or less what happened with Walter Van Beirendonck who moved from identity for his A/W 13 collection and ended up exploring it via David Bowie, the androgynous master of self-reinvention and a living poetic manifesto to an era.

The singer recently celebrated his 66th birthday surprisingly announcing his first album in years, anticipated by new single "Where Are We Now?". Bowie has been at the forefront of fashion for decades, thanks to his experimental costumes that turned him onto the stage into an icon and an inspiration for many designers, and costumes have been a lot on Walter Van Beirendonck's mind.

The designer has been in a "performance mood" since last year when he collaborated for the first time with the National Opera of Paris’ ballet, designing surrealist costumes for the piece “Sous Apparence”, a tribute to Merce Cunningham with a maverick choreography by the Paris Opera Ballet étoile Marie-Agnès Gillot.

For that piece Walter Van Beirendonck opted for costumes with features such as ropes that seemed to restrain the movements of the dancers. Yet in his menswear collection showcased in Paris this week he freed himself from any kind of constraints, often coming up with over the top glammed up garments.

Ziggy Stardust's iconic flash as photographed by Duffy for the album cover of "Aladdin Sane" was emblazoned in Lurex on blue or pink jackets, while Bowie's eyes returned as disembodied features on a Picasso-style head appliqued on formal jackets.

Glam moods prevailed in the Lurex tops and trousers decorated with metallic tinsel and matched with colourful platform boots and decadent dressing gown-like coats toned done the collectiong completing it.

The designer arty knitwear came in a riot of colourful geometrical patterns and, while it was legitimate to wonder if Giacomo Balla and the Italian Futurists were once again behind those bright shades, the main inspirations were probably Kansai Yamamoto's knitwear pieces for Bowie (did Van Beirendonck see Bowie's knitwear costume by Yamamoto at the V&A “British Design 1948–2012: Innovation in the Modern Age” exhibition last year?).

Yet Vvan Beirendonck's A/W 13 collection wasn't only about Bowie: the red lips on the abstract heads appliqued on the jackets pointed towards another music inspiration, The Rolling Stones, also referenced through a Lurex reinterpretation of Mr Fish's flamboyant white dress donned by Mick Jagger for The Stone's Hyde Park concert in 1969.

While this fashionable space oddity is (fortunately) destined to remain a showpiece and probably reappear on some hip artist during a gig or on the cover of an album, you can bet that, once toned a tiny bit down, some of the moondust covered pieces in this collection (especially the knitwear) will prove bestsellers not just with Bowie fans.

There is just one final question left: what will Bowie - who seems to be in a pensive and introspective mood in his brand new single - think about all this?

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Bonded Future (Emporio Armani, Z Zegna, Calvin Klein, Marni and Valentino Menswear A/W 13)

Raf Simons and Miuccia Prada may have gone for a classic approach for the next Autum/Winter season employing natural materials, but trends are pointing towards futuristic fabrics such as neoprene and, above all, innovative techniques like bonding. Construction with bonding allows to modify silhouettes, aethetics and structure, obtaining an improved fit and uniting radically different materials.

One of the main trends that came out during the menswear shows so far was mixing formal and casual/sport moods together, and bonding thermowelded materials to create aesthetic or technical varitations has therefore turned into the best solution to opt for. Let's look at some examples.

Even though Giorgio Armani's main collection (no pictures illustrating it in this post) featured plenty of elegant and classic pieces, three-piece suits ideal for businessmen, luxurious cashmere and mohair knits, brocade waistcoats and velvet trousers and fur-lined outerwear, the collection also included a couple of neoprene bombers in navy blue and burgundy, and jackets with futuristic diamond-shaped printed geometries that hinted towards a more casual futuristic direction.

The latter emerged in a stronger way in the Emporio Armani collection that included more dynamic silhouettes and a focus on the “classic Vs technical” dichotomy.

Suits were matched with roomy cream-coloured bonded jackets in neoprene (a fabric often used in the last few years to commit quite a few crimes against fashion and good taste...) that ended up bringing an innovative feel to the collection, adding a sort of tough element while creating contrasts with different textures and garments such as biker jackets with embossed three-dimensional motifs.

Bonding gave a high-tech finish to classic overcoats, jackets and parkas often matched with rubbery neoprene trousers (worn in some cases with fur or velvet jackets to create further contrasts), or to modern après-ski bi-coloured tops in gray and butterscotch or gray and violet.

At Z Zegna, Paul Surridge explored the mechanical age with men’s classics revisited in a three-dimensional gemstone-like rhomboid motif embossed or quilted on trench coats, jackets and bombers, recreating suits in waterproof materials and adding to the collection thermowelded bonded sports jackets in felt characterised by a curved silhouette.

Quilting was a major theme also at Calvin Klein's where new techniques were used for body-con sweatshirts, jackets and bombers in nylon that gave the collection a dynamism borrowed from sports.

Italo Zucchelli used bonding for the front pockets applied on utility jackets and, in his quest for combining sportswear and formalwear, he reinvented classic elements quilting herringbone and houndstooth patterns.

Marni's main palette - a combination of mustard and browns - for the Autumn/Winter collection was borrowed from the '70s but the the sporty elements were modern and included knitwear bonded with jersey, and fur used as back panel on coats.

The location for Valentino's collection presentation have been Paris' Hôtel Salomon de Rothschild, the inspiration was London and the moods were suspended between Antonioni's Blow up and La Notte, but the technique behind the garments was once again bonding.

Classic fabrics such as houndstooth and check were thermowelded while black leather bands were bonded to coats and Sixties capes. These innovative techniques were also employed to create three-dimensional textures or give a polished finish to each design.

Bonding, thermowelding, taping, melting or ultrasonic quilting are perfect to create a more minimalist and futuristic look (there will be plenty of inspirations in the Autum/Winter collections for futuristic costumes, in case you ever need them to shoot your own sci-fi movie...), that's why these systems are becoming more popular with fashion designers.

Yet there are further reasons for this growth in popularity: thermowelding can be employed to combine materials and fabrics that couldn't have been previously bonded, besides these techniques allow to create garments ideal for a more dynamic life, pieces that meet new functional needs and that can be worn in harsher climatic conditions.

The good thing about the garments produced with these techniques is that they look more innovative and aesthetically sober while retaining a strong sartorial emphasis; the bad thing is that maybe, in some cases, the designs evoke rather tough and almost militaristic moods (without mentioning the fact that some bonded and thermowelded garments have that undesired Star Trek uniform feel about them...), reminding us they may be perfect for chilly weathers, but they are probably thought with our bleak and chilly economic times in mind.

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Behind His Five Principles, In His Secret Studio: Moment - Le Corbusier's Secret Laboratory @ Stockholm's Moderna Museet

There is no such thing as a “pure” sculptor, a “pure” painter, or a “pure” architect. The three-dimensional event finds its fulfilment in an artistic whole at the service of poetry, Le Corbusier

Mention Le Corbusier and your mind will immediately conjure up images of concrete high-rises and lessons about his iconic five principles, yet there is much more behind the famous Swiss-French modernist. Apart from being one of the most important architects in history and a staple influence in building, urban planning, design, fashion and even hair styling, Le Corbusier was also a painter. An exhibition opening this week at Stockholm's Moderna Museet will try to trace new perspectives through his works and will also include sculptures and paintings.

Entitled “Le Corbusier: The Secret Laboratory” and curated by Jean-Louis Cohen, professor at New York University and author of many books about the architect, with associate curator Pascal Mory, the event is actually the first exhibition in Northern Europe covering Le Corbusier's entire oeuvre.

“Le Corbusier is a key figure when it comes to understanding 20th-century modernity and contemporary living, and the way that many of his ideas were born in his painter’s studio is a revelation,” stated Daniel Birnbaum, director of Moderna Museet, in a press release.

The exhibition (its title refers to Le Corbusier's studio) will use as starting points his fascination with mechanical objects and his search for poetic forms and explore five themes.

Five sections will take visitors on a tour of his purist paintings and 1920s villas, the rediscovery of vernacular values in the 1930s, his preoccupation with the synthesis of the arts after 1945, the complex reminiscences of his late work, and Le Corbusier’s relationship with Sweden (plans for the urbanisation of Stockholm and the museum he designed for the Ahrenberg collection will also be exhibited).

The pieces exhibited will remind visitors that not many people wanted to recognise Le Corbusier as a painter, but they will also highlight how he discovered architecture through painting.

Passionate fans and researchers will easily spot the correspondences between the rectangular or curved forms in his paintings and his buildings, but the exhibition will prove interesting also for those visitors who may not know their Le Corbusier syllabus so well since it will show through the juxtaposition of different works how a building by Le Corbusier can be a still life and how a still life can be a piece of architecture.

There will be 200 works on display, including paintings, landscape drawings, sculptures, tapestries, furniture, articles, architectural drawings, models of buildings and of entire city plans, books, and photographs, and all the pieces exhibited will prove that “architecture is the synthesis of the major arts. Architecture is form, volume, colours, acoustics and music”, as Le Corbusier stated.

If you think you may be missing this event don't despair: Jean-Louis Cohen is currently involved also in the preparations for “Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes” set to open at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in June 2013. Looks like this may be a very Le Corbusier year.

Moment - Le Corbusier's Secret Laboratory, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden, 19th January 2013-18th April 2013

Image credits:

I was dreaming (first version) 1953, © Le Corbusier/ BUS 2013

The Sea, 1964, © Le Corbusier/ BUS 2013

Plan de Stockholm. Nord Sud A / Ouest Est B /Est Ouest C / Trois coupes urbaines / Annotations 3071, 1933, © Le Corbusier/ BUS 2013

Plan de Stockholm. 1ère étape / Plan de situation avec implantation des redents type B et type A avec voirie, 1933, © Le Corbusier/ BUS 2013

The poem of the Right Angle plates 6, 1955, © Le Corbusier/ BUS 2013

Nature morte Indépendants, 1922, © Le Corbusier/BUS 2013

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To Die For @ Berlin's Epicentro Art

Berlin Fashion Week kicked off yesterday and if you're in town for the event and you have time on your hands, trying to explore the local art scene wouldn't be a bad idea.

If you have a limited amout of time on your hands, head instead to Epicentro Art's new exhibition space in Berlin Mitte where you can visit the just opened exhibition “To Die For”. The event revolves around the work of sculptor Iris Schieferstein and painter Hans Peter Adamski, two artists well-known for their provocations that often ended up inspiring fashion designers and stylists.

Hans Peter Adamski produced in the early '80s a meat dress for The Stern that, together with Jana Sterbak's “Vanitas” piece, was probably the inspiration for Lady Gaga's infamous steak dress.

Iris Schieferstein's sculptures made with animal parts and in particular her iconic high heels with toy revolvers made assembling horse and cow hooves, pigeon heads and snakes (slightly reminiscent of the fictitious creations in Geoff Nicholson's Footsucker....) inspired instead fetishistic footwear.

For the Berlin event the two artists paid tribute to fashion, presenting their latest works: Adamski used fashion as an allegory for second skin; Schieferstein employed dead animals and fragments of carcasses as the raw material to create hybridic objects dubbed “Fleischplastiken” employed to give death a new face and meaning.

Beautiful yet disturbing and disquieting the works of the two artists offer a commentary on life, death, desire and longing, as Annika Hirsekorn, Epicentro Art Manager and Curator, explains.

What inspired this exhibition and what fascinates you the most about the theme it tackles?
Annika Hirsekorn: This exhibition was inspired by a discussion with Hans Peter Adamski. In 1984 the artist designed a dress made of meat for the Stern magazine. More than 20 years later Lady Gaga gained international attention when she wore her meat dress at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Personally I’m fascinated by the artistic approach to fashion as a second skin: I find interesting those issues concerning variations of identity and created identity, the game of showing up and hiding.

How many pieces are showcased in this event and which is your favourite piece on display? And the most disturbing?
Annika Hirsekorn: The exhibition contains more than 20 artworks. None of the exhibited works is disturbing in my opinion and about my favourite piece, well, it’s a secret!

Both H.P. Adamski and Iris Schieferstein reference fashion in their works, but they also have very personal ways to relate and rethink the relationship between the body and its confines. In your opinion, what's the final message of their works?
Annika Hirsekorn: I don’t see a final message. Maybe it’s more about the search for one. When we consider that this exhibition also tackles a certain ambivalence of life and death it would be pretentious to claim having a final message.

What does this exhibition say about body mutations and modifications or would you say that the main themes of this event revolve more around anatomy or hybridisation?
Annika Hirsekorn: Iris Schieferstein uses dead animals as the raw material for her artworks. Taking individual fragments of the carcasses she assembles “Fleischplastiken”, that is flesh sculptures. So her work deals with body mutations and modifications as well as with forms of hybridisation. Since “To Die For” talks more about the relationship between art and fashion, the works, which have been produced for this exhibition, are a bit more - lets say - “dapper”. But still the visitor will rediscover also themes of hybridisation and mutation of the human and animal bodies.

Some of the works by H.P. Adamski and Iris Schieferstein included in the event were created a while back, but they are still very powerful now and they are even having an impact on fashion. Is this happening because we have become more accustomed with studies about the disarticulation and deformation of the human anatomy?
Annika Hirsekorn: This question came up for me too while developing the exhibition. But, really, I have no idea. I guess it that's what happens with new and progressive art – people need a while to accept and actually understand it and define it as art.

As a curator do you feel visitors will feel more repulsed or attracted by the works on display?
Annika Hirsekorn: I'm expecting both reactions. On the one hand this exhibition deals with fashion and in a certain way the displayed artworks are decorative. But of course Iris Schieferstein’s work attracts not only admires and it's not just vegetarians who feel repulsed and provocated by her artwork.

The exhibition takes place during Berlin Fashion Week, what's the fashion scene in Berlin like now and what do you expect from this year's fashion week?
Annika Hirsekorn: I feel that Berlin’s fashion scene is constantly growing and so many things are going on. It surprised me a lot for instance seeing really strong and innovative fashion trade fairs rapidly growing here. As far as I can see, I will just be working during Fashion Week waiting for visitors at Epicentro art.

Has Epicentro ever been involved or will it be involved in fashion shows and are there any links between this art institution and fashion?
Annika Hirsekorn: The Epicentro art is a private, contemporary art institution founded by Marc Fiedler in 2007. The passionate art collector Marc Fiedler is also founder and director of the Gruppo del Café Palermo, a communication and design company which is producing and hosting the Showroom Days Berlin during Berlin Fashion Week. This January more than 150 national and international designers and artists, from emerging to established, will show their collections, installations, retrospectives, and photography at over 50 locations across Berlin. “We Are Alaska”, a young band from Hamburg, will also accompany us, they will present their first EP on 18th January 2013, so during the Showroom Days.

“To Die For”, Epicentro Art, 5 Joachimstrasse, 10119 Berlin, Germany, until 5th Feburary 2013, Tue-Sat 12-6pm

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It's Confirmed, Fashion and Interior Design Can Definitely Meet Again (At Least According to Miuccia Prada)

It took quite a few years, or rather decades, but in the end it happened: fashion shows and interior design go once again well together. Three years ago we wondered on this site if this could have happened calling to mind how, in the late '60s, Ottavio and Rosita Missoni showcased their collection at the Solari swimming pool in Milan, sending out models floating on the water sitting on inflatable armchairs and sofas designed by Quasar Khanh, who, clad in a futuristic tuxedo with silver lapels, greeted the audience from a gigantic floating house.

Fashion and interior design were explored again together last year by designer Marga Weimans who presented in her "Fashion House: The Most Beautiful Dress in the World" installation, a series of spaces linked to a designer's life and career - a studio, a boardroom, a flat, an archive and even a flagship store - analysing how they can impact on the creations of a designer.

Fast forward to last Sunday when Miuccia Prada showcased her Autumn/Winter 2013 menswear collection in Milan in a set (described by the fashion house in a press release as "the ideal house") as usual created by Rem Koolhaas' AMO, with pieces of furniture produced by Knoll.

The clothes – and this is what surprised the fashion media – were normal, conventional, in the sense that they were wearable, even though there was a sort of studied carelessness in those untucked shirts with their collars askew matched with houndstooth trousers. Luxury was still in the tailored camel coats, velvet-trimmed coat collars, thick-soled brogues with chunky soles and boxy leather jackets in glossy turquoise, red and yellow

Worn out leather coats, the bastion of any serious protest wardrobe in Italy in the '70s came back maybe as a nod to Miuccia's time as a student with left-wing sympathies or maybe to make us all realise that some pieces never go out of fashion.

Miuccia explained the media that this exercise in banality was a quest for perfection and while she was probably taking the piss out of the journalists and doing it perversely well, the trick may actually work.

Think about it: in the last few years we have seen it all on the catwalks, from odes to death to bizarre extravaganzas celebrating life, even though we have also often seen unwearable and undesirable clothes that seemed to reflect the confusingly complex times we are living in. Albeit with double frills down the front, Prada's simple checked shirts may represent a banal yet saleable normality, and a call to keep on sobering things up also in other disciplines, politics included (an understandable call especially in Italy where the election campaign is underway and with Berlusconi the caiman planning his return...).

And while in June Prada will change script once again and tell us that extravagance is probably back, for the time being normality is not only a provocation, but the revolutionary key to restore sales and reputation.

Or maybe the provocation stood in the modernist sets recreated in the brand's space in Via Fogazzaro: designed by Rem Koolhaas's research unit AMO with geometric furniture produced by Knoll, the set recreated the ideal house providing interior and exterior views (the latter were created through digital moving images of high rises, clouds, birds or a cat).

The "ideal apartment" called to mind Marga Weimans' fashion house/most beautiful dress installation, though in Prada's case, rather than looking at the spaces conceived and needed by a fashion designer, the focus was on a space populated by an imaginary wealthy bourgeoisie, hence the angular wood, metal and Plexiglass furniture with random objects scattered around including guitars and typewriters in wood or foam and armchairs with embossed 3D geometrical motifs.

Caveat spectator, though, the retro-futuristic set/installation was also a showroom: while Prada does not intend to go into furniture production like all the main fashion houses during the Salone del Mobile, the furniture on display were anticipations of the 12 pieces of essential design created by OMA for Knoll that will be launched during the Salone in April. So that was the key to the puzzle: the catwalk-cum-interior design installation was a way to sell us “normal” clothes and avant-garde pieces of furniture.

Yet this could be good news: the clothes could be a reaction to the useless art of bizarrely extravagant and embarrassingly clownish menswear we witnessed in the last few years (impossible not to think about Thom Browne, the reason of many heart attacks amongst classic menswear tailors...), they could hint at the end of a gender bending obsession that certain designers, stylists and PR agents took to ridiculous limits and, above all, the end of the bearded gentleman (no beards in sight on Prada's runway, thank God) and of assorted obnoxious dandies in pretty slippers (so soon, though?). Who knows, this could be the revenge of the geek employed to refocus attention on clothes and furniture.

One thing's for certain: we may not see Koolhaas like Quasar Khanh in a futuristic tuxedo greeting the visitors at the 14th Venice International Architecture Biennale but expect Prada to be there. Who knows, the fashion house may even do the June menswear show there next year (is this the actual reason why the Biennale will open in June rather than in September?) finally turning 2014 into the fashion and architecture year. Mind you, in case that happens, don't forget to tell Miuccia we were there first.

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Return of the Visconti Syndrome (in its Most Disturbing and Gloomy Variation)

There are trends that come and go in fashion: one season designers may mention an artist, another an architect or a film, but there is a director who is always a staple in the fashion designer reference Bible, Luchino Visconti.

In a way, even when he's not mentioned, the moods from his films reappear here and there in catwalk shows. Among the most loyal Visconti fans there is Karl Lagerfeld who usually doesn't just borrow ideas, but simply lifts entire costumes from a specific film and turns them into a collection. Lagerfeld is a fan of Les Hommes' clothes and Tom Notte and Bart Vandebosch seem to have taken inspiration fo their Autumn/Winter 2013 collection from their fan's favourite director. The duo mentioned indeed Visconti's first film from the “German trilogy”, La caduta degli dei (The Damned, 1969) as main inspiration for their new collection.

Somehow this inspiration is pretty interesting: for this film Visconti looked at European politics and culture moving his perspective to Germany, applying his meticulous passion for historically correct films to the story of a wealthy industrialist family who begins doing business with the Nazi Party. The story is set against the rise of the Third Reich and, sadly, Nazism has become a sort of dark fashion fantasy with The Night Porter becoming a hip excuse for Louis Vuitton. Visconti tackled in his film different and disturbing themes, including ambiguous relationships (think about Martin, drag performer, child molester and sexually deviant nephew).

The film mainly covered the '30s and costume designer Piero Tosi took therefore inspiration for the costumes of the female characters from the dresses favoured by wealthy women in those times, gowns by Parisian fashion houses and designers including Vionnet, Patou, Desses, Molineaux and Grès. Even the costumes for the orgy in drag in the film were well researched while the uniforms came courtesy of the Munich-based Keller tailoring house.

When Tosi was asked to create the costumes for this film, he had some problems in tracing the right fabrics (rubberised and futuristic textiles for Courregesian dresses prevailed in 1969...). Yet this film sparked a new interest in soft fabrics and veiled hats.

Though there weren't any traces of Helmut Berger in his Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel interpretation, Les Hommes' collection featured a couple of ambiguous moments courtesy of an out of place long pleated skirt. Militaristic inspirations prevailed and included long capes, double-breasted narrow waisted jackets, military coats and flared-hip breeches matched with military boots.

Velvet - one of the fabrics destined to become a 2013-14 trend - appeared here and there in the jackets and the waistcoats that could be unzipped at the waist and reduced to a mini-waistcoat (probably one of the unnecessary elements of this collection together with a cropped padded jacket and a transparent PVC raincoat). Martin seemed to be a reference in the hairstyle and the anguished faces of the models, while splashes of violet were maybe hints at the decadent moods of the film (or maybe called to mind the lilac fur stole that appears in the background during the orgy scene?).

Somehow you feel happy the design duo didn't opt for the overexploited Death in Venice (1971), but then again you wonder why fashion keeps on going back to Nazism, appropriating and transforming the imagery of the Third Reich.

One answer could be the link between the icons of the Third Reich and capitalist icons - remember Maciej Toporowicz's "Obsession" film in which clips from The Night Porter, The Damned and Leni Riefenstahl's work were mixed with ads for Calvin Klein perfumes featuring Kate Moss?

While we wait to find a proper answer, you can be sure one of these days some fashion designer will say they have pilfered - pardon, taken inspiration from - Visconti's Ludwig (1973), so that we will have covered the entire "Germany Trilogy". We will probably have to wait longer instead to finally find a designer who will comment upon the doom-haunted times we're going through without using Nazism.

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Posted at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Architecture as Reliable Source for Fashion

After the dubious Aelita connection and a lingering obsession with Catholicism and after Givenchy announcing it was going to suspend its Haute Couture line and would not show during the Paris schedule this January, it was only natural to think that Tisci had maybe lost original ideas to work with.

Yet Givenchy's Pre-Fall 2013 collection showed he has maybe found a safe ground that could lead to interesting, saleable and wearable inspirations not just for him, but for other designers as well - architecture.

Some of the unnecessary ruffles from his Spring/Summer 13 womenswear collection reappeared here and there, together with images of the Virgin Mary imported from his S/S 13 menswear designs, but the best pieces were the ones based on clean and rigorous masculine and architectural sharp lines including skirt-trouser combo suits and one-sleeve asymmetrical dresses or long dresses with an open side seam revealing men's trousers underneath matched with men's shoes.

This collection was apparently inspired by Walter Albini (also known as the Italian Yves Saint-Laurent, a forward-thinker, a man who, anticipating the "made in Italy" concept, reinterpreted the past and wrote the future but died too young to actually enjoy the fruits of his work) and by architect and interior designer Gio Ponti.

Albini was definitely echoed in the masculine suits, but also in the coats and capes that called to mind his early '80s outerwear with geometric motifs in brown, black and grey (View this photo).

Tisci's camel, white and black fractured mosaic patterns replicated on cashmere jersey dresses referenced Ponti's geometric diamond-shaped elements (though it must be highlighted that Ponti had a soft spot for white and blue, while Tisci opted for a darker palette) in the murals at Villa Arreaza in Caracas, Venezuela, his designs for the thirty different tiles employed in the rooms at the Hotel Parco dei Principi in Sorrento and the furnishings for the same hotel as deconstructed and reassembled by Martino Gamper.

White and blue geometries became a sort of obsession for Gio Ponti who replicated them on the tiles, fabrics and pieces of furniture at the Hotel Parco dei Principi; in the same way the geometric elements in this collection subtly appear on some part of the garments or completely cover them.

Tisci also turned architectural structures such as Ponti's Concattedrale Gran Madre di Dio in Taranto (perfectly understandable since Tisci was born in Taranto) with its punctured concrete structure inspired by a boat and a castle into a stylised pattern that reappeared on tops, bomber jackets and linear one sleeve dresses.

While this collection may prove that simply defined geometries and architectural and modernist shapes and silhouettes can be pretty successful in fashion, a problem remains with Tisci: in his Spring/Summer 2013 collection he referenced Carlo Mollino who, like Gio Ponti, is a famous post-War Italian architect. So Tisci may sooner or later become a bit too predictable in his architectural references, though, who knows, maybe at some point he will go backwards to Piero Portaluppi or forward to Vico Magistretti. Time will tell, in the meantime architectural bets are open.

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Posted at 07:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Conceptual (and Multidisciplinary) If Not Critical: Blueprint for Rem Koolhaas' Venice Architecture Biennale?

Seeing architect Rem Koolhaas mobbed by photographers while receiving the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 12th Venice Architecture International Biennale in 2010, bumping into him at the British pavilion or listening to his lectures with Norman Foster and Rocco S.K. Yim seem distant memories.

Almost three years have gone and Koolhaas' name is once again linked to Venice: just a few days ago, the Board of Directors of la Biennale di Venezia, appointed Rem Koolhaas Director of the Architecture Sector, with the specific responsibility of curating the 14th International Architecture Exhibition to be held in 2014.

At the end of the meeting of the Board, President Paolo Baratta stated: "The Architecture Exhibitions of the Biennale have gradually grown in importance internationally. Rem Koolhaas, one of the most significant personalities among the architects of our time - who has based all his work on intense research, now renowned celebrity - has accepted to engage himself in yet another research and, why not, rethinking."

Koolhaas who founded OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) in 1975 together with Elia and Zoe Zenghelis and Madeleine Vriesendorp while working in non-architectural disciplines including politics, publishing, media, fashion and sociology, through his think tank and research unit, AMO, stated in a press release: "We want to take a fresh look at the fundamental elements of architecture - used by any architect, anywhere, anytime - to see if we can discover something new about architecture."

OMA is currently busy with the construction of new buildings including the Taipei Performing Arts Centre; a new headquarters for G-star in Amsterdam, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, De Rotterdam, a mixed-use building on the river Maas and Garage Gorky Park in Moscow.

The big news about next year's Biennale is that it will take place at the Giardini and Arsenale venues for a longer period of time, from 7th June to 23th November 2014, a perfectly logical idea if you think it takes months to digest all the featured projects.

Yet there may be something even more interesting in store for us: Koolhaas has a multidisciplinary approach to his works and this will definitely be reflected in the final projects selected and in the people invited to participate (Koolhaas often stated in interviews that he sees himself not as an architectural intellectual but as a public intellectual capable of contributing in domains that go beyond architecture).

Another point to make is that since there are strong connections between Prada and the Biennale and Koolhaas and Prada, and AMO has consulted for Conde Nast magazines, there will definitely be a fashion link of some kind. Journalism has always been a very important driving factor in Koolhaas' architecture, so, hopefully, there will also be emphasis on this discipline.

Last year's 13th International Architecture Exhibition, directed by David Chipperfield and entitled Common Ground, attracted 178,000 visitors (an increase of 4.7% compared to the 2010 edition). With Koolhaas announced as its director, you can expect numbers to double up and maybe an even more fashionable, trendy and hip crowd of visitors than at the art biennale (though, to be really frank, we could definitely do without them...).

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