The tiger is a symbol of power, strength, aggression, dynamism, and sensuality. It was only natural then for fashion and graphic designer Penter Yip to use it as the inspiration for the latest edition of his ever popular diary, the Fashionary.
Yip, who launched the Fashionary in 2008, has hit all the right notes with his products and the Fashionary line now includes a wide range of useful stationery aimed at people working at all levels of the fashion industry, from the classic diaries with Men and Womenswear templates ideal for fast figure sketching, to foldable sketch pads in various sizes and elegant notebooks developed in collaboration with fashion designers.
Yip's classic Fashionary has also turned into the main sketchbook for various worldwide brands and design teams who employ it to speed up their production.
The new Tiger Mania Fashionary (A5 size; $24.90) includes 30 pages of extensive fashion glossary, body measurements, unit system tables, and basic notions (names of seams/stitches and knitting information have also been added) for quick reference, and 400 dot-like figure templates on the remaining pages.
The diary features a golden or silver tiger-patterned fabric cover, coloured elastic band, contrast colour bookmark thread and yellow or violet book edge.
"This is our limited edition for the coming Christmas," Yip told Irenebrination. "Our team travelled throughout Asia a lot this year and was totally inspired by the wildlife, especially by tigers, and we decided to turn them into our main inspiration this winter. The Golden tiger and Silver tiger Fashionary call to mind the Siberian tiger and the White tiger. The colours and patterns are specially designed by our team and we hope they will bring some excitement to all designers and fashionistas alike."
Are you a Golden or Silver Tiger? You decide, but do so as soon as you can since this is a limited edition and stocks may finish soon (you can order it from the online shop as well).
As an alternative, if you're looking for a new diary, you can try the Fashionary Planner ($23.90), the first weekly planner featuring extensive fashion information.
You can keep updated on the latest Fashionary realeses by checking out its blog, Facebook or Instagram pages (check out on the Instagram page the lovely illustrations and sketches by Fashionary collaborator Vikki Yau).
All images in this post courtesy of Penter Yip/Fashionary
For fashion historians and fans alike it is always a joy to discover that, right when you thought you had studied or researched a certain period and seen in archives and exhibitions all the rarest garments and accessories illustrating it, an unexpected collection pops up somewhere. This is more or less what happened with a unique group of designs belonging to Alice Alleaume, saleswoman from 1912 to 1923 at French fashion house Chéruit.
The collection, covering roughly 100 years from the 1830s to the 1930s, entered the Palais Galliera, the City of Paris Fashion Museum, between 2008 and 2010 by donation, and can currently be admired in an off-site exhibition at the Musée Carnavalet.
Co-curated by Sophie Grossiord, chief curator at Palais Galliera, and Charlotte Lacour-Veyranne, assistant curator at Musée Carnavalet, the event takes the visitors on a journey offering them a new point of view on the world of luxury, revealing the history of a forgotten fashion house through the personal story of a family and a Parisian woman.
Born in 1881, Alice lived in a family immersed in fashion: her mother Adèle Dumas was a seamstress, while sister Hortense worked as first vendor at Worth, where she also met Paul Poiret. Alice spent some time in London, before moving back to Paris and starting to work at Morin-Blossier, Laferrière, Doucet, Diemert, Favre and Chéruit where she became a skilled saleswoman.
The exhibition opens with an informative section featuring manuscripts, documents, sales records and lists of clients, and also explores the Parisian fashion scene and Alice's time at Chéruit through the fashion house collections, and her personal wardrobe.
While the focus remains on the pieces that belonged to Alice, there is an interesting architectural and urban exploration in the exhibition section that looks at Place Vendôme and Rue de la Paix, areas where many fashion houses were located, as shown also in Jean Beraud's painting Workers Leaving the House of Paquin (1902).
There are actually quite a few paintings and illustrations (by cartoonist Sem and from the Gazette du Bon Ton among the others) that help contextualising the historical period and that introduce to the heart of the exhibition, the story of the Chéruit house.
Founded in 1898 by Madeleine Chéruit with Marie Huet, the maison, located at 21 Place Vendôme, opened a fur department in 1907, followed by a department for children and young girls, underwear and wedding dresses. Chéruit produced two collections a year, some of them employing unusual materials including leather, straw, metal ythreads and feathers.
Together with Paquin, Poiret, Worth and Callot Soeurs, Chéruit was among the French Haute Couture houses that took part in the Paris Festival in New York in 1915, an event that advertised French fashion.
Chéruit closed in 1933, and, two years later, Elsa Schiaparelli moved in the spaces the maison had occupied in Place Vendôme.
Alice was a talented salesperson with wealthy customers including also prominent members of the European aristocracy and quite a few queens.
Books and registers in which she noted observations about orders and clients are particularly important for historians who may want to know more about her job, while selected pieces from her wardrobe are the key to understand Alice's style.
Gold lame outfits, embroidered silk evening dresses, jersey suits, shoes by Hellstern, hats by Alphonsine, Marcelle Demay and Madeleine Panizon, evening headbands by Rose Descat and Art Deco jewellery, prove that Alice was a woman with a distinctive sense of style.
Alice's wardrobe also boasts pieces by Worth and iconic designs by Lanvin such as the "Vestal" (1932), the "Idol" (also known as "Waves", 1935), the "Sevres" (1934-35) and the "Valkyrie" (or "Brunhilde") with its trademark obi belt.
The exhibition closes with a final space displaying artificial flowers, decorations for the headdresses donned by unmarried girls on St Catherine's feast, celebrated on 25th November.
This collection arrived at the Paris Galliera Fashion Museum between 2008 and 2010, so relatively recently. What does this donation add to the Museum collection? Sophie Grossiord: This is a very diverse wardrobe that spans several decades of the 20th century and belonged to an elegant Parisian woman, the first vendor at Chéruit. It is particular relevant because it includes original pieces from the Chéruit house, as well as designs from the Worth and Jeanne Lanvin maisons.
Which documents prove Alice was an independent woman? Sophie Grossiord: The documents of Alice Dumas-Baudron dating from the time of her two visits to London in 1902 and 1906, that somehow hint at her future career as main saleswoman. The knowledge of the English language she acquired in London served her well when she moved back to Paris and went to work at Chéruit.
Why was the Doeuillet Chéruit fashion house unfairly forgotten? Sophie Grossiord: The Chéruit maison fell into oblivion after its closure in December 1933. The archives of the house were presumably dispersed after it closed down.
Does the exhibition shed new light on this maison? Sophie Grossiord: The exhibition rediscovers the production of the Chéruit house and the creations produced by its embroidery workshop, pieces that were totally unknown before this event. The exceptional collection of samples in the Archives of Paris showcases the workshop's expertise and know-how.
There is a strong link with art in this exhibition since you illustrate the history of the fashion house and of the period of time being explored also through paintings from the Carnavalet Museum: which paintings provide the visitors with in-depth information about the fashion scene of the time? Sophie Grossiord: Jean Béraud, La Sortie des ouvrières de la maison Paquin, rue de la Paix (Workers Leaving the House of Paquin), from 1902, and Henri Gervex, Le Cercle de l’île de Puteaux (The Ile de Puteaux Circle) from 1907, both from the Musée Carnavalet collection.
Which is the most extraordinary piece from Alice's wardrobe in terms of construction? And in terms of embellishments/embroideries? Sophie Grossiord: Several pieces of Alice's wardrobe are very original and extremely modern, including an amazing blouse in brown muslin imitating synthetic cow fur, from around 1925, and a black quilted satin dress from the '30s. For its embroidered motifs I would suggest a lamé evening dress decorated with a Japanese motif, from around 1928.
Which pieces from her wardrobe emphasise Alice's passion for freedom? Sophie Grossiord: In the '20s Alice Alleaume favoured comfortable sweaters or knit cardigans adopted by all fashionable women. These pieces allowed great freedom of movement. In summer she opted instead for V-shaped cut jersey swimsuits that allowed to get a tan.
In the '20s collections were subject to regular deposits to the Labour Court of the Seine to be protected against copy. Does this mean that fashion designs were copyrighted in the past? Sophie Grossiord: Design protection has been a constant concern of Haute Couture from the early 20th century. The exhibition catalogue published by Paris Musées, features an interesting essay about this point by Jean-Charles Virmaux.
Novel of a Wardrobe - Parisian Chic from the Belle Epoque to the 1930s, is at the Musée Carnavalet - Histoire de Paris, 29 rue de Sévigné - 75003 Paris, France, until 16th March 2014. Image credits for this post
History has left us with many documents, sketches, drawings and books containing the mechanical and architectural fantasies of many artists, researchers and thinkers. Most of these projects are destined to remain in the realm of formal inventions and speculations, but an exhibition at the Gallery for Russian Arts and Design (GRAD), a not-for-profit space showcasing Russian art in central London, is attempting to reconstruct some of them.
Co-curated by Courtauld Professor of 20th Century Russian Art John Milner and GRAD's Principal Curator Elena Sudakova, "Utopia Ltd: Reconstructions" features Soviet avant-garde artworks recreated for a contemporary audience by model maker Henry Milner.
Moving from works by the Constructivists, Milner made striking sculptures inspired by the geometric experiments of Soviet artists El Lissitzky and Aleksandr Rodchenko, bringing to life designs by Vladimir Tatlin and the pioneering graphic artist from Latvia Gustavs Klucis, the youngest of the Constructivists.
One of the pieces that strikes the visitors upon entering the gallery is the "Letatlin", an experimental flying machine designed by Vladimir Tatlin that mixed a skeletal frame with avian forms and was inspired by the anatomical study of seabirds.
This attempt at combining man and machine in one unit could be considered as the physical representation of the Soviet mystique of the machine considered as a way out of poverty and backwardness.
The theme of flying also characterises El Lissitzky's dynamic "New Man", a representation of body movements. One of the most progressive artists of the early 20th century, Lissitzky stated indeed that the Egyptian pyramid was obsolete and that "the flying human being" was going to be at the frontier, adding "A new energy must be released, which provides us with a new system of movement...Even for revolutions, new forms must be invented."
Visitors who are into architecture will find the model of Tatlin's Tower or Monument to the Third International extremely fascinating.
Designed in 1925, the tower was a quest for an innovative architectural form. A functional monument made of iron and glass and built in the form of a spiral to call to mind a Theosophist symbol, the tower had three sections that revolved independently at different speeds hinting in this way at the power of kineticism.
Kineticism also characterises other models by Milner, including Rodchenko's Oval Hanging Construction, one of the early examples of mobiles, and some of Klucis' works.
Klucis was fascinated by the theme of reversibility when it came to his perspective, while his vertical stand with rotating slogan at the top that looks a bit like a trasmitting mast, reminds of Lissitzky's words, "The center of collective effort is the radio trasmitting mast which sends out bursts of creative energy into the world. By means of it we are able to throw off the shackles that bind us to the earth and rise above it."
Klucis filtered indeed radio trasmitting masts and means of communications through the eyes of the propaganda, constructing visual montages that had strong social and political purposes.
Apart from Milner's models of these pieces, the "Utopia Ltd" exhibition also features source materials, prints and documentary film and photography from the period.
A final note for visitors who may also looking for Christmas presents: check out the posters, the volume Re-Constructivism, the cotton/silk scarves with prints celebrating the Soviet aircraft industry and the Second Congress of Textile Workers, and the limited edition miniatures of Henry Milner's models of Aleksandr Rodchenko's Spatial Contructions, all on sale at the gallery. Utopia Ltd: Reconstructions by Henry Milner is at the Gallery for Russian Arts and Design (GRAD) until 20th December 2013 (opening times: Tue - Fri 11am-7pm; Sat 11am-5pm). Russian Art Week in London finishes on 29th November 2013.
Image credits
All images in this post Courtesy of GRAD Gallery of Russian Arts and Design.
1. Exhibition View. Photo Henry Milner.
2. El Lissitzky, New Man, 1921.
3. Henry Milner after El Lissitzky New Man (Progress), 2013.
4. Henry Milner, after Vladimir Tatlin, Letatlin, 2013.
5. Henry Milner after Aleksandr Rodchenko, Oval Hanging Construction, 2013.
6. Gustavs Klucis, Design for a Stand with Rotating Slogan Workers of the World Unite, 1922.
7. Henry Milner after Klutsis, 2013.
8. Gustavs Klucis, Design for a Folding Stand for Slogans and Posters, 1922.
9. Henry Milner after Rodchenko, 2013, Spatial Constructions.
10. Scarf, The Second Congress of Textile Workers, 1930s.
We are all aware of the transformations jewellery went through in the last few years, with pieces switching purposes and turning from decorative objects to examples of wearable art. The trend is not new, though, and the history of fashion has witnessed jewellery designers quite often collaborating with artists and developing exclusive pieces suspended between art and fashion.
Artistic movements also inspired unique pieces: kinetic art for example introduced into jewellery a sense of dynamic motion. Max Bill, Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko focused in their early mobiles on rhythm, rotations and planes, while Alexander Calder perfected the technique becoming widely recognised for his mobile constructions. As the years passed and kinetic art evolved, some historians came to consider Op Art as a derivation of kinetic art, though in the case of the former movement was generated by optical illusions.
Engine fitter and aeronautical engineer Friedrich Becker (1922-1997) is considered among the pioneers of kinetic jewellery. A professor at the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, he had his first solo exhibition of jewellery in 1966 in London. A prolific jeweller, he often combined synthetic stones with stainless steel producing modern pieces in which elements would move.
Italy had its own kinetic/optical artists such as Getulio Alviani who often collaborated with fashion designer Germana Marucelli and, as higlighted in another post, GEM Montebello, a house that produced pieces in collaboration with several artists, among them also Edival Ramosa, who created gold and anodized aluminium kinetic pendants for GianCarlo Montebello's label.
Seminal abstract sculptor and jeweller Giorgio Pomodoro, better known as Giò Pomodoro (1930-2002), worked with empty spaces and geometries, tackling themes such as tension and torque, and using specific recurring symbols like the Sun.
Pomodoro created for Cinzia Ruggeri in 1968 this unique piece, a bracelet-cum-ring. The structure is based on integrated unbalance, precision and simplicity of forms.
A slight movement of the hand sets the piece into motion and allows the bracelet to symbolically move nearer to the ring. This dynamic mechanism means the piece could be attribute to kinetic art, even though the bi-coloured patterns that characterise some of its parts link it to Op Art and the badger fur at the top of it is a reference to shaving brushes and calls to mind Méret Elisabeth Oppenheim's "Surrealist Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure)", a cup and saucer entirely covered in gazelle fur.
In a nutshell, this unique piece (yes, there is only one of these in the world) reunites different artistic movements together. Trivia but fun story connected with it: apparently Ruggeri used to wear it with a Paco Rabanne metal dress, an absolutely perfect match with such a piece.
There are still quite a few designers out there working along these lines: Chus Burés has for instance developed pieces with different artists including Miquel Barceló, Jesús Soto, Antoni Miralda, Paul McCarthy and Louise Bourgeois, and designed original pieces Pedro Almodóvar's films including Matador (1986) and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Átame, 1990). But this is another story that we will hopefully tell in another post.
Image credits for this post: third image in this post courtesy/copyright Cinzia Ruggeri.
Throughout history there have been quite a few great examples of the connection between religion and fashion. Books about ecclesiastical attire and vestments abound, but there are extremely fascinating stories with some links to fashion that haven't been told yet.
Art historian and photographer Paul Koudounaris rediscovers the history of the lavishly dressed catacomb saints venerated in German-speaking countries in a volume recently published by Thames & Hudson. Entitled Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs, the book recounts a part of a forgotten Catholic history.
In the period that followed the Thirty Years War (1618-48), fully articulated skeletons were sent from Rome to Germany to combat Protestant Reformers and offer replacements for relics lost when churches were ransacked.
The skeletons were collectively known as Katakombenheiligen, that is "catacomb saints", and were considered sacred items, even though in most cases it was almost impossible to be entirely sure that the bones really belonged to the body of a martyr.
As Koudounaris states in the book, the selection process that occurred in the Roman catacombs to choose the bones of the alleged martyrs was random, and, in most cases (though the bones were examined and certified), it was actually impossible to classify them, since they weren't accompanied by any detailed funerary plaques.
Once selected, the skeletons or bones started a long journey towards German-speaking lands accompanied by monks, pilgrims, merchants and, in some bizarre cases, also by protestants.
Years passed between their arrival in another country, their preparation and final translation into a church where they usually received a name - Boniface, Severina, Benedictine, Luciana, Fortunatus, Candida, Deodatus, Theodosius and so on - that called to mind other popular saints and their virtues. Most of them inspired new cults and successfully relighted the faith in the hearts of the communities they protected.
The most extraordinary thing about these skeletons was the fact that the bones were covered in lavish styles by nuns. Tulle, gauze, buratto lace or silk were used to cover the fragile bones; fingers and ribcages were decorated with pearls, golden thread and jewels donated by people, or artificial stones from Venice, while blue gems were set where the eyes should have been.
The chest was usually the centrepiece that offered artisans the chance to produce amazing decorations and intricate patterns. In some cases the skeletons - carefully set as reclining, sitting or standing - were dressed in ecclesiastical robes; in others nobles donated costumes that were then adapted and reinterpreted in Roman styles to hint at their origins. Through the works of nuns, silversmiths and goldmiths such as Adalbart Eder, the relics were transformed in appealing sacred bodies.
The images featured in the volume show intricate and grand costumes that offer a physical interpretation of sanctity, evoking the Heavenly Jerusalem.
Quite often the skeletons - with special papier mâché and wax faces moulded over the skull - were also accessorised with swords to symbolise the fact they were soldiers of Christ or with tools such as pincers and torches that referred to their martyrdom. In later years, parts of these skeletons were also encased in magnificent armours and shoulder guards.
Once ready the skeletons were paraded through the streets with large processions, accompanied by dramatic productions of plays and greeted by crowds asking for protection and help.
The relics often spawned a cult among people, and the author tells the stories of miracles performed by St Leontius, St Donatus, St Maximus and St Antoninus among the others.
As the years passed, though, the blessed bones fell from grace, becoming impopular and morbid reminders of an embarrassing past. Secularisation marked indeed a change in attitudes towards the display of jewelled skeletons.
Some visitors complained about the excessive handiwork or the cartoonish appearance that large gems ended up giving to the skulls, hiding death under a mask of beauty. Soon these ideological weapons against Protestantism, became weapons for Protestants to symbolically prove Catholic hypocrisy.
At the same time historians started highlighting the fact that the relics came from an unknown provenance: researchers even proved the bones came from the period after the persecutions, implicitly showing they couldn't have belonged to martyrs.
By the end of the 1800s, the fashion for jewel-encrusted skeletons was over: bones were stripped of their precious metals and gems and locked away at the bottom side of altars, covered in panels or sealed shrines, sent to small parishes, anonymously buried, thrown away or placed in dusty storage units and simply forgotten.
The luckiest skeletons were rescued by devout members of the communities they had protected or sent to museums (the author adds at the end of the book a list of churches where the skeletons can still be admired or where they are still preserved).
The story of these heavenly bodies and of their journey from anonymity to cult worship and back, remains a fascinating history of a forgotten past and devotion that also opens a new chapter revolving around fashion, religion, faith and craft (Koudounaris dedicates the book to "the anonymous hands that decorated the bones that line these pages in the hope that their beautiful work will not be forgotten"), ultimately teaching us all a final lesson about vanity and eternal life.
Heavenly Bodies by Paul Koudounaris is published by Thames & Hudson.
Image credits
All images in this post Copyright Paul Koudounaris and Thames & Hudson
1. Book Cover
2. St Valerius in Weyarn.
3. The remains of St Albertus arrived in 1723 in Germany.
4. Detail of the hand of St Valentin.
5. St Benedictus, received by the church of St Michael in Munich.
6. The relic of St Deodatus in Rheinau, Switzerland.
7. St Luciana arrived in Germany in the mid-18th century and was prepared for display by the nuns in Ennetach.
8. St Valentinus in Waldsassen, decorated by the lay brother Adalbart Eder.
9. St Vincentus' ribs are exposed beneath a web of golden leaves; the hand is raised to cover the face in a gesture of modesty.
10. St Munditia's hand grasps a flask supposedly containing dehydrated blood, evidence of her martyrdom
London-based Swedish designer Simon Ekrelius invites Irenebrination readers with this post to get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations in a stylish way.
Ekrelius is offering Irenebrination readers an iPhone cover produced by Keka that features one of his unique prints from "The Reflection" (S/S 2011) collection.
"The print is inspired by the feelings triggered by The Gherkin, an alien-like building, and by its reflections and existence," Ekrelius told Irenebrination.
"There is something so grounded and yet so extraordinaire with Norman Foster's works. I wanted to bring that out in the sort of blurry yet sharp print. When you walk past the building you see yourself change in the window reflection, depending on the light. This made me think about the Harlequin character, about alienation and mystery."
The competition takes place today from the moment this post goes live until midnight (GMT). The winner is the first person who retweets this post and sends their personal details plus the correct answer to the question "What's the name of Simon Ekrelius' Spring/Summer 2014 collection?" to the email address: [email protected]
Those readers who may not remember the answer can refer to this previous post. Good luck everybody!
The latest posts focused on modern visions of women and on mutability. There is an Italian film from 1971 that perfectly reunites these two themes, Noi donne siamo fatte così (That's How We Women Are), directed by Dino Risi.
The film is divided in twelve short episodes, written by different screenplayers, but starring the same actress, Monica Vitti (a favourite inspiration for many Prada/Miu Miu collections...), in the main role.
In each episode Vitti changes costumes, hair colour and style, and takes the role of a new protagonist: in the opening episode she is a cymbal player who every day travels throughout the city with her massive case to play for just a few seconds in an orchestra; then she turns into a Neapolitan mother with 22 children, in an apparently sexually liberated Sicilian wife, a voluptuous motorcycle acrobat, a trade unionist striking for a pay rise and a brave and professional hostess who ends up having a panic crisis during a turbulence.
All the stories are peppered with a bitter (and at times misogynistic...) irony and seem to have a funny or unexpected twist: Eliana, the seriously injured journalist lying in an army hospital in Vietnam, shakes herself out of her comatose state just to swear at a visiting delegation of politicians and army representatives; a guitar playing nun at a religious music festival presents a song that, unfortunately for her, has an embarrassing double meaning, while a beautiful woman who seems to be provokingly staring at the people around her in a restaurant where she is dining with her future husband, actually hides an unsuspectable secret.
The episodic nature of the film obviously means this is a bit of a fragmented movie, but the various stories offer portraits of a multitude of women living in Italy in the '60s, women exploited by lovers and employers, hopelessly romantic yet lonely, extremely brave or excessively naive and fragile or trapped in terrible relationships. Maybe the time has come to rewrite the film and update it a bit, adding more visions of modern women.
For Amsterdam-based Dutch designer Antoine Peters making people smile has turned throughout the years into the main aim and objective of his design practice. Smiling affects the overall appearance of our faces, something that instantly changes us, making us look better.
This is the key to understand the inspiration behind Peters' latest creation, "The Lenticular Dress", developed for the Te[ch]x(t)iles project at the Museum Of The Image (MOTI), a leading authority on visual culture in Breda, Holland, that has been recently developing projects focused on art, film, design, photography and fashion.
The tunic dress is made with a fabric inspired by lenticular printing that features a special pattern. Once pleated the latter changes from dots into stripes and viceversa, depending on the viewer’s angle of perspective. The illusion of the multiple pattern dress is perfectly shown in Oscar Verpoort's film, while the technique behind it is explained in a mini-documentary by Marijke de Bie.
Though Peters is also a graphic artist, he didn't have in mind any specific art movements when he started working on a print that could play around with our pattern perceptions. "I like Op and Pop Art a lot and think typography is very important and can be very beautiful, but all the ingredients for the project came from the concept of having different looks or faces within one garment, and weren't derived from any artist," Peters told Irenebrination.
There were two difficult moments while making the dress, as Peters recounts. "The first one happened when I realised I had to go back to the basics, since developing a thin and drapery lenticular lense was too difficult for time and budget reasons. So I had to make a radical decision, and turn to basic techniques such as pleats to create the zooming out, zooming in and blow up impressions. The other hard moment was deciding about the silhouette and the graphic: I tried various silhouettes, including asymmetrical ones with differently coloured graphics and symbols that could retain a lot of information or provide a more intricate story for the viewer. But then it became too much, so I decided to leave it aside and find a new balance."
The Lenticular Dress could be considered as a behavioural garment since the wearer can move and show a different side of her dress and personality, while the dress also triggers a reaction in other people who meet the wearer and instantly respond with a smile of surprise.
Undermining the negativity surrounding us with a healthy dose of optimism is indeed the final aim of this design. "People - and fashion people in particular - are taking themselves too seriously," Peters says. "We may not be able to cure a disease with fashion, but fashion is still the most important among the unimportant things in life. It can indeed make you feel comfortable, beautiful or cool and influence yourself and the world around you. That's why I never wear black but always wear two different coloured socks: life is too short to be negative all the time, we should kick negativism in the ass!"
Antoine Peters' "Lenticular Dress" is at MOTI, Boschstraat 22, Breda, The Netherlands, until 30th January 2014.
The latest fashion designer collaboration with a high street retailer - Meadham Kirchhoff for Topshop - landed in store yesterday. As it happens for any major collaboration, it was accompanied by a series of magniloquent posts and features published a few days before the final release in the shops. Some described the collection as "epic", others limited themselves to "whimsical", but there were also the occasional "bold" and "magic", the latter being the sort of adjective that the media are prone to abuse four weeks before Christmas.
I personally thought it was a disturbingly puzzling mish mash of garments and accessories. The 89-piece collaboration is indeed a triumph of glitter, PVC, fluffy feathers, fake Satanic symbols and stars, leather and lace assembled in rainbow-coloured or pastel pink designs.
Edward Meadham and Benjamin Kirchhoff took a creative blender and mixed in it Marilyn Manson, Kembra Pfahler and glam rock (as they stated in interviews about the collection) creating a real wardrobe for an imaginary band, The Cherrys.
The collection is obviously marketed at young consumers, think teenagers and women in their early twenties, but it's interesting to consider it from the point of view of grown up women and wonder what does this collection say about fashion/design and young women today.
The first point is actually the easiest to answer - we are stuck in the age of sampling and remixing.
It is therefore only natural to alter the shape of Judy Garland/Dorothy's sparkling red shoes in Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz and glue them to a heel that is a crossover between Salvatore Ferragamo's multi-coloured platform sandals for Judy Garland circa 1938 and Rainbow Brite's costume.
In the same way it seems equally legitimate to get a furry stole à la Prada circa Spring/Summer 2011 and turn it into a Mongolian wrap, recreate Miu Miu's Spring/Summer 2008 harlequin dress (already pilfered from a long tradition of harlequin dresses...) or remix a '70s inspired dress from Miu Miu's S/S 2010 collection (if we consider the fact that most Miu Miu/Prada designs are re-edited versions of something that has already happened in fashion, we could state that, in this case, we are basically in front of a remix of a remix).
Add a classic crocheted piece here, a vintage market find there, and PVC garments spotted in a seedy S&M shop, filter it through kawaii/Gothic Lolitas lenses, spike it with acid, throw in some Courtney Love, and you more or less get it.
So, no, we can't talk about innovative designs or high quality, but we can definitely describe the collection as a clever exercise in sampling trendy motifs and elements, like all the other "glorious" collaborations between a designer and a big retailer we have so far witnessed.
But let's move to the second point, what does the collection tell us about young women today: the emphasis in some of these garments is indeed on childhood, baby dolls, and extremely cutesy pieces with a disturbing twist about them.
So are young women crossovers between Salem witches and naive sugar fairies in frilly frocks? Are all girls out there longing to be women trapped in bizzarre heart-shaped dungarees and multicoloured furry boots? Are these supposed to be rebellious clothes that allow you to make a fashion statement? And, in case, what kind of statement are you making by wearing them and why is it that, until yesterday, an original crocheted dress from the '70s made with an assorted selection of fancy squares in clashing colours was abhorred by fashionistas, while today the same fashionistas profess they are loving it?
High Street retailers boast about democratising fashion and "democratising" essentially means bringing something to everybody. Yet, if these garments are aimed at young people they are missing the point of the "offering something for everybody" concept; and, if they are created with all women in mind, well, they only appeal to a part of the female population.
I'm struggling to remember at which age I desired to wear such clothes, but it must have been between 3 and 8 (I have photographic evidence of going around dressed like Dennis The Menace before and after that period of time...). I've tried taking a trip down memory lane to remember what kind of teenager I was, and, the more I think about it, the more I can't find a single image of myself as a sugar fairy on acid, and I suspect that this can applied to lots of other women out there.
The fashion industry seems to consider girls covered in glitter, pastel faux fur, piles of ruffles, and cute frocks in My Little Pony shades as "irreverent women". It's funny because, up until a few years ago, Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer were among the best examples of irreverent women. It's as if, suddenly, to be a trendy and desirable woman you had to go around dressed like the bastard child of My Little Pony's Rainbow Dash and My Melody and show your fragile side.
Funny thing is, if you dare say anything against it all, they will rebuke you, explaining you don't understand irony, fun, liberation and riot girls.
Who knows, maybe this is a new version of feminism, repackaged in girly frothy pink for the fashion masses, purged of aggression and anger and turned into a glittery cutesy concept that doesn't hurt anybody. Well, if that's the case I think I'll stick with old school feminism, it may be an angrier place, but at least it didn't fool women by telling them they could reach maturity and equality with a rainbow magic wand that sprinkles pink and silver glitter on this sad sad world.
It's amazing how echoes of Pierre Cardin's designs from the '60s keep on reappearing here and there in different contemporary fashion collections. In the last few years Cardin didn't actually showcase anything extraordinarily new, but focused on retrospective runways or catwalk shows that were more or less pastiches of previous ones.
A celebratory event next Tuesday will celebrate the fashion house's 60th anniversary with a high-fashion collection (the first since 1996) at Maxim’s de Paris that will mainly focus on evening attire. In view of this event, I'm reposting today a couple of pictures from my personal archive that showcase Cardin's 1965 menswear collection.
The latter included jackets characterised by a slender silhouette and squarish waistcoats with no tips, matched with headpieces that could be considered as crossovers between tall hats and trilbies.
Classic menswear tailors considered at the time these garments as rather unusual, but the ones that didn't convince them at all were Cardin's outerwear pieces that also included zippered suede and leather jackets with woollen collars characterised by casual silhouettes and ample pockets.