In preparation for tomorrow, International Workers' Day, let's briefly look at industrial workwear from the early 20th century with this image showing shinglers at Brindley Ford.
The process of working a mass of white-hot iron and slag under a steam hammer, shingling was quite dangerous and the workers needed therefore special protection from the molten slag and sparks that would fly around when the power hammer hit the ball.
Over their ordinary clothes - rough working trousers, a woollen vest, a sweat rag around the neck and a cotton skull cap with a wire gauze face screen - they would therefore wear a heavy apron and sheet-iron shin guards with boot covers (see the man on the further right side of the picture to get a better idea).
Shingling was replaced throughout the years by other processes that employed mechanical means and jaws that squeezed the puddled ball into shape, yet to look back at this job and at some of the early protective gear donned by the workers is educational and fascinating, especially when vintage photographs may show improvised protective gear.
The focus of many contemporary collections has been dynamic and active wear with an emphasis on sports and while that's exciting, it would be more interesting to design clothes collections that, apart from looking aesthetically pleasing, would also protect the wearers from new hazards (including pollution) while allowing us to develop further researchers into innovative materials and textiles.
Somewhere in a galaxy far away in January 2011, a WGSN trend forecaster told a group of fashion journalists at a seminar that "Navajo" motifs would have been very popular in the next season. She was right, they actually did, inspiring a series of products, including Urban Outfitters' "Navajo Hipster Panty" and "Navajo Hip Flask". Unfortunately, the trend forecaster hadn't imagined that the Navajo Nation would have hit back filing a lawsuit in New Mexico, alleging trademark infringement and dilution, unfair competition, false advertising, violation of commercial practices law, and violation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act.
Yet the history of fashion is rife with co-option and appropriation of traditional motifs, symbols, and patterns. Fashion fans may remember recent controversial incidents such as Dior's 2009 shoes with a heel shaped like an African Fertility Goddess; Rodarte's A/W 2012 collection being criticised by aboriginal law professor and member of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Megan David for using the sacred art works of Australia's indigenous people, or Chanel apologising (albeit doing so in a vague way...) for the Metiers d’Art 2013-2014 collection that featured symbols of Native American dress, feathered headdresses, and bead work.
Fashion designers and critics dub as "transnational" or "multinational" these mixes that make the world sound and look like a vast flat area with no borders. Yet, while borrowing from foreign lands and national dress is not new, there are different ways of doing it.
This is the main theme of I piece I did for the May issue of Ural-based magazine WTF (What's The Fashion?), a publication for design, architecture and fashion fans.
The piece explores the issue through exhibitions, interviews with textile experts and with designers trying to change things, to remind readers that many cultures value their traditional textiles, garments, embroideries techniques and adornments among their most valuable assets and that we should not appropriate, but respect and collaborate. I'm embedding here a preview of the magazine. Enjoy!
Last week more than 1,100 people (among them designers, producers, manufacturers, academics and NGOs) gathered at the Copenhagen Fashion Summit, a biennial event on sustainability in fashion (now in its third year), to discuss solutions to environmental, social and ethical challenges, while commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Rana Plaza disaster, the deadliest garment factory accident in history.
Opened by Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mary of Denmark, the patron of the summit, this year the event featured a long program of speakers including Green Carpet Challenge founder and creative director of Eco-Age Livia Firth, Alan Roberts from the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety, Vanessa Friedman, fashion editor of the Financial Times (soon to be fashion director of the New York Times), Helena Helmersson, Head of Sustainability of H&M, photographer Mario Testino, and Marie-Claire Daveu, the chief sustainability officer for the Kering group.
There were interesting suggestions made such as the launch of Clevercare.info, a label aiming to educate consumers to care for their clothes in a more sustainable way. Yet quite often you get the impression that these conferences promise a lot and achieve very little in terms of plausible solutions that will become effective in a few months' time.
For example, Firth showed her support to Fashion Revolution Day (24th April) by wearing her blazer inside out. The campaign as you may remember consisted in wearing an item of clothing inside out, photographing it, sharing it with the hashtag #insideout and asking the company that produced it to tell us more about the people who manufactured that specific item. While the purpose was perfectly fine, the campaign didn't maybe contemplate the subtleties of the fashion industry: in some cases a piece may be made in a country assembling materials coming from another country (what if a garment or accessory is Made in Italy but with an imported material or yarn, or if it is Made in China, but then finished in Italy?).
Daveu stated that they hope Kering will be close to having sustainably sourced leather, wool, gold, diamonds and python used across their brands by 2016, yet we all know that the word "sustainable" in connection with "diamonds" and "python" is an oxymoron (the only sustainable python is the python you don't kill...).
Speaking about the Garment Collecting Initiative, Helmersson pointed out that H&M collected since its launch in Spring 2013, 5,000 tonnes of used clothes in the recycling bins in their stores, but High Street retailers and assorted fashion brands overproducing too many useless and low quality garments are among the main reasons behind such huge numbers of discarded clothes.
Vanessa Friedman made indeed a sensible remark when she pointed out how there are far too many collections a year out there both by prominent fashion houses and High Street retailers (not to mention - we may add - the useless luxury pieces such as Hermès' hand-stitched and finished baseball glove in gold swift calfskin retailing at $14,100...) and that the definition "sustainable fashion" doesn't make sense. The key according to Friedman stands in creating a "sustainable wardrobe" that works in a functional way for the person who has built it (in a nutshell buy fewer clothes that you're going to wear and love).
It was interesting to hear updates from Alan Roberts, executive director of international operations for the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, about this independent legally binding agreement designed to make garment factories in Bangladesh safer places to work and that includes the implementation of safety inspections and the reporting inspection findings (the accord has been signed by over 150 apparel companies from 20 countries in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia; two global trade unions, IndustriALL Global Union and UNI Global Union, and numerous Bangladeshi unions). In an official Copenhagen Fashion Summit press release Alan Roberts explained: "The Rana Plaza disaster has become a rallying cry to put action behind our words. And the work is in full progress. Behind the Accord on Fire and Building Safety stands a large group of major brands and retailers, which, in cooperation with international and Bangladeshi labour unions, has entered into a legally binding agreement to inspect factories in Bangladesh. These inspections are currently being carried out on the ground in Bangladesh. The efforts will support the transformation of the industry and hopefully spread to other markets beyond Bangladesh."
Yet it remains to be seen if starting from Bangladesh is a good strategy or if we should try to make an effort in Europe as well. You indeed wonder why at these summits they never invite officers from special branches of the Italian police who are involved in different operations and investigations that may be covering the exploitation of human labour in Italy or the sub-tendered production of parts/entire garments or accessories in illegal factories for high fashion brands (how do we regulate this if many companies simply deny it happens?).
Somehow you get the impression all these summits are more about representatives of the luxury market and of huge retailers proving they are committed and innocent and that "Everything Is Awesome" (as that obnoxious pop anthem produced by Lord Business in The Lego Movie to numb the minds of people into conformity...) on planet fashion. So these meetings and conferences are definitely not about finding proper solutions or tackling certain aspects also from a political point of view (what about starting by reinforcing specific laws at European Union level?).
The final confirmation such events may just be big PR exercises about reassuring consumers that fashion conglomerates and corporations are nice people was summarised by the slide behind the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bottega Veneta Marco Bizzarri. It read: "The survival of our companies in the future depend (well, next time they may choose to invest some of their money in a proofreader...) on the choices we take today" and it made you think. Right when you thought they were discussing the survival of the planet and of human beings, you suddenly realised they were actually talking about the survival of their companies...
Making dolls may be an art, though it's mainly a craft that can provide endless hours of fun. Yet quite often it all depends from the type of doll you're making. This video by Fritz Schumann tells a very touching and emotional story that could be read in different ways. "The Valley of Dolls" is indeed the story of Ayano Tsukimi who lives in Nagoro, a village in eastern Iya on Shikoku, one of the four main islands of Japan.
There are 37 people living there and Tsukimi has replaced the dead ones or those who have left with life sized dolls that look like the former residents. She has then scattered them around the village: some of them are working in a plot of land, others wait for the bus, while the school that became known for being attended only by two students, is now crowded with her dolls and also boasts a headmaster.
Moving, nostalgic and at times quite scary, Tsukimi's dolls represent a way to preserve the memory of somebody, but they implicitly look at further and deeper issues, including the destruction of villages and the transformation of specific areas and of society as well with people moving to more densely populated places with the prospect of getting better jobs.
From an artistic perspective the dolls are the product of Tsukimi's talent for craft and they could be considered as perfect size specific installations, but they are also part of the architectural façade of the village: they are now populating an area where real people were living and working for the dam and the company that Tsukimi mentions at the very beginning of the video. The dolls indirectly become also tangible presences and physical ghosts of tragedies spanning from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and consequent Fukushima disaster.
Essays about the striking effects of succession and repetition in visual objects come to your mind while standing in front of Suzan Drummen's installations. The artist's works with those multi-coloured crystals, chrome-plated metal, mirrors and optical glass, instantly attract the visitors' eyes producing powerful feelings and impulses, a full gamut of impressive effects for the senses and the imagination.
Admired from above, some of Drummen's larger installations look like static fireworks, intricate lace or elaborate tapestry. Yet there is more behind the colours and the symmetry: the artist employs indeed her pieces to create illusions and optical effects, question the space that surrounds us and spark a dialogue about key dichotomies in art and life, such as beauty and terror, seduction and repulsion, clearness and obscurity.
In many ways Drummen - who has extensively lectured in fine and visual arts, working with a variety of media including painting and photography and creating fascinating installations in public spaces and museums from Amsterdam to Hong Kong - seems to tackle through her pieces the core themes of Edmund Burke's philosophical analysis on the sublime.
The curiosity that attracts viewers through the light and colour refraction of Drummen's installations also lures them into a rather confusing world, overcharged with visual stimuli and sensory information, as their attention is suddenly engaged and strongly affected by everything they see. Interpreted in this way, Drummen's irresistible Wonderlands have the power of turning into Darklands of the mind, into a splendid confusion that whirls round the visitors' brains, till they become dizzy and confused.
When did you first start working on temporary installations and what inspired them – fractals, mosaics, ornate architecture? Suzan Drummen: I was collecting glass and shiny objects for a long time, for no particular reason, just because I liked them, so they were around me in my studio all the time, as a kind of inspiration. One day, in 2003, I took part in an exposition with my paintings and there was a big empty space in the middle. I just added some shiny objects and played with them in the space. And then this very intuitive start went a little out of hand...
Your kaleidoscopic installations look very precise: how do you go about working with them, do you have a mind scheme or a drawing and then you transfer it on the floor? Suzan Drummen: No, I never have a plan. The specific site guides me; I check the light, the route of the visitors, the colours, the height etc, on spot. The whole atmosphere actually guides me. Every space requires something else and the installation grows slowly. Often I change the work gradually, a round work can become a square one in the end. This is obviously not the most convenient or clever way of working, but, in the end, in this way I reach the best and most surprising result. To estimate all this, the work must actually be seen in real life.
The colours are also very beautiful - does it take you a long time to device the colour combinations you would like to use? Suzan Drummen: It is extremely time consuming and for every installation I make different choices.
The materials you employ look simple and playful but they create visually striking effects and at times you feel like kneeling down to look at the materials from different angles or getting closer. Do you use mirrors to give your pieces a sense of infinity? Suzan Drummen: I never think of it in this way, first and foremost I would like to share my own amazement and astonishment. When you see a space in a convex lens, you will see this space differently. In many convex lenses together, however, the space becomes staggering. The reflections can no longer be 'read' by the eyes. Automatically the eyes focus differently in an attempt to see the whole. I am constantly studying this moment of simultaneously grasping and not grasping.
Some of your installations look very complex, how long does it take to come up with them? Suzan Drummen: Mostly I work with a team of 6 to 10 people, and then it takes 1 to 3 weeks to build it up. It depends on the scale and the location.
Which was the most labour intensive installation you did? Suzan Drummen: I think the one in Museum Valkhof in 2012 as it was changing all the time during the set up.
You also created artwork for a metro station/shopping mall in Hong Kong, was it temporary or permanent and did you enjoy working in such a space? Suzan Drummen: This temporary work was one of my greatest challenges until now. Very difficult, but I managed to do really new things.It is much easier to work in an empty museum space, but I learnt a lot from this Hong Kong adventure. Of course I am aware of the tension between decoration and meaningful image, but the more I study this, the more the two become interwoven. The one does not seem to be able to exist without the other. I value the aesthetic experience of looking and feeling and an increasing responsiveness to beauty, even if this excludes all purpose. And, at the same time, I am fighting it. It is this struggle that keeps me going.
What's the reaction of visitors to your installations, do they ever try to play around with your pieces? Suzan Drummen: People always kneel down and want to touch it. They move one little part, and then they get very excited when they realize that every single part is just loose on the floor. The manual labour is so impressive that it becomes part of it all. I hope that my work offers more than the visually perceptible, but that is the starting point. Looking at art is a complex process. The first uninhibited look is quickly replaced by a search for meaning. We try to understand and give meaning to what we see. In our daily perception memory plays a major role: without memory we wouldn’t recognize anything. I would like this open-minded uninhibited moment preceding the attribution of meaning to last as long as possible. This open-mindedness, the openness of that first glance, are essential for me: being there and looking! I do not understand the world, am amazed, again and again beguiled and enthralled. I want to condense and accentuate.
Some of your installations look like lace or textiles - would you ever collaborate with a lace or textile artist? Suzan Drummen: Actually I did so in February 2014. I had a show together with Christie van der Haak in gallery Maurits van de Laar in The Hague. She is a great artist and she developed some fabulous fabrics and patterns. It was a challenge to relate my material to her astonishing fabrics. I got many new ideas from that and the work looked really different. I would love to work with her again and I have a lot of plans for collaborations like this in the near future.
Do you also do permanent installations? Suzan Drummen: Yes, of course. I did several permanent commissions in public spaces that offer opportunities I lack in my studio or in an exposition, because of the scale or the available budgets, and because they form a permanent part of our surroundings. The restrictions in a permanent situation are very different. By realizing commissions at varying locations, I have come to see how space works and how I can manipulate it. I learned so much from this! A work can change a walking direction: you can direct the view upwards; you can double the space of a room with mirrors; you can refine a monumental space with painted details and give it back its human scale. By stressing some architectural elements and making sensually stimulating combinations, I can intervene in the urban space.
Do you have further exhibitions lined up for this year? Suzan Drummen: I have so many plans to make new works and installations, but I also want to spend more time in my studio to develop completely new methods of working. Slowly but surely my newest work will get more violent and less innocent. Just wait, you ain't seen nothing yet!
With many thanks to Suzan Drummen for breaking her busy schedule to answer via email this Q&A.
Image credits for this post:
All images courtesy Suzan Drummen
1. Installation on a cloth of Christie van der Haak in Gallery Maurits van de Laar, Herderstraat 6, The Hague, 2014. Photography by Eric de Vries
2. Detail of installation at CBK Amsterdam, 2011. Photography by Hugo Rompa
3. Floor installation, Amstelveen, 2011. Commissioned by Jola Cooney and Steve Brugge Kunstcommissie SVB.
4. Detail of installation on a cloth of Christie van der Haak in Gallery Maurits van de Laar, Herderstraat 6, The Hague, 2014. Photography by Eric de Vries
Many creative people, including fashion and interior designers, have been using the Rijksmuseum's Rijksstudiosince it became available last year. This online archive comprises thousands of works from the museum collection and offers users the chance to register, access the museum collection and download high-resolution images or sections and details of specific artworks and get inspired by them.
Last year the museum asked international artists, designers and architects to select one work from the collection and create an entirely new piece.
Design group Droog created for example a tattoo inspired by a still life painting by Jan Davidsz de Heem, and, during the latest edition of Milan's International Furniture Fair, Droog presented further pieces that moved from the online archive (including also wallpaper echoing Vermeer and Rembrandt...).
The products were showcased in Milan with a dedicated installation entitled "Rijksstudio m2" and representing a setting for a studio.
Among the products there are also a rubber tablecloth dubbed "Table Skin", and 3D printed "Napkin Rings". The former, by design duo deJongeKalff (Jennifer de Jonge and Roos Kalff), is a silicone rubber table linen embossed with a reinterpretation of the classic embroidery with rectangular shield carved in wood made in the 1500s by Albrecht Dürer.
DeJongeKalff already worked on a white rubber table cloth a while back and that previous project led to this new take on the classic table linen. The duo has previously worked on products that focus on the alienation between material and form, while combining old forms with new techniques. In this case the inverse engraving creates on the table linen a white damask effect, but the material is also durable, waterproof and easy to clean.
Designed by Studio Droog, the "Napkin Ring" is also interesting since it's a polyamide 3D printed pleated collar ruff and it was inspired by a real linen batiste ruff from 1615 - 1635.
The best thing about these projects is the fact that they both move from historical pieces, and reinvent traditional techniques in a quirky and modern way focusing on innovative materials and technologies. Products such as these ones prove that innovation doesn't come from copying the past, but from looking at it with renewed eyes and with a healthy dose of humour as well.
Image credits for this post
1. Print by Albrecht Dürer from the Rijksmuseum archives.
2. Ruff Collar from the Rijksmuseum archives.
3. Table Skin Embroidery by deJongeKalff for Rijksmuseum Photo by: deJongeKalff
4. Pleated Collar - Napkin Ring by Studio Droog for Rijksmuseum Photo by: Ingmar Swalue
In the last few years architecture has been consistently contaminated by other arts, fields and disciplines. This contamination and evolution process has also pushed architects such as Italian-born Ludovico Lombardi to research further into design, looking for more interdisciplinary solutions.
Lombardi studied at Milan's Politecnico and at the Bartlett School of Architecture before graduating with a Master in Architecture and Urbanism from the DRL Design Research Lab of the Architectural Association in London. He has trained and worked with prominent architectural firms such as Carlos Ferrater, Arata Isozaki and Zaha Hadid Architects, designing for Falper the fluid basin "Wing" (2013).
In between workshops, research projects, exhibitions, stints as guest critic and his current job as lecturer in Europe and in the States (at the Rhode Island School of Design), Lombardi designed 3D printed elements for garments, a neckpiece and a belt in collaboration with fashion designer Hannah Soukup, creating also a series of 3D printed jewellery pieces for Cate Underwood.
On request of Paris-based gallery SOME/THINGS (that also showcased his pieces during women's fashion week in February), he developed further pieces characterised by dynamic loops and continuous strips of 3D printed steel, intricate inner geometries, repeated hollow inner chambers, and fibrous elements, focusing on the freedom of movement Vs body constriction dichotomy. While it is possible to spot the laws of nature and biology behind some of his shapes, there's also some mathematics added in Lombardi's research in generative design.
What prompted you to start creating jewellery pieces: the will to transform architectural shapes into wearable pieces or the possibility to apply parametric design to a fashionable item? Ludovico Lombardi: It all started as a personal series of works for Cate Underwood, and then it developed into a limited edition series on request of Paris gallery SOME/THINGS. The inspiration is based on the generative system which relates to complex natural systems, a constant theme of my formal and composition research. The design research is somehow not linked to a particular scale, as it is legible both at the architectural scale and at the product design scale. It is a relational and organisational aesthetic research that becomes specific to the scale, function and material at a later stage.
Which was the most challenging aspect in designing your 3D printed necklaces and rings? Ludovico Lombardi: The dialectic process generated by the material and technological limit of rapid prototyping machines available and how those constrains inform design and at the same time how we can push the boundaries and inform the technological research behind rapid prototyping.
The forms and shapes you develop through your projects are very futuristic, what kind of programmes do you use to design them? Do you happen for example to use Rhino and the Grasshopper graphical algorithm editor in your works? Ludovico Lombardi: I mainly use Maya for 3D sketches, and Rhino / Grasshopper / T-Spline for post-production and model editing. I have also engaged with Processing and other digital platforms, but I still think that crafted sketches and models are an essential part of the design process. Code-based and generative system are another essential part of my design research.
Do you think that new digital tools/softwares/applications such as 3D printing will become key elements of the design process in fashion? Ludovico Lombardi: There is a beauty and poetic embedded quality in skilled crafted work that cannot be expressed in any other medium, yet the potential of rapid prototyping will definitely affect the way we design and understand design. At the same time, I do think that there is already a very manneristic side related to 3D printing which is the commercial overuse of it, and which constrains and limits the way this technology could be really used. Technological advancement is something which is constantly informing the way we understand design, and allowing new possibilities both on design and production level. Throughout history our understanding of spaces and relationships was informed by technological advancement - the perspective studies in Renaissance informed buildings and paintings, the parallel rule informed the modernist space, and the digital is now informing our time.
There have been quite a few collaborations in the last few seasons between architects and fashion designers - last year you worked with Hannah Soukup on her collection. While architects and fashion designers working together may not be a new thing, the approach (3D printing, researching into computer aided technology, etc.) is definitely innovative: in your opinion, what attracts architects to work in fashion design and fashion designers to develop an interest in the architectural field? Ludovico Lombardi: I have always been intrigued by misusing tools and borrowing knowledge from different tangent fields, and fashion represents an interesting combination of the material and aesthetic qualities which a designer should engage with. The idea of time in architecture is very different than in other disciplines, so addressing smaller scale projects such as product design/installations allows one to engage with faster design to production processes, and 3D printing represents an amazing opportunity to engage with fast prototype in a very immediate way.
Italians have always been at the forefront of design and fashion, but in the last few years the attention switched to designers from other countries. Can new technologies help us re-setting ourselves at the forefront of these disciplines? Ludovico Lombardi: I don’t believe the limit and constrain of the Italian scene, which is still considered as among the most relevant ones internationally, is driven by technologies. I would rather understand it as a wider problem starting from the references given in our society as our public image, or the static nature of our academic scene, or the need to have a more international and dynamic interactions with other schools and realities on a world scale.
You've also been extensively teaching: would you like to develop an experimental hybrid unit maybe suspended between architecture, interior/fashion design and technology? Ludovico Lombardi: I am currently based in London but I am teaching both in Europe and in the US, in particular at Rhode Island School of Design. We have been talking with RISD faculties and academic directors about the chance of establishing a more interdisciplinary unit/course crossing architecture/design/fashion, and hopefully we will be able to develop the course in the next academic year, but it's yet to be confirmed at this stage.
Do you have any exhibitions around at the moment? Ludovico Lombardi: My fashion works are currently exhibited and represented by Paris-based gallery SOME/THINGS and my work "Wing" was be exhibited at Milan's Salone del Mobile at the Falper space.
Where can we buy your pieces? Ludovico Lombardi: Limited editions are available from Paris-based gallery SOME/THINGS.
Image credits for this post
1. White Swan, 3D printed necklace Designed for Cate Underwood 2014
2. Wing, sink for Falper 2013
3. Black Swan, 3D printed necklace Designed for Cate Underwood 2013
4 - 5. Splint, 3D printed steel ring Designed for Cate Underwood 2013
6, 7 and 8. BothSides, 3D printed steel ring Designed for Cate Underwood 2013
9. 3D fashion collection designed in collaboration with Hannah Soukup, 2013 Photographer: Michael David Adams Make-up Artist: Viktorija Bowers Hair stylist: Radmila Bowers
10 - 11. Lock ring, 3D printed steel ring Designed for Cate Underwood 2014
12. Mesh ring, 3D printed steel ring Designed for Cate Underwood 2014
Disney Princesses arrived on the scene relatively recently, imposing their romantic styles on the market. But, before them, Disney had one main heroine, Minnie Mouse.
In the last few years Minnie has actually been relaunched and revamped quite a bit, leaving behind her rather minimalist "Steamboat Willie" (1928) outfit to opt for dresses created by famous designers and take part in fashionable events.
Disney and the MoMu in Antwerp recently dedicated her an installation entitled "Maison Minnie Mouse". To this aim they invited five young fashion designers who graduated from Belgian fashion colleges who provided their own take on Minnie's look.
Some of the designers such as Dorian Van Overeem and Emmanuelle Lebas mainly played with the colours that characterise Minnie and her original dress – black, red, white, and yellow.
Others revolutionalised the outfit a bit more: Norwegian Damien Fredriksen Ravn created a lilac mini-dress incorporating a cape; Brussels fashion collective KrJst (founded by Justine Moriamé and Erika Schillebeeckx, La Cambre graduates) opted instead for a casual look with a multi-layered pair of short trousers.
South Korea’s Minju Kim, a graduate from the Antwerp Fashion Academy and best known for winning the H&M prize last year and for her designs appearing in exhibitions here and there, reinterpreted Minnie as Disney's Queen, providing her with a voluminous mini-dress matched with a PVC tiara.
Didier Vervaeren, artistic director and lecturer at La Cambre, designed the five giant polkadot letters that, forming the name of Disney's heroine, greeted visitors at the museum entrance.
On your site you state: "My designs are about turning characters into outfits..." so you probably didn't find difficult to turn Minnie into an outfit... Minju Kim: It was not very difficult, it was indeed a great pleasure to imagine my own Minnie girl. In my personal perspective, Minnie provides me with a stronger inspiration than other Disney characters. One thing that worried me was making sure my Minnie could be turned into a girl living in the present century. In a nutshell, I wanted my outfit to make people feel Minnie’s character and emotions, while turning Minnie into a real life girl. I didn't only want to show the iconic colours and shape we are all familiar with and therefore merely concentrate on her appearance.
You often employ in your designs experimental materials such as rubber ribbons: what kind of materials or techniques did you use for the Minnie outfit? Minju Kim: I wanted the dress to have a classic and historical edge to reference Minnie as a strong Disney queen. I spent a lot of time creating the embroidery motifs by hand and making an ice-looking tiara in PVC. If you look closer you can also see small cartoonish rubber flowers scattered here and there.
What do you like about Minnie and which aspects of her character did you try to portray through your design? Minju Kim: I do love this character and believe she is very special. Even though she appears in animation films for children, she behaves like a mature grown up and she is a good role model as well. Because of these aspects, you get the impression she is a sort of “queen” of Disney characters and a cartoonish queen to people.
If you were a Disney character who would you like to be? Minju Kim: Mulan! I have watched most Disney movies and I think she is the only heroine who does not rely on a prince. The way she faces and overcomes all adversities impressed me!
In a previous collection you were inspired by Japanese Manga cartoonist Junji Ito: since you also create the drawings and prints for your pieces, do you ever feel like a cartoonist or an artist? Minju Kim: Yes, as I mentioned several times in previous interviews, I always wanted to be a cartoonist when I was young and, in a way, I still want to be a cartoonist. I'm making a lot of efforts to balance drawing and designing. While working on my latest collection I drew a lot. I actually spent more time than I expected drawing. Even though I ended up with numerous paintings and prints and with a sketchbook full of fantasy drawings about the girl I was trying to conjure up, I didn't use them in the collection. For me drawing is a sort of state of oblivion: when I'm focused on it, I forget worries, troubles, and minor problems. Drawing is a very special kind of work and play process that takes me to a fantasy world inside of myself, it is a unique way to develop my collections and explore this personal universe.
How do you feel at showcasing your piece in such a prestigious place in Antwerp where you also studied? Minju Kim: It was such an unusual and amusing experience at the same time, but there was also a lot of pressure involved!
What have you been up to since winning the H&M 2013 award? Minju Kim: I was too busy to have even one day off since the H&M award. I have been working on new projects recently. Even as I reply to this interview, I'm considering the directions for this new venture.
What are you working on at the moment? Minju Kim: I am in Korea working on a project that means a lot to me with an old friend or mine, a shoe designer. When I worked on the H&M Award show, I got so much help and advice from her. We are not looking up at financial success with this project, but we have talked about it for a long time and I'm sure we will be making very special footwear together.
Since you're in Korea at the moment, which are your favourite places or shops over there? Minju Kim: Acrobat Shoes Shop is my favourite shop...it's my dear friend’s store and it's linked with our current project!
Passionate fans of spy films and '60s fashion will certainly remember Anthony Mann's A Dandy in Aspic (1967).
The plot revolves around double agent Eberlin (Laurence Harvey) who is asked by the British secret services to kill a KGB agent named Krasnevin, believed to have murdered a number of British agents. The killing mission, to be carried out together with cynical British agent Gatiss (Tom Courtenay), should take place in West Berlin.
Unfortunately for him, Eberlin is Krasnevin and the news throw him into a state of anxiety and frustration increased by his partnership with Gatiss, who openly hates him, and by the behaviour of the Soviet authorities that consider him as a key agent in the UK and therefore refuse to send him back to Moscow.
Eberlin's frustration also grows since he started an affair with naïve London-based photographer Caroline (Mia Farrow).
From a technical point of view the film - based on the eponymous novel by Derek Marlowe - features interesting architectural shots (the film was shot on location between London and Berlin), but also lens and set distortions and striking photographic composition (Mann actually died during the filming, and Harvey finished the production in his place).
Zooms, close ups, scenes in which a car coming from far away in a tunnel creates a clever sense of depth, and actors being framed from below, contribute to generating a tangible tension in the story and between the various characters.
A soundtrack by Quincy Jones and a young Peter Cook starring as libidinous agent Prentiss are among the further highlights of this film, but the best thing for fashion fans is the fact that Pierre Cardin provided costumes for both Laurence Harvey and Mia Farrow.
Cardin's menswear designs create a subtle contrast that perfectly hint at Eberlin's affiliation with both the British secret services and the KGB.
Eberlin looks indeed like a perfect dandy, but his clothes are styled in a subtly different way from the ones donned by the British agents.
The contrast is clear for example when he is summoned to a meeting at a country house where he is told about the Krasnevin hunt, and he is wearing a camel coloured sport jacket with leather details that symbolically contrasts with the more stiff Savile Row styles of the agents around him.
At times Eberlin also opts for a basic turtleneck rather than a shirt and tie, the more formal option favoured by Gatiss.
Farrow's wardrobe is an ode to dynamism and comprises a simple white cape edged with fur and a dark green and tomato red pleated dress matched with red tights and a short coat.
Also her evening wear conforms to the same dynamic rules: when we first meet her, Caroline is in a restaurant wearing a sky blue silk faille mini-dress covered in sequinned embroideries of flowers, but the shape with its cut-in armholes is extremely simple and allows her to move and run around quickly and practically while retaining a childish grace that her character embodies.
The last time Eberlin and Caroline meet by chance at a car race she is wearing a pink striped coat with a rolled up collar that genuinely contrasts with the murdering plans of the agents surrounding Eberlin and emphasise even more her naivety.
"Stay that way as long as you can, it's a beautiful state, the innocence," Eberlin tells Caroline at some point in the film and her final appearance in a pink and fuchsia outfit confirms she will remain in that state of naïve innocence.
Caroline's final look (and in some ways Eberlin's pink shirt in the country house scene and the pink/grey shades prevailing in some of the posters for this film) is the main inspiration for this new piece.
For what regards the materials I used pearl grey wool yarn and a band of neon coloured cotton; technique-wise I employed basic French knitting. There are no clasps to close the necklace that is instead kept together with an alpine coil, which means you can unfasten and refashion it in different ways (a further hint at duplicity...).
As a whole it's a rather simple necklace, but it took me a while to make it since it's roughly nine metres long and, while it may not be as conceptual as the previous one, the two materials and colours still tell a story, hinting at duplicity, innocence and naivety, the main themes of A Dandy in Aspic.
Fashion fans who are stretching yesterday's celebrations until Easter Monday (today) and who are on the lookout for some fashion-related film should opt for Easter Parade (1948).
Directed by Charles Walters this musical film relates the story of dancing team Don Hewes (Fred Astaire) and Nadine Hale (Ann Miller) who break up when Nadine decides to go solo. Don finds a new partner, Hannah Brown (Judy Garland), but they will need some time to be able to perform absolutely perfect dancing routines and songs.
The film is characterised by many shades of pink, from soft to bright, and features lovely costumes by Irene (women's) and Valles (men's). The movie has strong connections with fashion in one song - "The Girl on the Magazine Cover" (Richard Beavers singing, Miller dancing) - that features an ingenious choreography with a series of dancers and models framed by covers of various magazines and a triumphing Nadine stepping out of Harper's Bazaar.
Guess it wouldn't probably be possible to replicate the same choreography in our days as you may end up infringing too many copyrights while some magazines would try and tell you which celebrities/stars you should include in the number...