Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology: May 2014

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Tremendously Useless Fashion-Related News

There are times when you need to laugh a bit in this terribly sad fashion industry.

Luckily, there are always wonderfully inspiring useless people and demented pieces of news to provide us with endless hours of fun.

Here's a quick round up for that much needed Saturday fun.

Drugs do work (at least the ones used by Lapo Elkann)

The last few days must have been pretty uneventful if one of the main scoops on WWD's site yesterday was dedicated to Lapo Elkann's capsule collection for Gucci being presented in Tokyo on Thursday night.

More famous in Italy for his family, money, drug habits and vomit-inducing sense of style, Elkann told WWD: "I think that what we are seeing tonight has no competition. Tom Ford, [Ermenegildo] Zegna are not the brands that I fear in this scenario because the quality and the level of the product is higher...in leather goods, we haven't looked at being close to [Louis] Vuitton, but we have looked at being close to Hermes."

Now, comparing your work to anybody in an interview about you is already a faux pas, but picking labels that have more history and experience than you is a little bit presumptuous. Telling a journalist you're not trying to be Vuitton but Hermès is also lame rather than clever. But it wasn't all: Lapo's capsule for Gucci is indeed a made-to-measure collection with emphasis on modern and sexy lines, because according to the "designer" himself, a lot of contemporary tailors (apparently, he tried them all...) are too expensive (while Gucci is cheap) and sell garments characterised by an old school fit (while going around dressed in vomit-inducing colours and prints is so new school). Amazing how money (and drugs?) can obnubilate a rich man's mind to the point he can't think and speak in a coherent way.

Funny how Lapo wants to be exclusive and unique, though: imitations of his Italia Independent sunglasses with velvety frames are all over Italy's illegal market stalls. A proof of popularity, you say? Or a proof that what you can replicate is not so exclusive and probably came out of the same factory. Ok, I admit it, I'm talking like this because I'm jealous: in fact I wished I had interviewed Lapo and taped him as well. Such a recording would have provided endless hours of fun during terribly depressing moments.

Blessed Franca Sozzani, Future Publicist to Kim Kardashian

By now Franca Sozzani's blog on Vogue.it has become a sort of pile of assorted personal thoughts by a woman with a penchant for exclamation marks who every now and then finds herself in the unfortunate position of having to defend herself from the comments left by the visitors of her Instagram profile.

On her 23rd May entry she announced she was going to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding, stating: "An iconic couple of our time, definitely for what regards their media presence and their looks, but also as a symbol of the ability to express a talent in music - Kanye - and to become an icon and a role model - Kim. She has almost 15 million followers on Instagram, over 20 million fans on Facebook and as many on Twitter..."

Sounding a bit biased, you say? Well, you've just been invited to the wedding, Anna "Palpatine" Wintour has just finished brainwashing you with that April cover, you can't expect her to say bad things about the couple of the century. Yet the fact that she talks about them like persistent icons, elevating a woman with no substance to "role model", worries you a lot, not to mention the emphasis on quantity rather than quality (in an age in which it is possible to buy followers and pretend you're popular...).

But it wasn't over, three days passed and, enraged by some negative comments about the wedding and the iconic status of Kanye and Kim left on her Instagram profile, Sozzani felt she had to defend them again on her blog. On 26th May she wrote about the Kardashians (note: if I had been her editor I would have fired her for overuse of exclamation marks; note also once again the emphasis on quantity): "Together, the sisters and the mother have 60,000,000 (sixty million!!!) followers on Instagram, not to mention the business they have created, the TV channel, the fashion lines etc...Nobody can deny they are a true phenomenon. It's too easy to say everything started with a porn video!!! Many other girls did the same, and are still unknown or were just ignored. Too easy to say they are the sign of the time, meaning they are tacky! Just open any trash magazine and you will see that tackiness dominates, but after a few months everything fades away (...) We have to admit they did it right. In a world where everyone is elbowing their way to the top, they, the Kardashian's, have made themselves known and have fans also among weighty personalities such as Steve McQueen, the multi-awarded director of "12 Years a Slave", or John Legend and Valentino, of whom anything can be said, but definitely not that he has ever pushed women to dress tackily. Valentino, the Last Emperor of elegance!"

Apologies for the long quote, but this is just amazing. No publicist or loyal PR officer would have managed to put together such an a***licking quote that closes with a remark about meeting the Kardashians being a bit like meeting a family that "has created an empire on communication". Wow. What about other families or visionary entrepreneurs who built empires on a solid work ethic and actually produced not just wealth for themselves, but also jobs for other people? Guess that doesn't necessarily make such families or entrepreneurs fashionable from Sozzani'spoint of view.

Anyway, Sozzani closed that post rebuking her critics and highlighting how there is room for everybody. I'm afraid, Franca, this is simply not true: try to get an article that points out the conflicts of interest in her career and role published in ANY fashion magazine and you will realise nobody will accept it. Try to dissent with the opinion of certain key players in the fashion industry and you will be ignored. Try to criticise somebody in power and you will be criticised in return as being jealous of their position. The thing is, maybe there is too much space for useless and talentless people, dear Franca, and too much hypocrisy in the fashion industry, don't you think so?

So Useless, So Moschifo

Franco Moschino quite often used to play with his name: on some of his T-shirts he printed the word "Moschifo", a pun on his surname and the Italian word "schifo" (disgusting). The word came to my mind yesterday when the brand released its latest generations of cute and useless phone/table covers (with so many annoyingly protruding space-reducing bits and pieces that Ryanair will soon put an extra tax on people carrying them). If you really don't know how to splash your money, now you can choose among many overpriced toxic plastic covers by Moschino. The most risible ones? Gennarino the bear that, seen from behind, looks like committing lewd and lascivious acts on your tablet (available also in a piss yellow colour), or Carolina, the happy cow squashed under a car/bus/tractor and now gracing an iPhone cover. So fun. So eccentric. So useless. So Moschifo.

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Friday Film: Cat People (1942)

The new Disney movie Maleficent with Angelina Jolie has recently relaunched the figure of the fascinating and irresistible villain (together with a pile of more or less fashionable products inspired by the film...).

Jolie/Maleficent's image, the result of a carefully assembled shoot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, could be considered as revolving around the theme of the sublime, considered as something that attracts and frightens us at the same time. Yet this figure is not new in the history of cinema that features quite a few irresistible villains and mysterious creatures with magnetic eyes and a romantically dramatic edge. Check out for example Irena in 1942 horror/noir film Cat People, directed by Jacques Tourneur.

In the film Irena (Simone Simon), a woman of Serbian origins, turns into a deadly dangerous black panther when sexually aroused. Nobody believes Irena's stories, not even Oliver (Kent Smith) a marine engineer who falls in love with her and eventually marries her.

Though acting is not great and the story, based on Val Lewton's tale "The Bagheeta" (1930), is rather simple, the world of gloomy shadows conjured up by the director and some clever shots in a pool and in a drafting room lit by beams from the light tables, are pretty convincing and manage to create enough visual and psychological tension in the audience.

The most frightening thing about the film remains its almost unspoken main theme: Irena's ancestrally disturbing legends from her home country actually hint at feminine mystery, the "women/evil" dichotomy, dangerous sexuality and the ferocious and cannibalistic side of sex (early adverts for the film very aptly stated: "Kiss me and I'll claw you to death!"). The psychiatric who dismisses Irena's stories as fantasies symbolises indeed the dominating man, trying (and failing) to control and exorcise the power of the main character - the beast.

The film has also got a couple of connection with fashion: while the main character is also a fashion illustrator, the gowns are by costume designer Renié. Wanna bet there will be a remake pretty soon?

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Return of the Rudeboy / Heroes of Ska

This Summer Somerset House in London will present an exhibition entitled "The Return of the Rudeboy" (13 June – 25 August 2014).

Curated by fashion photographer and filmmaker Dean Chalkley and fashion-industry creative director Harris Elliott, the event will focus on the rude boy from a sartorial point of view.

This figure originated in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica in the late 1950s, and came to represent young angry rebels who wore distinctively sharp sartorial styles such as suits, thin ties and pork pie hats.

The style was linked with music movements and was brought back into fashion in the '80s with the Two Tone movement with bands such as The Selecter and The Specials who turned the rude boy into a symbol of multicultural Britain (and with the outcome of the recent European elections and the rise of extremist right wing parties, it's maybe time to turn again to the rude boy not just as style icon...).

The exhibition will look at this figure through portraits and installations, focusing on the developments the rude boy style went through the decades (this style is currently incarnated at its best by tailor Sam Lambert) and will also be enriched by collaborations with several music producers and artists including iconic DJ Don Letts.

Rude boys often appeared at early ska nights employed as protection by producers or to cause trouble, and ska icon Prince Buster started his career as a rude boy. So, to pay respect to the music heritage behind the rude boy, I'm republishing today an interview entitled "Heroes of Ska" that I did in 2004 with The Skatalites' Lloyd Brevett (1931 - 2012) for American publication Erasing Clouds. Enjoy.

Heroes of Ska (2004, by Anna Battista)

"I didn't even know that the music was going to be serious. I didn't know it was going to go all over the world." Roland Alphonso, quoted in Solid Foundation - An Oral History of Reggae by David Katz

It's an ordinary evening in 1964, but something very special is happening in a club somewhere in Jamaica. A band is playing at the Hi Hat Club in Rae Town. Their sound is new, their beat irresistible. They're the Skatalites and their music is so powerful that they will soon become resident musicians at the Bournemouth Club, where Lee Scratch Perry will often join them on percussion. Though the Skatalites have just officially formed, some of their members have already played together since the late '40s. The Skatalites' line up in 1964 includes tenor saxophonist Tommy McCook, trombonist Don Drummond, bassist Lloyd Brevett, tenor saxophonist Roland Alphonso, alto saxophonist Lester Sterling, drummer Lloyd Knibb, trumpeter Johnny 'Dizzy' Moore, rhythm guitarist Jerry Haines and pianist Jackie Mittoo. Alphonso, Knibb and Brevett knew each other since they were teenagers and used to play together at the Coney Island amusement park in Kingston, Jamaica. Alphonso and Sterling both started their career as musicians recording for Coxsone Dodd, while Drummond, Moore, Sterling and McCook attended the same school in the '40s, the Alpha Catholic Boys establishment where they received their musical education. The Skatalites' music will mark an era, their tracks such as "Guns Of Navarone", "Ball Of Fire", "Tear Up" and so on, will represent the sound of a new independent Jamaica.

Forty years have passed from that night in the Hi Hat Club. During these years Don Drummond, Tommy McCook and Rolando Alphonso died, the Skatalites disbanded, then reunited with other musicians, and finally resurfaced. In the new incarnation of the band, there are only three members who were part of the original line-up: Lloyd Brevett on double bass, Lloyd Knibb on drums and Lester 'Ska' Sterling on alto sax. Other members now are Devon James on guitar, Ken Stewart on keyboards (also the manager of the band), Cedric 'Im' Brooks on tenor sax, Kevin Batchelor on trumpet, Vin Gordon on trombone and Kim Miller, a new vocalist. Last year the Skatalites toured Europe and the States. In February they will do another gig in Matunick; then, possibly, they will start recording a new album. "I'm enjoying touring a lot," Lloyd Brevett states, smiling. We are in the backstage of the Carling Academy in Glasgow, Scotland. Brevett is sitting on a battered sofa in the Skatalites' dressing room. His wife Ruth is sitting next to him, random members of the band surround them, some are chatting, and some are having a drink and a rest after having played to a very enthusiastic audience. While Lloyd talks, his ornaments (pendants and rings) clink, his dreadlocks, now whitening, swish here and there, his eyes shine with a special sparkle of light…perhaps that same sparkle that shone in his eyes when the Skatalites started their career. "There was a good vibe tonight," Brevett whispers to me in his Jamaican accent, "but I think there is always a good vibe wherever and whenever the Skatalites play. The Skatalites never get tired or stressed. Nothing has changed since 1964, apart from one thing: wherever we go now on tour, anywhere in the world, there are more people who come to see us. More young people follow us either in Europe, the States, Russia or Japan, we have more fans and a worldwide consensus."

"People who don't suffer like us can't perform that sound - it's a sufferer's sound. No middle class Jamaicans can play the music we play; it's a ghetto sound that we play out of instruments, real suffering ghetto sound. It sound happy, yes, for it's relief!" Rico Rodriguez, quoted in Solid Foundation - An Oral History of Reggae by David Katz

Jamaican music first changed when Prince Buster introduced Count Ossie's burru drumming in the track "Oh Carolina". Burru drumming is characterised, as Geoff Parker and James Dutton write in the sleevenotes to the "Legendary Skatalites in Dub" album (Motion Records, 2002, 2003), by "the bass, funde and repeater drums, the larger bass drum marking time while the two smaller drums improvise in a call and response drum conversation." Yet it was with the Skatalites that Jamaican music changed forever. The Skatalites practically created a new rhythm. "We were the first musicians who started ska, the very first," Lloyd Brevett states. "We took the melody out of calypso and put it down to our beat. I know that there are people now claiming they started ska, but they didn't. The Skatalites were the very first ska band. All these people who are playing ska now weren't even born when we were playing. Roland Alphonso, Lord Tanamo, Lester Sterling and I started ska in 1957-58, it was born with us. We made the first session in 1959 on a two-track tape. At that time I played the stand-up bass that my dad had made for me in 1949 and we put a microphone on the bass to record its sound. That was The Skatalites' very first music." Founder of the Count Brevett Band in 1950, Brevett's father usually created his own instruments and had taught his son how to play the bass. It can be said that he was one of the biggest musical influences in Lloyd's life. "My dad was a very good jazz bassist, he was actually very good at playing also other instruments such as the saxophone," Brevett remembers.

In 1958 Jamaica entered the Federation of the West Indies together with the twelve territories of the English-speaking Caribbean, but, at the 1961 referendum, people voted against the federation. In August 1962 Jamaica regained its independence. Brevett states ska is the voice of Jamaican independence and the Skatalites represent independence itself. "When we played for the independence right in Kingston, nearly ten thousand people came to see us," he underlines.

In 1964, Prince Buster, Jimmy Cliff, Monty Morris and Millie Small appeared at New York World's Fair, backed by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, and they introduced the American audience to what they claimed was the purest and most exceptional ska. The thing is that the real ska wasn't theirs; it was mastered by the Skatalites', but they hadn't been invited to the party. "At that time, our government sent off a set of musicians to New York," Brevett explains, "Byron Lee was a sort of politician, he was into politics a lot, so he was chosen to go there while they tried to keep the Skatalites back." Critics say ska finished when Don Drummond killed dancer Marguerita Mahfood. "Don Drummond had gone off his head and killed his wife, Marguerita on New Year's Day 1965," Brevett remembers, "Marguerita forgot to give him his medicines before going out to dance and when she came back he got off his head and killed her. Don Drummond was convicted and this event contributed to the end of the Skatalites." After the Skatalites split up, Tommy McCook became the leader of Duke Reid's band The Supersonics, whereas Roland Alphonso stayed with Coxsone Dodd at Studio One and later formed The Soul Vendors.

"The break-up of the band meant the ska era was over in Jamaica, but nearly fifteen years later a group of black and white musicians in the English Midlands revived the music of the Skatalites and Prince Buster for the Two-Tone movement; another decade on, white Americans brought in the 'third wave' of ska, and even Japanese groups successfully re-created the genre. In addition, the Skatalites re-formed themselves on several occasions and McCook and Alphonso were blowing ska right up until their deaths in the late 1990s." David Katz, Solid Foundation - An Oral History of Reggae

In 1998 a London based record label, Motion Records, managed by James Dutton, released for the first time an album of sessions recorded in 1975 by the Skatalites and mixed by King Tubby, remixer and undisputed dubmaster killed in 1989. The album, partly recorded at King Tubby's Studio One and entitled "Heroes of Reggae in Dub", included alternative dub versions of the Skatalites' original sessions and was later followed by "Herb Dub Collie Dub" (Motion Records, 2001). "Some of the guys in the Skatalites were Studio One musicians," Brevett remembers. "All these great guys such as Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff and Prince Buster, they all used to come to Studio One and record there. King Tubby was a nice, gentle guy, he was very helpful and really helped a lot of musicians. He also put together 'African Roots Dub' and played on it together with my brother Commodore, my nephew Tony and my wife Ruth."

Motion released last year the "Legendary Skatalites in Dub" album, including the rest of the 1975 sessions recorded at Lee Scratch Perry's Black Ark Studio and Aquarius Studio. Brevett's inspiration for the sessions recorded on this album was "the drumming that provided the beating heart of the marathon chanting and reasoning sessions held at rasta camps in and around Kingston," as Geoff Parker and James Dutton explain in the album sleveenotes. "Legendary Skatalites in Dub" was released on CD in 2002 and on vinyl in December 2003. Among the tracks featured in the vinyl version there are also 'Middle East Dub', 'Seven Seal', 'African Roots Dub' and 'Starlight' (the latter featuring Tony Brevett). Legends of reggae Ernest Ranglin (on guitar) and Augustus Pablo (on keyboards) also feature on the album among the other musicians.

Brevett still believes in the Skatalites and when asked why their albums are being re-released he shrugs and claims, "Skatalites are still very strong", then he pauses for what seems like a long long second and continues, "Skatalites are actually going from strength to strength and we're planning to go in the studio this year to record new tracks. At present we have a few records out apart from the re-releases. There is also a live album recorded in Paris in 2002, 'From Paris With Love', that features original trumpeter Johnnie 'Dizzy' Moore. But we're going to write new tunes soon," Brevett concludes, beatifically smiling, distracted by the members of the band surrounding him, asking him if he's finished because the Skatalites are awaited at an after-show party. Yet, it's impossible not to use this occasion to ask Brevett a last question about where the word "ska" comes from. Indeed there are those who say it comes from "skavoovie", "Oh, no, it doesn't!" he exclaims, shaking his head, "'Skavoovie' is a guy who plays the bass, a fellow musician. Before ska came in, if you greeted anyone you'd say 'Hey, hello skavoovie!' But the word 'ska' doesn't come from that. 'Ska' comes from the upbeat rhythm, from the guitar playing the upbeat in the studio. The sound of the guitar would then be 'ska-ska-ska-ska', 'ta-ta-ta-ta-sk-ska-ska' and that's where the name came from." Lloyd Brevett seems tired, he has got to go and join the rest of the band for the after show party. He's got to celebrate, and it's time for me to leave. I tell him the history of ska and of the Skatalites, like the history of Jamaica, is full of joy and pain, yet it's a beautiful story. Brevett smiles and nods, his eyes sparkle. Perhaps he's mulling over the old times, most probably he's thinking about the Skatalites' future and a new year full of releases and the rhythms of ska.

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Picture Perfect: Horst P. Horst, Photographer of Style

Younger photography fans will maybe connect the name Horst P. Horst (1906-1999) to one of the inspirations for Madonna's 1990s 'Vogue' video. As a tribute to him, the pop star recreated at the time the photographer's 1939 iconic image of a model in a lace-up corset designed by Mainbocher (unfortunately, she didn't think about paying him, which obviously enraged Horst, but that's another story...).

Young Horst fans eager to discover more about him will be happy to hear the Victoria & Albert Museum will be staging the biggest ever UK retrospective of Horst's photography in September - "Horst: Photographer of Style".

Born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann in Germany in 1906, Horst was the son of a middle-class businessman.

From an early age he displayed an artistic bent and studied crafts at Hamburg Kunstgewerbeschule. At the time he knew Le Corbusier only by reputation, but he wrote the architect a letter asking for a job in his Paris atelier. Surprisingly, Le Corbusier accepted and Horst worked for a few months in 1930 as the architect's apprentice.

He left his job when he was introduced in a café to Baron George Hoyningen-Huene, a photographer for Vogue, becoming his assistant and modelling for him. In 1931 he was given the chance to take pictures for Paris Vogue, and the following year he moved to New York to work for the American edition of the magazine. He became known simply as Horst in 1943 when, as a soldier in the US Army, he had the opportunity to become a US citizen with any name he chose.

In the 1960s Horst started taking pictures illustrating the lifestyle of international high society and, in the following decades, he worked for House & Garden magazine as well as for Vogue.

Many of the models appearing in the pages of Vogue when Horst first started working for the magazine in New York were at the time society friends of Condé Nast, the publisher, and technical limitations - from emulsions to incandescent lights - heavily influenced the posing.

Horst brought some innovations: he experimented with chiaroscuro, added props (he was enamoured of elaborate sets that took days to build, but also loved geometrical abstractions) and borrowed a lot of inspirations from contemporary design.

Influenced by Edward Steichen's modernism and Huene's classicism and purity (with a nod to Surrealism, more visible in his photomontages), he added electrical lighting and bright pools of light, at times producing haloes that made his models look like angels, at others creating disembodied, mysterious and fantastic images.

Horst was obsessed with fantasy and elegance: his camera had to create illusions, and add a glamorous edge where there wasn't one. Horst's sculpturesque three-dimensional technique is the main reason why his models looked at times like beautiful marble statues, while statues looked as if they were alive.

Quite often in interviews Horst stated that. when he started working for Vogue, he knew nothing about fashion and learnt as he went along, using his minor architectural training as a rough guide to create his own sense of elegance.

Visitors to the V&A exhibition will be able to explore Horst's extensive career, spanning 60 years, through more than 250 iconic black and white and colour images, plus diaries, contact sheets, sketches, film footage, magazines, and Haute Couture pieces by couturiers who became Horst's friends, including Elsa Schiaparelli.

The images on display relate not only to fashion, but also to other fields and will include pictures of Salvador Dali's costumes for Leonid Massine's ballet "Bacchanale", portraits of film stars such as Marlene Dietrich, nudes and pictures from Horst's travels.

Visitors interested in graphic design will also be able to admire Horst's "Patterns from Nature" series, photomontages of pictures of flowers and shells. A final tip: when visiting, try to look at the images with an architectural eye - it will help you discovering this artist, too often considered just a fashion photographer, from a very different point of view.

"Horst: Photographer of Style", Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK, from 6th September 2014 to 4th January 2015.

Image credits for this post:

All images courtesy Victoria & Albert Museum.

1. Corset by Detolle for Mainbocher, 1939. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

2. Horst directing a fashion shoot with Lisa Fonssagrives, 1949. Photo by Roy Stevens Time Life Pictures, Getty Images.

3. Summer Fashions, American Vogue cover, 15 May 1941. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

4. Dress by Hattie Carnegie, 1939. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

5. Muriel Maxwell, American Vogue cover, 1 July 1939. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

6. Salvador Dalí's costumes for Leonid Massine's ballet "Bacchanale", 1939. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

7. Dinner suit and headdress by Schiaparelli, 1947. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

8. Marlene Dietrich, New York, 1942. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

9. View of ruins at the palace of Persepolis, Persia, 1949.Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

10. Patterns from Nature, Photographic Collage, c. 1945. Copyright Condé Nast/Horst Estate.

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Book Alert: Hats by Madame Paulette - Paris Milliner Extraordinaire (Thames & Hudson) by Annie Schneider

If you were a millinery fan but didn't know anything about Madame Paulette, the elegant cover and the picture of a model in an asymmetric shell-shaped velvet cap on the second page of Hats by Madame Paulette - Paris Milliner Extraordinaire (Thames & Hudson) by Annie Schneider would be enough to prompt you to become the number one admirer of Pauline de la Bruyère, "queen among milliners and milliner to queens".

Born in 1900 in Paris, Pauline Adam was schooled in Switzerland and, upon her return to France, she went to work as assistant house model at Maison Lewis, Paris. When she turned 20, she moved to Brunet et Verlaine, a new millinery house where she worked as designer and saleswoman. Three years after she got married and, in 1925, she left her job and decided to risk it all by opening her own salon on Rue de la Pépinière.

Clients arrived pretty soon and her success prompted Pauline to move again, this time to Rue de Ventadour in 1929, where she adopted the name Paulette for her label. Paulette won the hearts of many loyal clients (among them quite a few wealthy South American socialites) all of them attracted by her style, elegance and technique.

In 1939 she opened new salons and workrooms in 63 Avenue Victor-Emmanuel III, decorated by architect Jean-Claude Dondel. Paulette left Paris when the war broke out, but returned again in 1940 to reopen her atelier and save her seamstresses and saleswomen's jobs.

The designer became known for innovating millinery, coming up with new shapes and extending hats with scarves of tulle, organza and wool.

An improvised turban she made for herself with a black jersey scarf launched a new fashion - the turban bicyclette (bicycle turban) - ideal as a solution to hat and hairstyling problems during the shortage.

Though she was summoned up to the German command post and told to moderate her more extravagant designs, Paulette was in the end never forced to close her atelier during the war. Her business actually boomed at the very end of the conflict: she employed 120 people, including permanent house models, and she started collaborating with fashion designer Robert Piguet, who became an admirer and dear friend to the milliner.

Taking part in the touring exhibition Théâtre de la Mode meant that Paulette started getting more clients from other countries, including the States where she found a famous supporter in Harper's Bazaar's editor-in-chief Carmel Snow.

In those years Paulette managed to produce at least 800 hats a month, among them berets, capelines with fine veils, pillbox hats (she launched the pillbox in 1946), skullcaps, fitted bonnets, felt hoods, draped turbans and toques, travelling hats, evening headdresses and close-fitting caps.

All her designs could be considered as carefully constructed architectural pieces, at times featuring stiffened spirals and pointed shapes or inspired by modern artworks like Calder's mobiles. British milliner and buyer Otto Lucas very aptly dubbed her "the architects of hats" to highlight her perfect construction techniques that respected the shapes and proportions of a woman's face.

The milliner of choice for many glamorous events and sumptuous balls such as Don Carlos de Beistegui's, Paulette also created hats for the theatre and ballet. A friend of set and costume designer Christian Bérard, she designed fancy hats for Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud's Amphitryon by Molière, basket-like headdresses for Louis Jouvet's Don Juan and pieces for Les Parents Terribles, Jean Cocteau's film adaptation of his own play.

The '50s brought new successes with two collections a year and more designers buying the rights to reproduce her designs (Biki among them). Paulette also opened a shop in Buenos Aires in 1948, a special department in Harrods, London, and corners in department stores in America, where she was honoured and revered.

Though Paulette contributed with her designs to many films, theatrical performances, and cabaret shows (and she provided unique hats for film stars, socialites and royalty), her most famous pieces remains the ones she created to match Cecil Beatons' costumes in the films An Ideal Husband (1947), Gigi (1958), and My Fair Lady (1964). Directed by George Cukor, this adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion features Audrey Hepburn wearing Paulette's iconic enormous capeline piled high with ostrich feathers and topped with a black and white striped ribbon bow.

The '60s brought new changes in fashion and, while her esteemed clients still bought hats for grand occasions and gala evenings, milliners started disappearing from the scene. Paulette continued designing, though, producing new shapes, focusing on chignon covers and cascades of feathers, and, refusing to close down, she entered into collaborations with Thierry Mugler and Claude Montana.

Paulette was in her early eighties at the time, but the pieces she produced were the tangible proof of her inexhaustible imagination: there were skullcaps with insect embroideries, catwoman masks and dragonflies made of coloured organza on Mugler's runways, while for a Montana catwalk show she had models sporting hats with letters spelling the name of the designer.

Marking the 30th anniversary of her death (Paulette died in September 1984), Hats by Madame Paulette is a must for milliner fans (and for fashionistas obsessed with turbans...): Schneider is married to Madame Paulette's son and is therefore not only familiar with her life and family archives, but also with her time-consuming method for making hats that is explained in detail.

The book includes beautiful pictures of Paulette's hats, plus sketches, drawings, illustrations and glamorously elegant images by iconic photographers such as Richard Avedon (check out the the infamous "Rabbit Ears" hat that Avedon photographed and that reappeared as the "bunny ears" designed by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton's Autumn/Winter 2009/2010 collection), Willy Maywald and William Klein (Paulette's designs were photographed also by Horst P. Horst, Henry Clark, Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin).

Apart from focusing on fashion history, millinery, style and elegance, the volume - accompanied by a foreword by Stephen Jones, who was dubbed by writer Patrick Cabasset in 1986 "la nouvelle madame Paulette" - is also about empowered and strong women. According to Paulette, hats were indeed a way of behaving, they offered the wearer the opportunity to try out a different personality, and that's why she often advised women who weren't brave enough against hats. Entering Paulette's world will feel for some readers like embracing the brave challenge of wearing a hat, transforming themselves and face the world, just like the French women who opted for her turbans would do during the war.

Hats by Madame Paulette - Paris Milliner Extraordinaire by Annie Schneider is out now on Thames & Hudson.

Image credits for this post:

All images courtesy Thames & Hudson

1. Book cover for Hats by Madame Paulette - Paris Milliner Extraordinaire (Thames & Hudson);

2. Paulette in one of her workrooms, 1952;

3. Silk turban in shocking pink, 1944;

4. Paulette selects a photograph from a contact sheet, 1948;

5. Blond straw with velvet anemones and gouza feathers, 1946;

6. Black velvet chignon-cover with two ostrich-feather pompoms, 1965; Cascade of petals in black organza, 1965;

7. Beige veiled velvet decorated with two woollen pompoms, 1963;

8. Asymmetric navy straw, 1937.

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Posted at 07:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Branded Spaces, Architectural Imprints: Mehrnoosh Khadivi x Nicholas Kirkwood

Finding new and exciting forms to create a pleasant spatial branding experience for the consumer is a must not only for the fashion house or brand involved, but also for the architect working for them. Despite the influence of new digital means of communication, physical shops - be they temporary or permanent - continue indeed to represent the genuine identity of that specific house or designer, playing a key part in generating desires in the consumers.

In the last few years, small-scale and local retail spaces with a special attention for eye-catching design with a sophisticated edge have created engaging environments for the consumers, proving to be particularly successful. In some cases, retail spaces combined art and architecture, fashion and interior design to provide consumers with more visual stimuli.

London-based architect Mehrnoosh Khadivi of Craftwork Studio has worked on 6 shops (including the temporary stores) for footwear designer Nicholas Kirkwood. He recently designed the Kirkwood pop-up shop at the Tokyo department store Isetan (open until tomorrow, 27th May 2014), and another temporary store at Miami's Bal Harbour (open until September 2014).

The shops are characterised by Kirkwood's signature chevron pattern and by a series of geometric shapes in optical black and white shades that perfectly highlight the colours of Kirkwood's Spring/Summer and Pre-Fall collections. As a whole, the two spaces are a mix of modern, chic, slick and playful moods.

What inspired the palette of colours for the pop up shop in Miami and the shop at Isetan?
Mehrnoosh Khadivi: Generally, I like to stick to one palette of predominantly white and let the colour within the store come from products. I highlight and add details in Chrome / Black and Pale greys for patterns or pinpointing specific objects and details. The intention for the Miami store was to create a pop-up space that, whilst temporary in nature, was both fast to build and clearly very considered and site specific so as it looks permanent and very much on brand. The central display of hanging mobiles in the front centre of the store has all the motifs of the brand displays interpreted in a new way and creates a centre piece for the store. Whilst really dense in nature, this element still allows for each shoe to be seen independently whilst it can be clustered in grouping which are story and style led. In many ways, it is a vertical version of the plinth topographical landscape I created for Kirkwood in the New York store allowing a flow between products and stories which can be adapted when needed. Both are loose displays which allow for multiple variations. This approach allows for the Miami customers who are perhaps unaware or new to the Kirkwood brand to engage with the one large display with many products set within it from the outside and be drawn in to take a further look.

Did you ever do any shops/works in Miami or Japan before? What do you like about these places?
Mehrnoosh Khadivi: This was my first project in Miami - I have been to the city a few times during Art Basel. As a city it has clearly set its sights towards architecture, art, design and fashion; it is a city in transition and this makes it very exciting. You can palpably feel the urban renewal. The mix of American with the Cuban / Latin is really exciting and one feels you are in between. If I could live there I would be heading to downtown to Design District Wynwood and find my house! I know Isetan as I did a project for Pollini's 60th anniversary there last October. I love Japan and the way really familiar things are presented in a way that feels totally different and new.

There are some geometrical and optical elements and features inside the shops - is geometry still a strong inspiration in your work?
Mehrnoosh Khadivi: Very much so, I was a Maths geek at school and always finding patterns and topologies through geometry. I love the way that it can open up infinite possibilities in terms of direction and application. It allows for seemingly really simple spaces that on deeper inspection can reveal layers of complexity - or on a really surface level add a graphic overlay. A good example of this is the stone floor in the Las Vegas store - the radial parquet pattern of stone is both subtle and complex - and is a flat 2D mirror image of the reflected ceiling plan which features a large scale eight sided geodesic dome.

A brand can transform through a commercial space the face of a city, but how challenging it is for you to create a space that can also prompt consumers to become part of that retail experience?
Mehrnoosh Khadivi: It is always a challenge - especially for smaller younger brands that are defining themselves. With Kirkwood I always want to create spaces that display and present products in a way that is somewhere between retail and gallery allowing for individual products to be seen as the main focus. It allows for customers to come and explore the brand and connect with product groups that appeal to them. Since working with Nicholas broader types of styles have become available as product ranges have expanded and, as a result, so has his customer base. In Miami the central hexagonal hanging display is like a cluster of trees you can walk around and pick fruits from...in our case shoes! In Isetan, we had a collaboration with Samsung and created interactive motion graphics developing further the signature chevron patterns we created for London Fashion Week. This pop up store plays on the precision, technological and craftsmanship fascination of the Japanese.

The image of a brand is an invisible concept, but architects turn the invisible and artificial construct into something tactile and physical through innovative spatial branding experiences. In which ways can a store forge a sense of community or hint at interaction in the marketplace?
Mehrnoosh Khadivi: I try with Kirkwood's stores to always relate to the locations very specifically in order that customers can engage with the brand in a familiar way specific to them. I prefer the challenge of changing the designs from place to place whilst keeping brand values of craftsmanship, innovation and creating objects of desire. The store designs always set out to highlight and elevate individual shoes in order that they can be seen individually and specifically and, after that, in broader groupings. The idea is not to intimidate but to engage and present.

What should a retail space give the consumers: sensations, creativity, sophistication?
Mehrnoosh Khadivi: I think this really depends on the brands - I would say all three would apply to Nicholas Kirkwood whilst there is a sense of fluid change from place to place. The stores are like cousins - members of the same family who share key attributes but have distinct personalities.

Image credits for this post

All images courtesy Mehrnoosh Khadivi

1.- 5. Nicholas Kirkwood Shop, Isetan, Tokyo.

6. - 10. Nicholas Kirkwood Shop, Miami.

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Safety First: Mining Necklaces

In a previous post we explored protective workwear for shinglers from the early 1900s. Decades have passed and safety at work has been improved thanks to innovative protective equipment and specific laws and regulations.

Yet, safety at work remains an issue quite often bypassed by governments or private companies to save money. When tragedy strikes, the safety issue resurfaces in features, articles and investigations, only to disappear again, at least until the next accident.

To raise awareness, I've recently been developing a series of pieces inspired by the safety at work theme. The first two necklaces are dedicated to mining and incorporate minerals and miniatures (with thanks to Kutmusic for lending me some minerals for some of the pictures in this post).

Around ten days ago an explosion and fire in the power distribution unit in a mine in Soma, Turkey, caused the death of almost 300 people. The accident revealed that the mine only possessed one refuge chamber in which fourteen miners took shelter using oxygen masks in turns before the air was exhausted and they died. Refuge chambers are a key safety feature of mines as they can provide oxygen, food and water for up to 40 people for a month, plus first-aid kits and telephones.

We all know that the fashion industry is also plagued by poor safety measures at different levels and while it is unlikely that a piece of jewellery will change things, trying to raise at least awareness towards unsafe working conditions through a wearable piece may help us talking about health and safety issues more often and finally tackling them.

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Saturday Inspiration: Hoberman's Expanding Sphere

As a follow up to yesterday's post mentioning Phyllis Lambert's Canadian Centre for Architecture, let's look at one print from the centre's collection.

The print in question refers to Hoberman's Expanding Sphere, a mechanical structure made of curved links joined by pivots into scissor pairs that allow the structure to open and close, fold and unfold, expand and contract.

The structure designed by Chuck Hoberman is essentially a spherical polyhedron known as icosadodecahedron, that is a geometrical form made with inrtersecting circles. The development of geometric transformation is enabled by a rigorous design and engineering of hinged mechanisms capable of being folded without colliding with neighbouring components.

Hoberman has focused throughout his career on transformable design, creating objects and structures that, merging together art, architecture, design and engineering, change size and shape. He has applied his transformable, retractable and shape-shifting principles to toys (the sphere is well-known for being a popular toy, but remains a fascinating object for kids and grown ups alike), structures/buildings (the Expanding Sphere, 1992, at the Liberty Science Center, Jersey City, New Jersey and the Expanding Geodesic Dome, 1997, at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, among the others), and active building skins that respond electronically and mechanically to the weather.

Image credit for this post:

Hoberman Sphere in 4 progressive stages of expansion, 1993. Electrostatic prints on paper, 21.7 x 60.33 cm. Chuck Hoberman fonds, Canadian Centre for Architecture © Hoberman Associates.

Expanding Sphere, Liberty Science Center, New Jersey.

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While Venice Waits for the Joan of Architecture: Phyllis Lambert Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

On Monday it was announced that Phyllis Lambert has been chosen to be the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 14th Venice International Architecture Exhibition, "Fundamentals". This was a rather unusual yet intriguing choice, since Lambert is not a conventional architect, but also a preservationist, educator and philanthropist.

Phyllis was born in Montreal in 1927, the daughter of Samuel Bronfman, founder of the Seagram's liquor empire. In 1949 she married business consultant Jean Lambert. When her marriage ended in 1954 she kept her husband's name, and moved to New York where she became more involved in architecture.

She persuaded her father to employ her as architectural consultant for the proposed Seagram House on Park Avenue, a project for which she hired Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Completed in 1958, the Seagram building was characterised by a radically new design, and soon became a local landmark also thanks to its entrance canopy that makes the 38 storey building look as if it were suspended from the ground.

The Seagram Building and fountain are also featured in the classic 1961 film, Breakfast at Tiffany's, starring Audrey Hepburn.

Lambert enrolled in the program Mies van der Rohe established at the Illinois Institute of Technology studying under Myron Goldsmith. After receiving her MS Arch in 1963, she designed the Saidye Bronfman Centre in Montreal with Mies van der Rohe and later on bought and renovated Los Angeles's Biltmore Hotel.

In the '70s, returning to Montreal from Paris, Lambert became a heritage and civic activist (the mayor of Montreal dubbed her the "Goddess of the Streets"), and started campaigning to save the historic area of the city around the old port. Founding a preservation group, and an independent think-tank (the Montreal Institute of Policy Alternatives), Lambert helped saving some of Montreal's best-beloved neighborhoods and buildings.

Lambert's greatest achievement remains the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) - a museum and research centre located around a railway baron's abandoned mansion in Montreal. Lambert bought the house in 1974 to prevent its demolition, restored it and hired architect Peter Rose to build the CCA.

The centre opened in 1989 and became famous for its rich and well stocked library of books on history, theory and the practice of architecture, plus prints and architectural drawings.

The recipient of many honors and awards, a critical thinker, leader in social issues and a genuine crusader when it came to preservation projects, Lambert became the subject of a documentary in 2007 - Citizen Lambert: Joan of architecture, directed by Teri Wehn-Damisch.

Among the architects she admires there is Rem Koolhaas, director of this year's Biennale that promises to be an unusual one, with spaces in the Arsenale dedicated to theatre performances, events and exhibitions, and with an extended duration (6 months instead of 3 - from June 7th to November 23rd 2014).

Phyllis Lambert stated in an official press release from the CCA: "I am thrilled and wonderfully honoured to receive from the Board of the Venice Biennale the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. Together with the Biennale’s 14th International Architectural Exhibition, Fundamentals, the award marks the urgent role of architecture writ large in the unfolding of the world’s increasingly challenging social and ecological condition."

The Board of la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, under Director Rem Koolhaas, issued the following motivation: "Not as an architect, but as a client and custodian, Phyllis Lambert has made a huge contribution to architecture. Without her participation, one of the few realizations in the 20th century of perfection on earth – the Seagram Building in New York – would not have happened. Her creation of the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal combines rare vision with rare generosity to preserve crucial episodes of architecture’s heritage and to study them under ideal conditions. Architects make architecture; Phyllis Lambert made architects…"

Phyllos Lambert will officially received the Golden Lion at the awarding ceremony on Saturday 7th June 2014 in the Giardini of the Biennale.

Image credits for this post:

1. Philip Johnson, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Phyllis Lambert in front of an image of the model for the Seagram building, New York, 1955. Gelatin silver print, 7½ × 9⅜ in. Photographer unknown. Fonds Phyllis Lambert, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal. © United Press International.

4. View of the construction site showing Shaughnessy House under renovation on the right and apartment houses and office buildings in the background, Canadian Centre for Architecture under construction, Montreal. Photography by David Miller, 1985, CCA Collection.

5. Robert Burley. View of the Esplanade and the Allegorical Columns, Canadian Centre for Architecture Garden, Montreal, 1990. CCA Collection © Robert Burley.

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Moments in Design: NABA x Pandora @ Milan's Triennale

The Wunderkammer of "cabinet of curiosities" was a sort of chaotic jumble of objects, mainly unconnected and unrelated one to the other, some of them - such as unicorns’ horns and mermaids' skeletons - fraudulent in characters.

Emblem of early modern curiosity and wonder, the Wunderkammer was indeed a place where naturalia and artificialia met, cabinets that preserved strange and wonderful objects, and that quite often turned into theatrical stages for the rare, the bizarre and the magic.

The Wunderkammer is also the inspiration behind the second edition of "Moments in Design" currently on at the DesignCafé at the Triennale di Milano.

This event is the result of a collaboration between Danish jewellery brand Pandora and fifteen students from the Fashion and Textile Design course at NABA (Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti).

Led by their lecturer, Italian designer Cinzia Ruggeri, the students reinterpreted the theme in clever ways: some explored fairy tale worlds and childhood memories, others the power of preserving a special moment imbued with nostalgia.

All the students managed through their projects to subvert the aim and objective of the Pandora pieces and charms.

Quite often they decontextualised them, using the precious elements as parts of a symbolic boardgame, or for decorative purposes on designs directly linked to their countries of origins, like an Indian elephant in full festival attire.

Other students proved a piece of jewellery can be turned into a structural piece for an architectural model, can be incorporated in a Proust-inspired installation, or more simply used as embellishment in headdresses tackling the sense Vs sensibility dichotomy.

The original pseudo-scientific theme of the Wunderkammer was explored in a headpiece resembling a brain in which beads and trinkets hint at the accumulation of memories, but also in a Tim Burton-inspired skeleton of dinosaur.

In each piece there is a sense of wonder and enchantment with a healthy dose of irony added.

As a whole you get the feeling that this project was definitely not about a kitsch cabinet of wonders, but it was more a laboratory of ideas in which the students worked with different materials as best as they could.

"It was a satisfying project," Cinzia Ruggeri told Irenebrination. "It was a bit like finding yourself immersed in the dark, but peering through a keyhole to a different world."

Visitors of the "Moments in Design" event will be able to support their favourite student project and vote for it at this link - the winning student will scoop a period of training in the creative department of the Pandora company.

"Moments in Design" is at the DesignCafé, Triennale di Milano, Via Alemagna 6, Milan, Italy, until 29th May.

Image credits for this post

All images Courtesy of Pandora/NABA

Student projects (as they appear in this post):

1. Guneet Cheema

2. Victoria Prokhorova

3. Anna Benaglia

4. Sergio Chiodin

5. Francesco De Carli

6. Tolika Assumi

7. Mariya Ruseva Doncheva

8. Benedetta Giorcelli

9. Luisa Alpeggiani

10. Chiara Baratello + Cecilia Baroni

11. Micol Ottina

12. Natalia Razbrodina

13. Giulia Dean

14. Mariya Zaykova

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

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May 2014

May 31, 2014

Tremendously Useless Fashion-Related News

May 30, 2014

Friday Film: Cat People (1942)

May 29, 2014

Return of the Rudeboy / Heroes of Ska

May 28, 2014

Picture Perfect: Horst P. Horst, Photographer of Style

May 27, 2014

Book Alert: Hats by Madame Paulette - Paris Milliner Extraordinaire (Thames & Hudson) by Annie Schneider

May 26, 2014

Branded Spaces, Architectural Imprints: Mehrnoosh Khadivi x Nicholas Kirkwood

May 25, 2014

Safety First: Mining Necklaces

May 24, 2014

Saturday Inspiration: Hoberman's Expanding Sphere

May 23, 2014

While Venice Waits for the Joan of Architecture: Phyllis Lambert Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

May 22, 2014

Moments in Design: NABA x Pandora @ Milan's Triennale