Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law, Science & Technology: March 2015

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Re-opening a Window on The Brooking National Collection

It is always great to meet an old acquaintance in an unlikely place. This is exactly what happened while we were at Brighton University.

The old acquaintance in question is the Brooking Collection of Architectural Detail, currently exhibiting a few windows and architectural features from its vast archives in the Ground Floor Gallery of the University of Brighton (Grand Parade, Brighton, UK, until 12th April 2015).

As you may remember from a previous post, windows were an important element of the exhibition in the Central Pavilion of the Giardini at the 14th Venice International Architecture Exhibition.

Last year architect Rem Koolhaas, Director of the Venice Biennale, asked Charles Brooking to take some of his pieces to Italy and an entire wall of the Central Pavilion ended up being dedicated to this peculiar collection that also includes unique elements from iconic buildings such as 10 Downing Street, the original Wembley Stadium, Windsor Castle and St Paul's Cathedral.

Brooking started gathering these pieces in 1966 and now the collection is owned by a charity and is considered as a hands on facility set to help students, researchers, designers or more simply architecture enthusiasts to rediscover (also through dedicated courses) doors and windows from the 1590s to the 1970s, that belonged to palaces and historic mansions but also (and more interestingly) to humble houses.

One of the main aims of the charity at the moment is to find a permanent home to form a National Centre of Excellence for those involved in the care, repair and study of historic buildings.

Sponsored by the Brighton and Hove Heritage Commission, the event at Brighton University includes several pieces rescued from buildings in the UK. There are many inspiring architectural features among the ones on display, such as sash window glazing bars and large fanlights.

There are actually quite a few interesting fanlights: one features lead glazing bars and comes from a London-based building from 1780-85; another, dated 1821, belonged to a coffin maker workshop in Church Street, Marylebone; a third one is taken from 6 Archers Road, Southampton, and was made around 1880-1883.

Shape-wise the section of a lunette stable window from 1785, of an elliptical pivoting window from Groveland Park, Southgate, London, designed by John Nash and Humphrey Repton (from around 1797), and a 1866 round cast iron bulls eye window from Battle Hospital, Oxford Road, Reading, are particularly fascinating.

Some of the square windows incorporating glass elements add a degree of cheerfulness to the event: while the transom light with characteristic leaded stained glass design used in Lyons Corner Houses, designed by FG Wills and built in 1912 or the transom light from a semi-detached house from North Wales (from around 1928) have a stylish elegance about them, a decorative transom light window with painted glass central panel from the Wolverhampton area (dated around 1895) features geometrically complex coloured patterns.

The best one among the square windows in the exhibition remains the coloured glass transom light with tinted patches of cathedral glass and ruby border from the Aubrey Hotel, Epsom Road, Guildford, built around 1893.

As you may remember from a previous post, the Brooking National Collection contains roughly 500,000 pieces (5,000 whole windows, 10,000 window sections and 30,000 sash pulleys) and it's the only museum or collection of this type in England.

Hopefully, this compact but exhaustive exhibition at Brighton University will inspire also the students of the Fashion Design course who are currently developing their work in the same building where the collection is currently displayed.

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Posted at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Highs and Lows of Fashion Representations @ The University of Brighton

Brighton is maybe more known for its pier and laid-back atmosphere, but it has actually got a vibrant fashion department at the local university. Irenebrination will be heading today to the School of Art, Design and Media at the University of Brighton to speak to the Fashion Design students about a very intriguing theme - Fashion Representation.

The talk is conceived as a brainstorming session to provide some inspirations for the students' Fashion Representation project and it will be a catalogue or an archaeology of fashion spaces, places and presentation techniques.

The lecture will move from the early days of catwalk shows and in particular from Charles Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret, Jeanne Paquin, Lucile, Jean Patou, Lucien Lelong and Elsa Schiaparelli and will reach out to more contemporary designers and presentations, touching upon disciplines such as art, architecture, cinema, illustration, interior design, science and technology.

It will look at Haute Couture and ready-to-wear presentations and analyse themes such as modernity and muses, repetitions and variations, fashion parades/fairs as political propaganda, showmanship and current presentation/representations strategies (the catwalk stunt included...).

It may be impossible to teach creativity, but it is surely possible to develop fantasy, invention, imagination and creativity by building links and connections and combining different themes and ideas together, as Bruno Munari used to say, so let's hope the students will benefit from the format of this talk. With many thanks to Mason Jung, Designer and Senior Lecturer in Fashion at the School of Art, Design and Media, University of Brighton, for inviting me.

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Posted at 06:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No Stunts, But Fun (and New Ideas on Beauty): Tenbo A/W 15

The catwalk stunt is now the rule: we have seen it happening during the latest fashion weeks on Valentino's runway where the Zoolander actors closed the show and at Vivienne Westwood's catwalk show that ended with Boardwalk Empire’s Paz de la Huerta kissing a male model in a wedding dress and pinstripe trousers.

You could argue it all makes sense especially in our age in which social media and Instagram pages constantly update us about the latest fads, bizarre events and random appearances of attention-seeking celebrities.

Yet there are other fun ways to present a fashion collection, as proved by the catwalk show of designer Takafumi Tsuruta that took place during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week at Tokyo's Shibuya Hikarie. The show quickly ended up on the news, but not for the usual stunts or celebrities in the front row.

Tsuruta is indeed interested in creating clothes aimed at all people of the world, and he therefore decided to send out on his Tenbo brand runway a mix of disabled - including Paralympic athletes and models who are blind or wear prosthetic limbs or use a wheelchair - and able-bodied models who showcased his designs in an unconventional way.

Most models smiled and looked happy and the final result was pretty different from Aimee Mullins walking in specially designed hand-carved prosthetic legs on Alexander McQueen's for Givenchy runway at the end of the '90s, or from the actress with Down's Syndrome, the female models on wheelchairs and the male amputee model who recently walked the runways in New York during the FTL Moda's A/W 15 show.

At McQueen the old animate/inanimate dichotomy played indeed a major role, while the emphasis in the other cases was on reminding us that disability is first and foremost a state of mind. Tsuruta instead has actually designed some of his garments with disability in mind, following the aims and objectives of his previous label, Ha ha.

Some of his sweater coats close indeed with magnetic buttons that help the wearer dressing in an easier way, while dot prints calling to mind Braille reappeared on tights, ties, trapeze dresses and sweatshirts donned models in bright yellow wigs and nails and shiny glittery lipstick.

Happy skull motifs on shirts and dresses and elegant prints of origami cranes on white shirts added a fun element to the show that also included a few deconstructed pieces.

Tsuruta also recreated another wedding dress for a wheelchair-bound bride (he had done so two seasons ago at Ha ha) - disabled model Ami Sano. Yet the designer didn't opt for disabled models to create a sensational stunt, this was indeed a fresh way to approach new ideas of beauty, present clothes that may help people and challenge the fashion industry to create trendy clothes for everybody and not just for the able-bodied elite.

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Posted at 10:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Knitted Ruins: Motohiro Tanji A/W 2015

In Michael Anderson's Logan's Run, the main characters live in a supposedly utopian city. When Logan and Jessica escape the futuristic and computer run society in which they are trapped, they embark on a journey of discovery that leads them to the ruins of Washington D.C.

In the film the vegetation has reclaimed the buildings and monuments that the main characters rediscover and has done so in a fascinating way.

Ruins have actually been always considered as dramatically sublime architectural elements since they represent long lost civilisations, tangible traces of previous lives and cultures.

The aesthetic value of ruins was regarded highly in the 19th century and the effect of plants and biological incrustations climbing up monuments was particularly appreciated as they were elements that marked the passage of time.

It is therefore almost too obvious why knitwear designer Motohiro Tanji used this theme as the main inspiration for his debut collection at Tokyo Fashion Week.

Born in Japan where he studied Fashion Design at Bunka Fashion College, Motohiro Tanji continued his studies at Keio University. Here he worked on exploring 3D computer graphics/programming, investigating the possibility of using 3D geometric algorithms in contemporary fashion.

The designer then completed his MA Fashion Knitwear Design at Nottingham Trent University and established his own label in 2012.

His first collections displayed a strong derivation from Sandra Backlund's monumentally sculptural knits made by combining and assembling several small knitted elements together.

In his A/W 2015 collection, the designer seems to have managed to find his own way to turn his more extravagant and complex knitted designs into more wearable and therefore more commercial pieces.

Voluminous knits were therefore left behind in favour of three-dimensional textures such as thick ridges and narrow crests, abstract geometries and solid knitted rib patterns, chevron-like details and knotted or twisted decorative motifs for dresses and separates.

Some of these elements pointed towards plants climbing over ruins, others seemed references to multi-layered structures and natural armours such as biological exoskeletons.

The designer also deviced knitted alternative pieces to conventional outerwear such as capes with rounded collars while the palette revolving around sensible shades of dove grey, navy, ivory and black, though rather conservative, will guarantee him new growth in mature consumer markets.

It will be interesting to see how Motohiro Tanji will develop in future collections these techniques he now seems to be able to finally master in a better way and where he will take the knitwear discourse in a few seasons' time.

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Posted at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When Science Goes Operatic: Symmetry @ The CineGlobe International Film Festival

Five years have gone since Irenebrination wished for a better integration between the scientific and creative disciplines for example via a fashion shoot in a scientific research laboratory. Since then lots of things happened and now it is not a rare practice for fashion designers to go and visit research laboratories together with other professional figures (such as architects) to look for inspiration (think about designer Iris Van Herpen visiting CERN with architect Philip Beesley).

There are actually even projects that are currently pushing further the links between the performing arts and science such as a dance and opera film entitled "Symmetry" shot inside CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The film will be screened during the CineGlobe International Film Festival at the Globe of Science and Innovation next week (on Tuesday 24th March, at 8.00 p.m.; address: 385 Route de Meyrin, Meyrin, Switzerland)

Directed by Ruben van Leer, starring choreographer and dancer Lukas Timulak and Soprano Claron McFadden, and with music by Joep Franssens & Henry Vega, "Symmetry" focuses on a CERN researcher who is working on the theory of everything and ends up transforming himself into the smallest moving particle he was looking for.

While some scenes were shot inside the CERN and show dancers in suits and protective blue helmets moving around the spaces surrounding the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), other parts transport people in digital landscapes or in real spaces (the scenes shot in Uyuni in Bolivia, the largest mineral landscape in the world and the only place on earth visible to the human eye from the moon, represent the moment after the big bang) where the love story between the main characters Claron and Lukas unravels and where the search for the word's smallest particle becomes a philosophical rather than just a scientific matter.

The result is a mix of opera, dance, digital arts and science/physics focused on the giant particle accelerator. The opera has also got links with the actual researches that are being carried out at the LHC.

The opera is accompanied by the documentary "Symmetry Unravelled", a film by Juliette Stevens with Dr. Michael Doser, Prof. John Ellis (CERN) and Prof. Robbert Dijkgraaf (Dir. IAS Princeton).

If you are looking for a different kind of film about science, check out the programme of the CineGlobe International Film Festival at the Globe of Science and Innovation (until 29th March 2015). The theme of this year’s edition is "Convergence" and tackles art, cinema and science through several films that will be screened inside a geodesic dome, an installation that references the mysteries of dark matter.

The event also includes a series of workshops (How to make a pinhole camera with a tetrapak; the Art of the Timelapse; and Stop-motion animation) and interactions such as an eight-month Hackathon challenge to tell stories about science using the Oculus Rift.

The festival will conclude with a screening of Bram Conjaerts' documentary "The Ring", that follows the 27 km length of the LHC ring above ground and analyses the views of the local inhabitants about it. It looks like our wish for an integration between scientific and creative disciplines has more or less been granted.

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Posted at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Innovative Architectures with a Social Impact: magdas Caritas Hotel by AllesWirdGut

Architects and designers often wonder in which ways they can improve the life of ordinary people and it's not rare to see lectures and debates about this question that doesn't seem to have a simple answer.

Yet Caritas Vienna and AllesWirdGut Architects have developed a new concept that attempts to provide not one definite answer, but a solution to certain modern issues. Together they developed a new type of social business, a house for tourists visiting Vienna and for refugees, all under one roof.

Initiated by magdas, the social business subsidiary of Caritas Austria, this project consists in a hotel operated to professional standards, located in Vienna's Prater district.

The hotel has 78 new and elegant rooms available to city travellers, tourists in Vienna and overnight trippers, each with a view of the Prater park landscape.

Living side by side with the hotel guests, there are also young people, refugees who were left no choice by hunger, war, persecution, and torture in their home countries. For them, the hotel is a temporary place to stay, and for some, it is also a workplace.

The hotel - completed in February - occupies a largely preserved and refurbished existing building (a previous retirement home dating back to the 1960s), adapted to modern safety standards.

Crowdfunding and very smart planning helped making sure the project was developed at its best with a budget of 1.5 million Euros: the interior spaces - lobby, restaurant and bar, hotel rooms, and apartments - feature indeed existing pieces and found objects (some from Caritas' own thrift store, others donated by former residents or by the local population) reassembled by AllesWirdGut under the supervision of Daniel Büchel into tables, nightstands, and wall coat racks (the Picasso inspired ones recreating his "Bull's Head" made from the seat and handlebars of a bicycle are particularly funny...) and integrated in a palette of reduced colours and in a vintage atmosphere.

In the future, the ground floor will serve as an entrance area and lobby for hotel guests, a shared living room for the young people staying in the house, and a bar and restaurant for visitors to encourage the integration of "foreigners", whether they may be guests, customers, or refugees.

"magdas Hotel is a social business that connects cultures and people, that creates opportunities and a lively place of encounter," stated in an official press release Caritas Social Business manager Clemens Foschi about this project that could be considered as extremely inspiring not just design-wise for the creative solutions it offers, but for the concept behind it.

In a world that talks too enthusiastically and too much about luxury and ultra-luxury architectures and design for very few ones, a space dedicated to socio-cultural exchanges between people from different backgrounds should indeed be praised and adopted by/adapted to other cities and countries.

Image credits for this post

All images © Guilherme Silva Da Rosa, AllesWirdGut Architektur

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Posted at 07:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A City of Women in an Architectural Photoshoot from the '80s

In yesterday's post we compared dynamic movements in contemporary fashion with works by the Futurist painters. Let's continue the thread with a little variation keeping the future theme, but thinking about the static condition in fashion (as much as this may sound like an impossible concept since fashion is always in motion...) and let's do so via this photoshoot from the mid-'80s. The shoot showcased Cinzia Ruggeri's A/W 1986-87 collection and was entitled "La città delle donne" (City of Women).

The title calls to mind Fellini's eponymous film that mainly focused on the director's own fear and bewilderment of women.

In a way the two models perfectly embody the attraction Vs repulsion dichotomy as they look like intriguing women, yet at the same time, they may be mysterious aliens landed on a desolate planet Earth in their futuristic attires.

The garments they wear feature all Cinzia Ruggeri's signature tropes such as the zigzagging ziggurat shapes on bags and clothes, while the surrounding urban environment but dreamlike atmosphere make you almost think about the 1966 pictures of the Las Vegas Strip seen from the desert with Robert Venturi/Denise Scott Brown's silhouettes in the foreground.

LIke the shoot and want to discover more about Ruggeri's work? You can still catch her exhibition "CIN CIN 1980-2015" at 10 Corso Como in Milan (until 6th April).

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Velocity Girl: Body, Speed and Movement as Contemporary Fashion Trends (Directly Borrowed From the Early 1900s...)

Being focused on the present and the future we often forget how much we depend from the past. Consider our current fascination with luxury sportswear and high-tech dynamic clothes (in some cases not even meant to be used as performance wear...). Do you think it comes from modern times? Then you are greatly mistaken.

People started getting more interested in modernity and body movement in the first decades of the 1900s: for what regards the performing arts, the Ballets Russes introduced new ways for the body to move, while the art scene had already shown a strong interest in dynamic forms of expression.

The Italian Futurists, for example, such as Fortunato Depero, Giacomo Balla, and Umberto Boccioni, created dynamic paintings, drawings and abstract collages inspired by speed, dynamism, and new means of transport.

Boccioni's studies in the continuity of space resulted in the sculpture "Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio" (Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 1913). In the latter, the artist harmonised speed and force into a sculptural form, creating a figure that strides forward leaving behind fluidly aerodynamic ripples, curves and lines.

In "Dinamismo di un calciatore" (Dynamism of a soccer player, 1913), the painter focused on the surrounding atmosphere, letting movement and light destroy the body of the player (only the calf remains) and turning it into a swirl of kaleidoscopic colours that represent the energy of the athlete.

Boccioni studied instead in "Dinamismo di un ciclista" (Dynamism of a Cyclist, 1913) dynamic movement through a racing cyclist, a Futurist symbol of modern life, representing a man that moves swiftly through time and space by the propulsion of his legs enhanced by modern technology.

If speed was heroic, dynamism was indeed the only road to progress for the Futurists and this was clear also in Giacomo Balla's works. Balla produced multiple-exposure paintings that portray a single shape, repeated several times.

The hand of a violinist or the body of a girl running on a balcony ("Ragazza che corre sul balcone", 1912) were multiplied by the artist to give the impression they moved on a canvas, while lines of forces and curved speed lines literally transformed means of transports such as a motorcycle or an automobile or the swirl of a flock of swallows outside the artist's window into abstract forces (see the paintings "Velocity of an Automobile" or "Flight of the Swallows").

In the past we have seen specific designers borrowing from the patterns created by the Futurists; there seems to be instead an emphasis on Balla's multiple-exposure effect in the latest fashion campaigns/collections, such as the NikeLab x Sacai collaboration.

Sacai designer Chitose Abe added her signature pleated elements and pannelling to sport pieces: accordion-like peplums and pleats that shoot out from the back were integrated in a hoodie, a skirt or the classic Nike Windrunner to give them a sense of dynamism.

This eight-piece capsule collection - that will be available from next week at NikeLab locations and online - was also conceived as a collision of different sportswear, from running and tennis to football, boxing and cycling.

We'll see if consumers will use these garments as performance wear or if they will be more interested in using them to pose in and recreate the dynamic lines of the Futurists through their pleats and panels. In the meantime, to remain in a speed and movement mood, I'm going to leave you with Snow Patrol's "Velocity Girl". Enjoy.

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Posted at 07:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Like Miu Miu's A/W 2015 Collection? Make Your Own Creative Fashion + Time Collisions Using Vintage Patterns

There are catwalk shows that you can dissect and analyse in different ways and then there's Miu Miu's. The last show of the Paris runways, it usually arrives when all the people in the industry need some rest, as Miuccia Prada highlighted. For the next Autumnal season the designer decided therefore to do something funny by combining together different times and eras (something Miuccia seems to be a master at doing...).

In between short python and crocodile coats in bright colours that played with the real/fake dichotomy while pointing towards the '60s, there were apron dresses with big plastic buttons and frocks and blouses with ample ruffles around the shoulders.

The latter looked slightly reminiscent of apron and pinafore frocks or sundresses from the '40s-'50s with some '80s moods thrown in. You like the idea but you can't afford the look?

Just grab a few vintage patterns, borrow details from pinafore and ruffled dresses and do your own fashion/time collision of different trends using modern fabrics.

After all, if Miuccia can do it, you can do it as well. One last note: don't forget the costume floral earrings and necklaces and remember to cover in copious amounts of glitter some hideous shoes you may find at a vintage shop near you.

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Posted at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Arty and Architectural Muse in the Fashion Zoo

Upon seeing some of the first images of Valentino's A/W 2015 collection portraying black and white striped designs, people with an architectural frame of mind would immediately start thinking about the black and white motifs adorning Medieval churches in the North of Italy.

Other architecture fans may instead think about Adolf Loos' unbuilt house for Josephine Baker or make connections with Mario Botta's polychrome designs for the Church of St John the Baptist in Vallemaggia. Yet Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli had something else - or rather someone else - on their mind.

The black and white stripes and triangles that decorated the first looks in the collection were indeed borrowed from textile and fashion designer Emilie Louise Flöge, lover and muse of Gustav Klimt.

Stripes have always been used by artists and architects to exaggerate the dimensions of a surface or figure, to create optical illusions and morph the appearance of a surface.

Horizontal stripes exaggerate width, while vertical ones elongate the height, but in the case of Valentino's designs, they were employed as decorative patterns that more simply clarified the forms and silhouettes, besides they weren't charged with the negative meanings that striped fabrics had in the Medieval period (see Michel Pastoureau's volume The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes). In other garments the striped motif was interpreted as patent inserts on leather dresses and macs.

There was also a second muse, British textile and fashion designer Celia Birtwell, wife of the late Ossie Clark, and muse to painter David Hockney. Birtwell collaborated with Chiuri and Piccioli on Valentino's Pre-Fall 2015 collection and designed for this collection a print of delicate flowers, the butterflies rendered in metallic thread and a dragon motif on a sweater and on a black trapeze dress.

The two muses - icons of sensuality and independence and symbols of multifaceted women - gave a dichotomic rhythm to this collection suspended between reality and dream that featured not just black and white patterned dresses or skirts matched with thick sweaters, but also lacy dresses in burgundy, pink and yellow, tailored coats, leather capes, and pieces that pointed towards Haute Couture, such as densely embroidered floor-sweeping tunics with animal motifs or with gold and silver thread work in Viennese patterns, patchwork furs and a multicoloured satin coat slightly reminiscent of Schiaparelli's 1939 Harlequin coat.

One problem with the Flöge-inspired designs, though, was that they seemed to be reassembled versions of her own dresses, recreated with a modern and dynamic woman in mind. Besides, Chiuri and Piccioli have found an elegant and stylish monastic silhouette in their loose and flowing yet austere and bold high waist Medieval tunics that they originally borrowed from Maria Callas' costumes in Pasolini's Medea, and they are so comfortable with it that they don't seem to be able to let it go yet, and this may add a bit of predictability to their otherwise pretty and refined collections.

For this time, though, the predictability factor was eliminated by a peculiar distraction: at the very end of the show actors Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson - the former clad in a dark blue suit embroidered with butterflies, the latter in a silk pyjama with vintage prints of romantic Spanish couples dancing - who walked the runway as Derek and Hansel out of Zoolander while the Human League's "Don't You Want Me" played in the background.

The actors are currently shooting Zoolander 2 in Rome, where the house of Valentino was originally founded, and the walk was an official announcement of the film sequel, due in 2016.

This wasn't one of those gatecrashing moments à la Sacha Baron Cohen as Bruno (see his appearance in 2008 on Agatha Ruiz de la Prada's runway), but everything was perfectly staged. David Bowie may have not been there to judge their walking style and pose, but Anna Wintour was filmed talking to them in the backstage, Vogue US got the exclusive and guests - as you may expect - went wild quickly raising their phones in the air to capture the moment on camera.

You would have smiled and approved Chiuri and Piccioli for allowing the disruption to take place in their show and laugh at themselves, if it hadn't all been meticulously prepared, the final proof that the fashion industry basks in the glory of a film that takes the piss out of it, rather than being annoyed at it.

So, who knows, maybe the next Zoolander will include bits and pieces of this show and a cameo role for Anna Wintour. One thing is for certain: the fashion industry fights new commercial battles in the social media ground and stylish technology inspires and rules the life of many designers, so we may be able to see Derek and Hansel finally relating to computers and emails in a less primitive way than they did in the first film.

These stunts in the meantime should make us think: in the '20s Patou rearranged his shows and made sure that the press sat among celebrities as a form of flattery and as a way to encourage positive reviews. Today this doesn't seem to be enough (there were maybe enough memorable clothes on this runway, but time will tell if we will remember them or this unique final performance...), but designers are in desperate need of a catwalk stunt to encourage positive vibes (and Derek giving us the "Magnum" and the "Blue Steel" seemed to be a perfect one...) in an industry that is slowly yet relentlessly losing touch with reality to wade into the impossibility of a dream.