Let's continue the cinematic thread that started yesterday with a brief post on British comedy drama Two for the Road (1967).
Directed by Stanley Donen and written by Frederic Raphael (who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Writing for this movie), the film (with a soundtrack by Henry Mancini, more famous for penning "Moon River" for Breakfast at Tiffany's) follows the relationship between successful architect Mark Wallace (Albert Finney) and his wife Joanna (Audrey Hepburn), from its early days, through marriage, infidelity, quarrels and projects for wealthy and generous yet demanding client Maurice.
The most interesting thing about this film is the way the plot unravels on cars, rather than in a proper house. Home is indeed never portrayed, but the main characters are always shown on the move, travelling in cars, ferries and planes, hitch-hiking, running, walking and swimming. The car in this film replaces the house, providing mobility and a set where the couple can keep on arguing while showing their financial progress and geographic change of scene.
The other peculiar aspect of this film is the non-linear narration: through clever editing we see the couple going backward and forward in time, something that allows the director to juxtapose different frames to comic effect while introducing the viewers to new cars and fashion trends.
Several cars feature in the film (a Mercedes-Benz 230SL roadster, an MG TD, a Triumph Herald, a VW Microbus, and a Ford Country Squire among the others), but also several designer clothes.
While Finney wears Hardy Amies, Hepburn's wardrobe includes several different designers – Ken Scott, Paco Rabanne, Michèle Rosier, Mary Quant and Foale and Tuffin (and a Louis Vuitton bag appears at the very beginning of the film). The hairstyles in the film also evolve and change with the clothes: they were designed by Italian hairdresser Grazia De Rossi who created quite a few styles for Hepburn throughout her career and even followed the actress in 1957 to New York when she starred in the TV version of "Mayerling".
Cars, dynamism and fashion are tackled also in a display dedicated to Two for the Road at the Zaha Hadid-designed Riverside Museum in Glasgow.
The display includes Op Art painting "Arrest III" (1965) by Bridget Riley, and a red Morris Mini-Minor from 1959 (though the film was shot in 1967 and features a Convertible/Cabrio model) that reminds visitors how Austin marketed its Mini as "Wizardry in Wheels" since it could comfortably fit a family of four.
The Riverside Museum display also features a compact portable red radio from the early '60s and the 1966 chain mail dress by Paco Rabanne that Hepburn wears towards the end of the film.
Fashion-wise Rabanne's mini-dresses broke with convention and signalled the arrival of something radically new on the scene; in the same way Hepburn wears this design in the film when the Wallaces end their long-term relationship with Maurice, find a new client in Rome and analyse the tensions and faults in their marriage. Later on, once again in their car and wearing different yet equally modern looks, they cross the border from France to Italy, moving into a more mature future.
Rabanne's rhodoid plastic and metal evening dress assumes therefore in the film a new symbolism, hinting at dynamism, change and a future not only for fashion but for the troubled couple as well.
Different themes appeared on the Spring/Summer 2016 menswear runways in Milan and Paris so far, but, apart from Dries Van Noten's suits with prints of Marilyn Monroe, films and glamorous stars didn't seem to be a strong inspiration.
So, if you feel cinema has been missing from your life in the last few weeks, there is an appointment that will allow you to catch up with your passion for films in a graphically stylish way.
Over 1,400 items from the historic collection of Morris Everett Jr will indeed be auctioned today and tomorrow during an event organised in conjunction with Profiles in History, the world's largest auctioneer of original Hollywood memorabilia.
A deliberate and methodical collector of historical vintage movie posters, lobby cards, photos and other original publicity materials, Everett went to enormous lengths to hunt down some of the exceptional movie memorabilia and promotional pieces included in this auction.
Among them there are some very rare and one-of-a-kind items and every genre and area of interest in the world of movie posters and lobby cards is covered: silent films open the auction (Lot 1 consists in a Cabiria poster from 1914, one of the only known original release American pieces for this milestone film) that continues with stars and divas including Louise Brooks, Clara Bow, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and Laurel & Hardy.
There is a wide and superb selection of memorabilia from the Golden Age of Horror and Sci-Fi (Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff reign supreme in this series), plus Comedy, Crime, Noir and Animation, just to mention a few genres.
There are also entire parts of the auction dedicated to (among the others...) Buster Keaton, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn. Legendary directors, handsome actors, femmes fatales, cowboys, aliens and monsters, and banned films - you mention them and you will find them in this unique collection that offers plenty of items to browse through and even more to buy.
One of the main highlights remains the 1927 Metropolis lobby card (Lot 24). Estimated to reach between $20,000 and $30,000, the card is beautifully designed and features fantastic Paramount shades. The item is also believed to be the only existing example of this card. Another rarity will be the 1931 Frankenstein lobby card (Lot 416; Estimated Price: $10,000 - $15,000) featuring Boris Karloff.
Architecture fans will rejoice instead at seeing the lobby cards for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with its expressionist sets, and the aerial views of New York in the King Kong Empire State Building lobby card.
Fashionistas will find it hard to resist the lobby cards for Fashions of 1934, starring Bette Davis, or for a colourful classic such as The Wizard of Oz. But if you're after a healthy dose of kitsch, opt for the selection of cards from the 1966 Batman TV series, that includes the main heroes and the villains as well.
Some of the posters, lobby cards and programmes are extremely interesting for the actors and actresses involved, but most of them feature intriguing designs, colours, costumes, composition or typography (the 1935 lobby card for Girl from 10th Avenue with Bette Davis will have many fashion illustrators swooning...). Bids open today and it is also possible to bid online from the Invaluable website. Invaluable hosts a variety of film and collectible auctions, so keep your eyes on their collectibles page for future memorabilia. Happy Cinematic BidDays!
Exactly a week ago Pope Francis paused in prayer and contemplation before the Shroud of Turin, the burial linen that some believe covered the body of Jesus after crucifixion. Visions of the Shroud easily come to mind when seeing the images of Givenchy's Spring/Summer 2016 collection, showcased during Paris Menswear Week.
Riccardo Tisci went back to his first and foremost obsession, religion, and turned once again to a technique that has so far worked in his favour on the marketing level - the collage.
But while for his S/S 2013 menswear collection for Givenchy Tisci sampled several images of the Virgin Mary and the Pietà from William Adolphe Bouguereau's paintings and remixed them together, this time he kept his collages fairly simple.
In some cases the designer over-imposed for example Diego Velázquez's painting "Christ Crucified" (View this photo) over an electric chair, then added a prisoner's identification number. In others, a portrait of Jesus with his crown of thorns was occasionally surrounded by barbed wire prints and replicated on T-shirts, sweatshirts, and men's skirts or appeared on light coats and overalls, assuming a diaphanous Shroud of Turin sort of look. Sometimes the same image was altered to show Christ with his eyelids closed in an unholy ecstasy.
Further elements such as priest-like cross pins and rosary bead-like necklaces accessorising the 11 Haute Couture looks included in this show also pointed towards religion.
The set, silhouettes and accessories revealed a bit better the main inspiration behind the collection: the cage on the runway, the scrub-like ensembles and the jailer's key necklaces referenced a precise theme - men locked up in jail (knitted kilts and pinstriped suits provided maybe a sort of alternative to a priest/prisoner's uniform...).
Prisoners do actually have a special place in the Christian imagination as Jesus himself was a prisoner and so were some of his followers such as Peter and Paul, while, as Jesus announces in "The Judgment of the Nations" discourse in Matthew's Gospel, visiting a prisoner is an act of mercy that wins the blessed the final reward - a place in Heaven ("I was in prison and you came to visit me").
Jesus is also an icon on many prison walls, Tisci argued, but so are the women on the posters often seen in prison cells. So, if Jesus appeared on the clothes, the poster girls turned into real women in pale pastel coloured lace slip gowns that exploded into sensual fringes of long silk tassels. The show culminated with Naomi Campbell in a sparkling jacket on a black bikini and thigh-highs.
Maybe, rather than delving into his Catholic roots, for this tale of bad boys and girls in which tailored looks like strong-shouldered suits and topcoats contrasted with prison stripes and American workwear (another inspiration for this show), Tisci read Martin Kemp's Christ to Coke volume that features Christ, the Cross and the American flag among the other universally recognisable global icons, and remixed them in his mind with a wider tradition of religious icons reinterpreted by pop culture (remember that portrait of Marc Almond by Harry Papadopolus?).
So religion may be once again a micro trend for the next season (the "santini" images of the Virgin Mary reappeared in Dolce & Gabbana's Spring/Summer 2016 menswear collection surrounded by elaborate Baroque frames on sack cloth tops - View this photo - or appliqued on jackets and denim trousers - View this photo), but this new Givenchy collection reeks of déjà vu, and is also terribly oxymoronic as only fashion can be: the Son of God who made himself poor for our sake, is indeed used not to make a comment about unjustly persecuted people, but to celebrate "bad boys" and sell luxury products. "I needed clothes and you clothed me", Jesus stated in "The Judgment of the Nations", but he wasn't certainly referring to designer clothes.
Fans of Junya Watanabe must have had quick visions of the designer's Spring/Summer 2009 womenswear collection upon seeing the Dutch wax fabric sacks on a wooden boat in the hall of Paris' Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration (History of Immigration Museum), the venue for Watanabe's S/S 2016 menswear collection. The womenswear designs Watanabe created in 2009 included indeed complex dresses in boldly coloured Ducth wax fabrics.
For his Spring/Summer 2016 collection, Watanabe returned once again to fabrics by Vlisco, the historical Dutch textile company established in 1846, that first imported batik textiles in Africa, starting a trend for intricate patterns in bold colours.
Patchworks of Dutch wax fabrics decorated linen blazers, shirts and ponchos; they were turned into squares, rectangles or circles and appliqued on Bermudas and denim trousers, or they were used as scarves on ensembles worthy of a flamboyant explorer.
At times it looked as if Watanabe was intrigued by the currently trendy colour-in books for grown-ups, but, rather than using pens and pencils, he decided to employ fabrics and colour-in bits and pieces of his designs by stitching onto them textiles in bright printed motifs.
Though the theme of the collection was a generic "Faraway", the bone, rope, and beaded necklaces, the fetish objects dangling from the neck of the models or the headdresses, spears and shields carried by some of them, clearly pointed towards Africa (the designer spotted the pieces in Paris-based stores that specialise in African artifacts).
The final effect was actually rather uncanny: the models in double-breasted navy plaid suits matched with beaded necklaces or donning panama hats, bow ties, and sockless shoes (mainly brogues) may have been young dandy artists travelling in Africa or maybe they were hipsters with Fitzcarraldo's deranged passion for opera and his colonialist vision in mind.
Watanabe committed indeed a terrible faux pas by choosing to cast only white models in the show, so that the final impression was that of seeing walking along the runway a dandified version of Kurtz (if that was ever possible...) out of Heart of Darkness.
If the designer was indeed trying to turn this fashion collection into a fetishist spectacle or a comment about immigration or maybe tackle the link between initiation and fertilisation rituals, or if he was trying to reference T.S Eliot's Hollow Men, it simply didn't work and the message got lost.
This is actually a shame as Watanabe's clever exercises in textiles could have helped introducing "Afropolitan" or "Afro-urban" themes into the fashion discussion, while in this way, the collection risked of getting trapped and filed under the "cultural appropriation" label.
In February this year the London-based William Morris Gallery collaborated with Yinka Shonibare MBE. The British Nigerian artist interested in tackling themes such as colonialism, post-colonialism, imperialism, the impact of immigration on British culture, and the global textile trade through his work, recreated three photographs from the Morris family album. Some of the sitters donned for the occasion Victorian costumes, refashioned from Vlisco's Dutch wax fabrics created especially for the project.
The work, on display until early June, encouraged visitors to reflect on Morris's political views by connecting his socialist ideals with the history of the British Empire.
Like Shonibare's work, this collection could have been a celebration of textiles and diversity in a modern perspective or it could have been used to comment upon the current immigration issues and laws in European countries, while considering the notions of territory, place, cultural identity, displacement and refuge.
The way it was presented brought instead to mind and on the runway ideas of white supremacy and colonialism, trade and race, cultural appropriation and globalisation, and that was a shame as the venue where the show took place launched quite a few exhibitions about the role played by immigrants in the economical development, social evolution, and cultural activities of France, while looking at sensitive issues such as xenophobia and hostility.
This was therefore one of those occasions in which the casting damaged the mood and meaning of the collection and this was rather disappointing also considering that Watanabe is part of a current exhibition entitled "Fashion Mix - Mode d’Ici, Créateurs d’Ailleurs" (Fashion Mix - Fashion from Here, Designers from elsewhere) at the Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration, that features non-French designers who worked in France or showcased in Paris, enriching the local traditions or radically revolutionising them in a creative melting pot.
Image credits for this post
Image 8 in this post: Yinka Shonibare MBE, "The William Morris Family Album", 2015; Copyright the artist, Courtesy the artist, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, Commissioned by William Morris Gallery.
In yesterday's post we looked at the perils and traps a fashion designer moving from traditional inspirations and costumes may fall into. Yet there are a few modern designers who are pushing the boundaries a bit with special projects that revolve around tradition, history and fashion. Among them there's Antoine Peters who recently developed a unisex design he humorously called "yak", that he based on a traditional 19th century Dutch garment.
The ingeniously folded and tightly cut female "jak" - part of the regional dress of Zeeland, a province of the Netherlands located in the south-western region - could be defined as a fitted blouse-cum-jacket. The most distinctive thing about the jak is the fact that it is made of a single uncut piece of fabric folded and stitched entirely, leaving no textile to waste.
Peters first examined an original garment closely; he then deconstructed it and studied its history, visiting also Mrs. Vos, a 91-year-old craftswoman and master in starching and pleating Dutch caps and garments. Being made of just one piece of uncut fabric, the original jacket can actually be taken apart again and again, a feature that doesn't make it extremely comfortable. Mrs. Vos was indeed slightly puzzled about the project stating in a press release "I would not know why you would still like to make or wear a jak…"
Yet the ever positive Peters was keen on reinventing it not only for the historical and traditional meanings behind this garment, but for sustainability reasons. As he explained in a press release: "We become aware of the (negative) effects of consumerism more and more, and combat them by means of sustainability and transparency. The world has become smaller and the stories behind our utensils are more important. The yak overflows with these stories."
Fascinated by the folding method - a technique that has not changed in 200 years and that he found outstanding - Peters decided to make the invisible folding structure visible and to transfer it on a jumper. He therefore analysed and magnified the folding lines, exaggerating them and making the seams - which are usually hidden inside the jak - aesthetically present.
The final result was the unisex "yaksweater" for which Peters created a "jaktrui", a specially developed reversible jacquard. Since every centimetre is used, the yaksweater guarantees no waste and, as the seam allowances are not cut away, the garment is stitched together extra firmly.
The design is also available in its most basic unfinished form, for all those fashionistas interested in coming up with their own craft project or experimenting a bit with knitwear. Wearers will have to follow the graphic lines indicating where they have to fold the sweater to put it together by themselves and learn in this way the craft of yak folding.
Peters conceived the sweater as a time capsule, with the wearers physically carrying on themselves a piece of history. "You may call this project transnational, since a traditional piece was the starting point, but I used it to create something that has no borders at all", the Dutch designer told Irenebrination via email. "It’s indeed interesting to see how the project was picked up by very local media and by national and international fashion and art outlets as well. The coolest thing that happened, though, was seeing not just young hipsters, but also a local woman in her sixties buying the sweater! It was fantastic seeing that happening in front of my eyes!"
The sweater was unveiled in mid-June at the Zeeuws Museum with an installation that combined the garment and the knitted fabric in a continuous form. The zigzagging lines formed by the installation (see first image in this post) hint at themes such as history, traditions, contemporary fashion and aesthetic significance.
The installation is part of "Handwerk" (on display until May 29th 2016), an initiative launched by the Zeeuws Museum that called designers and textile academies and asked them to explore traditional crafts and techniques with specialist artisans and craftspeople (Mrs. Vos for example introduced Peters and the students of the Master Tailoring Course to the techniques behind starching and pleating caps and garments).
The museum will also be opening a special Handwerkplaats, where visitors can try out the various crafts and techniques themselves. Dutch speakers can instead discover more about the adventurous design process Antoine Peters went through to create his "yak" in the following documentary.
"Fashion comes and goes and every now and again you get these inspirations from countries all over the world appearing in contemporary collections," London-based textile expert Barbie Campbell Cole told me last year during an interview I was conducting for a fashion magazine.
Trained as an architect, Campbell Cole developed an interest in textiles and jewellery from far away countries in her twenties when she visited Guatemala.
After completing her studies, she started working for the BBC, travelling to China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Ethiopia shooting documentaries, and eventually turning into a dealer in antique textiles and jewellery from Africa and Asia.
"I do think a lot of clothes designers are genuinely interested in these pieces," she explained to me in that occasion. "At antique fairs we get a lot of different visitors, including costume and fashion designers. I sold some fabrics to costume designers for various films such as Harry Potter, for example, but fashion designers sometimes buy antique clothes in order to gain inspiration or to take an item of clothing apart and copy the pattern. Some even buy particularly unusual designs and keep them in store for future inspiration."
This happened a few years ago when Donna Karan bought some extraordinary trousers from Campbell Cole.
"From what I understood she buys things that have an interesting cut or a fascinating approach for inspiration and not to copy them directly. But things differ from designer to designer: I once had the most beautiful riding coat from Turkey, and a fashion designer bought it, completely took it apart and copied the pattern. She ended up selling a lot of them to Japan and then she very kindly gave me the coat back and said that, if I was able to sew it up again, I could keep it!"
The history of fashion is full of traditional references absorbed and transformed into modern garments: throughout his career Jean Paul Gaultier created his own cultural geography, incorporating Russian, Hebrew and Eastern alphabets and orthography into his clothing, and coming up with a very personal iconography.
In Gaultier's universe terms such as space, place and landscape do not have any boundaries: in his advertising campaign for the Spring/Summer 1998 collection, for instance, national identity was erased in favour of a transnational hybridisation that mixed Frida Kalho and Che Guevara with religious images appropriated or borrowed from Roman Catholicism.
For the Spring/Summer 2014 season Givenchy and Alexander McQueen offered to the fashion adventurer fancy trips to Africa, though the former did so with some hints at Japanese culture and the latter combined together Zulu straw skirts and Masai jewellery. But is it possible to pay a tribute to a culture without appropriating or violating it?
After all, the history of fashion is rife with controversial stories about co-option and appropriation of traditional motifs, symbols, and patterns.
Fashion fans may remember relatively recent incidents such as Dior's 2009 shoes with a heel shaped like an African Fertility Goddess, and 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.
Then there was Chanel apologising for the Metiers d'Art 2013-2014 collection that featured symbols of Native American dress, feathered headdresses, and bead work, though it is worth remembering that, before this incident, Victoria's Secret had to remove from the broadcasting of its 17th Annual Fashion Show footage of model Karlie Kloss in a Native American-inspired feathered headdress, fringed bikini, and turquoise jewellery.
At times the cases go on for years: the Navajo Nation filed in 2012 a lawsuit in New Mexico against Urban Outfitters for products (including the "Navajo Hipster Panty" and "Navajo Hip Flask"), alleging trademark infringement and dilution, unfair competition, false advertising, violation of commercial practices law, and violation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Act, and the case was put on hold in March this year.
Other examples show instead swifter solutions to alleged plagiarism cases: last year people on social media highlighted how the design of Paul Smith's "Robert" sandal, was lifted from the chappal shoes made and sold in the markets of Peshawar. After many tweets and an online petition, the Paul Smith website removed the name of the product and highlighted in its description that it was "inspired by the Peshawari chappal".
The latest case regarding borrowing from traditions and cultures involves Isabel Marant: the designer included in her Spring/Summer 2015 Étoile collection a blouse that seems entirely lifted from the 600-year-old traditional dress of the indigenous Mixe community living in the village of Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec, Oaxaca, southern Mexico.
Oaxacan singer Susana Harp actually brought the issue to attention in January by tweeting a picture of the blouse and the Oaxacan people recently organised a press conference to explain their views and asked to remove the blouse from the collection and pay damages as well.
In the meantime, Marant is apparently fighting another court case against label Antik Batik currently stating they own the copyright on the blouse (Antik Batik in this case sounds like those rather clueless people who send claims to YouTube to say they have the right of this or that oscure silent film...).
To defend herself against this accusation before the district court of Paris, Isabel Marant actually pointed out that the blouse design comes from Santa Maria Tlahuitoltepec and that she is therefore not the author of the garment.
But what about all the other pieces that Marant has included so far in her collections, including a mini-dress "inspired" by Mexican embroideries from the S/S 2009 collection (View this photo) or the knitwear and cardigans with motifs borrowed from the Peruvian tradition?
Further links with traditional embroideries from South America or displaying some connections with Native American designs can actually be spotted in Valentino's Spring/Summer 2016 menswear collection.
Showcased yesterday in Paris, the collection features coats and tops covered in intricately colourful embroideries or with delicate decorative motifs around the sleeves and the back of the garments.
Most times modern designs borrowed from specific traditions do not display any kind of innovation and they are not there to challenge a culture's classification system.
During the Boston Tea Party, white colonists dressed in the apparel of Native American Indians and raided the cargo on British-owned sea vessels docked in Boston Harbour. Donning the Native American dress allowed the colonists to establish a new identity, challenging England and an entire categorisation system, it was therefore an act that allowed them to leave behind a status and become something - or rather someone - else. This is not the case with modern fashion.
Besides, many cultures value their traditional textiles, garments, embroideries techniques and adornments as symbols of their identities and quite often these decorative motifs also have special meanings. Fashion kills the symbolism behind these items in the name of profit with copied garments and accessories stripped of their essential meanings and sold at extremely high prices on the luxury market (Paul Smith's "Robert" sandals retailed at £300).
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 nothing new, there are different ways of doing it.
A good way to solve the cultural appropriation problem would be for designers to actually develop projects with traditional craftspeople or visit the communities where specific designs are made and learn more about their heritage.
As seen in a previous post, London-based brand Superfertile developed a while back a collection of beaded accessories with an indigenous minority, the Huichol or Wixárika people, a native American ethnic group living in Wirikuta. The highly symbolic motifs covering the accessories were a way to bring awareness about the pressures the natives have been going through at the hands of mining companies.
Designers not interested in honest and aptly-rewarded collaborations (as much as these two adjectives may sound utopian in the fashion industry...) may have to be careful in future if they want to avoid having to face well-prepared fashion lawyers.
Starting from this Autumn the New York-based Fordham University of Law will indeed be offering the world's first degrees in fashion law - a Master of Law in Fashion (L.L.M.; for lawyers), and a Master of Studies in Law (M.S.L.; for nonlawyers). The courses are approved by the American Bar Association and cover issues such as fashion financing and licensing and fashion modelling law.
Supported by program backer and part-financier Diane von Furstenberg, a long-time campaigner for copyright protection in the States, the course has been launched by Professor Susan Scafidi - who established in 2010 the school's Fashion Law Institute.
In the meantime, as you wait for the courses to start, you may want to get more informed about textiles, their histories and meanings and, if you want to do so, don't miss next week the Hellens Manor Textile Bazaar (Hellens Manor, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, UK; 1st and 2nd July 2015). The event features world textiles, craft demonstrations and textile expert John Gillow who will be lecturing on Textiles of the Islamic World (Wednesday 1st July, 6.00 p.m.; £4 per person). You can bet that, apart from avoiding legal issues, getting more knowledgeable will also offer better chances to introduce innovation via tradition.
Architect Carlo Scarpa started working in 1969 on a monumental tomb for the Brion family at San Vito di Altivole (near Asolo). The tomb, completed in 1978, is considered as his masterpiece: concrete, glass, steel, mosaics, water, grass and cypresses were employed to create a sense of conceptual richness and rigour.
Rough, unfinished concrete was carved, moulded, framed and cut away to design contrasting yet complementing forms with verdant gardens, the same effect that you may see also in Scarpa's sculpture garden inside the Central Pavilion of the Giardini in Venice.
Scarpa favoured very simple yet powerful shapes and geometrical articulations that were characterised by a lack of complexity, but represented the culmination of a harmonious marriage of forms and materials that, brought together, engaged in a dialogue.
Carlo Scarpa and this conversation between different materials and concepts were the main inspirations behind Brendan Mullane's Spring/Summer 2016 menswear collection for Brioni.
The Creative Director included technical fabrics such as parachute-nylon (seen also on the Jil Sander and Z Zegna runways during men’s fashion week in Milan) and more conventional textiles in the collection, colliding the urban and utilitarian with the tailored.
Silhouettes were precisely cut with suit, leather and safari jackets belted at the waist and matched with trousers or knee-length shorts. The palette mainly focused on greys and blues and variation was added to these minimally sophisticated moods via suede patch pockets or hand-painted/hand-screened opaque gold, teal, green, blue or occasional red stripes or brush strokes that formed the trademark grids of De Stijl's art and architecture.
These motifs were maybe hints at the fact that Scarpa's abstract composition language was inspired by different movements including De Stijl, but they also called to mind his layered compositions such as his intervention in the Castelvecchio di Verona museum with the glass layers added to the window openings (echoing Piet Mondrian's paintings).
Parachute Japanese nylon parkas were another reference to Scarpa's love of Eastern culture (the Brion tomb looks more like an oriental temple than a traditional chapel...), while fine-knit T-shirts with printed lines or decorated with three-dimensional motifs could maybe be considered as references to blueprints.
Scarpa is usually remembered and admired for his ability to integrate his design process into the flux of tradition and history, but also for his capacity to allow different elements to co-exist in a non-hierarchical layering of planes.
It therefore becomes easy to understand why Scarpa and his smooth and fine works are still relevant nowadays not just to many contemporary artists and architects, but to fashion designers as well who may be looking for strategies to combine history, memory (think about Brioni's heritage in this case...) and modern moods and find new ways to let them co-exist in one design.
The Slow Food movement was founded in Italy almost thirty years ago, in 1986. Thomas Tait's presentation staged a week ago at the Limonaia di Zanobi del Rosso at the Boboli Gardens in Florence may have been about fashion rather than food, but it moved from the same principles that prompted Italian activists to promote a slow pace of life.
The event revolved indeed around the idea of slow fashion: rather than presenting an entirely new collection, Tait took his chance of being Pitti guest designer for women's wear to come up with a small exhibition in which seven Italian manufacturers reinterpreted seven designs he created for his previous collections.
Among the pieces there were coats, clutch bags and earrings, all of them re-imagined employing different materials or techniques. A navy cashmere coat with silk-twill lining from the Autumn/Winter 2011 collection was transformed into a fully reversible piece in a black and navy virgin wool knit (manufactured by knitwear company G.P. SAS); his yellow and clear filament yarn jumper from the Spring/Summer 2015 collection was turned into a white cashmere and celluloide knit jumper (again manufactured by G.P. SAS) and the nude lycra boots from the S/S 13 collection found a new luxury life as purple stretch thigh high boots with sculpted heels (Mario Di Castri in collaboration with Tacchificio Del Brenta).
In most cases the pieces displayed a new desirability and a new level of luxury (think about the resin mould LED earrings that were turned by the Forlioro group into elegant silver plated crescent LED earrings) or the white leather biker jacket from the S/S 12 collection recreated as a double-faced bonded patent leather lined in plongé.
Infusing the spaces with a custom-made fragrance by Lyn Harris, the winner of the first LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize invited visitors to touch the items and think about all the challenges young designers go through. Financial constraints aren't indeed the only problem: the fashion rhythms are proving to be relentlessly unstoppable to the point that you may have a greatly innovative idea about a fabric, but you will never manage to develop it and eventually patent for shortage of time.
Indeed, many young designers, as highlighted in many previous posts on Irenebrination, do not have the time to explore the possibilities that certain manufacturers may offer them or develop solid relationships with them, something that results in a very limited knowledge of materials and techniques and in disastrous sales.
The Pitti performance gave Tait the chance to step out of a cycle that is proving stressful for him and create better products with a timeless frame around them rather than a collection with a precise expiry date and with disappointing financial results (his one and only pre-collection wasn't successful).
Though the pieces won't be produced for sale, Tait learnt new lessons form their creation, but you hope he is not the only one to have done so. Hopefully the fashion media - from fashion critics to bloggers (and the Pitti organisers as well...) - relentlessly looking for the next big thing, calling a young designer a genius after one collection, only to abandon them the next season in search of something more visually striking to post on their Instagram accounts, will have learnt something.
After all, they were given further space to think and ponder in the eighth section of the presentation, a space dedicated to a video in which Tait was engaged in conversations with critic Cathy Horyn, stylist Beth Fenton and architect Mehrnoosh Khadivi (Irenebrination readers will definitely remember him from previous posts about his designs for Nicholas Kirkwood's stores, or installations for Pollini). Khadivi came up with the mirror set for this installation, a sort of infinity space that could be interpreted as a critique of the infinity process going on behind the fashion scene and a chance for reflection.
When did you and Thomas Tait meet? Mehrnoosh Khadivi: We met through a mutual friend when Thomas was studying with her for his Masters at Central Saint Martins and, almost instantly, we became firm friends.
How did it work about the spaces regarding this event, did you have to go to Florence prior to the Pitti and check out the location before working on the installation? Mehrnoosh Khadivi: Yes, the location for the project was key and we chose the venue very specifically after seeing several locations in Florence. The space is the Limonaia building, a beautiful winter garden for the lemon trees in the Boboli Gardens. The Limonaia is a vastly long building with an impressive frontage which one gently approaches through the gardens. The context, contrast and the unusual proportions of the space were key elements in us choosing it as our the location for this project. The 100m length of the building allowed for a journey through the installation to be spread out and for a very subtle narrative to evolve. Whilst the eight separate all mirror installation modules managed to comfortably occupy the huge interior, there was still lots of space between the individual spaces allowing viewers to reflect and ponder on the products on display and the project as a whole.
Were the mirrors a way to invite the visitors to ponder about their role in the fashion industry or a way for the fashion industry to stop and ponder about itself? Mehrnoosh Khadivi: The modules contained pieces from previous collections which were reworked over a longer period of time with access to better manufacturing through Pitti. This is obviously a luxury as designers are often unable to create and develop unique pieces with the current pace of the fashion industry. The two pieces on show in each module were in a sort of dialogue with one another; with the new works Thomas was finally able to fully realise the ambition he had in mind for certain pieces. The mirror clad modules housing both versions of the collection pieces both reflected the location of the Limonaia and, within their interiors, created infinity reflections of both the objects on display and the viewers within them. We wanted people to have fun, contemplate and connect, touch and get a feel of the products. It obviously takes time to conceive a design, source manufacturers who can develop the ideas and bring a vision to life, while fashion's unrelenting pace pushes back creativity. Of course it could have been a showcase for a new pre-collection, but, to his credit, in Thomas' case the Pitti project was just a very exciting opportunity to have the time to review those pieces and rework them, because he is a meticulously passionate creative who strives for excellence.
How would you consider the event, as a presentation or a fashion installation with an architectural side to it? Mehrnoosh Khadivi: It was really more of a fashion installation via an architectural intervention although of course it was a presentation to invited guests within a set period of time. We did not do a show or present with models, but decided to put the products out on display, set a context for them and then let the viewers individually engage with the pieces on a more personal level.
You were also involved in the video interview - which were the themes you tackled in it and would you say that this is a step towards a further interaction between architecture and fashion? Mehrnoosh Khadivi: The themes we predominantly spoke about in the interview were really about how I came into fashion with my architectural background and the challenges to the design process and development in creativity which can sometimes be compromised by the pace of the fashion industry. Thomas and I have a common ground in this respect as he trained at a technical school before studying for his masters at CSM, therefore he actually knows how garments are really constructed and the time, care and attention required to create beautiful pieces. Architectural time and fashion time are often running at very different paces and it is always going to be a challenge for this type of interaction (outside of the retail context), but we did aim for that with this project.
All images in this post Courtesy Pitti Immagine; photographs by Vanni Bassetti.
Quite often while analysing a Prada collection, you find yourself hit by a fresh sense of déjà vu and you instantly start wondering where you saw those shades or clothes: was it in a fashion history book, at a rare vintage boutique, in a contemporary art gallery or maybe on the screen of an arthouse cinema?
These are actually all plausible places for Miuccia Prada's inspirations, though cinema is definitely one of the strongest, with Michelangelo Antonioni remaining one of her favourite directors.
In Prada's Spring/Summer 2016 menswear collection and Resort 2016 collection showcased yesterday afternoon during Milan Menswear Week there were actually no tangible references to films, but there seemed to be a sort of subtle link with Antonioni's first colour film, Deserto rosso (Red Desert, 1964).
The connection wasn't with the main character, Giuliana (Monica Vitti), a young mother recovering from a nervous breakdown, but with the film neurotic palette that Antonioni appropriated from modern paintings (that "painted anxiety" he would visualise in Mark Rothko's works...) and with wider themes such as isolation, alienation and characters immersed in an almost alien post-industrial background, a no man's land made in the case of Prada's runway of curved and soft or sharp and straight slabs of clear plastic (that many guests tweeted about before the event started).
Miuccia Prada claimed her main point with this collection was giving a more human dimension to fashion in our current society in which it pays to be aggressively bold.
Leaving being the post-modernist moniker, Miuccia stated she was therefore going for the "post-modest, post-industrialist and post-Pop" (well, if with post-Pop she intends Pop as seen on the Moschino runway, that can only be welcomed...).
For menswear she therefore focused on tailoring, with unlined light coats or sporty jackets matched with leg-baring leather shorts with contrast stitching and partially tucked in shirts.
Breton stripes then introduced another theme in the collection: childish knits with rather superficial infographic-like symbols (or logos?) of rabbits, rockets and race cars ("Castello Cavalcanti" anybody?).
As insecure as the anti-heroes in a Wes Anderson film, they recounted a story of a prolonged infantile boyhood in rather boring shades of navy, grey, red, safety orange and mustard.
The narrative changed with womenswear, though: the same motifs reappeared here and there, but, they were integrated in pleated skirts with glossy snakeskin inserts, reinvented on tabard-like dresses in rigid plasticky panels that echoed the '60s and Courreges, or pointed at carefree icons à la Edie Sedgwick. These garments were also alternated on the runway with skirts covered in oversized grommets (the latter are another trend for next year, see also Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 2016 menswear collection) and sequinned coats that added an aura of extravagance and perversion to the collection.
Eyeballs on dresses and bags introduced a new theme, though eyeballs, a favourite Fornasetti symbol, have been fashionable now for quite a few seasons with many brands such as Kenzo that commercially exploited the motif in a successful way in its A/W 2013 collection (View this photo).
Definitely less subdued and modest than the men's looks, these styles relocated women on top, re-shifting the balance of the Autumn/Winter 2015-16 menswear and Pre-Fall 2015 collections during which Prada created a genderless uniform designed to erase differences.
Yet there are differences: net profits at Prada suffered a 28.2% slump in the 12 months to 31 January, something to do with a change in the buying habits of Asian consumers, with many luxury consumers shifting their allegiance towards less known and more understated brands. Since men's fashion is growing and expanding, the Prada company announced last year its will to focus more on menswear.
Ever contrary, Miuccia seems to be doing so by putting women on top, and foregrounding female subjectivity, like in Antonioni's films where a woman often took centre stage. The Resort collection didn't add any innovative elements to Prada's own semantics, but certainly offered to fans a range of accessories to lust after, from large round sequinned earrings to perforated bags and clutches covered in eye prints, from flat dynamic shoes to sandals with a chain anchored to the toe. Compared to it, the menswear collection ended up looking infinitely more vapid, less desirable and void of originality. But is that maybe its strength?
It is said that upon visiting the New York studio of the painter Rothko, Antonioni stated: "Your paintings are like my films - they’re about nothing… with precision". You get the feeling that, if he were still alive, Antonioni would say the same thing about Prada's collections: you can torture yourself and try to see a lot of things in them, but quite often they are about "nothing...with precision".
Around 250,000 people attended yesterday's anti-austerity march in London to oppose the Tory government’s program of social benefit cuts and privatisation. There was actually a time in history when the word "austerity" also referred to clothes: in the early 1940s the Utility Clothing Scheme introduced in the United Kingdom measures to restrict the number of elements such as buttons and features like pockets and pleats in response to the shortage of clothing materials and labour due to the requirements of the war effort.
The Board of Trade set the rules for "utility clothing" in the "Making-up of Civilian Clothing (Restrictions) Orders", also known as the "austerity regulations", indicating the specifications regarding materials and labour.
Single-breasted suits prevailed, while other features introduced smaller lapels, a limited number of pockets, no turn-ups on trousers, and shorter men's shirts. Though made by following the austere specifications, utility clothing designs were actually commissioned from leading fashion designers including Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell.
Utility and austerity seemed to be the key words on the Jil Sander's runway. Designer Rodolfo Paglialunga's second collection included indeed geometrically cut garments, mid-calf length trousers and suits with knee-length shorts.
Paglialunga didn't follow any austere specifications when it came to patch-like pockets, though, and freely added them on shirts and jackets. He also experimented with materials that included liquid (and clinging...) parachute nylon, light leather, and a rigid coated canvas (we already saw waxed denim on Arthur Arbesser's runway, so this may be a trend come next year) that hinted at perversion.
The collection palette was rather subdued (but that could also be a trend for next year, as even Versace seemed to have opted for a calmer palette) and included pale grey, olive green, and black, and pockets and utility straps (running along the sleeves) where the only decorations allowed, though a variation was introduced via a floral print, on denim shirts and tops.
The result was maybe not too summery, but none of the collections seen so far seem to be focused on extremely high temperatures, after all, who knows what the climate changes may reserve us for next year, so a long, stiff and geometrical fisherman's anorak may come in handy (but, if you want, you can anticipate the trend maybe with a Muji Freecut Raincoat...).
