Eileen Agar's name is usually recorded in the history of the Surrealist movement and sometimes pops up in connection with fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli.
Born in Buenos Aires to a Scottish father and American mother, Agar moved with her family to London in 1911.
A member of the London Group from 1934 onwards, she was also the only British woman to have her work (three paintings and five objects) included in the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London.
She then appeared in further surrealist events in Amsterdam, New York, Paris and Tokyo and, from the '60s on, she produced Tachist paintings with Surrealist elements.
During the summer the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds celebrated one aspect of Agar's work, her natural ready-mades. The artist was indeed very much attracted by the shapes and forms found in nature and in her 1998 autobiography she stated: "Surrealism for me draws its inspiration from Nature...you see the shape of a tree, the way a pebble falls or is framed, and you are astounded to discover that dumb nature makes an effort to speak to you, to give you a sign, to warn you, to symbolise your innermost thoughts."
Agar apparently kept a fish tank in the 1930s and was intrigued by the aquariums at the zoos in London and Naples. The artist also became a meticulous beachcomber, visiting the shoreline to look for natural materials that she then incorporated into assemblages, collages and sculptures such as "Marine Object" (1939), a sculpture combining a Greek amphora that Agar purchased from a French fisherman (who found it caught up in his nets in Toulon), with a ram's horn, a starfish recovered from sea mud, and a marine skeleton.
Her "Untitled Box" from 1935 features instead a collage containing many different items, such as a coral, seahorse and netting against a backdrop of a watercolour.
Sea motifs such as shells and seahorse tails also appeared in the painting "The Autobiography of an Embryo" with its combination of sea-creatures and plant-like structures and in kitsch shell architectures photographed by Agar in 1939 that turn in her black and white images into classical works of art.
Fashion designer Holly Fulton must have seen these works when she focused on her S/S 16 collection. Fulton stated Agar was indeed her starting point (did she choose her also because Agar's father was Scottish as Fulton?) and, while there were no ceremonial hats for eating Bouillabaisse or other fancy headdresses made overlapping a pair of Schiaparelli gloves on Fulton's runway during London Fashion Week, the new collection borrowed here and there Agar's marine motifs, her shells, nets, classical sculptures and geometric forms.
Fulton integrated natural motifs such as three-dimensional starfish or floral motifs in silicone in her designs, at times decorated also with abstract versions of sinuous tails of seahorses.
Wave-like ruffles and frills broke the surface of hemlines, adding movement, volume and dynamism to narrow skirts; beaded and sequinned motifs appeared on collars, embroideries and Swarovski crystal embellishments were sprinkles on dresses and denim outfits, creating at times clashes of colours and textures reminiscent of "The Angel of Anarchy" sculpture.
Surface decoration was a prominent motif also on the densely embroidered and embellished denim dresses, trousers and jackets that were new additions to Fulton's wardrobe offer.
In some cases Agar's lightness of touch and passion for translucent textures as the ones seen in her "Ladybird" photograph (probably also used as the starting point for some of the frills and curved lines on the skirts and dresses) were reinterpreted as feminine and romantic looks, hints at Agar's belief in women being the true Surrealists.
As the artist indeed wrote: "the importance of the unconscious in all forms of Literature and Art establishes the dominance of a feminine type of imagination over the classical and more masculine order."
Though Agar was an interesting inspiration, maybe Fulton didn't explore too much in depth the possibilities the artist may have opened for her. Besides, while she should have maybe rebalanced the number of party dresses against more wearable pieces, Fulton may have gone down the Surrealist route for what regarded the accessories that totally lacked the power of Agar's assemblages and collages.
In many ways Fulton's collection seems to perfectly mirror the mood of this London Fashion Week. As usual there is a lot to see and discover, but, once you filter it all and read between the lines of raving reviews of supposedly young and talented designers (who clearly do not know how to cut a pattern), you get the impression that London is lacking coherent and desirable collections in favour of designs that will last only one season or of crazy temporary trends that will go down well with young generations of fashionistas only to be abandoned till the next big thing arrives on the scene.
Rewind the invisible tape of your memory to September 2011, London, the Burberry catwalk show venue. Play. What can you see? Yes, there was crocheting, weaving and beading, wooden beads creating tribal motifs on tops, trench coats and wedges while the hoods of parkas were trimmed with raffia. Now what can you hear in your mind that is really ruining your concentration? The music. In that particular show the supposedly emotional, authentic and emotive music that Burberry's chief executive and chief creative officer Christopher Bailey likes so much, was particularly vile, didn't go well with the clothes and proved distractedly annoying. That's why when it was announced a few days ago that the brand was starting a channel on Apple Music, the streaming music service, I wasn't probably the only one who felt nauseous.
Burberry's Apple Music channel (you will find it within Apple Music's new "Curators" section) will be officially celebrated tomorrow (21st September 2015) with exclusive videos from emerging British artists that will be filmed at the Burberry Womenswear show, scheduled during the current London Fashion Week.
The channel will also feature performances, songs and films by British artists who collaborated so far with Burberry. The brand has indeed been promoting emerging artists on its acoustic platform since 2010, commissioning over 100 performances that can also be watched on YouTube, so the Apple channel will be a way to extend this program. Subscribers to Apple Music will be able to follow Burberry, get musical updates and behind-the-scenes stories, comment and share the contents via messages, Facebook, Twitter and email.
The deal is the first collaboration between the two companies since Angela Ahrendts, former Burberry Chief Executive, was hired in 2013 by Apple to work there as senior vice president of retail and online stores, a job that included overseeing more than 420 high street stores in 15 countries and online sales via the Apple website (retailing in 39 countries).
The partnership is also a new feature for Apple Music, launched in June as a way to catch up with other already established streaming music services à la Spotify that is endangering Apple's power as the world's largest music retailer through its iTunes service.
This is not the first time Apple and Burberry work together, though: in 2013 Apple promoted the iPhone5 image capture capabilities by supplying the fashion house with the then-unreleased iPhone 5s hardware to document the S/S 14 show.
Luxury and fashion are therefore continuing their love story: at the beginning of September, LVMH appointed former Apple executive Ian Rogers as its new chief digital officer; Apple recently chose to work with Hermès making luxury wristbands for the Apple Watch (mind you, is that a collaboration or a Frankenstein monster made by cutting and pasting together two different products rather than coming up with a new one because too lazy to do so?). Burberry will also premiere its Spring/Summer 2016 collection on Snapchat today (the footage will disappear in 24 hours), and the app will be used to "curate" (among the most abused verbs of the decade this word willl push many professional curators to become murderous serial killers...) the "Burberry Live Story", a montage of crowd-sourced images and videos from fans, models and designers that will offer a vantage backstage access to the Monday runway show (it will also be possible to use the app to buy certain items as soon as a model appears wearing them on the runway).
Yet this particular "Apple + Burberry" chapter in the fashion and technology romance raises several questions: while it's plain and simple to see why Apple and Burberry would like to collaborate together (make money and reinforce their presence on the market, directing their initiatives to younger segments of the population, after all there are a few non-music brands who have their own presence on rival services such as Spotify...), the real scary point is that the music collaborations produced so far by Burberry reflect the fashion label's horrific tastes. So will Burberry channel feature emotional, cringing lyrics and annoying ukulele infused music by the sort of young and good looking performers - obviously clad not in their own clothes but in Burberry jackets and coats - with very limited music knowledge who would have been ripped to bits and pieces by a nasty music press in 1982? Probably.
Somehow you wish that Bailey would keep his personal music tastes and that of the Burberry music team (established within the company in 2013) in his house/office or limit them to the runway to torture celebrities, fashion critics/journalists/bloggers and his own PR officers, rather than inflicting them on a wider slice of the global population who has subscribed to Apple Music.
Because that's the core of the matter: Burberry is just pretending to care about new British acts, but the brand is essentially promoting them because they're young, they look good on video, they are cheaper than more famous musicians and they need the publicity. A good way to cover all this would have been to call in real music experts to "curate" the Burberry channel, like a professional radio DJ, since Bailey and Ahrendts are no music experts and while they worked hard to rehabilitate Burberry, a music channel may not be where their skills are at. And yet...
And yet this perfectly works with a major scheme called "de-skilling process". Started in the '90s via the mergers and acquisition strategies that allowed companies to mutate into huge conglomerates, this idea consisted in dehumanising or de-skilling production work. De-skilling essentially meant breaking up all the tasks required to make one thing in lots of little individual tasks that could be carried out by less skilled and trained and educated people, so that each person could do one step. You can make everything using this process, as long as you have a lot of people and you pay them less because they only learn how to do one thing in different steps. As the years turned into decades, this watchword was applied to all sorts of other fields, with huge business and business people trained to manage corporations but with no culture and no skills at managing human resources, taking over various disciplines and fields.
Based on an unhealthy passion for acoustic guitars and ukuleles, a lot of money and zero musical knowledge, the Burberry channel is the first example of the application of a de-skilled modus operandi to the music business.
Now, if this is the first branded channel to launch its music streaming service, how many will follow? Will Apple offer the same chance to other famous companies possibly spreading more shit music or will we see the rise of branded digital radios incorporating fashion marketing in our personal music libraries (it's almost too easy to imagine a Louis Vuitton or a Chanel radio station...)? Last but not least, will Apple Music convince its users to pay the $10-a-month price after its three-month free trial period (that started in June) and will Burberry channel win new supporters?
Time will tell, but this is the final confirmation that fashion is definitely not about selling garments and accessories, make up or fragrances, but it's about finance, the stock exchange, shareholders and disgusting amounts of money.
If you happen to be in London for the local fashion week and you want to take a deserved rest from the runway shows without losing the focus on fashion and design, pop in at the exhibition "Drawing On Style: Irwin 'Bud' Crosthwait".
Organised by leading specialists in Fashion Illustration and Modern Art Gray M.C.A, this is the first public exhibition in 45 years dedicated to this recently rediscovered fashion illustrator and modernist painter.
Born in Canada in 1914, Crosthwait studied at the Sir George William College in Montreal before attending the Pratt Institute of Fine Arts in New York. Here he became fascinated by the work of master fashion illustrator Carl 'Erik' Erickson who inspired him to attend the seasonal fashion collections.
Appointed principal advertising artist for the Canadian retail chain known today as 'Bay', he left his job to serve between 1944 and 1947 with the Royal Canadian Navy aboard HMCS Ontario and the Colossus Class Aircraft Carrier HMCS Warrior, documenting the drama of the war at sea and key moments, such as the liberation of France through works in pencil and ink on paper.
The best illustrations display more personal impressions of naval personnel and the landscape and context of battle at sea.
When he was discharged from the Navy, Crosthwait moved to Paris. Passionate about the female form and an admirer of Balenciaga and Givenchy and later on of Ungaro and Courrèges, Crosthwait became a fashion illustrator for many couture houses including Dior, Givenchy and Marc Vaughan, and received regular commissions from Harper's Bazaar, Queen, Elle, Femina, Vogue, L'Art et la Mode, Jardin de Mode, Figaro, The New York Times and The Herald Tribune.
His work, characterised by light and rapid lines of colour and infused with an abstract, modernistic feel, perfectly captured the essence of couture. Angela Landels, former Art Director at Harper's Bazaar and Fashion Illustrator, stated about Crosthwait: "Bud was a darling man to work with. Always good natured. He stood out in the fashion world, like an old mariner sitting in the front seats of the fashion shows - he never looked like a fashion artist, but everyone adored him. He was irresistible. What made him interesting was that his work was not accurate or precise; he captured a fleeting impression of an elegant woman in elegant clothes. His work was abstract modernism - impressionistic, rather than detailed."
Crosthwait’s muse and model for his fashion illustrations was Ursula Fey, who was featured in almost all of his fashion commissions for top magazines and designers such as Dior, Pucci, Givenchy and Yves St. Laurent in the 1960s.
The London exhibition includes selections from her collection of fashion illustrations and from the collection of Marc Vaughan.
A close friend of the artist, the fashion designer was indeed one of his main collectors: Vaughan's widow, Madame Audart held a collection of original Crosthwait fashion illustrations and a number of his most important large-scale abstract works (a selection of which has also been included in the exhibition).
As the years passed, Crosthwait focused more on painting, living between Paris and Menzonio, Switzerland.
Highly revered by his post war Tachism school abstract expressionist contemporaries including Victor Vasarely, his work was exhibited worldwide on a regular basis, alongside Serge Poliakoff, Hans Hartung, Robert Jacobsen and Nicholas de Stael.
One of the most interesting stories about this exhibition is how the works were rediscovered: exhibition curator Connie Gray was handed out a fashion sketch signed by Crosthwait.
She then started a research that took an unexpected turn when boxes left out for rubbish and containing sketches, photographs and letters, as well as original works by Crosthwait, were discovered by a Parisian couple living near the studio where the artist had worked.
A major research in private collections then led the curator to find 60 original works, among them several unseen ones that are now part of "Drawing On Style".
The selling exhibition (prices range between £350 and £10,000) presents therefore the most extensive collection about Crosthwait under one roof, offering collectors a wide choice of war art, fashion illustration and modern art.
Throughout the event it will be possible to discover Crosthwait' art, and learn more about his works as Gray M.C.A's Ashley & Connie Gray will be conducting free daily lunchtime talks (1.30pm). Apart from rediscovering a forgotten artist and fashion illustrator, the event is also an important addition to London Fashion Week.
"Drawing On Style: Irwin 'Bud' Crosthwait" until 22nd September 2015 (opening times: 9.30am to 6.30pm), Gallery 8, 8 Duke Street, St James's, London SW1.
Image credits for this post
All images in this post courtesy Gray M.C.A; drawings, sketches and paintings in this post by Irwin Crosthwait.
Irwin Crosthwait in his Paris Studio
Departure, 1945, Ink & Wash
HMCS Warrior, 1946, Ink & Watercolour
Rough Day, 1947, Ink & Wash
Pigalle, 1948, Ink
Dior, 1948, Pen & Ink
Gentleman with Trenchcoat, 1950s, Ink & Watercolour
Marc Vaughan II, 1966, Ink & Watercolour
Marc Vaughan III, 1966, Ink & Watercolour
Marc Vaughan V, 1966, Ink & Watercolour
Marc Vaughan Wedding Dress, 1966, Ink & Watercolour
Mondrian Dress by Yves St Laurent, 1965, Watercolour
As seen in previous posts, dance and choreography were some of the themes at New York Fashion Week; Marc Jacobs opted instead to leap from the stage to the silver screen and go cinematic.
Taking his show - the first since his brand merged with his diffusion line Marc by Marc Jacobs - from the Park Avenue Armory to the historic Ziegfeld Theater on West 54th Street was actually a perfect strategic move, a way to hint in style at the main themes of the Spring/Summer 2016 collection.
Featuring famous models including Adriana Lima, Joan Smalls, Irina Shayk, Alek Wek, Catherine McNeil, Guinevere van Seenus, and Karen Elson, but also celebrities such as singer Beth Ditto, the show didn't certainly look like your conventional runway, but was a sort of Hollywood extravaganza.
Models got out of the stage door and walked down a red carpet outside the theatre under a marquee loudly announcing "One Night Only: Marc Jacobs".
Excited fans and onlookers took pictures, models briefly stopped in front of a Marc Jacobs step-and-repeat backdrop to offer more photo opportunities and then reached the main room where guests were seated and where Brian Newman led the 20-piece swing band on stage through a rendition of the New York Dolls's "Trash".
In the meantime, the cinematic spirit spread around thanks to ushers in waistcoats handing out drinks, candies, popcorn and a Playbill for every guest with a Marc Jacobs quiz inside.
Fashion-wise the collection was a quintessential representation of American culture and cinema and a love letter to New York: there were hints to Adrian's costumes and in particular to the wardrobes he created for the main characters in George Cukor's The Women (a constant reference throughout Jacobs' career) in the sweaters with a sequinned bow (that called to mind Elsa Schiaparelli's more famous trompe l'oeil tops), matched with long sequinned siren skirts or with checked shirts for a grunge twist.
Shoulder lines were at times borrowed from the '40s and Joan Crawford; sailor suits then introduced a nautical theme that Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers sported so well in Mark Sandrich's Follow the Fleet.
Embroideries of sirens, or of motifs linked to the cinema (3D paper glasses) on sharp and short jackets evoked memories of Schiaparelli's surreal designs from the late '30s-early '40s. Cascades of sequins called to mind Bob Mackie's glamour, but there were hints at the grand style of Orry Kelly here and there as well.
An electric blue sweater with a high school band-like harp emblem on the front, matched with a glittering red, white, and blue slit skirt could have been a reference to Grease if it hadn't been followed by an orgy of stars and stripes, American flag bras and star spangled handbags that brought on the runways the ghost of William Klein's 1968 satire Mr Freedom.
High culture appeared in a picture of opera legend Maria Callas in a 1958 representation of Medea, transformed into a repetitive pattern and replicated on a skirt suit, a long skirt and an opera coat, her face mixed with that of Janet Leigh in Psycho and replicated in a style borrowed from Andy Warhol's Pop Art silkscreens. The final effect was actually very reminiscent of Versace's iconic Pop Art gown from his S/S 1991 collection.
Pop Art was also indirectly evoked in the playful intarsia knits with patterns of cameras, popcorn, drinks, director's clapper boards and 3D paper glasses. The power of 3D films was celebrated in denims and dresses with a print of the infamous 1952 picture of cinema goers at the Paramount Theatre in Hollywood wearing 3D glasses.
The photograph was taken by J.R. Eyerman at the première screening of Arch Oboler's film Bwana Devil, the first full-length colour 3D "Natural Vision" motion picture.
There was a lot to process and grasp in this collection that could be considered as a sort of summarised version of a fashion glossary with all the main staples of the sporty American wardrobe - tank tops, plaid skirts, varsity jackets, checked shirts, denim jackets covered in pins and badges (some of them embroidered with Dorothy's red shoes...), baseball jackets and cowboy boots - turned into luxury pieces covered in intricate embroideries or appliqued motifs such as the one reproducing a flaming sacred heart.
There was a lot to process, consume and be consumed by on many levels: at times it looked as if Auntie Mame had dragged Jacobs to one of her endless parties to meet all her friends and he had come back home with a severe headache and a terrible hungover, but full or inspirations.
Or maybe, rather than following Auntie Mame in a fantasy journey on the silver screen, Jacobs just watched again Mark Sandrich's Holiday Inn and tried to come up with a series of garments for all sorts of occasions (the black and white swans integrated in some of the looks in Jacobs' collection evoking the swans costume in the film).
Spectacularly grand and infused with a light and fun mood that had started lacking in Marc Jacobs' Parisian catwalks for Louis Vuitton, the show had an interesting architectural reference in the location: the baroque Ziegfeld with its red velvet walls and chandeliers is indeed the largest surviving single-screen theatre in Manhattan.
This giant and exuberant spectacle will undoubtedly enter fashion history, but the interesting thing is to read between its lines, and try and dissect between quantity and quality.
As proved by the references and links between films, costumes, actresses and Pop Art in this collection, Jacobs firmly remains in the category of the "DJ designer" - he is indeed a sampler à la Miuccia Prada rather than a proper dressmaker or tailor. Impresario Diaghilev used to describe himself as a charmer, a patron of the arts and a charlatan, and Jacobs is more or less the same.
Though he may be a man with a vision, Jacobs is never far from the trash and the kitsch: he probably picked Maria Callas and included her picture in the collection not because he is an opera fan, but probably because he stumbled upon this picture while surfing the Internet (it's not difficult to find online the same low quality image that he replicated on his garments).
Yet despite all these references to films and timeless icons, it was Eyerman's picture that contributed to give the collection its final meaning. Replicated on shirts, totes and badges sold all over the world, this photograph has quite often been used to symbolise the alienation of consumer culture.
This event may be interpreted as a vision for the future of the Marc Jacobs brand, but, digging behind the sequins, the cinematic moods and the fantastic glamour, it remains part of a major fashion week led by an industry that, running fast and faster, is highly risking of alienating a lot of consumers.
Catwalks such as this one may be grand shows, but once the models are gone and the lights are off, if you get really silent you can hear the ghost of Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond taking her delusional descent down the stairs in Sunset Boulevard, promising in her hallucinated tone: "...after Salome we'll make another picture and another picture! You see, this is my life. It always will be! There's nothing else - just us - and the cameras - and those wonderful people out there in the dark." Completely insane and firmly convinced of her indestructibility, Desmond goes towards her tragic end in a glamorous way. Somehow, you feel the same may be be happening to the fashion industry, even though not many of us have realised it or simply don't want to admit it.
Quite often in the history of fashion the ghost of Vaslav Nijinsky has appeared on the runways as the main inspiration of a few designers. That's only natural, as Nijinsky was considered almost a superhuman being, the epitome of manliness and youthful beauty, a performer that, by dancing, could break his earthly ties and raise himself up to perfection, getting closer to God. Yet there is an aspect in his career that is rarely referred to or analysed – his madness. Some dance fans have actually already seen this topic being tackled on the stage in July at the Spoleto Festival, through the performance "Letter to a Man".
Directed by Robert Wilson and starring legendary choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov, the piece was indeed based on the Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky.
Born in 1889, Nijinsky became famous for his performances with Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. A celebrated prodigy and a sensation, he also proved he was a gifted choreographer: though no one living today can remember Nijinsky as no images of him dancing were ever recorded, we do have historical evidence that he was a man with a vision from ballets such as "L'Après-midi d'un Faune", that caused a scandal when it opened in 1912, and "Le Sacré du Printemps" (1913).
Diaghilev's lover and protégée, Nijinsky eventually became engaged to and married Romola de Pulszky. He started his descent into mental madness in his twenties, and between 19th January 1919 - when he danced in public for the last time - and 4th March that year, he recorded his thoughts and the progress of his psychosis in a diary. After its completion Nijinsky plunged into a silent existential abyss (though he would paint and draw disturbing images) and died in England in 1950.
The diaries were censored by his wife on their first publication in 1936, but were later on published in an unexpurgated version in French in 1995.
"Letter to a Man" - the title comes from a letter Nijinsky wrote to Diaghilev in which he wouldn't mention the impresario's name - is not about Nijinsky as a dancer or about reviving his ballets.
The piece is indeed about a man's irreversible journey towards dementia, though it also touches upon further topics including art, creativity and moral issues. Baryshnikov analyses them on stage through a performance that combines extracts of text with dance movements in a surreal setting in which every single element - lights, costumes (by Jacques Reynaud ), music (curated by Hal Willner) and words - is vitally important.
The diaries are broken into fragments, they are analysed from a sort of shattered perspective that replicates Nijinsky's state of mind: Baryshnikov finds therefore divided between lucidity and madness; love and hate (for Sergei Diaghilev, impresario and lover); war and peace; the brightest hope and the blackest desperation.
Believing he is God, but tortured by sexual obsessions and by the criticism moved to his choreographies, Baryshnikov/Nijinsky finds himself trapped in a schizophrenic environment in which minimal movements represent the diary entries, while the broken noises and voices (at times performed live by Baryshnikov himself) represent the confusion heard by Nijinsky as he wrote his diary, that at times turns from starting point for this performance into the real protagonist.
Both Baryshnikov and Wilson fell under the spell of the diaries, their content and style and the director even quotes on his site what American author Henry Miller stated about them: "It is a communication so naked, so desperate, that it breaks the mold. We are face to face with reality, and it is almost unbearable...had he not gone to the asylum we would have had in Nijinsky a writer equal to the dancer."
"Letter to a Man" is the third collaboration between Mikhail Baryshnikov and Robert Wilson: they first worked together on a Video Portrait of Saint Sebastian, and then on "The Old Woman", a theatre piece based on a short story by absurdist Russian author Daniil Kharms, that featured Baryshnikov and Willem Dafoe.
Premièred in Spoleto, "Letter to a Man" will debut this week at Milan's Crt (from today until 20th September 2015) with costumes by Giorgio Armani including a tuxedo in black crepe, a classic dark suit and white and black shirts.
In the last two days we have seen dance and choreography invading the New York Fashion Week runways, this collaboration takes back instead fashion to the stage, a well-established tradition especially for many Italian designers who in their careers often collaborated with choreographers, corps de ballet and opera theatres.
After Milan the show will then embark on an international tour stopping in Madrid, Monte Carlo, Paris, New York and Los Angeles (but you can keep updated with the dates on Robert Wilson's site).
In yesterday's post we looked at Phelan's catwalk show, opened by a dance performance, but that wasn't the only connection established during New York Fashion Week with the world of the performing arts.
After launching last season's presentation with a pop-up photography show by Spike Jonze and opting to stage a theatrical performance directed by Jonze and featuring actor Jonah Hill for their S/S 2015 collection, Opening Ceremony added a dance twist to their latest catwalk.
Creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim recruited indeed not just models to showcase their S/S 16 collection, but also dancers from the New York City Ballet, coordinated by its Resident Choreographer and soloist Justin Peck.
This wasn't a casual choice, actually: Lim and Leon recently designed costumes for a piece choreographed by Peck for the New York City Ballet's annual Fall Fashion Gala (to be held on 30th September 2015)
The event will also feature four further shows with costumes by fashion designers: Ballet Master in Chief Peter Martins' "Thou Swell" was matched with Peter Copping, Creative Director of Oscar de la Renta; Corps de Ballet Member Troy Schumacher has worked in partnership with Marques' Almeida; San Francisco Ballet Corps de Ballet Member and up-and-coming choreographer Myles Thatcher joined forces with Zuhair Murad; while Choreographic Associate with The National Ballet of Canada Robert Binet was paired with Hanako Maeda of ADEAM.
But how did the choreography work and develop on the Opening Ceremony runway? Well at the beginning models stumbled and fell with a series of intentional falls. Though looking like genuine falls, they were definitely less ominous and catastrophic than the ones involving models tripping on trains, falling off perilous high heels or sliding on slick and slippery runways. After each fall the dancers effortlessly rose again or sprang up to their feet, shaking the audience from fashion week fatigue.
While the surprising choreography was mainly devised to keep the attention alive, the collection actually had another dance connection as it was inspired by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright and by his daughter Iovanna, a modern dancer for whom the architect often designed sets.
Architecture and Lloyd Wright's concept of "The Living City" wasn't referenced in a very literal way: the stained glass window panels the architect designed for Avery Coonley House were recreated in a light installation incorporated in the catwalk venue, while some of the shades (and shapes for the bags) included in the collection palette were borrowed from the window panel patterns and from the textured murals incorporated in the house.
Sadly, architecture was largely forgotten in the modernist yet bland jumpsuits and tunics with plunging necklines, but architectural hints returned in the knitted dresses and skirts with a sinuous weave and in the oversized brass buttons decorating tops and jackets.
The intersecting geometries created by horizontal and vertical lines that characterised many of Frank Lloyd Wright's designs such as the Cloverleaf housing project were also integrated in the designs.
Garments were matched with sunglasses (made shoppable straight off the runway...) by South Korean brand Gentle Monster with frames inspired by curved furniture and the bent plywood technique that mid-century furniture designers used when creating their pieces.
The "Cara" sunglasses were also named after Cara Greenberg, the woman who helped coin the phrase "Mid-century modern" in her 1983 book, Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s.
A fad that started on the runway only last season, interior design was indeed another key component as proved by the set for the show that included hundreds of potted lemon and fig trees, rosemary bushes, white and purple cabbage patches, eggplant, and squash, among other vegetables and herbs, lining the runway.
The plants actually hinted at a more natural relationship between the natural and the urban and at the possibility of capturing the landscape in the form of an exterior space and partially enclosing it.
The way the plants were arranged was based on drawings of Cloverleaf, an unbuilt housing development in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, modeled on Broadacre City, Frank Lloyd Wright's utopian plan for cooperative, agrarian living.
Frank Lloyd Wright's "Living City" and his utopian environments with houses that would fit in the agricultural landscape and be surrounded by factories, farms, schools, government buildings and offices, were therefore starting points for this collection.
The idea of homes and domestic environments was referenced in silk garments with chinoiserie embroidery of bonsai trees, a theme that immediately reconnected with the set and with the fact that the potted plants used for the show will be donated and replanted at four schools around the city as part of the Edible Schoolyard NYC non profitable program that helps developing gardens and kitchen classrooms in public schools.
As a whole, though, the collection wasn't always coherent and at times it felt as if the design duo had spent more time looking at random images linked with Frank Lloyd Wright on the Internet rather than sitting down and trying to grasp more in depth some of his concepts and ideas. It was indeed a shame that they didn't take architecture as the main point to construct something less bland and more sharp.
Choreography-wise everything worked, though, since there was nothing contrived about the performance: inspired by one of the main themes of fashion shows - the fall as a moment of shame and rebirth as well - the fluid movements looked spontaneous, albeit at times not graceful because of the rather clumpy shoes.
The fashion and choreography connection actually works pretty well, especially when in connection with Justin Peck. In Jody Lee Lipes' documentary Ballet 422, the director follows Peck as he conceives, casts, rehearses, and stages the four-hundred-and-twenty-second original dance piece by the New York City Ballet.
In the documentary Peck is focused on his work and seems to live a cyclical life: as he finishes working on one arduous ballet that drains his energies, he humbly starts performing in another.
The fashion industry works in a similar way, and the work of a fashion designer has absurd cyclical rhythms that demand that a new collection is started as soon as the previous one is finished. So it's only natural for fashion to be having a love affair with choreography, dance (and Justin Peck...) at the moment. Now, if we could just transfer Peck's anti-diva approach from the stage to the runway and from ballet to fashion, then we would even manage to bring a breath of fresh air into the industry.
In choreography a single movement can be manipulated and developed to create through energy, space and time a series of dynamic variations that then form a complete and coherent performance. Concepts such as movement and dynamism are also part of the fashion design process since garments must guarantee a good degree of functionality to the wearer.
Amanda Phelan's moved from such ideas and principles not just in her Spring/Summer 2016 collection, but also in her presentation at New York Fashion Week. Staged at the East Village theatre La MaMa, it started with a performance featuring four female dancers choreographed by Vim Vigor Dance Company founder Shannon Gillen.
There was actually a further relation between dancers' movements and designs: the former were indeed inspired by the rhythms of the machinery employed to manufacture Phelan's knitwear pieces.
This may not be a desperately new idea as we saw the clicks and noises of looms at work being used a few years ago as the soundtrack to a Missoni exhibition to create an auditory journey and musical pattern that could complement the designs on display, but Brooklyn-based Phelan (who formerly worked as Alexander Wang knitwear designer) made sure the choreography highlighted rather than complemented the patterns, constantly reminding the audience of the multi-dimensional properties (stretchy and expandable, but also intriguing from a tactile point of view) of some of her pieces.
Phelan coherently went from dynamic dresses in a liquid electric blue light-reflecting yarn to skirts and gloves covered in an abstract pattern of bold brush strokes (another reference to movement and speed rather than art) matched with knitted tops with three-dimensional and architectural spike-like formations and structures.
Three-dimensionality was a major theme also when it came to the ribboned skirt and dress, the ribbed knitted tops, and the bubble and bump formations incorporated in some of the designs.
Phelan also proved she was able to moderate the thickness of her pieces, coming up with flimsy silvery dresses designed to cling to the body (imagine a sensual and knitted version of Martha Graham's jersey tube for "Lamentation") that gave the illusion they were made of thick shiny steel.
Quite a few models donned smart long opera gloves on the runway, but all of them looked dynamically smart and powerful also thanks to the sneakers or flat platform sandals matched with all the designs featured in the collection that gave even the most refined pieces a urban appeal.
The theme of dark and light triumphed in the final three numbers enriched with strips of light catching strips. Though reminiscent of some of the dresses in Iris Van Herpen's "Escapism" collection and of her costumes for the New York City Ballet gala, they seemed less rigid and more wearable, light, supple and pliable enough to guarantee movement.
In a performance piece developing each idea at its best is an important skill, one that separates the choreographer from the dancer; in fashion, developing a coherent collection is what separates the designer from the stylist, and, while not everything may have been 100% perfect on the Phelan runway and some movements have still got to be tuned, the young designer still managed to produce an appealing and innovative collection, with knits that displayed a consistent technical research that was simply lacking on the runways of more famous designers showcasing during New York Fashion Week.
There is just one dilemma to answer now: it would be interesting to know if the looks the dancers donned during the performance and in Phelan's preview video will also be part of the collection. Yet, if that's not the case, Phelan's new fans shouldn't worry - they will still find plenty to choose in the rest of the collection.
Fashion collections are often completely detached from reality, despite the fact that ready-to-wear clothes are designed, produced and sold to be worn on an everyday basis. Yet it's rare to see what's in the news and what's on the runways perfectly matching and combining, even though that's more or less what happened last week. Sport-wise Roberta Vinci - a doubles specialist ranked 43 in the world - beat Serena Williams at the US Open 2015 semi-final, setting up an all-Italian final with Flavia Pennetta. The latter eventually triumphed at the singles final last Saturday.
Last week in the meantime we saw Giulietta's designer Sofia Sizzi mixing tennis and Courrèges, sport and dynamic silhouettes with geometric futurism in her Spring/Summer 2016 collection.
Body-conscious bodysuits pointed towards atheletic wear, even though geometry and stripes worked better in the less complicated numbers such as simple T-shirt mini-dresses with a pleated tennis skirt and tunics with embellished necklines.
Rather than interpreting the tennis theme in a literal way, Sizzi opted for an abstract representation of tennis balls and nets: the former were replicated in round and shiny appliqued elements on organza skirts and dresses matched with flat platform sandals, while nets were reproduced as grilles on short dresses and separates. Everything was polished and pristine, even though some pieces seemed to be a bit too rigid and formal.
Rather than channelling just tennis, Felipe Oliveira Baptista got on the Olympic bandwagon with his spring collection for Lacoste, the brand founded by tennis champion René Lacoste, himself an Olympic medalist back in 1924.
The collection was also an occasion to announce that Lacoste will be dressing the French delegation at the 2016 Summer Olympics next August in Rio de Janeiro.
Showcased in daylight at the Spring Studios last Saturday, the collection was optimistic and energetic with plenty of sharply cut coats and ergonomic dresses, such as a low cut jumpsuit with cutouts that highlighted the contours of the body. Navy and green were mainly employed for garments (including parachute nylon parkas) that borrowed from flight suits and uniforms.
The backbone of the collection, though, were the graphic deconstructed motifs of flags: Baptista chopped and fragmented the emblems of different countries, creating a mix and mash print that - at times evoking the works of the Russian Constructivists or the Italian Futurists - he reproduced on shirts, tanks, shorts and ponchos.
According to the designer this international and cosmopolitan camouflage inspired by the victory lap taken by athletes wrapped in their home flags was meant to celebrate peace and diversity.
Though it worked a bit better on menswear (but who says that women can't wear men's pieces?), the deconstructed print added a strong visual element to a collection that was otherwise suspended between army and sport gear and that equally borrowed from military uniforms (this inspiration actually helped Baptista offering more elegant and versatile suits and separates) and athletic wear.
The collection also featured the occasional spark of silver: a colour pointing towards parachutism and the Space Age, it also tied in with the theme of silver medals or the US Open cup trophy, a theme that takes us back to Vinci and Pennetta.
Both in their early thirties and with no win at a major singles final in their careers, Vinci and Pennetta may indeed have accidentally set a trend that could be defined as "the revenge of the underdog".
At the end of August, tennis champion Rafael Nadal, current global ambassador for Tommy Hilfiger, played in the middle of Bryant Park a game of strip tennis (lose a point, lose an article of clothing) against Tommy Hilfiger's models; around the same time Nike started selling the "Serena Greatness" collection designed in collaboration with Serena Williams (she was wearing it on the court at the Open), and teh tennis star will be staging her second HSN Signature Statement collection show tomorrow during NYFW.
There were no grand plans for collections for what regarded Vinci (bizarrelly she was fitted with a bright coral red uniform with a pattern that was very similar to Williams' orange red one, as if Nike couldn't be bothered offering any kind of variations for her since she wasn't that famous...) and Pennetta, but setting on their immediate goal (winning the US Open) rather than on endorsing and representing sponsors and brands, appearing on adverts, playing cameo roles in films and other fancy fashion ambassador roles reserved to celebrity athletes, they remained focused on their task and went on with their plan.
Fashion-wise we are often too keen on praising the grandest shows in which too much money has been pumped and with too many celebrities sitting in the front row, but, quite often, life proves us that the next big thing may be coming from unlikely places and from unlikely routes. The fashion industry should maybe take note.
In yesterday's post we looked at an exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid offering visitors new perspectives on painter Francisco de Zurbarán. Let's continue the thread for another day by looking at another exhibition currently on (until 12th October 2015) at the same museum that ties in with Zurbarán and paintings, but focuses more on fashion.
"Vogue Like a Painting" features a selection of photographs from the Vogue archives that could be linked with, compared or juxtaposed to portraiture, landscape and interior paintings.
Curator Debra Smith cleverly looked not at photographs imitating a specific portrait or work of art, but at moods and attitudes, coming up with a sort of homage to painting via fashion photography.
There are actually a limited numbers of photographers whose work can be compared to that of painters and most of them have studied art or have been painters themselves, as Smith underlines, and that's the main reason why their work is so unique.
The selection - comprising 61 images from different times - can be considered as an investigation into fashion and art through different decades and stylish approaches.
The list of photographers featured in the event is wide and includes (just to mention a few ones) Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott, Cecil Beaton, Erwin Blumenfeld, Grant Cornett, Patrick Demarchelier, Horst P. Horst, Steven Klein, Peter Lindbergh, Sheila Metzner, Erwin Olaf, Irving Penn, Paolo Roversi, Tim Walker and Yelena Yemchuk.
The event also includes a few gowns, among them the monumental "Queen Orchid" dress by Guo Pei, the designer behind Rihanna's Met Gala gown.
The first room features literal interpretations of the theme with photographs that look like portraits and with two images by Erwin Blumenfeld (View this photo) and Michael Thompson that respectively re-create Vermeer's Girl with the Pearl Earring (View this photo) and Zurbarán's Saint Isabel of Portugal (View this photo).
The second space - the "Versailles Room" - looks at women in society, with models often photographed in grand interiors (quite a few pictures in this section were actually taken in Versailles) and wearing rich gowns.
The "Garden Room" pays homage to the museum, the nature theme, sitll lifes and Impressionist paintings, while the red corridor that closes the event features one of the most beautiful compositions of the entire event, an untitled image by Clifford Coffin taken in 1949 and portraying four models in swimsuits and colourful bathing caps sitting with their backs to the photographer. This famous photograph looks like a Surrealist painting, according to the curator, almost suspended between Dalí and Magritte.
Visitors with a good knowledge of art will be able to spot links with many more artists including William Hogarth, John Everett Millais, John Singer Sargent, Paul Gauguin, and John Hopper, even though one of the main aims of the event is also making us ponder a bit more about the differences between printed and digital images and threfore between timeless shots and temporarily trendy photographs.
Though featured in a magazine that mainly chronicles the ephemeral and transitory, these images are carefully devised compositions, created at times in theatrical settings and with dramatic chiaroscuro effects that make you realise how hip street style and fashion pictures taken with an excellent digital camera and portraying cool people and celebrities in designer clothes outside fashion shows or stylishly pouting as they sit in the front row, can't be considered as art. It takes indeed talent, skills, knowledge and a passion for painting to create beautifully composed timeless shots.
Image credits for this post
Michael Thompson, Carmen as Zurbarán's Saint Isabel, 2000
Camilla Akranis, A Single Woman 2010
Clifford Coffin, Untitled 1949
Clifford Coffin, Untitled, 1954
Grant Cornett, Untitled, 2014
Petere Lindbergh, One Enchanted Evening, Taormina, Sicily, 2012
Paolo Roversi, Stella, Paris, 1999
Sheila Metzner, Model Uma in Patou dress and hat, 1986
If you know your fashion history, you will also know that Francisco de Zurbarán was one of Cristóbal Balenciaga's key references. If that's one of your personal references as well, you may want to try and check out the exhibition currently on at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid (until tomorrow, 13th September).
"Zurbarán: A New Perspective" analyses the master of the Spanish Golden Age taking into account the researches, studies and discoveries carried out in the last few decades.
There have been multiple events featuring Zurbarán's works: exhibitions went from the first one held in Madrid in 1905 to the retrospective in 1988 at the Museo del Prado and the celebratory events that marked the 400th anniversary of his birth in 1998, culminating in the major monographic exhibition presented in Seville. Yet "A New Perspective" could be considered as a different kind of exhibit, almost an updated survey on the artist's output.
Curated by Odile Delenda, author of a book on Zurbarán and associate of the Wildenstein Institute in Paris, and Mar Borobia, Head of the Department of Old Master Painting at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, "Zurbarán: A New Perspective", shifts the focus on the painter's personality, life and times.
Including a total of 63 paintings, most of large format, and chronologically arranged in seven galleries, the exhibition sheds light on works recently attributed to the artist or on restored paintings, including major examples from different periods and from some of the artist's large-scale cycles painted during the course of his career.
The curators also dedicated a room to the artist's studio assistants and another to still lifes, including some of the rare examples by Zurbarán himself and others by his son Juan, a talented collaborator (in the exhibition there are 7 works by Juan and 9 by Zurbarán's followers).
Born in Fuente de Cantos in 1598 Francisco de Zurbarán trained in the studio of Pedro Díaz de Villanueva in Seville, the city where he spent most of his life. Here he produced devotional paintings, altarpieces and series on monastic subjects for the Dominicans, Franciscans and Mercedarians.
In 1626 the painter signed a contract to execute 21 paintings for the Dominicans at San Pablo el Real in Seville. He thus received further commissions, such as the series to mark the canonisation of Saint Peter Nolasco for the monastery of the Merced Calzada.
The series includes a painting now considered one of the artist's early masterpieces, Saint Serapion (1628; one of the highlights of the present exhibition), painted for the Sala de Profundis (mortuary chapel). The pictorial cycles commissioned by these Orders to the artist show a peculiarly original style, extremely distinctive and modern.
Characterised by a tenebrist approach to light that won him the nickname the "Spanish Caravaggio", Zurbarán combined in his transfigured monumental figures mysticism and realism. The event features areas devoted to the major commissions from the religious Orders alongside sections which focus on individual works intended for private devotion.
Zurbarán established his practice in 1629 in Seville, moving there with his family and assistants, and continuing to work on the large-scale series commissioned by different religious Orders, while also working on further artistic projects, such as the decoration of the Hall of Realms in the Buen Retiro palace.
The large monastic cycles of 1638 and 1639 mark the high point of Zurbarán's career, as proved by the works The Adoration of the Magi (ca.1638-1639) from the Musée de Grenoble and The Martyrdom of Saint James the Apostle from the Museo del Prado, included in the event.
From 1640 onwards the workshop focused on the production of important series of standing figures which were often painted for the colonial market: The dead Christ on the Cross from the Museo de Bellas Artes in Asturias (Pedro Masaveu collection), The House at Nazareth from a Madrid private collection, and Saint Francis in Meditation from the National Gallery in London are among the most outstanding works in this section, shown alongside other more recently attributed compositions including The Flight into Egypt from the Seattle Art Museum and Saint Anthony of Padua from Etreham (Normandy).
Around 1650 Zurbarán's brushstroke became softer, the lighting effects less pronounced, the backgrounds paler and the tonalities of the figures much more luminous (see the paintings for the Charterhouse of Las Cuevas in Seville and a large number of religious scenes painted for private devotional purposes).
This final section includes the largest number of works recently added to Zurbarán's oeuvre, including Saint Francis praying in a Grotto (ca.1650-1655) from the San Diego Museum of Art, The crucified Christ with Saint John, Mary Magdalene and the Virgin (1655), The Infant Virgin sleeping (ca.1655), and the magnificent oil of The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine (1660-1662), all from private collections.
Zurbarán's passion for textures clearly emerges from this exhibition. Fabrics and objects (flowers, fruit, vessels and so on) are all charged with emotions: they may be "secondary characters" in his works, but he depicts them in extraordinary details.
The paintings showing beautiful young women in the guise of virgin saints dressed in monumentally elegant and bejewelled gowns enjoyed for example great success. The Saint Casilda painting included in the exhibition stands out for the brocaded fabrics and voluminous folds that contribute to give the portrait a ritual solemnity.
Zurbarán's talent for depicting textures must have derived from the fact that his father was a textile merchant and that the painter probably acquired when he was very young a fascination for reproducing the fibres, woven elements and nuances of colours.
Quite often there are direct links between the fabrics and the psychological depth of the portrait: in the painting depicting the martyrdom of Saint Serapion (on the same wall of two other paintings depicting subjects clad in white robes - friars Pedro de Oña and Pedro Machado), the ample and deep folds of his white tunic embrace and coccoon him, wishing him rest.
Painted repeatedly throughout his career, Zurbarán's devotional Veils of Saint Veronica, with the cloth showing Christ's ghostly face, are portrayed with so much realism that critics often defined them as a trompe l'oeil "a lo divino".
After Madrid, the event will travel to the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf, Germany, (10th October 2015 to 31st January 2016), but, if you already know you won't be able to catch up with this exhibition, don't despair: you can still enjoy the pleats, folds and voluminous cloaks and capes of Zurbarán's subjects by taking a virtual tour of the Thyssen event at this link or you can discover more about his life and works in the videos recorded during a study day that took place at the Thyssen-Bornemisza in June.
You may be sitting in front of your computer screen, but taking the virtual tour or watching some of the videos will still allow you to ponder more about the works of an artist who showed the same devotion in depicting the monastic spirituality of his subjects and the tactile qualities of the objects, fabrics and textures that he represented.
Image credits for this post
Francisco de Zurbarán Santa Casilda, c. 1635 (Saint Casilda) Oil on canvas, 171 x 107 cm Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Francisco de Zurbarán Santo Domingo en Soriano, c. 1626-1627 (The Apparition of the Virgin to a Monk of Soriano) Oil on canvas, 190 x 230 cm Church of Santa María Magdalena, Sevilla
Francisco de Zurbarán Aparición de la Virgen a San Pedro Nolasco, c. 1628-1630 (The Appearance of the Virgin to Saint Peter Nolasco) Oil on canvas, 165 x 204 cm Private collection, Courtesy Galería Coatalem, Paris
Francisco de Zurbarán Virgen de la Merced con dos mercedarios, c.1635-1640 (The Virgin of Mercy with Two Mercedarian Monks) Oil on canvas, 166 x 129 cm Private collection
Francisco de Zurbarán San Ambrosio, c. 1626-1627 (Saint Ambrose) Oil on canvas, 207 x 101,5 cm Sevilla, Museo de Bellas Artes
Francisco de Zurbarán San Francisco de pie contemplando una calavera, c.1633-1635 (Saint Francis Contemplating a Skull) Oil on canvas, 91,4 x 30,5 cm San Luis, Saint Louis Art Museum
Francisco de Zurbarán San Serapio, 1628 (Saint Serapion) Oil on canvas, 120,2 x 104 cm Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund
Francisco de Zurbarán Adoración de los Magos, c. 1638-1639 (The Adoration of the Magi) Oil on canvas, 263,5 x 175 cm Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble
Francisco de Zurbarán Huida a Egipto, c.1630-1635 (The Rest on the Flight into Egypt) Oil on Canvas, 150 x 159 cm Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Donation Barney A. Ebsworth
Francisco de Zurbarán San Francisco en meditación, 1639 (Saint Francis in Meditation) Oil on canvas, 162 x 137 cm London, The National Gallery
Francisco de Zurbarán Santa Marina, c. 1640-1650 (Saint Marina) Oil on canvas, 111 x 88 cm Collection Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza on loan to the Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga
Francisco de Zurbarán Santa Apolonia, c. 1636-1640 (Saint Apollonia) Oil on canvas, 115 x 67 cm Paris, Musée du Louvre-Département des Peintures
Francisco de Zurbarán Carnero con las patas atadas, 1632 (The Bound Lamb) Oil on canvas, 61,3 x 83,2 cm Barcelona, Private collection
Francisco de Zurbarán Bodegón con cacharros, c. 1650-1655 (Still Life with Pottery and Cup) Óleo sobre lienzo, 47 x 79 cm Barcelona, MNAC. Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.
Juan de Zurbarán Peras en cuenco de porcelana, c. 1645 (Pears in a China Bowl) Oil on canvas, 82,6 x 108,6cm Chicago (IL), The Art Institute of Chicago, Wirt D. Walker Fund
Francisco de Zurbarán Virgen Niña dormida, c. 1655 (The Virgin Mary as a Child, Asleep) Oil on canvas, 100 x 90 cm Paris, Galerie Canesso
Francisco de Zurbarán Desposorios místicos de Santa Catalina de Alejandría, 1660-1662 (The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Alexandria) Oil on canvas, 121 x 102,7 cm Switzerland, Private collection