We are all focused on the future, but sometimes the most interesting ideas come from the past. Take this issue of Italian fashion magazine Bella dated 15th December 1955.
The issue was mainly dedicated to knitwear, considered at the time (as the magazine states) as a great way to display one's personal skills and style. On the cover a model wears a cropped white jacket with a metallic yarn motif on the front, a design dubbed "Snow White", while inside there was a photoshoot featuring several versatile designs (each of them with a different name, such as "Sole d'inverno", which means "Winter Sun", "Queen of Hearts" or "Dolomites"), from the functional and practical to the seductively sensual.
The images were accompanied by detailed descriptions that encouraged readers to make the designs by hand. So that's something we are missing in today's fashion industry: supplements about knitting with instructions on how to make something.
You may argue that nowadays it is possible to find such projects all over the Internet, buy patterns on eBay or even watch videos and tutorials on YouTube. But it would be nice if every now and then a major fashion magazine would publish a special issue or a supplement showing knitwear designs accompanied by instructions that explain how to make them.
The fascinating theme of the surface has dominated the last few posts and, before saying goodbye to it, let's have a look at an interesting interior design project that features an architectural element characterised by different shapes and surfaces – "The Plinth Project".
Organised at the Copenhagen-based Etage Projects gallery (until 21st January 2017), this event is an exploration of the parameters of plinths - interpreted as a building component and the lowest portion of the base of a column or pedestal, so as a feature that can be found in architecture and sculpture as well.
A group of artists and designers - Anton Alvarez, FOS, Fredrik Paulsen, Hilda Hellström, James Shaw, Jenny Nordberg, Kueng Caputo, Maria Lenskjold, Matt Olson/OOIEE, Pettersen & Hein, Soft Baroque and Studio Vit - were commissioned new versions of plinths inspired by their practices and aesthetic principles.
Critics may argue the project looks unfinished since these plinths do not support anything, but are free standing objects with no purpose. Yet the most important thing about these design plinths is not what they should be supporting, but the methods used to make them.
Some of the designers involved came up indeed with pieces made with materials that stimulate the senses: FOS opted for a tactile experience using concrete and stone; Fredrik Paulsen created a vibrating pattern by mounting flexible MDF inside-out on a double curved surface while Pettersen & Hein's layered plint (in concrete, pigment, black steel, PVC, dirt and earth) has a brutalist edge about it.
Inspired by the interior design elements sold in DIY superstores, James Shaw flattened instead the polystyrene architrave, pediment and ceiling rose, reducing them to a digitally printed carpet representing a hybrid object between architecture and furniture.
The most interesting pieces were created by designers that developed innovative methods: Anton Alvarez spent two years working on a device he called "The Thread Wrapping Machine": this structure partially made with recycled plywood from the crates of a Taiwan show, can help a designer wrapping all sorts of materials in metres of vividly coloured polyester thread.
In this way wood, metal or plastic can be joined to produce solid furniture and objects including stools, benches and lamps or even architectural installations.
The process allows to create new interior design pieces characterized by highly decorative features but without using any screws or nails.
The possibilities offered by two dichotomies - classical plinths Vs unusual and modern materials such as tin, and handmade Vs machine made - fascinated Jenny Nordberg, who came up with a method to produce sheet metal by casting tin in large molds. The outcome is an uneven and rough plinth with a futuristic metallic surface.
Hilda Hellström tried to tell a story through her plinth: the designer applied her sedimentation technique to the cubic shape of the plinth, tracing inside it figures and images - the Midgard serpent from Norse Mythology surrounding the earth, the hand of God looking over the creation of the mountains and the Big Bang. These images helped the designer telling three tales about the origin of the earth.
In architecture there are different types of plinths (think about above and below ground plinths, transferred and suppressed plinths...), and while a plinth is a versatile element, it is also a feature that frames a space and a building, limiting it.
In the case of this project the plinth retains its versatility without limiting the fantasy and imagination of the designers, turning into a platform to experiment with materials and methods.
In the last few posts we explored the effects created by woven, digital and raw, rough, smooth, and glistening surfaces. There are all sorts of surfaces out there and, when cleverly arranged, composed or juxtaposed, they can be used to create intriguing effects such as disguising a subject.
An example of this exercise in camouflaging via different surfaces can be spotted in the vintage pictures from the Victorian age collected in Linda Fregni Nagler's book The Hidden Mother (2013).
These images - featured in the 2013 Venice Art Biennale - show how Victorian mothers often disguised themselves behind rugs, carpets, curtains, gloomy damasked tapestries and blankets and pretended to be chairs and couches or part of the studio backdrop to make sure a photographer could take a decent studio picture of their babies (slow exposure times and impatient infants were recipes for photographic disasters).
Quite often the results of this eerie practice (that continued until the 1920s) were rather scary as the mothers ended up looking like creepy ghosts in draped fabrics ready to take the baby to a more mysterious and dark world.
These ghostly figures of mothers who temporarily lost their identity are echoed in portraits created by photographer Patty Carroll for her long-running series "Anonymous Women", now collected in a volume published by Daylight Books.
Carroll is not just a photographer, but also a lecturer and has taught photography continuously at University level, both full and part-time.
Carroll's first images from the "Anonymous Women" series show a clear derivation from the portraits collected by Linda Fregni Nagler, since her subjects are covered under soft furnishings and fabrics and resemble ghosts.
Little by little, her compositions expanded to incorporate female dummies hiding among bright fabrics with Pucci-like swirls or standing among shoes and bags; at times the dummies seem to be part of the set decor, at others they morph into plants and flowers or pose with cups and pots as if lost at a Mad Hatter's tea party.
The invisibility of Carroll's women hints at wider themes, from self-obliteration to the way women are hidden, subjugated and erased from society, repressed and oppressed by routines and stereotypes, while their identities are suppressed by avalanches of surreal and kitsch objects.
The Victorian images collected by Linda Fregni Nagler had a comical edge when the mother who was trying hard to disguise herself became easily identifiable; in the same way there is humour in Carroll's pictures, an effect achieved through bright and vividly coloured outfits and bizarre props, elements that allow these otherwise anonymous creatures to get a personality of their own.
So these images can be considered as the informal and surreal versions of formal portraits of women from another century. Carroll employs visually striking textiles and graphic patterns to create deceptive sets that are at times accompanied by funny Edward Gorey-like descriptions. To describe her "Stairsy" image showing a figure in a black and white graphic attire that has tripped on a staircase decorated with a dazzle-like print, Carroll writes: "Wearing her finest striped outfit proved hazardous in ascending the staircase, maybe nude would have been better."
Even though the themes are more or less the same in all her "Anonymous Women" portraits, Carroll has progressed in how she portrays her subjects: in her "Draped" series her subjects are perfectly integrated in the domestic environment and they are simply covered under an ominous fabric that hides their shapes and silhouettes.
Rather than providing a comforting environment, the house and furnishings around them camouflage their individual identities, while the interior decor swallows them.
As Carroll points out on her website, this series references draped statues from the Renaissance, nuns in habits, women wearing the burka, the Virgin Mary, priests' and judges' robes, and ancient Greek and Roman dress.
The series is also a small tribute to Scarlett O'Hara, who pulled down her drapery to fashion a beautiful gown. In the next series, "Reconstructed", Carroll's subjects perform domestic trickeries while trapped by their objects and obsessions, while "Demise" marks failure, submission to the dwelling and the end of the Anonymous Woman.
For these obvious connections you can bet that we will soon see a campaign for a fashion house, a brand or collection shot by Patty Carroll and featuring her anonymous women.
In yesterday's post we moved from the architectural surface to explore the external layer of different products as analysed in an exhibition. Yet there are artists out there currently exploring the surface in a revolutionary way, creating abstract and intangible digital layers for immersive experiences, such as the group of Ultra-tehnologists that goes under the name of teamLab.
Founded in Tokyo by Toshiyuki Inoko, the group includes programmers (user interface/database/network/hardware/computer vision engineers and software architects), mathematicians, architects, CG animators, web designers, graphic designers and artists. Their work has been so far exhibited in established galleries all over the world.
teamLab usually moves from ancient Japanese art and traditions, but mainly works with new technologies and their art crosses the boundaries between design, technology, science and the creative industries. Their projects are indeed focused on impalpable and immaterial digital surfaces and immersive experiences.
Their latest project is characterised by a long and mysterious title - "Crows are Chased and the Chasing Crows are Destined to be Chased as well, Blossoming on Collision - Light in Space" - and features in "The Universe and Art" exhibition at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (until 9th January 2017).
This interactive digital installation invites visitors to walk around freely in a space that embraces them with myriads of projections: the Japanese mythical bird called "Yatagarasu" (three legged crow), is rendered in light as it flies all around the space, leaving trails of light in its path and creating spatial calligraphy. Crows chase each other, then try to chase the visitors and eventually splinter into flowers.
If you look at the video of the installation on YouTube you realise that the boundary between the walls and floor dissolves and gives the impression to visitors that the real physical space around them has suddenly disappeared, projecting them in a deeper space with no depth (the final effect is similar to the one Yayoi Kusama obtained in her infinity rooms covered in dots). The most interesting thing about this work is that it is rendered in real time by a computer program, so this is not a pre-recorded animation nor on loop: it is indeed the interaction between the viewer and the installation and the position of the viewers and their behaviour, that cause continuous change in the artwork.
Some art critics dislike these installations since they invite people to enjoy and experience art as a collective and not in a (more mature) one to one relationship (think about a visitor to an exhibition watching a painting or a sculpture); others tend to see these installations as light shows accompanied by uplifting videogame-style music for a good interactive fun, and they seem unable to grasp the power of the technology behind them.
Yet these works definitely appeal to a generation of people who are into technology, so it is about time we started considering these installations as proper art.
Critics who still harbour doubts about them will have the time to admire more works by teamLab next year during "Transcending Boundaries" (Jan 25, 2017 - Mar 11, 2017) at PACE London (6 Burlington Gardens). The exhibition will explore the role of digital technology in transcending the physical and conceptual boundaries that exist between different artworks, and will include imagery from one work breaking free of the frame and entering the space of another.
In the meantime people in Tokyo can enjoy the latest installation by teamLab designed for the windows of the Ginza-based jeweller Mikimoto: a tree made of small beads of light shines in a dark forest and, when a person approaches, the shining tree becomes "a pearl of light" that scatters around buds generating more trees.
Who knows, after these Christmas windows maybe the next frontier for teamLab will be a collaboration with a fashion house. A while back they created an installation revolving around a floral theme in which digital flowers blossomed not just around the people moving in a space, but also on their clothes and, when flowers came close to another person they spread in that direction and connected. Buds grew, then started to wither and faded away to symbolise the cycle of growth and decay repeating perpetuity. Could be a great idea for an impalpable digital fashion collection...
As Superstudio researches and studies about the Super-surface proved, surfaces can be extremely intriguing things. According to Superstudio, this sci-fi abstract concept was a sort of limitless space offering multiple possibilities to people.
The Super-surface was indeed an architectural concept that destroyed architecture and that was best applied to the human habitat. In our times the theories behind the Super-surface have been embodied by that endless platform called the Internet. Yet, while some of us may be spending a lot of their time in a digital dimension, working, playing, chatting and interacting in an abstract space, all of us live in a real world and are surrounded by the physicality of things and therefore by objects with real surfaces.
An exhibition opening in January at the Het Nieuwe Instituut (Museumpark 25, Rotterdam, The Netherlands) will be dedicated to these surfaces, even though it will also be bearing in mind Superstudio's Super-surface.
Curated by product designer Chris Kabel and design practice Koehorst in 't Veld (Jannetje in 't Veld and Toon Koehorst), and part of the long-term programme strand "The Things and The Materials", "Designing the Surface" (from 29th January till 25th June 2017), looks at the different functions of the external layer in products.
Different surfaces – raw, rough, smooth, shiny or in bright and vivid colours – attract the eye and stimulate the senses, while strengthening, preserving or disguising a specific product or its function. At times surfaces also offer contradictions and even juxtapositions: in recent years we have indeed seen products made by a craftsman and finished by a machine or vice versa. In a nutshell, varnishes, coatings and other forms of surface treatment play different roles in our appreciation of materials and objects, but also have an impact in the space surrounding them.
The exhibition is divided in five themes, each of them approaching the phenomenon of "finish" and exploring the way in which a product interacts with our aesthetic and sensory needs or in which answers a functional requirement.
The theme "Patina" looks at finishes produced by the result of wear and tear, so at the influence of climate, sunlight or chemicals, or the passing of time. "Lustre" analyses how glistening coatings give products their irresistible glare and sparkle, while the next one - "Teflon" - is about repelling all forms of contact and looks at coatings that have been developed to make objects more hygienic and antiseptic.
"Faux" explores instead the way highly skilled craftsmen created cosmetic layers that mimicked marble or tropical woods and looks at a very interesting dichotomy between the mastership that went into imitating specific materials in the past as opposed to modern cheap imitations.
The next theme - "Agency" - revolves around ordinary finishes such as the use of paint on walls and objects. The theme is explored at different levels, since it is applied to domestic interiors and public spaces, and incudes new ranges of coatings.
The final layer is what make things desirable, but it is also what grants an object its functionality: there are indeed invisible anti-graffiti, non-stick, rainproof or anti-Wi-Fi coatings, while the automotive industry has developed cheaper, safer and stronger coatings.
The exhibition - featuring Bastiaan de Nennie, Chris Kabel, Lex Pott , Nathalie du Pasquier, Pierre Marie Giraud, Raymond Leeuwenburg, Takuro Kuwata, Tijmen Smeulders, and Van der Kelen-Logelain - will take place on the ground floor of the Het Nieuwe Instituut, where architectural practice Monadnock designed a series of pavilions containing cabinets of curiosities of extraordinary and unexpected objects, projects, and technologies all of them focusing on the outer skin. Some of the techniques that will be explored in these compact pavilions are well known (think about transparent glass becoming a mirror); others such as water transfer printing or reflective paint used to coat reindeer antlers in Finland to prevent them getting hit by cars are extremely fascinating.
Visitors who have a passion for colours should pay particular attention to crazy marbles and ponder a bit in front of the paint gun (a paint-filled super-soaker) used during the recent "Sharena Revolutsiya" (the "Colourful Revolution") in Macedonia.
The tension between preservation and deterioration, seduction and repulsion is present throughout the entire exhibition. Deterioration is also explored via a fountain designed by Lex Pott, containing objects with a variety of coatings sprayed with a corrosive fluid so that the materials begin to break down.
With this event the Het Nieuwe Instituut invites people to consider also the surfaces in other areas of the building, extending their attention to the car park, the façade of structure, the café spaces or the textures of the coats and objects in the cloakroom.
While allowing visitors to explore the world of surfaces, the event will also prompt professional designers and students to find new applications and functions that can be developed through finishes. A tip for fashion designers? Move from the surface theme to consider the outer layer in clothes and accessories, the tactile or kinetic power of woven surfaces and the possibilities that innovative procedures such as nanotechnology can offer.
After spending years working in dressmaking establishments owned by her mother, Cashin became a theatre costume designer. Carmel Snow, Harper's Bazaar editor, introduced her to Adler and Adler, where she became head designer.
After returning to California, Cashin was hired as costume designer for Twentieth Century Fox, creating costumes for Laura (1944), Anna and the King of Siam (1946), and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1946). By 1949 she was back to New York City where, three years later, she opened Bonnie Cashin Designs Inc.
Cashin developed a series of iconic styles including the unfitted coat called the "Noh" (designed to be worn over other garments as part of Cashin's layered wardrobe), the poncho, the jumpsuit, the canvas raincoat and the cocktail leather dress. As the years passed, she integrated industrial hardware in her clothes and accessories (see her skirt with dog leash hitches that could be used to alter the length of the garment), these details soon turned into signature features of her designs.
From 1962, Cashin also worked as designer for Coach, where she applied the solid metal fasteners that would become associated with the brand.
In the '60s Cashin started a collaboration with Scottish company Ballantyne of Peebles, so she spent part of each year in Scotland, where she probably met Serbian textile designer and painter Bernat Klein. Cashin used his "ribbon tweed" in some of her garments.
Born in 1922, Klein first attended the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, and then moved on to the University of Leeds, England, where he studied textile technology from 1945.
In 1952 he established Colourcraft (Gala) Ltd. that included a weaving centre in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders, producing rugs and other items sold at the company's own shop in Edinburgh, and becoming famous for his innovative textiles, that allowed him to build trade with producers such as Marks and Spencer.
His company was renamed Bernat Klein Limited, but a major stake in the business was acquired by a subsidiary of Imperial Tobacco, so he resigned from this company in 1966 to set up on his own again.
Klein based himself at his home near Selkirk, designed by architect Peter Womersley to whom he also commissioned a modernist building, a two-storey concrete and glazed studio structure set on brick plinth, with a cantilevered overhanging upper floor.
Klein drew inspiration for his textiles from nature and art (think Pointillist oil paintings) and his signature fabrics included colourful exotic tweeds, incorporating mohair and ribbons, as well as velvet and jersey fabrics.
In the mid-'60s he created a houndstooth mohair tweed made from section-dyed brushed mohair and wool, a combination that allowed to weave highly textured fabrics characterized by a fuzzy, knobbly and irregular surface and by multiple varied colours.
Klein obtained these effects via the technique of section dyeing: this method consisted in dipping sections of a yarn in different dyes to create a yarn of varying colours. Chanel was the first French couturier who bought Klein's fabrics: the French designer used it in her Spring 1963 Haute Couture collection, but the tweeds created by the Galashiels-based designer became more famous during the '60s and also Balenciaga, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell bought them.
Textile fans and people who would like to rediscover Klein can do so now via his archive: consisting of more than 1,800 items ranging from sketches for his designs to finished garments, photographs, catalogues, paintings and tapestries, it was recently acquired by National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.
The museum has also dedicated a web page to the archive: the site is linked with the recently opened Art, Design and Fashion Galleries and allows to discover very interesting swatches, patterns, tapestries created with Dovecot Studio and designs, including Klein's iconic tweed with a velvet ribbon inside (the trefoil velvet tweed sample from 1965) and the "Aurora" (1965) and "Festival" (1967) textiles.
Colourists will particularly enjoy Klein's hard board with black cardboard front with 140 oval holes for balancing colours in the design of woven textiles and his personal colour guide. The designer thought indeed that too many people wore colours that didn't suit them and, based on the eye colour of the consumer, Klein's Colour Guides helped people choosing the shades that suited them best.
So there seems to be still a lot to learn from the two designers mentioned in today's post and, hopefully, Klein's archive at the National Museum of Scotland will inspire new generations of textile designers and yarn colourists to create innovative combinations of quirky materials in bold and vivid shades.
Yesterday's post focused on Californian designers and mentioned among the others swimwear created by Rose Marie Reid. As stated in that feature the designer came up with figure flattering details in her swimsuits, experimenting with fabrics and shapes that provided support and comfort at the same time.
During the 1950s Reid enjoyed particular success with the "hourglass suit", a garment that reshaped the upper part of the body thanks to a corset-like design and that fell more gently around the hips. One advert celebrating the swimsuit featured three women modelling the design in three different pastel colours. The models in the advert completed the ensemble with matching bathing caps.
Swim caps were introduced around the early 20th century: originally they were made in natural rubber or rubberized fabrics, and by the 1920s the added chin strap introduced wearers to the aviator's style. In the '30s they also inspired felt, lamé or velvet hats ideal for travelling or to wear during sport events, as shown in the illustrations by René Gruau, for the magazine Lidel (15th March 1930).
After the Second World War bathing caps were worn as part of matching swimwear outfits that could include swimsuit, beach towel, robe and tote bag.
But the golden age of the swim cap arrived in the 1950s with caps that presented intriguing textures and prints or elaborate embellishments such as floral petals, bows and synthetic ribbons.
The most flamboyant styles went out of fashion in the 1960s - as Space Age introduced indeed a less extravagant and more linear and minimalistic trend - and around the 1970s. But by then fashion had already introduced the swim cap in editorials that went on to become iconic.
Two examples? Norman Parkinson's portrait of Jerry Hall with a turquoise telephone receiver ironically stuck in her latex cap (an image that became a Vogue cover), and Hall photographed by Parkinson as she posed ready to dive from a styrofoam plinth in Russia wearing a red swimsuit by Martil and heeled sandals by Manolo Blahnik.
In the 1980s latex, Lycra and other materials were employed, while silicone was introduced in the last few years and is favoured by both amateur and professional swimmers who want to diminish underwater drag caused by hair.
If you like bathing caps and the effect they create when matched with ordinary clothes, you may be happy to hear there may be a come back next Spring/Summer - Miuccia Prada relaunched indeed the item during Miu Miu's S/S 17 runway show.
On the runways the models donned indeed ruched shorts and bikinis decorated with cross-stitched motifs, bloomers, and terry-towel skirts.
In some cases the designs were characterised by prints reminiscent of the vintage beach towels with geometric motifs in a clashing palette - think contrasting shades of green and turquoise, orange and brown and you get the idea.
The bathrobe-like coats - in shaved mink, in shiny pool blue plastic or covered in checkered or optical striped patterns - were often matched with bathing caps covered in blooming flowers and petals and fastened under the chin, a trend that looked borrowed from the '60s, while shoes included wedge sandals with elaborate carved platforms (at times in transparent blue plastic View this photo) featuring embossed shells and starfish, flip-flops with flat-soles and sandals with vinyl appliques that called to mind Prada's pumps from the A/W 2008 collection.
Quite a few looks were remniscent of Prada A/W 2011-12 collection, that, as fashionistas may remember, featured several chinstrap caps that looked like crossovers between bathing caps and vintage aviator's helmets (View this photo).
The result was vintage poolside glamour with a sci-fi twist, even though the playful yet kitsch mood was interspersed with gloomy shades of black that introduced a sort of somber atmosphere, as if Miuccia Prada had in mind not just climate changes, but also the apocalyptic colours in Mihalis Kakogiannis' The Day the Fish Came Out or the nuclear disaster in Stanley Kramer's On The Beach. In a way, that's nothing new since for Miuccia there has always been a double side to glamour, but, hopefully, disaster isn't awaiting us too soon and we'll still have the chance to rediscover the allure of bathing caps in the Spring/Summer 2017.
Baby, it's cold outside, and most of us may be dreaming of drinking hot chocolate in front of a fire rather than having to face the cold to go to work, battle queues for the Christmas shopping or go about boring daily errands. But there are other ways to get warm and inspired while dreaming about leisure time in the sun.
One option is watching films set in warm locations or showing bathing beauties à la Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid, another may be visiting "Sun-Drenched Style: California Mid-Century Women Designers" at the FIDM Museum at the Orange County Campus of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising (until June 10, 2017; free but by appointment only).
This is a small and compact exhibition, so don't expect hundreds of designs and multiple rooms and spaces to visit. There are indeed only 6 bathing suits on display and 6 fully-styled mannequins and assorted ephemera. Yet these pieces may offer visitors the chance to get to know the designers exhibited. The women designers featured in this exhibition were indeed inspired by the West Coast and by a carefree and dynamic lifestyle.
Though overlooked in favour of designers from the East Coast, Louella Ballerino, Agnes Barrett, Margit Fellegi, Addie Masters, and Rose Marie Reid contributed to the history of fashion with swimsuits, patio pajamas, play clothes, and relaxed separates ideal for indoor and outdoor leisure activities that defined the California aesthetic and helped the wearer embracing the freedom and modernity of California culture.
Most of the designs on display could be filed under the casual-chic label and functioned pretty well in most situations, so they could be used for beach breaks,poolside cocktails and outdoor barbecues, but also for evening events.
Addie Masters (1901-1983) was for example known as the ultimate California hostess in her private circle. She started her career in 1940 and her loungewear in vibrant colours, rich fabrics and impeccable construction and fit became pretty popular: if you leaf through vintage magazines such as The Californian you may easily spot culotte pants, beach pajamas, her iconic hostess pants that made her famous and her "wrap rascal" dress, a simple wrap-around style that debuted in 1939. During World War II, Masters abandoned her hostess pajamas due to the L-81 fabric restrictions.
In the late 1950s, Masters revived her signature hostess pajamas with trademark California prints, but the "Sun-Drenched Style" event features an Indian sari skirt by Masters that shows an Eastern inspiration. The garment is matched with a bathing suit, which could easily transform the look from an ensemble fir for a casual swim to perfect for a cocktail hour. The beaded Western blouse in the exhibition also shows another trend - "souvenir" clothes, that is garments someone would have bought to display their California adventure back home.
Louella Ballerino provided interesting fashion solutions and different inspirations. Around 1929 Ballerino was as a freelance fashion illustrator in Los Angeles, while working full-time in a custom dress shop and teaching evening fashion design courses at a technical college. In 1938 a manufacturer rejected her sketch for a peasant-style dress, but Ballerino trusted her instincts and passions and hired a manufacturer to make the dress that went sold out as soon as it arrived in a shop in Hollywood.
Ballerino was very much influenced by Mexico, Africa and Asia, and, inspired by annual trips to other countries (Italy, India, Holland and numerous other countries became firm inspirations...) and extensive researches in library and museums, she created her trademark transnational style.
The designer often imported handwoven fabrics for use in her collections and integrated Mexican and South American motifs in her dresses. Some of her dresses in a style that was dubbed "peasant", became pretty popular among the film stars of those times.
The FIDM Museum owns in its collection a coarse hopsacking dress decorated with wood squares and embroideries inspired by the Tongan tribe of Africa, but in this exhibition Ballerino is instead represented by an iconic coral silk cropped top with black silk appliques in a stylized floral pattern inspired by the designer's research into the dress and culture of Latin America, while the shape and silhouette of the garment clearly shows an architectural derivation.
The story of these designers is also linked with several collaborations with fabric and textile manufacturers and with other swimwear companies.
Rose Marie Reid used for example fashion-forward fabrics including lamé and velvet for her designs and some of her swim suits were so rich that they wouldn't have looked out of place if donned as part of an evening ensemble.
Reid also used photo-permable fabric to facilitate a suntan, sculpted her silhouettes with built-in brassieres that controlled the figure and became a favourite of many Hollywood stars including Joan Crawford and Marilyn Monroe.
Margit Fellegi started working with Cole of California in 1936 but she was mainly a Hollywood costume designer (the equivalent for the Hollywood swimsuit of Edith Head for proper garments).
Famous for her glamorus swimwear with an arty colourful twist but with an easy and functional fit and clean lines, loved by ordinary women and stars alike, Fellegi created in the '60s the Scandal Swimsuit and before that the Swoon Suit. The former featured elastic mesh and fabric and created a sensual and daring peek-a-boo style, while the latter featured side laces.
Among the designers on display there is also Agnes Barrett: active from the 1930s through the 1950s, she is credited with inventing the broomstick skirt. It was made by wrapping a wet cotton skirt around a broomstick and tying it securely whith strings while it dried. The uneven crinckled effects produced created unique designs and the skirt - very popular before wartime restrictions limited the use of cotton cloth - was sold with a stick that allowed consumers to recrinkle it.
Together with Peggy Hunt, Marjorie Montgomery, Irene Bury, Mabs Barnes and Viola Dimmitt, Addie Masters, Louella Ballerino and Agnes Barrett were part of a group called the Affiliated Fashionists, set to promote Californian fashion and keep up high standard of California design.
This may sound like an impossible idea in the highly competitive contemporary fashion industry in which backstabbing seems to be the rule, but a group of designers devoted to keep the standards high could actually represent an inspiring way to revive the industry, so there seems to be a more important lesson to be learnt among the fun leisure and swimwear featured in this compact exhibit.
We all have "eureka moments" in our lives, those rare instants in which we realise that something we see and discover or someone we meet may have a bigger impact in our future actions and maybe bring a genuine and positive change in our lifestyles.
A few years ago, Berlin-based artist Gudrun Leitner had one of such moments while looking at a workshop in a children's museum during which kids played with fabrics, creating a pattern. From then on she started exploring the possibilities that fabrics may have offered her to see if she could take the technique to the next level.
Her very first experiment consisted in transposing a picture of a cow from her family farm in fabric. She reproduced the basic picture of the cow in black and white with a green meadow and a green forest in the background; then she inverted and mixed the colours in a Pop Art key. She therefore disassembled and reassembled the composition, coming up with radically different versions of the same image.
Little by little, she moved onto portraits of people, creating more intricate subjects and images and, while working on her pieces, she realized that what she was making was not a simple craft, nor it could be filed under the "fashion" label even though she was employing layers and layers of different cotton-based textiles and rolls of thread, but it was art, as she also explained at a TEDX Talk in 2012.
More years passed and Leitner has now developed elaborate large-area and expressive portraits, mixing colourful fabrics and threads.
The artist usually employed her own photographs as a starting point for her artworks, portraying subjects and events with which she was connected or that deeply moved her, but, for a recent series of portraits, she took inspiration from the pictures of Austrian photographer Manfred Klimek.
Leitner has also started zooming in on the images, a technique that gives her the chance to play around with details such as the facial hairs, the eyes or the wrinkles on someone's forehead. The portraits proved really challenging since it takes Leitner up to six months to develop just one work, but she seems to have acquired a masterly knowledge when it comes to "paint" with fabrics specific features of the human face, in partcular the eyes.
While so far Leitner has always stated these are works of art and do not have connections with fashion, you can bet that, at some point, a fashion designer or a fashion house will ask her to collaborate: you can easily see this technique transposed onto a garment to maybe customise it or to create new forms of luxury suspended between art and fashion.
The countdown to Christmas is in full swing, but so is the pressure on consumers to buy and spend. Yet, in a world in a constant crisis, the gap between the haves and the have nots has widened and, while some may be able to afford to buy what they want, others may be battling against serious issues, from paying the bills to finding money to buy food.
Antwerp, a city known for its fashion connections, decided to find a way to make shoppers happy, while helping people in need - The Empty Shop, an initiative launched by Kringwinkel Antwerp.
The concept is pretty simple: shops, brands or companies with piles of unsold clothes, donate a portion of their stocks to the shop that boasts empty hangers and cabinets and naked mannequins.
The clothes and accessories fill up the shop that turns into a temporary conceptual Pop Up space, and the proceeds from the sale are used to provide a paid work experience to 250 refugees. The more pieces will be donated and sold, the more refugees can get a first work experience.
Simone Koops from Obelisk Werkbegeleiding highlights that this experience will allow refugees to feel useful, learn the language in practice and meet other people.
At the same time, the initiative ensures that quality clothes do not end up in landfills, but get a second life, breaking the cycle of fast consumption that is polluting our world and cluttering our wadrobes.
The experiment is based on the excellent result from 2015 when The Empty Shop sold over 1,031 pieces to 528 customers, earning in just two weeks over 25,000 Euros, donated to an association for homeless people. In that occasion different people donated their pieces including Antwerp Vice Mayor Philip Heylen, personal shopper Tanguy Ottomer, and fashion designers Walter Van Beirendonck and Anne Kurris, while also clothing chain H&M joined the initiative.
So far The Empty Shop has been successfully held in Sao Paulo, Manchester and Barcelona. The goal has been raised to collect 30,000 euros this year. The initiative is supported by prestigious partners, including Antwerp's Mode Museum and the Flanders Fashion Institute that last year sold at the shop a collection of scarves created by its students.
The Empty Shop will be open until Sunday 18th December at Pulcinella (Bogaardeplein 1) in the heart of Antwerp.
