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

The Cost of Copied Kitsch: City Merchandise Inc. VS Balenciaga America

Irenebrination followers have been encouraged to become more interested in fashion law since 2010. Yet, eight years ago (which in fashion history is like 800 years ago...) the focus was more on getting to know laws and regulations about trade, labour and production.

In more recent years, the attention reshifted instead on trademarks and copyright matters. You may argue that these issues have always existed in fashion, but things seem to have radically changed, altered also by the speed of the fashion rhythms, the easy way you can access lost fashion images and obscure references on digitalised archives, blogs and social media (and the temptation to copy what they portray...) and the lack of proper time to research, experiment and produce genuinely innovative garments and accessories (mind you, these are not excuses). The result is that at least once every two weeks (but in desperate times you even get the once a week routine...) a brand sues another for some kind of copyright infringement case.

A couple of weeks ago we looked for example at the case of Helly Hansen Vs Off-White, but in the last few days it was announced that there was another one, this time between City Merchandise Inc. and Balenciaga.

New York-based City Merchandise, Inc., a producer of souvenir items, filed indeed a complaint against Balenciaga America in a New York federal court (City Merchandise, Inc., v. Balenciaga America, Inc., 1:18-cv-06748-JSR (SDNY)). 

The object of the case is the "Multicoloured New York" line of bags that looks remarkably similar (if not identical...) to souvenir bags tourists can buy in New York City's gift shops produced by City Merchandise Inc (well, actually Balenciaga also did a pink hoodie with the same skyline...). In the complaint City Merchandise states "The overall effect of the Defendant's knock-off design is not only confusingly similar to Plaintiff's authentic design, but it is virtually indistinguishable."

There is only one thing that distinguishes the items - the cost. A tote by City Merchandise costs around $20, Balenciaga will set you back almost $2,000 (actually you can now get the bags with a hefty discount on different sites, proving they weren't that successful after all...).

City Merchandise has been producing for over 30 years souvenir items and it has been using the New York skyline design on its products since 2015, while Balenciaga maintained a copyright registration in the U.S. since February this year.   

In many ways it is difficult to disagree with City Merchandise, as the similarity for what regards the image, its colours, perspective and general layout is incredibly striking. If Balenciaga's Creative Director Demna Gvasalia ever thought that it was legitimate to copy a kitsch yet fun souvenir bag, maybe thinking nobody would have found out or that there was no copyright on it, well, he got it really wrong.  

Yet, while Gvasalia didn't do his research, City Merchandise did its own in-depth investigation, highlighting in the complaint how Gvasalia has a "dubious reputation in the fashion industry" and has often been called out for copying others' designs or appropriating other people's work (remember the Ikea and Ruff Ryder cases or the elephant in the room situation?).

The complaint (that was in a way triggered by a tweet in which Fashionista Editor-in-Chief Alyssa Vingan spotted the similarity between two tote bags - the tweet is actually included in the complaint) also mentions an article that appeared in People magazine on December 20, 2017 in which Gvasalia stated "every garment I do is based on a garment that already exists; I don't invent anything new" (that is definitely true, see also the embarrassing case of the luxury bag with the stock photo image...).

City Merchandise is now seeking injunctive relief (which means that, if the Plaintiff wins the case, Balenciaga will have to immediately and permanently cease all sales of the copyright infringing items), and recovery of damages and Balenciaga's profits and/or statutory damages, plus attorneys' fees. It is easy to see that this is an easy case that will end up in favour of City Merchandise, while Balenciaga will probably be willing to quietly settle things down (mind you, as stated above, the Balenciaga goods ended up being discounted, so the sales may be lower than expected and City Merchandise may not get what it expects, still it is worth trying...).   

So it looks like playing around with the concepts of luxury and kitsch, real and fake, elegant and cheap in a collection only pays when you come up with something genuinely original, rather than entirely copied. But that is not the real moral of the story: the lesson you should learn from this umpteenth case of copyright infringement is that, if you want a career in the fashion industry, you should opt for fashion law rather than fashion design, cos that's where the money is (as we stated in multiple previous posts...). 

Stacked Roof Tiles VS Ribbed Knitted Structures: Spotlight on Fashion Designer Di Gao

Architecture has been the main focus of the last few posts, from arty igloos to innovative (and at times imaginary) solutions for high-rise apartment blocks. Yet, as we know pretty well from previous posts, architecture can also inspire intriguing structures for the body, as those ones from the S/S 18 collection of womenswear designer and Parsons School of Design's MFA graduate Di Gao.

A passionate fan of crocheting and knitting, Di Gao decided to move from traditional Chinese architecture and construction when she first started experimenting on this collection.

From a distance, the designs that resulted from her experiments look slightly reminiscent of Japanese samurai armours with their ribbed motifs evoking the intricate breastplates, but, when you look close up, you realise that the dresses bear an uncanny resemblance with stacked Chinese roof tiles.

The most interesting thing about Di Gao's designs remains the way she constructed her dresses: rather than knitting, the young designer started by crocheting a base layer with copper wire.

She then proceeded to recreate coloured ribbed knitted rows on this layer, adding to them drawstrings that allow to alter the shape and fit of the design.  

The best thing about the collection, though, is probably not the architectural link, but the fact that these designs are all handmade. Looks like Di Gao may end up being a cool card to play for the next pavilion of The People's Republic of China at the next International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. As you may remember from a previous post, the 2016 pavilion had a strong link with fashion, so Di Gao's designs wouldn't look out of place in there.

Elevated Communities: "Vertical Fabric: Density in Landscape", Hong Kong's Participation @ The 16th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice

In the last two posts we looked at semispherical buildings and structures like igloos, so let's move instead today onto something less reassuring and more threatening like skyscrapers and tower blocks via a collateral event from the 16th International Architecture Exhibition (on until 25th November 2018), in Venice.

The event in question - entitled "Vertical Fabric: Density in Landscape" - is Hong Kong's participation, and it is curated by Professor Weijen Wang (Design Director of Wang Weijen Architecture) in collaboration with co-curators Thomas Chung and Thomas Tsang, and managing curator Grace Cheng.

For this project the curatorial team invited 94 local, mainland, Taiwan and overseas architects to design 111 towers in different forms.

The model towers on displays are ideas to re-define the city's tower typology and provide innovative visions of urbanism.

Professor Wang stated in a press release about the project: "Hong Kong is unique for the compactness of its vertical architecture and urban form in high density. The Hong Kong Exhibition is a platform for dialogue with the world, shaping a discourse of Hong Kong's urbanism and vertical architecture."

One of the main inspiration for the project is the book Dal grattacielo al tessuto verticale (From skyscrapers to vertical fabric) by Italian architect Giusi Ciotoli, combined with a work by Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie that explores the history of vertical structures from the the Tower of Babel to church towers passing through Chinese pagodas.

The towers designed for the "Vertical Fabric" event occupy the courtyard of the space exhibition in Campo della Tana (Castello 2126; right in front of the main Arsenale entrance) and some of the rooms on the ground floor, reproducing the density and compactness of Hong Kong's urban form.

The main idea behind this installation is indeed reproducing the vertical view that a person would get looking down on Hong Kong's Central from the Victoria Peak.

The slender towers that can be seen from this view create a wave of structures that spring up from the sloping terrain down to the harbour front, spreading along the water edge as a belt of tightly woven texture.

The towers establish the city's dominating typology, governing the urban skyline and shaping daily urban and architectural experiences.

The tower models recreated for the Hong Kong installation align with the main theme of the Architecture Biennale – "Freespace" – as they incubate visions for vertical public and communal free spaces, trying to tackle issues such as global challenges in technology, environment, society and culture.

Some of the structures are conceptual or fantasy projects, others are actually under construction, all of them are designed to bring together people and create urban microcosms, questioning visitors about life in high-rise apartment blocks.

Most models are based on fixed infrastructures of 360mm square plan extrusion and 2m in height representing the typical Hong Kong tower architecture, but the projects and materials employed to present them are very different.

Each model integrates indeed disparate materials that help architects and designers to re-define the typological, spatial and facade potential while maintaining the constrains of the tower's envelope as a collective urban form.

The internal structure of one tower is divided into Tetris-like pieces ("Tetris Living" by Au Fai), sponges are employed to redefine spaces in another ("Sponge Tower" by Rocco Design Architects), while coloured pencils offer colour and an unusual pattern to another model ("My Freespace Tower" by Chris Law/The Oval Partnership).

In one structure conjoined towers with interconnecting footbridges reminiscent of the concrete branches in Lina Bo Bardi's SESC Pompeia ("Residential Tower HK: Social Incubator" by Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto) offer residents the chance to walk in the sky and bump into neighbours as well.

Some of the models address issues of sustainability suggesting the possibility of covering the tower in photovoltaic cells so it can generate a new life and its own energy ("The Living Tower" by Hong Kong-based architects Sarah Lee and Yutaka Yano); others are made with stacked wooden bird cages and hint instead at architectural imprisonment ("The Sadness Behind Urban Sophistication" by Barrie Ho Architecture Interiors).

Studying the models from close up can offer interesting revelations: one is made with crudely cut grey foam ("Hatching-Density in Density" by Fernando Menis); another is inhabited by belligerent figures waging war on each other ("Conditional Tower" by Peter Ferretto), and a third one is filled with stacked single-family monolith-like grey houses ("Primitive City and Architecture" by Jun Igarashi Architects). 

While professional architects will find the projects intriguing for their focus on verticality, creative minds who may not know much about architecture can still go around this forest of towers and get inspired by the materials, space divisions, forms, shapes and colours employed to make them. 

'90s Projects That Should Definitely Make a Comeback: Lucy+Jorge Orta's "Refuge Wear"

There's a lot of talk about how the '90s are cool at the moment and how certain trends from that decade have made a comeback. Yet there is something from around that time that should definitely make a comeback, but that nobody seems to have mentioned – artworks and projects by Lucy+Jorge Orta. This research-based artistic practice has been focused since 1992 on fostering interactions and connections between human beings.

In the early '90s Studio Orta created the "Refuge Wear" series: everything started around the First Gulf War when Lucy Orta (whose background is in fashion; Jorge's is instead in fine art and architecture) tried to create a series of portable shelters or "habitats" destined to the refugees fleeing war zones who had ended up living homeless in the streets of Paris.

Orta's first portable habitats looked like tents that people could convert into anoraks and backpacks and revolved around two main principles – mobility and transformation.

More projects and social interventions followed, all of them tackling contemporary issues such as the economic crisis, mass unemployment, social unrest and social inclusion, nomadic living, environmental sustainability and recycling.

Among them there were experiments in which the duo conceived the body as a building such as the Modular Architecture igloos, pieces designed during a second-hand clothes transformation workshop in collaboration with the Salvation Army, sleeping bags made with life saving vests, military surplus fabrics and technical textiles, and the iconic Nexus suit.

The latter was first developed for the 1997 Johannesburg Biennale: Lucy Orta organised for this occasion a workshop with refugee women from Johannesburg's Usindiso Shelter.

The women learnt during the project to cut and sew the Nexus Architecture, consisting in a series of work overalls with a fabric tube attached that connected by zipper from one person's stomach to another's back (Studio Orta's cutting patterns are as fascinating as their projects and you can discover more about them in the volume Lucy + Jorge Orta Pattern Book: An Introduction to Collaborative Practices by Paula Orrell, Lucy and Jorge Orta). The fabric tube represented the physical and social link existing between all human beings.

On Studio Orta's Nexus Architectures project page a quote states: "It is through our connections with other people that we find our own centres. Another way of saying that our identities are formed by our relationships. We are the sum total of what others have given us and what we have given others."

Studio Orta kept on developing further projects along the same humanitarian lines in the last few years, some of them showing continuity with "Refuge Wear". Yet revisiting some of the previous installations and rethinking about them in our times of migrations, xenophobia and intolerance may help us finding more human solutions to modern emergencies. In a nutshell, Lucy+Jorge Orta's projects are the "trends from the '90s" we should be rediscovering and relaunching rather than high waisted jeans, scrunchies and platform boots. 

Landscapes of Temporary Shelters: Mario Merz's "Igloos" @ Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan

It is undeniable that the shapes of certain buildings can influence the state of mind of a human being, triggering different feelings, from anxiety, awe and fear, to happiness, joy and coziness. For example, it may happen that a low and rectangular building with rows of windows may call to mind a school we attended when we were children and generate nightmarish visions of teachers we didn't like; hemispherical igloos may instead immediately prompt us to think about protection from the elements and from danger.

Maybe moving from these architectural considerations, the Milan-based non-profit institution Pirelli HangarBicocca announced it will organise this Autumn an unprecedented exhibition of igloos by Arte Povera pioneer Mario Merz.

Born in 1925 in Milan, Merz started drawing on different materials during World War II while under arrest and confined in jail for being part of anti-Fascist group Giustizia e Libertà. He gradually moved onto oil on canvas in the '50s and then became more experimental in the '60s, when he combined different materials and objects with his canvases, becoming assimilated with the other representatives of the movement defined by Italian art critic Germano Celant as "Arte Povera".

In 1968 Merz started creating igloos building a metal skeleton and then covering it with fragments of clay, wax, mud, glass, umbrellas, burlap and bundles of branches; at times, he also added political or literary phrases in neon tubing.

Merz continued working on the igloos throughout his life, tackling through these primordial habitations different issues, such as home and nomadic life, safety and security, regeneration and vitality, physical and conceptual space, individuality and collectivity.

Curated by Vicente Todolí, Artistic Director of Pirelli HangarBicocca (Via Chiese 2, Milan), and organised in collaboration with the Fondazione Merz, "Igloos" (25th October 2018 to 24th February 24, 2019, so there will be the chance to visit it also for people going to Milan Fashion Week...) will feature Merz's iconic structures displayed over 5,500 square metres, the main idea is indeed offering to visitors the possibility of moving in a unique landscape of great visual impact.

Dating from 1968 until the end of his life, the pieces selected to be included in the event come from numerous private collections and international museums, including the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Tate Modern in London, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin and the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.

Vicente Todolí stated in a press release about the exhibition: "As its starting point, the exhibition 'Igloos' takes Mario Merz’s solo show curated by Harald Szeemann in 1985 at the Kunsthaus in Zurich, where all the types of igloos produced up until that point were brought together to be arranged 'as a village, a town, a 'Città irreale' in the large exhibition hall,' as Szeemann states. Our exhibition at Pirelli HangarBicocca will be a once-in-a-generation opportunity to re-live that experience - but expanded from 12 to more than 30 igloos - created by one of the most important artists of the post-war generation."

The show opens with "La Goccia d'Acqua" (The Drop of Water, 1987), the largest igloo (12 meters diameter) ever produced by Merz for an internal exhibition space, conceived on the occasion of his solo show at the CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux.

In the space of the Navate, the exhibition will instead display pieces in chronological order, starting from the first buildings such as "Giap's Igloo", decorated with a saying by General Vo Nguyen Giap of North Vietnam - "If the enemy masses his forces, he loses ground. If he scatters, he loses force", to "Acqua scivola" (1969).

The next section will include "Marisa's Igloo" (1972), dedicated to the artist's wife, and "If the hoar frost grip thy tent Thou wilt give thanks when night is spent" (Ezra Pound; 1978).

In the '80s, the igloos became more complex, doubling, tripling or intersecting, and the curator selected from this decade "Igloo del Palacio de las Alhajas" (1982) and "Chiaro Oscuro" (1983). "Untitled" (1999), created for the museum park on the occasion of the solo show at the Fundação de Serralves, represents instead the '90s.

Through this group of works, the exhibition reveals the most innovative aspects and themes of Merz's research, his observations on the transformation of nature and human life and his passion for certain scientific and mathematical themes (remember his obsession with spiralling forms and the Fibonacci sequence?), and his use of natural and industrial materials.

The "Igloos" show may prove inspiring also fashion fans and prompt them to rediscover a connection between Merz and fashion: in 1996, in occasion of the first Biennale of Florence, Merz collaborated indeed with German fashion designer Jil Sander.

Assigned an individual pavilion designed by architect Arata Isozaki, Sander and Merz transformed it into a wind tunnel of sheer white fabric twisted and filled with blowing leaves. An oculus allowed viewers to gaze into a vortex of blowing leaves and flowers through the length of a suspended fabric cone (that was actually a rigorously formulated mathematical shape calculated by tensile engineers in New York).

The exhibition "Igloos" will not have any direct connections with fashion, but it is definitely relevant to our times, especially when we consider the hostile climate created by the current Italian government and in particular by the Italian Minister for the Interior, engaged in a fascist battle against migrants and refugees. 

Merz's igloos may be different one from the other, but there is a link that connects them all - they are not closed to the outside world, but they are open and allow outsiders to come in or insiders to contemplate what surrounds them. "The igloo is a home, a temporary shelter", Merz stated in an interview in 1984, "since I consider that ultimately, today, we live in a very temporary era, for me the sense of the temporary coincides with this name: igloo". Maybe come this Autumn Merz's igloos will turn into symbolic safe havens against those political forces intent on sowing the seeds of hate and racism and denying shelter and refuge to people in need. 

Image credits for this post

1.
Mario Merz
Acqua scivola, 1969
Installation view, GNAM - Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna e contemporanea, Rome, 2017
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Silvio Scafoletti

2.
Mario Merz
Auf dem Tisch, der hineinstösst in das Herz des Iglu, 1974
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2008
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Paolo Pellion

3.
Mario Merz
Auf dem Tisch, der hineinstösst in das Herz des Iglu, 1974 (detail)
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: Angelika Kauffman, 1974

4.
Mario Merz
Senza titolo, 1985
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2009
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Claudio Cravero

5.
Mario Merz
Senza titolo, 1991
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2005
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Paolo Pellion

6.
Mario Merz
Le case girano intorno a noi o noi giriamo intorno alle case?, 1994
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2005
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Paolo Pellion

7.
Mario Merz
Senza titolo, 1999
Installation view, Fundação de Serralves, Porto, 1999
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: Rita Burmester

8.
Mario Merz
Senza titolo, 1999
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2010
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Paolo Pellion

9.
Mario Merz
Spostamenti della terra e della luna su un asse, 2003
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2011
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: © Paolo Pellion

10.
Mario Merz
Igloo di Giap, 1968
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2018
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: Renato Ghiazza

11.
Mario Merz
Is space bent or straight?, 1973
Installation view, Fondazione Merz, Turin, 2018
Courtesy Fondazione Merz, Turin
Photo: Renato Ghiazza

12 and 13.
Mario Merz
Exhibition view, Kunsthaus Zürich, 1985
Courtesy Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2011.M.30)
Photo: Balthasar Burkhardt

14.
Mario Merz
Schaffhausen (CH)

Ivanka Trump, Officially Out of Fashion

Fashion and politics go well together especially when you think about heads of state, ministers or party leaders using a tailored suit or a specific colour to highlight their roles and project their power at key meetings and speeches. Yet, at times this alchemy simply doesn't work, as proved by the case of Ivanka Trump, who recently announced she is closing her New York-based fashion brand. She took this decision since, as senior adviser to her father, she stated she needs to focus on work in Washington, but there may be other reasons behind the end of her brand. 

Ivanka Trump launched her accessories company in 2007, but she soon expanded into other categories, including clothes, sportswear and footwear.

A company estimated at $100 million before Trump's presidency, Ivanka's brand had the potential to grow even faster after the election and there was actually a growth in interest immediately afterwards.

The brand's appeal started to go down, though, for a series of reasons that included labour-related issues and Donald Trump's policies.

Last February the brand received some major blows when Nordstrom and Belk dropped it; then Neiman Marcus stopped selling Ivanka Trump's jewellery on their site.

At the same time anti-Trump activist group Grab Your Wallet launched an online campaign to boycott Trump products and the companies carrying them.

The brand kept on being associated with her role of "daughter of the US President", even after Ivanka took a leave of absence from her company and from her executive role at the Trump Organization to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

It is undeniable that the aggressive behaviour and deranged policies of her father have damaged Ivanka's fashion brand: even though all the retailers who stopped stocking Ivanka Trump's products claimed their choice was due to performance issues, Nordstrom dumped Ivanka's fashion label after the first Muslim travel ban became effective; Canadian retailer Hudson Bay also stopped selling her brand both online and in its stores after Trump's imposition of tariffs on Canadian goods (while Macy dropped Trump's own line of suits and ties soon after the US President called Mexicans rapists).

That said, while an aggressive, unfair and barbarously brutal (read separating immigrant children from their parents...), racist and xenophobic tendency in the administration is probably the first and foremost cause of (understandable) disappointment in consumers, probably one of the main saboteurs of Ivanka's brand is probably her own hypocritical self: at public events and speeches, Ivanka always claimed she wanted to empower women, but her brand didn't seem too interested in doing so as reports highlighted that the workers at the Chinese factories supplying the footwear for her brand (many of them women) were subjected to dishuman overtime/production quota and verbal and physical abuse.

Besides, Trump always boasted about "Made in America" products, but both him and his daughter manufacture products in China. Talking about the Far East, well, Ivanka won several trademarks in China before her father announced he would attempt to reverse a US ban on Chinese telecommunications company ZTE.

On top of it all, even after Ivanka stepped back from her company, she continued to profit from it and to wear her own brand's garments and accessories (which brought a class action lawsuit against her brand in March 2007, followed by a letter by watchdog group Democracy Forward to the Office of Government Ethics in January asking to investigate the fact that she was using her position to promote her products).

Yet there may be more reasons behind this choice of closing down the brand: the big news in economy and politics today regarded US President Donald Trump and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, trying to arrange a deal to work towards "zero" tariffs, barriers and subsidies on non-auto industrial goods, but the US President also seems busy working on a trade war with China (and never sorted out the situation with Mexico and Canada...). If Donald Trump decides to levy a total of $500 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports, the garments and accessories markets will be affected, so Ivanka probably abandoned the ship before it sank, proving that she is definitely using her position within the administration to access to vital information for her own benefit.

Who knows what will happen to the remaining stock – will it be rebranded (that wouldn't be surprising considering that G-III Apparel Group, the company producing Ivanka Trump sportswear, dresses and coats, allegedly rebranded some products a while back claiming they were designed by another G-III-owned brand - Adrienne Vittadini - to make them more palatable to consumers...), will it be discounted or maybe burnt H&M/Burberry style? Who knows, yet now that she's out of fashion, we can only hope that Donald Trump will soon be out of business as well.

From Teddy Bears to It Bags, The Marketing Ideas that Recently Backfired

Teddy bears and luxury handbags don't have much in common, or at least we thought so until the last few weeks. There were indeed some strange marketing ploys involving toys and It bags that ended up connecting the two items.

Global teddy bear company Build-A-Bear launched indeed a promotion called "pay-your-age" for its customers in the UK, US and Canada. This meant that a four year old child (and Bonus Club Member) visiting the shop on the designated day of the event (12th July), could make a bear and pay for it only $4.

Everybody likes a bargain, though, which meant the campaign backfired: people started camping outside the stores the night before the special sale and long queues formed. In some cases police was called to regulate the crowd and in a few shops customers were left disappointed as the assistants were said to be utterly unprepared for this unexpected situation (mind you, they may have guessed it would have attracted hundreds of people...).

But if this was a fiasco of bearish proportions (the comments on the Instagram post advertising the events are quite clear...), luxury companies may not be doing much better when it comes to their campaigns.

Fashion fans who follow their favourite international influencers on Instagram were literally bombarded last Thursday with images of said influencers flaunting a brand new Dior "Saddle Bag" (a re-edition of the infamous saddle bag by Galliano for Dior). Usually on Instagram you see people engaging in activities that would make you envious, such as relaxing on a beach, beatifically relaxing on a trendy float on a pool or having breakfast in a luxury hotel. In this case the saddle bag - in all its different incarnations from black to multi-coloured patchwork - seemed to having a rather interesting life in locations all over the world, from London to Hong Kong, from Melbourne to Rome.

Hong Kong-based influencer Elle Lee interpreted the bag with a video that ended up receiving thousands of negative comments for making the bag look cheap (no, it isn't cheap, and you can check some of the bag prices here).

You may argue that all people want to fit in, so when something is popular you feel like joining the cult and the trend; but there are also people who don't want to do so, and there are the wealthy hoi aristoi who prefer investing a considerable amount of money in something unique and exclusive. In a nutshell, this influencer-based campaign seemed a tad too aggressive (and in some cases the posts were not even indicated as sponsored or as adverts, so they did not feature a full disclosure).

The Build-A-Bear and the Saddle Bag campaign have one common denominator: they disappointed consumers - children in the first case and (wealthy) grown-ups (well, young millennials to whom the campaign is aimed at are still grown-ups...) in the second case, and both should be maybe signalled to consumers' protection associations.

Yet the most surprising thing about them is the fact that they come from well-established brands: founded by experienced retail executive Maxine Clark, Build-A-Bear is famous for being sensation when it comes to customisable stuffed toys, while Dior is an iconic French luxury house with a remarkable history. So how come that something magical and cuddly like a teddy bear ended up generating violence on the shop floor and how did something desirable as a "It" bag become a bit of a joke? Blame it on aggressive campaigns that treat us consumers as stupid and disposable items rather than as human beings with a soul, a mind and a personality (in Dior's case, well, since Maria Grazia Chiuri decamped from Valentino and moved to Dior, the French house has been shifting its attention on younger consumers, helped by the support of influencers).

Maybe Build-A-Bear could come up with better birthday offers for its club members or special sales every now and then. As for the various influencers who took part in the Dior campaign, in their defence it must be said they all styled their gifted bags in very personal ways (even though it was a shame that nobody dared destroying and reassembling the item - yes, it may have been a crime, as the bag could still be resold on eBay, but then again, since it was a gift, they could have tried to be more adventurous...).

In a way you can't blame them for jumping on the saddle rather than on the usual bandwagon since, after all, they do have to pay their bills and keep their followers entertained by posting visually striking images of them globetrotting all over the world in extraordinary wardobes deluding teenagers into thinking they will be able to get all this one day.  

That said, the destiny of Dior's new saddle bag may be short and sad: having reached its saturation point even before hitting the boutique floor or the online Dior shop, the bag may disappear from the "most trendy" and "most desirable" charts sooner than expected (sure, time will tell). One question remains, though: if Dior gave all these people a saddle bag for free, surely the company can't expect us all to actually pay to get one? 

Fashion in Motion, Beauty in Time-Lapse: Iris van Herpen Haute Couture A/W 2018

The concept of biomimicry and the possibilities offered by biological dimensions have inspired Dutch designer Iris van Herpen throughout her collections. For her Haute Couture A/W 2018 designs, showcased at the beginning of July during Paris Haute Couture Week, van Herpen focused on synthetic biology and on the organic/inorganic dichotomy.

The result was a collection entitled "Syntopia", a term usually employed to describe a future that is neither dystopic nor utopic, and that is more or less identical to the present, but that in this case summarises a combination of technology and biology. The set featured a piece by Lonneke Gordijn and Ralph Nauta of Studio Drift, a duo concentrating mainly on biomimic artworks and immersive sculptures.

Studio Drift developed for the occasion a spatial kinetic installation entitled "In 20 Steps", constructed of 20 glass bars suspended by invisible cables.

The sculpture recreated a pair of wings and simulated all the different steps of flying in an abstract form. The fragile glass bird moved while the models walked down the runway, a correspondence of dynamic forces hinting at the ineraction between different worlds.

The designer moved from the technical aspects of bird flight and avian motion for her new collection, but also added another inspiration, chronophotography, applying this concept to the draping of a garment.

The opening offer included grey and cream coats and dresses in laser-cut wool decorated with woven leather that traced trellis-like motifs. 

Though the silhouettes of the coats were not too different from those you may find in classic tailoring, the leather was digitally designed through parametric file making.

Two ample pleated tunics made with a luminous Japanese organza provided a hieratical interlude between science and biology, calling to mind visions of Mariano Fortuny in a high-tech key.

Soon biology returned, though, in a series of silk organza gowns created by adding up two-toned lasercut transparent layers heatbonded with Mylar and cotton that created a continuous movement when the models walked down the runway.

The technique was supposed to give an "inside a second" feel and slow down the movement of the fabric, exploring the ethereal time-lapse concept through a physical material. These garments entered in a dialogue with Studio Drift's piece, hinting at the chronophotographic lines of birdflight.

Coined by the 19th century French scientist, inventor and physiologist Étienne-Jules Marey, chronophotography defines photographs of movement from which motion could be studied. Often compared with Eadweard James Muybridge, a photographer who specialised in stop-action images of humans and animals, Marey also had a keen interest in how birds fly.

Marey's studies that captured movement in several frames were employed by the designer to drape a garment or to reproduce the layering of a bird's feather. As van Herpen stated in a press release for this collection: "By slowing down time into split seconds I started breaking down the usual draping of fabric, to then layer the milli-seconds all slightly shifted, like the layering of a bird's feather."

A bird's soundwave patterns was the inspiration for the "Mimesis" corset dresses (that moved a bit from van Herpen's beloved exoskeleton shapes...) in which the designer employed head-bonded laser-cut Mylar, black cotton, red organza and transparent black acrylic sheets to reproduce feather-like motifs. 

The final number with its silhouette that restricted the arms and transformed them into wings layered with silk and acrylic was also inspired by the architecture of feathers.

There was actually one aspect of Marey's studies that links his work to more modern times: his images inspired indeed the Cubists, Futurists and Dadaists when they started studying innovative ways to present in a modern key ordinary perspectives.

If we think about this connection it becomes almost impossible not to link some of the dynamic designs on this runway to the works of artists such as Giacomo Balla - think for example about his multiple exposure paintings such as "Girl Running on a Balcony" or "Flight of the Swallows" .

That's when you realise that, rather than just playing with biology and science, these designs also seem to bridge the gap between photography from the Victorian times and modern paintings, they are indeed dedicated to contemporary velocity girls suspended between a human and an artificial dimension whose beauty you can catch in a time-lapse.  

For the Love of Lace: "Haute Dentelle" @ The Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais, France

Hand-made laces taken from dresses and jackets from the Edwardian period are collaged and seamlessly combined in a Maison Martin Margiela jacket from the house's Artisanal Autumn/Winter 2012-13 collection.

The laces were bought second-hand in France, Belgium and Great Britain: the jacket lapel is made from the satin underskirt of one such find, while the clasp brooch is an Edwardian crystal door handle found in New York.

The jacket could be used as one of those unique garments that can break the boundaries between the modern and contemporary concepts (in this case modern looking vintage pieces are reused to create a contemporary design), but this is also one of the many perfect examples that allow us to enter into the delicately fragile world of the "Haute Dentelle" (on until 1st June 2019) exhibition at the Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode (The Museum of Lace and Fashion) in Calais, France.

The event - curated by fashion heritage specialist and author Sylvie Marot - illustrates the place occupied in ultra-contemporary fashion by the lace woven on Leavers looms.

Lace in this event dialogues with Haute Couture as the exhibition features 65 designs from the collections (from 2012 to 2018) of 14 of the most prestigious fashion houses on the French and international scene, plus 65 samples of lace by 15 French lace manufacturers.

The exhibition is also a way to pay homage to the French lace manufacturers who are turning their heritage into a laboratory for research and a source of creation. Time-consuming and complex to produce, lace making requires indeed a team of experts to assemble an entire piece.

"Haute Dentelle" offers a unique chance to see very exclusive gowns and unique samples from close up as there are no display boxes creating a barrier between visitors and garments.

The selection criteria was based on relevance and diversity, but the event curator hopes visitors will not just dream about the fashion designs on display, but will also focus on the different part of the lace-making process - from designing a piece incorporating lace to actually weaving the lace and then incorporating it in a design.

Besides, visitors are encouraged to discover more about the actual history of lace: the only textile with a truly European origin, hand-made lace first appeared in the 16th century in Flanders and northern Italy.

Characterised by an openwork support material and motif, it was mainly made employing two techniques: "needle lace" was made using a parchment, thread and needle; "bobbin lace" was created by a set of bobbins and with a lace pillow as a support.

In the nineteenth century, the mechanisation of lace production sprang up in England, in the city of Nottingham, and later in France, in Calais, Caudry and Lyon.

Mechanisation made lace production easier and expanded its use, yet, even though the new manufacturing technique made it less costly, it still required a numerous labour force with dedicated know-how. This know-how gravitated around the lace weaving loom known as the "Leavers" loom.

At the beginning of the 1950s, there were some fifty haute couture houses and more than 150 lace manufacturers in Calais alone (the lace that has been produced in Calais for almost 200 years is exclusively mechanical, but it was initially inspired by hand-made lace), other production centres included Caudry and Lyon.

Calais had more looms, though, as records show it boasted around 1,390 looms, while Caudry only had 400 and Lyon and Saint-Quentin had around 360; this meant that Calais was widely considered as the capital for mechanical lace.

German industrialist, Karl Mayer developed in 1955 knitting looms that manufactured a new product - Raschel lace. Cheaper and technically lower than woven lace, it was still labelled "lace", so, to differentiate, French professionals created a trademark - "Dentelle de Calais®".

The exhibition clearly shows that, although at the moment there are just fifteen mechanical lace factories in France (there were 40 in 2001 and 230 in 1950...) and fewer than 1,000 Leavers looms still in operation throughout the world, there is a lace Renaissance in fashion.

Both the technologies – woven and knitted – are being used for different applications: the former is employed for luxury pieces; cheaper lace is instead mainly mechanically produced in low-wage countries and, since most of us aren't able to make the distinction between the two types of lace, "Haute Dentelle" represents a great occasion to learn more about this textile.

Organised in the temporary exhibition gallery, "Haute Dentelle" opens with Chanel's Haute Couture S/S 2013 designs, one of them a dress in laminated Leavers laces with scuba (a textile similar to neoprene).

It continues with Viktor & Rolf and Zuhair Murad, passing through Louis Vuitton, Balenciaga, Gaultier and Margiela, all of them showing the diverse uses of mechanical lace in contemporary fashion.

Each display case is dedicated exclusively to one couture house to show its originality, but the lace houses are put on the same level as the supplier is identified and the lace – the raw material – is documented in detail.

This curatorial strategy allows visitors to look at the entire process behind the lace creation and learn more about modern manufacturing secrets and cutting-edge experimentations including waxed effects, lamination on rubber, transfer metalising and coating with silicone.

Yiqing Yin's Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2013-14 dress features for example siliconised Leavers lace (a technique patented by textile designer Tzuri Gueta) and tulle by Sophie Hallette; a Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2017-18 gown by Bertrand Guyon for Schiaparelli features instead a tear motif rendered in lace by Calais-based manufacturer Darquer.

The latter collaborated with the artist Rose-Lynn Fisher on this lace. One of Fisher's photographs from the "Topography of Tears" series - a study of tears under the microscope - was indeed the inspiration behind Darquer's "Tears & Lace" collection.

In some cases the pieces on display are reinterpretations of previous ones: the "bourdon" lace (so called because of the presence of a cord - "bourdon" in French - which outlines the motif woven directly on the loom) in a Chanel gown, calls to mind the same technique employed in a 1968 design; a Balenciaga dress created in June 2015 is instead the new version of a 1957 dress made in a blue shantung, but the new version incorporates a hand-embroidered lace by the House of Balenciaga ateliers in India, and a lace mechanically embroidered on a Cornely machine by the lace manufacturer (Soltiss).

In other cases apparent simplicity hides complex motifs or an intricate history: Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli's dress in Leavers lace (by Solstiss and Darquer) from Valentino's Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2015-16 collection looks almost monastic in its basic silhouette, but it actually includes collar and ailettes embroidered with round beads and structured with the use of a metallic thread.

The various laces and tulles making up this dress amalgamate to create a new material: the superimposition of layers, cut-outs and inlays and the juxtaposition of motifs give a mysterious alchemy to this dress.

A golden coloured laminette gown by Alberta Ferretti integrates a lace with a point d'esprit (dot) motif and another with a round motif, designs executed in the 1950s and 1970s that prompt visitors to consider again the dichotomy between what's modern in the history of fashion and what is contemporary. 

Maria Grazia Chiuri's tulle and Chantilly Leavers lace gown for Dior's Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2017 collection features a skirt with four flounced tiers of rounded petal-shaped laces by Solstiss, a motif that is directly linked to the house's iconic 1949 Junon dress.

For fans of innovative creations, the most intriguing section of the exhibition will be the one looking at lace transformations: fashion designers such as Iris van Herpen borrow indeed the "lace effect", but they reproduce it with different and technologically advanced processes such as laser embroidery or 3D printing.

Videos of catwalk shows, photographs, further sample laces (the Maison Lemarié has provided samples demonstrating research into textile manipulation) and a glossary and chronology complete the exhibition offer.

While "Haute Dentelle" allows visitors to admire rare gowns (with just two exceptions, most of these pieces are on public display for the very first time) and photograph them as well (without flash), it closes on a rather sad note.

Even though lace has entered other realms, inspiring architects and interior designers, furniture and home accessories such as tableware, or papermaking and jewellery, and artists create visually striking video installations inspired by the textile, and while there are university lecturers reintroducing lace in special projects (remember Mal Burkinshaw, Edinburgh College of Art Fashion Programme Director, and his "Silhouettes en Dentelle - Series 1"?), lace is absent from the syllabuses of most fashion and design schools because it is a material of great technical complexity, difficult to manipulate and costly.  

The major challenge for this exhibition is therefore to introduce students – the future actors in the world of fashion and design – to woven lace, so that they will get to know the opportunities that this textile can offer. Hopefully, there will be enough time to do so as "Haute Dentelle" will be on until 1st June 2019. 

Image credits for this post

1. Dress in appliquéd Leavers laces, Alberta Ferretti, Couture Spring/Summer 2016 Collection (Solstiss and non-identified laces) © Robin

2. Dress (detail) in appliquéd, Leavers laces, Alberta Ferretti, Couture Autumn/Winter 2014-15 Collection (Solstiss and Darquer laces) © Robin

3. Dress in Leavers laces, Alberta Ferretti, Couture Autumn/Winter 2016-17 Collection, (Dentelles Méry laces) © Robin

4. Dress in mechanically overembroidered Leavers lace, Balenciaga, Ready-to-Wear Spring-Summer 2016 Collection (Solstiss lace) © Robin

5. and 6. Dress in hand-embroidered Leavers lace, Chanel, Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2016 Collection (Solstiss lace) © Robin

7. Chanel display, "Haute Dentelle", The Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais, France. Photography by Fred Collier

8. Skirt (detail) in hand-cut Leavers lace with a floral motif, Chanel, Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2015 Collection (Solstiss lace) © CHANEL, Karl Lagerfeld

9. Dress with flounced tiers of tulle and Chantilly Leavers lace, Christian Dior Couture, Haute Couture Spring-Summer 2017 Collection (Solstiss lace) © DIOR

10. Dress in Leavers lace interwoven with laser-cut leather "lace", Iris Van Herpen, Ready-to-Wear Spring Summer 2016 Collection (Darquer lace) © Robin

11. Dress (detail) in Leavers lace interwoven with laser-cut leather "lace", Iris Van Herpen, Ready-to-Wear Spring Summer 2016 Collection (Darquer lace) © Robin

12. Dress and headdress in watered ribbon, tulle and Leavers lace, Jean Paul Gaultier, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2016-17 Collection (Solstiss lace) © Robin

13. Dress in Chantilly Leavers lace mechanically overembroidered with lurex, Louis Vuitton, Cruise Collection 2018 (Solstiss lace) © Robin

14. Ensemble smoking jacket and trousers in Leavers laces, Maison Margiela, Couture Autumn/Winter 2012-13 Collection (Sophie Hallette and Solstiss laces) © Robin

15. Dress in Leavers lace featuring an organic motif (macrophotography of tears), Schiaparelli, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2017-18 Collection (Darquer lace) © SCHIAPARELLI

16 and 17. Schiaparelli display, "Haute Dentelle", The Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais, France. Photography by Fred Collier

18. Dress in Leavers laces, Valentino, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2015-16 Collection (Solstiss and Darquer laces), Photography by Fred Collier

19. Dress in silk tulle and Leavers lace, and cape embroidered with ostrich feathers, Valentino, Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2014 Collection (Marco Lagatolla and Sophie Hallette laces)

20. Dress in jersey and Leavers lace, Yiqing Yin, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2013-14 Collection (Sophie Hallette lace) © Shuji Fujii

21. Dress in siliconised Leavers lace and tulle, Yiqing Yin, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2013-14 Collection, (Sophie Hallette lace), Photography by Fred Collier

22. Jacket and skirt in recycled tulles laces, Viktor & Rolf, Haute Couture Autumn/Winter 2016-17 Collection © Viktor & Rolf

23. Chanel display, "Haute Dentelle", The Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais, France, Photography by Fred Collier

24. - 27. Zuhair Murad display, "Haute Dentelle", The Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais, France, Photography by Fred Collier

28. Dress (detail) in Leavers lace overembroidered with beads and feathers, Zuhair Murad, Couture Autumn/Winter 2017-18 Collection (Sakae laces] © Zuhair Murad

29. Chanel display, "Haute Dentelle", The Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais, France, Photography by Fred Collier

Curvilinear Decorative Patterns from the Early 1900s

The two main pictures in this post show two dresses designed by Belgian painter, architect and interior designer Henry van de Velde and modelled by his wife Maria Sèthe (who was also the maker of the dresses he designed) in their house, Bloemenwerf, in Ukkel, outside Brussels.

Henry van de Velde's velvet gowns could be filed under the Artistic Dress movement: the latter rejected conventional fashion and restrictive elements such as corsets and hoops in favour of arttires that respected the natural shape of the body and that were informed by the inspirations of artistic circles.

The Artistic Dress wasn't that successful, especially in countries with a strong fashion tradition such as France: French designers and artists actually derided the trend, Paul Poiret dismissed the designs deeming them laughable and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec described one of Maria van de Velde's reception dresses designed to entertain guests as a robe or a "dressing gown" fit only for the domestic environment.  

Yet there are interesting points to make about van de Velde's designs and about these two gowns in particular: the designer and architect supported the idea of designs that did not "distort" the body and that featured arty and beautiful motifs.

His patterns - that ended up anticipating the Art Nouveau ones - were mainly characterised by an abstract style and by curvilinear lines linked to Belgian symbolism, as shown by the decorative motifs around the shoulder area, the back and the hem of the two dresses in this post. 

According to Henry van de Velde, decorations in interior design, but also in fashion and accessories like jewels had to offer people a sort of emotional involvement and had to dialogue with each other, that's the main reason why in the third and fourth images in this post Maria, posing in front of a piano on which we can see a music score by Wagner, is also leaning on a chair designed by her husband for their Bloemenwerf house in 1895 that has a backrest similar in its shape to the motif on the back of her dress; the chair is also linked to the Japanese painting in the background. 

While you may share or not the theories behind the Artistic Dress, quite a few of van de Velde's principles regarding fashion were very intriguing: he was indeed among the first ones who stated the time had to come to free fashion from the seasonal obligations French designers had pigeonholed it in; he also believed that the number of pleated and draped motifs that a dress could feature had to be calculated according to the way the wearer moved, which is an interesting concept that connects fashion to mathematics.  

In case you want to get more inspired by the arty patterns featured in the two gowns illustrating this piece, in this post you can also find Maria van de Velde's drawings for these decorative motifs, they are taken from Album moderner nach Künstler-Entwerfen ausgeführter Damenkleider (1900).