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

Water Scarcity & The Plight of Women: Spotlight on Aïda Muluneh

We have grown accustomed to having access to water or electricity, but such facilities are still a luxury in some parts of the world. According to international NGO WaterAid, one in ten people have no clean water close to home in the world, while in Ethiopia almost four in ten people don't have access to clean water.

Water scarcity has a negative impact on the health of people and it is estimated that a child dies every hour from diseases resulting from lack of clean water. Besides, over 70% of the people who have the responsibility of collecting clean water for their families are women and girls. They spend hours every day walking long distances to get water, something that affects their health and wellbeing, but also reduces their opportunities to access education.

Hoping to raise awareness about water scarcity, Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh created a while back a series of 12 striking images.

Entitled "Water Life" and commissioned by WaterAid, the beautifully arranged compositions in vivid colours wouldn't look out of place in a fashion magazine. The series revolves indeed around a palette of yellow, electric blue, white and red, and features beautiful women in African body paint, walking around a stark landscape carrying with them jugs of water or dragging along yellow water containers.

Yet there is more behind the pictures created by the Ethiopian photographer: some of the images were created at the photographer's studio in Addis Ababa (where the artist was born and where she relocated in 2007, after she left Canada); others were shot in extreme landscapes in one of the hottest and driest places on earth, Dallol, Afar, in Northern Ethiopia, where temperatures can reach 120°F (50°C).

The images were inspired by all the women walking and carrying heavy containers of water Muluneh often encountered while travelling all over Africa. Their presence in the images aims at bringing awareness about access to clean water, but also prompts us to think about the responsibility of women - especially those ones in rural areas - to collect water and about the risks they run into while walking long distances.

The women portrayed look like goddesses: they wear long robes and turbans, and they represent perseverance, courage, strength and dignity.

At times they drag behind them the yellow "Kufuor" gallon containers used to store and carry water that can easily be spotted in Africa. The cans tied to a rope look like shackles and hint at the fact that carrying the water is like being imprisoned. Some of the women in the pictures hold a coffee pot or "jebena", a reference to a woman's traditional role and to the burden she's got to carry.

The doors that can be seen in some of the pictures also assume metaphorical meanings: they may be painted in blue to represent access to water, or in red and in this case they may be placed at a higher level to express a lack of access to water; windows represent a quest for a better future.

The moon framed by red fabric forming wing-like shapes behind a woman reminds us that lack of clean water also means that girls are forced to stay home from school during their cycle, missing out on their education.

The taps and pipes in another image remind us that Ethiopia has got a water reserve underground, but there is no infrastructure to get the water out of the ground.

Through all these metaphors and symbols the images recount the stories of different women, while refocusing on the hardships they go through, on the challenges they face and on issues such as health, sanitation and education, reminding us that water can't just be a luxury for a few people, but must be normal for everyone, anywhere in the world.  

Muluneh considers herself an Afrofuturist: traditional African body paint is reinterpreted in a futuristic way, while stereotypical images of the continent are challenged to provide us with a different perception of contemporary Africa. 

Aïda Muluneh's images were showcased at London's Somerset House during the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, and are currently part of the exhibition "Crossroads Ethiopia" that just opened at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo (on until the end of November 2020).  

Muluneh also curated the exhibition that is divided in two parts, one featuring images taken by seven of Ethiopia's most famous photographers, and the other dedicated to pictures by British photographer Finbarr O'Reilly, who documented the effects of the conflict with Eritrea and also took pictures of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed Ali and of the women in his government. Earlier on this week, Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the  2019 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation and for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea. 

All images in this post by and copyright Aïda Muluneh

Artificial Intelligence Vs Traditional Patterns

Science can be a great inspiration to create innovative patterns for textiles, but the same can be said about technology. Computers and data science can indeed be employed to give a new spin to traditional narratives.

There are quite a few artists who in recent years have developed works inspired by data, conceived as a crucial form of cultural communication and a complex of diverse information. Among them there is also Orkhan Mammadov, who uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create new patterns directly inspired by traditional decorative motifs, structures and architectures.  

Born in Ganja, Azerbaijan, in 1990, the artist and graphic designer first studied at the Khazar University Computer Science faculty, but then moved to Turkey to study visual communication and to Czech Republic where he focused on art and experimental media.

Currently working between New York, Prague and Baku, Mammadov created a while back an installation entitled "Circular Repetition"(it was also part of the Azerbaijan Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition in Venice). The latter employs the latest state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms to process 15,000 ornamental images from the archives of several museums and libraries.  

Sampling and colliding all these images together, the Artificial Intelligence creates new and unlimited combinations based on the similarities between traditional ornaments.

The AI redefines the concept of repetition: patterns taken from the Azerbaijani tradition are recreated and the AI continuously builds alternatives upon them.

There are pros and cons in this infinite generation of patterns: new graphic signs and elements are generated on a continuous basis, and the machine never seems to run out of ideas or inspirations, so this is an exciting aspect. At the same time, the alternatives generated by the machine are perfect but cold, as they are the result of an artificial synthesis that has nothing to do with the historical authenticity of ornamental patterns, or with the traditional learning processes beyond the creation of such graphic elements that is usually handed down from generation to generation.

By accessing the data of authentic ornamental images, the AI becomes an invisible master that independently processes and generates new ideas, patterns, symbols and new concepts to update a culture. In this way the non-human intelligence replaces traditional craft tools and continuously generates new cultural developments as the AI blurs the boundaries between authentic traditional patterns and fake modern ones, between physical decorative motifs traced on paper or sculpted on walls and intangible digital ones. The final effect is that of staring at a dynamically digital kaleidoscope in constant flux that keeps on mutating under your very eyes. 

The Optimism of Crystal Structures in Textile Patterns: Helen Megaw & The Festival Pattern Group

What do crystal structures have in common with textiles and patterns? Many of us may be tempted to answer this question with a single word – nothing. Yet, by going back in time to 1951 and to the Festival of Britain, you may discover an interesting connection between textiles and the work of Helen Dick Megaw. The Irish crystallographer developed indeed patterns derived from images of crystal structures that were then incorporated in industrial products.

Born in 1907 in Dublin, Helen Dick Megaw studied in Dublin, Belfast and Cambridge. In 1915, the invention of X-ray crystallography allowed scientists to study the structures of atoms in molecules and crystals at a sub-microscopic level. 

Megaw was fascinated by the architecture of crystals and, after graduating in 1930, she became a research student in crystallography under J. D. Bernal.

Her first speciality was the structure of ice: Megaw Island in the Antarctic was later on named in her honour.

She was awarded a PhD in 1934, followed by a Hertha Ayrton research scholarship and, in 1935, Megaw co-published with Bernal an influential method for fixing the position of hydrogen atoms (the Bernal-Megaw model).

After teaching for several years, in 1943 Megaw became an industrial crystallogropher with Philips Lamps where she worked out the crystal structure of an important industrial material, barium titanate, used in capacitors, pressure sensitive devices and other electrical and optical applications.

This material, which crystallises in the so-called perovskite structure (a perovskite is any material with the same type of crystal structure as calcium titanium oxide (CaTiO3), known as the perovskite structure, or XIIA2+VIB4+X2−3 , with the oxygen in the face centers), belongs to the class of materials known as ferroelectrics, originally discovered around 1935. 

Its structure is of such significance that Megaw's name became associated with it and with perovskite structures in general. Megawite (CaSnO3), a perovskite-group mineral, is indeed named after her.

In 1945 Megaw returned to working with Bernal at Birkbeck College in London, before taking a post at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge. 

Impressed by the beauty of crystal structures, Megaw started thinking about how to introduce patterns made available by X-ray crystallography to designers.

In 1949 Megaw had a conversation with Mark Hartland Thomas, Chief Industrial Officer from the Council of Industrial, and was appointed scientific consultant for the Festival Pattern Group of the Festival of Britain in 1951.

The event was organised to promote the British manufacturing industry and innovations after World War II, bringing back optimism and faith in the future.

The project consisted in gathering the crystallographic images and crystal structure diamonds Megaw researched and passing them onto industrial designers who used them as the basis for decoration in the textiles and products displayed at the Festival.

The project involved 28 manufacturers (11 from the textile industry) who selected the crystal structure diagrams that suited them most. Among the others they opted for the structure of kaoliny, beryl, apophyllite, haemoglobin and insulin, all supplied by Megaw and other scientists.

Even though the project was strictly non-academic, scientific accuracy was an essential priority and Megaw and Thomas provided the manufacturers with feedback.

Mainly displayed at the Regatta Restaurant in the South Bank, the works of the Festival Pattern Group included a variety of patterned wallpapers, carpets, curtains, lace, dress fabrics and plates based on crystal structures. Colour choices varied and went from muted to more daring, but, as stated above, the main focus remained scientific accuracy.

Though some critics didn't like the idea, others found it fascinating: The Times, for example, highlighted that it was exciting to see something as destructive as a bomb applied to a design object.  

After this project Megaw continued her researches: she published the volume Ferroelectricity in Crystals in 1957, and studied the crystal structure of feldspars, the materials that make up most of the earth's and moon's surface. She retired in 1972 and published a second book, Crystal Structures: a Working Approach, in 1973. Megaw died in 2002.

Megaw proved that there can be a strong connection between design and science and that professionals from both fields can influence each other.

Through her work she also reshifted the attention on female scientists: women excelled in X-ray crystallography and Helen Megaw is often remembered together with Dorothy Crowfoot (later Hodgkin), who became the third woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry (and the only British woman ever to win a science Nobel Prize).

It would be intriguing to see a new project combining science and design/textiles in our days, maybe a more daring one as well (while there was an appetite for patterns based on atoms, only a few of the Festival Pattern Group designs were mass-produced, and even fewer were commercially successful), considering that now such a collaboration may be perceived in a different way. When it was first organised and while it was developed, the project was indeed kept secret mainly to protect the scientists' reputations as it may have been damaging for their careers if a scientist were associated to a design project. 

Those who want to rediscover the textiles can do so at "The Art of Innovation: From Enlightenment to Dark Matter" exhibition (until 26th January 2020) at London's Science Museum. The event looks at the interaction between scientific progress and social change and features a few samples created by The Festival Pattern Group.

Image credits for this post

3.
Sample of jacquard-woven blue linen furnishing fabric with Hydrargillite 8.33 pattern, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1951, Randalstown
Maker: Old Bleach Linen Company
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

4.
Sample of roller-printed viscose rayon marocain dress fabric, navy blue and white, based on crystallography by Max Perutz (1914-2002), a British biochemist, haemoglobin 8.26, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1950-1951, Manchester
Maker: Barlow and Jones Limited
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

5.
Sample of jacquard-woven tie silk, red, black and gold (yellow), based on Max Perutz's crystallography, haemoglobin 8.26, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1950-1951 in Sudbury
Designer: George Reynolds
Maker: Vanners Silk Weavers
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

6, 7 and 8.
Sample of navy, silver and red tie silk in perovskite pattern, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1951, Sudbury
Maker: Vanners Silk Weavers
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

9.
Large hand-screen printed wallpaper sample in shades of green, Afwillite 8.45 pattern, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain. This wallpaper appeared in the Regatta Restaurant. It was designed by William J Odell and printed by John Line and Sons and based on the mineral afwillite. Helen Megaw, who determined its atomic structure, supplied Odell with a contour map of the mineral's inner atoms. The 'peaks' with six or seven contours show calcium atoms, those with five contours show silicon, and the others show hydroxyl and water.
Made: 1951, Southall
Designer: William J Odell
Maker: John Line and Sons Limited
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

10.
Design on card used for Boric Acid 8.34 wallpaper, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1951, London
Designer: William J Odell
Maker: P Jones
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

11.
Two samples of dress fabric ('Fibre') FPG 33, screen printed silk or fine filament acetate rayon crepe, design based on a Fourier contour map of Afwillite, in brown and gold and brown and silver colourways, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1951, London
Maker: Arnold Lever
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

12.
Sample of green furnishing Jacquard-woven linen fabric based on Hydrargillite 8.33, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain.
Made: 1951, Randalstown
Maker: Old Bleach Linen Company
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

13 and 14.
Sample of jacquard-woven warp tapestry, made from wool, cotton and continuous filament rayon, afwillite 8.44, designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain
Made: 1951, Braintree
Maker: Marianne Straub and Warner and Sons
Science Museum Group Collection
© The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

Fashion Vs Football: Diego Armando Maradona 1, Dolce & Gabbana 0

Diego Maradona just scored a victory, but not on the pitch. On Monday the ex-footballer and current manager of Argentinian football team, Gimnasia La Plata, won the court case against Italian fashion design duo Dolce & Gabbana.

As you may remember from a previous post, Dolce & Gabbana's A/W 16 Alta Moda show featured a model in a long skirt matched with an embellished version of a S.S.C. Napoli football club jersey recreated in satin and embroidered with Sophia (Loren)'s name on the front and with the name of Argentinean football player Diego Maradona and a sequinned number 10 on the back.

During the runway, the model wearing this ensemble was also carrying a soccer ball. Both Loren and Maradona are considered icons in Naples, so Dolce & Gabbana wanted to pay tribute to them with this design.

Yet, they should have known better and, in the same way as they asked permission to use images from the Archivio Storico Ricordi, they may have reached out to Maradona and explained what they had in mind.   

Indeed, fourteen months after the show, in September 2017, Diego Maradona filed a legal suit in the Milan Court of First Instance, accusing D&G of having taken unfair advantage of the reputation of his name as they never asked for any permission.

On Monday Milanese judge Paola Maria Gandolfi ruled in favour of the footballer, stating that it is not fair to parasitically exploit another person's fame.

Condemned for illegally using the name of the footballer, D&G will now have to pay 100,000 Euros (plus legal expenses that amount to over 13,000 Euros) to Maradona and, while that's a consistent sum, it is not a huge amount of money, yet what's important in this case is the final ruling that constitutes a warning for the future for what regards hidden advertising and illegal merchandising and represents something new for Italian law when it comes to the use of the name and image of footballers and athletes in general.

The judge compared indeed using Maradona's name without his permission to selling fake goods on a market stall: "The use of Maradona's name was explicitly finalised to appopriating in the D&G collection those attractive components that characterised the prestigious professional career of the legendary footballer." 

It should also be highlighted that Maradona's name is protected by trademark law as the ex-football player has a number of European Union trademark registrations for his name (filed in July 2001 and registered in January 2003), including use on Clothing Products, Cosmetics and Cleaning Products, Computer & Software Services & Scientific Services. 

This is not the first time Maradona sues somebody for illegitimately using his name: in 2017 he sued Konami, publisher of Pro Evolution Soccer 2017, that used his name in a game without his authorisation. The two eventually reached an out-of-court settlement stating that the company was going to compensate him for the use of his name and likeness in the Pro Evolution Soccer franchise, while Maradona was going to become PES Ambassador until 2020 and promote the game on Konami's behalf. In that case Maradona also stated he was going to use part of the money received by Konami to improve the situation of football pitches located in disenfranchised areas of his home country.

On his Instagram page Maradona happily announced the victory in the court case, highlighting that the fashion design duo should have asked for his permission.

Damages were contained, though: Maradona originally asked for 1 million Euros, but the request was drastically reduced considering that the garment was part of a high fashion collection, so it wasn't produced in series and, being part of the Alta Moda runway, it was probably only for sale on order for the high fashion clients of the Italian duo. 

Cinematic Transformations: Now, Voyager (1942) by Irving Rapper

We recently looked at character transformations via costumes in operas. Yet the same theme can be explored on the big screen, in films such as 1942 American drama "Now, Voyager", directed by Irving Rapper and starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains.

The film, based on the eponymous 1941 novel by Olive Higgins Prouty, takes its title from the Walt Whitman poem "The Untold Want", that states "The untold want by life and land ne'er granted / Now, voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."

In the film Bette Davis is Charlotte Vale an unattractive spinster living in Boston with her tyrannical mother.

Born to her late in life, Charlotte was an unwanted child: her mother has been verbally and emotionally abusing her throughout her life, almost taking her own revenge upon Charlotte for having been obliged by social conventions to have a late child.

Charlotte lives like a silent recluse, hiding in her room to carve intricate ivory boxes, a hobby that proves she is highly skilled, yet she lacks self-confidence and self-esteem.

Fearing she may be having a nervous breakdown, her sister-in-law Lisa introduces her to psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains), who arranges for her a period of time in his sanitarium. After a few months away from her mother, Charlotte is completely transformed and, rather than returning home she goes on a long cruise.

On the ship she meets Jeremiah Duvaux Durrance (Paul Henreid), a married man travelling with his friends Deb and Frank. Jerry's marriage is in crisis: his wife is jealous and doesn't want him to be an architect, a profession that makes him genuinely happy, besides, she does not love their daughter Christine, affectionately called by his father simply Tina.

Charlotte and Jerry fall in love, but they decide not to see each other at the end of the cruise. Once back home Charlotte resists her mother's attempts at destroying her again, also thanks to Jerry's memory.

Time passes and she gets engaged, but a fortuitous encounter with Jerry rekindles the flame. When her mother dies after a quarrel, Charlotte fears she may have another breakdown and goes back to the sanitarium where she meets Jerry's daughter. The young girl reminds Charlotte of herself as a child - unwanted, unloved and lonely - and, forgetting about her own problems, Charlotte decides to help Tina getting better. 

The film is about mental health issues, psychotherapy and recovery following a breakdown, a theme dear to Prouty who had spent time in a sanitarium following a mental breakdown in 1925. 

But the story also tackles themes such as anxiety, identity, the need for self-assertion, empowerment, emancipation and the strength that love can give to each and everyone of us. 

Indeed Charlotte begins to bloom and radiates confidence not just when she breaks her mother's psychological hold over her, but when she receives simple acts of kindness and appreciation. The same happens to Jerry who returns to his passion - architecture - and becomes more empathetic towards his daughter after he meets Charlotte. Christine is also transformed from ugly duckling into swan when she feels loved by Charlotte. 

The film is also about independence as, to emancipate herself, Charlotte rejects the attention of her suitor and her lover as well.

The road to empowerment for Charlotte implies an interior, but also a physical and style change: for this film Bette Davis was involved in details such as choosing her wardrobe personally.

Consulting with designer Orry-Kelly, she suggested a drab outfit, including an ugly foulard dress for Charlotte, to contrast with the stylish and timeless creations that mark her later appearance on the cruise ship.

Davis also suggested a more natural look for actor Paul Henreid, who originally had a gigolo-like appearance (Henreid and Davis also devised the "two cigarettes" scenes in the film, in which Jerry places two cigarettes between his lips, lights them both, and hands one to Charlotte). 

In the film Dr. Jaquith (Claude Rains) first urges Charlotte to make several radical changes in her life, encouraging her to "sail forth to seek and find."

Slowly, Charlotte emerges from her tight hairdos and severe clothing (you could say that the printed motif in the first dress Davis as Charlotte appears in on the big screen, represents the character's confusion and inner turmoil) that characterise the unattractive spinster enslaved by maternal tyranny and adopts a wonderful wardrobe.

The first time she emerges from the ship cabin, Charlotte wears a skirt suit with a hat that partially covers her face that will be evoked later on in the history of cinema by Nicole Kidman's blue and white travelling suit and matching white fedora designed by Catherine Martin for Baz Luhrmann's "Australia". 

Charlotte's transformation into an elegant woman continues on the cruise, with functional daywear always characterised by ample shoulders, tiny waist and small bodice, almost to assert a new and more confident silhouette, and with evening gowns at times matched with a cape covered in sequinned motifs. 

On her journey back home, Charlotte emerges from the ship in a perfectly tailored jacket with a triple layered vertical detail matched with a wide brimmed black hat and a large clutch in patent leather, marking her final transformation in the eyes of her sister-in-law and her incredulous niece. 

Orry-Kelly emphasised the ugly-duckling-into-a-swan metamorphosis in "Now, Voyager", with gowns with low-cut necklines that highlighted and enhanced Davis' neck. We see more evening gowns when she goes back to Boston, and her entire wardrobe is always accessorised with hats, gloves and bags, proving us she has learnt how to master the language of fashion in her favour. 

Orry-Kelly often stated that clotheswise this was his best film with Bette Davis, who, not having been a stereotypical Holywood beauty, shared with Charlotte her insecurities, but also her resilience. Maybe the best thing about this film is the fact that Charlotte undergoes a physical transformation but then the focus moves on her inner development. 

At the beginning of the film Charlotte depends from her mother and from men as well, since, as a young woman, she tries to please them.

But at the end of this story of breakdown and recovery helped by timeless fashion, Charlotte finds true independence. She has learnt to look glamorous and impeccable, but she has also learnt to reject suitors and accept herself and her life as a single woman, as proved by those last legendary lines. When Jerry asks her, "And will you be happy, Charlotte?" she simply answers "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."

Opera as a Genre/Gender-Bending Experience: Olga Neuwirth's "Orlando" @ The Wiener Staatsoper

In yesterday's post we looked at the representation of the passing of time and the fate of a heroine in a costume for a classic opera. The same themes, together with transformation, duality and trans-identity, are also analysed in a modern opera that debuted yesterday at the Wiener Staatsoper - Olga Neuwirth's "Orlando".

Based on Virginia Woolf’s eponymous novel and with a libretto by Neuwirth and the Franco-American author and playwright Catherine Filloux, the opera was first commissioned for the Wiener Staatsoper five years ago by director Dominique Meyer.

In her programme notes entitled "Orlando, a fictional musical biography" (NYC, March 2016), Neuwirth remembers the creative process that went into the piece: "When I received this commission in 2014, I immediately realized that the work I had to compose must be a hybrid grand opéra designed as a fusion of music, fashion, literature, space and video. It had to be an opera with diverse people from diverse genres that would shake up this venerable old opera house a bit."

The new work was eagerly anticipated internationally first and foremost because Neuwirth is the first woman composer to be commissioned by the Vienna State Opera in 150 years. Besides, the opera has a bonus for fashion fans as it features costumes by Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo.

The story starts in 1598, when Orlando, a young English aristocrat, is being groomed for a military career. He meets Queen Elizabeth I who is enchanted by his youth and endows him with medals and properties before she dies.

In the Great Frost of 1610, festivities are held on the frozen Thames. Orlando falls passionately in love with the attractive Sasha who disappears with a Russian sailor. A deeply hurt Orlando retires to loneliness on his estate, falls into a death-like sleep, and, when he wakes up, he decides to become a poet.

Disappointed by life and art, Orlando turns his back on England and has himself posted as ambassador to a distant land. Surrounded by war, Orlando falls into a trance and receives the visit of Purity, Modesty and Chastity.

Orlando then turns into a woman, but poet colleagues Pope, Addison, Dryden and Duke aren't interested in her work (and Duke gets rather angry when she refuses his marriage proposal...).

More oppression follows for Orlando during the Victorian age, but there is time for romance when she gets married with a war photographer she met during the First World War. Together they witness the destruction and tragedy brought by World War II. 

In the '60s Orlando keeps on writing and creating and, when we meet the character again in the '80s, we witness Orlando being told what she should write to be published and become successful.

Yet Orlando doesn't surrender, learns to persevere and passes the lesson onto her non-binary child. As the story closes, Orlando continues to write because: "No one has the right to obey". 

Compared to Woolf's novel, Neuwirth's "opera in 19 scenes" includes some changes: rather than starting in the 16th century and ending in 1928, the story continues into these days.

"In all of the nineteen scenes, each individual situation bears on the music and at the same time everything should remain quite light, bright and disturbing. Painful, fragile, alien and beautiful. Most scenes are interrupted by the spinning of a dreidel, as a symbol for the passing of time," the composer explains in the programme notes.

The opera features a talented cast: with American mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey in the title role; singer Anna Clementi as The Narrator; countertenor Eric Jurenus as The Guardian Angel; Constance Hauman as Queen/Purity/Friend of Orlando's child; Agneta Eichenholz as Sasha/Chastity; Leigh Melrose in the role of Shelmerdine/Green and transgender American cabaret artist Justin Vivian Bond, as Orlando's non-binary child.

The opera takes the theme of gender identity to another level, tackling duality, freedom of opinion, the possibility of breaking rules imposed on people by society and rejecting a standardised vision of beauty, themes that have been of interest to Neuwirth for over 30 years.

"Like Virginia Woolf’s character Orlando, I believe that art and, in my case, music, is able not only to stimulate the senses emotionally, aesthetically and intellectually, but also to connect us to other people," the composer states in the programme notes.

"Yet we should never forget that an opera will always remain an acoustically and verbally imperfect reality - for reality cannot be brought to an opera stage. What interests me about Orlando, and certainly also interested Virginia Woolf, is that art can create a free, vast and unexpected space for asking questions, making a fold in everyday space, a lively freedom of spirit that is the basis of every democracy."

Directed by Polly Graham and conducted by German composer Matthis Pintscher, musical director of the Ensemble Intercontemporain and professor of composition at the Munich College for Music and Theatre and the New York Juilliard School, and featuring projections and videos by Will Duke, musically speaking "Orlando" is characterised by diverse styles, going from boy soprano to bass baritone, with a children's choir, included.

This variety is aimed at creating a whole spectrum of sounds and vocal expressions and it is mirrored in the costumes by Comme des Garçons' Rei Kawakubo.

Quite a few contemporary fashion designers and houses that have created costumes for operas have conceived these projects as one-offs.  

Kawakubo turned instead the commission into a fashionable trilogy revolving around a personal study in gender and identity that she called "Transformation and Liberation".

As you may remember from previous posts, Comme des Garçons' S/S 20 menswear collection, showcased in Paris in June, was "Act I", the label's women's show presented in September represented "Act II" and the final staging of the opera is now the third and final act of the study.  

The costumes on stage at the Wiener Staatsoper are accessorised with masks by Comme des Garçons and Stephen Jones (hair by Julien d'Ys), and they revolve around Kawakubo's personal tropes, in particular her researches on volumes, structures, body morphing, distortion and deconstruction.

At times the androgynous look prevails, at others the characters are trapped in complex constructions (check out Constance Hauman in a Queen Elizabeth I costume shaped like a golden cage) in a variety of materials, that echo in some cases previous Comme des Garçons collections. 

Styles range from Baroque and Elizabethan Renaissance to military and punk with moments of surrealism and psychedelia, a mix of inspirations that go well with the time-travelling themes, and that point at freedom of expression, originality and a fluid gender-twisting identity.  

Neuwirth summarises all the themes of Orlando in her programme notes, explaining: "A love of oddities, of the supernatural, deceit, virtuosity, exaltation and exaggeration is the essence of Orlando, a fictional musical biography. Often it is also about memory and a sophisticated, highly subtle form of sexual attraction. And about refusing to be patronized and treated in a condescending manner – something that continually happens to women, with no end in sight."

In a nutshell, Neuwirth's opera tries to shake up conventions, questioning norms: while in traditional operas a tragic fate usually awaits a female heroine, in Orlando a woman triumphs.

Rebelling against stereotypical roles, she fights for creativity and, while questioning patriarchal history, gender and social conventions, and condemning intolerance and misogyny, she also challenges all sorts of binary systems (Neuwirth also subverts the rules in the pit of the Vienna State Opera orchestra, adding an electric guitar and two synthesisers among the classical instruments), destroying them and choosing who and what she wants to be.

You would love to see Olga Neuwirth's "Orlando", but can't go to Vienna? Don't despair: the performance on 18 December will be broadcast in HD around the world through Wiener Staatsoper live, so you will soon be able to enjoy this fashionably revolutionary opera live from the comfort of your home.  

Image credits for this post

All images in this post courtesy and © Wiener Staatsoper

Tosca, Fate and Time in a Gown

The opera season at Milan's La Scala opened yesterday with Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, directed by Davide Livermore and conducted by Riccardo Chailly, with opera diva Anna Netrebko in the part of Floria Tosca, Francesco Meli as Cavaradossi and Luca Salsi in the role of Scarpia.

Written by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), with a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, and based on the play "La Tosca" by French playwright Victorien Sardou, the opera takes place in the Italian capital in 1800, with all the action is condensed in less than 24 hours.

The plot centres around Rome's star opera singer Floria Tosca, her lover, the painter Mario Cavaradossi, and the corrupt Chief of Police, Baron Scarpia.

Scarpia desires Tosca and, suspecting Cavaradossi of assisting an escaped political prisoner, he persuades Tosca to reveal the prisoner's hiding place and Cavaradossi's involvement, so that he can have her for himself. 

Cavaradossi is captured and Scarpia tells Tosca he will save him if she gives herself to Scarpia, otherwise her lover will die. To escape Scarpia, Tosca takes a brave and tragic decision.   

Premiered on 14th January 1900 in Rome, the opera has an interesting story when it comes to staging: one legend says that behind the scenes there was a large pile of mattresses on which Tosca could have landed after she threw herself from the battlements. Yet the pile was so high that the opera singer, rather than simulating a leap to her death, ended up bouncing back, reappearing behind the battlements.  

Luckily, nothing comical happened at the premiere in Milan last night, but there was something else to write about, the symbolism behind Tosca's costume, for example. 

Costume designer Gianluca Falaschi was inspired for Tosca's gown by Rome's sunsets and created a symbolic costume with an intrinsic duplicity, representing also the turmoil in Tosca's soul.  

The upper part of Tosca's gown is therefore sky blue, but the blue then melts into orange and red, hinting at the morning and sunset (as stated above the action in this opera takes place in less than 24 hours), but also at Tosca's destiny, from life to death.

This arty effect, that Falaschi stated was taken from Mark Rothko's works, was recreated by the artisans working at La Scala's costume workshop painting directly on the fabric. 

The theme of blood is also present in a red organza scarf donned by Tosca and in the leather coats smeared in red paint worn by Scarpia and his police forces. 

As a whole this was a cinematic version of Tosca that, offering a bird's-eye view over Rome through the sets by Cristiana Picco from the study Giò Forma (that also incorporated video installations that kept the attention alive), proved successful and was rewarded with a 16-minute ovation by the audience. 

Opera Inspirations from Milan's La Scala

As per tradition the opera season at Milan's La Scala opens today. The event was anticipated by Dolce & Gabbana's Alta Moda show yesterday.

Inspired by 12 operas - Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot, Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, La Traviata, Attila, Rigoletto and Don Carlo, Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi and Norma, Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, and Gioacchino Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia - the collection was an extravagant and grand reinterpretation of D&G's A/W 2009 ready-to-wear collection, recombined with the Alta Moda A/W 2016 collection and punctuated by designs inspired by religion and in particular by the Te Deum scene in Tosca.

Most gowns were Haute Couture versions of opera costumes such as Caramba's or evoked Umberto Brunelleschi's sketches (the gowns "inspired" by Turandot were literal interpretations of Brunelleschi's). The show was also accompanied by a Haute Joaillerie display by Dolce & Gabbana in the Galleria del Tiepolo at Palazzo Clerici, near La Scala.

As stated above, this is not the first time the Italian design duo turned to opera for "inspiration": previous collections also included gowns and handbags with historical illustrations based on original libretti of Puccini's operas licensed from the Archivio Storico Ricordi (this rich archive can lend some great inspirations since it contains documents and artifacts from 200 years of Italian opera history, almost 8,000 original scores from more than 600 operas, 6,000 historical photographs and numerous costume drawings). 

The runway was actually criticised for taking place at La Scala less than 24 hours before the premiere of Puccini's Tosca, which meant most spaces inside the theatre were off-limits to allow the show to take place. 

As D&G were too focused on creating over the top costumes, they forgot about designing something luxurious but less grand and more practical. Inspiration in this case may have come by the off stage wardrobe of Maria Callas.

The soprano was turned into an icon of style by Italian designer Elvira Leonardi Bouyeure, better known as Biki who dressed Maria Callas for 25 years (and who taught her how to accessorise her ensembles with gloves, hats and scarves).

Biki had a very special connection with opera: her grandfather was indeed Giacomo Puccini. Her surname was suggested to her by Gabriele D'Annunzio, and adapted from the nickname "Bicchi" derived from "birichina" (cheeky, naughty), given to her by her grandfather. The opera season at Milan's La Scala opens later on today with Puccini's Tosca, so stay tuned to learn more about its costumes.

Storytelling Fabrics in a Fashion Collection

Artist Maria Lai loved books and fairy tales and had a passion for rediscovering legends from her native Sardinia and telling stories with fabric, using a humble needle and threads rather than pen and ink. 

The process of telling a story is always intriguing, no matter the means employed to recount it. Fashion designers usually weave a narrative to create coherent collections and runways.

Fashion designer Antonio Marras often takes inspiration from his native Sardinia and, for his Spring/Summer 2020 collection, he moved from a story that combined two different worlds and cultures and a fantasy theme.

Entitled "The True Story of Shiro and Baingio" the collection was showcased during Milan Fashion Week in September at the Teatro Puccini. Performers in high geta sandals carrying parasols introduced a story divided in three parts.

The tale told about the vicissitudes of a 17-year-old Japanese princess, Shiro, and of Sardinian shepherd, Baingio. The former manages to escape an arranged marriage with an 80-year-old hermit in a magical way, transporting herself from Japan to Sardinia where she meets Baingio. The two fall in love, but they are separated and eventually reunited by Sardinian spirits.

Maria Lai (who used to collaborate with Marras) told her stories with fabric and thread, and Marras did the same with a wide range of textiles: vintage kimonos were upcycled, raw and coarse fabrics or more functional textiles like denim (another reference to Lai and in particular to her artworks made with this fabric) were covered in fine embroideries, beaded and sequinned elements and brocaded appliqued motifs. The dichotomy (refined/raw, soft/hard) in the use of fabrics symbolised the meeting of two cultures in the story. 

The tale developed in this way through the clothes that during the runway went from elegant kimonos to more functional and practical garments - including pieces inspired by sportswear, college apparel and military uniforms, matched with large and weathered military bags. This transition hinted at the new life of the princess of the fairy tale on an island characterised by a landscape that can be inhospitable and wild.  

While at times the mood was fragmented, the collection was punctuated by blue elements (stockings and accessories) that seemed to keep together the duality in the designs, just like Maria Lai's blue ribbon in her living installation "Legarsi alla montagna" wrapped and kept together the village of Ulassai. 

The Poetry of Stitches: "Maria Lai, Holding the Sun by the Hand" @ MAXXI, Rome

We usually think about poets as artists who play with words and therefore with something intangible. Yet the word "poet" comes from the Greek verb "ποιέω" (poieo) meaning "I make", "I create", an etymology that almost reconnects this word with material crafts. The late Maria Lai is among the few artists who perfectly reunites in herself these the roles of poet and artisan. Though interested in the power of the words, in her life she developed a vocabulary made of stitches and a refined geography of threads.

The MAXXI in Rome has currently got an exhibition about her entitled "Maria Lai - Holding the Sun by the Hand" (through 12th January 2020) that celebrates her 100th birth anniversary.

Born in 1919 in Ulassai, Sardinia, Maria Lai studied in Rome and then in Venice, before going back to Cagliari after the war.

Lai's early drawings revolved around portraits of relatives, friends and women at work; then she gradually moved onto landscapes populated with houses, shepherds and flocks.

In 1957 she exhibited at the Obelisk Gallery in Rome, but four years later she decided to stop showcasing her works and refocus on a different type of art.

In the mid-to-late '60s Lai started developing new pieces and created the "Telai" (Looms) - assemblages of wires, scraps of fabric, wood and everyday objects - artworks inspired by the primitive elements of Sardinian culture. 

Lai returned to exhibiting from 1971 and kept on creating more pieces between the '80s and the '90s: by then fabrics and threads had become key elements of her practice and she employed them to build bridges between the past and the present, traditions and innovation, history and myth, artisanal and craft elements with conceptual art.

In more recent years Lai became a friend, muse and collaborator of Sardinian fashion designer Antonio Marras. In 1993 the artist moved back to Cardedu in Sardinia where she died six years ago.

The title of the exhibition at MAXXI, "Holding the Sun by the Hand" comes from Lai's first stitched fairytale: the event shouldn't indeed be considered as a retrospective, but as a tale divided in different chapters.

Curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Luigia Lonardelli, and with the support of the Maria Lai Archive, the exhibition includes around 200 works that showcase her free approach to art and creativity. Among the other works on display there are her stitched books and geographies and a series of works from such as "Terra" (Earth, 1984), "Il viaggiatore astrale" (The star rover, 1989), "Bisbigli" (Whispers, 1996) and "Pagina cucita" (Stitched page, 1978), that were recently acquired by the MAXXI.

The event is a celebration of traditions, poetry, culture, textile art and crafts, divided in five sections with titles inspired by quotes from Maria Lai's works. Each section is accompanied by audio samples from interviews with Maria Lai, edited by Francesco Casu.

The section "Essere è tessere. Cucire e ricucire" (Being is Weaving. Stitching and Mending) looks at the first works made in the '60s after Lai decided to abandon painting and dedicate her work to materials. She developed around this time her "Telai" and "Tele cucite", everyday objects linked with Sardinian crafts. These objects lose their functional purpose and are transformed into works of art thanks to Maria Lai's threads that act as antennae to transmit a reach out to people, transmit a message and communicate emotions.

Threads in Lai's practice symbolise the possibility of exploring a space (a needle pierces a piece of fabric, it passes through it, travelling through it), but she also loved exploring materials as proved by her bread encyclopedia and by her notebooks and books made of fabric and integrating pieces of ceramic and paper.

"L'arte è il gioco degli adulti. Giocare e Raccontare" (Art is a grown-up game. Playing and Telling) reunites Lai's art games, that is recreations of traditional games seen as the elements on which society is founded. According to Lai, playing is indeed a way to get to know ourselves and get in touch with each other, it is an activity that should be explored not just by kids, but also by grown-ups. 

Quite a few of her pieces actually show a strong link with childhood: for English poet William Wordsworth the child was the father of the man; for Lai all human beings are the heirs of the man who lost the earthly paradise because he had never been a child, and therefore we must spend our lives trying to play like children as much as we can to conquer back that blessed condition that we lost.

"Oggetto paesaggio. Disseminare e condividere" (Landscape object. Disseminating and sharing) features a wide range of objects, sculptures representing books or single book pages made with everyday materials.

Some of these books evoke in their textures the raw Sardinian landscape, others seem to contain a secret code. Lai embroidered for example on bedsheets unintelligible words that no visitors will ever be able to read: she once stated that when she saw her grandmother mending bedsheets, she imagined she was writing stories to tell to her grandchildren.

These threads symbolise therefore the solemn act of transferring a secret code or a lost language on fabric (women who couldn't read nor write would use the language of embroidery to express their thoughts, feelings and stories), creating in this way a visual symphony and a memory as well.

 

"Il viaggiatore astrale. Immaginare l'altrove" (The star rover. Imagining the elsewhere) reunites her geographies, visionary and fantastic astral maps of constellations and imaginary universes.

The last section of the exhibition - "L'arte ci prende per mano. Incontrare e Partecipare" (Art holds us by the hand. Meeting and participating) - has some connections with architecture since it includes her participatory works such as "Legarsi alla montagna" (Tied to the Mountain, 1981), considered as the first example of relational art in Italy.

In 1981 the mayor of Ulassai asked Sardinian artist Maria Lai to create a war memorial to commemorate fallen soldiers. The hope of the mayor was to become part of history, but Lai refused, explaining that to become part of history, you must first make history.

She therefore went on to rediscover a Sardinian fairy tale about a girl saving herself from the collapse of a mountain following a blue ribbon. Lai therefore proceeded to make a living installation that involved all the inhabitants of her native village of Ulassai in Sardinia (and that was no mean feat considering the fact that some inhabitants were diffident, others didn't want to participate because of the ancestral rivalry between some families...).

Lai's "Legarsi alla montagna" consisted in a web of cloth strips that connected the houses leading up to the peak of the mountain overlooking the town.

In this way Lai and the community strengthened the physical bond between human beings and nature, while the knots and bows of the blue ribbons also symbolised the relationships between the families living in the town.

In this project Lai's blue web bound one community, just like everyday we are linked and united by digital means of communication, invisible threads that tie us all. Throughout her career Lai's threads reunited people, cultures and traditions, creating a uniquely poetical and inspiring world and a bridge to modernity.

"Holding the Sun by the Hand" at MAXXI invites visitors to freely walking on the bridges Maria Lai's built, letting themselves be embraced by her soft book pages and by the threads of her sublimely imperfectly stitched world.      

Image credits for this post

1.
Tenendo per mano il sole
1984-2004
thread, cloth, velvet
cm 33 x 63
Private collection
Photo credit Francesco Casu
Courtesy Archivio Maria Lai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

2.
Tela del gins
1976
thread, cloth, canvas 
cm 66,5 x 60
Private collection
Photo credit Pietro Paolo Pinna
Courtesy Archivio Maria Lai,
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  
 
3.
Untitled
1968
wood, feather, twine, paint
cm 202 x 74 x 21
Private collection
Photo credit Pietro Paolo Pinna
Courtesy Archivio Maria Lai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

4.
Untitled
1991
thread, cloth, paint
cm 17 x 19 x 2,5
M77 Gallery, Milano
Photo credit Lorenzo Palmieri
Courtesy M77 Gallery e Archivio Maria Lai
 © Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

5.
La mappa di Colombo, 1983
thread, cloth
cm 122 x 170
Collezione Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte
Photo credit Tiziano Canu
Courtesy Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

6.
Telaio del meriggio, 1967
wood, twine, canvas, paint
cm 100 x 153 x 20
Collezione Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte
Photo credit Tiziano Canu
Courtesy Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

7.
L’albero del miele amaro, 1997
marker, cloth
cm 252 x 190
Collezione Compagnia Teatro Fueddu e Gestu
Photo credit Giampietro Orrù
Courtesy Compagnia Teatro Fueddu e Gestu and Archivio Maria Lai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

8 and 9. 
Ciò che non so, 1984 (opened and closed)
thread, cloth, paint
cm 20 x 15
Private collection, Milano
Courtesy Nuova Galleria Morone and Archivio Maria Lai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

10.
Telaio paesaggio degli uccelli, 1967
wood, paint, twine
cm 80 x 65 x 20
Collezione Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte
Photo credit Tiziano Canu
Courtesy Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

11.
Senza titolo, 1991
thread, cloth
cm 18 x 16
Private collection
Photo credit Giorgio Dettori
Courtesy Archivio Maria Lai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

12.
Untitled, 1965
wood, twine, paint
cm 150 x 54 x 5
Private collection
Photo credit Pietro Paolo Pinna
Courtesy Archivio Maria Lai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

13.
Fiabe intrecciate, metal, 2007, La Stazione dell’Arte, Ulassai
Photo Elisabetta Loi, Sergio Melis, Arasolè
Courtesy Fondazione Stazione dell'Arte  
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

14.
Il volo del gioco dell’oca, environmental intervention, forex, acrylic paint on concrete, 2003, Ulassai
Photo Tiziano Canu
Courtesy Comune di Ulassai
© Archivio Maria Lai by SIAE 2019  

15.
Maria Lai working at La scarpata, UIassai, 1993
Photo Maria Sofia Pisu

16.
Maria Lai
Photo Pietro Paolo Pinna