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

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

A Convergence of Couture and Streetwear, Cultures & Subcultures

For luxury fashion houses collaborating with a cool brand means winning the loyalty of new and younger consumers. A cool collaboration, cleverly marketed and packaged, can result in garments and accessories that can produce an instant buying frenzy in consumers.

A good example can be the collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Supreme, launched while Kim Jones was the Creative Director of the menswear collections at the French fashion house. Jones combined again high fashion with streetwear yesterday on Dior's Men's Pre-Fall 2020 runway. Showcased on the eve of Art Basel Miami Beach, the collection in the sunny pastels of Miami's glamorous Art Deco District, featured two collaborations, one with Shawn Stussy and the other with Air Jordan.

The founder of American clothing brand Stüssy designed a graphic logo in his trademark style, that then was replicated on knits, shirts, hats and bags; at times the logo was also embroidered and covered in beads, in an attempt at elevating street styles to couture.

The Air Dior shoes consisted instead in high-tops (made in Italy with the same leather of Dior's bags) with the iconic swoosh recombined with the Dior logo.

While this collection won't be available immediately, the collaborative partnership between Italian fashion house Prada and adidas is going to be released today. It consists in 700 numbered limited-edition bundles comprising the Superstar shoes and a Bowling Bag (available exclusively through the online retail channels of both brands for around $3,170). The bundle will be followed by a white, black, and silver version of a Prada x adidas sneaker in March 2020.

But it is not just luxury houses that are looking for business partners with street cred. For quite a while now auction houses have been trying to educate and attract new art collectors. Yet, perfectly knowing that there aren't many relatively young and extremely wealthy people who can and want to afford a rare painting or sculpture, the auction houses have started offering objects that are rather different from your average work of art. 

In January this year Sotheby's auctioned a complete collection of Supreme skateboards while Christie's has currently got the biggest Supreme auction ever (until December 10th). Expected to generate over $350,000, it includes Supreme skateboards dating from 1998 to the present day (some of them in collaboration with artists like Takashi Murakami and Damien Hirst) and other items including a pinball machine, a mini bike and a Louis Vuitton monogram trunk.

But also the world of art and design is looking at other ways to combine culture and subcultures: at the end of November the Triennale in Milan opened Skatepark OooOoO by Korean artist Koo Jeong A (through 16th February 2020).

Part of "PLAY!" a wider project curated by Julia Peyton-Jones and focused on the importance of playing, this is not your average art installation, but it is a real skatepark.

The idea behind the events scheduled for "PLAY!" is that playing generates culture and great culture creates a healthy society.

Installed on the ground floor of the Triennale, the skatepark is an immersive and multi-sensorial landscape that should physically and mentally stimulate visitors. At the skatepark cultures and subcultures converge, creating a new and dynamic dialogue.

Painted in fluorescent colours that shine through the darkness and accompanied by a soundscape by Glasgow-based electronic composer Koreless, the skatepark can be used by amateurs and professional skateboarders, visitors can just look or join in, while children and teenagers can take part in dedicated workshops to learn how to skateboard. 

Koo Jeong A has been working since the '90s on projects that reinvent spaces through site-specific installations and she created her first skatepark in 2012 on the island of Vassivière in France, in collaboration with L'Escault Architectures. Her installation at the Triennale also features her drawings.

The project is a development of the Triennale's 1954 children's labyrinth, and of its 1964 exhibition dedicated to the importance of freetime.

Skate culture will also be studied via other events involving photography, fashion, cinema, graphic design, architecture and music, but the organisers of this event also consider the skateboarders using the structure as living art installations: they perform pirouettes in the air like classical ballet dancers and, while painters trace colours on canvas with their brushes, skaters use their boards and speed to draw invisible shapes in the air.

By opting for a project inspired by street cultures, the Triennale reminds visitors that intriguing art doesn't have to be something hanging on a wall that can only be stared at. 

Last but not least, the access to the installation is free and that's what makes this collaboration between art, design and street cultures infinitely cooler than all the other collaborations between luxury houses and streetwear brands - it doesn't borrow from the street to create exclusive products for the very few, but takes a urban element and places it inside a museum to elevate it to art, recreating through it a public space that can be enjoyed by everyone. 

Image credits for this post

Images of Skatepark OooOoO by Korean artist Koo Jeong A at The Triennale Milano © Triennale Milano - photo credit: Gianluca Di Ioia

Undercover Duality: "The Hoodie" @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam

Used by many of us as an essential part of an everyday casual uniform, as comfortable as pyjamas, yet more suitable to wear than the latter while working around the house or during a quick run to the shops, hooded sweatshirts - hoodies in short - have turned in the past few years into a versatile wardrobe staple.

Immortalised by hip hop artists in tracks, turned into must-have items by luxury houses collaborating with painfully hip streetwear brands, in basic monochromatic and monastic neutral shades, digitally-printed in bold and bright patterns or maybe sporting a political slogan or the logo of you favourite brand, the hoodie has been the undiscussed protagonist of the last few decades.

This humble garment is currently the subject of a recently opened exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, The Netherlands (Museumpark 25, through April 12th, 2020).

Curator Lou Stoppard looks at the garment's origins established around the '30s, when Champion Athletic Apparel started producing hoodies to keep football players warm on the sidelines. Soon the garment became a practical solution for workmen as well.

Yet the exhibition is not a chronological journey through the decades that saw the rise of the hoodie, but it is more a way to stop and think about the implications behind the hoodie and the dualities behind this garment.

Superficially speaking, hoodies may be considered as great levellers as people of all ages and from all walks of life wear them - yet they are also seen as symbols of moral panic. 

A trademark uniform for juvenile delinquents causing havoc in the streets and in shopping malls, who seem intent on collecting ASBOS (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders), hoodies have come to represent rebellion, aggression and a widespread modern social malaise.

Shopping centres in different countries banned the wearing of hooded sweatshirts or established hoodie-free zones, asking customers to remove their hoods upon entry.

In 2006 the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron, tried to show empathy, stating: "Hoodies are more defensive than offensive. They're a way to stay invisible in the street. In a dangerous environment the best thing to do is keep your head down, blend in. For some the hoodie represents all that's wrong about youth culture in Britain today. For me, adult society's response to the hoodie shows how far we are from finding the long-term answers to put things right."

Cameron's words, followed by no proper efforts for real change, entered history as the "Hug a hoodie" speech, but his personal relation with "hoodies" developed further when, while visiting a housing estate in Manchester the following year, a young man in a hoodie pretended to shoot him with his fingers.

The incident is recalled in the exhibition that includes a wide range of designs, from sporty ones to more trendy versions by Rick Owens, Off-White, Vêtements and Craig Green among the others, accompanied by works by artists such as David Hammons, Sasha Huber, Lucy and Jorge Orta and Thorsten Brinkmann, plus specially commissioned installations by Angelica Falkeling and Bogomir Doringer.  

While the former looks through her installation at cotton production and the amount of hoodies manufactured every year, the latter explores the presence of masked faces in art and examines issues of privacy.  

The fact that the hoodie has turned into a popular garment, but also into a container of modern anxieties, is probably to be attributed to collective paranoia spawned by technology. We are indeed all being watched by millions of closed-circuit television cameras, and the hoodie is a way to hide, a reaction against surveillance culture.

In a way it is a mask, similar to the Venetian 1700s "bauta", that was considered as a proper outfit rather than just a costume and conceived as a transformative tool. All sorts of people could wear the "bauta", with no distinctions of social classes or sex, and the disguise guaranteed maximum freedom and anonymity.

Yet the hoodie also hides some dangerous dichotomies: favoured by people in tech who may prefer anonymity such as hackers, it has become the uniform of a younger and powerful high-tech generation that has refused suits, but doesn't refuse the concept of making money by exploiting other people (think about young tech multi-billionaires like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg).

Last, but not least, while in some cases hoodies make people invisible, in others they actually make wearers more visible or even suspicious.

Hoodies can indeed be studied in connection with racist stereotypes, when you think about the stories of black men harassed by the authorities for wearing the garment, or victims of tragedies like 17-year-old African-American teenager Trayvon Martin, who was wearing a hoodie when he was shot in Miami in 2012 by a member of a community watch. 

People responded to the murder with the Million Hoodie March in Union Square, Manhattan, that retrasformed back the hoodie from a symbol of discrimination into one of protest, resistance and resilience. 

The stigmatisation of black men in hoodies also inspired in 2019 the campaign "56 Black Men", featuring photographs of black men from all walks of life in hoodies, a project that prompted people to look not at the hood per se, but at what's underneath it.

So while looking at the hoods on display in the neutral and blank urban space recreated in the museum - designed to reflect the versatile hoodie - you realise there are a lot of themes to take in here, from youth culture and subculture to police brutality, racism and privacy, without forgetting social inequality through the images of Lucy and Jorge Orta and their portable shelters or "habitats". 

Hoping to make the exhbition "portable", the museum is drafting with design practice and cultural platform Concrete Blossom an off-site programme that will develop around Rotterdam's various neighbourhoods and will focus on grassroots initiatives by makers and consumers of culture.

This side programme will complement the main event, inviting visitors to consider how the hoodie - be it basic and cheap or trendy and expensive - is a a powerful social and cultural signifier because its meaning changes according to gender, geography, age, conduct and ethnicity of the wearer.  

So this is not your average fashion exhibit in which you stand in front of grand gowns and dream about them, but it is more a cultural event that prompts you to ponder about the wider connections (think about bans regarding hoodies in connection with The Netherlands' recent burqa ban) and implications behind a garment permanently trapped in a dichotomic state, being rebellious and normal, providing privacy, shelter, gender neutrality, anonymity and invisibility, but also triggering fear, anxiety and aggression.

There's a a final catharsis in a corner of the museum, a hoodie by Devan Shimoyama covered with flowers that seem to have grown out of its fabric, almost to say there can be poetry and beauty also in the most unexpected places. 

So even a hoodie can blossom, mutating from signifier of transgression into a delicately fragile garment, inspiring visitors to change their minds towards hoodies. For those who decide instead to change attitude before they even get in the exhibition, there is an extra surprise right at the entrance of the museum: anyone who wears a hoodie to see the show will be given access free of charge. 

Image credits for this post

1. Model Adut Akech wears Balenciaga in i-D's The Earthwise Issue, Fall 2018. Photograph: Campbell Addy. Styling: Alastair McKimm

2. Exactitudes 168. by Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek - EUnify hoodie by Souvenir Official

3. John Edmonds, Untitled (Hood 13), 2018

4. Lucy + Jorge Orta - Refuge Wear Intervention, London East End 1998. Photo credit: John Akehurst

5- 11 and 13-19. Installation views "The Hoodie", 2019. Photo credit: Petra van der Ree.

12. Prem Sahib, Umbra, 2019. Photo: Plastiques. Courtesy the artist and Jhaveri Contemporary.

20. Devan Shimoyama. February II, 2019.

Fashion Obituary: Terry de Havilland, Rock'n'Roll Cobbler (1938-2019)

In the history of fashion, Terry de Havilland will be remembered as the "rock'n'roll cobbler" for his quirky designs and for his famous clientele that included David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, members of Led Zeppelin and Bianca Jagger among the others. So after news of his death at 81 broke last week, tributes started pouring in from both fashion and music fans.

Born Terence John Higgings in 1938 in East London, de Havilland (he changed his name after a stint in Rome as an actor) came from a family of cobblers. His parents had their own company called Waverley Shoes that catered for a wealthy West End clientele and for showgirls such as the performers at The Windmill Theatre, London. The company's pointed toe winklepickers were extremely popular from the '50s on.  

Terry de Havilland designed his first pair of shoes in the '60s reusing the lasts from the '40s that his father had employed: Queen editor Annie Traherne featured them in the magazine after seeing them on the feet of his girlfriend at the time, model Perin Lewis. The fortuitous incident ended up launching de Havilland's designer career.

From then on he created towering multi-coloured three-tiered wedges, lace-up boots, high heels and ankle-strap evening peep toe sandals with thick platform soles in iridescent metallic leather and shiny snakeskin, at times with plastic inserts - perfect rock'n'roll textures. His creations, antidotes to the more conservative styles from the '50s, were perilously high and rather impractical, but they still had a sense of proportion that gave the wearer an elongated silhouette.

After his father died in an industrial accident in 1970, de Havilland didn't lose his heart, but remained focused on designing footwear. He opened his own shop - Cobblers to the World - on the Kings Road in 1972, and created shoes for Tim Curry in "The Rocky Horror Show" in 1975 (but also Jackie O wore his thigh-high satin stiletto boots). His shop was a creative place and a party space as well where many musicians including members of Led Zeppelin often convened.      

Terry de Havilland's shoes were extravagant and spectacular: the materials he employed seemed to go extremely well with the taste of those years, combining psychedelic colours (apparently he designed the shoes on acid) with a healthy dose of glam. 

The company went into liquidiation in 1979, but de Havilland came back with another label, Kamikazi in 1980, producing designs inspired by the punk aesthetic, followed by The Magic Shoe Company, in the 1990s, a brand that catered to ravers, and by a goth emporium in London's Camden in the 1990s. 

Together with his wife Liz, Terry de Havilland relaunched Cobblers to the World in Camden Stables Market, but the shop closed in 2002.

De Havilland kept on producing shoes for private clients and for different projects (Simon West's 2001 film "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider") and runways shows (Anna Sui's collections). He was also a visiting professor at London College of Fashion and a member of the Cordwainers Advisory Panel.   

In 2011 Selfridges organised a compact de Havilland exhibition in its shoe galleries, but his creations are featured in various archives including the collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and at the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne.  

An inspiration for many contemporary designers and brands, including Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu and Gucci by Alessandro Michele, de Havilland is survived by his wife and business partner Liz and his sons.

He leaves behind his designs (he lost the ownership rights to his name and archive after a deal fell apart) and two very important lessons in fashion: the past can inspire us the most wonderful creations for the future, and style is what counts. His iconic shoes were indeed based on a last from the '40s, and he kept on making some of his most famous models - like the Margaux wedge, originally produced in 1973 - without altering them.