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

Speculating about the Future with a Picture from 1939

A new year and a new decade await us in just a few hours' time. What will our wardrobes look like in the next ten years? Will we be flying to work one day and what kind of new technologies and devices will be launched in the next decade? There aren't any final answers to such questions.

Yet, for the time being, we can guess like Vogue did in February 1939 with this photograph taken by Anton Bruehl and showing the trends for the year 2000 according to American furniture and industrial designer Gilbert Rohde.  

"Gilbert Rhode banishes buttons, pockets, collars, ties," stated the magazine. "The man of the next century will revolt against shaving and wear a beautiful beard, says the designer of boilers, pianos, clocks, and metal furniture. His hat will be an an antennae - snatching radio out of the ether. His socks disposable, his suit minus tie, collar and buttons."

You may argue that some of these trends actually happened: beards became fashionable and, we may not have an antennae for a hat, but we have mobile phones that allow us to be constantly and perennially connected. So, any suggestions for the next decade? Start speculating and dreaming about the future now and...have a lovely New Year's Eve!

Notes on Alasdair Gray, Unfashionable Yet Timeless, and The Index of Plagiarisms

Canongate, the publisher of Alasdair Gray, announced on Sunday that the writer and artist had died in the early morning in his home city of Glasgow at the age of 85.

I first read Alasdair Gray's Lanark in 1998, while studying Scottish Literature at Glasgow University as an Erasmus student (one of those opportunities many young people will be denied once the UK gets out of the EU, and you should thank Brexit for that).

I had never heard about this writer or his works and I started reading Lanark without knowing what to expect. I didn't even know at the time that Gray, born in Glasgow in 1934, was a prolific writer and artist working not too far away from the student village where I was living at the time.  

I was immediately blown away. I thought it was a superb novel. It was bizarre and weird: reading about Lanark in Unthank was like having a dark and dystopian Alice in Wonderland trip, and then there was the story of Thaw in Glasgow and that list of plagiarisms I found simply amazing.

Lanark soon became my favourite book in that year's reading list and it also tempted me to change the subject of my dissertation (that was on another contemporary Scottish author).

Besides, it generated several immediate questions in my mind: I was an avid reader, but had never heard of Alasdair Gray, how was that possible? And, why hadn't Lanark been translated in Italy, my home country?

The questions became an obsession: I distinctly remember Professor Douglas Gifford doing a class about Alasdair Gray and Lanark during which I sat in utter silence. So, while Professor Gifford exasperatedly suspected I was unable to take part in the group's textual analysis because I hadn't read the book, I simply didn't care. I found all that redundant as I had just read a great novel, I was lost in my personal literary stupor, my existential dissertation crisis and my translation dilemma. 

Five years later, when Gray was doing a reading in a pub in Glasgow with James Kelman and Tom Leonard, I finally found the courage of asking the writer himself why Lanark hadn't been translated into Italian. He simply replied, "Maybe it's not good enough!" then he shrugged and started laughing loudly, in that peculiar and infectious laughter he had. I joined him, but deep down I knew it wasn't true. Lanark was simply too good. 

Time passed, things changed and, between 2015 and 2017 Lanark was eventually translated into Italian and published in four volumes. Gray didn't change, though. Every time I saw him at readings he remained the same - humble, restless, and generous with his readers (he never behaved like a star, never refused to answer a question you may have had for him or to sign a book).

A prolific artist and writer, Gray often claimed in interviews that he was "unfashionable". This definition didn't obviously refer to his attire - his trademark baggy trousers, shirt with braces or matched with jumper with a casual hole here and there, messy hair and crooked glasses.

Gray's definition referred to his writing and drawing/painting style. And in this he was right, he was and remains "unfashionable" because he is untrendy and therefore timeless. That's why there are messages for us in his career (he started writing Lanark as a student in 1954, but published it at 46, proving that good things come to those who wait) and in the complex allegorical worlds of Lanark (we are probably infected by the same metaphorical diseases that have spread through Unthank, visual manifestation of something that is deeply broken inside each and every one of us on the emotional level). Deep down, there is also a lesson for fashion.

Cut and paste exercises rule the creative arts and in the last decades the fashion industry has been intent on plagiarising the past to build an uncertain future.

Lanark features a dense list of plagiarisms, pages in which the author reveals the sources behind specific parts of Lanark. It's a great list that features Gray's favourite works and it goes from Jorge Luis Borges to Walt Disney's Pinocchio, passing through John Bunyan, Robert Burns, Franz  Kafka and the Reverend Charles Kingsley (just to mention a few ones...). 

Maybe that's what some fashion designers should do as well, be brave enough to admit where everything they did was stolen from and come up with a collection in which they point out all their plagiarisms. In a way, it would be more honest than regurgitating the past and pretending it is something new.

As for Gray, unlikely icon of style, but amazing polymath, he will be greatly missed, but his spirit will be haunting Glasgow's West End, and his memory will live on through his novels and plays, his essays, art and murals. Who knows, maybe at some point there will even be a Netflix series taken from Lanark (Unthank's diseases would be a visual feast...) or maybe he will become the inspiration for a fashion collection. Somehow you can indeed imagine fellow Scotsman Christopher Kane getting inspired by Gray's fetishistic fantasy 1982, Janine.

Festive Yet Restrained & Versatile: The Power of Metallic Shoes

New Year's Eve is almost here and some of us may be looking for accessories to wear at a party or a special event. On the Internet you will find many inspirations and ideas, but the best advice may come (as it often does...) from the past.

During the Great Depression women were encouraged to buy gold or silver leather shoes. Now, you may think this sounds rather extravagant, especially considering that such shades expressed status, style and power throughout history (check out ancient Egyptian golden funerary sandals or 16th century Italian chopines in gold leather).  

Yet metallics were considered as neutral shades, ideal to match with all sorts of clothes (in yesterday's post we looked at Gena Rowlands as Gloria in the eponymous film by John Cassavetes changing her outfits as the story progressed but wearing just one pair of nude sandals throughout the film, so get inspired by her as well...). Therefore, while not everybody could afford metallic shoes, they represented an investment as such shoes could constantly update an outfit. 

The best evening shoes incorporated shell-like motifs, Art Deco-inspired elements, cutouts, zig zags, or swirls, but - you're warned - you may not be able to find that easily original '30s golden shoes in good conditions as their owners put them to good use. That said, every now and then you can still spot them in museums.  

The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada, has got some examples such as American and French gold and silver shoes from the '30s by I.Miller and Clouet Frères, that are currently included in the exhibitions "Want: Desire, Design and Depression Era" (until 30th March 2020) and "The Gold Standard: Glittering Footwear from Around the Globe" (running through 2019).

You may not be able to buy them, but, well, they can still provide some wonderful inspirations and some ideas for a last-minute shopping spree. Unsure about which shade of gold or silver you should go for? Check out the Pantone offer and you will definitely find the best gold or silver hue for you.   

How to Live (& Kill) in a Dress: Emanuel Ungaro x John Cassavetes' "Gloria" (1980)

"One should not wear a dress, one should live in it," this was the most used quote by Emanuel Ungaro incorporated in the recent obituaries about him. The fashion designer died a week ago in Paris at the age of 86.

Born in Aix-en-Provence in southern France in 1933 to a family of Italian immigrants (his father was a tailor), Ungaro moved in his early twenties to Paris. Here he trained with Spanish couturier Cristóbal Balenciaga and with Courrèges and, in 1965, he presented his first collection after launching his own label with headquarters on Avenue Mac-Mahon in the 17th arrondissement of Paris.

As the years passed, Ungaro developed a ready-to-wear range and a menswear line, extending his label into perfumes, shoes, designer glasses and interior design pieces.

One of the participants in The Battle of Versailles, Ungaro became known for his bright colours and mix-and-match prints and patterns on liquid textiles.

In 1996 he formed a partnership with Ferragamo, but the years that followed proved difficult. In 2005, a year after retiring and leaving the artistic direction of the house to Giambattista Valli, he sold his label. Then a string of designers followed as creative directors, from catastrophic Lindsay Lohan in 2009, to Giles Deacon, Fausto Puglisi and Marco Colagrossi. Ungaro's style and his "One should not wear a dress, one should live in it" mantra are embodied in the film "Gloria" (1980) by John Cassavetes.

The plot revolves around a Puerto Rican family who gets killed by the mob. Gloria (Gena Rowlands), their neighbour, ends up with the sole survivor of the massacre, a young boy named Phil (John Adames).

The two do not care about each other and Gloria loves her independence and her clothes too much (she drags her big damasked suitcase containing her garments all over New York throughout the film...) to develop any maternal instincts. Besides, while Gloria may live a redeemed existence at the moment, she is actually well-known among the gangsters who killed Phil's family as she was a former call girl and the girlfriend of a criminal. Yet when gangsters start following them around New York trying to kill Phil, the two main characters develop respect and trust for each other. Gloria radically changes and doesn't hesitate to pull her gun from her purse, shoot and kill to protect the child.

Clothes play a great part in the film: when we first meet Gloria she is wearing a pajamas under a classic trench coat and high heeled sandals. She has run out of coffee and goes to ask her neighbours if they have any.

She is dressed casually and doesn't even get scared or worried when Phil's mother, a friend of hers, explains the situation and pleads her to take her children. "I hate children - above all, yours," Gloria replies, but eventually she agrees.

After the family is killed, Gloria doesn't cry or loses her nerves, but packs some clothes in her bag and runs away with Phil. From this point, her compact wardrobe becomes the co-protagonists of their adventures in New York, from the Bronx to Queens to Midtown.

Gloria first changes into a shiny silver jacket matched with a pleated skirt in the same shade and a shocking pink top, an outfit we see her wearing when she shoots at a car full of gangsters and then nonchalantly calls a taxi.

Later on we see her wearing an identical suit in black, matched with a red blouse to go and visit a graveyard with Phil. Gloria then pairs the black skirt with a shocking pink blouse and jacket with a stylized print of ears of wheat.

Towards the end of the film Gloria opts for a sensual wrap dress in a red and yellow print on a black background and a yellow collar to go and visit her former partner.

These outfits are practical and functional clothes that allow Gloria to run around New York and jump from one cab to another, from a subway train to a bus. 

They are also versatile as they can be mixed and recombined with different tops and blouses, while the accessories remain the same: she wears indeed all the clothes with the same nude sandals, a long necklace with a stop-watch as a pendant, and a sling bag that is always on her shoulder as she uses it to carry her gun. 

There’s something else that these clothes allow Gloria to do: as she can freely run in them, she can also shoot in them, Gloria doesn's indeed hesitate to use her gun, and in one case she fiercely and scarily looks into the camera with a gun in her hand, challenging the men who want to kidnap Phil, but also confronting the audience.

The designs, probably chosen by Gena Rowlands personally from Ungaro's boutique collection, are relevant to the story, and they are also perfectly matched with the actions: when Gloria shoots in the film for the first time she is wearing the "silver bullet" suit; she goes to a graveyard in a black attire, and speaks to her former lover in a sensual wrap dress.

In a way even Phil gets to know her through her clothes: when they arrive in a hotel towards the end of the film he takes them out of her bag and tenderly hangs them in the bathroom. While Gloria is tough, crazy and brave, she is also sensitive as she will show at the very end of the film with a surprising final transformation.

Gloria and that classic '80s mix of glamour and power, of disco moods and shoulder pads, and of shiny and bright silk and satin flowy skirt suits, is still inspiring designers: Silvia Venturini Fendi's turned indeed Gloria into her muse for Fendi's Resort 2020 collection.

The collection features plenty of skirt suits, functional separates and fluid and soft silk-twill pajama suits that merge masculine and feminine styles, blazers and pleated midi skirts with sensual high slits.

Classic trenchcoats and '80s high-waisted trousers, chic silk blouses and Gloria T-shirts accessorised with bags reminiscent of Gloria's own purse complete this collection that seems to offer a functional wardrobe that follows Ungaro's lesson about "living in a dress", rather than merely "wearing it".  

From the Big Screen to the Museum: Massimo Cantini Parrini's Costumes for "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone @ The Textile Museum, Prato, Italy

There are many holiday movies in cinemas all over the world at the moment, but there is only one film, recently released in Italy, accompanied by a dedicated costume exhibition - "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone.

We all know the plot of this classic children's story by Carlo Collodi that features a peculiar protagonist, a wooden puppet who dreams of becoming a real boy.

Garrone followed the original version of the story, trying to combine at the same time traditions with modern technologies and special effects (Mark Coulier's make-up also helped…) to enhance a few characters or scenes. The narration, that at times is a bit slow, features both grotesque and poetical moments.

These dichotomies - traditions Vs modernity and grotesque Vs poetical - are mirrored also in the costumes by Massimo Cantini Parrini.

Like Italian tailor and costume maker Umberto Tirelli, Cantini Parrini is considered a fashion archaeologist: as a child his grandmother, a Florentine seamstress, introduced him to the art of tailoring and he soon started collecting costumes, fascinated by the fact that garments can tell the story of the people who inhabited them, but also of the society in which these people lived.

Cantini Parrini then studied costume design in Florence and Rome, becoming a student of Piero Tosi, working at the Tirelli tailoring house as assistant, and collaborating with Academy Award-winning costume designer Gabriella Pescucci. In the meantime, he kept on developing a massive archive and collection that now features over 4,000 designs, from 1630 to 1990.

So far in his career, Cantini Parrini has created costumes for over 50 films, working on both real-life stories and fables, but excelling in the latter (as you may remember, he designed the costumes for Matteo Garrone's "Tale of Tales", a film with a weak plot, but featuring extraordinary costumes).  

It was therefore only natural for Prato's Textile Museum to dedicate an event entirely to Massimo Cantini Parrini's costumes for "Pinocchio".

The exhibition (until 22nd March 2020), includes 32 costumes (all of them made in Rome) from Garrone's film - 25 made by the Tirelli tailoring house, 5 by Costumi d'Arte Peruzzi and 2 by Cospazio 26, while the wigs were created by Rocchetti e Rocchetti.

The event is divided in two sections: the first one is dedicated to the costume designer, his sources and inspirations and his work on and off the set.

This section is very interesting and could be educational for all those young people who would like to work in the fashion industry, but also feel attracted by the performing arts and the possibility of working in dance, film, theatre and opera.

Snippets of interviews with the costume designer allow visitors to discover how Cantini Parrini chose his career, and the importance of building his own archive in his creative process.

This section also features Cantini Parrini's sketches for the costumes for "Pinocchio", illustrations that combine traditional techniques, photography and digital images.

There are also folders on display that include textile samples showing the research made by the costume designer for each costume or for the various accessories. 

The highlight of this section is represented by 7 historical garments dating from the 18th and 19th century from Cantini Parrini's personal collection. The costume designer used them as studies and background research to develop ideas for "Pinocchio".

Among them there is a wonderful female jester costume dating from 1898 that was the starting point for some of the costumes donned by the circus characters; a romantic ceremony dress dating between 1834 and 1836, that inspired the gown for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, and a house dress from the 1800s that was reinvented as the snail's fantastic attire.  

Pinocchio's jacket was based on an elegant children's suit that is also on display in this section, while Geppetto's look incorporates references to an elegant tailcoat from the 18th century.

A Casentino wool jacket finds echoes in the Talking Cricket's costume and a suit from the 19th century is directly connected to the attires of the Cat and the Fox.

The second section of the exhibition focuses instead on the film costumes, accompanied by images taken from the film, props and the recreation of some of the sets.

As you may imagine the core of the exhibition is Pinocchio's suit. The suit comes in a dark red shade, representing anger, blood, passion, fire, life and shame, elements that characterise Pinocchio's story. Yet there are some differences from Collodi's tale: in the book Pinocchio wore a suit made of paper and a hat made of bread crumbs, but in this film the costume designer opted for a jacquard textile characterised by a crêpe-like texture. Replacing paper with fabric allowed the crew to shoot scenes in different spaces and locations without having to create too many paper suits.       

In the film Geppetto makes the suit from his own bedcover, that was once made with a luxurious textile, but it is now worn out. Geppetto uses the fabric to make a doublet, trousers, a hat and a ruff and, while he is a woodcarver and not a tailor so the shapes he creates are basic and simple, he makes a good job.

Geppetto (interpreted by Roberto Benigni) wears in this film a worn out linen suit with a striped waistcoat and breeches. This is actually an out of fashion garment for the end of the 1800s, and shows that Geppetto hasn't been able to afford any clothes for quite a few years.

The Fox and the Cat are also clad in worn out clothes: the former wears a wool coat with an astrakhan collar and polka dot waistcoat; the latter a wool suit and velvet waistcoat with paisley motifs. The two characters are poor and greedy, and their suits combine styles from different times, hinting at a glorious past when they were probably richer. Pinocchio is naïve and young and therefore unable to distinguish between something old fashioned and something new, and, thinking they look elegant, he trusts them.

The Talking Cricket is instead genuinely elegant: being a sort of scholar, he wears a mold-coloured chamois jacket, matched with breeches that show his long legs, while the large bow on his shirt gives him importance and authority.

There are more fantastic animal characters in the story, such as The Judge, a venerable gorilla, that wears a robe decorated with ropes and tassels in dark gold and a muslin ruff.

His style is severe and completely the opposite of Medoro's, a poodle who is the stagecoach driver for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair. In the book he is dressed in a court livery, a tricorn trimmed with gold lace, a chocolate velvet coat with diamond buttons and breeches of crimson velvet. Cantini Parrini kept the look, but changed the colours, coming up with a white court livery from the 1700s, comprising a silk jacket with silver buttons, waistcoat and trousers, tricorn hat, silk stockings and silver-buckled shoes.

There is another animal that has a striking costume in Pinocchio's film – the Snail. This character working as a nanny and a maid for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair wears a monumental gown based on a house dress from the 1800s (that, as stated above, is included in the first part of this exhibition) and is accessorized by a shawl and a bonnet. The costume is worn out by time, dust and…snail slime, and the colours have therefore faded, but can still be detected. The prevailing shade in this costume is mauve, a very fashionable nuance at the end of the 19th century that hinted at calmness and serenity.

There are two costumes for the Fairy with Turquoise Hair, one for the character as a child and another as a grown-up, but they look identical and were inspired by designs created in 1836. They are made with cotton gauze, a material that easily helped the costume designer to retain a certain lightness in the dresses and make them look old and a bit worn out. The two gowns come in a diaphanous colour that goes well with the fairy's hair that in the film are pale blue/silvery.

There are two sets of extravagant costumes employed to dress 8 marionettes in Mangiafuoco's theatre and the circus characters.

Mangiafuoco is clad in a dark and scary thick coat, and a woolen jumper, corduroy trousers and a felt hat, but the costumes for the characters in his theatre are borrowed from the Comedy of Manners and are more colourful.

Colombina (Columbine)'s costume consists in a velvet bustier and printed cotton skirt decorated with ribbons, tulle and tassels; Gianduia wears a jacket with elaborate trimmings and silk satin trousers, while the Devil a velvet doublet, with appliqued flame-shaped strips with trimmings and tassels, a motif replicated also on the trousers.  

There's extravagance, fantasy and madness in the costumes for the circus characters: they represent freedom, entertainment, playfulness and a joyous ebullience, but there is also a duplicity hidden in each character. While the circus is a ramshackle space, the costumes of characters - such as the ballerina wearing a tutu with a velvet bustier, the horse woman and the three-headed woman (the most complex costume of the entire film) - are grand and transform the performers into mysterious figures. 

The idea of dedicating an exhibition to the costumes of a recently released film is a winning formula since it allows people to go and see the film, but also have access to a multimedia experience that complements the experience of going to the cinema. But in the case of Matteo Garrone's "Pinocchio" there's a bonus: while looking at the costumes you will realise that Cantini Parrini did a time-consuming research not just for what regards the silhouettes, shapes or decorative elements for these designs, but also an in-depth study into textiles (and historical menswear as well). Rather than just to advertise the film, these costumes could therefore be employed to promote fabrics, craftsmanship, traditional techniques and fashion.  

Image credits for this post

1, 2, 4, 5 and 14. Film stills by Greta De Lazzaris

3. Film still by Alain Parroni

6 - 9. Costume sketches by Massimo Cantini Parrini

10. Ceremony or evening dress, Italy 1836-38, Massimo Cantini Parrini Private Collection. Photo: Leonardo Salvini

11. Female jester costume for a masked ball, France, 1898, Massimo Cantini Parrini Private Collection. Photo: Leonardo Salvini

12. Child's ceremony jacket, England, 1885-88, Massimo Cantini Parrini Private Collection. Photo: Leonardo Salvini

13. Costume for Roberto Benigni as Geppetto in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini

15. Costumes for Rocco Papaleo and Massimo Ceccherini as The Cat and The Fox, in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini

16. Costume for Davide Marotta as the Talking Cricket in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini

17. Costume for Maria Pia Timo as The Snail in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini

18. Costumes for Alida Baldari Calabria as the Fairy with the Turquoise Hair in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Tirelli Tailoring House, Rome. Photo by Leonardo Salvini

19. Costume for Brigida Pappalardi as the Horse Woman as in "Pinocchio" by Matteo Garrone. Designed by Massimo Cantini Parrini, 2019; made by: Silvia Guidoni/Cospazio 26. Photo by Leonardo Salvini

Details from Religious Vestments in Contemporary Collections

For quite a few years we have analysed the connection between fashion and religion, highlighting how designers still keep on borrowing elements often derived from the Catholic iconography.

Today the Catholic liturgical calendar celebrates the memory of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and there is a portrait of this saint that has some connections with a recent collection. The painting in question is a half-length figure from a large polyptych (multi-panelled altarpiece) painted by Carlo Crivelli in 1476 for the high altar of the church of San Domenico, in Ascoli Piceno, Italy.

The painting is part of what became known as the Demidoff Altarpiece (after a Russian aristocraft bought it in the 19th century) that incorporated various figures of saints arranged around a central portrait of the Virgin and Child.

Each painting looked different, with some of the saints portrayed like friars others like princesses, but all of them were made with different techniques - gilding, punching and incising - that made them look real. Specific details and elements like crowns, haloes and details of dresses were built up with pastiglia (pastework), a technique that allowed the artist to give these areas a three-dimensional consistency that helped him creating refined optical effects (these details would shine bright when hit by the lights of the candles).

Saint Stephen is represented with rocks - that remind of his martyrdom by stoning - balanced on his head and shoulders. He carries a palm in one hand and the book of the Gospels in another. He wears a pink vestment with a plastron-like element on the front decorated with long golden tassels.

In recent fashion collections, Alessandro Michele at Gucci often used this same shade of powdery pink, while the plastron-like element is evoked by the tasselled and embroidered decorations applied to coats and jackets in Gucci's Resort 19 collection. While these accessories are mainly inspired by the stole worn by priests during mass, the decorative effect is somehow also reminiscent of Saint Stephen's attire in Crivelli's painting.

Have an Arty Christmas, But Don't Forget the Pain, Suffering and Divisions in the World

Christmas should be a time of love and peace, but we live in complex times: many countries all over the world are at war or ripped apart by internal conflicts; there are millions of people in need and migrants and refugees away from their home countries, trapped in limbo-like detention centres, while migrant children are separated from their families. 

The best representation of Christmas in our difficult times seems to be Banksy's nativity: entitled "Scar of Bethlehem", the scene was recently unveiled at the Bethlehem-based Walled Off Hotel, overlooking the border wall in the divided city. The artist helped setting up the hotel two years ago and its spaces also feature works by the anonymous artist such as a mural of a Palestinian and an Israeli soldier having a pillow fight. 

The "Scar of Bethlehem" is a "hacked" nativity scene: it features Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus, but the scene is not located in a manger, but in front of the concrete panels of the border wall. The characters are surrounded by English and French graffiti spelling "love" and "peace" and there's a bullet hole piercing the wall in the place of the star shining bright in the night sky.

The artwork was designed to make people think about Palestinians living in the divided city of Bethlehem. Israel began building the West Bank barrier or wall - currently stretching for over 708 km - in 2002 during the Palestinian uprising. Mostly built inside the West Bank and considered by Israel as a security barrier against violence and terrorism, it is deemed by Palestinians a racial segregation or apartheid wall.

While the "Scar of Bethlehem" is strongly linked with the local situation, this alternative nativity scene also hints at many other tangible and intangible walls and barriers we build everyday.

The "Scar of Bethlehem" is the second work of art produced by Banksy this December. Earlier on this month the anonymous street artist painted a team of reindeer on a wall in Birmingham. The peculiarity about the reindeers was that they seemed to be pulling a bench that homeless people use as a bed.

The mural made a statement about homelessness, while inviting passers-by to interact with homeless people. A video showing the mural on Banksy's Instagram page, was indeed accompanied by a caption saying "God bless Birmingham. In the 20 minutes we filmed Ryan on this bench passers-by gave him a hot drink, two chocolate bars and a lighter - without him ever asking for anything."

So may love, joy and peace be with you this Christmas, but let's not forget about the pain, suffering and divisions in the world.

The Annunciation, an Architectural Perspective

You can study religious paintings from different perspectives, taking into consideration the message behind an artwork, its symbols and metaphors, or maybe look at the composition from a merely artistic point of view and focus on the colours, lights and shadows. But you can study certain paintings also from an architectural perspective. As Christmas is approaching, let's look at Carlo Crivelli's "The Annunciation with St Emidius" (1486).

Commissioned as an altarpiece for the Church of the Holy Annunciation in Ascoli Piceno, the painting placed the Annunciation in an everyday urban setting.

The Virgin Mary is praying in a small yet lavishly furnished room (we can see a shelf and a bed with an embroidered bedcover and pillows), when a ray of light symbolising the Holy Spirit descends upon her through an arched gap in the wall of her house. This opening in the wall is one of the key architectural elements of the painting: the closed passage - and the flask of pure water in Mary's bedroom - symbolise indeed her virginity. The doorway to Mary's house is flanked by highly ornate Corinthian pilasters that frame her.

Outside her window - another architectural element that maybe hints at the perspective grid used by painters that finds another correspondence in the coffered ceiling on the second floor of Mary's house - there are the archangel Gabriel announcing to Mary that she is to be the mother of Christ, and St Emidius, patron saint of Ascoli, carrying a model of the town he protects.

This is another architectural element connected with the history of the town, celebrating how in 1482, Pope Sixtus IV granted the city of Ascoli Piceno in the Marche "libertas ecclesiastica", that is the right to self-government free from direct papal rule (the grant reached Ascoli on the feast day of the Annunciation, a date and sacred event that thereafter assumed a central importance in the civic culture of the city).

Ascoli is also evoked by the urban setting in the background of the painting, that features a massive arcade in yellow marble (Crivelli probably learnt simulated marble architecture from Squarcione, or one of his pupils such as Giorgio Schiavone), a paved street, various openings and closures, and a variety of buildings (most of them plainer than Mary's house and mainly made of stone) populated by human figures that add to the painting a sense of dynamism.

The figures portrayed standing in the streets seem to be too busy discussing business to realise what's going on around them, but a child, a little girl, intently looks from a balustrade at the figures kneeling in front of Mary's house.  

In the painting there is a gender juxtaposition between masculine and feminine spaces: while the angel and the saint are portrayed outside Mary's house, she is portrayed in a domestic environment that occupies most of the right side of the painting.

The viewer is also positioned in a privileged spot that allows them to gain the fullest understanding of the story: while Mary is protected by the privacy of her house and a wall and a window separate her from her visitors, the viewer can actually see inside it, meaning that she is accessible to the worshipper.

The details are also impressive from the geometric patterns on the two rugs in the background, to the the eyed tail of the peacock. The bird is symbolic: according to a superstitious belief its flesh never decayed, so the bird represents immortal life.

There are also other symbols such as the apple and gourd placed over the inscription in the foreground outside the house of the Virgin. The former stands for the original sin and human mortality, while the gourd packed with seeds like the pomegranate is a promise of resurrection and redemption.

Crivelli  was an extraordinary craftsman, a fine technical painter and a brilliant colourist who often played with the idea of paintings as windows onto other worlds, at once suggesting and undermining illusionism. He became known for his works characterised by complex perspectives and including elegant and detailed decorative surfaces.  

If you want to know more about this 15th century painter, you may have to wait until 2021: there will indeed be a major exhibition of Crivelli's masterpieces - "Carlo Crivelli. Radical Illusionism in the 15th Century" - at Birmingham's Ikon Gallery during the summer 2021. The event will highlight Crivelli's experimental use of single point perspective and trompe l'oeil to assert the coexistence of terrestrial and spiritual realities and will feature also "The Annunciation with St Emidius".

Vintage Festive Fashion: Pierre Balmain's "Holly" Dress (1955)

As the festive season approaches, we get literally bombarded with articles, posts on social media and promotional emails about ideas for party dresses. Shame the best ideas usually come from the past and aren't often available in the shops. 

As seen in a previous post, looking in museum archives you may for example spot some beautiful Christmas inspired designs. Among such unique finds there is also Pierre Balmain's emroidery "Holly" cocktail dress from 1955.

The silhouette and the technique (three-dimensional embroidery) is reminiscent of another Balmain couture dress from 1953 that was in that case covered in pale pink flowers.

Yet the "Holly" dress is particularly striking as it features dense leaves scattered with sequins and scarlet berries embroidered by Lesage on a black velvet fabric by J. Léonard & Cie. Well, we may not be able to buy it, but we can still dream about it. 

Twisted, Draped and Knotted Details from the 1960s to 2020

In yesterday's post we looked at draping techniques, so let's continue the thread for another day with a vintage look. This practical dress was created in December 1960 by Italian designer Gigliola Curiel for the readers of Italian magazine Annabella.

The functional design in silk wool featured a minimalist decorative element around the waist area: the fabric was twisted and knotted, creating soft drape-like ripples. Readers could buy from the magazine an exclusive package that included the cutting pattern for this dress, the fabric to make it and an instruction manual.  

The "twisted and knotted" trend may become fashionable again come next year: in Chalayan's Pre-Fall 2020 collection, inspired by Aboriginal Australians and their songlines and with some sparse references to the Far East, the designer included a few pieces with long ties that can be wrapped around the waist or the torso or can be used to create twisted and knotted fluid motifs that seem to melt into the fabric.