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

Fashionable Eats: Is the Limited-Edition Branded Food Collab Here to Stay?

For many of us, food turned into a great comfort during this pandemic: as most places shut down, the trip to our local food shops or supermarkets felt like a thrilling moment, a unique experience during which you could meet your fellow human beings and get distracted from the lockdown. Besides, many of us rediscovered the pleasures of cooking and started being more experimental with different ingredients.

In a way also fashion got into the food trend, but no, we're not referring to the collaborations between food/beverage companies and brands/fashion houses to develop a product like a limited-edition garment or accessory. In the last two years we actually got quite a few of these experiments, with limited-edition sneakers such as Adidas x AriZona Iced Tea Collection or Nike x Ben & Jerry's ice cream; this year Jason Wu's also featured in his A/W 21 collection designs inspired by its sponsor, Coca-Cola while Telfar designed staff uniforms for the 100th anniversary of America's oldest fast food chain, White Castle (a collaboration that started in 2015 actually when the hamburger chain sponsored the brand's fashion show during New York Fashion Week and continued in 2017 when Telfar designed a uniform collection for the family-owned company and a limited-edition capsule). 

The fashion and food trend we are referring to is actually the reverse, that is a food product inspired by a fashion brand or a trendy celebrity. As fashion runways moved to the digital realm, a few fashion influencers reinvented themselves and, from dressing in fluffy merengue-like frocks, they moved onto mixing (sponsored) ingredients to make  an actual merengue. Well, you know what they say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but, we guess a lemon tart is equally nice after all. 

We all have to eat, so for some influencers it seemed logical to move onto the sponsored meal and the ingredient collab. And so last year after doing her duty launching a crowdfunding to collect money for the Coronavirus emergency in Milan, Italian influencer Chiara Ferragni relapsed into advertising mode. Last year she collaborated with Oreo on a limited-edition sandwich crème biscuit (even though that specific collaboration was released in March 2020, at the beginning of last year's lockdown in Italy, so, ever the trend-setter, Ferragni had embarked in a food collab even before lockdown; but it's worth remembering that she had tried entering the food and beverage industry already in 2018 with her partnership with Evian water), then she refocused on food companies such as Galbani, posting images of her cooking with their dairy products, and AIA Food, reviewing their breaded chicken fillet. This year she added an Easter chocolate egg to the food collabs (the proceeds from the sale went to an Italian charity).

In January Oreo released its Lady Gaga cookies, a triumph of colouring agents: being inspired by her album "Chromatica", the cookies were pink-hued with green coloured creme and three Chromatica-inspired embossments on the outside.

But Oreo had to revert to the plain vanilla filling for the Lady Gaga cookie sold on the European market (this usually happens when some ingredients are banned in some countries or when there may be copyright issues and a product must therefore be readapted to be sold in that specific country).

Despite being auctioned also on eBay, Lady Gaga's Oreo cookies didn't generate the frenzy caused by the red Supreme Oreo: hitting the market last year in February, the Oreos designed by streetwear cult brand Supreme as part of its Spring/Summer 2020 collection, went quickly sold out, reappearing on eBay where a three-pack of the vivid red cookies (price: $8 per pack) were almost sold for over $92,000 (the auction was taken offline before the cookies were sold).
In Italy it is not rare to find food products developed in collaboration with luxury fashion houses: for a few years now Dolce & Gabbana collaborated with cake and sweets family company Fiasconaro, for their traditional "panettone" and "colomba", Italian Christmas and Easter cakes wrapped in boxes with Sicily-inspired prints and motifs, but the design duo also sells wine in collaboration with winemaker Donnafugata.

Prada and Louis Vuitton never collaborated on food products, but they both preferred to buy two historical Milanese pastry shops and cafes. After all, why producing a panettone at Christmas time when you can have the entire pastry shop? So the LVMH Group bought Cova in 2013 and a year later the Prada Group bought Marchesi 1824.

The latest food collab was announced yesterday on Twitter: McDonald's revealed indeed that it will be dropping in May a meal in collaboration with Grammy-nominated K-Pop band BTS. The new BTS Meal designed according to the band's preferences consists of 10 chicken McNuggets, medium fries, a medium drink, and sweet chili and Cajun dipping sauces, inspired by popular recipes available at McDonald's South Korea.

Scheduled to be released in the USA on May 26th and in South Korea on May 27th (but the meal will be available in nearly 50 countries across six continents; dates vary) this collaboration is part of McDonald’s celebrity signature menu program. So in this case we don't actually have a fashionable brand, but a very trendy pop band collaborating with a fast food chain on a celebrity-inspired meal.

This is not the first time McDonald's partners with celebrities: last year it launched meals with musicians Travis Scott and J Balvin. And, while Travis Scott made over $20 million with his partnership, you can bet that this new collaboration will go stellar considering that the BTS army boasts millions of cadets all over the world.

But if you're too stylish to step into a McDonald's and you're a vegetarian, you may have to head to Moscow. Yes, because that's where you will find the Vêtements vegetarian combo meal, available from the café of concept store KM20. 

In this case the vegetarian burger (the same burger sold at the shop cafe, a favourite with the brand's co-founder and CEO Guram Gvasalia, with portobello mushrooms and cheese added) comes with fries and a lemonade and the packaging is covered with Vêtements' logo. Obviously the meal comes in a limited edition (there are just 2,000 available).

While we can't really vouch for the taste of this burger, its Instagrammable status is ensured by the posts of KM20 owner Olga Karput obviously dressed from head to toe in Vêtements trying the meal on the café's terrace. 

Will this first food experiment lead to more food collabs for the brand that staged a runway show during Paris Fashion Week at the McDonald's on the Champs-Élysées in 2019. Time will tell.

But, do you actually prefer art to fashion, so you're not impressed with these stories of fashion brands and trendy celebrities collaborating with food companies? Well, then head to the shop at London's Design Museum that has been turned into a temporary (it will be open for just five days) supermarket selling essential products including tea, coffee, bread, pasta sauce, porridge oats and washing up liquid with an arty twist thanks to the package designed by emerging artists.

The lead artist for this project is Camille Walala who designed the temporary shop; but among the products you will be able to find a kidney beans tin designed by Kentara Okwara, a toilet roll by Michaela Yearwood-Dan, a rice box by Joey Yu and a special edition of Bombay Sapphire (the shop's sponsor) by Ruff Mercy. It is worth noting that none of these products are overpriced, but they are sold at the same prices you would find them in a supermarket (the price for the kidney beans tin is just 70 pence).  

Due to Coronavirus, England's museums and galleries will still be closed until 17th May, but their shops can open. The museum saw a 92% drop in income because of the pandemic, so reopening its shop as a supermarket selling essential products is a way to remind us that creativity and art are also "essential", but it is also a strategic move to help the museum and artists as the proceeds will go to the museum's new Emerging Designer Access Fund that gives to up-and-coming artists and designers free access to the museum's exhibitions, events and talks. 

Some of these collaborations are destined to be successful as they allow you to join in a trend, support your favourite celebrity or influencer and achieve fashionable status without going bankrupt and you can bet that we will see more fashionable foods in future. The pandemic has indeed taught us that food is an essential category, so producing more fashionably branded foods or customising menus can guarantee sales to fashion brands even in difficult times.

That said, remember, the old adage says that you are what you eat, but don't delude yourself: you won't become a style icon, a celebrity or an artist by joining the stylish branded food trend. At the end of the day this is just a clever marketing exercise.

In our times of crisis and confusion with many people who have lost their jobs because of Coronavirus and who are struggling to get by, the most important point is not eating in an impossibly stylish and arty way, but just being able to buy basic food for everyday ordinary meals.

The Collab & The Similarity Trap: A Round-Up of The Fashionable Incarnations of Vibram's FiveFingers

In yesterday's post we looked at unique hand-made platform shoes from the '70s. Let's continue the footwear thread, but get off our platforms to explore more minimalist and flat-soled shoes - Vibram's FiveFingers and their more fashionable incarnations.

Invented in 1999 by a design student, Robert Fliri, looking for footwear that allowed to move more freely and naturally, Vibram's FiveFingers were developed and introduced in 2005. Originally the shoes with their distinctive flexible sole on the foot that separated each toe, were targeted to yacht racers to maintain grip on slippery decks while offering a barefoot experience. Soon, though, they became a favourite with fans of barefoot running thanks to their flexibility and the fact that they provide the foot with minimal support allowing a natural running style.

Eventually this minimalist innovative invention became popular for other activities, including working out at the gym, doing yoga and well, going for the odd supermarket run, but fashionistas laughed considering the FiveFingers as the world's ugliest shoe despite its cult following.

Yet, as the years passed fashionistas caught up and left hardcore barefoot runners behind: Arthur Arbesser launched in his A/W 17 collection a collaboration with Vibram.

In that occasion the Austrian designer took Vibram's signature FiveFingers sandals and reinvented them into leather sock booties mounted on a rubber sole or on a solid coloured platform.While you could still see Vibram's FiveFingers original designer there, Arbesser gave the shoes a luxury spin so that the final design ended up looking more similar to luxury footwear such as Prada's S/S 13 zori-cum-tabi sock boot than to Vibram's sporty sandal.

The fashionable collaborations with Vibram continued last year when in February Japanese brand Suicoke remixed the FiveFingers sandals for its Spring/Summer 2020 collection. In that case the signature "toe shoes" were relaunched in a series of new colourways and in the usual ankle-height and in a boot silhouette.

Fascinated maybe by the possibility that ugly design could offer him, last March Demna Gvasalia at Balenciaga launched his own collaboration with Vibram.

In this case the collaboration featured two limited-edition sneaker styles - the Toe Lace Up, resting on a heavy-duty suspension heel that called to mind shock-absorbing footwear with a spring under the heel, à la Z-Coil, and a high-heeled style. All the designs, part of Balenciaga's A/W 20-21 collection, were made from recycled knit.

The results were a bit questionable, especially when it came to the high-heeled style, that seemed a subversion of the original concept behind Vibram's FiveFingers as the shoes that were supposed to allow you to walk more naturally were recombined with a high-heeled boot.

The collaboration continued in Balenciaga's Pre-Fall 2021 collection, launched yesterday, this time with further FiveFingers styles in recycled knit or leather to give the shoes that luxury twist.

More colours were also added: Balenciaga's Pre-Fall 2021 lookbook shows indeed the footwear in beige, dark brown, black, white and emerald green. 

But the FiveFingers saga doesn't end here: a week ago Midorikawa (a Japanese genderless brand based in Japan, designed by Tadu Midorikawa, one of the finalists of the 2021 LVMH Prize) and Suicoke launched another collaboration with Vibram.

Vibram's FiveFingers by Suicoke x Midorikawa (yes, there's always safety in numbers...), come in two versions, ankle-length and booties and feature painted toenails in a neutral, bright red or royal blue shade (a trick first developed by Schiaparelli who made surrealist gloves with lacquered red nails that led to many different interpretations throughout the decades).

The shoes in this case look surreal, but the final effect also calls to mind other shoes with red lacquered nails such as Comme des Garçons' iconic oxford shoes complete with nail polish ( A/W 2009-10) that were actually related to Pierre Cardin's 1986 men's footwear that were in turn inspired by René Magritte's "Le Modèle Rouge" (but along this line we've also had Alexander McQueen's S/S 2009, Cèline's S/S 13 and Dior's Haute Couture S/S 18 Magritte-inspired shoes).

Available from Fall 2021 in different nude tones - Ivory, Snow and Mocha (well, at least in this case they made an effort to offer the shoes in a wide range of skin tones) - they are guaranteed to offer an unsettlingly uncanny effect (that we may have loved when we were hit by sudden lockdowns and a mani and pedi session turned into a much desired forgotten ritual...).

It is not possible to accuse Vibram's FiveFingers by Suicoke x Midorikawa of plagiarism because they are different from the usual trompe l'oeil five-finger shoes released so far.

But what's interesting about these collaborations between Vibram and other fashion designers or houses is the timing.

Suicoke, Suicoke x Midorikawa and Balenciaga's styles for Vibram may indeed be based on the same shoe, but, if you analyse them in detail, you realise they bear some differences, yet you wonder why all these collaborations had to be released around the same time.  

This is not a new practice in the realm of fashion and readers may remember awkward collaborations of two distinct fashion designers with the same brand for the same season (remember Junya Watanabe and Sacai for The North Face?). It is obviously true that two entities collaborating with the same brand usually end up producing entirely different products, and it is also true that quite often a brand collaborates with a designer for a specific market, and picks another designer for another market.

Besides, as a brand you may be keen on collaborating with as many designers as possible who may be bringing innovative ideas to your original product.

That said, consumers may get confused by such collaborations that end up generating very similar products, so, if you're a young designer willing to work with a major brand and you're already in talks with it for a collaboration, always ask them if they are developing similar collaborative projects in the same year with other companies and fashion houses as well.

At times similarities between different collections are simply accidental, after all avoiding to launch similar products and designs is already difficult in a world in which we all borrow and remix so much. But trying to avoid falling into the similarity trap for two different companies while collaborating with the same brand is often almost impossible.

Pelican Footwear Nyc Ltd. & The Art of Extravagance in Vintage Sculptural Wooden Platforms

As lockdown restrictions are gradually eased in various countries and the vaccine campaigns continue all over the world, we start hoping that things may get better and that, in a few months' time, we may return to our pre-Covid lives (but let's not forget that there are countries where the pandemic is still growing, so the Coronavirus emergency is not over yet). As the days pass and we feel that Summer may not be so far away, we also dream of holidays and warm days.

So, moving from the themes of returning to normality and going on holiday, let's search in museum archives for items that may inspire us? Check out for example the Pelican Footwear platform shoes featured in this post - all from the Museum at FIT.

Pelican Footwear Nyc Ltd. was a custom shoe store founded in the 1970s by a husband and wife duo, Italian-American Joseph Bascetta (all his grandparents were from Sicily) and Carole Reidford.

All the design, fabrication and sales occurred at their Bowery loft. Carole hand carved the original prototypes of the platform shoes as she was a sculptor (browse the Internet and you will discover some wonderful gravity-defying carved wooden platforms she created).

Orders came in from around the world so the Bascettas' shoes went global even though they were made locally.

Pelican’s clients included David Bowie and The New York Dolls, who featured their shoes on the cover of their debut LP. David Bowie opted for the palm platform sandals (second image in this post) during his Ziggy Stardust tour in the '70s.

The shop and the Bascettas relocated in Hartford and in the late '80s-early '90s the duo eventually switched from making shoes to piercing and doing tattoos, opening the Pelican Tattoo & Body Piercing.

There's just five pairs of Pelican shoes in the Museum at FIT archive (designed in the early '70s), but they all look eccentric and fun: some of them feature hand-decorated platforms with motifs of strawberries or with carved palms calling to mind Carmen Miranda's style, but there are also glam sandals such as red and black platform mules with splashes of gold glitter and synthetic black satin open toe sandals with a chevron black, yellow and glittery fuchsia motif.

Though some of these shoes may not be to everybody's taste, their joyful extravagance is maybe just what we need as we dream about that ebullient feeling of extraordinary normality that we've all been missing in our lives. 

Passport to World Cultures & Crafts: Discover Garland Magazine (+ Garland Podcast with Irenebrination)

Do you like learning more about crafts and traditions from all over the world and you don't know Garland Magazine yet? Well, you should check it out now.

Based in Australia, Garland was launched in 2015 as a partner of the World Crafts Council – Australia, a national entity of the World Crafts Council – Asia Pacific.

The name of the magazine is inspired by the Indo-Pacific floral offerings: conceived as a mark of respect, the garland welcomes guests, honours individuals, adorns homes and decorates temples.

Yet, in the case of the magazine, the garland motif is also a metaphor for reaching out and connect writers, crafts, traditions and stories.

Indeed, it doesn't matter where we live, we are all connected and form a wonderfully unfinished human tapestry and Garland provides a platform to discover these connections through a wide range of stories about craftspeople and hand-made objects created all over the world (Garland has so far travelled from Australia to Japan, South Korea, India and Mexico, just to mention a few countries...), always keeping firmly in mind the strong bond human beings have with nature and without forgetting how technologies are having an impact on our lives.

Between 2015 and 2020, Garland shared 1,050 stories by 501 writers from 63 countries about textiles, traditional garments and techniques, jewelry, interior design pieces and objects. While the current issue of the magazine explores the relationship between humans and nature, in June Garland will look at the relationship between past and future, developing more juxtapositions throughout the rest of the year and exploring dichotomies such as East/West, rich/poor and the value of objects and their meanings).

While Garland is published quarterly, the Loop provides stories between issues, the Orbit lists major events, exhibitions, talks and tours while the monthly Laurel focuses on intriguing and inspiring objects that prompt readers to think.

Most content is free, but if you're part of the Circle of subscribers and contributors (the deadline for the next issue is 1st May 2021 and you can submit your story idea here) you will be able to access special sections such as the Quarterly Essays, ebooks and the monthly newsletter. And, if you're looking for exclusive presents, head for the Garland shop or book sections where you may find magazines, ebooks, but also pendants and quarterly issues with uniquely hand-decorated covers created by refugee artists who are part of Melbourne Artists for Asylum Seekers.  

Garland also publishes podcast interviews and hosts live conversations and in April I was honoured to be part of one of these conversations and was interviewed by Kevin Murray, the indefatigable editor at Garland magazine and Irenebrination supporter (thank you, Kevin). You can listen to the podcast at this link.

Can't travel yet because of Coronavirus restrictions? Subscribe to Garland, get your passport to world cultures and learn to speak the lingua franca of crafts.

Crypto Fashion: A New Concept of Luxury?

Another Day, Another NFT. Yes, after Christie's auction of a purely digital work with a unique NFT, or Non-Fungible Token, hit the headlines in March, NFTs have multiplied, proliferating like mushrooms in different fields - from art and music to gaming.

A non-fungible token, as you may remember from previous posts is a distinct, indivisible, scarce and verifiable token on a blockchain network. Fashion hasn’t been immune to the NFT temptation: iconic model Kate Moss has created with anonymous artist collective Moments in Time three short videos of herself engaged in ordinary activities, that were auctioned off as NFTs (one of them sold for 5.1699 ETH or $12,495.65; while the other two videos are still available to prove maybe that NFTs collectors aren't so naive...); virtual brand RTFKT Studios created instead a series of collectible NFTs of super cool sneakers.

The latest brand to join the trend is Overpriced.™ Founded earlier this year by Impossible Brief’s James Zwadlo and Chris Levett with Leighton James (of electronic music production duo Adventure Club), Overpriced.™ focuses on high-end fashion and hopes to make a social commentary about the concept of value (the motto "Fuck Your Money" is emblazoned on the front of the hoodie in neon green graffiti font) in connection with art (a topic that seems to interest other contemporary art collectives at the moment, such as MSCHF).

After announcing the debut of its NFT-based collection, Overpriced.™ launched a hoodie with a (patent-pending) scannable V-code on the front of the garment. Thanks to the code, users can see the history and metadata of the item, wear the garment in virtual settings online, authenticate and show off their unique NFT through a pop-up image link on any smartphonee. If the design they have bought gets lost, stolen, damaged or sold, the V-codes will become invalidated and the user will receive a new hoodie, that, replacing the previous one, will become the authentic piece. The "First Edition" hoodie sold at an auction on Blockparty.co for $26,000 USD. 

But there is more behind this project: Overpriced.™ conceives its NFT designs as ways to challenge fashion and luxury and play around with a series of concepts - wondering what's real, original, authentic and wearable art. Besides, the brand's NFTs are a way to look at the value placed in the digital token and not the physical garment.

Overpriced.™ boasts on its site of making "fashion for the crypto generation", a statement that should make the fashion industry worry.

Coronavirus changed the fashion industry, prompting many designers to opt for digital events and shows, or videogaming collaborations, but Crypto Fashion poses new challenges to brands, houses and fashion groups that have showed in the last few months signs of desperation and a persistent lack of original ideas.

Teaming up, collaborating, showing "safety in numbers" with collections made with artists or celebrities seem to be the strategies of many fashion houses and brands at the moment. A few examples? Earlier on this month, Tod's Group appointed Chiara Ferragni as a member of its board of directors, hoping the Italian entrepreneur and influencer with 23.3 million Instagram followers may help them reaching out to younger consumers and build solidarity and support projects for those in need (as if Tod's - that in the past launched several cultural and social projects including the restoration of the Colosseum in Rome and building a new manufacturing plant in Arquata del Tronto, hard hit by an earthquake in August 2016 - had suddenly run out of ideas and projects to sponsor...).

Gucci has showed some interest in the possibilities offered by digital wardrobes and recently released its own AR sneaker. To celebrate its centenary, the fashion house launched yesterday its latest collection - entitled "Aria" - in collaboration with Balenciaga's Demna Gvasalia. The result was a Guccified version of Gvasalia's extremely wide shouldered coats or infamous legging-boots.

Alessandro Michele at Gucci mentioned the fact that the collection was created to make it look hacked by Balenciaga, the final result is indeed a hybrid, a combination of two brands.

Yet the Crypto Fashion generation seems to have already got their own hybrids: living between a physical and a digital world, suspended in that in-between phygital state, Crypto Fashion fans may force traditional fashion brands to readapt and generate a new concept of luxury that incorporates also NFTs (in much the same way Overpriced.™ has adapted some of the techniques of the fashion industry for its products - the brand borrowed the drop system, for example, from streetwear icons à la Supreme and warned fans to follow its Twitter page to keep updated about their next releases). So, it looks like the rush for the next fashion NFT has just started and you can bet that it's only a matter of days before a powerful fashion house such as Gucci or Prada auctions off its first NFT.

Will the Able Sisters Succumb to Fast Fashion? H&M X Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Looop Island Review)

Released slightly over a year ago (on 20th March 2020), the Nintendo Switch title "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" proved extremely timely. Arriving in a pandemic while millions of people all over the world were in a lockdown, it became a success with players of all ages.

Many adults who had never played videogames before or who were skeptical about gaming, turned to the title to create their own virtual space, relax, meet old friends or find new ways to virtually socialise and travel while living in a perennially socially distanced world.

Yet, while most of us were socialising, buying digital clothes and decorating our mansions on our virtual islands, independent designers, big fashion houses and brands started seeing the potential of the videogame.

Collaborations started and soon there were special digital clothes, fashion shows and even politicians started using the videogame as an engaging platform to reach out to voters.

H&M is the latest one to join the "Animal Crossing" trend and for the occasion it has teamed up with HBO's Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams.

A keen supporter of eco-friendly designs, Williams has a conscious approach to life and she is very careful when it comes to consuming and loves recycling. Besides, she doesn’t support causes that she doesn’t feel passionate about.

Intrigued by H&M's desire to establish a more circular fashion loop and by their pledge to ensure 100 percent of their fabrics are sustainably sourced or recycled textiles by 2030, Williams accepted to become their global sustainability ambassador.  

Throughout the year the actor will collaborate with H&M on a new initiative that started with the launch of a platinum-haired digital avatar of Williams that will appear at multiple VR events during 2021.

The avatar - created by the 3D animators at Goodbye Kansas Studio (well-known for designing the Keanu Reeves avatar in the "Cyberpunk 2077" game and for contributing with VFX to Wes Anderson's upcoming film "The French Dispatch") - has made its appearance this week on Nintendo's Animal Crossing.

Adapted into an Animal Crossing character, Williams' avatar will welcome visitors on H&M's Looop Island (available until 20th April).

You should be able to visit Looop Island by requesting a Dodo Code at the official @Looop Twitter account, but if you DM them they may say there are too many requests and just give you the Dream Address (DA-3314-6895-7902) to visit the island at your leisure (please remember that to visit islands or to access dreams you will need a Nintendo Switch Online membership).

Apart from being a marketing tool (check out the various H&M flags and signs scattered around the island), Looop Island has an eco-friendly purpose: once you arrive, you can get from the terminal on the left of your bed (if you've arrived from your dream state like I did with my avatar as showed in the images in this post) two designs - a white dress or a T-shirt, both accessorised with a purple scarf (purple is the theme colour of the island) inspired by the ensemble donned by Maisie's avatar.

The items are free and they will then appear in your Pro-design app on your smartphone and you will be able to use them also once you’re back on your island from your dream.

You can now start your journey through the island, but first pick up from the ground some items that were left for you, such as a red balloon (meant to match the colour of the H&M logo, but ending up looking like the sort of accessory Pennywise out of Stephen King's It may like...), a striped swimsuit, a pinwheel and ten cupcakes, then follow the sign and, next to the Able Sisters shop (which is shut), you will discover a Looop Machine, the game's first recycling station.

The name "Looop" is inspired by the retailer's real-life recycling machine that was launched in October with the goal of closing "the loop in fashion" by finding a purpose for unused garments.

If you’re allowed a proper visit to the island, you will be able to leave digital unwanted garments, purchased or made on your island or gifted to you by other inhabitants or friends in "Animal Crossing", on a bench next to the machine. In this way you can recycle unwanted game outfits, re-enacting H&M's in-store garment-to-garment recycling system (that was actually suspended in most countries during the Coronavirus pandemic).

Before moving away from this space check out the Super Mario pipe hidden behind the tree in front of the Able Sisters shop: it will take you directly to an abstract secret space bathed in a purple light that recreates the purple space seen in H&M's advert featuring Maisie Williams.

Then there are other activities you can do on the island: you can walk around the paths, admire the orchards, sit in meticulously furnished open air restaurants and cafes or visit some of the locals (some of them may not be too friendly and will ask you what are you doing there...).

As you walk around you may bump into the avatar of H&M's Global Sustainability Manager, Pascal Brun, whose single catchphrase is just "Looop it!"

Inside the Looop Mansion you will discover a spacious office with posters and adverts on the walls inspired by real H&M ads; the fashion innovation lab with rolls of fabrics on the walls (we would have much preferred to get those designs for free from the terminal rather than Maisie Williams' outfits…), Maisie Williams' apartment upstairs (with some items recreated from her own house and from the items she has on her island in Animal Crossing) and a basement with a runway complete with backstage, lights, a video camera and a small selection of garments part of H&M's next recycled collection.

After doing your little runway show, walk around the glowing forest with its purple hyacinth fields, star-shaped lilac lamps and a romantic full moon.

Once you've finished exploring the island wear your swimsuit, jump in the water and swim till you get to a secluded beach where you will find Williams' avatar outside her tent.

Like Pascal, she has just one catchphrase ("Let's change fashion!"), but on 13th April Williams and Pascal had a debate about recycling and circular fashion and maybe the characters' catchphrases may have been expanded to incorporate more messages about preserving our planet and reinventing the industry.

Before leaving, check out the messages on the board outside the town's village services: if you're on a proper visit you may be able to leave your own message, but if you've landed on Looop Island in your dream, you will only be able to read Pascal's notes (featuring bizarre repetitions, typos and grammar mistakes: "Join the recycling revolution! Drop your unwanted piece of piece of clothing by the Looop machine and pick up our exclusive H&M outfit from Able sisters", "Help us work towards a better fashion future. Together we can close the loop", "Let's change fashion - our goal is for all H&M materials to be recycled or sourced more sustainable by 2030"). 

Animal Crossing-wise the island is tremendously well designed and detailed: you will love every corner of it, from its hyacinths to its emphasis on green energies, with vast rows of solar panels and wind turbines installed in prominent positions.

That said it has its questionable moments (apart from Pascal's messed up messages...): the museum is more or less a "Day of the Triffids" situation, for example. So, while outside the island is pulsating with orchards and gardens, inside the museum there are no creatures in the displays, one dinosaur is left unfinished and there is no art section, as if Nintendo had grown tired of designing this part for H&M or as if H&M had thought that creating the main areas for the island was enough.

Then there is the entire point of actually "recycling" your in-game clothes: the main point about Looop Island is encouraging visitors to learn about the importance of recycling while playing.

So you may arrive on the island for a visit via Dodo Airlines and drop a pair of digital trousers (you can't drop anything if you arrive on the island from your dreams - and that's bad as most users are offered this option - and if you can't actually do any recycling the whole purpose of the island is undermined), and maybe the next day you may want to recycle a pair of trousers in real life.

If there wouldn't be this educational purpose behind the island, there wouldn't be any need for it to exist. That said, most players use their bells (the island's currency) to buy an assortment of things, including items and clothes they may not necessarily need or that they know they may not be wearing for a long time.

When they are tired of these objects, they sell them in the local shop, give them to another islander or to a friend, in a nutshell, players already recycle their unwanted clothes, so they don't desperately need a recycling point on any island to get rid of them.

So, while as a whole the island is a pleasant experience and the collaboration reconfirms the huge success of "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" (that, according to the latest figures, has so far sold 31.18 million units), Looop Island has its questionable sides. 

Critics may see this as another attempt by H&M to greenwash their act, after all the company that has started producing collections featuring items made with a plant-based leather alternative made from cactus plants and yarn made from castor oils, remains one of fashion's biggest polluters and just a few years ago was accused of burning leftover stock.

Some doubts remain about all these collaborations with Animal Crossing: last year Nintendo issued guidelines to those companies that had started using "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" to promote their businesses. Among the other guidelines, the company stated, "Please do not leverage the Game as a marketing platform that directs people to activities or campaigns outside the game (including directing people to a sales page, distributing coupons, sweepstakes, giveaways, requiring consumers to follow social network services accounts, gathering customers' information, or other invitational activities).

You are not allowed to obtain any financial benefit from using the Game (including selling your Custom Design or earning any advertising revenue with the Game content)."

In a way these points seem to be violated by these collaborations with famous brands that essentially use the game as a marketing platform and hope to obtain financial benefits (H&M customers who collect Conscious points by buying the brand's products will get the chance to win a purple bandana neck scarf like the one Maisie's avatar wears in the game, made from 100% recycled materials, so you may argue they are encouraging to buy their products). 

One last doubt also remains: what will we actually learn from recycling digital clothes? As soon as England came out of lockdown, queues of people started forming in front of clothes shops and fast fashion retailers, as if we all needed an immediate fashion fix and the lessons learnt in lockdown (i.e. we don't need as many clothes we buy) were already forgotten.

As for the Able Sisters, will they succumb to fast fashion? Well, let's hope not, we have indeed grown fond of the hard-working fashionable porcupines spreading the ideals of slow fashion on our islands. 

Textiles and Fashion Correspondences in Film Costumes at The 23rd Costume Designers Guild Awards

It is not rare to see fashion borrowing from the big screen and, in the history of fashion and film, there have been some costume designers who became constant inspirations for fashion collections.

Yet costumes are obviously also inspired by fashion and this is the case for the designs seen in some of the films that yesterday evening won three different categories at the 23rd annual Costume Designers Guild Awards (the awards were handed out with a virtual ceremony on Twitter). 

Legendary Oscar and Tony-winner Ann Roth won the category Excellence in Period Film with the costumes for George C. Wolfe's "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" (Roth also won best costumes for this film at last Sunday's BAFTA Awards).

A journey through the recording sessions of the "Mother of the Blues", real-life singer Ma Rainey (Oscar-winner Viola Davis) and her band members (the late Chadwick Boseman stars in the role of cornet player Levee), the story takes place in Chicago in the late '20s.

Visually speaking the film is full of inspiring textures with sets that betray the influence of photographer Richard Samuel Roberts and the woodcuts of painters Jacob Lawrence and Aaron Douglas. The sets make the luscious jewel toned costumes donned by Ma Rainey and her girlfriend Dussie Mae (Taylour Paige) genuinely shine. 

Roth created for Ma Rainey a bold and lavish showbiz wardrobe with red or blue gowns often embelished with sequins or long fringes that move as the singer performs. Even in summer, Ma Rainey wears a mink fur stole that gives her status and puts her under the spotlight, turning heads in Chicago.

In the film Roth pretends the clothes were made by a woman in Mississippi, but at times the costumes from a distance call to mind velvet designs with hand-printed metallic pigment motifs à la Madame Gallenga or Mariano Fortuny. 

But close ups of one gold and chocolate velvet brocade dress reveal a fabric reminiscent of luxurious textiles such as soprarizzo velvet.   

Excellence in Contemporary Film went to "Promising Young Woman", written and directed by Emerald Fennell, with costumes by Nancy Steiner (who, in her acceptance speech, took the opportunity to ask the industry to pay costume designers what they are worth, "So much of what you see onscreen is our work," she stated. "It influences culture, fashion and results in additional profits for the studio (...) it's time for pay equity now").

The costume designer used in this case a contemporary wardrobe for the main character, Cassie, with some pieces (the Rose Loren dress and the baseball shirt with a child playing with a baby deer and a rainbow in the background), from Coco Fennell's (the sister of the director) collections (check also the brand's Instagram page for further images from this film).

But these innocent, romantic and at times childish pastel tones hide a very dark character: Cassie (Carey Mulligan) is indeed seeking revenge for the death of her best friend Nina, a rape victim.

Cassie is on a mission to punish men and, while she dresses to appeal her targets at night with bodycon designs, high heels and undone buttons, her daily uniform is almost angelic, with pink fluffy sweaters and shirts with prints of delicate flowers.

This wardrobe that you can easily find in stores or online is actually a coverup, a pastel world that hides a thirst for revenge and that serves the character to camouflage herself.

At the same time the clothes she wears reveal that Cassie is not a silly girl, but a cleverly brilliant mind who knows how to use clothes at their best - after all who would ever suspect a young blonde smiling woman with a deer baseball top and pastel manicure? 

Last but not least, the Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Television went to Shay Cunliffe for the episode "Parce Domine" in TV series "Westworld" (First Episode, Third Series; a series that has provided fashion designers with many inspirations), but maybe the award should have gone to Hussein Chalayan.

The episode features indeed Dolores who, with a swift gesture of her hand, changes her look, radically transforming a black short dress into a floor-length gold gown. So there's two dresses in one, with the gold dress rolled up inside the black dress and held together with snaps.  

Yet the dress that marvelled the series fans was nothing more than a reinvention of the transformative designs in Hussein Chalayan's  A/W 2013 collection, entitled "Rise". 

As you may remember from a previous post, Chalayan's designs could be transformed with just one gesture and in that case the trick was possible by simply tugging a flap around the neckline. 

The draped fabric folded around the neck area would then release forming an over-layer and an entirely new look. In that case dresses changed their colours from black to beige or dark burgundy to black, but also the surfaces changed with a short dress in a peeling black fabric with multi-coloured nuances that turned into a floor-length gown in a smooth soft fabric.

The effect achieved in "Westworld" was exactly the same, so maybe in this case the costume designer should have maybe given credit to Chalayan. 

The Rise of the Ballet Shoe: On Pointe (Virtual Exhibition) @ The Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada

When we think about ballet our minds immediately conjure up ethereal visions of dancers performing en pointe work. Yet history tells us that pointe work wasn't derived from the poetic visions of a choreographer, but from a sort of acrobatic and sensational style.

There are records of dancers who performed on their toes as early as the 1720s, but the practice developed in the early 19th century when Italian dancers added spectacular tricks to their shows: in one of them, devised probably by Amalia Brugnoli, performers danced on their toes.

Choreographer Filippo Taglioni and his daughter Marie perfected the style, refining poses and postures. Working for 6 hours a day every day for 6 months, Marie developed great physical power, while retaining her femininity and grace.

Marie reinvented Brugnoli's en pointe move: practicing for long hours to make sure that she didn't look as if she was suffering and she didn’t grimace as she rose to her toes, Marie created a new style.

Taglioni actually danced in a sort of half pointe position as her shoes weren't hard or boxed as today's shoes, but soft with a rounded toe in satin and with ribbons attached to the arch that laced up around the ankle.

They were tapered at the tip and tiny as small shoes allowed dancers to stiff the metatarsal and make it easier to stand on toes (and to hurt their feet as well by dislocating bones...). Taglioni entered the history of ballet by dancing in 1832 in the romantic piece La Sylphide, choreographed by her father and created to highlight her pointe work. 

There's currently a digital exhibition at the Toronto-based Bata Shoe Museum (still closed due to Coronavirus), that invites virtual visitors to look at some of the shoes in the museum collection and discover a little bit about the history of pointe shoes via brief explanatory screens.

"On Pointe: The Rise of The Ballet Shoes" opens with the origins of the ballet footwear that was first inspired by fashionable shoes from the 1800s. Ballet shoes looked indeed like the footwear of the time, but when high heels went out of fashion and thin satin flats became the norm in the 19th century, dancers adapted and opted for flat-soled slippers. These shoes were made as straights so there was no distinction between left or right and that eventually became the norm also for ballet shoes.

Rising on the toes became easier with the advent of the pointe shoe: hard-blocked shoes appeared with Anna Pavlova and Carlotta Brianza. Pavlova added to her shoes a leather sole inside the pointe to widen it and make it more solid. In the Unites States she approached Salvatore Capezio who made a custom pair of shoes for her. Her design eventually turned into the standard and, though it wasn't favoured at the beginning as some critics thought that adding a wider leather sole in the pointe was like cheating, it was finally accepted.

The exhibition at Bata Shoe Museum is a short one that makes some very good points that you may want to take into consideration and maybe explore more in future. First of all ballet slippers are the result of artisanal work: they are indeed hand-made (if you're studying shoe design or would like to become a shoemaker, consider also this career) and could be considered as couture products as the shoes destined to performers working for companies are usually made to the specifications of the dancers. The The shoes are made following the highest standards as the toe box and shank must allow the dancer's weight to be transferred to the platform. Dancers go through several pairs of shoes during training, rehearsals and performances: the Bata Shoe Museum has for example got in its archive three pair of worn out ballet shoes that belonged to Veronica Tennant, one of Canada's most famous ballerinas. Tennant needed a different pair of shoes for each act of the performance Onegin (1985).

The exhibition makes another important point, regarding the colour of the shoes: as the foot is considered an extension of the leg, a dancer's slippers usually have to match their skin tone to create a seamless line from leg to toe.

But, historically, 'nude' ballet slippers have been either pink or peach (and we wrongly identify nude with a pale pink tone, while nude should just be something that blends with one's skin and not to two or three shades of pink and maybe beige), even while professional dance companies began to diversify, which meant that dancers with darker skin tones had to dye their shoes or cover them with cosmetics. The limited colour offering meant that dancers with different skin tones had to spend more time than their colleagues dyeing their slippers.

In more recent years there have been companies who have worked on providing shoes for darker skin tones: in 2017, Bloch began to produce their "Cocoa" shade ballet slipper and, a year later, the dance company Ballet Black, which celebrates Black and Asian representation in ballet, collaborated with Freed London to release shade-inclusive ballet slippers. By highlighting this point, the Museum raises questions about diversity and inclusion in ballet.

Ballet and pointe shoes have constantly inspired special exhibition and fashion collections, so discovering a bit more about the story of the iconic slippers and their evolution through a brief exhibition with videos, images of dance icons and shoes may prompt digital visitors to research this topic further, providing them with intriguing inspirations for collections, collaborations and other creative projects.  

The Currency Converter With Exchange Rates Based on Art Variables: Spotlight on Artist and Designer Stacey Lee Webber

Cryptocurrencies have revolutionised the way of making and trading money, generating new ventures and businesses, but traditional currencies have definitely inspired quite a few artists throughout the decades.

The KLF burnt a million quid in 1994, entering the history of performance art with their grand yet recklessly crazy gesture; other artists launched their own currency to finance their projects or employed coins to create sculptures and symbolical maps to question economic and political issues.

The world of accessories also saw some designers using banknotes and coins to create innovative jewellery pieces, designs that could be conceived as a critique of our times and a comment about the concept of value.

Artist Stacey Lee Webber is another clever currency converter: she employs indeed American dollar banknotes and coins to make art and interior design pieces, but also statement jewelry.

Webber uses banknotes as canvases or textiles: some of her banknotes incorporate hand-embroidered geometrical patterns and motifs that erase or hide the original images with elaborate stitches that destroy the main function of the banknote.

But she also uses her embroidered motifs to play with the very serious look of the portraits on the bills, radically transforming them: these unsmiling figures - from Abraham Lincoln to Alexander Hamilton, from Gandhi to Galileo Galilei and Nikola Tesla - are transformed from very serious figures into colourful clowns, rebellious punks and Frankenstein-like monsters, while Chairman Mao is turned into an Andy Warhol-like character complete with white wig and Albert Einstein gets a makeover in Carmen Miranda style with signature fruit hat.

But, while these pieces are inspired by Webber's imagination, others move from current events: the 2021 US Capitol building siege in Washington DC inspired her banknotes with the building enveloped in flames and with the White House partially obscured by an unfinished brick wall.

The themes explored in these banknotes are reimagined also in her Uncut Sheets series: hinting at anger and turmoil, the uncut sheets of money are employed as larger canvases incorporating abstract geometrical motifs at times reminiscent of graffiti.

Playing with hard (the banknote paper) and soft (the threads) materials, Webber uses traditional stitches to redesign the banknotes, covering their muted colours with bright threads and subverting in this way the purpose and value of the currency.

The banknotes lose their purpose and value to re-acquire a completely new aim and objective: from a medium of exchange for goods and services, the banknotes become works of art that capture our attention, make us laugh or prompt us to ponder about contemporary political, financial and social issues.

Webber trained as metalsmith, though, rather than an embroiderer and in her studio located in an old industrial building in Philadelphia (you can check out her Instagram page to get an insight about her work in this space), she produces different pieces soldering coins together to create larger artworks or carving the central motifs of coins and covering them in colourful vitreous enamel, a material made by fusing powdered glass to a substrate by firing in a kiln.

Webber employs this technique to create wall pieces or jewelry characterised by a smooth, durable, vitreous and bright coloured coating.

Quite often the artist and designer employs the elements she carves out of the coins to create her pieces for her own collections or for collaborative projects: for Oscar de la Renta's S/S 19 collection she made a wide-range of necklaces, earrings and rings with antiqued vermeil coins that at times evoked ancient Roman and Greek jewelry.

But there is more behind Webber's practice (check out her shop to get a quick idea of her current/latest pieces) as a currency converter: throughout the years she has used American and international coins to create delicate landscape scenes inside circular frames and has turned copper and silver coins (the latter were often given to her by the clients who commissioned her the pieces) into unique objects such as vessels, tools that question the value of labor and time inherent in the object, sculptural pieces, or objects contained within the home of a nine to five laborer (the artist celebrated the American working class also through a series of flowers made with oxidized brass screws).

Exchange rates are derived from state economic policies, international negotiated regimes, agent activity in the foreign exchange market and macroeconomic fundamentals but, through her pieces, Webber establishes new exchange rates based on personal art variables (the techniques she employs). In this way money loses its purchasing power while banknotes and coins turn into unique works of art and accessories.

From Sotheby's The Fungible Collection by Pak to Kate Moss' Mundane Videos, Which NFTs Will You Be Investing In?

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been around for a few years now, but a trend has literally exploded in the last few months, maybe pushed also by the pandemic that confined us in our houses and in digital spaces, culminating in March in Christie's sale of Beeple's monumental digital collage for a record sum, $69,346,250. Confident NFTs will reshape the art landscape, Sotheby's launched an auction of digital art - The Fungible Collection by Pak.

The anonymous creator. who has been producing digital art for over two decades, is also the founder and lead designer of the studio Undream and creator of Archillect, an AI built to discover and share stimulating visual media. The auction - that will go live from tomorrow to 14th April - is released in collaboration with Nifty Gateway, a marketplace specializing in the sale and auction of non-fungible tokens.

Every asset for sale in The Fungible Collection is a non-fungible token (NFT). It is worthwhile remembering here for those readers who didn't follow our previous posts that a non-fungible token is a distinct, indivisible, scarce and verifiable token on a blockchain network (but the ownership of a non-fungible token can still be transferred from one address on the network to another).

The Fungible Open Editions will enable collectors to purchase as many fungible cubes as they wish during the sale period for a fixed price ($500 per unit). These fungible cubes can be purchased individually (in batches of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500 and 1,000) or many at a time (so when a Collector purchases 6 cubes, they will receive 2 "Five Cubes" NFTs and "A Cube" NFT; when they purchase 26 cubes, they will receive 3 NFTs with "Twenty Cubes", "Five Cubes" and "A Cube", summing up to 26 cubes in fungible value).  

There is a game-like rewarding element in the auction aimed at exploring and understanding the concept of value in connection with art: the 100 collectors who purchase the most Open Edition cubes by the end of day 3, will receive Complexity, a collection of 100 NFTs; The Cube is instead a unique, "one-of-one" NFT that will be given to the individual who purchases the most Open Edition cubes by the end of day 3; Equilibrium is a "four-of-four" where each edition will be sent to the winners of a series of challenges, from solving Pak's puzzle to posting a dedicated hashtag (#PakWasHere) to the biggest social media audience or estimating the total sale of the entire collection prior to the auction beginning on April 12.

"The Builder" is instead a set of 30 NFTs that will be given to artists, builders, and creators (recipients will be determined by Pak) who have paved the way for Pak and other NFT artists. 

Last but not least, "The Switch", developed to be used with a public call by it's owner, is a unique, "one of one" NFT that demonstrates the evolution of artwork in the digital realm.

Sotheby's Pak auction is therefore an experimental auction aimed at a younger generation of collectors (the starting bid for The Switch, but also for The Pixel, represented by a single and basic pixel unit, is $1)  who may be interested in exploring the concept of value through CryptoArt.

The world of fashion is definitely not sitting back and watching: while there have been multiple experiments and collaborations with design studios and brands creating digital designs, we haven't seen yet a promiment fashion house or brand releasing a design as a non-fungible token (but how long will we have to wait? Probably just a few days...), yet things are quickly evolving.

Kate Moss has for example created three short videos with anonymous artist collective, Moments in Time. The videos show Moss engaging in everyday activities - sleeping, walking and driving. The three videos - "Drive With Kate," "Walk With Kate" and "Sleep With Kate" - will be auctioned off as NFTs through digital platform Foundation (auction opens on Tuesday starting at 9 a.m. EST for 24 hours) and part of the proceeds will benefit Adwoa Aboah's Gurls Talk charity (each video will be sold with a unique audio certification recorded by Moss acknowledging the buyer who will also be announced in a social post through the Kate Moss Agency).

In a statement accompanying the videos, Moss explains "Art for me has always been about the moment. Time is the thing that there is never enough of and that waits for no one. I'm intrigued by who will want to own a moment of mine. I was also drawn to the idea that this ownership can be used to help others in need hopefully gain more of it. I look forward to seeing this experiment through." 

There's a difference between Sotheby's Pak NTFs and Moss's artworks: the former cater to passionate fans of digital art, abstract geometries and architectures; Moss's videos are actually more mundane rather than technological, aimed at offering short snippets of real life (they were recorded at Moss's own home and feature the model driving her own car and wearing her own clothes) while helping a charity.

So which one will you be opting for, Pak's abstract geometries or Kate Moss's mundane NTFs? Whichever you choose, remember, the term "NFT" is not just destined to become the word of the year: according to a report released earlier on this year by NonFungible.com, an NFT market analyst firm, the non-fungible token market tripled in 2020, with the total value of transactions increasing by 299%, so NFTs are definitely destined to become a leading emerging asset class for the Virtual Economy.