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

End of the Hellish Nike VS MSCHF Controversy, But What Did We Learn From It?

Peace was found on Thursday in a recent controversy from Hell between Nike and conceptual art collective MSCHF over the so-called "Satan Shoes", designed in collaboration with singer Lil Nas X.

Released at the end of March, the modified pair of Nike Air Max 97 featured a pentagram pendant and a reference to a verse from the Gospel of Luke ("I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven", 10:18), and contained 60cc of red ink, visible from the transparent section of the sole and "one drop of human blood".

Limited to 666 pairs retailing at $1,018, the sneakers sparked outrage when Lil Nas X announced their release, even though they were sold out as soon as they hit the web. Religious and conservative consumers, thinking this was an official collaboration with Nike, called for a boycott, and Nike, that never showed anything against MSCHF's previous "Jesus Shoes", distanced itself from the product and sued MSCHF for "trademark infringement and dilution, false designation of origin, and unfair competition".

At the beginning of April, US district judge Eric Komitee gave Nike a temporary restraining order preventing manufacturer MSCHF from shipping out the 666 pairs of shoes to customers.

Eventually Nike Inc. reached a settlement on Thursday and MSCHF accepted Nike's request to voluntarily recall to buy back not only the 665 sneakers sold (sneakers number 666th were supposed to be a giveaway, but they were scrapped after the judge's temporary order), but also any Jesus Shoes, for their original retail prices to remove them in this way from circulation.

"Purchasers who choose not to return their shoes and later encounter a product issue, defect, or health concern should contact MSCHF, not Nike .The parties are pleased to put this dispute behind them," Nike concluded in its official statement. Nothing was added about people who may own the shoes, who may be taking pictures of themselves wearing the sneakers and who may be posting the images on social media. For what regards the by now ultra-rare "Satan Shoes" you can currently find some pairs on eBay, with offers going from $3,000 to $20,000. 

Now while this case from Hell has closed, the satanic footwear has opened many debates in the creative world: practices such as remixing, collaging, reclaiming and repurposing certain fashion items have always been around. Certain products or works of art wouldn't exist if designers and artists hadn't dismembered certain pieces and re-collaged them in a different configuration. In the last 20 years fashion designers have transformed from Takeji Hirakawa's "Fashion DJs" into professional "Fashion Remixers" and we all know that, quite often, a remix is better than the original version.

We have seen Martin Margiela repurposing a wide variety of materials throughout the decades, and Marine Serre's designs often include regenerated and recycled materials. Now in these cases the designers mainly employed fabrics, bedsheets, socks or towels that did not feature any specific trademarked logo, so they avoided enraging any specific company. MSCHF's shoes incorporated Nike's iconic Swoosh logo, but in a way it was probably the association with Satan that, more than anything else, scared Nike (otherwise they would have immediately sued MSCHF when the collective released the "Jesus Shoes"). 

There are two essential problems to consider now: we mentioned one in the previous post about the "Satan Shoes", as MSCHF accepted Nike's request, from now on other brands that may see their products being repurposed by artists and designers and may not like their interpretation, may simply sue them. Yet this is a double-edged sword: take the case of the hip hop tailor of Harlem, Dapper Dan, who used to create in the '80s DIY designs from fabrics covered in brand logos such as Gucci or Vuitton.

At the time the designer played a dangerously ironic game with luxury products and logos. Sued for his bootlegged pieces, after Alessandro Michele at Gucci "homaged" one of his jackets, Dapper Dan rose to fame again, becoming a Gucci icon and star collaborator, ending up proving that quite often bootlegs are more original and desirable than the original products and therefore more fun for consumers. This can be said for example about La Californienne's repurposed Rolex and Cartier watches with their colourful faces and bands that look infinitely more desirable than the usual models (Rolex was upset about the company and sued them - see Rolex Watch U.S.A., Inc. v. Reference Watch LLC d/b/a La Californienne; Rolex won this trademark infringing case, but you can still buy some of these repurposed models on Farfetch). You can indeed bet that, even though Rolex won, in few years' time both the luxury watch brands repurposed by La Californienne will start making more colourful watches.

The second point to consider is that too often when an anonymous designer or an artist uses a famous brand's logo in a controversial way, that specific brand immediately distances itself, launching a legal action against them. But when that powerful brand decides to do the same, they make their design pass for an experimental project or for a tribute or homage (this is often what happens when a fashion house copies a traditional garment).

An example? Nike recently did an unauthorised experimental version of its Air Force 1 sneakers inspired by the white, red and blue USPS cardboard boxes and with a patch reproducing the U.S. Postal Service's Priority Mail shipping label, but the shoes weren't the result of any special collaboration.

USPS issued indeed a statement at the beginning of April stating, "The Postal Service, which receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations, protects its intellectual property. Officially licensed products sold in the marketplace expand the affinity for the Postal Service brand and provide incremental revenue through royalties that directly support it. Sales of unauthorized and unlicensed products deny support to the hardworking women and men of the Postal Service."  

"This is an unfortunate situation where a large brand such as Nike, which aggressively protects its own intellectual property, has chosen to leverage another brand for its own gain. The Postal Service is disappointed in Nike's lack of response to repeated attempts to come to a solution. The Postal Service will take whatever actions it deems necessary to protect its valuable IP rights."

So it seems that when Nike borrows from other companies for its "experimental sneakers" it "pays homage" or "gets inspired"; when independent artists customise a pair of Nike shoes and resell them, they infringe Nike's copyright. In conclusion, what we learnt from the "Satan Shoes" case is that hypocrisy is rife in the fashion industry.

For what regards Nike, though, it's about time for them to change their strategy: some companies started side projects in which they give out products to get them repurposed. Nike could do the same: launching an incubator for dedicated artists' projects and special one-off designs that may give new life to old pieces and innovative perspectives on the brand.  

There is a great interest in sneakers (auction houses constantly organise sneaker auctions to attract younger customers and collectors) so they could start with shoes. Such a venture would be beneficial as in this way they would avoid destroying unwanted stock, offering at the same time fun and unique designs to consumers. Nike and other prominent brands should indeed start realising that it's better to join rebellious and creative minds rather than suing them: they do have indeed bright ideas that generate consumer desire and involvement and that's exactly what these brands are looking for.

When the Devil is an Anti-Heroine from the '60s: "Satanik" by Piero Vivarelli (1968)

As seen in the previous post, a devilish woman can provide great inspirations in film and fashion as well and yesterday we looked at a woman who becomes a satanic femme fatale to win back her husband's affection. But there are devilish women also in the history of comics: in the violent and sexually explicit comic Satanik, for example, Marny Bannister, is a talented biologist with a tragic and traumatic past.

Mistreated by her family who considers her a sort of monster for a birthmark that disfigures a large part of her face, Marny takes revenge upon society after discovering a miraculous formula that transforms her into a beautiful woman – Satanik.

In the stories created by Max Bunker with drawings by Roberto Raviola, AKA Magnus Pictor (or simply Magnus) published between 1964 and 1974, Satanik was a relentless killing machine intent on unleashing her destructive power upon men and women and capable of committing unspeakable deeds that went from injecting acid into her own sister's veins to sexually exploiting her male victims. 

In the comic, Satanik was usually clad in a witch-like red and black costume, and attracted, repulsed and frightened the readers for her thirst for money, men, power, sex and success.

On a par with the Devil, Satanik was conceived by its author as a sort of female Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde, while the stories that saw her as main character often proved to be combinations of plots taken from Robert Louis Stevenson, Oscar Wilde, Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe.

In Max Bunker's stories, supernatural elements (ghosts, vampires and mummies included...) were mixed with sex scenes and noir comics turned into erotic tales aimed at an entirely new audience and readership.

Satanik represented everything that society wanted to repress, in particular women's sexual power: its sadistic, avid and violent heroine destroyed all the last taboos that were still standing.

Legend goes that anonymous calls to Bunker often asked him to stop producing this comic because it was inconceivable that a  woman could commit such criminal acts.

Male readers saw in this figure the embodiment of every man's erotic dream, but female readers, especially those ones who didn't see themselves as fitting the canons of beauty set by society, looked up at Satanik as a final liberation, a nemesis against men and society.

The comic book was turned in 1967 into a film: directed by Piero Vivarelli and released the following year, it was characterised by an almost inconsistent plot.

Polish model Magda Konopka starred as Marnie Bannister, a clever scientist and assistant to Professor Greaves (Nerio Bernardi), a famous biologist. Greaves thinks he may have discovered a potion that restores beauty and youth to whoever takes it and Marnie decides to try it on herself after killing her fellow colleague who is reluctant at making her risk her life for the sake of science.

Marnie takes the potion, gags and passes out, but, when she awakens, she realises the potion worked: she's been transformed and from disfigured, Marnie has turned into a gorgeous sensual young woman who seduces a rich man, George Van Donen (Umberto Raho). 

But the police is soon after her, and, when she discovers that the effects of the potion do not last long, Marnie finds herself on the run and leaves behind her a trail of corpses.

In the film there is an emphasis on Marnie as the femme fatale: she's never actually called "Satanik", but the director portrays her more like a Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde figure.

The costumes for this film were designed by Berenice Sparano and they were made by the tailoring house Tigano Lo Faro, founded by Serafina Tigano Lo Faro in Rome in the late '50s (its original name was Costumearte; the tailoring house first started working for the Rome Opera Theatre, but then developed collaborations with costume designers and tailors working for the stage and the big screen as well). 

The film was shot at the end of the '60s and Marnie's wardrobe follows the trends of the time: one of the first dresses we see her wearing after her transformation is a mini-dress with a grid-like tulle motif and strategically placed patches of yolk yellow and orange sequins that cover her erogenous zones.

For a date with Van Donen, Marnie wears a sequined turquoise and white ensemble that looks like a one piece dress, but that actually consists in three parts - a bra, a skirt and a tall belt - and we discover this illusion when she sensually undresses (this trick that could be reused and reinvented in a modern collection to create a two-in-one design, so fashion designers out there, please take note).  

When Marnie turns up at Stella's house (the girlfriend of a criminal who has betrayed him handing him to the police), she's wearing a hooded red and white striped top that perfectly embodies the concept of stripes being associated with evil and transgression (during the Middle Ages they were usually donned by court clowns, jugglers, prostitutes, hangmen, lepers and heretics, just to mention a few categories ostracised by the rest of society...).

During her trip to Switzerland Marnie wears a printed rusty orange mini-dress with a large tie accessorised with large glasses and a hat, but we also see her in a pastel shade bikini evoking Paco Rabanne's style. Towards the end of the film she instead appears in a Diabolik-meets-Irma Vep leotard, while performing a strip tease at Dodo La Roche's (Luigi Montini) club.

Most costumes in the film are used to show Konopka's body and the story is rather superficial compared to the comics. 

Satanik was considered as an innovative anti-heroine as she took advantage of her sex appeal for her criminal activities, but here Marnie seems only interested in using her beauty to get the attention of men and steal their money.

The final idea of the film was showing how ugly Marnie didn't look acceptable by society, but she was a clever hard-working scientist, while beautiful bombshell Marnie, adored and desired by all men, is actually perversely wicked.

Visually there was an intent here of replicating the moods of films à la "Diabolik" by Mario Bava and maybe reference anti-heroines such as Eva Kant, interpreted on the big screen by Marisa Mell (Konopka does looks a bit like Marisa Mell when she wears a blonde wig).

Who knows, maybe there will be a modern remake at some point of this film that may reshift the attention on the original comic, what's for sure is that such a movie would provide an entirely new wardrobe for this devilish anti-heroine.

When the Devil is An Art Deco Woman: "Madam Satan" by Cecil B. DeMille (1930)

Yesterday's post focused on a "satanic" theme, so let's follow the evil thread from a glamorous perspective with an iconic black and white pre-Code Hollywood film, Cecil B. DeMille's "Madam Satan" (1930). A constant inspiration for many fashion designers thanks to its Art Deco moods and extravagant costumes by Gilbert Adrian, "Madam Satan" combines different film genres - fantasy, mystery and musical comedy - together.

The film is essentially a romantic comedy dealing with wealthy and conservative Angela (Kay Johnson) discovering her husband Bob's (Reginald Denny) affair with a woman called Trixie (Lillian Roth). Bob's adulterous behaviour drives the couple to split, but then Angela regrets the decision and tries to win her husband's affection back playing Trixie's seduction card.

Some of the strongest scenes of the film take place during a bizarre costume party organised by Bob's friend Jimmy on a Zeppelin CB-P-55, a wonderfully imaginative location, also thanks to sets by Cedric Gibbons – who was heavily influenced by Parisian Art Deco – and Mitchell Leisen.

The Zeppelin sequences were originally scheduled to be filmed in Technicolor, but the original plan was abandoned because Technicolor could not handle the high-speed photography needed for the use of miniatures. The scenes on the Zeppelin are alive and electric with stunts, special effects and outlandish costumes.

Costumes had to be modified with Hollywood censor Jason Joy who worked with DeMille to make sure the girls at the party (and Madam Satan too) wore less revealing costumes thanks to body stockings and fishnets.

The theme of the femme fatale is very important in this film: this figure is filtered through the Art Deco codes. Angela appears at the masquerade ball as the bewitching Madam Satan, turning from "Angel(a)" into "devil". At the ball she is wearing a sensual costume that evokes Hell's damnation in its velvet and sequined tongues of fire (publicity for the film described the gown as black with red and gold) that, barely covering her erogenous zones, reveal rather than hide.

Accessorised with a mask, the gown envelops and highlights her figure in a glamorously sensational way: Angela is mysterious, outrageous and gloriously stunning compared to Trixie in her rather ridiculous sparkling sequined costume sprouting incredibly long and impractical feathers.

The costume is the visual focal point of the film: Angela wears it to win back her husband, but also to find a new self, and soon, like the proverbial phoenix rising from the ashes, she emerges from the flames of fabric as the winner.

Madam Satan’s costume could definitely be defined as architectural: first of all, it is a "vertical" dress that has its most dramatic effect when the wearer stands up, as proved by the scenes in which Angela makes her grand entrance.

As Angela poses on the steps, the dress reproduces around her silhouettes, geometries, forms and shapes. The movement of the dress is also important as the gown moves and it is moved: flames of velvet and sequins wrap Angela's body, moving with it, while the dress train flaps in the wind when the woman parachutes herself to the ground towards the end of the film.

Besides, the dress transforms Angela's body and the space around her, interacting with the set decor: it creates indeed abstract patterns on the set and against the night sky backdrop as the Zeppelin floats above the city.

The costume is conceived as a creative solution: an explosion of curling flames sewn on the nude coloured soft, sheer and lightweight soufflé fabric producing an image of nakedness with those tongues of fabrics set to ignite the flames of seduction.

The dress looks as if it were sliced open on the front, and seems extreme and obscene, but, in reality, while it reveals it also conceals, overexposes and underexposes, playing with lights and shadows. By hiding behind her mask and exotic dress, Angela scandalises the party, flirts with her husband and pushes him to commit adultery with her.

Angela is literally on fire and her dress perfectly symbolizes this: the barely there costume is an abstraction that surprises with its texture, its whimsiness and glamorous starkness. Though no villainess, thanks to her costume Angela turns from an ordinary and rather cold and conservative woman into a bold modern heroine and Bob falls into her trap.

The film is a feast for the eyes with elaborate and exotic dance routines and musical numbers and performers in fantastic costumes.

There are beautiful geometries in the choreographies and hints at the cubism of Fernand Léger's experimental film Ballet Mécanique in the performance featuring the Moscow-born muscular dancer Theodore Kosloff (who performed with the Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets, joining in 1909 Diaghilev's Ballets Russes) starring as "Electricity" and kicking off the party with a pseudo pagan ceremony dedicated to electricity with a group of dancers dressed as turbines and generators.

The estranged husband and wife will eventually reconcile but first they have to save themselves from a flight accident: when a thunderstorm strikes and the dirigible is damaged and in danger of breaking apart, everyone has to parachute to the ground, including the protagonist of this film, an "angelical" woman turned into an Art Deco devilish and irresistible seductress.

Fashion (and a Trademark Case) from Hell: Nike Vs Lil Nas X + MSCHF's "Satan Shoes"

Around the end of March, Lil Nas X sparked outrage on social media when the singer announced he had collaborated with MSCHF, a conceptual art collective known for a wide range of interventions engaging fashion, art and technology, to create a pair of unique sneakers. 

Dubbed "Satan Shoes" and limited to 666 pairs retailing at $1,018, the sneakers in question are a modified pair of Nike Air Max 97 with a pentagram pendant and a reference to a verse from the Gospel of Luke - "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven" (10:18). The shoes also contain 60cc of red ink, visible from the transparent section of the sole and "one drop of human blood". All pairs were sold out as soon as they went on sale, and Miley Cyrus was spotted on her Instagram account wearing a pre-sale pair.

The shoes also have a connection with Lil Nas X's song and video "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)" that features the singer sliding down to hell on a lap dancing pole and seducing the devil (who is wearing the sneakers...) before killing Satan and taking his place.

Soon after the announcement about the shoes, all hell literally broke loose: religious and conservative consumers, thinking this was an official collaboration with Nike, called for a boycott; then Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota and a member of the Republican party, wrote on her personal Twitter account: "This is outrageous, disgusting and perverted and on #PalmSunday no less. Somehow @lilnasx thinks that Satanic worship should be mainstream and normal. I don’t think there have been better candidates to cancel than Lil Nas X and these shoes."

She then added on her official account as a governor: "Our kids are being told that this kind of product is not only OK, it's 'exclusive'. But do you know what's more exclusive? Their God-given eternal soul. We are in a fight for the soul of our nation. We need to fight hard. And we need to fight smart. We have to win."

In response, the singer tweeted: "You are a whole governor and you [are] on here tweeting about some damn shoes. Do your job!" But before that Lil Nas X posted a message to "apologise" about the shoes featuring a clip from the "Montero" video.

 

In the meantime, Nike distanced itself from the product and sued MSCHF over the custom-made shoes for "trademark infringement and dilution, false designation of origin, and unfair competition". Lil Nas X was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and Nike highlighted how the sneakers were produced without its approval and authorization and that the brand was "in no way connected with this project".

Nike added: "There is already evidence of significant confusion and dilution occurring in the marketplace, including calls to boycott Nike in response to the launch of MSCHF's Satan Shoes based on the mistaken belief that Nike has authorized or approved this product."

Nike therefore asked the court to immediately stop MSCHF from fulfilling orders for the shoes and requested a jury trial to seek damages.

In an official statement MSCHF said they were surprised by Nike's reaction, considering how they highlighted that the "Satan Shoes" are not affiliated with Nike, something that they have reiterated in the press and that they were conceived as "art created for people to observe, speculate on, purchase, and own."

It's interesting to note how the "Satan Shoes" are actually a follow up of the "Jesus Shoes", released in 2019 by MSCHF, a customized Nike Air Max 97 sneaker filled with holy water from the Jordan River. MSCHF often focuses on products like shoes, books, painting and sculpture but also apps to spark a conversation about consumer culture and make a critique of the system.

The "Jesus Shoes" were indeed a way to comment about brand worship and religious worship. When they were released Nike didn't seem to react as badly as this time as MSCHF's "Jesus Shoes" were not perceived as offensive and divisive, while the "Satan Shoes" triggered a media frenzy.

"Heresy only exists in relation to doctrine: who is Nike to censor one but not the other?" MSCHF wondered in an official statement mentioning the different way the Jesus and Satan shoes were received by Nike.

In a letter dated 31st March 2021, the lawyers of MSCHF explained to the judge that the "Satan Shoes" were conceived "as a way to criticize the everpopular 'collab culture,' where brands like Nike collaborate with anyone willing, to make a splash," but they also wanted to "criticize social norms that discriminate, such as religious norms that marginalize certain groups of people. Lil Nas X, a gay Black artist who has publicly discussed how he spent his teenage years hating himself because of what Christianity taught about homosexuality, and whose most recent video prominently features Satan, is thus the perfect collaborator for these shoes."    

Eventually last week US district judge Eric Komitee gave Nike a temporary restraining order preventing manufacturer MSCHF from shipping out the 666 pairs of the shoes to customers. Nike managed to submit enough evidence that even passionate fans and consumers - "sophisticated sneakerheads" - were confused by the shoes and thought they were made by Nike and they claimed they would never buy Nike shoes again.

MSCHF actually answered to this point stating how the confusion is unlikely because of the "sophistication" of the Nike customer and replied with "The Rogers Test", so named after the Rogers Vs Grimaldi copyright case (1989).

This is an interesting trademark and intellectual freedom case, referring to Ginger Rogers who sued Alberto Grimaldi and MGM for production and distribution of the 1986 Federico Fellini film "Ginger and Fred", that featured a cabaret couple, Pippo and Amelia, emulating Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. In that case Rogers claimed that the film violated her Lanham Act trademark rights, right of publicity and was a "false light" defamation. But the Second Circuit, on appeal, highlighted that Rogers' right to protect her celebrated name was clashing with the right of others to express themselves freely in their own artistic work. The Second Circuit eventually found Grimaldi not liable as suppressing an artistically relevant film on trademark grounds would "unduly restrict expression." The court stated therefore that "section 43(a) of the Lanham Act does not bar a minimally relevant use of a celebrity's name in the title of an artistic work where the title does not explicitly denote authorship, sponsorship, or endorsement by the celebrity or explicitly mislead as to content."

While the order will stand until a more in-depth trial, MSCHF's attorneys argued that the shoes are "not typical sneakers, but rather individually-numbered works of art" sold to collectors and that, like in the case of the "Jesus Shoes", will probably be exhibited in museums and collections.

What could the consequences be of such a lawsuit if Nike comes out as the winner? Well, there is a vast market for customised yet unauthorised shoes, and if a judge rules in favour of Nike, it would become impossible to make custom sneakers, reinvent old ones or radically transform them, in a nutshell it wouldn't be possible to use Nike's shoes as a canvas like MSCHF did. On the other hand if MSCHF prevails instead (and Nike doesn't take into account the Jesus sneakers as in court papers the brand left open the possibility of amending its complaint to include a claim over the "Jesus Shoes" too), MSCHF will probably continue to release its unofficial products (one way to avoid more lawsuits from Nike would be to eliminate its iconic swoosh from the reinvented shoe).

In a way all the satanic panic and the debate about the devil's shoes sounds a bit superficial: in world in turmoil because of a global pandemic that has been causing a health emergency and social and financial instability, quarrelling over Lil Nas X's pole dancing down to hell in his unapologetically queer video or his Satan shoes in collaboration with MSCHF as if both were sources of sin and damnation (in which case also the publisher of the novel "Call Me by Your Name" by André Aciman on which Luca Guadagnino's eponymous film is based should sue Lil Nas X...) for young people (who are dealing with much more serious issues...including the pandemic, the fact that most of them haven't been vaccinated yet and they don't know when this may happen, climate change, pollution and reckless consumption...just to mention a few of them), sounds rather useless (and actually there is also a very scholarly moment in Lil Nas X's video with the quote "ἐπειδὴ οὖν ἡ φύσις δίχα ἐτμήθη, ποθοῦν ἕκαστον τὸ ἥμισυ τὸ αὑτοῦ συνῄει," meaning "because from the moment nature (man) was cut in two pieces, each piece longs for its other half", from Plato's Symposium, a reference to the fact that it's human’s destiny to long for your missing part and find you soulmate; guess that maybe if I had seen such a quote in a music video as a teenager I would have certainly excelled in classical Greek...).         

There is an interesting point about all this story: the main preoccupation of Nike, a brand operating inside the garment industry that is definitely not the most ethical industry out there when you think about workers being exploited and such likes, seems to have been about trademark confusion and dilution, while not many seemed too worried about the alleged drop of human blood (donated by members of the MSCHF art collective) contained in the shoes (do they actually contain it? Probably not, but in case they do, while it may be possible to incorporate human blood in a work of art, is it possible to ship a product containing human blood all over the world? Would there be any restrictions?). 

MSCHF and Lil Nas X may have avoided all this hellish debate by releasing a trilogy of shoes dedicated to Hell, Purgatory and Paradise and make them pass as a tribute to Dante's 700th death anniversary - Wall's Magnum did so with a limited edition of its famous ice cream. In this way MSCHF and Lil Nas X may have got less attention than they did with the Satan Shoes, but surely neither Nike nor Dante would have sued any of them. 

A Lesson Behind a Vintage Architectural Photoshoot: The Sydney Opera House Vs Carla Zampatti 1965

Italian-born Australian fashion designer Carla Zampatti died last Saturday at Sydney's St. Vincent Hospital. Zampatti, 78, had been hospitalised after falling at an outdoor opera event.

"Australia's most successful and enduring fashion designer", as an obituary on Zampatti's website calls her, she was born in Italy in 1942 and emigrated to Australia in 1950. 

Passionate about fashion from an early age, Zampatti created her first fashion collection in 1965, launching her house in 1970. From then on she went from strength to strength, expanding her retail network and opening a chain of boutiques across Australia and New Zealand.

Opting for functional yet feminine styles, she became a favourite with many Australian influential women, including former Australian prime minister Julia Gillard, actor Nicole Kidman and current New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian.

In 1987 she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her services to the fashion industry and in 2009 she was elevated as a Companion of the Order in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. A champion of multiculturalism she always thought newcomers from other countries enrich the social texture and the culture of the country they move in.

Zampatti also held dear to her heart another cause: when she started her career in the '60s she wanted to design clothes for women fighting for liberation through the women's rights movement and she kept on creating to empower women in leadership, at their workplaces, in their home and at major life events. 

One of the most striking photoshoots featuring her clothes remains the very first one: while Australia's Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon was under construction, Zampatti went to the building site to shoot her models wearing her brand new designs.

The is result is an unpretentious set of images (republished on the magazine celebrating the 55th anniversary of the fashion house): the models' shoes are covered in dust and they are posing in practical clothes like long tunics over bell-bottoms, practical shift dresses and playsuits while workers are busy in the background. There is also an architectural correspondence with one asymmetrical dress that seems to be in a design dialogue with the shape of one of the interlocking concrete vaulted shells of the opera house behind her. 

There's a lesson in this photoshoot, reminding us that we should observe what's around us and wonder in which ways it can help enhancing our vision: building sites aren't usually linked with fashion and may not be exciting sets for glamorous poses, but in this case they provided realism and showed Zampatti had a vision for the future and had realised how important this place was going to become in the following decades.  

The architectural parallelism ended up worked pretty well: Sydney was building its opera house; Zampatti was creating her fashion house. They both became established as time passed and, while the former turned into a World Heritage Site, Zampatti's house transformed into an empire and an icon of Australian fashion.

 

A Vintage Pattern for Easter Monday

It's Easter Monday and you may still have some time left from your Spring break to think about nice projects to work on during April. So, in case you're looking for a fashion project, here's a pattern for a double-skirted tunic dress in a delicate white and lavender shade (in this case matched with lavender gloves, lavender and blue necklace and a white hat) from 1960 by Italian designer Luciani.

The pattern was published in April 1960 by Annabella: the Italian fashion and lifestyle magazine suggested readers to make it all in one piece or to leave the top and skirt as separates, but to keep the three tiered effect formed by the peplum, overskirt and underskirt.

Basically, the design consists in a scoop collar sleeveless peplum top cinched at the waist with a fabric belt decorated with a fabric rose, and a double skirt with a fourreau underskirt and a pleated overskirt. The pleated sections for the top and the overskirt (pleat width: 1 cm) are the most complex parts of the design (and you may also find difficult making the deep dart in the front of the top) as you will have to pleat the fabric by yourself (fold paper into pleats, unfold the paper, apply the fabric, refold the paper and the fabric and iron them - for the pleating process check out also the final video in this post) or have the fabric pleated.

The magazine suggested to get more fabric than usual (around 4 metres; possibly cotton muslin and lightweight voile) because of the parts with the pleated motifs. Once you have pleated the fabric you will have to put it on the pattern and proceed cutting the fabric. In a way this design is a more complex version of a summer dress we published a while back.

The pattern [Parts for the dress: 1: shoulder strap (back); 2: shoulder strap (front); 3: half top (back); 4: half top (front; you can add a zip on the side of the top); 5: half belt; 6: half peplum (back); 7: half peplum (front); 8: half pleated overskirt; 9: half pleated underskirt (back); 10: half pleated underskirt (front). Patterns 3, 4, and 8 must be made with the pleated fabric] was designed for an Italian 46 size (size 14 in the UK; and 12 in the USA) and each square corresponds to 10 cm. Enjoy the Easter Monday project!

Pastel Tones for Easter from Art to Vintage Dresses

Spring is usually associated with pastel colours: Easter eggs - from the most precious ones à la Fabergé's to delicious chocolate eggs - often feature decorative elements in delicate shades of rose and carnation, lemon and canary yellow, sky blue or pistachio green.  Pink prevails in Piero della Francesca’s fresco depicting the Resurrection painted in the 1460s in the Palazzo della Residenza in the town of Sansepolcro, Tuscany, Italy.

Jesus, in the centre of the composition described by Aldous Huxley as "the greatest painting in the world", rises from his tomb with a statuesque pose, wearing a pink shroud. In Peter von Cornelius' "The Three Marys at the Tomb" the angel has multicoloured wings in pastel tones going from pale yellow to a delicate green and rose pink, while one of the women wears a long flowing pink dress over a green long sleeved underdress matched with a dark yellow cloak.

If you're looking instead at pastel references connected with Easter and you like vintage fashion, check out Jackie Kennedy's mauve linen dress that she donned on April 14th, 1963, for a private Easter Mass at her in-law's home in Palm Beach.

The dress, designed by Oleg Cassini was characterised by simple modern lines and a quatrefoil decoration, a sort of an abstraction of a cockade, on the front. Mrs. Kennedy accessorised it white kid gloves and a pale lace mantilla (the dress is usually on display in the First Lady Exhibit in the Museum at the Kennedy Presidential Library).

If you prefer tones of blue, check out instead the pale blue linen dress designed by Morton Myles for Herbert Sondheim that Jackie Kennedy wore on Good Friday for a service at St. Edward’s Church, Palm Beach, on April 20, 1962.

Last but not least, let's not forget accessories: if you like symbolisms behind what you wear, you may want to check out one of the latest Sotheby's jadeite auctions that also includes beautiful lavender Myanmar jadeite pieces such as perfectly translucent bangles.

While bangles can take various forms, the round shape in this case hints at the harmony of heaven and earth (round bangles are also called "lucky bangles" and jadeite bangles are very precious as a lot of material is wasted in the carving process, that's why such bangles are prized by collectors). Whatever your Easter will be and whichever shade you will wear today or whichever colour zone you're in at the moment if you're in countries that have adopted a colour coded alert system to highlight Covid-19 restrictions (Italy is in a red zone for example until tomorrow to contain Coronavirus during the Easter break), hope you have a nice day. Happy Easter! 

Instability, Anxiety & Sorrow in Dress Details in The Descent from the Cross by Rogier van der Weyden

Let’s continue the thread about art and fashion inspired by the Holy Week that we started yesterday by looking at another painting by a Flemish master, The Descent from the Cross (or Deposition of Christ, or Descent of Christ from the Cross) by Rogier van der Weyden.

Painted before 1443, the artwork features several figures identified (from left to right) as: Mary Cleophas, John the Evangelist, Mary Salome (in green), The Virgin Mary (swooning), the corpse of Jesus Christ, Nicodemus (in red), a young man on the ladder (probably a servant of Nicodemus or of Joseph of Arimathea), Joseph of Arimathea (in gold damask robes, the most sumptuous costume in the painting; for some critics Joseph of Arimathea is instead the man in red supporting Christ's body, and Nicodemus is the man supporting Christ's legs), a bearded man holding a jar (probably another servant) and Mary Magdalene.

Showing the influence of Robert Campin, the painting has a great emotional impact: while the facial features are realistic and the vivid colours - especially the reds, blues and greens - contribute to give a sense of reality to the scenes, the figures are enclosed in what looks like a box with a golden background.

The final effect is therefore that of a life sized carved relief filled with polychrome figures forming a tableau vivant or a grand sculptural group frozen in time.

At the same time, the figures form a convincing representation of the scene of Jesus' Deposition from the Cross, also thanks to tactile power the painter infused in his work.

Physicality is emphasized in this painting: Christ’s body is suspended on a cloth, the man in the black and red costume receives the body in his arms, while the servant on the cross takes an arm, almost to apprehend Jesus' body and to touch the flesh and texture of his skin, in a moment that juxtaposes Jesus' human and divine nature.

There are some intriguing fashion elements in the painting that could be considered as texturally tactile for its emphasis on textiles: Mary Magdalene shows an expression of suffering symbolized by the angles of her shoulders and elbows and her physical pain seems to put a strain on the stitches in the seams of her dress. Actually Mary Magdalene isn't wearing a proper dress, but a tightly fitting underdress with a mantel around her shoulders that is falling off, as if she rushed to the Golgotha in a state of confusion. 

In a way also the man in the damasked robe trimmed with fur looks untidy: despite his rich gown painstakingly painted by Weyden who shows here a great command of pattern and geometry, he hasn't fastened the robe (look at the tiny hook in the fur collar), his hat is falling off and his hair is messy.

The Virign Mary, in a flowing lapis lazuli long gown, has collapsed to the ground: despite the bright colour of her gown, the position of her body obviously hints at drama. While the other characters are reaching out to Jesus and touching him, her hand and Jesus' are not touching, almost to hint at the fact that Jesus has severed his ties with his mother who will reunite with him upon her assumption.  

In some of the attires donned by the characters featured in this painting there seems to be a lack of decorum, a sort of sense of instability, maybe hinting at anxiety, confusion, fear and despair (a stain of blood on Joseph of Arimathea's robe also conjures up feelings of pain and sorrow) under all the apparent grandeur of the gold background and the statuesqueness of the scene.

The painting exercised a decisive influence on other Deposition panels, becoming the most influential Netherlandish painting of Christ's crucifixion, and was often copied and adapted on a large scale in the two centuries after its completion.

Moods from this painting were spotted in a previous post about Raf Simons' Autumn/Winter 2015 collection for Dior that featured references to Flemish art in the flowing gowns, wide capes and dresses slit at both sides (and fastened with gold jewellery-like links) from waist to ankle, a sexualised version of the "surcote", a female garment cut open from the shoulder to hip that was part of the Gothic wardrobe. 

Holy Week Inspirations from a Flemish Master: "The Last Supper" by Dieric Bouts

It's Good Friday and Catholics ponder today about the passion and death of Jesus. Yet, due to the Coronavirus emergency, just like last year most rites for the Holy Week were cancelled in different countries all over the world. So, while traditional Catholic processions may not be taking place, we can still get inspired by today's religious moods, rethinking them in connection with art and fashion. Let's move from a painting, "The Last Supper" by Dieric Bouts (ca. 1410-1475), one of the great Flemish Masters together with Rogier Van der Weyden, Hans Memling, and the Van Eyck brothers. 

As you may remember from a previous post, the late Alexander McQueen was passionate about Flemish painters. In an interview published in 2003 on Harper's & Queen he stated: "I relate more to that cold, austere asceticism of the Flemish masters." And indeed in his ouvre there are several references and prints inspired by these painters. 

McQueen's "It's a Jungle Out There" (A/W 1997-98) collection featured a jacket with a print of Robert Campin's "The Thief to the Left of Christ" (ca. 1430), portraying one of the two criminals crucified with Jesus. Around the same time, McQueen designed a menswear coat with a detail taken from Hans Memling's monumental triptych "The Last Judgment". McQueen's posthumous Autumn/Winter 2010 collection featured instead details from Stephan Lochner's Altarpiece of the Patron Saints of Cologne and Hugo van der Goes's Portinari Triptych).

"The Last Supper" is on display together with another painting by Bouts, "The martyrdom of Saint Erasmus", in Leuven's Saint Peter's Church on the city's Grote Markt. The Gothic church underwent an extensive restoration that took 35 years and that finished last March.

The Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament or Triptych of the Last Supper was commissioned to Bouts by the Leuven Confraternity of the Holy Sacrament in 1464 and it was painted between 1464 and 1468. This is a well known painting as Bouts was the first artist who painted Jesus and his apostles in the iconic composition around the table, 30 years before Leonardo da Vinci.

The figures may appear unemotional, but this is Bouts' style, and he is known for avoiding any dramatism in his works and favouring an atmosphere of restraint, that's why he was often called "the painter of silence".  

Which are the elements from this painting that may inspire you in fashion? Well, the perspective is very interesting, look for example at the lines of the room such as the edges of the table or the wooden beams on the ceiling and you will realise they converge on Christ. Look also at the small door in the background and at the way the artist creates depth and think about how you can create depth in a garment by playing with folds, pleats and volumes. 

The draped motifs on the robes and capes donned by the disciples or the crumpled tablecloth may also inspire you to develop this theme further.

Since you're looking at the garments worn by the various characters consider also the anachronisms in the painting: the robes of the servants or bystanders witnessing the scene and expressing their devotion to the Eucharist are juxtaposed to the clothes of the disciples, the former are indeed more modern as the servants are actually portraits of the confraternity's members responsible for commissioning the altarpiece. 

Another juxtaposition is the dichotomy between the good and the bad, represented by Jesus and Judas, the disciple who will betray him, sitting opposite Christ in this painting, on the left.

Last but not least, look at the architectural details of the room that opens onto the Grote Markt (with the houses visible through the windows on the left) and the tiled floor. The intricate tile pattern is striking and Bouts perfectly recreated also the interplay between the tile pattern, the legs of the stools and the feet of the disciples, experimenting with textures and shades. 

The Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament has four additional panels, two on each side, representing the meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek and the Passover Feast (left wing) and the Gathering of the Manna and prophet Elijiah and the Angel (right wing), so look also at these panels for further inspirations regarding colours, shades and costumes.

Mechanical Crafts: Éric Van Hove's Fenduq as a Socially Engaged Art Practice

We may think that art, crafts and mechanics do not have anything in common, but Éric Van Hove would definitely disagree about this statement. In 2012 the artist started indeed a project that focused on these themes and practices.

Everything began with a sort of destructive phase: a V12 Mercedes-Benz engine was indeed disassembled in 465 parts, then the components were handed out to 57 craftsmen in Marrakesh. The artisans were instructed to make the same parts they had received using materials of their choice with techniques they could master.

Once completed the parts were reassembled and the result was a unique artwork - the V12 Laraki. The name references car designer Abdeslam Laraki who, in 2004 at the Geneva auto show, introduced the public to the Laraki Fulgura, the first supercar ever to be entirely created in Casablanca, Morocco.

The car actually had one part that wasn't produced in Morocco - a V12 Mercedes-Benz engine imported from Germany. But the low-tech approach of Moroccan craftsmen in sharp contrast with the original German high-tech production was a way for Van Hove and his team of artisans to challenge a Western industrial achievement and come up with a unique version of an engine for this car.

The artwork was inspired by a story Van Hove's father once told him about a water pump in a village in the north of Cameroon. When the pump broke the village suffered a water shortage and, to avoid wasting time waiting for technical support from the capital in the south, the local authorities decided to disassemble the water pump even though the villagers didn't have the needed knowledge to actually do so.

Each child in the village was given a component of the pump and was told to remember how and where that specific part should be put back. The broken part was then reproduced by a local craftsman and, with combined forces, the pump was reassembled according to the children's memory and was perfectly working when the service technician arrived.

After the V12 Laraki was acquired by the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA, Van Hove founded a Fenduq (a word combining the word "fenn", art in Arabic, and "funduq", meaning temporary inn, workshop and market place all in one) where craftspeople work as employees and not as self-employed workers or underpaid servants. Earning a steady income, they are therefore eligible for social security and are given the opportunity to travel abroad.

Together with the team, Van Hove developed further works such as the Dorigin (an expression borrowed from the French d'origine), a Mercedes 240D taxi which was entirely rebuilt using old spare parts. The result was a colourful Frankenstein-like vehicle with the various parts coming from taxis from different regions (the taxis in Meknes are pistachio green, those in Knefra/Tighassaline metallic blue green; Sky blue stands for Imzagame/Essaouira; ocher for Ouarzazate, white for Casablanca and orange for Larache).

A vehicle that had earned great prestige in Morocco, the Mercedes 240 was taken off the roads for a variety of environmental, financial and public relations reasons. Once completed Van Hove's Dorigin was driven back to Frankfurt, Germany, its country of origin, with a journey that was documented by the artist with a road movie. Upon its return to Germany, the car was mainly seen as a typical Moroccan car, its origin had mutated along the way. 

Dismanting, recycling and reassembling a vehicle could be considered as a sustainable practice and Van Hove has actually been exploring also the possibilities offered by renewable energy sources: the artist's Mahjouba Initiative project consists indeed in a four-year artistic engineering endeavor to conceive an electric motorbike for the local Moroccan market and create in this way a social-economic model that can be used for the development of the moped (the first prototype, Mahjouba I, 90% handcrafted from locally sourced materials such as copper, camel bones and goat skin, was nominated for the Beazley Design of the Year 2017 Award at the Design Museum, London). 

Van Hove developed further concepts involving mechanical parts: the D9T engine (Rachel's tribute) derives from the engine of a D9 series Caterpillar, a bulldozer originally designed in the '50s to help with the construction of new infrastructures in developing countries.

As the years passed, though, the D9 was employed also in military operations, for example in Vietnam and Africa and was also turned into a military vehicle by the Israeli army. So from a symbol of construction, the D9 turned into a symbol of destruction and oppression.  

Van Hove recast the engine in a more positive light when he entlisted 41 different artisans to remake its 290 parts in 46 different materials from all around the globe. The artisans came from two countries with 20% of their respective active workforce in craft - Indonesia and Morocco - so this project was more about bringing Asian and African artisans together and allowing them to exchange their knowledges and experiences. The work is named after Rachel Corrie, an American activist who was crushed by an Israeli D9T in Gaza in 2003.

Sometimes casual findings inspired a project: VW Passat Gear Box and Renault Master I 2.5 D Gearbox are part of a series of sculptures Vvan Hove's Fenduq created out of used car parts found in the car repair souks (marketplaces) of Marrakesh; an Alfasud engine (Alfasud was developed in the '70s in Italy when the government tried to stimulate the southern economy by starting the production of a new state-sponsored Alfa Romeo plant in Naples. One of Alfa Romeo's most successful models, it eventually went out of production as the salty air of the south of Italy affected the steel of the car's body) was found on a scrapyard in Marrakesh and turned into an entirely new project.

Each piece developed in Van Hove's Fenduq is an extraordinary work of art, a celebration of traditional crafts and materials. If you read the notes accompanying these pieces when they are on display in museums, you will discover that they are made employing the most disparate materials, from white and red cedar wood to walnut, pine, lemon and orange wood, mahogany, peach and apricot wood; from mother-of-pearl and copper to nickel, iron, recycled aluminum, silver, tin, cow, goat and camel bone, agate, green onyx, stone, red marble of Agadir, black marble of Ouarzazate, white marble of Béni Mellal, pink granite of Tafraoute, horn and ammonite fossils from Erfoud.

The Fries Museum in Leeuwarden dedicated to Éric Van Hove the exhibition "Fenduq" in 2019: for that occasion the artist presented at the museum a new piece he was commissioned that celebrated Friesland – the engine block of a Claas Jaguar harvester (Fryske motor/Frisian engine). This time, though, the engine was reproduced by a group of Moroccan, Indonesian, Swedish and Frisian craftsmen. Frisian woodcarving was combined with Indonesian bone cutting; Harlinger tiling and Hindelooper painting were mounted alongside Swedish glassware and Moroccan processed copper.

After the lockdown, two works of art by Éric Van Hove (Algeria, 1975) will be on display again in the Fries Museum, the D9T and the Frisian engine, and they will be exhibited in the Hindelooper Room.

Van Hove's Fenduq is not just about crafts and traditions, but also looks at the future: we often forget about our identities, but Van Hove invites us to find back our roots and combine our experiences with those of other people. The Frisian Engine is the perfect example of Van Hove's intent: it represents a modern dialogue of cultures and crafts, a celebration of a new global identity and a reinvention of traditional crafts.

This is a key theme for him also because Van Hove was born in Guelma, Algeria, has a Belgian passport (his parents used to be engineers for the Belgian Foreign Affairs Ministry) and a Flemish family tree, but speaks French and grew up in Cameroon, so he considers his own cultural identity as African Belgian or Belgian African. 

In a way Van Hove's projects also have a socio-economic twist about them: the final objects look visually intriguing, but behind each part there is a story and an artisan, a technique, a material and a unique experience.

It is indeed undeniable that Van Hove's engine block is a perfect metaphor for our global society: the engine is indeed made of small parts, each of them equally important to make it whole. Van Hove's engines also represent a union of two different worlds, the technological and the artisanal, the mechanical and the poetical and his Fenduq is a cosmo in which tradition and tech coexist.

Van Hove's work invites us therefore to consider a new model of development in which tradition and modernity are not juxtaposed but reunited. Maybe there is a degree of idealism and utopia behind these pieces that at times are also surreal and ironical, but Van Hove's Fenduq may turn into a model for a post-Covid creative studio and atelier, a place where boundaries are erased and where all the narratives of the people working there together are reunited in a socially engaged practice within a wider global dynamic. 

Image credits for this post

1.
Éric Van Hove, D9T (Rachel's Tribute), 2015. Fries Museum Collection, Leeuwarden. Acquired with the support of the Mondriaan Fund, the BankGiro Loterij and the Friends of the Fries Museum. Photo: Lieven Geuns. Courtesy Éric Van Hove / Copperfield Gallery.

2 and 3.
Éric Van Hove, D9T (Rachel's Tribute) (detail), 2015. Fries Museum Collection, Leeuwarden. Acquired with the support of the Mondriaan Fund, the BankGiro Loterij and the Friends of the Fries Museum. Photo: Lieven Geuns. Courtesy Éric Van Hove / Copperfield Gallery.

4.
Éric Van Hove, Dorigin, 2016. Photo: Alessio Mei.

5.
Éric Van Hove, Mahjouba I, 2016. Fries Museum Collection, Leeuwarden. Acquired with support from the Mondriaan Fund. Photo: Alessio Mei.

6.
Éric Van Hove, V12 Laraki, 2013. Hood Museum Collection, New Hampshire / USA. Photo: François Fernandez.

7.
Éric Van Hove, V12 Laraki, 2013. Hood Museum Collection, New Hampshire / USA. Photo: François Fernandez.

8.
Éric Van Hove, V12 Laraki (detail), 2013. Fries Museum Collection, Leeuwarden. Acquired with support from the Mondriaan Fund. Photo: Keetja Allard.

9.
An artisan works on one of the components of the V12 Laraki. Photo: Keetja Allard.

10.
Group photo for the studio. Photo: Alessio Mei.

11 – 19.
Éric Van Hove, “Fenduq”, exhibition at the Fries Museum, Leeuwarden.

12.
Éric Van Hove, D9T (Rachel's Tribute) (detail), 2015. Fries Museum Collection, Leeuwarden. Acquired with the support of the Mondriaan Fund, the BankGiro Loterij and the Friends of the Fries Museum. Photo: Lieven Geuns. Courtesy Éric Van Hove / Copperfield Gallery.