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

Politics in Art: More Passion? No, Thanks, Says Tracey Emin

In 2011 the then UK Prime Minister David Cameron installed an artwork by Tracey Emin in 10 Downing Street, the official residence and the office of the British Prime Minister. The artwork in question was a neon piece, stating "More Passion" in bright red letters.

Cameron had invited Emin to create an artwork after he became prime minister, and then installed the neon sign in a prominent position, outside the first-floor Terracotta Room. The artwork was gifted by the artist to the UK government and Cameron also received Tracey Emin at an International Women's Day reception at 10 Downing Street in March 2011.

When Cameron installed the piece in the Prime Minister's official residence some critics expressed their surprise, after all the controversial artist's career, installations and works in general do not really align with the values of morally stern conservatives.

Who knows, maybe Cameron genuinely loves Emin or maybe inviting her to create a piece was a way to prove the public he was terribly cool, on trend and loved British contemporary artists. Or maybe it was a way to show the country he was young and unbearably hip, after all the neon piece oozed a sort of irresistibly perverse glamour with a naughty twist about it, thanks to its red letters hinting not just at love but at lust.

Cameron's passion for a controversial artist didn't reflect in his politics: in the aftermath of the August 2011 riots, Cameron did a speech at a youth centre in his Witney constituency in Oxfordshire that mentioned "the slow-motion moral collapse" of the UK. "Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control. Some of the worst aspects of human nature tolerated, indulged – sometimes even incentivised – by a state and its agencies that in parts have become literally de-moralised," he stated. His personal priority, he added, was mending the UK's broken society.

Surely Emin's work didn't represent the perfect antidote to the "moral collapse", but was an invitation to having more fun and maybe proved that Cameron either said things he didn't believe in, or picked art he didn't really like (or didn't understand...). Or maybe his decorative choices proved that, like most politicians, he was just a bundle of political contradictions.

Time passed. Cameron went. Then came Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Brexit and Coronavirus. The neon piece by Tracey Emin stayed. Johnson's premiership has so far been characterised by his cluelessness at immediately acting against the pandemic. Lockdowns were eventually implemented in late March 2020, but, it was recently revealed that, while the majority of people in Britain were respecting the rules and regulations, the Prime Minister was holding lockdown-breaching parties at No 10. Well, maybe he was just taking to the letter what Emin's artwork said, "more passion" indeed and fewer rules for him.

Yesterday Emin stated she wanted her artwork removed from No 10 due to the PM's behaviour. On her Instagram page she accompanied a picture of the artwork with a short message, "This is my neon that hangs at 10 Downing Street. It was a gift from myself to the Government Art collection. I am now in the process of requesting that my art work be removed from 10 Downing Street. I feel More Passion is the last thing this present government needs. This current situation is shameful."

Emin explained to The Guardian that she found the UK's Prime Minister’s behaviour and lack of contrition "bizarre", highlighting that, while people were in lockdown, unable to see their dear ones or attending funerals of family members online to avoid spreading the virus, the Prime Minister was partying in Downing Street. Neon pieces, Emin added, are usually associated with a party atmosphere and, she concluded, people at No 10 certainly do not need "any encouragement on this level". 

Emin actually doesn't want the piece back because it was a gift, but would like to have it removed and maybe hung in another place like a British embassy or be put in storage. The government art collection, managed by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, is indeed usually displayed in official residences such as UK embassies all over the world, sometimes there are also consultations with artists to see where a work may be displayed. At the moment No 10 is said to be in talks with Tracey Emin about removing "More Passion".

Legally speaking you can't do much about such a situation: the artwork was a gift and as such (unless there are specific points made in a dedicated contract) it is owned by the government that may decide what to do with it. Emin may mention moral rights in this case, though: the work is correctly displayed and attributed to her in No 10, but being associated to a Prime Minister who doesn't seem to respect the legislation in force, may damage its meaning (the "More Passion" message may sound like an encouragement to misbehave...) and the artist's reputation. 

Tracey Emin's story makes you think about those fashion houses and designers who decline to dress a politician/first lady, as it happened when Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Derek Lam, Christian Siriano and Phillip Lim (among the others) publicly stated they wouldn't have dressed Melania Trump (still she could have afforded any kind of design she fancied...) after her husband became US President. Emin's case also calls to mind the cases of various musicians who warned politicians not to use their music or sent cease and desist letter with the same intent.

In the history of music and politics there are a few examples, from Bobby McFerrin who wasn't that happy when in the '80s George H.W. Bush adopted "Don't Worry, Be Happy" as his campaign theme, to Donald Trump who enraged many musicians and bands among the others Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, Eddy Grant and R.E.M.

Music-wise it is possible to review a licensing agreement to make certain songs and compositions unavailable specifically for political events, but these can be tricky requests. Neil Young, for example, dropped his copyright infringement lawsuit against Donald Trump (the singer and songwriter stated he couldn't allow "his music to be used as a 'theme song' for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate") after his songs "Rockin’ in the Free World" and "Devil’s Sidewalk" were used at a Trump rally in Tulsa (though it is possible that the case was settled out of court).

Having Tracey Emin's "More Passion" work removed from No 10 may not instantly turn Boris Johnson into a reliable politician and inspire in him more compassion, which is what Emin demands from the government. But maybe the artist could push things further: as she previously collaborated with jeweller Stephen Webster releasing "More Passion" necklaces and cuffs and on a limited-edition black resin cuff designed exclusively for the charity (RED), it would be good to see a new charity piece by Emin and Webster (a "More Compassion" piece maybe?) with a percentage of sales going to charities helping people hit by Covid or to the NHS. A wearable work of art that could benefit a charity would indeed be more valuable than any artwork hanging in any official government residence. 

Arts & Ceramic Crafts: Polly Apfelbaum's "For the Love of Una Hale" @ Arcadia Exhibitions, Glenside, PA

In yesterday's post we looked at specimen marble pieces from the 18th and 19th centuries and attempted a comparison with fashion. But there are also artists working along the same lines, creating works in which different small segments create fascinating compositions.

Polly Apfelbaum, for example, handcrafted last year quilt-like ceramic works during an extended residency at Arcadia University, in Glenside, Pennsylvania.

The multidisciplinary artist combines art history, the applied arts, and popular culture in her installations in which she often assembles fabrics or rugs, ceramics, drawings, paintings, sculptures and found objects. Apfelbaum will launch her next exhibition entitled "For the Love of Una Hale" in a few weeks' time (February 3 through April 17, 2022) at Arcadia Exhibitions (Arcadia University, 450 S. Easton Road, Glenside, PA). 

The event examines the early influence of artist, antiques dealer, gardener and drag show performer (as Una Hale) David Ellinger (1913-2003), whose paintings hung in artist Polly Apfelbaum's childhood home in nearby Abington, and of Pennsylvania German craft traditions on the artist's hybrid sensibility.

Among the pieces on display there will also be terracotta and glaze pieces like Apfelbaum's "Joseph's Coat Abstract", "Purple Fire" and "Pennsylvania Diamond Quilt" (all 2021). In these pieces the artist created geometrical abstractions or kaleidoscope-like configurations using coloured segments (you can imagine them replicated on luxury bags, so you can bet Apfelbaum will at some point be asked by a prominent fashion brand to do a collaboration of some sort...). Some of them evoke intricate Amish style quilts; others call to mind the geometrical beauty of specimen marble table tops, but all of them are ways for the artists to go back in time and trace her inspirations.

"The goal is to interpret the personal as political," states Apfelbaum in a press release about this exhibition. "I'm starting to look back at my history, where the inspiration came from, and how my personal experiences relate to the complex life and work of the painter David Ellinger."

Image credits for this post

Polly Apfelbaum,"Joseph's Coat Abstract", 2021, terracotta and glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Arcadia Exhibitions.

Polly Apfelbaum, "Purple Fire", 2021, terracotta and glaze. Courtesy of the artist and Arcadia Exhibitions.

Polly Apfelbaum, "Pennsylvania Diamond Quilt", 2021, terracotta and glaze. Courtesy of the artist, Frith Street Gallery, London, and Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna.

A Design Trend from the 1800s That You May Want to Replicate in Fashion: Specimen Marble Pieces

A passion for antiquity and cabinets of curiosities encouraged a very unique fashion in Italy throughout the 18th and 19th centuries: tables tops, compact cabinets and assorted objects that incorporated visually striking selections of the most beautiful marble samples around.

Aesthetics prevailed over scientific criteria when the samples were selected and so most of these pieces are valuable for their eye-catching chromatic nuances, rather than for any mineralogical interest.

At the same time, there were compositions that also integrated marble samples excavated from ancient pavements (that were in some cases integrated also in other works such as church altars or sections of villas) or even featured lava samples.Most of these samples can be admired in neatly arranged cabinets containing marbles and hardstones or in table tops in which they were arranged to create geometrical motifs forming mesmerizing effects. The idea behind these pieces was indeed displaying the art of Italian marmisti (marble workers) who, through them could show their skilled craftsmanship and the beauty of their country.

Specimen marble pieces, especially table tops, were usually produced in Rome or Naples and collected by wealthy tourists in Italy for their Grand Tours.

It isn't so rare to spot specimen marble tables at auctions: Sotheby's has got some wonderful examples in an auction entitled "Stones III", that will close tomorrow, that features quite a few tables incorporating up to 180 marble specimen, often forming geometrical micromosaics.

The polychrome marble pieces, especially the table tops, can be incredibly inspiring also in fashion. You may argue that in fashion we can use techniques such as collage, patchwork or quilting, to create the same effects. But to create a piece inspired by these works, we could use the same principles behind the art of the Italian marmisti and select not just any leftover fabrics, but high quality textiles of different types, and come up with a wearable cabinet of soft curiosities that could show our knowledge of fabrics as well.

An example? Antonio Marras' A/W 2022-23 menswear collection. Inspired by '90s and grunge, it features designs that integrate bits and pieces of checked, tartan and Prince of Wales patterned fabrics. While in some cases the panels in clashing and contrasting patterns applied onto shirts and kilts add a punk twist to these garments, giving the illusion the designs were repaired with these patches, in others, like in the case of a sweater, the samples of fabrics were applied in a careful order and formed a visually-plesant configuration that called to mind the art of the Italian marmisti.

Apparently the idea came to Marras not from the marmisti, but from a sewing exercise the designer applied to while in lockdown and created a patchwork sweater upcycling tile-size scraps of collection leftovers.

Yes, you're right, this is definitely not a new idea, but it is a timeless trick that can help you coming up with something unique - your very own personal wearable cabinet of soft curiosities integrating exclusive textile samples.

Body of Work: Prada Men's A/W 22-23

While watching a runway show, it sometimes happens to identify an item inspired, borrowed or stolen from another era, fashion show, collection or designer. After all, the history of fashion is cyclical, made up of occurrences and recurrences.

That déjà vu sensation must have washed over some fashion commentators and fans alike during Prada's A/W 22-23 menswear runway that took place yesterday in Milan at Fondazione Prada's Deposito venue, turned by architectural studio AMO into a sort of stage where theatre and cinema met.

Marking the end of a shortened edition of the Milanese menswear fashion week that, due to the Omicron variant spreading fast, caused some companies and brands to cancel shows for safety reasons (to ensure a stronger presence of exhibitors also Milan's Salone del Mobile was postponed from April to June 2022), the show was presented to socially distanced 200-plus guests, respecting the health safety protocols against Coronavirus in Italy, which meant FFP2 masks and proof of full vaccination (Super Green Pass).

The runway opened and closed very glamorously with two special models, actors Kyle MacLachlan and Jeff Goldblum. The former donned a sculptural executive coat that wouldn't look out pf place in Patrick Bateman's wardrobe if a new adaptation of "American Psycho" was ever done; the latter a dark, furry mohair hemmed and elbowed overcoat.

Other actors also appeared in the show - Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Asa Butterfield, Damson Idris, Tom Mercier, Jaden Michael, Louis Partridge, Ashton Sanders and Filippo Scotti - something that triggered that déjà vu sensation, calling to mind Prada's Autumn/Winter 2012-13 men's runway, that featured Willem Dafoe, Gary Oldman, Tim Roth, Jamie Bell and Adrien Brody, among the others.

Maybe this show was a way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of that runway or maybe it was a development of that collection: in that case Miuccia reminded us that men with power - temporal, political, social and sexual - dress to proclaim their position. In that collection power was expressed through the severe cut of the garments and of the double-breasted suits, the stiff high-collar shirts, luxury details such as astrakhan-collars, and through the layered look devised to project and protect the wearer's superiority.

In this case the narration changed: this collection, entitled "Body of Work", was actually about archetypes and job roles. The designs on the runway were indeed representations of uniforms from the Prada perspective, even though they were interpreted in luxurious ways. 
 
Bombers were elongated and decorated with furry mohair trimmings; jumpsuits came in pink and blue nylon with conceptual prints and messages, while the comfortable knitted long johns from the A/W 21 collection were replaced by lightweight nylon, leather and cotton boiler suits or separates, maybe to highlight the end of smartworking and the return to work and to activities done in the outdoors. Matching separates cleverly styled with backpacks with white or gray/silver straps created the optical illusion of seeing the models wearing a high visibility garment and turned them into Prada bin men (View this photo).  

Colours such as baby blue and pale pink, and blurred prints of human shadows and flowers revealed, though, that these were luxury items and not proper work uniforms. The outerwear offer was as usual strong with trench coats, parkas and oversized bombers accessorised with backpacks, gloves and triangle-shaped pocket belts.

Some leather trenches and coats in this catwalk show - the second physical one by Miuccia and her current co-creative director Raf Simons since he was hired in 2020 - featured a very exaggerated silhouette that means wearers will have to negotiate doors.

That was a bit of a faux pas actually as these silhouettes were too reminiscent of Demna Gvasalia's designs for Balenciaga (View this photo; mind you, Gvasalia's exaggerated silhouettes also point at Raf Simons' previous menswear collections, so maybe here you had Simons taking the piss out of Balenciaga?). 

The main point of this collection, according to Miuccia Prada, was highlighting the importance of work. Workwear can indeed be elevated in her opinion and turned into something elegant that should make people feel important, hence the sculptural coats, mohair trimmings and couture suits.

For what regards the set, the déjà vu sensation extended to the futuristic tunnel that led backstage, a more technological sci-fi version of the red tunnel that led models in the S/S menswear collection film out onto a beach that was again a symbolical metaphor for a return to normality.

Normality may be around the corner if Omicron is the last stage of the Coronavirus pandemic that reshaped our lives and habits in the last two years. Yet, even if we return to a pre-pandemic life, we may never see a mechanic fix cars in a garage in Prada tech silk attire, well, unless Miuccia decides to open a Prada garage, which wouldn't be a bad idea seeing that she already has the uniforms.

So those of us mere mortals who may want a piece of this show, should maybe just forget luxury workwear and head in a few days' time to Spazio Meta, the Milanese recycling start-up that collects elements from runway show sets and resells them at very affordable prices - they usually have bits and pieces of Prada props and you could use them to redecorate your work space.

From Philosophy to Fashion & Film Wardrobes: Nino Cerruti (1930 - 2022)

It is not rare to stumble upon a novel or a film in which a fashion designer or house is mentioned, but there aren't too many modern brands that appear in both.

Cerruti 1881 was instead among the main brands favoured by Wall Street banker Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis' controversial novel American Psycho. When the book was turned into a film directed by Mary Harron, costume designer Isis Mussenden collaborated with the Italian fashion designer Nino Cerruti and his brand to recreate Bateman's mid-'80s suits. There is also one scene in the film in which violent Patrick (Christian Bale) attacks the Asian owner of a laundry, shouting at her that you can't bleach a Cerruti.

In the film psychopath yuppie and slave to designer labels Patrick is dressed to kill, but at the time the Cerruti company asked not to show him wearing the famous brand when the main character was killing his victims. This decision reflected the politeness of the original founder of Cerruti 1881, Nino Cerruti, who died yesterday at 91 at Vercelli hospital, following complications from a surgery.

Born in 1930 in Biella, the Italian town famous for the production of textiles and yarns, Cerruti took over his family's textile company in 1950 after his father died. Though at the time Cerruti hoped to become a journalist and was studying philosophy, he managed to rise to the occasion and turned fashion into his vocation.

In 1957 he presented his first line (Hitman) considered at the time revolutionary for its deconstructed jackets, followed by the brand Flying Cross founded with Osvaldo Testa in 1962.

As the years passed, he expanded, including luxury lines and fragrances, grouped under his Cerruti 1881 brand (an iconic year for the designer, marking the date Cerruti's grandfather founded in Biella the textile mill Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti).

In 1967, he opened the first Cerruti 1881 boutique in Place de la Madeleine in Paris (designed by da Vico Magistretti): his trousers became fashionable among French ladies and were also appreciated by Coco Chanel. In the '60s he also hired Giorgio Armani, who worked for Cerruti for six years, learning the importance of sartorial softness, before going on to found his own famous company in 1975.

In the '70s the brand launched knitwear, shirts and a casual line, Cerruti 1881 Brothers, followed by a sportswear line that became popular with tennis and skiing enthusiasts. In the meantime, the collaboration between the brand and cinema that had started with Arthur Penn's "Bonnie & Clyde" (1967), featuring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the infamously stylish gangster couple that went on to inspire hundreds of runways, continued in the decades that followed.

In some cases Cerruti 1881 provided wardrobes for actors and actresses; in others Cerruti himself collaborated with a costume designer to create a suit or a dress for a specific character.

The brand's designs appear in Lewis Teague's "The Jewel of the Nile" (1985), Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" (1987), George Miller's "The Witches of Eastwick" (1987), Garry Marshall's "Pretty Woman" (1990), Paul Verhoeven's "Basic Instinct" (1992), Adrian Lyne's "Fatal Attraction" (1987) and "Indecent Proposal" (1993), Jonathan Demme's "Philadelphia" (1993), Robert Altman's "Prêt-à-Porter" (1994) and Mary Harron's "American Psycho" (2000), just to mention a few ones.

Rather than being iconic, most of the designs created for films aimed at functionality: even the elegant red and black gown with a cut out motif on the back donned by Kathleen Turner for the opening reception in "The Jewel of the Nile" had to be functional as it allowed her to get off the a dinghy and on a motorcycle. Her practical ivory linen T-shirt and military green wallet skirt in the same film, helped her character performing impossible stunts, including crossing the desert, climbing a mountain and running on a speeding train, almost to prove that these were stylish clothes to live in.

Through films Nino Cerruti became friends with various actors, among them also Jack Nicholson, whom he dressed in 1995 in black suits for Sean Penn's "The Crossing Guard" and in white linen trousers, pink silk jacket and matching pink duster, in comedy "The Witches of Eastwick", an ensemble that was also a tribute to the '80s, a decade of excesses, kitsch and freedom as well.

Designer of Ferrari’s Formula 1 team, in the mid-1990s, he launched the womenswear collection Cerruti Arte, designed by Narciso Rodriguez in 1995. But five years later he sold a controlling stake in the company to Fin.Part, an Italian industrial group (now defunct) that later bought also the rest of the company and Cerruti departed to focus on the textile mill Lanificio Fratelli Cerruti in Biella. 

The Cerruti star waned as the years passed: in 2005, after Fin.Part went bankrupt, the brand passed to American private equity firm MatlinPatterson, and was sold to China's Trinity Ltd. in 2010 (Trinity entered into liquidation this year). Nino Cerruti remains instead an important chapter in the history of Italian fashion, representing the quintessential entrepreneur: he was indeed an innovator, a decision maker and an indefatigable textile researcher as well.

The Potential of Face Masks: Couch-19 & Coat-19 by Tobia Zambotti

In yesterday's post we looked at a collection based on a recycled idea, so for today let's move instead onto genuinely recycled pieces.

Designer Tobia Zambotti has been trying to employ recycled materials in his creations since he founded his Atelier in Reykjavik, Iceland. In 2020 he launched, for example, a project entitled "The Fan Chair" that consisted in transforming the discarded plastic seats from Laugardalsvöllur football stadium, into fun chairs with brightly coloured steel legs.

The Covid-19 pandemic prompted him to experiment more along these lines with an unusual material that has become an everyday essential item for each of us - the surgical face-mask.

Unfortunately, these masks too often get disposed together with the ordinary waste or end up abandoned in the streets, something that has inspired a few designers to find alternative solutions to deal with them.

Disposable masks available on the market are made with a polypropylene filter and non-woven plastic fabric and, while some designers have been melting and moulding the masks into interior design pieces, Zambotti collected discarded masks from the inhabitants of Perg Valsugana and Trento, sanitised them with ozone and used them as the filling for his "Couch-19", a modular pouf with an irregular shape reminiscent of an iceberg.

In this way he recycled the masks, involved people in waste collection and created a piece of interior design that, being shaped like an iceberg, echoes key issues like climate change and global warming.

Last September Zambotti tried his hand at fashion applying the same principle to his Coat-19. The puffer jacket, designed in collaboration with Helsinki-based Aleksi Saastamoinen, a Fashion Design student at Aalto University, is filled with around 1,500 white and light-blue masks, collected from the streets of Reykjavík (and again disinfected with ozone gas).

Polypropylene, the main material for the mask filter, is also used to produce Poly-fill, the most common acrylic stuffing for cheap down jackets, so using the masks (some of them partly filled with organic cotton wool in order to create puffy shapes) to pad a jacket makes sense.

As the outer layer of the jacket is made with a semi-transparent breathable and waterproof laminate fabric based on bio-sources, the disposed masks can be seen through the garment, their pale blue colour again calling to ice and icebergs, while its shape evoking that of a cloud.

Zambotti has been working on projects that, combining art with architecture, interior design and fashion, help raising awareness about pollution and waste.

In 2019 he created for the Perlan Museum in Reykjavík the "instagrammable" art installation "#WhatCanWeDoNow?" to invite people to consider the damages done by discarded plastic items ending up in the oceans.

The installation, in the floor pool of the museum, was inspired by Silfra, a fissure between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates in Thingvellir National Park famous for its crystal clear water.

It will be interesting to see if Zambotta will take this theme further and even create more fashion/interior design pieces with unusual recycled materials. For the time being, though, as the menswear shows are currently on, it would be intriguing to see "Coat-19" or other creations inspired by face-masks on the runways.

Image credits for this post

Pictures of Coach-19 by Raffaele Merler

Pictures of Coat-19 by Luca Ranghetti

Lost in the Supermarket (Again) in the Year of the Tiger: Moschino & Tony the Tiger

Recycling textiles and garments is a concept high on the fashion industry's agenda, after all, we are aware of the damages caused by the overproduction and overconsumption of cheap garments. Yet, sometimes, rather than recycling garments, this industry seems to be more interested in recycling ideas.

Take the capsule collection Jeremy Scott designed for Moschino for the Chinese New Year (falling on 1st February 2022). The Chinese zodiac gives each year an animal sign and 2022 is the Year of the Tiger.

Looking for a tiger motif, something that has always been rather trendy in fashion, Scott stumbled upon Tony the Tiger, the friendly and fun advertising cartoon mascot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal. The collection is already available and on Moschino's site you will find a wide range of T-shirts, hoodies, sweats and accessories as well (a clutch and a scarf), inspired by the famous breakfast cereal box featuring the smiling tiger.

The original idea for Tony came from Eugene Kolkey, an accomplished graphics artist and art director at Leo Burnett, who created in 1952 the tiger character. So licensing the character in the collection must have sounded also relevant for the brand, that may have seen this oppoprtunity as a way to celebrate Tony's 70th birthday.

Yet this is not the first time Tony is associated with the Chinese New Year: in the 1970s the mascot's popularity rose and, while he was given Italian-American nationality (something that turned him into a favourite among the young Italian-American population), Tony was associated with the Chinese New Year in 1974.

Fashion-wise this is not the first time Tony appears in a collection: in 2014, Anya Hindmarch turned her runway into a barcode-printed conveyor-belt on which salesmen danced and glamorous ladies shopped pushing their metal carts.

The products weren't real, though, but they were turned into colourful handbags and among them there was also Kellogg's Tony the Tiger on a blue tote, while Ariel/Daz laundry detergent boxes were turned into clutches very similar to the current Tony the Tiger clutch in Moschino's collection.

Scott was actually inspired by the products you may find in a supermarket in Moschino's Autumn/Winter 2013 menswear collection that was showcased in the aisles of the food hall of Milan's Excelsior shopping emporium and featured prints of Budweiser-like Moschino logos and "Fresh" detergent (spoof of Ariel washing powder) and in Moschino's A/W 14 collection as well. The latter, as you may remember, was inspired by fast food uniforms and confectionery (and also featured a gown inspired by a tutti frutti candy bag with a print of another tiger character... View this photo). 

Maybe Scott had Moschino's previous collections in mind or Hindmarch's as well, as the whole capsule seems a bit of a recycled idea, with the tiger striped pants vaguely resembling Scott's Flintstones-inspired collection (View this photo).

You wonder how will Chinese consumers take it: Tony is a quintessentially American and commercial character that was also mocked in 2015 in fake adverts by Finnish anti-capitalist artist Jani Leinonen in which Tony inspires a violent cop, a prostitute and a suicide bomber. 

Besides, the mascot has been at the centre of a health controversy in some countries: like other child-friendly mascots he is used to sell products that contain high levels of sugar, saturated fat and salt. As a consequence, Tony and similar characters were banned from being featured in packaging and advertising in Chile, Argentina and Mexico. 

Moschino's capsule teaches us that if you're a designer, before recycling an idea and opting to get lost in a supermarket by buying the licence from a food company to use their mascot, you should always check the wider implications behind that specific character and possibly avoid using it if it has already appeared in other designers' collections. 

Tiger-stripes have always been favoured by fashion also in costume design, so there was no need for Scott to opt for this banal and lazy interpretation of the tiger. Next time for inspiration he should maybe turn to "Urusei Yatsura" the Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi with Princess Lum, daughter of the leader of the alien invaders, in her iconic tiger striped bikini (a new series should be out this year so that's pretty relevant too).

What Impact Will Europe's Rising Energy Prices Have on the Fashion Industry?

Covid-19 had a negative impact on companies in different fields: during the first months of lockdowns in 2020, while some plants temporarily shut down, quite a few factories producing garments for prominent fashion houses and brands in Europe managed to stay open, reconverting the production to face masks and PPE.

In 2021 vaccines improved the situation and, while there were signs of recovery also thanks to a consistent consumer demand after many activities reopened, the fast spreading of the Omicron variant of Coronavirus in the last few weeks has been causing a new emergency. While vaccinated people have milder effects, Omicron remains very contagious and this means that staff shortages are being registered in different sectors as people have to constantly self-isolate.

Yet there is another emergency threatening companies at the moment - the cost of energy. All over Europe and in particular in Italy and the UK, natural gas prices have increased, but so has electricity. The energy crisis is hitting households as well (don't forget how smartworking and distance learning have also been having an impact on families as these activities make our electricity bills rise) and it is estimated that soaring natural gas and power prices will send bills rocketing: analysts state consumers will register a 54% increase in bills, but the soaring costs are having an impact at all levels.

Industrial consumers are facing extreme choices, especially those plants that deal with energy-intensive processes as the energy costs are forcing many manufacturers to reassess their production plans this winter.

A few companies in Italy saw their bills fluctuating towards one million euros: last October Brescia-based Btt Trattamenti Termici, manufacturing semi-finished steel products for the mechanical, automotive, oil & gas and construction industries, was hit by a gas bill that reached almost 900,000 EUR. When the company added the costs for electricity and compared the expenses to the monthly 1,9 million EUR turnover, it came to a very obvious conclusion - it was not worth staying open. Managers therefore accounced in December they were considering to stop production and put the workers on furlough as this solution seemed less expensive. In Sardinia, Portovesme srl, a company of the Glencore group, announced at the end of last year that it was stopping the zinc production plant (while other lines of production were continuing) and putting 400 workers on furlough for the same reasons.

For some of these companies this is a very frustrating situation as the decision to close their operations temporarily is not due to lack of orders or unstable financial situations, some of these companies hit indeed production records in the last few years with consistent and robust performances.

For some semi-industrial realities this may actually mean shutting down forever rather than closing for a few months: Murano glass furnaces, for example, were hit pretty badly by the Covid-19 pandemic. During lockdown the glass furnaces, which usually burn incessantly, went cold. Starting them up is a long and laborious process and it usually takes around 10 days from cold for the furnace to reach the ideal temperature for working with glass. Those furnaces that survived Coronavirus may now succumb to the bills to keep the gas-powered kilns.

The rising energy prices will not just have an effect on steelwork, glasswork, agri-food and ceramic companies, but on all sorts of industries, fashion included. It is estimated that prices may see increases of 10-12% considering also soaring shipping and transport costs and the fact that many raw material costs are also rising (think about the food and drink industry and the impact the soaring cost of ingredients is having on consumer prices).

Consequences are easy to imagine: as the cost of living surges, consumers facing energy bill and essential commodities increases will have to reduce their expenses, and maybe start buying fewer yet better items compared to pre-pandemic levels, something that may mean that fast fashion will register some losses (that will maybe prompt fast fashion groups to decrease clothing production).

Reducing gas and electricity use and turning down thermostats may be temporary solutions, but the new increases brought the discussion on energy sources back on the table. As energy bills may be the obstacles to the efforts towards the economic recovery in Europe, it is important to find alternative energy solutions. While this is obviously something that takes time to do, it is important to work on this issue to avoid dire socio-economic consequences in the next few years.

Planning for the future may not be impossible, but consumers are finding increasingly difficult to deal with uncertainty and lack of security, especially in the constantly changing health situation we are all living in that is making us all wonder if Omicron is the final stage of SARS-CoV-2 or if something worse awaits us just around the corner.

Peculiarity of a Homophone-Inspired Work of Art: Mona Hatoum's "Nature morte aux grenades" (2006-7)

In the latest posts we looked at words that may enrich our personal glossaries, so let's continue the thread via a work of art - "Nature morte aux grenades" (2006-7) by Mona Hatoum - that plays on language.

Born in Beirut to a Palestinian family in 1952 and living and working in London and Berlin, the internationally renowned artist employs a variety of media in her practice, including performance, sculpture, video, installation and photography, quite often creating large-scale installations. In her works the artist often tackles socio-political issues, such as occupation, war, violence, torture, detention, separation, borders, memory and domesticity.

Hatoum often works on notions of displacement, turning familiar objects into something foreign and uncanny, as it happens in "Nature morte aux grenades", a collection of bulb-like glass objects resembling hand grenades in bright candy colours, placed on a steel trolley.

The title of the work is taken from an eponymous 1947 still-life painting by Henri Matisse (View this photo), representing pomegranates and other fruit on a table. In this work Hatoum plays with language and in particular with the homophone "grenade" - French for both "pomegranate" and "grenade bombs". Matisse's original reference to fruit turns into a reference to something ominous, evoking death and the conflicts like the Lebanese Civil War (1975-90), which forced the artist herself into exile. So, while the bright colours of the glass pieces are visually striking, the fact that they look like grenades generates contrasts between desire (in a way the shape of some of these objects also calls to mind lollipops, but sex toys as well) and repulsion, fascination and fear.  

There are further contrasts in the piece with the stainless-steel table resembling a surgical or embalming table, hinting at violence and death, while the glass objects in vibrantly vivid shades call to mind toys and the glorification of weapons in popular culture. Weapons become glossy ornaments, almost Christmas baubles, while the fragility of the glass grenades also reference the fragile conditions of people forced to lead a nomadic life and live in exile like Hatoum.

Hatoum's "Nature morte" will be part of "Tender Objects: Emotion and Sensation after Minimalism" (January 21 - May 28, 2022; curated by the Department of Art History in the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University) at The Warehouse, a Dallas-based project initiated by Howard and Cindy Rachofsky and the late Vernon Faulconer to make their collections available to curators, scholars, critics, and students.

Moving beyond the confines of traditional practices of painting and sculpture, "Tender Objects" will explore how artworks that adopt minimalist formal strategies can activate a fleeting, even indefinable, emotional response from viewers, provoking psychological and physical engagement.

Clothes as a Visual Art Medium: "Garmenting" @ The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York

Everyday we learn new words or maybe we learn to give a name to something we already know. How many times, for example, we stepped in an art gallery or museum and we admired a piece by an artist without any direct connection with the fashion world, but that it can be related to fashion since it represents an idea or a concept through a costume or transmits a message using a garment made with very special fabrics?

Probably that happened hundreds of times as it is not rare nowadays to stumble upon artists who use mediums that can be considered as fashion-related in their works. Well, this practice has a name - garmenting - as the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) in Manhattan explains us through an exhibition scheduled to open in a couple of months' time (March 12th to August 14th 2022, hopefully there will be no changes due to Covid-19, but always keep an eye on program variations).

"Garmenting: Costume as Contemporary Art" is an event completely dedicated to clothes as a medium of visual art. The exhibition features the work of thirty-five international contemporary artists, from established names to emerging voices, many of them exhibited for the first time in the United States.

What we define "garmenting", a term curator Alexandra Schwartz first heard from artist Saya Woolfalk (also featured in this event), isn't actually a new practice. It emerged indeed between the 1960s and the '70s and it was first linked with performance art. Specific garments were often used by artists in live or video-based performances, think, for example, about Yayoi Kusama in her bodysuits, immersed in spaces covered in polka-dots.

The practice increased prominence in the '90s, thanks to an emphasis on crafts and as an effect of the hybridization of cultures with the blurring of socioeconomic boundaries, cultures, and identities. Around this decade we saw very clever experiments with objects being turned into garments or sculptures to create very unique installations or performances. In the early '90s, for example, Studio Orta created the "Refuge Wear" series, portable and wearable shelters or "habitats" destined to the refugees fleeing war zones, using objects and dress as critical tools to explore contemporary issues.

Garmenting has become a favourite exercise of many artists in the last ten to fifteen years or so, as proved for example by Nick Cave's soundsuits, but, while some artists and collective of artists used the principles of garmenting to comment on contemporary environmental, political and social issues, thanks to the connections between fashion designers who often team up with artists for collaborations in their collections, runway shows or window shops, garmenting also turned into a more commercial exchange.

Guest curated by Alexandra Schwartz, a New York-based art historian, curator, and adjunct professor in the School of Graduate Studies at SUNY | Fashion Institute of Technology, the exhibition at MAD will feature garments, sculptures, installations, videos, and live performances.

Schwartz carefully selected pieces that use the language of fashion to address fundamental aspects of subjectivity, including gender, class, race, and ethnicity and organised them into five interrelated themes – functionality, gender, activism, cultural difference and performance.

The first section, dedicated to functionality, explores the traditional divide between fine and applied arts. This part focuses on one key issue posed by garmenting, questioning visitors on what makes a garment "functional", that is wearable in everyday life, and what makes it a work of art and therefore worthy of being featured in an exhibition or used in a performance.

In this section visitors will be able to see Franz Erhard Walther's interactive pioneering work of participatory art "Werksatz" (First Work Set) (1963-69; "Werksatz" has not been activated in New York City in over a decade) and Louise Bourgeois' "Blue Days" (1996), plus works by Annette Messager, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz, Beverly Semmes, Vivan Sundaram and Nazareth Pacheco.

The next section explores the way clothing is linked with the construction of gender with a focus on femininity and female desirability, associated with clothing and adornment. Artists in this section include Zoë Buckman and Esmaa Mohamoud, the latter pondering through her images inspired by basketball and football issues such as hyper-masculinity and the underrepresentation of women in sports (Mohamoud is known for her fascinating images of players in bsketball tops and crinolined skirts).

This section will also allow visitors to consider LGBTQ+ identities and the importance of dress in group formation, protest, and disguise, through the work of Kent Monkman and Raúl de Nieves among the others. In this part of the event, garmenting is considered as a way to look critically at the construction and disruption of gender identities.

Visitors who like politically engaged artists will find the next section particularly inspiring: garmenting can turn into an activist's gesture as proved by Sheelasha Rajbhandari, Jakkai Siributr or Jeffrey Gibson's works.

Gibson has a multi-layered identity as he has Choctaw and Cherokee heritage (and moved a lot, living in Germany, South Korea and Britain), that comes out in some of his pieces combining indigenous handicraft techniques and aesthetics, such as his sculptures inspired by ghost shirts and liturgical garments.

Textile, costume and fashion designers will find more inspirations in the section about cultural differences exploring identifiers such as ethnicity, region, religion, and class. Globalisation posed a threat to certain traditions, especially to indigenous cultures, and garmenting allowed some artists to save them or to turn them into an armor to protect individuals and groups from discrimination or violence. Works in this section can be studied also from the point of view of materials employed, shapes and silhouette, tailoring details, embellishments, decorative motifs and textiles. Among the other pieces featured here there will be also Nick Cave's multisensorial soundsuits, Yinka Shonibare CBE's sculptures wearing his trademark Dutch wax fabrics costumes, Mary Sibande's tableau "Domba Dance" with her 'Sophie' alter-ego in her "red phase", and Tanis S'eiltin's "Luk nax adi Kwáan" coat, a tribute to the Tlingit, indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America.

As stated above, garmenting is linked with the rise of performance art in the 1960s, so the exhibition includes a live performance series at MAD, and artists, including Enoch Cheng, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, and A young Yu, performing at the Museum each month of the exhibition's run, with works focused on how the language of dress affects bodies in motion. Besides, artists Lexy-Ho Tai and Enoch Cheng will be leading in-gallery, drop-in workshops for intergenerational audiences, with Lexy Ho-Tai's wearable art "monsters" moving around the gallery and interacting with the audience. 

Featuring all these different artists and themes, "Garmenting" seems the perfect event not just for art and fashion fans but for other professionals as well, including costume designers. That said, it remains a very accessible way to discover art, as proved also by some of the pieces that will be on display like the hoodie covered in silk flowers, rhinestones, sequins and jewelry by multiracial artist Devan Shimoyama. 

A tribute to Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Black teenager who was wearing a hoodie when he was fatally shot in Florida by George Zimmerman in 2012, the hoodie in this case becomes a symbol, a sort of wearable memorial and an art piece that we can all easily understand, proving that fashion can be used in very clever ways, to share our experiences and tackle very important social justice issues.

Image credits for this post

1.
Mary Sibande
The Domba Dance, 2019. Life-size fiberglass, bronze, cotton, and silicone, 157 1/2 × 98 × 118 1/8 in. (400.1 × 248.9 × 300 cm). Courtesy the artist and Kavi Gupta, Chicago. Photo: John Lusis

2.
Zoe Buckman
Installation view of Every Curve, 2016. Papillion Art, Los Angeles, CA. Courtesy the artist.

3.
Yinka Shonibare, CBE
The Ghost of Eliza Jumel, 2015. Fiberglass mannequin, Dutch wax–printed cotton textile, and steel plate, 57 7/16 × 71 5/8 × 40 15/16 in. (146 × 182 × 104 cm). Courtesy James Cohan, New York. © Yinka Shonibare CBE. All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2021. Photo: Stephen White

4.
Nick Cave
Soundsuit, 2018. Mixed media including vintage textile and sequined appliqués, metal and mannequin, 98 1/4 x 27 1/2 x 15 inches (250.2 × 69.9 × 38.1 cm). © Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

5.
Saya Woolfalk
ChimaCloud (Access Point) (installation view), 2019. Digital video installation, textiles, painted metal, and 3D prints, 300 × 36 × 267 in. (762 × 91.4 × 678.1 cm). As installed March 1 - September 1, 2019, in the Project Space at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO. Courtesy Nelson-Atkins Media Services. Photo: Dana Anderson

6.
Jeffrey Gibson
The Anthropophagic Effect, Garment no. 4, 2019. Canvas, satin, cotton, brass grommets, nylon thread, artificial sinew, split reed, glass and plastic beads, nylon ribbon, 58 × 72 in. (147.3 × 182.9 cm). Courtesy the artist and Sikkema Jenkins Co., New York.

7.
Jacolby Satterwhite
Orifice I, 2010. Hand-sewn body suit, hand-beaded helmet, iPad, two iPods, speaker, and mannequin. Courtesy Collection Mike De Paola, MAD Trustee. Photo: Morán Morán, Los Angeles

8.
A young Yu
DMZ Performance (performance still), 2020. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Matthew Yu

9.
Devan Shimoyama
February II, 2019. Silk flowers, rhinestones, jewelry, sequins, and embroidered patch on cotton hoodie with steel armature, coated wire and fishing line, 45 × 72 × 12 in. (114.3 × 182.9 × 30.5 cm). Courtesy Private Collection and De Buck Gallery, New York. Photo: Phoebe d'Heurle