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

Coherent Correspondences & Subtle Logical Threads in Design

Many creative minds operate in different fields nowadays, but this often happened in the past as well and, in some cases, we simply forgot about them. In multiple posts on this site we analysed and rediscovered the work of the late Cinzia Ruggeri, before many other people (Gucci included) jumped on the bandwagon.

Ruggeri was active in a variety of disciplines, from art and fashion to costume and interior design, but, in her work, there was a subtle coherent path of correspondences that sometimes is missing in the production of designers nowadays. 

This path of correspondences hasn't emerged in the retrospectives dedicated to Ruggeri, including the latest one, "Cinzia Says" at Rome's Macro. Quite often in such retrospectives curators opted for what could be defined as "the chaotic bazaar approach", which means, throwing objects together without creating proper dialogues or links between them. But spotting the intriguing relations in Ruggeri's productions, can be inspiring for younger generations interested in creating subtle logical threads throughout their works. 

Let’s move from an example - grass. Leaves of grass sprouted on the dresses, hats and shoes Ruggeri created in the '80s. These designs also appeared as costumes in the Mefisto Funk film.

In a cover from 1988 of Casa Vogue featuring the "Invidia" (Envy) glass table designed by Franco Raggio and produced by Fontana Arte, there is an arrangement of leaves of grass on an almost invisible net styled by Ruggeri next to a bird cage.

The long  blades of grass look as if they were made with the same strands she used for her glove that had grass sprouting from each finger. 

The glove was turned into a mosaic exhibited at "La regle de jeu" event in 2019. In that case, Ruggeri's iconic grass-sprouting glove was used to symbolize a metamorphosis from human to plant of André Jurieux, the record-breaking aviator in Jean Renoir's 1939 film "La règle du jeu" ("The Rules of the Game").

The grass theme was reinvented for the "Ocio" box, a piece created for an exhibition (and charity auction) in 2018. The event revolved around recycled and sustainable designs and Ruggeri's submisstion comprised a cardboard cube sprouting grass. This was a way to elevate cardboard to art, reminding us about the transfigurative power of things and the cycle of trees from seed to paper and compostable material.

So these are just a few examples of how to build a series of subtle correspondences in a variety of fields, using the same idea, but reinventing it in different ways and through different mediums.

Inspiring Antiquities: The Torlonia Marbles

In the history of fashion there are quite a few designers who were inspired by ancient art and in particular by Greek and Roman sculptures. For example, the draped motifs in Madame Grès' extraordinary gowns and in Valentina's evening dresses directly derive from fine classical sculptures. Yet other details found in sculptures can also be inspiring and, if you think you may want to explore the potential of ancient artworks, you should check out the Marmi Torlonia collection.

There is currently an exhibition where you can admire them, "I Marmi Torlonia. Collezionare Capolavori" (The Torlonia Marbles. Collecting Masterpieces) at the Gallerie d'Italia in Piazza Scala in Milan (till 18th September, so you can catch it in case you're in town for the Design Week or for the menswear shows).

The Torlonia Collection is one of the most important private collections of classical statuary, and this exhibition - featuring also five newly restored works - marks the beginning of a worldwide tour for the statues. 

The story of this collection, one of world's most important private collections of Greek-Roman classical art, is complex: in 1875, the collection was located in Rome, in the family's palazzo in Via della Lungara, known as the Torlonia Museum. The latter included over 620 pieces, among them busts, reliefs, statues, sarcophagi, and decorative elements. 

The collection started with a series of acquisitions: hoping to promote their cultural heritage through future generations, the family started amassing the sculptures discovered during archaeological excavations in their estates around Rome (from the Villa di Massenzio and Villa dei Quintili, to the properties at Porto, Sabina and Tuscia).

Little by little, the collection expanded and included also other pieces that belonged to noble families. The Torlonia were landowners, lenders and debt collectors and they often acquired new artworks from other families in lieu of payment. The collection also came to include the works that had originally belonged to sculptor and celebrated restorer Bartolomeo Cavaceppi.

Only members of the Roman aristocracy were admitted to the museum, but, from the end of the Second World War, a few experts or visiting dignitaries were also allowed to visit the museum.

In 1976, the private museum closed and was transformed into a series of mini-apartments without the necessary planning permissions. The collection was therefore moved into storage and was forgotten for several years.

Legal disputes between the family and the state followed with several governments attempting to persuade the noble family to either sell or display the works in public. In 2003, the Italian government also attempted to confiscate the statues.

Eventually, an agreement was reached by Italy's culture ministry and the Fondazione Torlonia and, restored and cleaned, 92 pieces from the collection went on display in 2021 at Villa Caffarelli, part of the larger complex of the Musei Capitolini. These pieces are now part of a touring exhibition.

The event in Milan is divided into sections: the imposing Consular Sarcophagus of the Via Ardeatina, with a group of Roman togates welcome visitors together with two recently restored busts (Domitian and Antinous), but there are more busts to discover, some of them portraits of famous (and infamous) Roman emperors, and exquisite portraits of their wives that can be very inspiring in fashion as well for their hairstyles and jewelry.

But there are plenty of other highlights in the exhibition spaces, including two giant carved tazze or basins, one with a famous frieze of the labors of Hercules, and another, the Tazza Cesi, featuring imagery of a Bacchic symposium. There is also the colossal Dace prisoner on display in Milan and the large marble relief showing a vivid scene at Rome's sea port of Ostia.

Discovered in 1863 at Portus Traiani, the relief represents an incredibly detailed busy port scene overseen by colossal images of the gods Bacchus and Poseidon and features two large sailing ships crammed with goods from Africa, proving that Roman navigators brought huge quantities of grain from what is now Libya to feed the population of the capital city.

Restorers found a touch of colour - mainly red and Egyptian blue - in this scene, a rare existing testament to the fact that classical sculptures were often decorated with bright paint.

Different elements can be inspiring and the statues can be admired in group or singularly, taking in the details, from the draped motifs of the tunics to the ribbed texture of the back of the sarcophagus.

The restoration process behind the event (a project financed by luxury jeweller Bulgari) is also intriguing as it reveals visitors how things have changed throughout the centuries.

Between the 17th and 18th century, restoration meant cleaning, but also adding new parts, often taken from other statues, so that some sculptures were completely modified (more modern heads were matched for example with ancient torsos creating anachronisms). One of the pieces on display, a Greek statue of a resting goat, for example, was restored by none other than Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Nowadays instead statues are mainly cleaned and additions from previous centuries are removed. The emphasis in this restoration project was indeed making clear what was original and what was not, as well as showing how the past manipulation of the sculptural parts radically transformed certain pieces.

To this aim the final section of the exhibition closes with a 112-piece Hercules in dialogue with a sculpture of Leda with the Swan: in both works, various stages of the cleaning process are visible, illustrating the many challenges facing contemporary restoration. The joints between fragments were deliberately left exposed to show this.

As the restoration continues in the Torlonia Laboratory in Rome, take a note about this event and its future exhibition dates: these artworks - testaments to a passion for collecting antiquities that was very popular from the 15th to the 19th century - remained hidden from the public for too many decades. It is now about time to learn their story and return to admire their magnificently elegant details.

The Joys (& Pains) of a Branded Gaming Academy

Quite a few fashion houses have been exploring the possibilities offered by video games in the last 15 years. At the beginning, it was more a fascination with costumes for video game characters (remember Prada's costumes for Shinji Aramaki's mecha anime Appleseed: Ex Machina in 2008?), then video game characters were enlisted for adverts and as inspirations for fashion collections and capsules.

The fashion and video game connection intensified two years ago with Covid-19 and the various lockdowns and, as the years passed, we got to fashion houses creating skins for characters and even branded consoles in limited editions. With 2.7 billion gamers worldwide, it is only natural for fashion houses and brands to look at this industry that represents for them another way to reach out to new consumers.

Gucci has been among the houses actively pursuing the video game path: the house created pieces for The Sims 4 and avatars on the 3D social media app Zepeto (where you can also interactively explore the Gucci Villa space), and also launched The North Face x Gucci designs on the Pokémon Go app.

More recently the fashion house unveiled Gucci Town, a virtual space in Roblox that offers users a variety of experiences, including Gucci-inspired competitions, an exhibition space, a café and a boutique where visitors can purchase digital Gucci items ideal for their Roblox avatars.

But there's more: joining forces with competitive eSport platform FACEIT (that boasts 26 million users), the luxury house recently launched the Gucci Gaming Academy.

The new programme is designed to support up-and-coming gaming talent and their career path. The selected talents will also be offered mentorship through monthly sessions by the academy ambassadors - commentator James Bardolph, pro "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" (CS: GO) legend Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund and trailblazer for women in esports Stephanie "missharvey" Harvey.

The first four players for the academy have already been chosen, they are all from Eastern Europe - Polish Lukasz "mwlky" Pachucki (18) and Brajan "DGL" Lemecha (24), Latvian Mārtiņš "shadiyy" Gūtmani (19), and Lithuanian Rokas "EspiranTo" Milasauskas (20).

They were handpicked from Faceit's Pro League (FPL), an in-house league system, but there are future plans for the academy to support more players. The programme will start with "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" (CS: GO), a multiplayer first-person shooter video game rated Best eSports Game at The Game Awards in 2017, 2019 and 2020.

The Gucci Gaming Academy pledges to support the players for a period of 12 months, unless they get a professional contract with a pro team sooner. In the meantime, when approached by other professional and academy teams, players are free to go.

There are many benefits for the lucky ones: from monthly financial support for as long as they are part of the academy to access to professional coaches, and to top-of-the-line hardware and gaming PCs and monitors from Dell Alienware and personalized selection of computer electronic peripherals from Logitech G.

Besides, the World Health Organization (WHO) will provide expertise and support on health topics to prepare them to the challenges they have to face and sessions with psychologists to deal with performance under stress and being in the spotlight. On top of that they will receive the support of a talent agency and a lawyer to learn more about brand building and legal protection.

If these are the multiple joys of such a programme, there are also some disappointing facts about the academy: while there is a young woman among the ambassadors, all the first four talents are young men. Now, while men outnumber women in video games, and the demographic of "CS:GO" is 92% male, they may have still found a woman to include in the programme.

Another point is the strict focus on eSports, chosen for some obvious reasons. First and foremost there's serious money in eSports as players developing professional careers can make millions; besides, the eSports market is forecast to be worth $1.9 billion within the next five years, according to research firm Valuates.

On top of that, this gaming category was probably chosen also for the fact that it looks "healthier" than other video games (the word "eSports" gives you the impression the people playing them do not spend hundreds of hours in front of a screen which in fact they do...), besides with championships you get the chance to clad your gamers in your brand's clothes and get great exposure (other brands that have dressed players or partnered with eSports include Nike, Armani and Adidas; in 2021 Ralph Lauren signed a deal to outfit esports gaming team G2 Esports), something you may not be able to do with gamers who are into strategic or RPG games and who are probably deemed reclusive nerds verging towards the hikikomori.

eSports seem therefore to have more potential for luxury brands than other types of video games, that's why different companies and brands try to establish links with them (as you may remember, in 2019, Louis Vuitton partnered with League of Legends on a digital capsule collection and a trophy case). That said, if Gucci wants to go for a gaming academy, the house may have to look at a more inclusive type of "institution", even an educational venture to form younger generations and support all sorts of gamers and video game creators as well, avoiding in this way to recreate just the umpteenth cool Gucci gang, another elite of good-looking people perennially clad in the brand's clothes and on its payroll.

Concealed Messages in Fashion

The slogan T-shirt is a wardrobe staple: through this garment we speak without opening our mouths, we show our allegiances to a brand, we tell other people who we support, which artists, films or bands we like, who we vote for or what we believe in. But there are other ways to spread a message. It is indeed possible to do so in more subtle ways.

An example? A petticoat with an embroidered message peeking from the hem by Ukrainian designer Valentina. Born in the Kyiv region of Ukraine in 1889 (or 1899… dates are uncertain), Valentina Nicolaevna Sanina posed on Harpers' Bazaar in 1941 wearing this design.

The message on the petticoat stated "Jamais deux sans toi", meaning "Never two without you", a play on the French adage "Jamais deux sans trois", pronounced almost identically, but meaning "Never two without three".

The design probably referred to the rumours about Valentina sharing her husband George Schlee with friend and client Greta Garbo. Nobody ever understood if the rumours about the Valentina-Schlee-Garbo ménage-à-trois were real, but both women were stunning and both often donned the same designs by Valentina to confuse the gossipmongers.

Gun Violence in the United States & The Carrying Concealed Trend

Gun violence in the United States is at the forefront of public consciousness as, sadly, dramatic episodes involving firearms keep on happening, often a few days apart one from the other.

On Tuesday an 18-year-old gunman shot and killed 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The young man bought two assault rifles and ammunition for his birthday. The Uvalde shooting - the second-deadliest school shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre nearly a decade ago - happened only a few weeks after another massacre in a predominantly black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. Here a white suprematist gunman, also 18, opened fire killing ten black people. 

While US President Joe Biden and other policymakers proposed new restrictions on firearm access to address gun violence, there haven't been any major changes yet and guns are keeping on having a key role in American society. While gun violence is affecting communities, families, and children, firearms are glorified not just in films but in real life: considered by many as stylish accessories rather than dangerous tools, weapons seem to give the carrier an aura of coolness and empowerment.

In more recent years, this obsession with guns also spawned a trend for gun-friendly clothes and accessories produced by dedicated brands. Many of them were actually launched by women entrepreneurs who were finding it hard to conceal their weapons within their wardrobes. The main idea behind these designs is that you can carry a gun under tight fitting clothes. 

Aimed at both men and women, but particularly at women, the collections of brands such as Tactica Defense Fashion, Asfaleia Designs, Hiding Hilda, Dene Adams, Incognito Wear IX, Shash Lifestyle and Cameleon Bags, include tactical undergarments such as bras, corsets and mid-thigh shorts that call to mind shapewear (but seem to be made with cheaper materials...) or leggings and yoga pants with special spaces for handguns.   

Some of these brands are more focused on leather handbags and purses with holsters, special spaces and dedicated compartments that allow to quickly draw and fire a weapon. These designs are usually presented as key items to guarantee the personal protection of the gun carrying wearer. The more advanced designs, for example, also integrate pockets that allow you to carry ballistic-armor panels, turning your pack into a shield to protect yourself during an active-shooter situation.

In 2017 these brands debuted at the controversial "Concealed Carry Fashion Show" presented at the National Rifle Association (NRA) expo, while in 2019 there was the "Fashion & Firearms" concealed carry fashion show at the NRA's annual meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. 

The proliferation of such brands remind us that there are millions of Americans who own a gun and have a concealed carry licence. All 50 states in the country actually have laws that regulate concealed carry licenses (usually residents apply for such permits via the state department of justice office).

However, some of the states make it more difficult than others to get these permits, but legislators worked to make it easier for those with the concealed carry permits to carry the same weapons across state lines through the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2019. Introduced in Senate in 2019, the act allows a qualified individual to carry a concealed handgun into or possess a concealed handgun in another state that allows its residents to carry concealed firearms.

According to a survey about a third of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun for personal safety and protection. For those who love guns, carrying concealed is a lifestyle, while brands producing carrywear claim it is about empowering and dressing up as you want without having to be afraid that something may happen to you.

You wonder if it wouldn't be more empowering not carrying a gun but being able to dress how you want without being afraid of being attacked, or being able to go to school everyday without being afraid of getting killed.

Melted, Splashed & Splattered Yet Tailored: Spotlight on Ichiro Suzuki

In yesterday's post we looked at deconstruction as a technique to reinvent a garment, but this is obviously not the only one.

Japanese menswear designer Ichiro Suzuki, a graduate of the Royal College Of Art, has developed, for example, throughout the years a variety of fascinating techniques to create innovative pieces.

Based in Paris and trained in the art of cutting in Savile Row, Suzuki moves from British bespoke tailoring to subvert and reinvent menswear design. 

Suzuki could be defined as a cutter rather than a tailor: this was already clear from his first collections that were inspired by Op Art and in which he created three-dimensional cube geometries on jackets and suits.

In his earlier creations, pinstripes were also twisted, as if they were derailed by an invisible force or disturbance (the designer was fascinated by the power of stripes after reading the book "The Devil's Cloth" by Michel Pastoureau), while tartan was transformed through geometry into a kaleidoscopical pattern.

As the years passed, Suzuki tried to come up with hybrids, combining formal jackets with trench coats or biker's jackets. The main aim of these experiments was presenting a constant revisitation of the staples of men's wardrobe. 

In his most recent collection, inspired by Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, rather than cutting and recombining two garments together, Suzuki created a very unusual effect.

Looking at his designs combining the Burberry check and a classic coat, a biker jacket and a trench coat or a cable knit jumper and a jacket, you get the impression the designer managed to create the sort of magic that you see only in animated cartoons.

It is indeed as if he had melted one garment or accessory like a tartan scarf, poured it into a bucket and then threw the contents of the bucket onto another garment, letting colours and patterns drip down the fabric underneath, creating in this way a rather unusual effect, a sort of garment painted onto another one that was used as a canvas. 

In this collection Suzuki tried to come up with juxtapositions and contrasts not just between two different garments (or one garment and one accessory...), but between the handcrafted and the industrial as well, proving that, it may be difficult to innovate classic menswear, but it is definitely not impossible. The secret is in mastering tailoring and cutting skills and combining them with modern techniques.

Can We Use Deconstructed Army Fatigues to Talk About the War?

Camouflage patterns have perennially been in and out of fashion, and, throughout the decades, we have seen camo integrated in casualwear and in Haute Couture gowns. Yet, with the war in Ukraine continuing, it would be inappropriate for designers to turn to camouflage, but there are other ways to reinvent military inspirations while experimenting with tailored silhouettes and aligning with the sustainability trend.

Junya Watanabe explored camouflage and military inspirations in his S/S 18 collection in which he included also green camouflage-printed ponchos, leggings and skirts, turning the camo pattern into an abstract motif and breaking it into irregular geometries.

Yet, before that, in his A/W 2006 collection, Watanabe worked on the possibility of deconstructing military army garments and surplus fabrics: he literally disassembled army fatigues and reassembled them into trench coats, parkas, and tail coats with a historical flair about them, adding here and there a functional zipper of replacing existing zippers.

In this collection the designer eliminated epaulets, inserted new collars and lapels, added straps and multi-layered peplums, and integrated in some of the designs green lace.

Innovative cutting techniques and complex unexpected seaming allowed Watanabe to come up with new textural surfaces that became testament to his endless experimentation.

There was an element of subversion and anarchy in the collage-like and patchworked clothes matched with black boots and accessorised with belts studded with spikes and with aggressive headgear, latex head and face coverings decorated with studs and pins, chains and nails.

As stated earlier on, talking about military inspirations in fashion is not appropriate at the moment, but in future we may be using dismissed or found army fatigues not necessarily for fashion collections, but maybe for art projects and installations that may prompt us to think about wars and their consequences on humanity. So, let's not underestimate the power of deconstructed recycled army fatigues not on the runway, but as mediums to ponder about conflicts and the long-term physical and psychological harm they cause to children and adults. 

An Exhibition of War Relics at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World in Kyiv is a Lesson for Posterity

Organizing an exhibition is a daunting task: you must research a topic, select items and objects to exhibit from an archive or from private sources, prepare the display cases and exhibition spaces and create a narrative path that visitors can relate to. Usually the entire process takes time and a lot of energy as well, but, doing it in a country at war is even more difficult, if not impossible. Yet in Ukraine they have just done it, using rather unexpected materials - Russian artefacts collected during the current war.

Ukraine's military history museum has on display in its outdoor area a variety of relics including the remains of a Russian helicopter, a Russian armoured personnel carrier and a broken tank turret. Inside the museum, there is a temporary display of other objects, including Russian soldiers' passports, ID cards, dog tags and notebooks, evidence of the occupation of the towns and villages around Kyiv.

The National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War in Kyiv expanded the topic and organized a larger exhibition. Entitled "Ukraine Crucifixion", the event - opened on 8th May to celebrate the Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation - is the first museum exhibition in the country and the world dedicated to the Russian-Ukrainian war. The exhibition tries to chronicle the Russian occupation around Kyiv and in other towns.

Members of the museum staff started acquiring the objects to display since March: accompanied by the Ukrainian military, they went on expeditions in different cities, including Irpin, Bucha, Borodyanka and Hostomel. This isn't a new practice for the museum: its curators have been collecting relics and remains since 2014 to create exhibitions about the events in Crimea.

After gathering the items, the curators arranged them in installation-like configurations: a variety of Russian army boots are arranged inside a red star and there is a map of Kyiv with police stations and other strategic points carefully marked using coloured coding, plus passports, and other personal effects of Russian soldiers.

There is also emphasis on the artefacts collected from destroyed churches, including a charred church cupola, an icon representing the deposition of Christ from the Cross with a fragment of Russian shrapnel stuck in it, and an image from the Russian orthodox church of St. Demetrius of Rostov, from the village of Makariv in the Kyiv region, that was bombed by the Russians.

Visitors can also immerse themselves in the lives of the people who lived underground to survive the bombs: using original contents, the curators recreated a shelter where residents of Hostomel lived for more than a month.

As this is a war museum, it is obviously important for the curators to create a timeline of events and preserve history for future generations. But maybe one day we will see these artefacts displayed also in other events and museums, like the real boat that in 2015 was involved in the Mediterranean's deadliest shipwreck in which hundreds of migrants died, and that was displayed at the Venice Biennale three years ago.

Like that boat, the pieces from the Russian invasion collected and displayed in museums in Ukraine can be considered as educational projects, modern relics of contemporary dramas and tragedies: the items and artefacts aren't indeed on display here just for those Ukrainians who didn’t live the occupation, but for all people, so that we can all learn a lesson.

To this end the Museum of the Second World War has also launched online exhibitions: one of them traces parallels between the Second World War and the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict through images. These photographs from a tragic past and from an uncertain present invite viewers to consider the fear and anxiety people have been going through in Ukraine since February, but also their resistance and hopes.

Besides, since March, the museum staff has been on the streets of Kyiv to document wartime and create impromptu photographic events such as "Kyiv: One-Day Report. March 8, 2022", a photographic essay in 44 pictures that looks at how the war destroyed the life of the Ukrainian capital, erasing a peaceful life and existence.

The photo exhibition was presented at the World Center for Peace, Freedom and Human Rights in Verdun (France), at the Jeju International Peace Center (Republic of Korea), in the square near the National Theater in Mannheim (Germany) and in the centre of Cetinje (Montenegro) and, hopefully, it will keep on touring the world and stopping at other museums, galleries and exhibition venues in the next few months.

What’s in a Name: The Demise of Fashion & Lifestyle Magazines in Russia

Three months have gone since the Russian invasion in Ukraine started and the war is continuing. While Ukrainians are dealing with the devastation, Russians are starting to face the effects of sanctions imposed by the West and of the exodus of Western companies and brands.

At the moment Russia is the most sanctioned country in the world and around 1,000 foreign companies have stopped their operations there. One of the latest is McDonald's: after pausing operations in the country due to its invasion of Ukraine, the multinational fast food corporation announced this week that it will sell its business in Russia. Besides, several companies including Disney, Warner and Sony stopped releasing films in Russia, so that at the moment cinemas in the country are re-running old Hollywood blockbusters or Chinese action movies.

This week luxury stores in the UK (including Harrods) informed Russian nationals who reside in Russia of a spending cap of 300 pounds after a fresh set of government sanctions. The decision follows Chanel's that, to comply with the sanctions, last month halted sales of its clothes, perfume, accessories and other items (all products valued at over 300 euros) to Russian customers abroad if they plan to take the products back to their home country. 
 
In their own country Russians will have increasingly limited choices when they go out shopping as they may find only Russian products rather than Western ones, but the consequences of the war in Ukraine will keep on spreading at different levels, politically and economically isolating Russia.

Besides, the country is isolating itself also culturally: in March the government in Russia blocked the access to Netflix, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Apple and foreign news outlets and passed a law that may land people spreading "false information" about the invasion in Ukraine or calling "war" what the Kremlin calls "special military operation", to 15 years in prison. This meant that many publications stopped operating in the country.

Condé Nast closed its Russian franchise in April - shutting down Vogue, GQ, GQ Style, Tatler, Glamour, Glamour Style Book and Architectural Digest - as a result of the war and of Russia's censorship laws. 

Before that, in March, American conglomerate Hearst Corporation announced it was terminated its licensing agreements of its owned brands Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and Men's Health. The magazines therefore had to change name on the Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications) registry.

As a consequence, Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Men's Health are now known in Russia as The Voice, Rules of Life and Men Today. All media are registered as print media but also as online versions.

Cosmopolitan was the first international women's magazine to be published in post-Soviet Russia in 1994. A few weeks ago, announcing its change of name on its Instagram page former Cosmopolitan Russia claimed The Voice is "a portal for active girls and women who can independently change their lives and the world around them (...) the main thing is that we still have answers to any of your questions and there are absolutely no taboo topics!"

The new name of the magazine is a bit puzzling (The Voice of whom?), especially considering Russian censorship laws. The announcement about answering readers' questions and talking about taboo topics is also almost hilarious. The war in Ukraine is indeed a taboo topic in Russia, will The Voice be writing about it. Well, probably no.

Russia's efforts to copy banned social media platforms and Western products with dedicated trademark applications have been met with ridicule and even Andrei Klishas, a senator from Putin's United Russia party, admitted this week that the country’s import substitution programme is failing.

But the problem with modern magazines in Russia is not just about their contents and the possibility of substituting them with another product or of changing their name and keeping on publishing them. It is actually also a practical problem: major software brands including Microsoft ceased operations in Russia and the government in Russia blocked the access to Instagram and Facebook.

All magazines employ specific softwares for their design and layout, and all publications need social media for advertising purposes. With Western software and tech companies that have been pulling out of Russia, a ban on the purchase of foreign software for information infrastructure issued by the Russian government in March, with social media blocked and with the rising prices of ink and paper, producing a magazine in Russia will become not just tricky but practically impossible.

The Mathematics of Paper Folding: Katherine Anne Rose's Paper Works

It is always great to find correspondences between art, fashion and design and sometimes it can be unexpected. An example? a visual correspondence between one of Katherine Anne Rose's works and a fabric by Nanni Strada.

Glasgow-based photographer and artist Katherine Anne Rose creates very intricate works using just paper. Inspiration struck when her studio started filling up with rolls of backdrops.

Layering different colours and precisely cutting the paper with a scalpel and then folding some of the flaps, the artist started tracing grids, whirls and geometrical elements, creating monochromatic or multi-coloured works.

The artist decided to call these time-consuming yet beautifully crafted pieces based on mathematical principles (the works are not just based on repetitions and layering, but on variations and progressions) simply "Paper Works".

Some of the works are clearly linked with Op Art, others are more sculptural and based on the power of three-dimensional elements.

In some cases the artist was inspired by Bridget Riley, but also by Islamic tiles and designs, but one aqua green and cerulean work (last image in this post) calls to mind Nanni Strada's "Matrix" (1995) fabric (View this photo).

As you may remember from a previous post, Strada's "Matrix" was characterised by a pleated motif that created on the fabric surface three-dimensional effects and was conceived as a way to experiment with the continuity of geometrical effects. This correspondence is, obviously, totally casual, but very intriguing.

Katherine Anne Rose may be another artist who, at some point, may end up being involved in a fashion collaboration (you can imagine these works in the windows of a luxury store or translated into larger elements for fashion runways, but also integrated into a fashion collection): there are indeed some great possibilities behind the slashed and folded elements forming Katherine Anne Rose's paper works. From next week, the artist will be exhibiting (for three months) her works at Glasgow's salon Coe Hair - sounds like a great way to get a new haircut while getting mesmerised by these wonderful paper sculptures.