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

Design Cycles: The Return of Gae Aulenti’s Locus Solus with a Fashion Twist Added

Due to the cyclical nature of fashion, everything is destined to come back at a certain point. At the same time, there are some designs or elements that become iconic in the history of fashion, turning into timeless benchmarks (think about the Little Black Dress).

Interior design, too, is subject to the ebb and flow of style, with certain aesthetic elements, design concepts and colour palettes falling in and out of favour over time. That said, usually in interior design an iconic piece ends up being reproduced decade after decade even after the death of the original designer or at times gets reissued in a limited edition. Sometimes striking designs from the past get the attention of new generations as well. Nowadays this happens also thanks to popular social media platforms like Pinterest and Instagram - think about Ultrafragola, Ettore Sottsass' 1970 sinuous pink lamp-cum-mirror for Poltronova, a piece dear to the Instragam community.

But there are further examples: in 2016 Exteta reissued Gae Aulenti's "Locus Solus" collection. The name came from the eponymous book by Raymond Roussel (worth reading if you never did or re-reading for its rich themes), in which the inventor and scientist Martial Canterel shows to a group of visitors the park of his country estate (Locus Solus) - a place populated with his complex, bizarre, imaginative, surreal and gruesome inventions.

Originally created by the late Italian designer in 1964 in collaboration with students from the Pistoia school of art for Centro Studi Poltronova, the series included several pieces such as a lounger, a table, chair, and a lamp, and was considered as a uniquely original and irreverent collection.

The designs, specifically created for outdoor use, were indeed made using a steel tubular framework (a reference to Aulenti's iconic curved wooden chair designs and in particular the shapes of the Sgarsul chair, symbol of the neo-Liberty style, interpreted with a pop twist) varnished in vivid colours and decorated with handmade cushions characterized by lively prints with a Pop Art edge.

As you may remember from a previous post, Gae Aulenti's table and chairs from this collection combined harmony with fun and also appeared in Jacques Deray's 1969 French film La Piscine (The Swimming Pool).

The movie revolved around lovers Marianne (Romy Schneider) and Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) spending their vacation in a villa near Saint-Tropez.

The yellow table and chairs installed near the swimming pool of the villa, provide the main characters in the film with a space where they chat, relax, have their breakfast, or simply plot their revenge. In a nutshell, the pieces of furniture are not just a symbol of their outdoor lifestyle, but they are a sort of theatrical stage where the drama unravels.

Relaunched by Exteta in collaboration with Archivio Aulenti in 2016, the designs were reissued for this year's edition of Milan Design Week, this time with textiles customized by Simon Porte Jacquemus. 

The choice seemed made in heaven: Simone Porte loves playful store designs, sunny atmospheres, Mediterranean holidays, swimming pools and sophisticated moods à La Piscine. On top of that, as he stated in a press release about the project, he fell in love with Gae Aulenti's designs after seeing them in Deray's film.

Bizarrelly, though, the results of the collaboration are a bit unsatisfying: originally, these pieces featured textile elements characterized by geometric shapes and bold colors that really stood the test of time.
 
The new versions feature an optimistically vibrant sunny yellow striped fabric referencing '80s beach mattresses and umbrellas, but the simple pattern, rather than evoking the super chic characters of La Piscine, conjures up memories of going to the beach in Rimini in 1981. You would have expected something slightly more original and exclusive for 1,188 euros for a Locus Solus chair and 5,940 euros for the matching sun lounger.

The collection, launched on Monday to coincide with Milan Design Week (until 23rd April), is available exclusively on the Jacquemus website and at its store on Avenue Montaigne in Paris.

Jacquemus' fans who can't afford the designs, may want to check his "Objets" collections instead - featuring less expensive items such as leather vases, plates, trays, hair pins and humorous key rings with leather cutouts of everyday objects like a clothes peg (View this photo) - or the selection of vintage books (available on the brand's site) curated by the designer (among the others books/catalogues there are volumes about Tarsila do Amaral, René Burri, Luis Barragán and Jean Dubuffet).

Beyond the Earth and into Space: Designing for the Final Frontier

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, known as Juice, launched last week from ESA's spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

Set to arrive at Jupiter in 2031, the spacecraft will study three Jovian moons located three-quarters of a billion km from the sun – Europa, Callisto and Ganymede. Their ice-covered oceans could provide homes for living organisms: Europa is considered the only one capable of harbouring life; while Callisto is a heavily cratered moon and Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, is also the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field, so there will be a lot to study there.

While the three moons are the main subject of the research, Juice will also study Jupiter's Great Red Spot (that is shrinking), its enormous polar auroras, and how its magnetic field shapes conditions on the gas giant's nearby moons.

It is fascinating thinking about explorations of remote worlds and in particular about this eight-year voyage to study the habitability of distant moons (Juice is not equipped to detect life, but will search for pockets of water and the elements and energy sources essential for life).

The mysteries of the universe are very inspiring for us all, but they are particularly intriguing for creative minds: for decades, the space and the moon captivated indeed the imagination of designers and architects who came up with ideas for spacesuits, super modern wardrobes and space habitats and bases.

As the possibility of establishing permanent human settlements in space is no longer a far-fetched idea, but it is becoming increasingly plausible, developing comfortable, sustainable and safe lunar habitats or finding innovative solutions for materials to use in space has become crucial for many designers, including Samira Boon.

Studio Samira Boon will be presenting a selection of their flexible and adaptive textile installations that accommodate and regulate spatial circulation, efficient energy usage, light and acoustic ambience during Milan Design Week (until 23rd April).

The design studio is showcasing its textiles as part of the collective exhibition "Masterly, the Dutch in Milano" at Palazzo Giureconsulti.

Among the other designs on display there is also Sprout, a mini-object made from Kombutex that was sent to the International Space Station as part of the Moongallery project to investigate the extraterrestrial potential of this material.

Kombutex is a 100% biodegradable bio material developed from in-depth researches into kombucha scoby biofilm. Scoby stands for "symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast" – a term that refers to the living culture used to ferment sweet tea into kombucha; the scoby forms a thick, rubbery disc on the surface of the tea, which is sometimes referred to as a "kombucha mushroom".

Kombutex is a dormant bacterial culture integrating moss that has the power to grow and generate sustainable and biodiverse indoor ecosystems, offering in this way smart opportunities to tackle the challenges of indoor air quality and create a healthier environment.

The textile was developed during the research project Living Aero Bacterial Systems (LABS): Future Interiors, in collaboration with the HybridFormsLab of Raoul Frese / Biophysics of Photosynthesis VU Amsterdam, that focused on creating living textiles developed from microorganisms to make indoor climate more sustainable.

The first Kombutex results were showcased at the Embassy of Health during the 2020 Dutch Design Week with the desk divider KOMBOUquet, a piece that integrated various types of Kombutex, soft and hard, translucent and opaque, in symbiosis with other cultures. This piece demonstrated the versatility of the material to create healthy, living environments that control the airflow and purify the air.

Sprout is a small piece, characterized by an embedded origami pattern (Studio Samira Boon often moved from Japanese origami for its designs, but also SAGA Space Architects and NASA used origami to come up with structures for space travelling/living as this technique allows to create compact and dynamic designs) and created as a sample of a living origami structure that can provide unique benefits to human habitats on and off Earth.

Sprout was sent last February to the International Space Station as part of the Moon Gallery project. Organised by the interdisciplinary platform Moon Gallery Foundation, this project connecting art, space and design, invites creative minds to submit a small artwork (no bigger than one cubic centimeter), inspired by space and the moon. The artwork is then included in a box that gets then sent into space (the first space flight was sent last year and docked at the International Space Station, but there's currently a year-round open call for art projects and artefacts in case you want to take part in the project – check it out at this link).

The project holds great significance for two main reasons: firstly, it initiates a discussion about human exploration as small artworks made on Earth are sent into space, and secondly, it offers artists an opportunity to assess the performance of their creations in microgravity.

While space travel entails prolonged periods of research and strenuous efforts to reach distant planets, the endeavor is worthwhile, and, with artists, architects and designers getting more interested in going beyond our earthly confines, it becomes evident that imaginative and innovative design will play a crucial role in our quest towards the ultimate frontier.

Cabinets of Wonder: New Design Solutions Through Eclectic Approaches

In the book "Design Matters" (1976), Bernat Klein analysed the role of design, claiming that design can change people's lives for the better. As he wrote, "Design means to enjoy the exploration of new possibilities. It means to take pleasure in finding new solutions to old problems; or to have fun juggling with a number of old solutions until they suddenly click and coalesce into one, beautiful, new solution."

Throughout the decades, finding new possibilities and solutions while adding a healthy dose of irony and a playful attitude to a product, allowed interior designers to come up with timeless pieces.

Let's think for example about cabinets or storage units: we tend to see them as pieces of furniture, often rectangular, with shelves inside, but such a basic piece of furniture can be radically and significantly transformed.

In 1980 Aldo Rossi (1931-1997) presented at Milan's Salone del mobile, his Cabina dell'Elba (Elba Cabin or Elba Cabinet), inspired by his childhood memories and by a trip to the Elba Island.

During this trip Rossi did sketches of the beach huts he saw, realizing that the humble beach cabin was like a small house, a rectangular structure with a pediment and a roof, painted in basic colours such as white and pale blue or white and red.

Rossi came to the conclusion that these "small houses" represented the idea of a house, and were actually universal constructions, perfect architectures that could be spotted all over the world. Besides, the cabins also represented the embodiment of a form of happiness evoking childhood memories and youth.

The architect therefore designed four prototypes of the cabin as a cabinet with Italian company Molteni and then made the final version in collaboration with the artisanal workshop of Bruno Longoni.

The cabin turned into an exemplary model of Rossi's design method, of his research on scale, and his desire to transfer architectural features built in open spaces into domestic spaces, transforming an exterior element into a decorative interior piece that created a theatrical summery atmosphere. In this way, the domestic landscape ended up mirroring the urban space, while still offering practical and functional design solutions for everyday living.

In 1992, explaining his inspirations for the cabin, Rossi stated, "Seeing is not enough: you have to watch till you take possession of the image and through the image of the thing."

This dichotomy between "seeing", that is perceiving something visually without necessarily giving it much attention or focus, and "watching," which implies a more deliberate act of observation, and hints at paying attention to something carefully and with a specific purpose in mind, is often the simple secret behind the creation of something iconic.

Take Cinzia Ruggeri (1945-2019)'s "Rocco" (1998) a cabinet that looks like an anthropomorphic futuristic piece. The cabinet has a rectangular black body topped by a triangular shape reminiscent of a head and stands on two golden feet, while a pair of golden arms protruding from within act as functional handles or knobs. There is only one decorative motif on the black lacquer, a heart pierced by a dagger, while an opening, similar to a slit, represents the eyes (lit from within by a bulb producing a red light as it shines on the internal red walls of the cabinet).

"Rocco" could be intended as a post-human figure or maybe a robot, but the origins of this piece may actually come from traditions. At a certain point in her career, Ruggeri took a voluntary break from fashion and moved to Puglia where she refocused on interior design; the Italian region is known for its traditions and religious celebrations like the Good Friday processions.

During the latter you can usually see the incappucciati, members of religious brotherhoods wearing long robes in the distinctive colours of their brotherhoods with their faces completely covered by hoods with small eye-holes; besides, they often walk barefoot as a sign of penance and humility (View this photo). The heart pierced by a dagger is also a symbol that appears during such processions (carried by the sorrowful Virgin during the Good Friday procession in Taranto View this photo).

The hooded figures are meant to represent penitents who are seeking forgiveness for their sins. The anonymity of the hood allows the penitents to focus on their own individual introspection and repentance, while preventing individuals from seeking attention or recognition for their piety. In a nutshell, the incappucciati represent penance, humility, and self-reflection.

While Rocco is not a piece about religion, its configuration with that triangular head and the feet sticking out evokes the attire of the incappucciati. Besides, the anonymity of these figures is reflected in the cabinet in a clever way: Rocco can indeed be conceived as a neutral portal, a humble and anonymous container that preserves items, objects, accessories and garments that allow the user to build their identity. The design is therefore the result of a visionary mind capable of observing an image and of "taking possession" of it, like Rossi stated, twisting traditions, taking them into another reality and reinventing them through basic geometries and irony. The disquieting incappucciato turns indeed into a creatively decorative and functional piece where somebody can store all the tools needed to build their own identity.Contemporary designer Elena Salmistraro also moved from a traditional inspiration to produce an extremely modern piece: her Chhau Donna Cabinet from the "Dancers" series is a plywood, brass and nautical resin cabinet (produced by Scarlet Splendour) that looks like a doll or a robotic figure borrowed from Oskar Schlemmer's Triadisches Ballett.

Actually there is a connection with dance in this piece: Salmistraro's inspiration comes indeed from Ethnochoreology, that is the study of ethnic dance and in particular the costumes of the Chhau performers. The handcrafted sculpted cabinet with those pastel pinks, blues and golden accents evokes the classic dances of India and the grandeur of the dancers' costumes.

But while in Ruggeri and Salmistraro's cases the human form clad in a specific costume inspires the shape of the cabinet, Bethan Laura Wood often moves from insects for her pieces.

The multidisciplinary artist who has a passion for investigating materials, colours and extravagant details, produced several iconic limited-edition pieces such as the Meisen Caterpillar.

Inspired by the famous caterpillar from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" and referencing in the name Wood's passion for Meisen kimonos, the cabinet incorporates a multi-draw structure inspired by the curvaceous concertina-like body of the insect (a shape that Wood also adopted for other piece in the Meisen series, including her desk), with shimmering psychedelic patterns of bespoke ALPI veneer (reproducing the weft and warp in Ikat weaving, used to produce Meisen fabrics) cascading down from its head to torso, evoking the colourful swirls and curls of the magic and hallucinatory smoke of the Caterpillar talking to Alice.

For those who prefer plants to people and animals, Italian artist and designer Marcantonio Raimondi Malerba explored the relationship with nature in a variety of interior design pieces (that are maybe less conceptual than the other ones featured in this post) forming an enchanted forest, from a gorilla-shaped armchair and log bench and stool to a leaf rug. Among the other pieces, there is a Tree Cabinet coated in nautical resin, and featuring brass interiors and stylized leaves.

Some of these pieces can be admired in the next few days during Milan Design Week: Salmistraro's Chhau cabinet and Marcantonio's forest are part of a showcase at 10 Corso Como, while Wood is a constant presence at the Milanese event.

Wood's print are available from the Wrong Shop pop-up store (Spazio 44, Corso Di Porta Nuova 44), she is launching her mirrors for Barbini Specchi Veneziani at Alcova, while her glass sculpture "Chain" can be admired at the Abrakadabra exhibition by Wonder Glass at the Istituto dei Ciechi (Via Vivaio 7; Salmistraro is also exhibiting a piece here) and her Meisen Cartepillar at the Nilufar gallery. But, if you are going to miss Milan Design Week, don't despair, use instead these examples of cabinets to get inspired and, remember, never stop looking at the world with new eyes and always "observe" rather than just "see".

Design Aggregates: The Art of Combining Materials

In yesterday's post we mentioned an antique 19th century L.T. Piver product sample album with over 220 illustrations of perfume bottles and other assorted cosmetic products in the context of materials.

Some may argue that glass perfume bottles aren't that easy to upcycle, but Belgian artist and designer Diederik Schneemann may dissent.

A while back, he started indeed a series entitled "Cherished" that included his "Essence Chandelier", a design made with a myriad of upcycled perfume bottles (there is also a coloured glass bottles version of this piece).

The principle behind this piece and behind other designs by Schneemann is not just an obsession with multiplication, but a passion for collections (hence the title of this series of pieces - "Cherished"). While looking for unusual materials, the designer stumbled upon discarded and unique collections and immediately fell in love with them.

Rather than as useless relics of our consumerist world or items accumulated by a serial hoarder, Schneemann started seeing these collections as personal treasures, and therefore as more precious than marble or bronze and more valuable than actual design pieces as they evoke memories and feelings. Besides, the person who collected them invested money, time, passion and dedication to find, buy and collect the objects in question.

Collections inspired Schneemann Ming Dynasty vases made from hundreds of Smurfs or toys from McDonald's Happy Meals.

The Smurfs and toys, one different from the other, form a chaotic and irregular yet irresistibly colourful three-dimensional surface on the vases.

But, in other cases, like his matchbox cabinets and clock, the designer used several version of the same material and first created small aggregates to find the perfect balance and then build a structure with these materials.

The matchbox cabinets and clocks are built with over 10,000 matchboxes acquired from all over the world, from holiday retreats to hotels in Japan, and from different decades, from the early '50s to the '90s. 

Schneemann is also interested in the narratives he can create through his designs: his vases made from discarded, discoloured and torn flip flops tell stories about waste polluting the oceans and then getting washed up on the shores of Africa. So, rather than an artist or designer, Schneemann works like a curator and a narrator. A few years ago rubbish also inspired the designer a project in collaboration with photographer Aldwin van Krimpen -  "Rubdish", a conceptual visualization of waste finding its way back onto our plate to comment about the risks of pollution.

Examples included appetizing-looking yet actually disgusting cakes and pastries made from waste ingredients found in a wide range of locations, from a demolition site of an old school, a harbor and a highway in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

The designer created a new piece for his "Cherished" collection - The Dutch Masters cupboard. This new piece incorporating 55 oil paintings painted by Dutch artists will be unveiled during Milan Design Week (18th - 23rd April) at the Rossana Orlandi Gallery.

 

Libraries of Materials: From Vintage Illustrations to Digital & Physical Archives

In yesterday's post we looked at colour charts, so, let’s continue the thread, but move on at the same time exploring libraries of materials. Materials serve indeed as a catalyst for creativity and out-of-the-box thinking and allow us to transform ideas into reality.

Technically, the first example in this post - an antique 19th century L.T. Piver product sample album - is not a proper catalogue of technical materials, but it is extremely interesting.

Filled with rare hand-painted illustrations and prints of over 220 perfume bottles, cosmetics, soaps and creams and other assorted products manufactured by the brand, the rare volume includes drawings that graphic illustrators may find fascinating.

Material-wise the album features pages dedicated to ointments and lotions catalogued in accordance to their jars and labels that also feature unusual drawings of the actual texture and colours of the balms in rose, gray or white with a pink marbled effect. The book, that could be considered a catalogue of beauty materials, will be available for purchase (for an eye-popping sum - $28,000) at the annual International Antiquarian Book Fair, taking place at New York City's Park Avenue Armory (27th - 30th April).

Fashion houses and fashion/textile/interior designers often subscribe to consultancy agencies that research and archive all sorts of materials to create wide catalogues and libraries.

Material ConneXion (MCX) for example curates libraries of materials from all over the world: founded over 20 years ago as a resource for furniture and architectural design, MCX offers its clients a material database with over 10,000 material innovations from over 7,000 global manufacturers. There's something for all tastes, going from synthetic fibers to more sustainable eco-friendly materials like vegan leathers made from multiple plants to Algiknit or Kelsun, renewable seaweed-based yarns.

MCX's digital material libraries and wall installations are similar to Bernat Klein's Colour Box, they allow the agency's clients to discover different materials through samples and informative sheets that get constantly updated and to find in this way starting points for new researches. The materials included come from a wide range of industries and offer solutions for a variety of applications.

The agency also organises presentations and conferences about materials: the next one, entitled "Material-Minded Design: the Intersection of Trend, Sustainability and the Materials We Use", featuring Jennifer Gumpert, Material ConneXion Vice President of Business Operations, will be at Milan's Triennale on 20th April (at 11.00 am) and will coincide with the local design week kicking off tomorrow.

Colour Charts: Gerhard Richter VS Bernat Klein

You don't need to be an artist to enjoy the magic of colour charts: boards with a variety of shades are indeed simply mesmerizing and usually feature hues for all tastes. 

In the book The Art of Color (Download Johannes Ittens_TheArtofColor) Johannes Itten stated that "color is life, for a world without colors appears to us dead". So, for today's post, let's look at some particularly inspiring colour charts.

In 1966, Gerhard Richter introduced the Color Chart concept in his practice: the arrangement of the colours on the squares painted on the canvas was done by a random process, but the first works of this kind were inspired by Pop Art and based on commercial colour samples.

Then, little by little, from mere copies of paint sample cards, Richter came up with a system that allowed him to multiply his primary palette and come up with a definite number of colour fields. In this way, he managed to conjure up 1,024 tones in an artwork that called to mind pixelated images.

He took things further and, in 1974, by repeating each of the 1,024 hues four times, he created "4096 Farben". The painting consisted of 4,096 colour fields and ended up being used as the basis for the artist's remarkable Cologne Cathedral Window (View this photo) in 2007 (but there are echoes of this work also in modern artworks such as Beeple's groundbreaking NFT "Everydays: The First 5,000 Days").

Richter's "4096 Farben" is on public display at Sotheby's London galleries until tomorrow before going up for auction for the first time in nearly two decades at the auction house's New York HQ in the Contemporary Evening Auction on May 18 (estimated value of $18-25 million), presented in partnership with Celine.

Fashion-wise Bernat Klein was a pioneer of the colour chart. Nowadays, colour charts are mainly digital and fashion houses and brands often subscribe to agencies that provide colour services, but Klein created his own guides.

Born in Yugoslavia (now Serbia) in 1922, to an Orthodox Jewish family running a wholesale textile business, Klein studied in the UK and lived in Galashiels, in the Scottish Borders.

In his work he was inspired by the colours of the local landscapes and the nature surrounding his modernist house, High Sunderland (commissioned to architect Peter Womersley in the 1950s), and by his passion for Pointillist oil paintings.

An accomplished painter, colour consultant, textile and industrial designer, Klein turned these inspirations into highly original palettes and fashion textiles with unique textures.

At times, his paintings - such as "Lichen", a grid of squares (similar to Richter's colour charts) in which neutral tones were mixed with a green palette with occasional sparkles of yellow - became the starting point for his intricate and multi-coloured tweeds.

In 1965 he published his first Personal Colour Guide: this concept was inspired by one principle - individuals should adhere to a palette that complimented their eyes when choosing clothes, rather than follow fashion trends. The eyes for Klein were indeed "the most positively coloured part of the human body".

The Guides, discussed in great detail in Klein's book "Eye for Colour", became successful also with the UK Government: in 1969, the Department of the Environment commissioned the artist and textile designer to create a standardised range of fabrics for a variety of purposes and for administration offices and army accommodation.

For the occasion, he came up with co-ordinated colour guides for interiors, with designs for 22 carpets, 13 woven textiles and 11 polyester fabrics. The three volumes of colour schemes, featured one key carpet design with samples of co-ordinated textiles and accent fabrics that would have worked well together to create perfectly co-ordinated working and living environments.

Some of Klein's colour charts are also part of the exhibition "Bernat Klein: Design In Colour" at the National Museum Of Scotland, Edinburgh (until 23rd April).

The museum acquired Klein's archive in 2010, that includes around 4,000 objects. The charts on display are taken from his Colour Box, "a large wooden structure designed to hold twenty or so boards on to which were stuck row after row of tiny, plastic pockets," Bernat Klein's daughter Shelley explains in the volume "The See-Through House".

The pockets contained "tiny twists of yarn, snippets of paper, dimples of wool and fingernails of cloth", collected and subsequently methodically arranged throughout the years for reference purposes. Klein used them to combine and balance colours, so these charts are important to understand where his luxurious multi-nuanced velvet tweeds came from.

As stated above, Klein appreciated the nuances of the colours surrounding him, but also their instability: a video interview included in the exhibition features people who worked with him and includes a story about Klein bringing a leaf into the dye-works and asking to immediately produce a hue replicating that particular shade before the leaf changed colour. 

In our intangible, immaterial and digital world, Klein's colour guides (replicas of his charts are available from the Bernat Klein Foundation) provide us with a tangible and physical connection with colours. They inspire us to appreciate and value all hues in different contexts and disciplines, not just in art, fashion or interior design, challenging our traditional understanding and preconceived notions of colours.

Creative Challenges: Pondering on the Quest for a Captivating Exhibition Title

There's something uncannily fascinating in those TV shows featuring the industrial production lines of major food companies. Though many of the products shown are very unhealthy, it is actually oddly satisfying seeing vast expanses of caramel being mixed in stainless steel vats, thousands of yummy chocolate sweets on conveyor belts and marshmallows being extruded through a machine.

To be honest, the making of something is usually more fascinating than the final product and that happens mainly because when something is unfinished it still leaves you with hundreds of possibilities. Behind the scenes film specials show us, for example, hilarious moments with actors forgetting their lines and laughing with the crew or directors revealing how they shot a scene; while the making of a live performance or a fashion show provides us with much needed adrenaline-charged moments or anxiety-inducing breakdowns.

Behind the scene documentaries of exhibitions are the same: curators doing their background researches, the pieces arriving at a museum or at major biennial event and, maybe, an artist's tantrum about something going wrong, end up being more interesting than the final event as they reveal unexpected human sides and juicy secrets. But there is an aspect that they never show you when they do "behind the scene" specials of exhibitions: the moment when a team decides the title of an event. So you're left wishing you could see a meeting in which the people involved started to come up with ideas to learn how they pick a title, if there are any major doubts or rows or if everybody unanimously agrees about the chosen title.

For example, it would be very interesting to know how the Met Museum in New York and the Costume Institute at the Met pick the titles for their events. As you may remember from a previous post, the Costume Institute's 2018 Spring exhibition "Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination" seemed to be the result of a clash of two different titles, Heavenly Bodies: Cult Treasures and Spectacular Saints from the Catacombs by Paul Koudonaris, published by Thames & Hudson in 2013, and Father Andrew Greeley's book The Catholic Imagination (2000).

Technically this is not a matter of copyright infringement, but it shows a surprising lack of imagination that you wouldn't expect from a major museum (is it indeed so hard to find a title that doesn't derive from somewhere else?). Besides, the lack of originality in a title may end up being confusing for consumers: "Heavenly Bodies" was not just the title of the exhibition, but of the catalogue as well, and a quick research on Amazon shows several items with that same title.

But it looks like they did it again: everything is almost ready for this year's exhibition, a tribute to the late Karl Lagerfeld that will feature more than 150 garments with the designer's sketches accompanying most of the pieces. This time the title is shorter and more compact: "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty" (on view from May 5 through July 16, 2023; a relatively short time for such a monumental event).

Choosing a title for an event represents a key decision, it must make an impression and affect audience expectations in a positive way, and usually curators pick titles that sell well. In this case, it is short, so people will easily remember it; besides, it fits easily on posters, brochures and on the cover of the exhibition catalogue, so it looks like it may work. Yet this title is reminiscent of a 2011 minor exhibition that took place in London and that was entitled "Dior Illustrated: René Gruau and the Line of Beauty".

This may be an accidental situation, yet there are similarities between the two figures: Gruau was an artist and illustrator and Lagerfeld was an artist, fashion designer, photographer and illustrator. Actually, his inventive illustrations and sketches were the starting point for all his collections, they represented indeed the primary mode of the designer's creative expression translated by his seamstresses into three-dimensional garments. So this aspect reunites the two figures. 

The exhibition's press release presents an explanation for the title: inspiration comes from William Hogarth's book The Analysis of Beauty, which describes the author's theories of art and aesthetics centered around his concept of the line of beauty, also defined "serpentine line", defined as "an S-shaped curved line appearing within an object or as the boundary line of an object, representing liveliness and movement".

According to the press release, "while Hogarth viewed straight lines as representative of stillness and inactivity, Lagerfeld took inspiration from both the straight and serpentine line in equal measure".

The exhibition starts therefore with an emphasis on Lagerfeld's two-dimensional drawings, and then develops following two lines that represent conceptual expressions of Lagerfeld's sketches - the serpentine line and the straight line, which designate opposing yet complementary forces in his work.

As the press release explains, "The serpentine line signifies Lagerfeld's historicist, romantic, and decorative impulses, while the straight line indicates his modernist, classicist, and minimalist tendencies." In a way, this division echoes the dichotomy between the Apollonian and Dionysian philosophical concepts and juxtapositions, with Apollo representing harmony, progress, clarity and logic, and Dionysus representing disorder, intoxication, emotion and ecstasy.

As the exhibition progresses, though, this division splinters becoming more complex, as announced in the press release: the two main lines are further divided into nine "sublines" representing aesthetic and conceptual dualities showcased in his designs for Chanel, Chloé, Fendi, and Karl Lagerfeld - feminine and masculine, romantic and military, rococo and classical, historical and futuristic, ornamental and structural, canonical and countercultural, artisanal and mechanical, floral and geometric, and figurative and abstract.

There will also be "garments that represent moments of convergence, wherein the competing aesthetics of these contrasting dichotomies are united and reconciled," (so, basically, designs that will contradict the concept behind the exhibition...).

The last line explored will be the "satirical line", also divided in two parts: "the first will include garments that communicate Lagerfeld's razor-sharp wit expressed through ironic, playful, and whimsical embroideries; the second will feature ensembles that mirror the late designer's self-image through various representations of his immediately recognizable black-and-white 'uniform'".

It is surprising how they managed to derive from one simple word - line - so many complex divisions and sublines and hopefully they will also devise a coloured map like the one for London's tube to allow visitors to find their ways through this maze of lines. But this word is not the only problem, there is indeed another word in the title - beauty - that isn't that convincing.

This word has indeed appeared in quite a few titles of exhibitions not just at the Costume Institute but also at Met – "Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed" (2001), "Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty" (2011) and "Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art" (2018-2019). Sure, you must be quick and concise in titles, but using a word continuously (even at intervals of 10 years) risks of sounding banal or repetitive.

Besides, "beauty" is an abused word in our times: it evokes the hundreds of beauty lines launched by all sorts of people every year, from influencers to celebrities; it echoes our collective obsession with our personal individual looks, but also with our deep desire to filter out what we perceive as our defects and conform to a concept of beauty we are collectively sold, mainly via social media.

In Lagerfeld's case, you wonder if they may have come up with a more complex title that may have also hinted at the fact that he was a controversial figure. The German-born designer was a record breaker: his career in fashion spanned over 60 years and his tenure at Chanel lasted for four remarkable decades, something that is definitely inconceivable for younger designers who, after being appointed amid great fanfare at a fashion house, end up lasting there only a few seasons. 

Lagerfeld was unique, he had a great knowledge and talents, but he was also a controversial figure: he was capable of grand gestures, but also of great hate as the late André Leon Talley recounts in his biography The Chiffon Trenches (2020). After shedding 90 pounds to be able to wear Hedi Slimane's super thin suits for Dior Homme, and after discarding his signature fans, an accessory he used to hide his double chin, in favour of dark sunglasses, multiple rings on his fingers and fingerless leather gloves to hide age spots, Lagerfeld often openly proclaimed his dislike for women who were above the traditional catwalk model size (in 2012 he called singer Adele "a little too fat").

Quite often documentaries and interviews about him were riddled with nonsensical or obnoxious quotes: in 2018 he stated in an interview with Numéro that he was fed up with the #MeToo movement. In that interview he also defended stylist Karl Templer accused of having pulled down models' underwear on a set, and suggested that models should know what they are getting into, stating in an almost Shakesperian tone: "If you don't want your pants pulled about, don't become a model! Join a nunnery, there'll always be a place for you in the convent. They're recruiting even!"

In death we often tend to forget the bad things someone may have said and prefer to remember them only by their good deeds, and in many ways this exhibition does the same (but some institutions are choosing to show also unpleasant details about designers: the Victoria & Albert Museum's exhibition about Chanel, opening in September, will also address Coco Chanel's pro-Nazi activities).

So, tout est pardonné, and "a line of beauty" splintered in too many sublines will provide us with a new way to explore Lagerfeld's opera omnia.

Will the Costume Institute start coming up with more intriguing titles on day? Who knows, maybe next time they will get a Thesaurus or ChatGPT will come to their rescue. Actually, asked to provide ideas for a title for a Karl Lagerfeld exhibition, the bot came up with a variety of titles - "Karl Lagerfeld: Mastering the Art of Beauty" and "Karl Lagerfeld's Timeless Beauty: A Retrospective" among the others.

Requested to change the word "beauty" and to include references to art and fashion illustration, it came up with "Karl Lagerfeld: Capturing Elegance Through the Ages", "Karl Lagerfeld: The Art of Timeless Glamour", "Karl Lagerfeld: Sketching Fashion into Art" and "Karl Lagerfeld: Fashion Sketches and the Art of Expression". In the case of the latter ChatGPT also went on to explain its choice, "This title highlights Lagerfeld's passion for fashion sketches and illustrations, while emphasizing the idea that fashion can be a form of artistic expression. It suggests that the exhibition will showcase Lagerfeld's unique approach to fashion and the creative process involved in his work."

Asked to provide a title that also highlighted the fact the designer was a controversial figure, the system produced instead "Karl Lagerfeld: Provocative Visionary of Fashion", "Karl Lagerfeld: The Polarizing Maverick of Fashion" and "Karl Lagerfeld: The Enigmatic Provocateur of Haute Couture".

Sure, most of these titles are too long and do not offer a unified vision to develop a cohesive exhibition, but these are just test trials to play around with Artificial Intelligence and dispel our frustration at not being able to see a "behind the scene" event with a board meeting in which the people involved start a quarrel around exhibition draft titles.

Maybe one day there will be a documentary about the making of an exhibition with inglorious massive quarrels about exhibit titles included. Till then, we can go back to watch large vats of caramel being mixed together - yes, they are totally unhealthy, but strangely mesmerizing and definitely less complicated than hair-splitting lines of beauty.

Fashion Obituary: Dame Mary Quant, Pioneer of the Mini-Skirt & Swinging London Icon (1930 - 2023)

In 2010, during an interview with Vidal Sassoon, the hairstylist mentioned Mary Quant being featured in Craig Teper's Vidal Sassoon The Movie. Sassoon remembered then that, rather than reminiscing, on set the iconic British fashion designer and retailer, who was also one of his muses, talked about the future, "because that's what we've always been," he highlighted, "visionaries projected into the future".

Quant, who in the '60s revolutionised women's style and also launched a pioneering retail plan, died today at her home in Surrey, as announced by her family; she was 93.

Born in 1930 and brought up in Blackheath, London, Quant was the daughter of two Welsh schoolteachers. She studied illustration at Goldsmiths, graduating in 1953 with a diploma in art education, and began her apprenticeship at a high-end milliner, Erik of Brook Street.

In 1955 with her husband, the aristocrat Alexander Plunket Greene, and their friend, lawyer-turned-photographer Archie McNair, she opened a restaurant (Alexander's) in the basement of a building in London's King's Road, Chelsea, with a boutique called Bazaar on the ground floor.

While Plunket Greene managed the property, McNair oversaw legal matters and Quant concentrated on design. At the beginning, she stocked the shop with garments bought from wholesale retailers, but felt frustrated by what was available at the time on the market. So, after attending pattern cutting classes and building on the success of a first design, a pair of lounge pyjamas created for the opening of the boutique, she started selling in store her own creations.

In the early days the production was slow and rather limited: the sales at the boutique allowed her to buy the fabric she needed to make new stock that would then go on sale at the boutique. This guaranteed a constant run of new and trendy designs that appealed the boutique's young consumers.

Quant favoured functional pieces that echoed children's clothes, and were ideal for everyday life, practical outfits such as short tunic dresses matched with brightly coloured tights. She also invented hot pants and took motifs and elements from well-known garments such as Norfolk jackets, tab-collared shirts and Liberty bodices and reinvented them, and came up with men's cardigans long enough to wear as dresses.

Bazaar represented a breath of fresh air and an entirely new concept in retail: it was indeed among the few places in the '50s and early '60s that offered alternative styles in a scene that mainly featured couturiers and department stores and, retail-wise, it represented a step into the future. Quant created indeed in the shop a sort of immersive experience with music, drinks, fun windows displays and extended opening hours. Besides, the designer launched a branded identity, adopting the daisy motif as her signature logo.

By 1957 demand for her clothes pushed Quant to open a second store in a space designed by Terence Conran (the professional connection between these two figures is currently being explored at New York's The Museum at FIT's exhibition "Designing Women: Fashion Creators and Their Interiors", on until May 14, 2023).

A year later, Quant launched the miniskirt: while some claim that it was French couturier André Courrèges that invented it in 1964, Quant certainly championed the garment that was then popularized by stick-thin model Twiggy (Quant's designs weren't friendly with curvy silhouettes).

Quant's feel-good designs for women - her mini-skirts, coloured textured tights, skinny rib sweaters (inspired by trying on an eight-year-old's sweater for fun) and low heels - liberated women from constricting girdles creating a contrast between more conservative styles and new looks, characterized by playful patterns and humorous twists.

The short skirts with a name that evoked the Mini Cooper broke away from the conventional norms of the past and became a symbol of the changing role of women in society: they allowed mobility and granted women the freedom to run for a bus, dance, have fun and be in control of their lives. Her accomplishments, though, also represented a personal rebellion, since her parents had opposed her desire to study fashion.

In the '60s Quant also experimented with new materials, such as Crimplene, acrylic wool, acetate, and PVC, using the latter for clothes and for her iconic weatherproof boots, from her Quant Afoot footwear range.

Made from clear plastic over a coloured lining, they resembled Chelsea boots with square heels and toes and the heels were moulded with Mary Quant's signature daisy motif so that the wearer would leave a trail of daisy footprints behind her after walking through a puddle - a typical ironic and fun Quant twist.

More lines followed, including underwear, costume jewelry, cosmetics (still operating), interior designs and a Daisy toy doll range, plus a design contract with American department-store chain JC Penney. In 1965, together with other fashion designers like Foale and Tuffin, Quant went on the British "Youthquake" tours to the US arranged by the Puritan Fashion Corporation and JC Penney in New York.

Part of the success of the brand was due to the fact that its founder modeled her own designs extensively, taking inspiration from fashion icons such as Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli who had done the same before her.

She was also the perfect muse for other key figures of the Swinging London scene such as Vidal Sassoon: one of the most iconic images from the '60s, shows indeed Quant, having her hair cut by Sassoon in a geometrically perfect architectural bob.

In her autobiography she wrote about him: "Vidal Sassoon liberated women from the punishment of hours spent under the bonnet of a hairdryer, with fat rollers skewered to their scalps, while being par-boiled (…) Vidal Sassoon, the Pill and the mini-skirt changed everything. For me, Vidal Sassoon produced the perfect cap on my leggy mini-skirted designs and the frame for my Colour Cosmetics."

In 1966, Quant was awarded an OBE and the following year, she opened her third shop, in London's New Bond Street. During the '60s she also contributed with her designs to iconic films.

Quant provided wardrobes and costumes for Claire Bloom in Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963), Cilla Black and Julie Samuels in Jeremy Summers' Ferry Cross the Mersey (1964), Charlotte Rampling in Silvio Narizzano's Georgy Girl (1966), Nancy Kwan in John Krish's The Wild Affair (1965) and Audrey Hepburn in Stanley Donen's Two for the Road (1967).

The next decade wad marked by more successes and an exhibition as well at the London Museum (Kensington Palace), from November 1973 to June 1974. 

After her first autobiography in 1966, Quant by Quant, she went on to publish further books - Colour (1984), Quant on Make-up (1986), Classic Make up & Beauty Book (1996) and, in 2011, her second autobiography, Mary Quant. 

She resigned as director of Mary Quant Ltd. in 2000 following a takeover by a Japanese group and in 2009 Quant's "banana split" dress was featured in the Royal Mail stamp series part of a celebration of Great British design (that also included the Mini Cooper).

Quant often appeared in documentaries about the Swinging London, including Craig Teper's Vidal Sassoon The Movie and David Batty's My Generation, and, in 2021, Sadie Frost shot a documentary about her, Quant.

Quant was the subject of a retrospective at the Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum in 2019 that explored her work between 1955 and 1975 and looked at the designer in the context of the #MeToo movement and the new momentum behind women's rights.

In 2018, the V&A staff launched a #WeWantQuant campaign, appealing to the public for clothes they might be willing to loan or donate for the event. They received over a thousand emails from women who still cherished and preserved Quant's designs, a testament to her revolutionary approach and of her infectious energy that had allowed Quant to elevate the lives of women through her bold, irreverent, and disruptive aesthetics.

Patterns of Overconsumption: The Potential and The Meaning of Waste in Erika Scott's "The Circadian Cul-de-sac" @ The National 4, Carriageworks, Sydney

A lilac beaded necklace. It doesn't look particularly striking; it's actually almost banal. But you can imagine the person who used to own it wearing it as a simple every day accessory, or maybe on a special occasion, like a dinner out with friends or on a date.

Yet, we all know that once the allure, the glamour and the appeal of an object have gone, we tend to throw it out. So, we can easily imagine the owner of this simple object getting rid of it and the necklace ending up in a landfill or maybe in a thrift shop. The story of that necklace, though, becomes irrelevant as by now the piece has a new life as a part of an artwork by Erika Scott.

The Australian artist mainly working with sculpture and installations creates indeed assemblages using discarded objects, bits and pieces from our culture of endless consumption, from the debris of our modern times.

Scott collects and reconfigures these salvaged domestic detritus into architectural structures and multi-sensory landscapes. Modifying their intended use and value, the artist explores systems of exchange in our society, but also our personal habits of accumulating and hoarding, buying and forgetting.

Through her cluttered artworks Scott tackles our collective mania for amassing, collecting, displaying, showcasing, and then throwing out as well.

The artist doesn't change the configurations of the objects she employs: she isn't indeed using these pieces to tell us how to recycle or upcycle them and transform the undesirable into the desirable. The objects in her sculptures remain the same so, when you examine sections of her works, you can spot a toy here or a latex horror-themed mask there, hoses and kitsch statuettes, a a wide selection of waste materials entangled together in an uncanny embrace.

Her latest work, "The Circadian Cul-de-sac" (2023), is currently on at The National 4, the latest iteration of the multi-venue biennial survey of Australian art. The event features experimental works by over 80 artists on display across four of Sydney's cultural institutions. "The National 4: Australian Art Now" at Carriageworks (until 25th June 2023) brings together 11 new artist commissions, some of them employing found materials as a social and political commentary.

Part of this display, Scott’s "The Circadian Cul-de-sac" consists in ordinary objects wrapped around a four-metre-high hourglass sculpture made of two zorb balls, set in an inflated bubbling pool.

The structure incorporates discarded fish tanks, car tires, empty photo frames, LED lights, jewelry, TV remotes, plastic grapes, an eye mask, screens and computer keyboard keys, Tampax instructions, and all sorts of tchotchkes. Objects are combined in humorous ways or uncanny ways (a statuette of a seahorse is attached to a pipe as if it were sucking oxygen from it or as if it were being poisoned by toxic discharges...).

At times the artist plays with colour or material juxtapositions to explore visual sensations and tactile dimensions, but all objects here, once collected and beloved, have lost their functions. Rearranged and reconfigured in a mysterious structure, in a renewed pattern, they form an unrecognizable and chaotic structure. Familiar household objects are sucked into a maelstrom of twisted wires and objects, creating a striking visual contrast, a confrontation between recognisable consumables and a state of disorder.

The hourglass is fed by hoses and liquids, symbolizing capitalist flows that have resulted in the accumulation of material possessions. In a way, the hourglass stands for a novelty item, an idea that drives consumer culture: it is indeed our collective obsession with novelty that erodes traditional cultures of maintenance and repair, enabling the rapid and relentless production of new goods.

But that's not the only metaphor behind this structure: usually an hourglass symbolises mortality and death itself. Here death is implicit in the physical accumulation of materials, the result of our overconsumption often exercised through intangible interactions (nowadays we don't even need to be physically in a shop to buy something, we can just go online, look for something we want/need, choose it, click and buy it).

As we have become accustomed to accumulate not just physical objects but digital images, invisible data and files that may become inaccessible in future as technology progresses and certain supports and software become obsolete, maybe one day we will also have artists building intangible Babel towers of our immaterial digital clutter. In the meantime, Scott will have enough raw materials to fashion her very tangible works of art, bringing in this way attention to the perpetual nature of our excessive overconsumption patterns.

Image credits for this post

1 - 2. Installing The Circadian Cul-de-sac, 2023. Images by Hyun Lee.

3, 4 and 5. The making of The Circadian Cul-de-sac by Erika Scott.

6. Erika Scott, The Circadian Cul-de-sac, 2023. Installation view, The National 4: Australian Art Now, Carriageworks. Photo: Zan Wimberley.

Synthetic Turf Upcycling with an Arty Twist

Upcycling, the process of transforming waste materials into new products of higher value, has become a popular trend in recent years. Many of us maybe immediately think about turning old clothes or furniture into something new when we talk about recycling or upcycling, but there is another important area where this process can make a big impact - industrial materials.

Every day, huge amounts of industrial waste are produced by factories, construction sites, and other industrial operations. Rather than letting these materials go to waste, upcycling can transform them into useful products, reducing the need for new raw materials and cutting down on waste.

There are a wide variety of industrial materials that can be upcycled or recycled, including metals, plastics, and wood, while others pose serious problems and issues, among them synthetic turf.

In the early '90s, there was an environmental emergency connected with scrap tires in America: tires were causing toxic fires as they accumulated in stockpiles or were abandoned in woods and empty lots. A new industry was eventually created when they found a way to grind tires and used them to make artificial turf. This material was then employed in a variety of applications from schools and parks to stadiums. The industry boomed in America as this solution seemed to offer many pros: once installed synthetic turf cut the cost of water, eliminated the need for pesticides, fertilizers, and also constant mowing.

Yet, the average life of a pitch is 10 years, based on normal quality, proper installation, reasonable maintenance, exposure to sunlight and normal usage over its lifetime and, as they became more popular, over the course of a few decades, synthetic-turf fields eventually ended up causing the same problem of discarded tires - a surplus of worn-out millions of square feet of synthetic turf again piling up in landfills, woods and empty lots.

Landfill disposal became the most common method, but at times, abandoned in areas where they risked of getting into the drinking-water supply of nearby towns, synthetic turf rolls posed health risks (besides, rubber crumbs can break and end up being inhaled).

A parallel industry emerged with companies recycling old turf and selling it to private consumers for landscaping, dog kennels, or paintball arenas, but, even in these cases, such a material eventually ends up in a landfill.

The problem with synthetic turf is that it is a difficult material to recycle: it is indeed a bit like a toxic mille feuille with artificial grass-like blades (usually made of various polymers) interspersed with sand and pulverized tires that give the field stability and shock absorbency. Underneath the blades there are more layers of plastic and rubber, often including shock pads and drainage mats.

Separating all these materials is difficult, especially the sand and rubber infill, but industry experts say the hardest part is extracting the sand from the crumb rubber, which is necessary if someone wants to reuse the rubber for something else.

Luckily there have been great progresses when it comes to recycling this material: for example, Re-Match, founded in 2013 in Denmark by Dennis Andersen, has become a leader in recycling artificial turf pitches.

The company offers a patented and environmentally sustainable recycling process (that has received EU Environmental Technology Verification, ETV) that allows it to separate worn-out turf into clean raw components (sand, backing, rubber and plastic fiber) that are then sold in new production cycles or used for installation of new synthetic turf pitches.

But there are other ways to upcycle synthetic turf: painter Jane Dickson is known for her quintessential American scenes. Her subjects go from peep shows, porn parlors and casinos to suburban homes and grocery stores.

Quite often in her works there is a sense of isolation and alienation, while her prevalently dark palette with bursts of bright reds and electric oranges and moody blues, points at anguish, tension and anxiety.

Rather than mere canvases, the artist favours unconventional materials, including carpets, sandpaper and synthetic turf.

These unusual materials allow her to explore their textural possibilities and create paintings enhanced by a sort of three-dimensional consistency (surprisingly, so far, no fashion house has yet collaborated with her and recreated her works painted on these uncommon materials on wool or faux fur designs).

Given the textural composition and structure of AstroTurf and carpets, when Dickson paints on them she creates a sort of pointillism effect.

The final image looks a bit blurred, almost seen through a thick fog maybe and her paintings of gasoline stations, pharmacies, suburban scapes, malls, roads, highways and urban landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge, end up acquiring an uncanny ambiance, an eerie atmosphere, fraught with an unexplainable sense of foreboding and apprehension, but also of detachment, with a surreal twist added in the mix (think the "God" truck in one of her AstroTurf paintings).

So, while upcycling industrial materials is not without its challenges, with the right expertise and equipment, it can be a rewarding and sustainable way to create new products and breathe new life into them.

Concluding tip for art enthusiasts: for anyone who finds themselves in Belgium next week and is interested in delving deeper into Dickson's artistry and in her synthetic turf paintings, a visit to the Stems Gallery booth at Art Brussels (20th - 23rd April 2023) is highly recommended.