07/10/2014

Warm Shades for the Chilly Autumn

If spring got its own color palette, autumn is certainly not missing one, too. For this season the shades are more or less oriented towards natural colors, including mainly burgundy, deep red plonk as an equally valid alternative, and military green. During New York Fashion Week we similarly composed color palettes on Lacoste’s catwalk, where the color was intense from head to toe, maintaining the same gradient, except for the jackets which were slightly darker. Speaking of other chromatically tuned trends, one we particularly noticed relates to pendants: Alexander Wang went for a purple micro patterned dress, matched together with blouse and foulard.

In London, instead, we found two opposite approaches, which eventually ended up using similar tones. The precision and the high craft involved in the collection designed by Mary Katrantzou meets the utilitarian sportsmanship of Hunter Original. The first one has chosen an intense burgundy for her girly crochet, and the second headed to its closest nuance, green. Milan played a double role, too. On one side, the digital revolution of Alexis Martial, where the puffy jacket is well refined and comes in green profiled by white, and, on the other, the bourgeois woman in deep red proposed by Bottega Veneta. Dark and intense fall colors touched Parisian catwalks as well, combined together in total looks both by Acne Studios and Balmain.

Francesca Crippa 
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07/10/2014

Guest Interview n° 58: Keren Cytter

On the occasion of the solo exhibition at Raffaella Cortese gallery in Milan, we met Keren Cytter (b.1977, Israel), one of the most brilliant and critically acclaimed (even though she is quick to point out her bad reviews) artists of the latest generation, who works with film, video installations, performance, drawings and photography, besides writing novels, theatre plays and poetry. In a light, pleasant conversation, with sharp irony flavored with an uncommon speed of thought, Keren talks about her idea of identity, women’s issues and positive thinking, passing through the genius of Roger Federer and the work of some colleagues.

Identity vs Status. Are people more focussed on building their status instead of looking at their own identity?
I don’t think so, just compare todays situation to 16th century when the value of status was really much higher. If you think about mental illness, for example, if you had some mental disorder your family kicked you out because of the status of the illness. Now there is much more acceptance. Everybody is talking about identity now because of the Internet, but I’m torn a bit. The problem today is that there is a different idea of status; it is more related to being perfect and when people discover that they have an average life, this causes depression. I think this is why people question ever more often their status related to sexuality or gender. I think a lot of sufferance comes from the contemporary notions of status, but now that I turned 37, I’m very happy because I learnt that I don’t have to fit into pre-established codes. Recently, I was in Greece and a bought a bouzouki (a Greek mandolin), and now I’m playing: I do not have any ambitions to be fitting, so I can simply have fun.

So do you think you have found your balance?
You know, I find it and then I lose it. One moment I know how things go and soon after I lose it again and get depressed…

I understand, but you do a lot of things (you write, you are a director, a performer etc.) and you shine at everything so this could be helpful to be more self-confident?
Ah, this is good, but I’m not aware of it and indeed I read very bad reviews about my work and this makes me think a lot about how they know if a thing is good or not, or which review I should believe.

Does this hurt you?
No, I’m not that fragile but it is frustrating. When I think that something is good I hold on and think how I can improve it. Like the “Show Real Drama”, it’s one of my theatre plays and I think it’s really good, but except from one time, we never got good reviews. I think this keeps me down to earth. I’m doing a catalogue containing all my scripts and while doing this I’m discovering myself acting like business people do, I feel like a serious person, kind of like Anna Wintour.

Are you scaring your collaborators?
I think that everybody thinks she’s scary just because she’s a woman, if she were a men it would be totally fine!

You gave me an input to ask you about your idea regarding women’s rights. Are women still underestimated?
Oh yes for sure, I think about it a lot. Since I’m Jewish, I get hurt a lot, but I think that being a woman is actually much more discriminating than being Jewish because as a woman I can be raped. There are some sentences that really piss me off, like once I was asked to be interviewed “with other really strong women” and I thought “what does it mean, what is a strong woman?” Based on what I know, most of these strong women in art can barely pay the rent because they don’t sell. It’s all marketing and this makes me angry. I remember when I was in art school, I applied for a prize with some work with spray on canvas. When I met the jury they said: “Oh, we didn’t expect you to be a woman” so in that moment I realized that I changed their expectations. I’m also thinking that women never ever succeed like men.

Changing the topic, how do you start the production of a video? Do you need to write it down before?
No, I just need to think about images or style or how you could perceive things. For example, I had an idea on how to proceed for the next video, but this is from something I saw long time ago on Youtube. It is a tennis match between Federer and Marat Safin, the Russian handsome guy, and it had the soundtrack of “Teenage wasteland” that I never heard before, but it’s really exciting and I enjoyed watching the video. It had an editing on VHS with lots of cuts and stops before and after, and it looked so nice that I though to make a video that is a bit this kind of writing, where you have something then you have a glimpse of something, then this glimpse can continue a bit longer and then the chunks are not related to drama but always with a bit of misfile. Then I got the new Leonard Cohen record, and it has really optimistic tunes and also the tone of the music itself and he says, or I think he says, that in this times people really need positive messages and I thought about that too. So that’s the way, I just think about things around me until I feel that I’m somewhere in this place and then I can start working on it.

You mentioned Roger Federer, this gives me the chance to talk a little bit about your passion for tennis. Could you tell us what are the “Federer moments” for you?
It’s so unique to find athletes that fight against themselves, that are focused on improving themselves instead of trying to beat someone else. I read Joseph Campbell’s writings about mythology and the highest level of mythology of the Hero – who is he with himself – and I think it is what Federer is doing, just expanding himself. Once I went to Madison Square Garden to see a game and there were Andy Roddick and Roger Federer. Roddick was more eloquent, but Federer was just in perfect harmony, the highest level of unity between spirit and body. Then in 2008 I remember being in Japan and waking up because of the jet leg and there was Wimbledon final on the TV. It was the first time that Federer lost against Nadal. It was one of the longest matches ever, I stayed up all the night and I realized that I cared about Federer. After that I read an article saying Federer was treating tennis as art, while sport should not be art, but actually I think that the highest level of sport could be like art, like a conceptual idea and he is just special.

But besides the genius, athletes need a constant training to achieve their goals. Do you think this could work also for artists?
Well, I think that now it’s a bit different. We are in a conceptual era, where you have many works that insult our intelligence, in which you can’t see anything to admire and even nothing that you can’t understand.

Is the direction we are going towards devoid of contents and critical thinking?
I think ten years ago the situation was more or less the same. 90% of what you see is not that good, yet you should at least try twice before saying you don’t like something, because it’s too easy to criticize without seeing things.

Which are your sources of inspiration? Are there any books or other works that interested and influenced you?
I think there are a lot of books, all the classics like Dostoevskij and E.A. Poe, whom I never liked yet I recently realised that his structure is similar to what I’m doing. Then also Gombrowicz, the Polish writer, whose themes are related to existential problems, treated with lightness and satire.

And what about contemporary art?
I made a list because I need to think about this. I like Fischli&Weiss, Wilhelm Sasnal… You know who I think I like but I’m torn because he is so successful? Wolfgang Tillmans. I have to admit I like him a lot. I’m not sure if I like Cattelan, his works are more entertainment, but at the same time, they are not so cheap and stupid.

No women? What about Joan Jonas? Do you think you have something in common despite the generation gap?
I understand what she’s doing and really appreciate and respect her. I met her in Japan long time ago and I think she’s very respectful too, giving space to everybody. She’s old enough to see that there is space for everyone. I think we are both on the study of the same things and we try to combine the same ingredients in a different way. The medium is also quite similar, we just have a different language, but actually the language is not that different. Maybe I base my work more on text, while she is more concentrated on symbols, ancient symbols, symbolic symbols and stuff like that. I know that she knows my work and I think she likes it too.

Interview by Monica Lombardi 
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06/10/2014

Style Suggestions: City Accessories for Men

Warm your winter rides with this essential yet unbearably stylish accessories. Who said cold weather had to be dull?

Beanie: Acne, Shoes: Roy Roger’s, Bag: Burberry, Bike: Paul Smith

Styling by Vanessa Cocchiaro 

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06/10/2014

Designers in Residence: Disruption

As every other area of human activity, design is subject to fashion. Different types of practices can grow and evolve exponentially over different periods on time, depending on social contexts, political climate, cultural milieu or technological development. Looking back at the last couple of decades, it is easy to trace designers’ obsession with disparate, yet equally specific issues (ranging from digital revolution to speculative design), that responded, often abruptly, to the overall climate of the time. If we look at design practice today, we can easily note how certain topics and ideas are exploited up to a point where they become part of the mainstream, fashionable, culture, often loosing their meaning in the process. Such is the case with the idea of disruption and design as a political force that can influence and shift processes in society. It is, therefore, meaningful that this year’s Designers in Residence program at the Design Museum in London would take over the theme of disruption, precisely with the aim of restoring its original meaning as a force that “interrupts established ways of thinking, diverges from traditional practices and proposes new, unexpected ideas”.

After several months of work within the museum’s walls, this year’s four designers in residence have proposed thematic projects that dealt with the idea of disruption within specific areas of activity. James Christian worked on the topic of social housing by re-examining London’s pre-Victorian slums and the chaotic dwellings that once stood on London Bridge, starting from the past to develop a series of hypothetical housing models for the city of today. Ilona Gaynor worked on the judicial system, repositioning the courtroom as a television studio and revealing the intricacies and inconsistencies of the legal sphere. Taking on a more material approach, Torsten Sherwood presents an alternative archetype for the construction toy, moving beyond the familiar building brick and offering new possibilities for builders of all ages. Lastly, questioning our use of financial technologies, Patrick Stevenson-Keating suggests new metrics by which to measure value by designing a working cash machine, a new currency and devices for credit card payments that explore how economic objects shape society’s broader values.

Exploiting different media, approaches, processes and areas of activity, this year’s Designers in Residence exhibition (running through March 8th 2015) offers an insight into the breath and scope of design practice. It shows how design can build communities, bridge gaps in knowledge and understanding, question issues and commonly accepted truths; mostly it shows how design can be disruptive and challenging, yet only when it clearly avoids being in vogue.

Rujana Rebernjak – Images courtesy of Luke Hayes 
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03/10/2014

Tomorrow Machine, New Gestures of Edible Packaging

In his 1964 essay “Le geste et la parole”, the French anthropologist Leroi-Gourhan outlined the basis for a new perspective on social sciences: the archaeology of gestures. Man’s evolution, according to Leroi-Gourhan, was mainly connected to the conquest of the upright position and the collateral development of manual coordination. Even if it is impossible to determine the way our ancestors moved their hands, artefacts can help us to investigate it retrospectively. In a functionalist perspective, the form of an object follows the way we interact with it; that’s why its affordances have frozen hominids’ gestures, offering an insight about their habits and their material constraints.

As time went by, mutations in our gestures got more and more conditioned by social conventions. The establishment of good manners, in facts, has progressively codified the way we deal with objects, and have become stricter as we get closer to the quintessential social activity, dining. “Don’t drink from the bottle”, “Sip from the side of a spoon”, “Don’t push your plate away when you’re finished”, are just a few examples of social obligations that influence our gestures and our relationship with objects.

Going back to our days, it’s the evolution of packaging in its most surprising and futuristic shapes that is challenging the way we handle food and tableware. Tomorrow Machine, a Swedish product design studio founded by Hannah Billqvist and Anna Glansén, is drastically reconsidering the way we wrap and consume our courses. Their innovative concepts are deeply motivated by an environmental concern: waste (and plastic) reduction is an issue that should engage everybody, with a particular reference to designers themselves, whose work has a clear social responsibility.

Nevertheless, their research encompasses a clear aesthetic dimension and touches the way we are supposed to touch and eat food in a social perspective. In their “This Too Shall Pass” collection, every package naturally decomposes or dissolves in water, thanks to the use of wax-coated caramelized sugar or agar seaweed gel. Thus, it implies a different manipulation: we are not only invited to break the packaging as if we were eating a soft-boiled egg, but also to dispose it in a different way, taking for granted that it disappear in the kitchen sink without our intervention. What a big difference from current etiquette: not only the contact between food and hands is going to become inevitable, but also the break of a container is soon going to become socially acceptable.

Giulia Zappa 
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03/10/2014

Fashion by Chance: Cleonice Capece

There is one name that stands between the well known, typically English names connected with the dazzling fashion scene of 1970s London: Cleonice Capece. Born in Salerno in 1936, she moved to Rome in the early 50s, even though, due to her studies in England, she would often split her time between Italian and British capitals. The year 1959, marks an important date since Capece makes both her return to Italy as well as starts a significant collaboration with Harrods. For Harrods, the famous London-based retailer, Capece becomes the mediator between Italian manufacturers and industries and English head offices.

As the story goes, while she was wandering around the centre of Italy sourcing fabrics for Harrods, she started thinking about a more-than-slight change in her career: with a strong personal vision, wit and her consciousness of the market, she decided to set up her own fashion label. She opens her show-room/atelier in 1961 in Via Gregoriana – made famous because of another illustrious lodger, Valentino. Her first collection is colourful, joyous and fresh, holding together Italian savoir-faire with a deep awareness of what fashion was after the glorious years of Parisian couture, and how it was evolving all around Europe. But the spiritual home of her designs is, no doubt, London. Capece moves her atelier to London in 1974, maintaining the manufacture in Italy. The bridge she was wisely able to build up, between Italy and London, allowed her to establish her name in both countries and present herself as an ambassador of eclectic and distinguishable style.

She used to describe her style as ‘very international. The clothes are designed in London, made in Italy, and can go anywhere in the world. Clothes should be classic but have flair. They should give a woman a sense of ease and elegance, not make them foolish or gaudy.’ The interest in ‘what women want’ drives her production throughout the years, and to better understand the needs of women. She herself is her first muse, always enthusiastic about what life was giving her. Her openness brought her to collaborate as a consultant with numerous brands and retailers, even after the closure of her eponymous atelier in the 80s.

She likes to think about her career in fashion as a fortuitous accident, and that’s why she has decided to entitle her new book, published by Antique Collectors’ Club, “Fashion by Chance”. The book retraces her life and personal story, describing fashion through the eyes of one of the role players of Italian Prêt-à-Porter. The book contains also a large amount of visual material, most of it unpublished before, that documents the wonderful story Capece has finally decided to tell. Sharp taste, intelligent approach to fashion, and a trained eye for understanding the contemporary shifts and changes in taste and needs, seem to be the ingredients that made Cleonice Capece succeed in the fashion industry. More than just being in the right place at the right time, chance provides opportunities: the matter is, really, to be able to seize them opportunities and turn them into successful stories.

Marta Franceschini – Images courtesy of Antique Collectors Club 
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02/10/2014

Brigitte Bardot: the Work of a Style Icon

In fashion, perception is everything; its not just about how you look, but how the world looks at you. While beauty is the prerogative of success in fashion, its canons evolve continuously, and people who usually leave a mark – the true fashion icons – are not only beautiful but inspirational in so many different ways: for their style, charisma, approach to life. Even though, today, the term transcended its origin, there are some women who will remain a classic and revolutionary influence, deign of carrying that status. While it may be obvious to think that designers would only look for a muse in models, they have always been keen on looking outside their window, asking questions about what is happening in the world and what may be the best way to imprint on this.

Style icon can often serve as a medium to reach out to society and communicate a desinger’s work, no matter the time or place. An example can be found in timeless French icon Brigitte Bardot, who will forever be remembered as the woman of the khol-rimmed eyes and messy voluminous blonde hair. The effortlessness of “the Bardot look” was something many women aspired to achieve. However the look isn’t limited to a beauty regimen. “Rivera chic” was a term coined thanks to Brigitte Bardot: Stripes, cropped pants, a bikini paired with a slightly bronzed skin were all key pieces to look right at the Riviera. She also introduced the ballet-flat to the public: as she was a trained ballerina, Bardot asked shoe maker Rose Repetto to make her an everyday shoe that was as easy to wear as a ballet slipper, showcasing the power and influence that a style icon of her time can have on the wider social sphere.

The role of a style icon is tied to the fact that the public is in constant need to identify with or aspire to someone. In the feminist era of the 1960s, a bold female personality like Bardot was an understandable model to look up to. She was in control of her own sexuality, thoughts and, notably, style; the fashion industry couldn’t doll her up, but could give her a voice – a voice that still echoes decades later, as Ms. Bardot turns 80.

Victoria Edman 
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01/10/2014

Jean Paul Gaultier: the End of an Era

The 27th of September will be remembered as the day on which a very long and special era ended: Jean Paul Gaultier showed his last prêt-a-porter collection at Paris Fashion Week, abandoning forever, and quite theatrically, this part of the fashion world. With the official reasons being the willingness to focus on the haute couture and perfume sides of business, Jean Paul Gaultier has ended a 38-year-long era of controversial and fantastic fashion. As it should be, the iconic fashion designer’s last ready-to-wear show was a spectacular celebration of his career and, notably, of all the people that have aided and supported him in the adventure.

An exit-party-mood filled Le Grand Rex, a cinema in Paris’ second arrondissement were the show took place, serving up champagne and boxes of popcorn following Spice Girls tunes. The show was, as always, utterly extravagant: taking on the theme of a beauty pageant, it was appropriately named Élection de Miss Jean Paul Gaultier 2015. The show was divided into different sections, two of which consisted of Mexican wrestling costumes and smokings which showed Gaultier’s great talent in mixing influences from men and women’s wear. One of the most popular and memorable sections proposed a tongue-in-cheek play on the fashion world itself, with models taking on the identities of prominent fashion icons: Lindsey Wixson and Magdalena Jasek walked down the catwalk dressed as Suzy Menkes or Grace Coddington, offering a touching moment for real Menkes and Coddington sitting in the front-row.

Besides dressing the models as fashion giants, Gaultier also showed some of his most classic and characteristic pieces (such as the trench coat), held a cone-bra corset dress competition (in which Coco Rocha won), and showed his true and unique DNA (that always constituted part of his success): he managed to surprise and put a smile on the sometimes a little too stiff fashion world. When the gold confetti started to cover the catwalk, they did not just mark the ending of JPG’s Spring 2015 show, but to a glorious, nearly 40-year, long period in which we have seen Jean Paul Gaultier’s design grow and develop. Yet we want to wait for much longer to see it come to a full close.

Hanna Cronsjö 
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01/10/2014

Jan Kempenaers: Enjoy the Process

Jan Kempenaers: Enjoy the Process is a substantial mid-career survey of Jan Kempenaers’ new and recent work at Breese Little gallery in London, introducing the breadth of Kempenaers’ work beyond his most renowned images: from photographic series, such as the iconic Spomenik, and individual images, to recent experiments with screen-printing and a full display of artist’s books.

Kempenaers’ photographic body of work is highly considered and meticulously compiled. Most series are restricted to a few carefully chosen shots of striking compositions, while his archiving procedure shaves down any surplus imagery in favour of crucially representative images. The photographer presents a spectacle of cities and nature linked by understatement such as S.F. – L.A. (2010), a series that documents a road trip down the West Coast of America, privileging plants, trees and cacti along the route, whether in the desert or the central reservation of a highway.

Kempenaers is best known for the stark photographs of his Spomenik series, iconic images charting World War Two memorials commissioned by General Tito in the 1960s and ‘70s in the former Yugoslavia. Crucial to his career and recent development, a number of Spomeniks will feature in the exhibition, alongside new works entitled Ghost Spomeniks, monochrome re-workings of Kempenaers’ original views of the monuments.
Jan Kempenaers: Enjoy the Process will run until October 25th 2014 at Breese Little in London.

Images courtesy of Jan Kempenaers and Breese Little 
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