13/02/2015

‏The Fine Line Between Fashion and Art

Elsa Schiaparelli‪,‬ the grand dame of fashion‪,‬ remains a significant fashion reference‪,‬ several years after her death‪.‬ She thought of fashion as an art form, and the paradox of combining her artistry with one of the strongest mechanisms of fashion, the never ending desire for something new, had a great impact on her design‪. ‏She was inspired by the impulses of surrealist fine art which dominated Paris during the inter-war years, and embraced those ideas in her pieces as a productive tool. She drew clear parallels between fashion and art, and questioned the fashion’s needed to be beautiful and, more importantly, what was considered as beauty.

Schiaparelli would once have said that: “In difficult times fashion is always outrageous”, a quote that the curator of the upcoming Schiaparelli exhibition in Stockholm seems to agree with. In a time when the world is very complex, it might be a logic consequence for fashion to becoming equally as complex, although it is never that easy or simple to explain why we are seeing certain influences in fashion, at a certain time. The reasons or influences behind a new trend or tendency are mostly a complex development in themselves, and that includes the comeback of surrealism. The newly returned interest for Schiaparelli’s work might therefore partly also grow from a reaction to the growing commercial impact on contemporary fashion, and therefore become a way of rebalancing the relationship between the creative process and economic profit. Through surrealism Schiaparelli explored fashion as a place of freedom and creativity. In the same time she had to consider another concrete difference between fashion and art, the fact that fashion for most part is made with the purpose of being worn. Even though a lot has happened since she was an active designer, the premisses which she explored in her design are mostly the same. The reason behind the huge recent interest for Schiaparelli is not just grounded in her iconic pieces, but in her unique approach to fashion and not at least in her own creativity.

‏Hanna Cronsjö 
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12/02/2015

When Fashion Shows the Danger Then Fashion is The Danger

Bernhard Willhelm 3000 – When Fashion Shows the Danger Then Fashion is The Danger is an exhibition currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles. It is artistic designer Bernhard Willhelm’s first time showing in an American museum. German born Bernhard Willhelm graduated from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts and presented his first collection in Paris in 1999. During the same year, he also founded his own fashion label with his partner Jutta Kraus after which his career has continued moving forward.

Willhelm has a talent for combining fashion design, visual art and social reflection all in one. As a designer, he is known to be conscious of what is happening around him and to critically reflect on this. The concept of fashion and art has long been debated. Fashion is often trivialized into a mere surface but exhibitions like Bernhard Willhelm 3000 showcase the complexity behind the surface by introducing a conversation between art and fashion in both a critical and intriguing way. In such displays art becomes more than just backdrop a frame, it becomes part of a wider context. In fact, a closer look at the title of this particular exhibition indicates an ambiguity of both talking about the general concept of “fashion”, but also the notion of fashion show as in runway shows, expresses the fact that fashion always needs a second glance.

The exhibition features sculptural installations, photography, video and other objects all selected and curated personally by Bernhard Willhelm, generating his unique point of view. His newest collection, referencing and discussing ecological disaster and climate change, is also to be presented as a part of the exhibition. In fact, Bernhard Willhelm sees this exhibition as : “a response to the uniformity of fashion in the 21st century and a forecast of the fashion experience in the 22nd century.”

Bernhard Willhelm 3000 – When Fashion Shows the Danger Then Fashion is The Danger is on display at MoCA in Los Angeles until the 17th of May 2015.

Victoria Edman – Images courtesy of MoCA 
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11/02/2015

Timeless Histories: Turtlenecks

As usual, The Blogazine is glad to offer a public service announcement for anyone even remotely interested in fashion: turtlenecks are definitely back. Of course, this is not the first time we deal with the return of this classy item, but the 70s influence seems to be quite strong in 2015, hence the booming turtleneck upheaval.

While the very first prototype of a turtleneck has been used by soldiers during war, it has later been transformed by Queen Elizabeth I with starched ruffles, only later to be rediscovered under the name of Polo Necks. It was around 1860 when polo players from England started using them, soon followed by navy sailors, officers and menial workers, who adopted the garment as part of their everyday look.

During the last century, though, the high collar jumper turned into the symbol of intellectuals and artists, smoothing the way to early feminists, who, unassumingly, turned it into a real fashion trend. One of the most fashionable moment of the item, before Phoebe Philo brought it back with her 2012 campaign at Céline, is to be found in Funny Face, the cult movie about Richard Avedon, where a young and bright Audrey Hepburn matches a turtleneck with skinny black pants and ballerinas. That is surely one of those eternal moments in fashion: in fact, whether we should still see turtleneck in the future, or it will prove to be just a passing flare, it will remain an evergreen piece in that silly story that is fashion history.

Francesca Crippa 
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09/02/2015

Style Suggestions: Wool

Don’t lock yourself away during the cold months. Keep toasty warm and look great with these woolen essentials.

Coat: Isabel Marant, Sweater: Stella McCartney, Scarf: Acne, Beanie: Eugenia Kim, Gloves: Missoni, Necklace: Lanvin,

Styling by Vanessa Cocchiaro 

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06/02/2015

Is Haute Couture being lost?

Haute Couture has been the heart of the fashion world since C.F. Worth made his designs known to the world. From then on, the artistry of Haute Couture have evolved, yet it is still today regarded as the highest form of fashion. It is all about tailoring to perfection and creating the magical substance that fuels the abstract dream that fashion may sometimes be. Just last week couturiers showcased their creations for the fashion world to see.

Viktor & Rolf: The fashion duo presented pieces that seemed to come from a surreal floral dream. The flower embellished dresses in voluminous A-line shapes induced the effect as if they were drawn on, emphasizing the feeling of surrealism. Adding different oversized straw hats and daydreaming of spring was given a more visual shape.

Stéphane Rolland: Transparency might make difficult colors not only beautiful but also thought provoking: a lesson learned at Stéphane Rolland. The first looks were reminiscent of an alien ballet dancer echoing the runway. A long sleeve leather top referencing a futuristic look was balanced with the softness of a see-through full ballet skirt adorned with, what from a far looked like, coral or branches.

Dior & Chanel: Karl Lagerfeld and Raf Simons stayed true to the essence of their design house’s aesthetic. Chanel showcased different takes on the Chanel suit but it was their final piece that truly stopped the show. A long flowy, yet stiff, white layered dress paired with an over the top hat made the model stand out as a chic cupcake. Dior paired 1950s glamour with the 1960s mood. Simons showed a surprising look, that paired a black spattered raincoat with purple latex stockings. Playing with both colors and adding unexpected elements of sex appeal to an otherwise modest look.

Haute Couture is to be admired for its impeccable craftsmanship and pushing the limits of fashion. It’s the essence that keeps things fresh. The past couple of seasons it seemed to have rendered into a bit of a slump, something that is partially now changing tune. Couture is engrained in fashion and isn’t going anywhere. It is likely that focus on minimalism and prêt à porter will generate more creative ways, finding outlet in the Haute Couture of tomorrow.

Victoria Edman 
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05/02/2015

Lamija Suljevic: Bosnian Craft Meets Modern Technology

Lamija Suljevic is an upcoming Swedish designer with roots in Sarajevo. The mix of the two cultures has inspired her design in different ways as she tries to unite the two cultures with the ambition of creating something unexpected and new. By Suljevic’s talented hands, traditional costumes from Sarajevo and modern fabrics which she relates to Sweden, merge, resulting in the strongest collection showed during Stockholm fashion week.

Suljevic’s A/W 2015 collection, as well as her previous work, carries a depth that not all designers menage to express. Her unique pieces, from laser cut out dresses to traditionally decorated but modern slitted pants, are all highly executed and decorated by hand. The time and effort put into the collection shows in every single piece sent down the runway. Suljevic really knows her craft and you can’t help but feel a vibe of haute couture even though we are far from Paris, both geographically and ideologically.

This collection is great in so many levels – the craft, the pieces and the personal inspiration behind the collection – it embraces the mix of cultural references and shows how she successfully united them. Her work is a proof of how fashion can unite and bring people and cultures together resulting in something more interesting and innovative than it otherwise would have become. The combination of the personal sources of inspiration and the dark and in the same time beautiful pieces, all created with amazing craft, makes this collection a story about life’s deepest and greatest moments. The sparkly and black pieces seem to be a reflection of the fine line between them both, and how fast it all can change. In other words, it is a collection about life.

Hanna Cronsjö 
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05/02/2015

The Stage and the Actors: Fashion Mix at Palais de la Porte Dorée

Italo Calvino, in his book The Invisible Cities, states that the delight one can have from a town lays not in its wonders, but in the answers it can give to the questions the person asks to the city itself. In many cases, these answers are so unforeseen and, still, glaring that they immediately get to the core, shaping thoughts, feelings and, of course, practices. Among all the mythical places of fashion, Paris surely holds a privileged position, and this has been true since the very beginning of the modern concept of fashion itself. The stories of fashion with Paris as its main scenery are many; perhaps, any fashion story has something to say about the city. Still, if we read them carefully, it becomes clear that most of the time, Paris is not only the setting, but an actual character, actively interacting with other actors on the scene. Fashion Mix, the exhibition now on view at Palais de la Porte Dorée in Paris, showcases the many stories of the fascination – love stories, we would dare to say – that foreign designers have had and continue to have with Paris, confirming its legendary role as the main stage of the global history of fashion.

A mutual relationship, that between international designers and the city, established a style so diverse and declinable, but always ascribable to the ‘Parisian Flair’ – the so-called Allure Parisienne. The exhibition wants to be a journey between all the ramblings that have brought designers from all over the world from being foreigners to become part – and sometimes symbols – of the city and its established imaginary. The exhibition, curated by Olivier Saillard, stages nearly a hundred objects, between clothes and accessories, most of them coming from an almost entirely renovated archive of the Palais Galliera, drawing an imaginary line between Charles Frederick Worth to Martin Margiela, Cristobal Balenciaga to Riccardo Tisci, passing through Schiaparelli, Galliano, Miyake, Yamamoto and many others. It also counts many unseen materials, such as registration documents, official files, naturalisation applications, coming from both private and public archives, gathered by the Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration.

Fashion Mix stands as a manifesto of the enormous value of cross-pollination and influences within design practice, which becomes complex, and thus more interesting, when peppered with the clash of habits and cultures. Paris comes out from the exhibition as the active host of these movements, convoluted and simple, and the real enhancer of their effects: in the late 1880s, the city saw the dawning of the Couture by hand of an Englishman, as if the city had somehow called for it. The city still is home to the most established and awaited of the fashion weeks, calling up designers from all over the world to show their own collections, but above all to design for its historical fashion houses. Clothes, with their object nature, have the power to hold together as many references and memories as the person who designed them has been able to instil. Here, clothes are the material witnesses of the inevitable influence of Paris upon creative minds with the most different backgrounds, education, tastes, tempers. A prove that the city has given incredible responses to all of their questions.

Marta Franceschini 
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30/01/2015

The Talented: Ximon Lee

Ximon Lee is this year’s winner of the prestigious H&M Design Award which granted him a unique runway show during Stockholm Fashion Week where he displayed his AW 2015 collection. For Lee, a recent graduate of Parsons New School for Design in New York, this must be a dream come true. The link between this recently announced collaboration with the Swedish brand and Lee’s academic background is particularly interesting, as the collection for H&M partly draws upon his graduation collection at Parsons: they shares the same ambitious desire to make a statement through design. However, the references it displays are actually much broader and rich. A Polish documentary from 2005, “The Children of Leningradsky”, is translated into garments through a process of recollection and reconstruction from the designer’s own childhood. The memory of his earlier life – the grey architecture typical of the Soviet cities and colorless winters pictured in the documentary – form both a romance and a fascination, while oversized pieces and complex layers portrayed in the movie, left clear traces on his design aesthetics.

Nevertheless, it would be reductive to define Lee’s collection only in terms of oversized shapes, as it is far more experimental – especially considering the commercially demanding client. Lee’s work consciously abolishes the dynamics of H&M’s widespread and often flattening fashion machine, by introducing peaces that are unlikely and challenging, full of refreshing architectural references and over-shaped, boxy silhouettes with sweet messages softening some pieces. Lee himself says the whole collection is very personal and lays him close to heart, and such an emotional involvement stands out and makes his work authentic. Seen within a fashion week that has been much about showing clothes and less about telling stories and ideas, it is hopeful to see there is still hope for an alternative view of fashion.

Hanna Cronsjö 
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29/01/2015

Walter Van Beirendonck: the Politics of Fashion

Recently, one of the founding members of the Antwerp Six responded to the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, by letting a see-through tank top with the words “Stop Terrorising Our World” open his AW 2015 fashion show. The powerful words a ready-made, a reused artwork from the slogan of Walter Van Beirendonck’s 2006 AW collection. The designer himself explained his stand to the French newspaper Le Point by simply stating that “when you see what is happening in the world, you must react.”

Throughout his career Van Beirendonck has combined his textile designs with artwork and elaborate graphics. His style aesthetic is not limited to textiles and he excels in expanding his abilities and communicative skills by any means. This includes showcasing inspiration from different cultures and historic events. There is always a message to be found in Walter van Beirendonck’s collections, be it clear or hidden. In his collection for AW 2014 it was written in bright red “Stop Racism” graphics. At his AW 2010 fashion show, all his models wore big earmuffs and some carried guns. He was then quoted to say that he felt the world was a scary place, and these accessories exemplified his view on the current state of society. The notion of his designs seems to steam from a need to express thoughts, feelings, and annoyances. They all fuel Van Beirendoncks creative process, and instead of using pen and paper he uses needle and thread.

Fashion can be viewed as a means to communicate; it is a way to portray more than just a shallow surface. The fashion world’s combination of a global and intermedia platform harvests an important echo for designers to open up their minds, an approach Walter Van Beirendonck seems to have taken to heart. Fashion may be considered a frivolity by many and using it as a media for these messages may be somewhat ironic. However, fashion is also one of the world’s most lucrative businesses and has a great capital in the markets, which makes it a loud voice to use when in need to speak up your mind.

Victoria Edman 
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28/01/2015

An Androgynous Change of Course in Italian Fashion

The fact that menswear has been borrowing both pieces and influences from the female wardrobe is not a new tendency, but it has, up until now, been read more as a subcultural than a widespread development. The latest brand to join Saint Laurent and J.W. Anderson in this female-take-on-menswear, androgynous trend is, perhaps a bit surprisingly, the classy Italian label Gucci. The recent Fall/Winter 2015 collection shown in Milan, was the first runway under the new Creative Director – Alessandro Michele – who took over Gucci after Frida Giannini’s sudden departure. The questions following the move were, and remain, many: Might this collection be the beginning of a new Gucci era? Can we officially say that the “feminisation” has become mainstream in menswear?

If we were to try to understand such a phenomenon, above the simplistic search for ‘novelty’, we should take into account that brands and their collections have developed greatly in the past few years and are now pushing the limits more often than they used to, with the androgynous approach as only one example of that process. However, it is questionable how much this trend will effect how the majority of men are dressing. Will we be seeing the full Gucci look, which felt very 70s and Jagger-like, with tie blouses and silky materials, on the streets? Probably not. It might lead to some female details in next year’s collections, but will not take over men’s wardrobe in the same way classic menswear pieces have entered the female one. One exception to this might be the Asian market, which is a bit more risk-taking when it comes to challenging male stereotypes. This might also be a very practical explanation of why we saw that many silky blouses on the Gucci runway. But above all formal influences and brand strategy, what is most remarkable about Gucci’s new Creative Director is his apparent speed and easy at work. If this is what Alessandro Michele can pull off in ten days, which was supposedly all the time he got to set up the show, just think of what he will do with more time on his hands.

Hanna Cronsjö 
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