The Princesses Are Back (in Berlin)

June 9, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

In Berlin, I stumbled upon another sort of sci-fi scenario. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once adoringly described Luise and Friederike, the Mecklenburg-Strelitz sisters as “heavenly visions, whose impression upon me will never be effaced”. Sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow erected a monument to their elegance and grace, creating an icon of European classicism with his double sculpted portrait of the “Crown Princess Luise of Prussia and her Sister Princess Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz”. The statue of these two figures, which has come to be known under the abbreviated title Princess Group, is one of the highlights of the Alte Nationalgalerie’s collection. Now, the sculpture is back on permanent display at the breathtaking Friedrichswerdersche Kirche. The original plaster cast has a particular significance within both the broader context of Schadow’s oeuvre and that of 19th-century sculpture: it is here that not only the artist’s creative signature is at its most palpable, but also the thrilling genesis of the double-figure statue.

Showcasing sculpture from Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s era through to the German Empire, the exhibition “Ideal and Form” at Friedrichswerdersche Kirche traces the medium’s lines of development through the long 19th century into the modern era. It also invites visitors to rediscover the Berlin School of sculpture, a movement whose international outlook was ahead of its time. With more than 50 sculptures – some monumental in scale – this exhibition provides a comprehensive survey of the work of the Berlin School and of its complex international ties. On display are major works by Johann Gottfried, Emil Wolff and Christian Daniel Rauch, and by female sculptors such as Angelica Facius, Elisabet Ney and Anna von Kahle.

Werderscher Markt / Berlin

All photos by Edward Kanarecki.
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Anniversary. Rosie Assoulin Resort 2024

June 8, 2023June 8, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

With resort 2024 collection, Rosie Assoulin celebrates the 10 year anniversary of her brand. Time flies! I remember seeing the New York-based designer’s first collections and being absolutely seduced by her playful approach to eveningwear (we officially said goodbye to body-con styles and the notion of a “cocktail dress”), her colourist sensitivity, and the charming quirk that defines her signature style and fresh take on femininity. Observing Rosie’s work today, you have the same impression as 10 years ago: she’s a designer that marches to the beat of her own drum, who keeps her brand relevant, yet attractively off-the-mainstream-grid. The New York-ness that oozes from Assoulin’s fashion also plays a crucial role in her aesthetic. There’s just something very Park Avenue about her statuesque, origami-like gowns with harp bustiers, and then you’ve got a pin-striped suit that’s so laid-back it would work perfect for both, the office and a run to your favorite bodega. Resort 2024 isn’t a literal walk down the memory lane, but it has all the Rosie signifiers – some that had its debut exactly a decade ago. The very-oversized look, featuring a white top with a trail on the back, styled with matching white flares, is comfortingly familiar. The watercolour pattern come in always-chic picnic gingham and Frenchie stripes. A print of orchid pops in a couple of places, and the floral theme is translated into draped brooches that do the Carrie Bradshaw work on the masculine blazers and coats. Can’t forget to mention the summer-perfect, water print: its makes me think of Alex Katz, David Hockney and Tom Wesselmann, a couple of colour-obsessed, pop-art artists Rosie loves and in whose oeuvre finds constant inspiration. Assoulin, one of the most independent designers in NYC, in whose studio such talents as Christopher John Rogers have made their first steps and evolved, creates clothes for a loyal fan base of women, who appreciate uncompromising joy and boldness in their wardrobes. Here’s to another 10 years of Rosie’s brilliant creativity and fabulous fashion universe!

Collage by Edward Kanarecki.
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“HUMAN IS” at Schinkel Pavillon

June 5, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“HUMAN IS” is the best exhibition I’ve been to in a while. Don’t walk, run to Schinkel Pavillon if you happen to be in Berlin this summer. Sci-fi spirituality meets post-human aesthetics. Bodies, fakeness, AI, reproduction, mutation, realness, primal instincts, fluidity… all that in the ultimate cocktail-party spot of the DDR Germany times. You feel as if you were abducted by the aliens in the solemn 1970s Berlin and were about to get high on out-of-this-world ~vibes~. Curated by Nina Pohl and Franziska Sophie Wildförster, the exhibition offers distinctions between dystopia and reality that are increasingly collapsing in the face of inexhorable technological and ecological upheavals. “HUMAN IS” borrows its name from the eponymous short story by Philip K. Dick (1955) and investigates the idea of being human as a contestable and reversible category.

Since the 19th century – and its notions of capitalist, scientific and technological progress – science fiction has held up a mirror to the changing contemporary conditio humana with its values, fears and limitations. The seemingly external threat of extraterrestrial, supernatural or artificial beings often reveals itself as self-made anxiety and part of our cultural condition. The monstrosity of the unknown arises to shake up limitations, in effect, decentering the human protagonist. “HUMAN IS” juxtaposes historical with newly produced artworks. The exhibition paints a polyphonic picture of the mutual penetration of body and technology: it addresses the often violent interdependence of humans on their technological surroundings and opposes any promises of salvation through trans-humanistic progress. Simultaneously, it opens up spaces of possibility in which dualistic taxonomies can be overcome in favor of a networked and interdependent existence. The art show engages science fiction to transcend the humanistically inscribed human, on the one hand, and the species of anthropos, on the other, through both material and perspectival liminality. For many, the collapse of the systems we have come to rely on is no longer a distant apocalyptic future. Visionary science fiction writer Ursula K. le Guin sees fiction as a container for reinventing the possibilities of human experience and knowledge beyond any linear narrative of progress. And it is through these stories that the destruction and alienation of contemporary existence can trigger creative processes and a new ethics of relationality, which may no longer be truly human.

Oberwallstraße 32 / Berlin

Photos by Edward Kanarecki.
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Women. Victoria Beckham Resort 2024

June 2, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

Victoria Beckham – and her design team – seem to enjoy a newly found freedom in their creative process. The brand’s aesthetic can’t be as easily categorized as in the past: Beckham’s fashion is no longer about minimalism, that’s for sure. Rather, it’s about contemporary femininity that needs no labels. As she puts it: “There really is a strong reality in the garments. Everything looks really quite simple, but it’s all about the consideration, the execution, and the subtle details.” Somewhere along the line, her collections have assumed a non-uptight flow that strikes a good balance between usefulness and sophistication. Her confident assemblages of tailoring and mostly ankle-grazing fluid dresses have been garnering critical approval since she started showing in Paris a couple of seasons back. Still, it always takes a little while for a look to sink in, and then it’s another thing to follow up with tangible product that follows through on a good runway impression. Her spring pre-collection makes it clear that she’s got that covered as well. Asymmetry plays another role in her dressmaking. It’s not always easy to understand dresses that fly off madly in all sorts of directions, but here Beckham is using the possibilities of bias cutting, ruching, and collaging to great effect. Some of her eveningwear has the air of 1930s dance dresses, minus the vintage-y feel. There are day dresses that are somehow patchworked from pattern pieces that run in diagonals and seem to spiral around the body. You notice the dynamic lines because of the white piping edging each component. All that plays into hanger appeal, provoking the kind of curiosity liable to make a woman want to try something on rather than pass (as we do so often) because it looks too difficult. “I think it’s just about finding a point of difference,” Beckham observed. That doesn’t sound like much, but in a world overloaded with competing product from high street to haute level, such considerations count for a lot.

Indulgences. Bottega Veneta Pre-Fall 2023

May 27, 2023 | Design & Culture by Ed

“At the end of the day, we had a lot of pleasure just making clothes that we want to wear ourselves,” Matthieu Blazy summed up the creative process behind his Bottega Veneta‘s pre-fall 2023 collection. “But it’s not just me. It’s the studio, and it’s the woman who works on fabric.” As it has been from his start at Bottega Veneta, material is a major preoccupation. The boxy t-shirt and denim pencil skirt pictured in the first photo are actually leather, but additionally the leather button-downs that have fast become brand icons have also been made in silk so they’re wearable year-round. Blazy said the development of the collection was a reaction to what he sees as a preponderance of heavy fabrics in the market. “To build up volume, it’s easy to take a heavy fabric and sculpt; we did the opposite, we tried to lighten everything in order for people to move and not be constrained at all.” That came across most clearly in a pair of special dresses, one with volume at the hips created by exposed fabric knots, and another with slits cut into puffy sleeves that draped from high shoulders. That quest for lightness doesn’t mean the clothes lacked indulgences. A bronze sequin coat is bound to feel as good to the touch as it is attractive to gaze upon. Same for a lilac crushed velvet dress with a cool zippered neckline. The ultimate indulgence may be the leather jeans woven in the house intreccio style; this season they come in a silver chrome. They’re trophies of a kind. Other Bottega Veneta customers might be tempted by the cozy hand knits, one of which features Blazy’s dog John John. I need it in my life!