Rei Kawakubo’s Fall 2012 is my all time favourite. Full of geometry, polka dots and colour, the collection can be called iconic. Who wouldn’t want to wear these cheerful coats or culottes? Isn’t it make you smile :) ?
Art
Jill Platner
When two years ago I was in New York, I had a chance to visit Jill Platner store on 113 Crosby Street in SoHO. However, I didn’t really get interested in it, but thanks god, I took one of their beautiful postcards… and guess what, I found it today during the summer cleaning! I checked their site, their store and I am so fascinated in it right now! For over 20 years, Jill Platner has created jewelry and sculpture from different metals like gold or silver. In 1998 she opened a shop on SoHo’s Crosby Street. The space has not only served as a retail outlet for her jewelry, but a gallery for her sculpture as well. At the center of Jill’s work is a fluid sense of movement, inspired by both organic and urban forms like feathers or tree branches. Jewelry designs are conceived with an innate sense of how they will look and feel on the body. Hinged pieces drape like fabric, and hammered metals beg to be picked up and felt. Every piece has a unique physical presence and tactile quality. A simple elegance underscores everything Jill does. And the monumental sculptures which hang from the ceilings remind me of over-sized fish bone sculptures or something alike… in other words, while being in New York the next time, you must check out this beautiful store and Platner’s style!
Cai Guo-Qiang
Cai Guo-Qiang is the moment’s artist, whic uses fake animal figures in his monumental installations. His current exhibition called “Falling to Earth” happens at GOMA Art Gallery in Australia, and it’s situated in a huge, white space, where the only sound heard are water droplets falling down from the ceiling. Here, you might see wolves replicas flying in the air and a huge crystal blue pool, from which such animals like leopards, polar bears and tigers drink… “My idea of making this work is not to do any criticism or replication but to focus on what it means for sculptors to create realist sculptures in the time the work was created. …The end goal is not to make perfect sculptures and have them exhibited elsewhere and then have them collected somewhere. The key is to focus on the process of fabrication of these artworks, to pay attention to the process of the artists making these sculptures, rather than where these sculptures will end up and how they will look in the end.” said the New York based artist. Surely the idea has a very strong aim… what do you think of these a bit creepy installations?
Belgium: Birds of Paradise at Momu
At MoMu, the fashion museum of Antwerp, a gorgeous exhibition is happening lately. Birds of Paradise: Plumes and feathers in fashion is a tribute to the elegance and refinement of plumes and feathers used in the industry. Thanks for their beauty, fragility and value they had various connotations and were used throughout the fashion history. The exhibition (having creations by designer like Thierry Mugler, Riccardo Tisci, Ann Demeulemeester, Olivier Theykens or Miuccia Prada) addresses aspects such as luxury, chic, freedom, femininity, lightness but also modernism and dark romance. For the exhibition, British sculptor Kate MccGwire set up some of her works made of pigeon feathers to engage in an interesting dialogue with couture fashion and Irving Penn photographs. Being in Antwerp till August 24th, you must see this fashion event!
Men’s: Perverse. Maison Martin Margiela SS15
Jeans mixed with sweatpants; coat worn with a sweater (without anything else under, except tattoos); artisanal embroideries taped all over the torso. That was possibly one of the most elusive and difficult to understand collection served by Maison Martin Margiela. But you could be sure of one thing: nothing had one sense. Even these orange coats or wool, brown socks worn with sneakers.
