Fashion is Art, Art is Fashion

June 13, 2013January 6, 2024 | Design & Culture by Ed

Fashion was and is and will be influenced by art and design. How? In geometry, form, fabric, color, flower detail, a paint spot. The Louis Vuitton SS13 was all influenced by Daniel Buren geometric installations. The most dirty punk collection of AW13- Saint Laurent- had the flower motives from Yves Saint Laurent private collection of furniture. Givenchy Pre Fall 13 collection add by the way print similarities to the CH07 by Hans Wegner armchair! In this crazy art world of trends, changes, cults, everything has it’s replacement. If we talk of Eames chairs I think of a Givenchy SS13 dress and Jil Sander AW12 coats that are so lite and delicate. Just like Ray and Charles Eames furniture! Oh, and my less known to most interest are of course furnitures and specifically- chairs!

The New Yorkers

June 8, 2013November 3, 2013 | Design & Culture by Ed

The Resort 2014 is already arriving everyday with tones of new collcetions, and it’s the time when the the hottest designers of New York already went for a nap, and the Europeans have just woke up before the Resort/Haute Couture Fashion Weeks. So here it is- a short review of Resort’14 in New York, that covers Proenza Schouler, Altuzarra, Balenciaga (it’s Parisian, but for me, because of Wang as head, it’s New York), Derek Lam and Jason Wu. So lets begin with… The PS brothers, Proenza Schouler!Well, Proenza Schouler is getting every season more mature and colourless, as you can see. Creme, white and grey colours, comfortable forms and warm prints. And it looks very similar to the Pre-Fall collection. There is no excitment, because clearly Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez stand for practicality, and their fantastic unique ideas are on the other side. Sad, because that was really different from others. Now it’s a bit Ralph Lauren- boring, classical.From some time I really love what Joseph Altuzarra is doing recently- first he did a amazing AW13 collection, then took Stella Tennant as a muse… The resort is how he said, sensitive and very femine, but not as sexy as his past ones. We’ve got some wild west pants here and a bit cowboy shirts mixed with modern elegance. Beautiful fur scarves, white dresses, lace and gold, do really match Altuzarra style! No, I’m not crazy. Balenciaga officially IS Parisian, but since Alexander Wang is the creative director, it lost all Parisian Chick. The collection began from Wang’s visit at Cristobal Balenciaga Museum. Yes. Then, Alex did nothing more, but copied the archives and made them black and white. When Ghesquiere designed Balenciaga, it was inspired by archives, but it was futuristic, edgy, modern. Now, with Mr. Wang it looks only into past, and just makes a first look that it’s SO FRESH bacause of the colour palette. I thought it won’t be so bad. Now even Hedi Slimane at Saint Laurent is much more better for me.Derel Lam maybe is not a newcomer, but for sure a shooting star of NYC Fashion. This resort was minimalistic, eometrical and full of inovative fabrics. The dresses are at the time perfect for a shopping at Bergdof’s Goodman, for a run in Central Park and as well for a dinner in Nobu Tribeca. Is it a New York Celine? For now I see big future for Derek!Jason Wu suprised me this Resort season. I usuall didn’t really like Jason Wu’s collection because they were always so formal. But, this time I am pleased! Lots of new materials, fantastic paradise prints, jeans jacketa and midi skirts, plastic trench coats, pink bra’s, transparent lace dresses… There is really a lot of telling. For sure Michelle Obama won’t wear any of these, but it looks more affordable than ever! Jason Wu, big bravo’s for the best (exequies with Marc Jacobs galmorous collection I wrote few days ago)!

Bionic, Take It Supersonic!

June 5, 2013August 31, 2014 | Design & Culture by Ed

Thomas Tait. This is the super human of London Fashion. The title of this post, is taken of one of the best song by Christina Aguilera, BIONIC. When I see the collection by Tait for AW13, I only hear in my head this song. It matches everything. The collection feels like if UFO came to our planet and super agents, so the models, plan the defense attack. Green clouds around, grafitti around. I think the show was presented in a garage, cause under every sit of the guests there was a car number… But coming back to the designer- The old movie Runaway about Sci Fi inspiration is clearly visible here! The clothes, well they are really cyber-superb! Kept in extra neon colours like orange, green and red, the pieces (look at these SUNGLASSES!) are really visible in the crowd. The use of fabrics is always pretty much cosmic- latex, polar mixed with leather and plastic! I love it! his is so “other” and fresh.

The THOMAS TAIT sign is visible everywhere with the .COM ending. Is this a metaphor for the future fashion that Thomas sees? Will be so full of HiFi, pixels and this computer staff? If yes then I don’t have anything oppose about it. One more time about sunglasses- it’s difficult to see something as REFRESHING as this! Last time I so something like this, were the Celine furry sandals. Totally different. The curvy geometric frames look so out of this worls, that I think they would bestseller on Jupiter! And maybe in London?

Porcelain Pretty

April 15, 2013July 1, 2017 | Design & Culture by Ed

Porcelain figurines are usually kitsch but still very beautiful. So why shouldn’t the porcelain topic be shown in fashion? And if we can say that everything is in fashion, then there is no problem with that! Staffordshire figurines had always these amazing flower details. Spanish, for example Liardo, is advanced in hand made 3D elements like tiny flowers in baskets, embroiderment on the Geisha’s kimono and other artistic fantasies. And here I’ve taken my own pictures when I was in New York from Metropolitan Museum of Art! (These are all very mind blowing!).

Meadham Kirchhoff, London based label known for very kitsh collections, had a surrealistic collab with Nicolas Kirkwood- ornamented and kitsch sandals full of embroidment, flowers, colours and ribbons. Kept in mostly in pastel colours they look like cakes on feet! That’s a bit fairy tale like, but this is how it is. Who else from London thought of porcelain as a inspiration? Queen of prints, Mary Katrantzou and her archival collection. The dresses had 3D prints with tea pots, flowers, jewels- like if Katrantzou was redrawing all the porcelain figurine features. That’s so porcelain fantastic!

Fei Feng (the graduate from Central Saint Martins) was inspired for her new haute couture collection with Ming dynasty vases and the splendor of Chinese wedding. The highly crafted detail like these flowers that move on air, or trees around the dress. Ok. Everything looks in reality ugly. And not practical. And hilarious. But still, I think it’s all very spectacular, if we have in mind that Fei did all these dresses handmade. And it matches the topic!

Ron Mueck’s Hyperrealism

March 30, 2013March 30, 2013 | Design & Culture by Ed

Ron Mueck is an Australian hyperrealist sculptor working in the United Kingdom. His sculptures that look like real people thanks to a really advanced technology, are going to be presented in Foundation Cartier in Paris and possible will have even bigger exhibitions. This hyperrealistic art is known for real looking like human faces in amazingly big sizes, whole bodies with a mind blowing area and proportional to real people’s scale figures shown in different actions!
Some of the most known art pieces by Mueck are The Woman in Bed, The Newborn and The Man’s Face. Unfortunately, I will not see it (😭) becuse it’s gonna be much later in Paris, so the last thing to do, is to see it in IPad…