Blog Archive
2010
2009
02.09.10
Matthieu Lavanchy
Photographer Matthieu Lavanchy
Matthieu Lavanchy is a photographer that through his lens views the world in a surrealist like fashion. He was recently selected as the winner of the photography segment of the Hyeres Fashion and Photography Festival 2010 and upon viewing his entry ‘Mr. Schulmann or the Man in the High Castle’ one could not hesitate to see why. It is ability to distort and transform a place of comfort, refuge and stability into something a little less ordinary and familiar. The inspiration was that of paranoia and imagined dangers which result in his characters attempting to create a wall of protection around themselves.
In places he appears to open the doors of his home to welcome in hobos. Like the way countless designers such as Galliano have before Lavanchy has found inspiration in the creative offerings and resourcefulness demonstrated by the homeless as illustrated in his cardboard haven and tin-foil blanket-an item which would have not have been out of place on our trek into the woods this issue. The rolled carpet man has a Dali like quality while the tented bed screams isolation and evokes imagery of being quarantined. The sitting room furniture still encased in plastic spells abandonment while the red laser-esque beams signal danger. Entering each room opens the door to the unknown.
Lavanchy is now though lending his otherworldly vision to the fashion world having recently collaborated with Limi Feu displaying her a/w 2010 collection on a stage-like canvas-esque backdrop in Syntax Editions n. 3. It is his ability to create and capture new dimensions within a space that I believe will allow him to translate naturally into fashion.
See more from Matthieu Lavanchy here
Posted by Susan Walsh
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02.09.10
Knitwear from Far Away
First Born Autumn/Winter 2010
Couture Camping season may almost be over, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be taking the travel inspired clothes with me through to Autumn and Winter. The enigmatic global spirit is perfectly encapsulated into the Autumn Winter 2010 knitwear collection by First Born.
Inspired by and made in Argentinia, the collection is vividly coloured, perfectly patterned and most importantly, completely authentic. The knitwear has that worldly feel of something picked up on my travels, and is bound to trigger questions into the story behind it. This is a souvenir from somewhere I want to go.
See more from First Born here
Posted by Hannah Glick
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02.09.10
A New View
Michael Kampe “Exploded view”
Last week I blogged about my wishes for a hallucinogenic holiday filled with twilight rainbows as I embarked on my very first ‘Couture Camping’ trip. Much to my disappointment, instead of being met by forest nymphs in swirls of vivid branches and butterflies, we were challenged by gale force winds and shower block that was about as ‘Glamping’ as the mud under my fingernails and my overuse of dry shampoo. Nevertheless, on an evening trek to the beach to watch the sunset, I was rewarded with a little slice of such visual delight in the form of the most beautiful view from atop the highest sand dune. Which reminded me of a recent ripple of excitement I experienced upon discovering Michael Kampe’s ‘Exploded View’ graduate collection.
Winner of the ITS#NINE Diesel Award, Kampe graduated with this awe inspiring collection from Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts. With its explosive silhouettes and photo-real prints, the collection looks architectural and organic in a delicate catalyst balance. Wearing your favourite view? Capturing a moment in cloth? If only I could print this very sunset onto my chest and explode it into a thousand fragments for all to see at 360 degrees.
Photos: Soonhyun Choi
Model: Niklaus Hodel
Make Up: Ruben De Muynck
See more about Michael Kampe here
See more about the ITS#NINE Diesel Award here
Posted by Julia Kasper
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01.09.10
Pretty N.E.E.T
N.E.E.T Magazine: Lissy Laricchia Photography
As a student, you begin to appreciate the true magic of online magazines. Free to view with unbeatable content that can be updated daily, they provide vivid imagery and inspiring editorial that needs no glossy page, bulky spine or the exchange of copper and precious pocket chink to achieve impact. I’ve often f(c)licked through the eco aware N.E.E.T Magazine that always offers a whimsical escape into sweet editorial stories.
This particular story entitled ‘Building Castles in the Air” photographed by Lissy Laricchia is a perfect example. With a strong fairytale scent, the series transports me to a giant teacup filled woodland where an inviting soft mattress sits on a luscious green lawn and a thunderstorm creates a crackling lullaby to drift off to. A piece of escapism, for which, I’d happily trade pennies for a hard copy.
Posted by Julia Kasper
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01.09.10
Fresh New Talent
Photographer Gleison Paulino
White walls, cheap flashes and lashings of sex appeal have come to define this decade’s photographic style in the fashion world. Models flashing half a breast and groping their crotches seem commonplace and rows waging about the pornification of fashion have drawn their course. Call me an old romantic, but I love images which say ‘Fairytale’ and ooze with fantasy. The snapshot aesthetic just isn’t for me and Polaroid film, although arguably lacking a demand of technical knowledge, always managed to produce unpredictable dream-like images and I long for equally as impressive alternatives.
Cue Brazilian model-turned-photographer Gleison Paulino. A fresh and exciting talent, who has an eye for obscurity but who seamlessly combines it with beauty to create mysterious albeit flawless pictures. Choosing to shoot quirky models and applying a signature ethereal hue to his playful but unstylised pictures, Paulino takes a step away from reality and revels in the fact that fantasy is often far more beautiful.
Photographer Paulino is going to be huge.
Posted by Laura Hall
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01.09.10
Tropical, Technicolor Fur
Lirfons
Fur in technicolour is unexpected and interesting amidst the typical blur of beige, black and brown. Lirfons has given fur a push in the colourful direction, as if exaggerating its natural identity by sourcing inspiration in the tropics, with saturated colours of bright copper, underipe kiwi and deep violet.
I also like Lirfon's contrast of the wild and organic texture of fur with smooth and solid panels of black leather, introducing a touch of structure and minimalism. The black has made the jewel coloured fur pop out at you, and the exposed zips have added some vital rock and roll appeal. This is fur seen through edgy, rose tinted spectacles. Further information at notjustalabel.com.
Posted by Hannah Glick
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31.08.10
Couture Campers on the Street
Street Update
To accompany the current ‘HYPE: STREET’ section of our Couture Campers Issue I’ve whizzed around our favourite street style sites in search of a visual update on the Couture Campers stomping the urban jungle streets. With a ‘global collector’ trend in evident abundance, luggage tags and keys to forgotten lockers make great belt loop additions or pendants. I adore the aged metal purse that looks as if it has been dug up at an ancient Mayan burial ground.
Fur is key to a wild aesthetic and a clash of pattern and textured layers creates a trans-continental, collected feel. Don’t forget the sand-blasted, sun bleached hues and desert aged fabrics, that look best in turn-up culottes and tapered trouser shapes. Take note from our FOCUS section this month that includes all the best shoe choices for the trekking season. I love this boy’s choice of tan walking boots and the mulberry-toned fringe wedges are the ultimate ‘Glamping’ alternative to rubber wellies.
You can see previous examples of this street trend here.
Images via: FaceHunter, Jak and Jil, SlickWalk, Wayne Tippets and Stil in Berlin.
Posted by Julia Kasper
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31.08.10
Peggy Wolf
Peggy Wolf
I wish I had a picture by Peggy Wolf hanging on my wall. I’d frame it in a ever so slightly battered golden frame, and never get tired of it. Her illustrations and collages are softly humorous, and carry an air of nostalgia to them. Perhaps the best thing about Peggy Wolf’s girls is that, despite being made from pen and paper, they are somehow believable creatures. The things they line up along their mantelpiece, or the thoughts that pop in to their heads, as depicted by Wolf, are all very much a part of reality, in spite of their elegantly escapist medium.
See more, here.
Posted by Holly Bruce
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31.08.10
Singing Silence
Heidi Wikar Autumn/Winter 2010
Clothes can look completely different on and off the hanger. At least, I always find myself saying that, when certain pretty dresses never quite fit me the way I’d like. But for Heidi Wikar’s Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, I know it is true. The lookbook is a testimony to my theory, although with ‘Singing Silence’ I can’t quite decide which one I like best. The exquisite draping of the clothes when stood still is evident in the luxe-sportswear, although the clothes in action – as they were on the catwalk have an ethereal quality in the way they move through the air.
Wikar, a Royal Collage of Art MA graduate, has said that this collection is, “a statement about the environmental changes in the northern Scandinavian winter, due to global warming.” Following this, the clothes have a highly functional use too, as the clothes are designed to maximise the flowing of air both up and down, to increase insulation but now impact the lightweights of the garments.
See more, here.
Posted by Holly Bruce
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28.08.10
Shopping Fever
Karl Lagerfeld's Shopping Fever
In his new film Shopping Fever, Karl Lagerfeld seems to have turned my secret fantasy of a dream life into a few minutes of beautify reality. Dree Hemingway and many more of Karl’s current muses are entering a chic Parisian Hotel, dressed head to toe in Chanel. Minutes later, entering their stunning suite, are surprised by every surface covered in iconic Chanel carrier bags. Judging from the short films plot, what seems to good to be true might turn out to be just that… Lagerfeld plans to turn the few minute sequence into a full feature soon!
Posted by Felix Bischof
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Comments
Aine Ireland, http://www.perfectring.ie
If I had a shopping fever i would buy Chanel too. I'd need a bundle of cashg but assuming I had it it would be Chanel all the way.
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28.08.10
Per Zennström
Per Zennström's portfolio
Occassionally, photographers can fall into a trap, one where their newest picture is barely different at all from all the ones that came before it. It was lovely then, when I stumbled across the work of Per Zennström. If he has fallen anywhere, it can only have been down a Lewis Carrol rabbit hole, where everything is magical and new.
His talent lies in his unpredictability and his ability to take black and white stills with the same ease he exhibits in his acid bright images. Per’s camera is a curious object, and appears to be continuously searching for the shot that, whilst might not be the most immediately obvious, is always the most intriguing. There is, however, one predictable element that I see in Zennström’s work but – worry, not – it is only that the newest picture is always as beautiful as all the ones that came before it.
See more, here
Posted by Holly Bruce
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28.08.10
A New Look
KLE Autumn/Winter 2010
The post-war years were dark and dreary days, when some of the world’s greatest cities resembled mouths with missing teeth, the result of whole buildings being brought crashing to the ground by bombs. All was not lost, however, as out of the cities’ cinders rose many beautiful things. In London, the Neo-Edwardians, or teddy boys, took to the broken streets in the best suits their pocket money could buy and, in Paris, Christian Dior let loose the most elegant two-fingered salute to war in the form of his New Look.
These are stories that I never get tired of. The hopeless romantic in me adores that good overcame bad and that beauty flourished finally after the world’s most ugly years. It is the phoenix-like quality of these stories that fuels KLE’s Autumn/Winter 2010 collection, inspired by the 1940s. I adore that the clothes all address the theme of femininity during the period. There are wonderfully cut suits, signalling the embracing of masculine roles by women of the time, as well as carefully cinched-in waists, a nod to Dior’s emblematic silhouette.
See more from KLE, here.
Posted by Holly Bruce
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28.08.10
Little Red Riding Hood
Apolline a Paris
When I saw a feature on Apolline handcrafted collections in Selvedge magazine I let out a bit of a whimper at the dolls and other various creations that sat before me on the page and then when I visited the website my eyes filled up as I got all weepy and nostalgic at the thought of childhood and innocence. I remembered when everything was a fairytale to me, when I played out my days like I was the lead character and everything and everyone around me were in the play of my life. My imagination made everything grey, dull and boring appear vivid, bright and exciting.
Although I have grown up and reality plays a bigger part in my life these days, I still like to think that I keep myself surrounded with people and things that keep my imagination playful. Speaking of adults falling in love with her dolls Apolline says, “I think it has something to do with the fact that our lives lack poetry. We like things that bring us a little. Maybe they feel my toys are truthful and made with love” and that statement is put perfectly because when you’ve had a day full of boring ‘normal’ tasks, to go home and soak in your surroundings can make you remember who you are, and remind you that life should be fun and play time should never be over.
Posted by Leanne Boulton
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27.08.10
Noughtie Nightlife
Noughtie Nightlife
Whether its picking the right shade of red lipstick or piling your eyelids so full of make up that glitter dusts your cheeks everytime you blink, we all have our going-out routines. The ones that somehow guarantee the night will be beautiful even though its not get begun. For me, there's nothing quite like it.
When looking over these photographs taken from the upcoming Noughtie Nightlife exhibiton, dedicated to the club kids of the last ten years, I can't help but get that same buzz of butterflies in my stomach. These are the poster boys and girls of our generation, and they are a beautiful breed. From fantasy face-paint to shimmering head pieces, the dramatically divine results of their routines are exquisite.
The exhibition, curated by LCF lecturer Anthony Price, will prove a wonderful birdcage for these perfect peacocks when its doors open on the 9th September at Rich Mix, Bethnal Green Road.
Posted by Holly Bruce
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27.08.10
Wet Women
Wet Women Exhibition
Although I’m an advocate of the Autumn season I can’t help but feel saddened when summer winds to a slow end. There’s always that odd transitional period where a chill creeps into the warm evening air, the low sun casts ominous long shadows and the few scattered leaves have a newly developed crunch beneath your optimistic sandal.
When I heard about photographer Amanda Langford’s collaborative exhibition with Reinform I thought I’d take advantage of the opportunity to sap every last moment of summer through her images. The original WET WOMEN exhibition of slides from Langford’s summer vacation took place in the West Indies in 1988. Surviving a lifetime in the attic of her Miami home the images have re-emerged every bit as vivid and sun drenched as they’d appeared twenty two years previously.
This could easily be the eighties answer to The Summer Issue’s fashion editorial and I really feel that Langford’s eye for colour and composition coupled with the late 80s/early 90s aesthetic makes this an entirely relevant exhibition and a fitting farewell to summer.
See WET WOMEN from Thursday 26th August at The Old Truman Brewery
See more, here.
Posted by Emma Herron
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