Recycling Beauty

Yesterday I went to a discussion about fashion, luxury, and our economic climate. There was much talk about the future of luxury and ecology. Will ecological consciousness become chic and be considered luxurious? What the panel failed to talk about was the idea of creating beauty that surpasses style and trends. Well, they touched on it, but maybe I didn't find their standards of beauty strict enough. I think a lot of fat could be trimmed off their definition. The best use of our resources is to make beautiful objects that people will want to keep for a long time and pass on to their loved ones, or are desirable enough to be resold. The ideas embodied in designed objects are what create the integrity and the substance that make it valuable. This thoughtfulness is what should inform the outward aesthetic.

In some ways this notion of fashion being "responsible" to our earth goes against all of fashion's values. People want the newest styles to feel relevant and fresh. The fashion world must constantly reinvent new styles, bring back forgotten ones, or remix familiar ones into new ones. It also means that we as consumers need to shed our old identities for new ones. It seems that designer's resources would be better spent making things we believe in, things that affirm our inner selves. I always find it funny that people look at old pictures of themselves throughout the decades and are embarrassed about their style. Why can't they accept that this is who they were at that moment in time? Why is it that their hair and clothes were not an extension of themselves and not just a product of their time and environment? It seems silly that all of these things have such an negative impact on our self worth past the point of humiliation and well past the time of intervention. Making things that are integral in our lives is how we can make responsible work. In some way, ultimately, it is not about the look of the object, but what it brings to our lives that make it valuable and beautiful.

Maison Martin Margiela has for a long time been promoting the idea of recycled clothing and objects with his artisanal line denoted with a encircled zero. All "0" products are made by hand in limited quantities in the Paris atelier breathing new life into common objects. He even rejected the notion of throwing away old styles by injecting his new collections with "replica" pieces that are existing garments that he finds beautiful and reproduces them as part of the main collection. Many designers take from the past but rarely admit to copying a design. What is great about what Margiela is doing is that he is creating a framework for clothes from different decades and seasons to coexist. Which means bigger wardrobes and lest waste.

This is a video of Maison Martin Margiela spring/summer 07 artisanal line.

Naughty Bride

Jean Paul Gaultier had the best spring 2009 Haute Couture show this past season.  The collection showed off Gaultier's creative imagination and skill along with the couture artisans rarified abilities.  He also had the best "La Mariee" to end his show.

Fuck Buttons, Use Zippers

On the last day of 2008, I was granted a wish.  I finally found out the name of the song that I kept on hearing on KXLU.  Dj Sean was playing it for a while and low and behold, he played it again today.  This was the first time I thought of calling in and finding out what it was.  Why didn't I think of that earlier?  I'm pleased to present to you "Sweat Love for Planet Earth" by Fuck Buttons from the United Kingdom.

Japanese wunderkind Junya Watanabe wins for best use of zippers from his Spring 05 collection.  I love how he turns the zippers into gold jewelry and makes it all look strangely Egyptian somehow. 

 

Christmas Angel

This is the finale of the Fall 06 Alexander McQueen collection entitled "Windows of Culloden" dedicated to the late and great Isabella Blow.  Model: Kate Moss

Paris-Tokyo Part Deux

Now that we have covered Japan's influence on European design, let's take a look at from the other side of the mirror.  Jun Takahashi, designer, founder, and president of Tokyo based, Undercover has one of the most refreshing views on fashion.  He is very daring in a unassuming way at times, which I find quite daring.  Lately, his collections have been focused on ladylike dressing, but with a new sensibility.  It's great to see a designer that is not bound by their past or tied to a certain image that has been attributed to them by the media.     

These pictures and video are from the Spring 09 show shown in Paris. 

  

Double Dutch

Victor and Rolf have been around for over a decade now.  They received a lot of attention when their career first started in Haute Couture and rightly so.  Now that they have a bonafide fashion house with men's and women's collections along with top selling perfumes, it's easy to forget about their creative magnitude.  

In 2006, the duo designed an exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam entitled Women from Tokyo and Paris.   This East meets West dance performance accompanied the exhibition.  

Music: Eddy de Clercq, Choreography: Annabelle Lopez Ochoa,
Concept & design: Siebe Tettero, Viktor Horsting, Rolf Soeren

MMMMMMM Mugler

There's not much to say about Thierry Mugler, except that he is indeed a very special talent.  I feel the fashion world has been easily amused by some new and young "designers" that may be lacking in the talent department and then I feel bad and think I'm being too critical.  Then I go back and look at some old fashion footage of Mugler's Haute Couture collections and take it all back. I'm not being too critical at all, if anything my expectations have sunken lower over the years.  This is what fashion should be about- new ideas, unbridled creativity, and impeccable workmanship melded into one.     

These clips are from Thierry Mugler's spring/summer 1997 Haute Couture collection.  Look out for larger than life supermodel Jerry Hall.

Oh Mandy

Amanda Lear is the famous model/singer/actress/TV personality introducing Grace Jones a couple of posts ago on the Italian TV show Stryx.  This performance of "Follow Me" on Stryx is the video I wanted to be the main video, but it was disabled.  Please click on the link.  I love how creative the set designers and choreographers got.  I think if this was done today, they would of relied heavily on dopy computer animation.  Bravo Team Stryx.  

Amanda's real past and identity is unknown.  She was Salvador Dali's muse and some say she might be his greatest work of art.  Whatever the truth is, I'm sure it will make a great movie, at the very least a great made for TV movie.

This clip is also from Stryx.  Enjoy.

This is Amanda's Alphabet

Trompe L'oeil

Is it real or just an illusion?

Bookshelves by Fornasetti

Sweater with bow by Sciaparelli

Cuttoffs jeans shorts by Verissimo



  

Turkey Day Hooray!

These are not turkeys per se, but they are some form of flightless birds. They are from the spring/summer 2008 collection of Walter Van Beirendonck entitled "sexclown" (Stephen Jones did the headgear). Its very rare to see unbridled creativity brought into full fruition, but here it is. Straight from Walter's brain to your eyes. What I love about Walter is that he really knows how to go for it.