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Autumn Starts with Jablonex Beads

To mark the last day of August, here is a scan from my childhood’s favourite booklet – Jablonex Jewellery Catalogue for 1984. With years I came to realise that some of the photos beamed with sexuality; yet at the time it all looked merely appealing and teasing.

Jablonex - Official 1984 Catalogue
Autumn Season – Jablonex 1984 Jewellery Catalogue

Kyiv Fashion: Year 1972 – Part 1

As per announcement, here is a weekly feature on Kyiv Fashion booklets, spanning the period from 1972 till 1990. Be it for my mum’s heritage or some other reason, but there has always been many Ukrainian fashion booklets in our house. The most amazing thing about these booklets is that they all feature sketches and pictures, so you will be able to see how the sketching technique evolved in 20 years. You can view individual photos on Flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=104087

Kyiv Fashion Announcement: Two Decades of Soviet Fashion

Kyiv Fashion Models 1974

I grew up flicking through the pages of old fashion booklets and magazines. Although I didn’t realise this at the time, most of those booklets were produced by the Kiev Fashion Model House, the actual models being drawn by the Ukrainian fashion designers. Some of the booklets were also in Ukrainian, so this, together with Nikolai Gogol’s folk stories, was my introduction to the Ukranian language that my maternal grandfather spoke.

Kyiv Fashion Models 1985

Naturally, as the years go by, we start appreciating same things in a different way. As a kid, I felt like missing some of the 1970s air: I loved those sophisticated ladies, a complex mix of innocence and seduction, and handsome men with moustaches, strong, independent, yet elegant. I drew much inspiration from these magazines and booklets throughout my teens, when I made paper dresses for the dolls or wrote romantic stories. To me, 1970s that I never actually saw epitomised the time of whirlwind romances, intrepid gentlemen, and ethereal ladies. Cue in Faye Dunaway, Michael Caine, Barbra Streisand, and Robert Redford, just to begin with.

Kyiv Fashion Models 1988
Kyiv Fashion Models 1987

This is just a teaser of what you can really expect to see and savour over the coming weeks. Apart from throwing tons of lights onto the Soviet fashion, these images are also unique in that they are all hand-drawn sketches representing changing perceptions of female beauty from year to year.

Kyiv Fashion Models 1989

Who’s on Top? A New Look at the Body Politic

I wrote the essay below in the early 2006 when I worked as a researcher for one British company. While I’m thinking of the different ways to “add value” to the text, I wanted to share what I’ve written all those years ago. Commissions are welcome; criticism is even more so, as I’m sure I’ve missed some aspects of contemplating the ever-lasting connection between politics and sex. However, even though I was thinking of sharing the text for a long time, I was practically compelled to do this after I found out that somebody was searching for ‘burlesconi‘. Given that in the text below I also had to consider the impact of burlesque performers on the modern attitudes, I thought it was a calling… you know what I mean.

A small note: I’ve just realised the text is heavily marked by Italian connections. In the BBC series mentioned below Lady Thatcher was played by Greta Scacchi, an Italian-Australian actress born in Milan. Oh Italia, amore! 

The Body Politique. 

Image courtesy: The Mirror

On 1 December, 2002, the BBC1 screened a drama Jeffrey Archer: The Truth. It was a fictional rendering of the ‘real’ story behind Archer’s perjury case. According to the plot, Archer first claimed that he spent a night with Baroness Thatcher (still the Prime Minister when Archer’s case broke out), but then changed it to a far-fetched tale of a love affair with Princess Diana, all to provide himself with an alibi for the time he spent with a prostitute. The Western Mail, published in Cardiff, gave out a few details to its readers shortly before the premiere. It said that Thatcher would seduce Archer by performing a striptease on the desk in her cabinet, and that she would also have her hip adorned with a heart tattoo with the letters JA. As the film’s director, Guy Jenkin explained, “…the whole piece is a joke about Jeffrey Archer’s tendency for inaccurate precis”.

So, this would-be obnoxious romp turned out to be a political satire. The BBC used the archaic expression ‘political body’ literally, and admittedly, Archer’s body did not behave ‘politically correctly’ when he was committing adultery. It must yet be noted that in the film Archer did not deny the fact of cheating; he denied the fact of cheating with a prostitute. Bearing in mind that the PM was wearing a tattoo and performed a striptease, one certainly have to ask, exactly what the difference was between her and the prostitute on that occasion. Such confusion shows that today a human body and politics become increasingly intertwined as both can be engaged in “dirty” activity. To treat this as a novelty would be a mistake. One only has to look back at the burlesque tradition in the United States or at the cabaret tradition in Europe, to see the roots of political humiliation through the use of overtly sexual imagery. Overall, however, today notices the tendency to reject the outdated (?) cultural values and identities and to substitute these with the fleeting virtual identities and values, to the extent when politics begins to be perceived as an irrational activity. Let us consider various examples how watching or displaying bodies can in fact be a manifestation of a political stance.

Horrible Prettiness: Social Hierarchy, Burlesque and the Body Politics.

The trait of being ethically rigid is attributed to the English society during so-called Victorian times, but in fact it was never a typically English or a typically Victorian trait. What is interesting, however, is that in the 19th c. across the Continent and across America a sterile mainstream morality co-existed with what Richard Grant White called “the defiance of a system”. The burlesque culture in America represented such defiance. A burlesque performer was a construction of what was called the “low other”: “something that is reviled by and excluded from the dominant social order as debased, dirty, and unworthy, but that is simultaneously the object of desire and/or fascination”.

It can be argued that main political issues of the turn of the 19th and 20th c. were not those related to geopolitics, but those gender-related. Woman was revered and despised at once, and it was arguably down to the artistic movements of the time to support this duality in attitudes. Katie Chopin, an American writer, in the novel The Awakening depicted a sexual self-discovery of a female protagonist, which put her in a strong opposition to the social norms. One of the iconic representatives of the art nouveau, Aubrey Beardsley, illustrated Oscar Wilde’s Salome, showing the reader a horribly beautiful woman who through her outstanding performance murdered the prophet. It is noticeable that these women did not survive the end of the books that told their stories. But it is also evident that women were gradually being invested with power either to define their lives, or to define the lives of the others. The image and story of Salome can be regarded as the best historical example and perhaps an inspiration to the entire culture of female performance that ensued. At any event, the turn of the centuries saw the beginning of power-struggle between men and women. And while it is correct to say that in the English political context the decisive victory came with the right to vote for women, culturally, women found themselves ‘on top’ of men in many continental cabarets and American clubs that offered ‘exotic dancing’.

It is significant that the burlesque culture succeeded in establishing female power through stripping women of their femininity. But although, as Allen tells us, such well-known traits of burlesque as strippers, runways and candybutchers did not appear until 1920s, burlesque and cabaret accentuated the way women could rule men – through offering them satisfaction to their sexual needs. Dance was the ultimate expression on this occasion, as watching it gave both aesthetic and sexual pleasure to the male viewer.

Burlesque is important all the more because it was the arena of acting out the persistent cultural contradiction: women were often mistreated, but without them men would be left unfulfilled. The question “What it means to be a woman?” amply defined the popular objectification of woman as a sexual object that contradicted a common-place hierarchy.

One cannot fail noticing that the burlesque culture at the beginning of its existence did not imbue the same strength of sexual energy, as it came to do at the later stage. What stands out is that these early performers were professional entertainers. However, it is perhaps the later burlesque that shows how feminism would eventually come into being. Whereas before the clubs and cabarets a woman was suppressed as a man’s household ‘slave’, the erotic performance enslaved her sexually. On the other hand, erotic performance in the form of striptease also enslaved men who began to be increasingly regarded as sex-driven creatures, as portrayed with disgust by Valerie Solanas.

Nevertheless, at the beginning the exotic performance was the defiance of an emotionally repressed and hypocrite system, and as such it was effective in attaining a goal that was largely political. At the very least, burlesque performers succeeded in gradually making the society gender-oriented, rather than sex-oriented. It contributed to the fact that today none of the spheres of life is possible without equality in gender representation, which also includes politics.

A Porn Star in Parliament: A Descent in Values or a Political Advance?

In 1987 a Hungarian-born Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina, was elected to the Italian Parliament, as a Radical Party candidate. While one may have had a vague idea of Ilona, they would definitely know who Cicciolina was, – one of the leading Italian porn actresses of the 1970s and 1980s. Cicciolina has been an amazingly active politician: “she campaigns for a safe future without nuclear energy and with absolute sexual freedom including the right to sex in prisons. She is against all forms of violence including the death penalty and the use of animals for fur or scientific experimentation. She is for the decriminalization of drugs, against censorship of any kind, in favour of sex education in schools, and for objective information about AIDS. She has proposed a tax on automobiles to reduce the damages of smog and fund the defence of nature”. Her recent intention was to run for a post of mayor of Milan in the 2006 elections. When she announced her plans in 2004, she was going to rekindle the city’s economy by opening a casino in a medieval palace in the city centre – despite the fact that the palace is a regular cultural venue.

While an MP, Cicciolina made history by baring her left breast or performing a striptease during press-conferences. A conclusion about her as one of the highly controversial ‘political bodies’ would be an obvious one, but Cicciolina was virtually eager to use her body in the strictly political means: to stop Saddam Hussein, for example, during the Gulf War. It is certainly significant that she was reluctant to use her real name and referred to a better-known stage-name, albeit notorious. And in spite of her ongoing political engagements and a long-ended film career, Cicciolina maintains the website, with zones of explicit content, available to members only.

The question that rises from this sketch is – how should one regard the fact that a hardcore porn actress not only entered the Parliament, but was re-elected despite her explicitly indecent behaviour? Should this point out to the descent in moral values, or is this in fact the proof of political tolerance? The answer will be ambivalent. One can remember Mata Hari, an erotic dancer, who was later convicted as a spy, in which case Cicciolina’s example can be examined from the same perspective. On the other hand, one can remember Madonna’s videoclip on her song American Dream, which was an open critique of the Bush government and the protest against the war in Iraq. As Mrs Ritchie constantly reminds us these days, one of her ambitions was to prove that a woman can be beautiful, sexy and clever all at once. Such view does not exclude a possible involvement in political activity, and Cicciolina is therefore the proof of the society’s recognition of a political potential of a woman.

If we get back to our discussion of how burlesque contributed to the social and political emancipation of a woman, we will notice that it was largely nonsensical. The viewer was never told what he has to make from watching the performer. But what he was expected to do is to throw away any conventionality, because this was the purpose of burlesque: to break social and cultural convention. This is no wonder, for example, that in today’s irreligious or religiously apathetic society a burlesque performer can appear in the nun’s dress only to reveal a heavily tattooed torso. Another example is a performer who swallowed a neon sword. Sword-swallowing is a popular form of entertainment, but it was normally a male prerogative. On this occasion, however, both ‘masculinity’ and seriousness of such performance are mocked, because the sword is not made of steel.

Therefore, one may conclude that when Cicciolina bared her breasts naked, she did not mean to inflict anger – she simply bared her breasts, without any compelling reason or perhaps because she was proud of her previous job, or of her own body. As she said on one occasion, her breasts did the world less harm than Bin Laden’s terrorism. What is indubitable is that through this act she was defying a ‘regular’ image of female politicians, and that she was quite explicitly demonstrating the fact that a half-naked woman can also be a successful and active politician.

Conclusion

Observing these examples, makes one think exactly how we perceive politics and those engaged in it. First of all, it seems that in a democracy where the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression are vigilantly monitored by watchdogs and the public alike, it is difficult to reserve a ‘political space’ for politics and politicians, i.e. such space in the social or cultural discourse where politics can be unapproachable. The problem, obviously, is not whether Mrs Thatcher ever had a tattoo or performed a striptease; it is whether the public can or should see a politician’s body bared naked, even in a fictional story. It is also significant that while before it was largely men who were committing adulteries or were engaged in illicit behaviour, women now take an equal share in such activities.

This means not only that everyone can now discuss politics from whatever point of view, but also that everyone can take part in it. Eventually, political ‘wisdom’ that used to be mandatory for any kind of politician in the past is gradually being substituted by ‘common sense’, which opens the doors into politics for representatives of popular culture. What tends to happen, however, is that the public does not want to let go of the traits it cherished in these representatives, and so it wishes the showmen-turned-politicians to preserve these traits, despite the fact that they contradict the ‘serious’ nature of politics. But then, is it not the favourite popular challenge to the ‘old’ culture – to strip it off conventions? If so, then it means that probably politics is no longer serious, – or perhaps that sex no longer matters.

Kate Moss, Skinny Feels, Personas, And PR

Can She Actually Speak?

A few weeks ago I read a feature in the brand new Stylist magazine about Kate Moss. Half-way through the interview I read this phrase that left me… well, speachless, if only for a moment.

Kate Moss

…while Karaiskos steered Kate’s profile and made the decision that she should never give interviews, ensuring her lasting mystique.

To this day I struggle to understand what it was that impressed me so profoundly. On the one hand, I realised that, indeed, Kate Moss’s interviews are rare. And on the other hand, I remember this strange, almost surreal feeling as if I wasn’t sure Kate Moss could speak at all.

Now, according to The Guardian,

When the supermodel Kate Moss, in a rare online interview this week, told readers that one of her mottos was “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, the fallout was instant, vitriolic and damning.

I have no doubt that Paula Karaiskos has taught Kate Moss everything the model needed to know about handling both the press and the admiring crowd. And yet I wonder if sometimes she gets caught off guard with a question to which she wants to give an honest answer.

People and Disorders

In the last year or so I’ve come across a few people who’ve been experiencing eating disorders, cosmetic surgery disorders, all sorts of disorders that invariably have to do with our inner well-being. I have just been through a period when the work-related pressure had been so high that I experienced some kind of disorder myself. I also had to guard my finances rather tightly, and all in all this amounted to three months of extreme frugality. I’ve literally lived on bread and butter and some pasta all this time. A terrible experience for someone who’d been raised on and enjoys the home cooking. My prime comfort is in that I am a writer, and I am glad I had to experience all this in the privacy of my small flat, without travelling to the island of Tahiti or Parisian slums. My secondary comfort is in the fact that I have lost the weight that, to be fair, was excessive bearing in mind my figure, height, and age. The truth is that I have never been a “big eater”, so the positive outcome of the stress is that I am back to eating what and however much or little I like. I am my normal self, neither my family’s, nor the public’s.

The truth is, for the purists on the other side of some fence, my experience will be drastic, terrible, awful, unhealthy, you name it. I agree: it is. And, frankly, there were even more bitter experiences. Sadly or not, all together they make life, and it can be dramatic enough without us making a special verbal effort to dramatise it.

There is a fascinating thing about public personas. There may be as little as three people in one. There may be a tightly concealed and guarded private self: the one that wakes up in bed and goes to the toilet every morning. Once this private self leaves the house and goes to do some Christmas shopping “in the flesh”, we see the public side of their private self. For one, we may suddenly realise that these famous people do occasionally go to the shop and mix with more or less ordinary mortals. This is the side the News of the World hunts, since the paparazzi don’t always manage to get a through-the-blinds peek at the famous person in his or her privacy.

And then there is the public self, and I can think of no better illustration than this saying by Rudolph Valentino: “Women are not in love with me but with the picture of me on the screen. I am merely the canvas on which women paint their dreams“. The public self often emerges against the personal odds and doesn’t necessarily have much to do with the private individual. The public self exists in public, for the public, and often at the mercy of the public opinion. Not quite a godsend to wish for.

The majority of celebrities – including Kate Moss, so it seems – never manage to bridge the gaps between the above three selves, and they focus on nurturing and maintaining the public self as the means to ensure their longevity in the public eye. But the private self exists, and since it is the closest to what the person is, it breaks through whatever boundaries the public self builds around it.

It is possible to conceal this private self in the interviews and during public appearances. It is also possible to let it shine forth in such way that it does not destroy the appeal of the public image. But all this comes with experience, and giving rare interviews is unlikely to build the experience and confidence in answering challenging questions.

There is still a possibility, surely, that you will be misinterpreted. Just as celebrities are less PR-savvy, so are the journalists. They don’t research, they ask dull questions, they are less interested in the person than in the fact that their names will appear in the article’s credit.

And, as one poet put it, we cannot guess how our words may resonate. This is all the truer when we consider the public attitude. We cannot guess what influential someone may decide to disagree with us. But this does not mean we cannot project the possible repercussions of our words.

All the above surely sounds like some kind of psychological disorder, but in truth there is little wrong about it, considering how complex people are. There will always be a part of ourselves that is unknown to others, and this part may manifest itself suddenly and inconveniently. And it is much harder to find the fusion between all the various selves, which is why some people make a choice of either being totally private in order not to ruin their public image, or bringing their entire private life into the public domain. The in-betweens are not always successful.

The Private Side of the Public Self

In the recent case with Kate Moss, the problem is not quite about what sites and groups share her “motto”. The problem is with the actual phrase. The motto is your credo, something you live by, almost like your religion. And it is unfortunate for a public figure of such appeal and status to live by “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels“.

Let’s ask: what is good about this phrase to make it a motto? One would have thought that frugality was the natural retreat of the tight folk and the inevitable way of life for those who cannot afford much. Moss can certainly afford something, and there is hardly a reason for her to be tight with money. To repeat: why should this be her motto?

This is the prime example of the great divide between the private and public self. There is indeed no problem with the motto itself, and if Moss-the-private-person lives by it, the public has no right to intervene with its opinion. But for that this motto must remain private, too. When it is uttered by Moss-the-public-figure, it instantly becomes a part of her public image. And so we find Moss-the-public-figure engulfed by the concern that exists in the public domain. Arguing that these words were taken out of context is likely to be perceived as a mere excuse.

Speaking of the interview itself, the answers generally do not allow for an image of a terribly intelligent star. This is now the famous passage:

WWD: Do you have a motto?

KM: There are loads. There’s “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” That’s one of them. You try and remember, but it never works.

Reading it, I obviously wonder: how can a person have “loads” of mottos but never remember any?!

Most importantly, and this is very obvious from the questions, the Women’s Wear Daily reporter was interviewing the public figure, but the interviewee was far from that image. Brid Costello was talking to a “businesswoman as well as the fixture in front of the camera“. The answers were given by a woman who can multitask apparently because she can have babies and who channels her creativity into cooking jams or painting a dressing room. Sounds more like a housewife than a successful businesswoman and style icon.

As we only have a published version, we cannot see what other questions were asked, or what answers were given. Perhaps it was also the journalist’s task not to compromise his own trade and to change the question. Knowing what public reaction to this motto would likely be, he could surely ask a spin-off question, about mottos for either business or creativity. And should the answer be even worse, he could always avoid including this question about the motto in the publication. Yes, this would be unfair, untrue, etc. But even on-air interviews are often scripted, at least for the journalist. It’s not like not including this question and the answer to it would ultimately revolutionise the journalism.

Barking Up the Wrong Tree

Now that everything has been published, and the debate rages, this becomes a curious case study for PR folk. This is the occasion when we get to see the private side of the public self. This has nothing to do with anorexia, or what teens may think or do. One must not follow the line of modern journalism and, by dramatising the situation, deny every single person their bit of common sense. In short: there is no indication that Moss’s answer is going to produce a new generation of anorexic teenagers.

However, together with the famous drug taking episode this becomes yet another indication that Moss and her mentors must take seriously Moss’s own PR skills. In the situation when the public image has been so deftly and solidly constructed by other people, it is now all the more important to distinguish between the types of publications, the types of questions, and the gamut of answers Kate Moss may give. And maybe – if Ms Moss has time – to get her to read and analyse others’ interviews.

Image credit: Jamaican Slang.

What Would Jean Cocteau Say About the Web?

Jean Cocteau (French poet and artist) died in 1963. We therefore don’t know what he’d say about the web; whether he’d be passionate about it or critical. But he said something else in an interview when he was explaining the design of a postal stamp with the portrait of Marianne, France’s national symbol. Turns out, Marianne was a bureaucrat’s wife, and so on Cocteau’s stamp there was this female head, not really heroic or even beautiful. The journalist asked if Marianne on the stamp was perhaps too typical.

Yes, maybe, – Cocteau replied, – but I think it’s good. When one is licked by so many it doesn’t pay to be too singular, lest one is licked with disgust.

I remembered this when I read Chris Brogan’s recent post – Is Your Web Presence Multi-use – and the commentary to it. Put simply, Brogan’s idea in the post is to encourage website owners to bear in mind that they are read by hundreds, if not thousands, different people. In addition to all the different things about those people, they may also speak a different language. The latter fact alone puts a whole new spin on the story.

Some commentators, though, were at odds with such suggestion. “It’s not possible to be all things to all people” and “isn’t the web is all about finding the niche and catering for it?” sum up the criticism amply.

I often find that we lock ourselves in a niche, either as producers or consumers. We think that we found the proverbial purple cow, but what few people remind us of is that the colour fades in the sun. The day will come when your cow is lilac or even white – and that’s not the same as purple. So you at least need to paint your cow once in a while, to freshen it up – which, in terms of a website, may mean changing its design, or putting a new spin on your niche subject.

I’d argue that it’s impossible to cater for a niche. On the one hand, there’s always a bigger picture, and if it’s possible to have your niche border on several supportive subjects, then why not? A blogger’s block often happens in a competitive niche. On the other hand, exactly how niche can you be? So, you may be making a website about scrap cars, but so are a few dozen of other people. What makes you different? How sustainable is your business? Imagine the worst case scenario: the day came when no-one wants to scrap their cars. What will you do? What will make your site – and your name – continue appearing in search results?

You therefore cannot be too niche, and at the same time you have to attract different people if you’re working on the web. Some will come for information; others will come to spend money. I’m one of the kind who believes in the possibility of blending humanism and business. And although it’s not possible to be all things to all people, there’s nothing wrong with making an impact on lives of many people – pretty much like what we’re seeing for over a week now since Michael Jackson is no more.

To round up – a quote from the magnificent Peter Blake, about what makes a person an icon: “You’ve got to have your own style. But not so that in a short while you’re out of fashion. It’s not about being fashionable; it’s just a look, a feel“. Perhaps, we can think of our web presence as if we’re Vivienne Westwood, and, should it be our vision, blend punk with tartan, even if this goes against what the savvy folks teach us. Or think of our web presence as if it’s Kate Moss. She can sniff crack; she can wear a dress in royal blue colour at the Queen’s dinner. But when a fashion journo asks people in the street “who is your fashion icon?“, we all know what the answer will often be.

The image is courtesy of Charles Blomefield, the leading specialist in French stamps.

The Theatre of Fashion Photography (On Eric Traore)

This video is fairly short but serves well to introduce both the Watches supplement to the 2002 Vogue Russia, and the work of Eric Traoré. What I noticed recently, going through different fashion and photographers’ websites, is that in a bid to protect their content from unfair use they build the site in such way that it doesn’t allow you to save the photo off the page. As much as I understand this, some rethinking should be made, in my opinion, if only to prevent the re-distribution of content in the form of screen grabs. A gallery of images for public use, as I see it, will not only enrich the website, allowing for a fair doze of social bookmarking and sharing options, but will also assist at distributing the name of the brand or artist.

In case with Eric Traoré, there is a [very short] introduction to his work at LifeLounge with a gallery of public images. Traoré’s style is distinct, and as you will be able to see at his website he is often concerned with the unusual. This may not sound like a particularly innovative thing for a beauty photographer to do, but Traoré does really succeed at unveiling the ‘other side’ of beauty. There is, for example, a stunning image of a Japanese-looking girl with beetles instead of eyes… that is, until you notice that her eyes are closed and beetles are painted on the eyelids. Traoré works productively with the make-up artists, infusing the art of photography with theatrical effects. This is manifestant in his session for Elle (Beauty 1 gallery on Eric’s website), where an observant viewer can find a couple of reverberations of the ‘Venus at the mirror’ theme, as well as a hint at Coco Chanel’s famous photo (left). At the same time, his work for Harper’s Bazaar (which has long been one of my favourite magazines; Beauty 2 gallery) explores both the glittering and vain quality of fashion. This finds its expression as in images (right), as in make-up: a woman’s eye dressed in peacock’s shades – how about that for a pun?

In his personal (i.e. less related to fashion) work, Traoré continues studying the unconventional beauty and the restrictions of the world (including that of fashion) on the very concept of beauty. The photos in Studies subgallery (Personal Work gallery) are a superb example of this. His use of ropes in the Studies series also brings to mind Man Ray’s Vénus Restaurée and Blanc et Noir (left and right, respectively). A short article at Incubus Choice gives a summary of the series. The notions of insecurity, restriction and movement are further explored in the black-and-white NYC series: people and cars that drift or move chaotically between the sky-scrapers, the odd blazing ray of sun that gets in the picture, the ghostly sfumato-esque atmosphere. The buildings and objects are little more secure than people: the reclining skyline and streetlamps seem to be supported by the same effort than keeps upholding the Pisan tower. Traoré’s New York strangely reminded me of Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. The sense of restriction and the Gothic feel reach the climax in the photo of the tree branches. The picture at once reminds of the intricate imagery of the medieval manuscripts, as well as of the slender Gothic architecture – but the twisted bodies of the trees hint at the lack of freedom and at the same time call to remember the Mannerist painters’ figures and slim silhouettes of today’s fashion models.

Eric Traoré’s website.

Matthew Williamson: 10 Years in Fashion at Urbis

These days designer Matthew Williamson, the British fashion prodigy, is reported to open his first NY shop in early 2009 and to leave Emilio Pucci where he was a Creative Director since 2005, having succeeded Christian Lacroix. And in the meantime the exhibition “Matthew Williamson: 10 Years in Fashion”, celebrating the start of his burgeoning career in 1997, has made a stop in Manchester, until 21st of September 2008.

Manchester is Williamson’s native city
. Born on October 23rd 1971 in Chorlton, Williamson subsequently graduated from Central St Martin’s with a BA 2:1 in Fashion Design and Printed Textiles. He then had a freelance design project with Marni and worked for Monsoon and Accessorize before founding Matthew Williamson Company in 1997 together with Joseph Velosa. He has been nominated three times as the Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Awards, won Elle Designer of the Year award in 2004 and Moet et Chandon Fashion Tribute in 2005. He has been showing consistently at the New York Fashion Week (with the exception of the Spring 2008 show, when he made a return to London, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his designer’s activity).

The exhibition that is currently at Urbis in Manchester is the one that debuted at the Designer Museum in October 2007 and is apparently destined to travel internationally, celebrating, commemorating, and even perhaps letting discover, Williamson’s talent and work. The displays that focus on four main themes – Colour and Psychedelia, Hyper-Nature, Global Extravaganza, and Lifestyle – feature Williamson’s sketches, notebooks, as well as the actual pieces from different collections.

While the exhibition and talent of Williamson leave no doubts in their potential to inspire and grow, the displays at Urbis located on the top floor of the ship-like glass building probably suffer to an extent from the organisation of the space and light – and from the Manga exhibition on Level 1. You really are best taking the lift to see “10 Years in Fashion” first and then go downstairs, if you want to sink in the multi-colour world of Japanese Manga. Williamson’s designs, for which he consistently draws inspiration from ethnic cultures (his spring/summer 2009 pre-collection is said to be inspired by contemporary Havana), are indeed colourful, but in a different, multi-layer, multi-pattern, multi-mix way – quite unlike the deep single arresting colours of the Manga displays, which are bound to leave the impression even if you simply run past them. Unfortunately, displayed against the white walls, or in glass cabinets, on the top level where the light and reflection depend not just on artificial lighting but also on the weather outside, Williamson’s designes lose some of the impression they can certainly make. On occasion, the space perhaps has its say in reducing the impression, which again has to do with the actual location.

Still, as you can see on the photos I took at the exhibition, there is a lot to see and to enjoy. In one particular display your attention is sure to be caught by the pink embroidered trouser suit, and also a long fuchsia dress. I love bright colours myself, and on that not particularly sunny day wore yellow tights, fuchsia shoes, a blue dress, and a hand-made yellow-and-pink mohair jumper (which you can see on the picture). And it’s been quite some time that I’ve been thinking of knitting or crocheting myself a long dress, and going to Matthew Williamson’s exhibition convinced me to say “yes” to the inner urge. Behind me in the picture you can see one of a few catwalk shows that you can watch at the exhibition.

Apart from the ones I’ve just mentioned, other designs that impressed me are from the spring/summer 2008 collection. Think ruffles, sequins, khaki (for which colour I have a soft spot, which is why the maxi dress on the left was an instant favourite), but also highly stylish bags (they are, too, a girl’s best friend, after all). But then have a look at the yellow coat from the fall/winter 2008 collection, or at the pale coloured dress with uneven length from the pre-spring 2009 collection, and you will be confronted with totally new ideas for female fashion. In a way, the designs from the pre-spring 2009 collection may be as challenging to some as pinafore dresses – but that’s what fashion is about, really: pushing you out of the old routines.

And bearing in mind that Williamson has now taken inspiration from Cuba, this really must be telling.

As a matter of fact, Williamson has apparently only just bought his first piece of art: “a light installation – a series of horizontal neon tubes that move and change colour” by Rob and Nick Carter, t5m reports. Williamson acknowledged that himself, but I think the very description of the art object tells us: this is the quintessence of Matthew Williamson – ever-changing, ever-colourful, and ever-light.

Notes on the images:

Pictures from the Urbis exhibition were made by me and can seen in Matthew Williamson: 10 Years in Fashion Flickr photoset.

Other image credits: Matthew Williamson official website and NY Magazine.

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