24/06/2014

The Law of Fashion and the Culture of Copying

Where is the fine line between inspiration and copying? That is the question everyone is asking themselves with the latest copyright lawsuit fresh in mind. The footwear company New Balance is filing a lawsuit against fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld, claiming he ripped off their trademark trainer logo when he designed a sneaker for his own brand.

Lagerfeld bridged the streetwear trend for trainers when he in January showed Chanel’s couture collection in Paris, and sent every model down the catwalk wearing sneakers. This statement contributed to the trend from which New Balance have benefitted. However the sneaker for Lagerfeld’s own brand made New Balance react. The company claims that the use of the letter K on a pair of trainers from Lagerfeld’s collection is too similar to New Balance’s distinctive N, and is causing confusion for costumers.

Karl Lagerfeld has very likely taken inspiration from New Balance and made some changes in the design to fit his own esthetic. This is a common method in fashion, and designers are often finding inspiration from each other. In this seasons streatwear trend, it is especially obvious that many designers have been influenced by the streets as well as by other brands. Givenchy made for example a double-buckle version of the Birkenstock sandal and the pool sliders which were featured on the spring/summer 2014 catwalks of Christopher Kane to Prada, are probably inspired by the originally plastic leisure footwear from Adidas and Nike. Maybe that is a consequence of seeking new influences from the same sources.

Many bloggers have already written about the similarity between Lagerfeld’s and New Balance’s trainers, doubting it is a coincidence that they look so much alike. The accusation of copying can hurt a designer’s image which is depending on inovation and originality. However, other than the juridical judgment, there is no right and wrong when it comes to how and where designers find their inspiration. The truth is, regardless we like it or not, that fashion partly depends on improving and updating already existing products. Although the line between improving and copying someone’s design completely, might be drawn when costumers confuse a pair of trainers for $360 with the originals for $112.

Hanna Cronsjö 
24/06/2014

Vitra Campus Grows: Slide Tower by Carsten Höller

When Vitra Campus first opened to the public back in 1984, showing the sculpture Balancing Tools by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, it was immediately clear that this was going to be no ordinary factory and retail space. Since then, some of the most significant and prestigious contemporary designers and architects have left their mark at Weil am Rhein: from Frank Gehry’s 1989 museum to the most recent factory building designed by SANAA, completed in 2012. While last year we saw Renzo Piano’s utopian “Diogene” cabin being installed among trees of the Campus, this year the visionary Mr. Fehlbaum decided to commission a new work to Belgian artists Carsten Höller.

Scientist by education, Carsten Höller holds a doctorate in agriculture and his works are often structured as a chemical and meticulous analysis of human emotions and reactions. His most famous and theatrical work – a series of corkscrew slides started back in 1998 during Berlin Biennale – calls on the interaction between work and public in a playful and disorienting manner. Vitra Sliding Tower builds on this ongoing series, with the most famous edition being the one realized for Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2006, consisting of three diagonal columns that meet at the top, with a revolving clock mounted at their point of intersection measuring six metres in diameter, and a 38-metre-long corkscrew tube slide.

“A slide is a sculptural work with a pragmatic aspect, a sculpture that you can travel inside. However, it would be a mistake to think that you have to use the slide to make sense of it. Slides deliver people quickly, safely and elegantly to their destinations, they’re inexpensive to construct and energy-efficient. They’re also a device for experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness,” says Höller. The loss of control and the induction of a particular state of mind related to freedom from constraint, reduces the distance between work and viewer and reflects on the peculiar relationship between public and work of art. On the other hand, Vitra Sliding Tower is another addition enhancing the power of Vitra empire and their unreachable, visionary role as guardians of modern design.

Rujana Rebernjak 
23/06/2014

Style Suggestions: Accessories for Men

As men’s fashion week is well on its way choosing the right accessories is not always an easy task. Here are some of our suggestions for a classic man.

Scarf: The Elder Statesman, Shoes: Grenson, Bag: Roy Roger’s

Styling by Vanessa Cocchiaro 

23/06/2014

Gerhard Richter PICTURES/SERIES

As every year, during Art Basel, the Swiss city turns itself into a hub of contemporary art, attracting collectors, art players and lovers from all over the world; but the secret of this success is not just due to the international fair, though it is undoubtedly one of the well-known and most visited. What makes it “a place to go” is also the list of outstanding art institutions offering high-level program of talks and exhibitions accompanying the event, which become memorable experiences. Soon after reaching Basel, our first stop is Fondation Beyeler, the perfect building designed by Renzo Piano that, as usually, pays tribute to a giant of art: this is the turn of Gerhard Richter (b. 1932, Dresden, Germany), one of the most important artists of our time. Following on from Panorama – the huge retrospective, which celebrated the artist’s 80th birthday at Tate Modern in London, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2011-12 –, the Foundation hosts an exhibition entitled Pictures/Series, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, that puts together, for the first time, Richter’s works conceived as series and cycles.

Floodlit by the natural light coming from the ceiling and the huge walls/windows, the show presented a stimulating selection that encompasses the artist’s career over the last sixty years, displaying figurative works, including portraits, land and seascapes, abstract paintings, Greys and Color charts, photographs and digital prints. After the wall-size color chart entitled 1024 Colors (1973) that greets the visitors in the foyer along with two graceful small flowers paintings, the exhibition path goes on with the eight-part S. and Child (1995), which recalls the Virgin and Child theme through the representation of real portraits, but depicted with different stylistic approach and levels of abstraction. From the monumental and controlled pictures of Strip (2013) to the as much large-scale canvases of Cage (2006) – layered surfaces, scratched and erased while listening to the American composer, John Cage –, passing through the Abstract Painting, Rhombus (1998) and the Gray (1975) monochromes, there is space for individual works such as the poetic and emotional Seascape (1975) and Iceberg in Mist (1982) – Greenland landscapes shrouded in mist and mystery –, the delicate and iconic Ella (2007), Small Bather and Reader (both 1994), Betty (1988) and Torso (1997).

The Annunciation after Titian (1973) and the cycle October 18, 1977 (1988) merit a special attention. The former offers the rare opportunity to see all together the five paintings inspired by the old master, catching Richter’s personal process of abstraction and continuous variation; while the latter, consisting of 15 blurred and dark paintings that reproduce press images of the members of the German terrorist group Red Army Faction (RAF), presents a historical and controversial issue from a human and pensive way. “Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human; art is making sense and giving shape to that sense. It is like the religious search for God.” The unmissable exhibition will run until September 7th, 2014 at Fondation Beyeler.

Monica Lombardi – Images courtesy of Agota Lukyte 
20/06/2014

3D Printing, From Emotions To Functions

When it comes to emotions, 3D printing has recently proved to be an accessible means to please our fancies. Forget about computer numerical control machines used in advanced material manufacturing or robotics, and turn to the first, grassroots experiments that involve end users and their irrepressible impulse for consumerism and fun. Isn’t the chance to scan and print our own face a democratic way to narcissism? And aren’t the open-source platforms like Thingiverse one of the new easiest channels of access to indiscriminate possession, no matter that they really propose in terms of aesthetics and uses?

Nevertheless, it’s because of design that a new politique des auteurs comes to life through 3d printing, showing that a beautiful way to express ourselves is at our fingertips even when technologies are still immature. At the latest Salone del Mobile, the “Desiderabilia” exhibition promoted by In Residence – Design Dialogues showcased a collection of fairy inventions describing the emotional relationship between people and objects. Thus, this unpredictable series of 3D printed creations – for example a virtual ikebana (by duo Minale Maeda), a mole mailbox (by Matteo Cibic), a dreams’ dome (by Giorgia Zanellato) – were conceived by curators as a means to tickle designers’ imagination and provide an affordable way of materializing their oddest fantasies.

Nevertheless, when it comes to functions, 3D printing has recently been able to accomplish its potential in the broken ground of furniture. Deservedly awarded at the last edition of Interieur 2014 in the “Objects” category, “Keystones”, again by duo Minale-Maeda is the quintessence of a metonymic project, succeeding in rethinking the whole furniture production and distribution chains through the design of a single piece. Per se, Keystone is a simple plastic joint – nor ugly, nor particularly seductive – that through a system of integrated screws dovetails the table components in a stable and replicable solution. From a wider perspective, however, it represents a tangible attempt to concretely rethink the whole furniture supply chain, allowing people to print their joints by themselves, choose favourite materials or finishings, assemble the piece, and possibly involve local artisans in the realization of the piece.

Minale-Maeda’s acknowledgement is the result of a long-lasting research. Started in 2012 as a self initiated project, Keystones is a genuine synthesis of a contemporary mind-set which plausibly integrates in its DNA different elements: from open source inspiration– “from Rietveld’s sketches to the online Lego community”, as designers state – to downloadable design, sustainability and a DIY attitude. All issues that we rarely encounter among furniture and product design, and that has only started to show new, intriguing results.

Giulia Zappa – Images Courtesy of Tullio Deorsola 
20/06/2014

Some Notes On: CSM and RCA Graduation Shows

As every year, this is the time for graduation shows. All over the globe, fashion schools unveil their practice to put on stage the results of a year of research, experimentations and hard work. Two of the most celebrated schools, the Royal College of Art and the Central Saint Martins, catalysed the attention of the fashion world, presenting their graduates: 40 for the BA course at CSM and 30 for the MA course at RCA.

Central Saint Martins’ collections are varied in colours, techniques and shapes; nothing seems left unsaid, and all the collections, while different from one another, share the same loudness. All the messages the students wanted to send are communicated in a clear way and are well unfolded in the sequence of eight outfits. Boldness and clarity might be the criteria used to name Gracie Wales-Bonner winner of the L’Oréal Professionel Talent Award. Her collection, almost an archive of iconic pieces of a classy woman’s wardrobe, was shown worn by brawny black men, all styled with big jewels and headgears. The sharp contrast between dress and wearer wants to put the attention on various themes, such as identity, gender and appearance, and underline the possible discrepancies between the surface and inner feelings. Another collection with a strong communicative power was that of Fiona O’Neill. She based her work on distortion: uncomfortable dresses, hand painted to recreate the image of the body itself, blurring the boundaries between body and dress. Technical and elasticated fabrics are teamed with canvas-like materials, modifying the posture and restricting the movements.

As for the RCA, even though the level of techniques shown by all the graduates was high, menswear collections distinguished themselves visually for their play with dimension and scale. Oversized jackets, plain or with flashy applications, and even full-length furs blossoming with flowers and butterflies: this is what we got from Johanne Dindler’s collection, which played with the ideas of shamelessness and audacity, denying the usual delicacy of some elements in juxtaposition with clashing materials and volumes. In womenswear, discretion was surely introduced as a wholly feminine value: Katherine Roberts-Wood based her collection on the slight contrast between the elegance of colours and fabrics and the three-dimensional embroidery falling from the shoulders and amassing near the hemlines.

Looking at both fashion shows, we can surely pinpoint the main trend behind design practice taught in English schools: the freedom of creativity, disciplined only by the need of having something to say.

Marta Franceschini 
19/06/2014

London Collections Men: Digital colours and kimonos

The most varied of major international fashion weeks, London Collections: Men is a very creative market where you can really breathe fashion innovation and extravaganza. In London, typical tailoring suits come together with yeti fur and feminine details, in a unique and totally British way. During the last three days of shows, we saw several micro trends, but the ones that caught our eye the most were basically two: kimono shape and digital colorful inserts.

The kimono shape appeared on many runways: Topman Design went for a Seventies flower power mood and surprised with pastel coloured bathrobes worn as cardigans. King of the third sex, J.W. Anderson, played a little bit with the waistline too, by giving an unexpected twist to very simple bottomed tunics. Finally, we cannot but mention Astrid Andersen’s sportive-aggressive approach, presented through a series of martial-arts inspired looks, with a mix of black and vivid warm colours.

Alexander McQueen SS 2015 runway showcased an attempt to recreate a sort of a higher midriff, with Sara Burton declaring a willingness to break up with the brand’s history and past collections. Her newly proposed path introduced spots of vivid colors in contrast with black and white, recalling a traditional Kabuki mask. A richer colorway and a more digital approach was spotted at Christopher Kane, where a classic black sweater was turned contemporary by adding bright tones in geometric shapes.

Opening Ceremony, on the other hand, went for softer and bigger shapes and a richer colour palette. Paired with psychedelic prints, Opening Ceremony’s vision underlined an innovative way to see men and their wardrobe. All in all, this season’s runways gave digital coloring a foothold in the field, becoming, together with a soft and refined silhouette, a true season staple.

Francesca Crippa 
18/06/2014

The Talented: Yulia Yefimtchuk

Fashion designer and founder of her eponymous brand, Yulia Yefimtchuk is reluctant to speak about the future. It might be that her Slavic origins and the tumultuous past and present of her home country – Ukraine – have instilled an innate sense of suspicion and doubt and taught her to not take anything for granted. And yet, Yefimtchuk’s recent rampant success – following her special Opening Ceremony victory at Hyères Fashion Festival – might well persuade her to think otherwise.

Yulia Yefimtchuk started her career as a fashion designer fresh out of Kiev’s Institute Of Decorative And Applied Art And Design, where she graduated in 2010. Since 2011, Yulia Yefimtchuk+, the official name of her brand, has been producing limited edition womenswear collections entirely in Ukraine. You can easily see the influence of Yefimtchuk’s favourite designers – Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Raf Simons – on her carefully drawn, discreet and almost humble collections. Inspired by everyday life, Yefimtchuk’s creations are particularly harmonious, clear and linear, with minimalistic cuts, straightforward classical silhouettes and constructive details, such as cut-outs or bows, usually placed on the back.

While her previous collections drew from the designer’s inspirational themes in a more subtle and veiled way, the series that won her the recognition of Hyères committee, was much more bold and outspoken towards its rich set of references. Drawn from the Russian Constructivist Movement of the 1920s, the collection sports geometric cuts, pure forms and a stripped down aesthetics – deriving both from the iconic graphic and visual arts imagery of the time, as well as the Soviet-era restrained lifestyle. Conceived both as an ode and as a playful critique to her country’s past, this collection might be the fashion world’s best reminder that beauty can often be found through difficulty and constraint.

Rujana Rebernjak 
18/06/2014

Through the Lens of Giasco Bertoli

How, when and why did you decide to work in photography?
I started taking photos when I was 12 years old, I had a small Instamatic camera that my parents gave me. Ten years later I went to a photography school in Milan.

What are your influences, do you feel particularly related to any photographer?
I don’t know. My early influences include Robert Mapplethorpe, Diane Arbus, Walker Evans, Helmut Newton, while later I became interested in the photographic work of Ed Ruscha, Richard Prince, Cy Twombly, Andreï Tarkovsky.

How do you approach your work and how and why do you choose your subjects?
The final work goes through observation, really looking at things, which can simply take a few moments. Only the mind can transform something into a photograph. If photography was only a mechanical process, all photos would be the same. But, in fact, the different psychological charges come with our different psychological comprehension, and if there is no comprehension, we only have an excess of images. If you think about Instagram, for instance, you can see how people don’t know how to look. The subject I choose could comes simply from the everyday life experience, even though I’m particularly interested in the trilogy of life, sex and death.

What do you aim to communicate through your work?
Nothing. The viewer can make his own decision on the meaning of my work.

Tell us more about your Tennis Courts project, how did you start it and why is it so important for you?
I started the project years ago by taking a photo of an abandoned tennis court in the south of Switzerland, close to the place where I grew-up. I’m always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods, ect. I would like to quote the French writer Marguerite Duras: les tennis on les regarde beaucoup, même quand ils sont déserts, quand il pleut…Il y aurait à dire sur les tennis qui sont regardés. There’s something about an abandoned-looking place that makes it look like it has a life of its own. I really like it.

What would be your dream project to work on?
Filming relieves my conscience. I just finished my first short film based on a Bukowski novel I read last year. I would like to work on a feature film soon.

Interview by Agota Lukyte – Images courtesy of Giasco Bertoli 
17/06/2014

Building Tiny Houses with Lester Walker

For as long as I can remember, I have always dreamed about the perfect house. I imagined the colour of its walls, the light coming through its windows, the size and shape of its furniture. My dream of a perfect house never included a single thought about the structure of its walls, the efficiency of its heating system or the finishing of its floors. It was all about a subtle feeling of calm, happiness and blissful peace, usually coming from months spent daydreaming about its carefully arranged, yet crooked details, and tons of shabby plants. Even though the thoughts on my perfect house never really entertained its construction, I can easily relate to Lester Walker saying that “one of the great thrills in life is to inhabit a building that one has built oneself.”

In the introduction to his book, Tiny Houses, Walker speaks about the veiled concept of a perfect house, saying: “The first tiny house I remember seeing and categorizing as a tiny, tiny house was a complete surprise. In the summer of 1963, I discovered one while hiking along what seemed to me to be a very treacherous untraveled animal trail on a remote part of Maine’s coastline. […] There it was, a tiny little gabble-roofed cabin built entirely of tarpaper and driftwood, complete with an Adirondack style built-in twig bed, a perfect little kitchen that used water from a nearby spring, and a writing desk under a window facing the sea. This home will remain in my mind as one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen.” This particular tiny house tipped of Walker’s adventure in compiling this book, while it also started what might be one of the most insightful, lightly profound and fortunate studies on the meaning of houses and building in our everyday life.

With Tiny Houses, Walker has compiled a sourcebook of different types of simple yet intimate homes: from Thoreau’s cabin to Martha’s Vineyard Campground cottages, from houses on wheels to tiny writer’s huts in which Hollywood movie scriptwriters were forced to stay until they completed their jobs. It is a practical book about building, as much as it is an ode to the pleasure of creating one’s home; a discovery of our intimate need to build a shelter and feel at ease within four walls, whatever form these may take. If a perfect house is, in fact, a dream, Lester Walker’s Tiny Houses is the most perfect tool to “inspire people of all ages and degrees of carpentry skill to take hammer in hand a build themselves” just that – “a little dream”.

Rujana Rebernjak 
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