Irenebrination: Notes on Architecture, Art, Fashion, Fashion Law & Technology

Fashion Obituary: Karl Lagerfeld, Sixty Years in Fashion (and One Lesson To Learn)

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, who died yesterday at 85 in Paris, didn't believe in "lifetime achievements", he often stated so whenever he received a major award. Yet the "Kaiser", as he was also known (a nickname that he didn't like that much and that was inspired by his opinionated character and his German origins), accomplished something unprecedented since his career in fashion spanned over 60 years and for 4 decades he worked for the same fashion house, Chanel.

The news of his death cast a shadow on the A/W 19 shows and shook the fashion crowd decamping from London to Milan to follow the runways, while tributes from colleagues, critics, influencers and fashion fans appeared on the social media.

Born in Hamburg in the mid-'30s (in 1933; some sources claim in 1938) to a wealthy family, Lagerfeld studied in Paris at Lycée Montaigne.

Lagerfeld won the coat award in the 1954 International Wool Secretariat competition (Woolmark Prize) at 21 (Yves Saint Laurent won the cocktail dress category in the same competition). He became junior assistant and apprentice at Balmain, and then worked at Jean Patou. He left it in 1962 and moved with Chloé in 1964, while the following year started a prolific collaboration with Rome-based house Fendi.

Lagerfeld founded his eponymous ready-to-wear label in 1984 (it was sold to the Tommy Hilfiger Group, and now it is owned by investment fund Apax Partners), but before that he started his biggest adventure in fashion. In 1982, the chairman of Chanel, Alain Wertheimer had indeed asked him to design for the famous French maison that at the time was more or less defunct.

Despite early criticism, the choice was a successful one: Lagerfeld revamped the house updating it, taking elements forming the basic code and semantics of Chanel and creating his own language, focusing on modernity and on the needs of his clients.

He designed 10 collections a year for Chanel, relentlessly reinventing the tweed suit and the little black dress, but also adding a series of accessories such as iconic handbags coveted by younger wealthy consumers.  

As the years passed he became an icon with a signature style: he discarded his fan, an accessory he used to hide a double chin, and shed around 90 pounds to be able to wear Hedi Slimane's super thin suits for Dior Homme; he let his hair go white and grow long, then gathered it in a ponytail, opted for dark sunglasses, added heavy rings on his fingers and used fingerless leather gloves to hide age spots.

While working for Chanel Lagerfeld developed other interests: a passionate book lover (his personal library boasts 300,000 volumes and hopefully we will not see it being dismembered), he opened the 7L bookshop on the Rue de Lille in Paris, followed by his publishing house Editions 7L, which released fashion and photography books and re-edited rare and out-of-print books with German art publisher Steidl.

In the last 20 years Chanel went through further changes: a passionate supporter of craftsmanship, Lagerfeld was instrumental in Chanel's acquisition (through its Paraffection subsidiary) of 26 specialist maisons, among them Causse (gloves), Maison Michel (millinery), Goossens (goldsmiths), Barrie (cashmere), Lognon (pleating), Lemarie (feather and flower adornments), Lesage (embroidery), Desrues (costume jewelry) and Massaro (shoes).

Besides, runway shows became extravagantly memorable affairs: Lagerfeld reinvented the art of the catwalk show as spectacle, creating sets that featured an iceberg from Scandinavia, a gigantic Chanel jacket, a data centre, an airport, a casino (used as the background to showcase advanced techniques such as 3D laser sintering employed to create computer-manipulated seamless classic Chanel jackets), a reproduction of the Eiffel Tower, an idealised version of the Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, a rocket, a ship, streets with feminist protests, a supermarket, a huge Japanese-style wooden structure and a serene beach.

In the meantime Coco went loco, and the Resort/Métiers d'Art collections became moveable feasts with shows that travelled across the globe, from Paris to Venice, New York, Linlithgow, Dallas, Seoul, Havana and Hamburg.

Yet Lagerfeld wasn't just about high fashion: in 2004, he teamed with Swedish fast-fashion giant H&M for a one-off collection that was immediately sold out and that sparked more collaborations with other fashion designers for the high street retailer.

Infatigable Lagerfeld was also a gifted sketcher and illustrator and a fashion photographer and produced campaigns for the Chanel, Fendi and Lagerfeld brands, plus other clients including Dom Perignon, Adidas, Coca-Cola and Pirelli. He also created costumes: in 2016 he designed the set and costumes for George Balanchine's "Brahms-Schönberg Quartet" at Paris' Opéra Bastille. 

In May 2010, the designer was bestowed with the French Legion of Honor medal, while in 2017 Women Wear's Daily handed Lagerfeld the John B. Fairchild Honor, dedicated to its founder and granted for lifetime achievement. In the same year Chanel registered sales of $9.6 billion.

Lagerfeld appeared in documentaries about him and about the house of Chanel including the acclaimed five-part miniseries "Signe Chanel" by Loïc Prigent, "Lagerfeld Confidential" by Rodolphe Marconi and "Mode Als Religion" by Martina Neue. More recently the house of Chanel was the subject of one of the episodes of Netflix's series "7 Days Out". 

Being an easily reconisable icon Lagerfeld appeared in 2008 in ads for road safety in France, wearing a fluorescent vest and the slogan "It's yellow, it's ugly, it doesn't go with anything, but it might save your life." He was also turned into a character in video game "Grand Theft Auto IV" and vaguely inspired the fashion designer/baddie Papillon in animated series "Miraculous Ladybug". 

Being outspoken he was often at the centre of controversies: he called singer Adele "a little too fat"; in 2017 he evoked the Holocaust to attack Chancellor Angela Merkel's immigration policy, and last year he stated that models who don't want someone pulling down their panties during a fashion shoot to quit and "join a nunnery".

Fashion never stops, so after the tributes came the inevitable question - who's on next? The reply was almost immediate: at the end of the S/S 19 show and of the Métiers d'Art show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Karl Lagerfeld was accompanied by his closest collaborator for more than 30 years, Virginie Viard. In January he missed the Chanel Haute Couture show, and Viard took the bow accompanied by the last model in the show.

So it was only natural that, after Lagerfeld's death, Chanel accounced that Viard had been entrusted by Alain Wertheimer with the creative work for the collections. The appointment puts a final end to rumours about Phoebe Philo (or Hedi Slimane, or Alber Elbaz, mind you there's also Raf Simons out there...) going to Chanel.

Viard comes from a family of silk manufacturers, studied textiles and she started her career creating costumes for theatre and film. In 1987 she began her collaboration with Chanel working on embroideries; she then became the coordinator of haute couture and of the ready-to-wear collections. 

Viard doesn't like the spotlight even though at the moment all eyes are on her and many wonder what will be the new direction of Chanel in future (yet these seems to be exciting times for French fashion with three women directing three historical houses if you consider Viard at Chanel, Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior and Clare Waight Keller at Givenchy). In the meantime Fendi's A/W 19 ready-to-wear collection will take place in Milan tomorrow.

Lagerfeld leaves behind Choupette, his terribly spoiled cat, a huge legacy and a key lesson for the fashion industry: he became an icon because he was allowed to develop his style at Chanel and build a solid vocabulary throughout the decades. Most young designers nowadays aren't allowed to do so, as they are prompted to immediately deliver commercially successful collections. And, while leaving a designer to run a house for more than 30 years and well into his eighties may be a long and tiring affair, changing a designer every few years (or even every few months) isn't always the best way to revamp a maison and guarantee it a stable future.  

As for Lagerfeld you can bet he will be somewhere on the Olympus of fashion icons, maybe with his muse, the late Vogue Italia editor Anna Piaggi, finally having a rest and possibly laughing at fashionistas, poseurs and influencers taking selfies (Lagerfeld hated selfies...) at the current shows.  

The Designer as Alchemist: Alessandro Mendini (1931-2019)

"One day I saw on a publication the 'living room of the century' by Alessandro Mendini's Studio Alchimia with the 'Proust' armchair and the 'Kandissi' sofa. I wanted to buy the pieces for my studio, but the designers didn't know where they had ended up. I eventually recovered them and, in a way, that was the reason why they became famous. The Proust armchair that was in my possession travelled so much for photo shoots for interior design magazines that, in the end, because of the requests they kept on getting, they put it into production," Italian fashion designer Cinzia Ruggeri told us a few years ago in an interview.

Mendini's Proust chair and sideboard from the '40s with decoratiosn inspired by Kandinsky were the pulsating heart of Ruggeri's atelier for many years as proved by a rare footage from 1988 showing a model walking around the showroom. They went well with her fashion creations, complementing them (when Mendini needed a dress for an installation he would often turn to Ruggeri).

You can bet Ruggeri, and many other genuine architecture and design fans, will miss Mendini, the architect, artist, designer, writer and theoretician who died yesterday at 87.

Born in Milan in 1931, Mendini dreamt as a young boy of becoming a cartoonist or a painter, but then switched his interests onto architecture. He graduated from the Politecnico di Milano in 1959 with a degree in architecture, then worked from 1956 to 1970 at the industrial design studio Nizzoli Associati.

In the early '70s Mendini co-founded the counter-design group and free school for individual creativity Global Tools and in the following years he directed different architecture and design magazines, including Casabella, Modo (founded by him) and Domus.

In 1979 Mendini joined the legendary Studio Alchimia, founded by Alessandro Guerriero. He developed experimental works and reinterpreted design classics, dubbed "banal design" to emphasise the way ordinary objects were revamped and radically transformed (the concept of "banal design" was presented through an installation by Mendini, Paola Navone, Daniela Puppa and Franco Raggi at the Venice Art Biennale in 1980).

In 1985 Mendini wrote The Alchimia Manifesto that remains a valid compendium of teachings for interior designers and for everybody else interested in the creative arts ("Alchimia believes in despecialisation," he wrote, anticipating the hybridisation trends of our modern times, "'confused' methods of creation and production can live side by side; crafts, industry, informatics, new and obsolete techniques and materials"), like his "Telegrams to the Designer" in one of them he stated: "There is no such thing as development but circularity between past present and future - they endlessly redesign themselves - the acceleration of information produces the phenomenon of instant antiques - the object of future is timeless").

Mendini then opened with his brother the Milan-based Atelier Mendini, a studio focused on creating objects, furniture, paintings, installations and architecture. He also created set designs and started collaborating with a wide range of design companies, including Alessi, Philips, Cartier, Swatch, Hermès, Venini, Zanotta and Bisazza (where he was appointed Art Director in 1996).

All his designs and projects were suspended between art, architecture and interior design: the 1978 Proust armchair combined a Baroque form with a hand-painted brightly vivid multi-coloured pattern that extended from the fabric to the carved wooden frame and that was inspired by pointillist artist Paul Signac.

As an architect, Mendini’s buildings include the Alessi residence in Omegna, Italy; the Teatrino della Bicchieraia in Arezzo; a memorial tower in Hiroshima, Japan; the Bruno Bianchi Swimming Centre in Trieste; the Milan Triennale foreign branch in Incheon, South Korea, the iconic Puppet Theatre in the Gardens of Milan's Triennale and the Groninger Museum in The Netherlands, a building characterised by a vibrant yellow tower. All of these buildings are characterised by bright colours that contribute to introduce a great degree of dynamism to the structures. 

In 2011 the exhibition "Postmodernism" at London's V&A opened with the death of modernism and with footage of Alessandro Mendini's "Monumentino da Casa" (Household Monument, 1974), a chair on top of a flight of steps forming a ziggurat structure burning down in a deserted quarry near Genoa.

The event also featured his "Proust" chair and Mendini and Etro's designer suit (2001) covered in brand logos.

Last year Milan's Triennale celebrated Alessandro and his brother Francesco in the retrospective “Atelier Mendini. Le Architetture" (Atelier Mendini. The Architectures”), while the Groninger Museum had been working recently with him on an exhibition called "Mondo Mendini", due to open in October this year.

Mendini never loved long answers in his interviews, but always replied in a witty and brief way, his answers often sounding like gentle orders (when I asked him what kind of advice he would have liked to give to young people who wished to become architects/interior designers one day for an inerview for Dazed Digital, he just replied "Be Kind").

Mendini's essays and notes are still incredibly inspiring: in 1985 he wrote in "The Alchimia Manifesto" that the process of drawing has got to be conceived like a cycle, "everything that will be has already been," he stated, "and individual imagination, the basis for the world's survival, can travel in every way through all cultures and places so long as it works like one in love." Mendini did travel with his imagination, fantasy and love through cultures and colours, may he now rest in peace.

Neon Semantics: Dan Flavin @ Cardi Gallery, Milan

Fashionistas heading to Milan Fashion Week in the next few days and who may want to get a rest from the relentless runways will find the opportunity to do so at the Cardi Gallery.

The gallery (located in Corso di Porta Nuova 38),will be opening this week a solo exhibition dedicated to American Minimalist artist Dan Flavin (from 20th February to 28th June 2019).

Organised in collaboration with the Estate of Dan Flavin, the event features fourteen light works from the late 1960s through the 1990s that show the evolution over four decades of the artist's investigations into notions of colour, light and sculptural space.

Flavin started sketching works of sculptures incorporating neon lights in the early '60s while he was working as a guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He then transformed his sketches into "icons" which juxtaposed lights onto monochromatic, painted Masonite constructions. As the years passed he procceded to remove the support and left only the fluorescent lamps.

By 1968 the sculptures expanded into room-size environments and at Documenta 4 in Kassel the artist filled an entire gallery with ultraviolet light. The best thing about Flavin's pieces is the fact that the artist never tried to attach any symbolic value to them, but he claimed his works were simply fluorescent lights responding to a specific architectural setting, and about his art he just used to state: "It is what it is and it ain't nothing else."

Flavin has often been mentioned by fashion designers as an inspiration for their collections and has a special connection with Milan since in 1996, following an invitation from Italian priest Giulio Greco, he created a site-specific installation as the central element for the restoration and renewal of the Santa Maria Annunciata in Chiesa Rossa church, designed by Giovanni Muzio in the 1930s. After Flavin died, it was the Prada Foundation that made the project possible in collaboration with the Dia Center for the Arts and the Dan Flavin Estate. The exhibition at Cardi Gallery is accompanied by a catalogue that includes an essay by the esteemed Italian art critic (and Prada favourite) Germano Celant.

Image credits for this post

Dan Flavin
Untitled (for Frederika and Ian) 3, 1987
Pink, yellow, and blue fluorescent light
183 cm long on the diagonal
72 1/8 in long on the diagonal
Edition 2 of 5
(CL no. 472) © 2018 Estate of Dan Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy David Zwirner & Cardi Gallery

Dan Flavin
Untitled (to Helen Winkler), 1972
Cool white and warm white fluorescent light
244 cm square across a corner
96 1/8 in square across a corner
Edition 3 of 5
(CL no. 312) © 2018 Estate of Dan Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy David Zwirner & Cardi Gallery

Dan Flavin
Untitled, 1995
Red and green fluorescent light
width 122 cm
width 48 1/8 in
Edition 2 of 5
(CL no. 665) © 2018 Estate of Dan Flavin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Courtesy David Zwirner & Cardi Gallery

Archival Memories of Lee Radziwill's Style (Via Dal Co', Irene Galitzine and Mila Schön)

You can tell a story from different angles and points of view. Take Lee Radziwill's life: the American socialite, who died on Friday at her home in Manhattan at 85, was often mentioned in reports and features about her as Jackie Kennedy's younger sister. Yet there was much more about her, especially when it came to her style. 

Born Caroline Lee Bouvier in 1933 in New York, Lee dropped out of college and started working as Diana Vreeland's assistant at Harper's Bazaar.

She tried to become an actress, but didn't have much luck; at times she appeared in fashionable adverts such as one for DuPont fabrics.

In the '70s she started an interior design firm and worked as a public relations executive in the fashion industry (she also worked for Giorgio Armani from 1986 to 1994, directing special events for the Italian king of fashion).

Her first marriage to publishing executive Michael Canfield was cancelled, while her marriages to Polish émigré nobleman Prince Stanislas Radziwill (from whom she had two children - Anthony Radziwill, who died in 1999, and Anna Christina) and to choreographer and director Herbert Ross ended in divorce.

Radziwill lived very glamorous years after her sister Jackie married John Kennedy as she was allowed to go to parties at the White House and attended state functions. After Kennedy's assassination and after Jackie married Onassis, the two sisters drifted apart.

Free-spirited Radziwill had famous friends, among them writer Truman Capote, artist Andy Warhol, dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, the architect and decorator Renzo Mongiardino and the stage and costume designer Cecil Beaton.

In 1972 Lee Radziwill asked directors Albert and David Maysles to shoot a movie about the Bouvier family, but the two directors ended up filming a sort of documentary - "Grey Gardens" - about Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale, aunt and cousing of Lee and Jackie, that became a of cult film and an inspiration for many fashion designers (despite the fact that Radziwill tried to stop its release...).

You can discover more about Radziwill's life in Diana DuBois' In Her Sister's Shadow: An Intimate Biography of Lee Radziwill (1995) or in Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger's The Fabulous Bouvier Sisters: The Tragic and Glamorous Lives of Jackie and Lee (2018).

But there is another way to get to know her and that's through the designers she favoured (Radziwill had many celebrity friends gravitating around the fashion world, including Carolina Herrera, Giambattista Valli, Marc Jacobs and Sofia Coppola).

Often featured on articles about the world's best-dressed women (her death wasn't announced by press agencies, but by Women's Wears Daily, proving her connection with fashion remained strong throughout her life), they say that Radziwill advised Jackie on her fashion choices, also encouraging her to wear brands such as Givenchy while the First Lady wanted to wear exclusively American designers.

Radziwill liked for example Italian fashion and she often bought shoes from Dal Co', the (now defunct) Rome-based bespoke shoemaker founded in the '50s (a brand favoured also by Diana Vreeland).

Radziwill had her lasts made and would just order her shoes, and at times her friend Giambattista Valli would pick her orders from the shop in Via Vittoria.

Radziwill also loved wearing Irene Galitzine's designs. The Georgian designer daughter of princess Nina Lazareff and officer Boris Galitzine emigrated to Italy after the October Revolution.

She studied in Italy and started to work in 1945 with the Sorelle Fontana as a model and PR. A few years later she opened her own atelier creating Haute Couture designs inspired by French fashion.

Galitzine became popular after she reinvented evening wear coming up with an elegant pyjama ensemble in luxurious fabrics such as silk and with bejewelled collars and beaded hems.

The informal style, symbol of new elegance, dubbed "Palazzo Pyjama" by Diana Vreeland, was conceived for Haute Couture, but soon made its transition to its boutique version, becoming a trend and a uniform for Radzwill (who was often pictured in elegant trouser suits).

In 1963 Jackie Kennedy invited the designer to the White House to see some drafts and sketches of her designs: in a letter to Galitzine, Jackie stated: "Every evening Jayne (Wrightsman), Marella (Agnelli), Lee (Radziwill) and I wear your uniform".

Radziwill also used to wear André Courrèges and the Italian designer also known as "the feminine Courrèges", Mila Schön (born Maria Carmen Nutrizio in Trau, Dalmatia in 1916). 

The decade between the '60s and '70s was very important for the designer as she defined her personal style, characterised by clean geometric lines and aimed at a dynamic, strong and feminine woman: inspired by the world of art and in particular by Lucio Fontana’s holes and slashes and Kenneth Noland's chevrons, Schön designed futuristic and monochromatic outfits with geometric cuts.

Art had a growing influence on Schön’s creations: Gustav Klimt’s paintings turned into precious embroideries; Alexander Calder's mobiles were used in her prints and Victor Vasarely’s images inspired the patterns for coats and skirt suits.

Some of the Mila Schön designs Radziwill favoured were characterised by sequinned arty and abstract motifs: the socialite donated quite a few of her evening dresses created during the '60s by Mila Schön to The Met Museum, while the 1966 embroidered net evening dress matched with matelasse coat that Radziwill donned at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, is preserved in the archives of the Victoria & Albert Museum, in London. 

A Performance for Soft Sculptures: Raphaela Simon's "Stern" @ Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

Even if nobody stepped into the spaces of Galerie Max Hetzler (Bleibtreustraße 45) in Berlin to see Raphaela Simon's exhibition (the second solo event with the gallery) entitled "Sterne" (on until today), the gallery would still be populated by arty visitors. How could it be possible, you may wonder?

Well, "Stern" features Simon's paintings but also a series of fabric sculptures that seem to move around the gallery spaces as if they were real visitors.

The paintings by Simon included in this exhibition are characterised by vibrant colours and imperfect geometries, clear and stripy patterns, at times evoking the works of Agnes Martin, but reinterpreted in a lighter way. Displaying simple motifs that are quite often combined and repeated, these works are characterised by concise titles like "Gerät" (Apparatus), "Schlafsack" (Sleeping Bag) or "Aufgeräumt" (Tidy), "Pflaster" (Patch), "Hut" (Hat) and "Schirm" (Umbrella), that turn them into modern infographics.

The stark works seem to be representations of a small geometrically abstract world, that often revolves around a basic palette of  pale blue and white. In this world move Simon's soft cotton sculptures representing people and objects.

There's a cool elderly lady with curly hair here who may have been pictured in one of those blogs about advanced styles; there's a gallery curator in blonde hair wearing an electric blue dress, smoking a cigarette and chatting with a hip visitor in dark sunglasses and a cute dog on a leash.

A young woman in a red ensemble and thigh high black boots stands at the toilet sink with a glass of red wine, her perfect red lips proving she has just finished retouching her make up.

A man lies on the floor, maybe too tired and drunk or simply trying to look at the art on display from a different point of view, while another figure entirely dressed in black clothes may be a vision from a film noir set-up or maybe he's a thief suspiciously looking around and ready to run away from the gallery with some precious artworks as soon as somebody gets distracted.

Objects complement the exhibition, including a cart with some glasses, bottles and scattered cigarettes, and several suitcases in a pleasant shade of orange evoking luxury luggage à la Hermès in a corner.

The best thing about the sculptures is that they are all made using fabrics and, while this may not be a new technique, Simon's pieces look intriguing as the artist created them paying attention to details (check out the immaculately manicured nails on some of the ladies you encounter in the gallery, their hairstyles and distinctive facial features) and giving them personalities.

The figures and the paintings are connected in multiple ways: first of all also the figures are characterised by short and immediate names such as "Lila Frau" (Violet Woman), "Tasche" (Bag) and "Hund" (Dog), but they also have a key role in the exhibition spaces as they activate the paintings starting an arty performance and inviting visitors to become additional characters in their own narrations.

You can bet you will see Raphaela Simon's detailed and fashionably dressed characters at some point at a fashion runway, maybe sitting in the front row, staring at the models like fashion editors and critics would do, silently taking note of the clothes they may want to wear at their next exhibition. 

Modularity, Mathematics & Materials: Vasarely's Proto-Tiles

We recently looked at the visual allure of colours and materials via the Instagram account of a silk manufacturer. Yet the same themes could be approached analysing the work of an artist such as Victor Vasarely and in particular his use of tiles and colour schemes. 

Vasarely created for example glazed porcelain relief tiles for Rosenthal that he employed for wall pieces characterised by basic geometric shapes and repetitions of colours. 

Oran Hoffmann, an emerging artist born in 1981 in Kibbutz Sarid and now working between Tel Aviv and Amsterdam, must have been fascinated by Vasarely's ceramic works as he attempted to catalogue a series of basic materials, including tiles, that Vasarely employed for his large-scale works.

Hoffmann isolated ceramic tiles, aluminium pieces and paper sheets he found during a one year research at the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence.

He then photographed each of these elements separately focusing on shapes and colours, trying to interpret the versatility and modularity of Vasarely's works through his images that were then collected in the volume Vasarely Material Archives (out on RVB Books).

People who are acquainted with Vasarely's works know that these basic elements are parts of a larger and more complex puzzle revolving around the principle of modularity.

The prefabricated tiles aree small pieces that could be recombined together and re-shifted to create Vasarely's Op Art works: the tiles could therefore be considered as Op-tiles or proto-tiles, employed not to make floors or decorative elements, but geometrical patterns.

The most interesting thing about the volume is that the tiles in some of its images could be used as the primordial mathematical elements to create geometrically modular games or more intricate compositions, graphic alphabets characterised by specific colours such as neutral black and white, pale green or cobalt blue.

The idea behind the book is indeed focusing on small elements, abstract them from their context and employ them for new and imaginary works.

The humble tile becomes therefore a medium to explore the diversity, modularity and variability of a structure generated through repetitions of proto-tiles, employed to make endless and unrestricted combinations that allow creative minds to explore spatial depths and dynamic movements.

What If the Most Arty, Fashionable and Colourful Instagram Account Out There Belonged to a Silk Manufacturer (and Not To a Designer, Fashion House, Celebrity or Influencer...)?

In yesterday's post we looked at a collection showcased during New York Fashion Week that moved from an artist and textile designer in love with colours.

Yet colourful inspirations can come from the most unlikely sources such as Instagram accounts or Facebook and Tumblr pages belonging to companies producing textiles. If you don't believe it, check out Taroni's Instagram page.

One of the oldest silkweaving mills in Como, Taroni mainly works with Haute Couture houses and produces yarn dyed fabrics, yarn dyed stripes and checks (yes, it can turn any plain yarn fabrics in any kind of stripe and check desired), piece dyed fabrics, and also develops special coatings and finishes, prints and jacquards. 

Taroni was founded in 1880 by weaver and artist Amedeo Taroni and his work is still carefully preserved in the company's archive and it is still used as a source of inspiration.

The passion for art of the founder informs the social media accounts of the company that feature a wide range of images: Taroni's Tumblr page features images of catwalk shows, fabrics and artworks.

Its Facebook page also features videos of machines at work while its Instagram account is a riot of colours: there are machines spinning multi-coloured silk yarns or weaving textiles in vivid shades.

There are also pictures of artworks and of arty photoshoots of Taroni's silk fabrics created by Maximilian Canepa and Lillian Grant, such as the company's classic polka dot printed silk faille photographed inside the Sol LeWitt chapel in Barolo, Italy.  

At times inspirations are revealed to show creative minds how an idea can be turned into a yarn and a fabric: so a yarn dyed stripe in electric blue and yellow is juxtaposed to a picture showing the plumage of a vulturine guinea fowl, while a multicoloured rainbow warp woven on classic shuttle looms and transformed into 100% silk double duchesse satin fabric, is directly linked to Ellsworth Kellys Spectrum series. 

But there's more to discover in the brief videos of machines weaving fabrics for Haute Couture or in the mesmerising process behind the making of a Lurex warp or in the surprising back of an uncut jacquard.

A while back Taroni won the prize for "Most Sustainable Producer" at the Green Carpet Fashion Awards in Milan as the company worked for years towards better standards and committed to Greenpeace's Detox campaign, receiving the GOTS certification (the company has also been working with other weavers in Como to update data on the water consumption used during the dying process - the data have not been updated since the 1950s, so this is an important task).   

Last but not least, Taroni's Instagram account also features images of its weaving team at work or posing in the factory plant: they are praised for being a group of dedicated and passionate individuals looking after the company's silks and the legendary machines that weave them.

Maybe the account should be given an award for combining fashion, art, textiles, sustainability and self-esteem in the workplace, or maybe we should just stop looking at accounts of vapid celebrities and start refocusing on more intelligent inspirations that could genuinely change our lives and the way we create fashion and beauty.  

Blooms In The Dark: Coach A/W 19 Vs Kaffe Fassett

"People are terribly nervous of getting something wrong and wanting to look cool and therefore they end up thinking that grey and beige are safe colours and they won't get it wrong, and that's a pity...I think that beige does nothing for most girl's complexions, for example, yet so many girls wear beige scarves," Kaffe Fassett told us in 2014 during an interview, while we talked about his passion for colour.

The renowned American textile artist and self-confessed colourist, well-known for his handcrafts, needlework and patchwork pieces, was among the main inspirations for Stuart Vevers' Coach A/W 19 collection, showcased during New York Fashion Week.

Kaffe was born in San Francisco in 1937 and raised in Big Sur, California, and Vevers took a road trip up California's scenic Route 1 that also included a stop at Nepenthe, the famous restaurant opened in 1949 by Bill and Madelaine "Lolly" Fassett, Kaffe's parents. The story of the restaurant introduced Vevers to Kaffe's works and to his floral patterns, geometrical motifs and colourful abstractions. 

The opening faux fur jackets (Coach opted to go fur-free since last October) came in a psychedelic '60s print on a dark beige background that may have had Fassett sitting in the front row shivering.

Then gradually floral motifs and patterns started appearing: they were mainly printed on fabrics and overimposed on a black background that added a (Fassett approved?) punk twist to the collection.

Flowers bloomed on shirts, blouses, ruffled dresses, patchwork jackets and bags, even though the best effects were created when Vevers tried to replicate Fassett's techniques: a see-through organza dress with needlepoint roses and a huge flower blooming on a pink Lurex sweater seemed to directly point at Fassett's tapestries and looked a much better option than the frilly dresses on the runway.  

There was indeed an excessive saccharine dose in these light chiffon dresses, but Vevers tried to rebalance it matching them with tough bomber jackets, parkas, oversized shearlings lined with colourful fur (that bore echoes of Bonnie Cashin's legacy in the turn-lock hardware fastenings) and plaid, lace or leather surfer shorts.

The offering for men included blazers and grungy plaids, and seemed to revolve around three (trite) themes - Americana, retro styles and casual modernity. 

If you knew Fassett's work you couldn't avoid being disappointed: his bold and bright multi-coloured pompoms and decorations, his fuchsias and vivid greens, deep blues and buttercup-yellows, were indeed missing, while Vevers mainly limited himself at experimenting with knitwear (mind you Vevers used Lurex rather than Fassett's silk and alpaca) and needlepoint, leaving behind Fassett's beading, quilting and tapestry. 

Fassett's ouvre also includes coats inspired by the Scottish landscape or by personal experiences such as seeing Rudolf Nureyev dancing in "Romeo and Juliet" and these pieces may have been reinvented in a more modern key to provide more variation to the collection. It seemed instead that Vevers' Gothic and gloomy soul and chromophobia swallowed Fassett's optmism and exuberance.  

After moving to the UK in the '60s, Fassett started working for Scottish fashion designer Bill Gibb. One of Gibb's ensembles incorporating a hand-knitted waistcoat by Fassett was chosen by Beatrix Miller of Vogue as the 1970 Dress of the Year and eventually relaunched traditional knitwear techniques into fashion.

You seriously doubt that any of the designs seen on Coach's runway will be "dress of the year" once they will become available in the shops, but, hopefully, the collection will prompt a younger generation of fashion students to check Fassett's work and study his use of colours and passion for different techniques.   

The Puzzling Boredom of Normality & The Syndrome of Marie Kondo: Deveaux A/W 19

If you want to work in the fashion industry you have to ask yourself a few questions, including "How can I make a difference?" or "What is my strength?" and "How could I change fashion in a personal and unique way?" 

Are you great at finding solutions and designing clothes and accessories that can improve for example the lives of people, such as consumers with disabilities? Or do you like experimenting with innovative materials that can help us preserving our planet and reduce pollution? Do you have a brilliant idea for a collaboration with a textile manufacturer to develop an exclusive fabric? Well then, try using your skills and talents in these fields, bearing in mind that the real fashion industry has been saturated by labels, designers and fashion houses, so you must genuinely make a difference. Or maybe not. After all labels such as Deveaux aren't truly making any difference.

Founded by Andrea Tsao and Matthew Breen, and boasting a sui generis Creative Director, street style photographer Tommy Ton, who joined the brand around a year ago, the label showcased during New York Fashion Week a combined collection of men and women's looks.

The collection was presented through a performance-like show with models of all ages freely walking around the space, stopping and embracing in a choreography by Stephen Galloway.

Clothes included single-breasted camel coats with plaid inserts and teddy fur coats; easy fit buttonless jackets that fastened on the inside via an asymmetrical strap (a trend widely seen on runways), cashmere sweaters covered with asymmetrical capes carefully tossed over one shoulder; straight-leg (or were they just ill fitting and badly constructed?) pants or corduroy trousers and overalls borrowed from workwear (some of these pieces were already shown in January during the men's shows).

The idea for the team behind the label is to offer loose fitting genderless everyday garments that are supposed to be elegant and stylish, yet also minimal and functional like uniforms. The message for this one-for-all collection seemed to be inclusive: diversity was the keyword on this runway, with the youngest model being just 13 and the oldest 82. Yet, while all these choices seemed to tick all the proper boxes (inclusive, genderless, sensible clothes...), the final impression was that of seeing a safe collection.

Tommy Ton has been taking pics of fashion peacocks in the streets for a decade now and has also been to hundreds of fashion shows, yet Deveaux's collections have so far been sanitised versions of what he has been photographing.

The people he shoots with his camera are supposed to be unique in their styles; the people in this show looked more or less the same, almost as if Ton was telling us that grand, extravagant or glamorous fashion is not for each and everyone of us, but for some, all the rest should conform and hide behind beige, camel, pale blu, navy and grey shades, carefully camouflaged under a veneer of normal blandness. Or maybe, while he recognises the uniqueness of his characters, he also admits that such looks are not possible in real life outside the fashion circle (or maybe circus?).

Deveaux claims this is elegant minimalist fashion for everyone, but there are tons of labels doing clothes such as these in better or worse quality so why would you have to opt for these cashmere pieces where you could have better ones?

As a whole Deveaux looks like a redundant déjà vu pastiche of collections by Céline (as designed by Phoebe Philo – Ton is a fan) Max Mara, Brunello Cucinelli, and Cos (in a previous collection models were accessorised with H&M and Mango earrings and shoes, which makes you wonder if Cos clothes were also integrated in the collection...).

Urban uniforms are all fine, but you can do your own urban uniform combining more luxurious or cheaper pieces than the ones seen on this runway and source them from other labels producing better quality or cheaper clothes. 

As it stands Deveaux's minimal spirit is a bit like Marie Kondo's design for life - neat and tidy, but essentially lacking emotions, memories, warmth and depth and with a slight detachment from reality (rarely do 13-year-olds want to wear navy and grey outside of the school environment, after all you have your entire life to become bland and boring...). Final verdict? Tommy Ton may have a great visual talent when it comes to taking pictures of street fashion, but that doesn't automatically make him an original fashion designer nor a flawless stylist.

Tomo Koizumi & The Seduction of the Rainbow Buzz (But Can Instagram Make a Designer and Polyester Organza Ruffles Save NYFW?)

There haven't been great and groundbreaking collections during New York Fashion Week so far, but there was a fairy tale story involving gargantuan organza gowns and Marc Jacobs' Madison Avenue store.

The tale revolved around Japanese costume designer Tomo Koizumi who until four weeks ago created pieces for performers and entertainers (he did one a couple of years ago for Lady Gaga as well when she visited Japan). Stylist and LOVE magazine editor Katie Grand was introduced to his work via Giles Deacon and started following the young designer on Instagram.

Koizumi recently posted new images of his creations, huge and colourful organza designs that catch your eye for their density and colours.

Grand couldn't resist and promptly got in touch asking if they could do a show. Koizumi didn't need to be told twice, he packed his colourful confections in three boxes and flew to the Big Apple. Grand managed to organise him in record time a show: she ensured he got a space in Marc Jacobs' headquarters on Spring Street where he could revive his gowns after his trip; then she secured the venue, got Guido Palau for the hair and Pat McGrath for the makeup, plus top models and actresses (including Rowan Blanchard, Emily Ratajkowski and Gwendoline Christie) for the runway. 

From 2,000 followers, Koizumi's Instagram account went to 25,000, but it must be said that before Katie Grand stumbled on Koizumi's works, Sara Maino from Vogue Italia had visited Coconogacco, a Tokyo-based private fashion school last October and had spotted Koizumi's work, posting it on Instagram.

During New York Fashion Week, Koizumi's surprise runway became the sensation show of a season that seemed marred by the absence of some of its most famous designers and brands as Calvin Klein decided not to do any shows after Raf Simons departed in December, Rodarte showcased their new collection in San Marino, Los Angeles, and Thom Browne decamped to Paris.

Koizumi's models went down the shop staircase in enormous multi-coloured designs – some new, others from his personal archives (do a quick scroll through his Instagram and you will realise some of these designs or early versions of them were made around two years ago) that at times made them look like exotic birds.

A shocking pink heart emerged from one mini-dress; some designs had bulbous shapes that seemed to cocoon the models, others turned them into giant carnations, or seemed to swallow and suffocate the models with their ruffles (see the final coat, matched with a pair of pink ruffle flared pants that may have been edited from the show).  

There is actually technique behind these dresses: Koizumi graduated from the National Chiba University in 2012 and then focused on costume design, but he doesn't have a team of assistants (he enlists students from Tokyo's Bunka Fashion College when he needs a hand).

The designer employs more than 50 shades of Japanese polyester organza (he claims there are 400 colours in these pieces, which may as well be true) and quite a lot of fabric - between 50 and 200 meters to be precise. He makes the ruffles first, then machine sews them and uses these pieces to make his designs. There is not much technique behind his patterns, as they are based on simple geometries so that a circle with holes for arms and legs can be transformed into a wearable sphere.

The final aim of the designer is creating a ruffle armour for the wearer, something inspired by Japanese characters à la Sailor Moon (impossible not to think about Creamy Mami as well for Koizumi's connections with pop stars...), combined with Balenciaga's architectural shapes, Galliano's extravagant pieces for Dior, Lee Bowery's costumes, abstract paintings and hanawa, Japanese funerary wreaths decorated with plastic flowers.

In a way the final effect wasn't completely new: in the last few years we have seen light and cute materials such as tulle becoming very trendy thanks to Molly Goddard's childish tulle frocks; Giambattista Valli and Viktor & Rolf often employed tulle to create striking Haute Couture pieces (you may remember V&R's S/S 2010 tulle collection, or the latest S/S 19 Haute Couture collection that featured gowns of leviathan proportions emblazoned with Insta slogans), while Junya Watanabe has provided us with more original interpretations of classic tulle gowns.

Technique-wise Tomo Koizumi's densely packed topiary-like polyester ruffles call to mind the soft pink laser cut tulle dresses from Hussein Chalayan's "Before Minus Now" (S/S 2000) collection, or the more recent tulle coats and dresses seen on Valentino's Pre-Fall 19 runway staged in Tokyo last year. 

Koizumi's designs surely do not pass unnoticed on Instagram as they are visually appealing and, as soon as you see them, you want to click on the image and get lost in their cloured ruffles. Yet if that's the reaction they trigger, you easily realise that, to become famous, known or acknowledged by the fashion elite, nowadays you may first and foremost need visual power, while other skills may become secondary (and, frankly that's a bit depressing if you consider there may be very valid and talented designers out there who may not be noticed as their garments and accessories may be well constructed but may not be immediately visually appealing).

Will some of these pieces be adapted for off-the-runway looks? Who knows, even though you can bet there may be a capsule in the Marc Jacobs' T-shirts designed with Hey Reilly in 2018 featuring Lady Liberty smiling re-purposed with organza ruffles on the sleeves.

So what was the point of this show? Well, first of all Koizumi's dream and crazy designs brought a bit of much needed optimism to a country that has seen only darkness since Donald Trump became US President; second, it diverted the attention from the lack of extravagant and mesmerising shows on the New York Fashion Week calendar.

Besides, Koizumi's vast rainbows of joys re-shifted the discourse onto hand-made pieces in a fashion capital that has forgotten how to make things by hand. Fun and punk, they anesthetized editors and the rest of the fashion circus in New York who may be heading to London and may have to face Brexit depression (not to mention decamping to Milan and experiencing Italy in recession ruled by a far right wing government in denial, and then moving to Paris with the gilets jaunes and social unrest...). In a nutshell, the collection wasn't certainly the work of a genius, but, for the time being, Koizumi and his acid greens, sky blues, shocking pinks and fluorescent yellows, saved NYFW and filled the hearts with temporary happiness and exuberance, and that was no mean feat.