WILD AT HEART

VOGUE - september 1991
photographer - peter lindbergh
creative director - grace coddington
models - cindy crawford, tatjana patitz, helena christensen, linda evangelista, claudia schiffer, naomi campbell, karen mulder, stephanie seymour
one of the most unforgetable editorials of the nineties featuring supermodel heavyweights shot by peter lindbergh and styled by living legend grace coddington, "wild at heart" featured one of the first important trends to emerge in the early nineties. a look the heavily borrowed from biker culture and jewelry that was at that time, mostly associated with rap music.
the trend first emerged on the chanel catwalk for autumn/winter 1991. where chanel's classic quilted leather and gilt chains was luxuriously amalgamated by karl lagerfeld with the biker uniform. the "biker" look would not only emerge on other catwalks, but found its way to one of the most iconic ad campaigns of the decade, the calvin klein jeans ad with carre otis and marcus schenkenberg.
after almost two decades, the influence of of the biker culture has permeated every aspect of fashion. from ricardo tisci to frida giannini, countless designers have presented their own take on the biker look.
what was once a sub-culture that developed its "uniform" to give itself a visual identity, fashion has turned the black leather biker jacket into a modern classic.

GREATEST HITS: PRADA (PART TWO 2000-2009)

for the woman who was so instrumental in giving the nineties its minimalist identity, it is no surprise that it would be that same woman who would once again re-direct the course of fashion for the new millennium.
since her seminal "lady like" collection for spring 2000, prada continued to develop on the ideas of traditional notations of femininity by delving into the past to source inspirations and then finding the prada way to apply it for the times.
whether it be a sex bomb or post-war england's "make do and mend" philosophy, in the early half of the noughties, prada took the practicality of minimalism and slowly introduce new layers to the idea by introducing more and more decorative elements to her designs. a move that one would assume to be the complete antithesis for the woman who was responsible for stripping fashion down to its bare minimum only a decade before, prada somehow managed to utilize such decoration to heighten the potency of her message. a message that always crystalized the general feeling in the air and one that was never frivolous or superficial for the sake of fashion.
towards the latter of half of the decade the prada pendulum was about to take a dramatic shift, and for the fall of 2006 she went back to the utilitarian roots of the house and injected it with her own take on urban savagery that completely abolished any remnants of the "lady like" look she herself pioneered.
this marked the beginning of a more aggressive prada woman. complex, determined, and unapologetic. dressed in parkas, knits, nylon bombers and raincoats, the very clothes that were the backbone of the house in its early years, reinterpreted as armour for the modern woman.
this new confidence was followed with more sexually charged collections where her subversive take on female sexuality and the things that people closely relate to it made her work some of the most provocative collections of the decade.
towards the end of the two thousands and the arrival of the greatest economic crisis since the great depression, prada answered the gloomy global climate by sending out a collection of forties inspired suiting rich with texture in a sombre colour palette that signaled that these aren't times for which to play. it is a time for strength and these are the clothes that you will wear to battle.
for over twenty years miuccia prada's singular perspective has defined eras. from minimalism, to geek cheek, to lady like conservatism and a new form of power dressing, her talent is a testament to an uncompromising, unyielding vision. a vision that sparks movements and changes ideas and challenges institutions.
as the first decade of the new millennium draws to a close it would be useless to assume the direction prada is to head off to next. but when she finally reveals that destination, one can be sure that by next season everyone else is there. and by then she probably would've already moved on leaving the rest of the pack trying desperately to catch up.

GREATEST HITS: PRADA (PART ONE 1990-2000)

throughout the nineties, prada has been one of the most influential force in fashion. spearheading the minimalist movement that would eventually define the decade.
since launching the house's ready to wear line in 1989 which at that time the world at large was still unfamiliar with miuccia prada's design sensibility, many criticized the collection as being out of step with the general mood of that moment. it wouldn't be until a few years later when prada's innate sensitivity to the needs of the modern woman and an uncanny ability to "predict" the direction fashion is meant to go that made the world finally took notice and realized that she isn't a designer who is out of step with the times, but one who is constantly ahead of it.
as the woman who is responsible for the nylon bag craze of the eighties, one of the hallmarks of the house is in its fabric innovation. utilizing materials not usually associated with luxury goods such as velcro, rubber or plastic and using it in a way that is so obviously practical one wonders why no one has thought of it before. by combining design and an understanding of modern needs and pragmatic solutions, prada steered the fashion world out of the excess of the eighties and into a new sense of modern dressing where women did not have to sacrifice function for beauty.
the irony however with prada's take on beauty is that she also constantly challenged our perception of it. first with her introduction of minimalism after the world was so used to idea of over the top glamour and supermodels, only to radically change it again just as the rest of the world was getting used to it with her "geek chic" collection of spring/summer 1996 where the seventies reference and odd colour palette threw the world a curve ball that surprisingly caused a ripple effect that can still be felt even now, thirteen years later after its debut.
for her first collection in the 2000s, prada managed to take control of the helm yet again and after a few years when everyone in fashion continued to experiment with the idea of good and bad taste, prada unleashed to an unsuspecting world a collection that played on all the traditional notions of femininity with all it's lady like qualities and toyed with the idea of prada's perverse and subversive take on sexuality. it obviously profoundly affected the rest of the fashion world in the beginning of the new millennium, but that is for part two. i'm hella hungry and i needs to eat.


p.s. new layout. i like big pictures so i changed my template but i fucking hate my banner and i pretty much suck at photoshop. if any of you want to make me one i will love you forever.

michael lau

when one thinks of avant garde fashion, he/she usually tends to associate that specific genre with london or paris, or antwerp. fashion capitals that historically have been the cradle that has nurtured the avant garde idea. paris has given us schiaparelli and gaultier. london, an exhausting list that includes alexander mcqueen and gareth pugh. and antwerp entered the global collective consciousness with the renegade sensibilities of the antwerp six.
while the documented emergence of the avant garde has been traditionally associated with europe and the art movement that found its epicenter in paris in the beginning of the twentieth century, over the next decades its profound influence stretched across the globe.
as the first decade of the twenty first century comes to a close and the arm of fashion has extended its influence, more and more international designers are embracing the avant garde idea.
in hong kong, a capitalist jewel capriciously set in communist china comes michael lau. a fashion designer and artist who presented his work during hong kong fashion week's spring/summer 2010 collections that, like all the great visionaries in fashion, blended concept, art, and clothes into a collection that challenges and provokes our notion of what fashion is and where the lines between fashion and art get blurred.

matthew

first off apologies for not updating recently. i've been hella busy working on a gajillion things and as a result i've come down with a right nasty case of the flu. last tuesday when i thought i was feeling a bit better i helped out a friend with her lookbook. it's a women's line and we shot it at one of those really sketchy motels along the lakshore. it was so sketchy we found a tiny garden snake inside the room, not to mention a cigarette butt behind the bed. we also had a boy model in it just to add a little something extra to the picture. i don't think i'm allowed to actually post any of the actual images just yet since its still in post production. however since the boy was graciously given to us by his agency we promised to devout some time specifically to him and take some shots so that he can use it to build his book since he's very new to the whole modeling thing. his name is matthew, and he's a pretty swell kid. he even picked up the little snake and held it in his hand.

i'll try to post more often but to be honest i'm not finding anything exciting enough for me to talk about. is it just me or is fashion getting pretty fucking dull lately? anyways, i'm about to down some neo-citrin and hopefully pass the fuck out and wake up finally feeling like a human being again. adios.

the drums - let's go surfing

my homeslice, burnsy got me into this band and now this song has been pretty much on repeat on my itunes. why didn't i have this song during the summer???? it would've been fucking perfect!

hometown heroes

it's fashion week in toronto right now and even though the collections are for next spring, the weather outside is being a total antagonist. outside is what you would imagine to be a really dreadful fall day. it's wet, freezing, windy. one of those days that you can easily spend the whole day tucked underneath your blanket and thanking god for ninjavideo.net so that you can catch up on all the episodes of glee that you've missed.
don't get me wrong, it could be bright and sunny outside and i would still be under the covers instead of being at the tents and watching the collections. because to be quite honest, toronto fashion week sucks.
while i do feel rather guilty for hating on an event that gives canadian designers a platform to present their ideas my reasons are quite sound and rational.
designers who should be given the chance to show what this city has to offer because of their unique point of view are never given the opportunity to. talents that if properly fostered and supported by the governing bodies of the fashion council can give this city a reputation that can cultivate independent thinking designers whose ideas can stand on its own right beside more established, world recognized ones.
look what its done for london and antwerp, even copenhagen. these three cities have produced some of the most exciting young designers in the industry and they owe a lot of that success from their respective cities who supports local talent from a grass root level. those cities nurtures the creativity and point of view of its talents and at the same time helps them develop their labels as a business where they can eventually support themselves.
sure toronto has the fashion incubator, but what do they do after they leave that nest? toronto fashion week shouldn't be an event people mark on their social calendar. for a lot of designers in this city, they do what they do because they love it, and they will continue to do it without the support of the FDCC. there's a lot of blood, sweat and tears that aren't given the opportunity to shine and canada is missing out on it.
but to end on a good note. there were two designers who presented their collection during fashion week. of course its no surprise that they weren't part of the offical fashion week calendar and also no surprise that it ended up being the two best collections, i would even say the only two good collections throughout the entire week. well the shows don't end till tomorrow but i'm pretty sure its safe to say that we won't be seeing anything better or on par with these two.

presented in the historic burroughs building on queen west for the second season in a row, philip sparks presented a collection that is brimming with canadian identity with an international appeal. inspired by the canadian pacific railway ads from the fifties and cottage life (can't get more canadian that that), sparks' ability to narrate a story and pull all the elements together into a cohesive collection is remarkable. it displays such a high level of taste that he can make a postcard inspired print and the humble anorak effortlessly luxurious. and as always the story that he reads aloud through his clothes transports you to that familiar place that only us canadians know. he's like the canadian version of ralph lauren. only so much cooler.

rita liefhebber, a former model, former fashion editor, former stylist, turned fashion designer was the most charming surprise of the week. presented at the quaint and lovely and extremely delicious charcuterie the black hoof on dundas west, the guest who were forced to wait outside the restaurant for over half an hour after schedule quickly forgot their dissatisfaction when they were greeted with drinks and food courtesy of the house. as fantastic as the food and vodka was, the real treat was having to walk down the restaurants insanely narrow walkway to the brightly lit back patio covered entirely in white where a row of models stood on the bench that surrounded the space with another row of girls standing on ground level in front of them. to walk through such narrow, and dark passageway and end up in this brightly lit up room with all these pretty young things, wearing some of the most beautiful clothes my eyes have ever seen in person was like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. minus the dying part of course. after working in so may different aspects of the industry, liefhebber has such a developed aesthetic that she can put them all together into a collection where every piece flows so seamlessly to the next. she has such an understanding and sensitivity to what appeals to a woman with a true sense of fashion. kinda like phoebe philo. high praises of course but extremely well deserved. the clothes were effortless without sacrificing any of its beauty and charm. it was pure heaven.









photos: philip sparks - fashionmagazine.com, rita liefhebber - textstyles.ca

gehard demetz

what i find fascinating about art is it's ability to constantly adapt to modernity. every medium has the capacity, in the hands of a highly imaginative artist, to once again be relevant, poignant, soulful, and moving. gehard demetz's beautifully realized wooden sculptures of children has the ability, like all great works of art to provoke intense reactions. it is all at once confrontational, emphatic, which comes with a longing to understand what the inanimate children wishes to convey.
not much is known about the artist, asides from his nationality and his date of birth every other fact about him is a mystery. perhaps, like the great author and recluse j.d. salinger, he doesn't feel the need to explain his work. every answer anyone wishes to know is carved into the grooves of a dead tree brought back to life in the shape of a child. a child, like what we once were, who can manage to live in a world where dreams and rationality can be one and the same.

spring/summer 2010

over the past few years, fashion has become one of the greatest ways we pantomime the collective mood that hovers in the air. it is one of the few things that, unlike everything else in the world, have become more and more democratic. with the advent of mass market retail stores with their wallet approachable, fashion conscious merchandise and the surge of popularity and influence of bloggers (as witnessed during the dolce and gabbana show where a front row seat was reserved for popular internet celebrity tommy ton of jakandjil fame), more and more people have become exposed to fashion and the culture it cultivates. as a result, the fashion landscape has become more competitive and ideas are churned out in almost supersonic speed so as not to be left behind by a growing number of competitors. while the surge of ideas that is produced in this arena is remarkable, the rate of which it comes out becomes somewhat damaging. it doesn't give those ideas enough time to evolve organically.
the lifeline of trends have become so narrow that in three months time when the pre-fall collections are debuted, the ideas that stemmed from this show season would've already been forgotten, even discarded. for fashion to not collapse under its own weight a sense of restraint has to be put into practice. that form of restraint manifested itself through designers who stripped off their collection with unnecessary artifices and focused on the things that really captures the essence of their respective houses.
nowhere was this more evident than at dolce and gabbana. after almost thirty years in the business, dominico dolce and stefano gabbana returned to the core essence of the brand and by doing so presented one of the strongest collections of the season. after several seasons which saw the design duo toying with ideas such as surrealism, madonna, seventies london and contemporary art, they went back to sicily. the island where the designers drew their early inspirations from and helped cement their status as the go to label for provocative, subversive, sensual designs. i mean, let's face it, anna magnani is a far sexier and more potent muse than jesus luz's sugar momma.
other well established houses such as givenchy and balenciaga continued to redefine its storied legacy by injecting it with a youthfulness and modernity that continues to dictate the direction where fashion is heading. and fashion's most infamous enfant terrible/showman, lee mcqueen, managed to crash a whole website from the amount of people wishing to see his show aired lived on what else, the internet. which unfortunately robbed millions the chance to witness one of the most poignant show of the season.
younger labels such meadham kirchhoff, louise goldin, sharon wauchob and ohne titel, houses that are just establishing their identity therefore have more space to experiment with their vocabulary, they nevertheless have managed to gain enough confidence in their young age to assert their own personality in this highly competitive arena.
and as usual, fashion's greatest intellectuals, miuccia prada and rei kawakubo never ceases to give us a cerebral challenge as to what fashion is, what it can be, and what it should be. by always challenging our perception of fashion, these two women never fails to become a huge voice in the discussion.
although there were some strong collections presented during spring/summer 2010 collections, generally speaking, the word to summarize everything as a whole was "adequate". there were plenty of sellable clothes that designers sent out because it was a sure way to have customers who are still frugal because of the economy to open their wallets. but perhaps that is where the problem lies. designers were so focused on putting out the best of what they know how to do that it left little in terms of experimentation and development. a new course that could've taken root, detoured in favor of guaranteed commercial success. in these still uncertain times, one cannot fault the designers for playing it safe, albeit it to their respected strengths. last season when the wound left by the crash was still fresh, there were talks of how in times like these, a creative surge erupts, unfortunately it seems that that seed has yet to sprout.

miu miu - spring/summer 2010

photo: style.com