CAN’T STAND THE RAIN? HEAD FOR MANISH AND GOSIA!

Manish Arora's playful inventiveness. Photo: Yannis Vlamos

The rain and grey weather in France during the first days of Paris Fashion Week were in sharp contrast to the energy and colour of several fashion shows.

Indian designer Manish Arora particularly did much to make one forget the chill winds blowing through the streets of the French capital. Playfulness was the hallmark of his autumn/winter 2014 collection, as he presented a “candy tribe of sweet-toothed nomads and gummy bear gypsies”.

Photo: Yannis Vlamos

The first impression on seeing the designs was: Asia meets South America. Arora showed “oversize ice-cream prints and sugary landscapes” which adorned Peruvian circle skirts and the drop-waisted trousers of ancient Chinese workers, as his house described it.

The models’ steps were lit up by built-in LED lights in their sneakers, while tiny hot water bottles and amusing hip flasks were the accessories to keep Arora’s imaginary travellers warm on their wanderings.

The designer can always be counted on to spring a surprise, and the array of pink, purple, orange and green, together with his traditional embroidery, elicited a certain thrill at his daring. Even without the outlandish pom-poms worn by the models, this would’ve been a show to remember.

GOSIA BACZYNSKA

Photo: Olivier Claisse

In contrast, Polish designer Gosia Baczynska went for the more usual elegance and femininity. The use of lace and cut-outs, with many of the dresses molded to the body, added a sensual element to her collection.

Baczynska has told reporters that it upsets her that fashion is becoming just an industry, and she obviously was motivated to highlight the artistic aspect of fashion design.

She used a range of fabrics, and mixed colours and textures to great effect. This mélange is all the rage at the moment, but not everyone does it well. She can take pleasure in knowing that she does. - J.M. De Clercq and L. McKenzie

Gosia Baczynska shows the art of lace. Photo: Olivier Claisse

            

Arora's perfect coat to brighten a rainy day. Photo: Yannis Vlamos

PARIS FASHION WEEK OFF TO SPARKLING, ‘SNOWY’, START

Design by Christine Phung

CHRISTINE PHUNG

The buzz was loud way before Christine Phung’s show Tuesday on the first day of the latest Paris Fashion Week. Couture experts were predicting an innovative autumn/winter 2014-2015 ready-to-wear collection, and Phung did not disappoint.

Phung evokes snow

She told journalists that she created a character around which to base her collection – “that of a girl from a mountain on a dark night, under a canopy of stars”. So it was that the first model who strutted out on the catwalk was dressed in Alpine-type gear, wearing goggles and carrying a pair of skis on her shoulders. The equipment was provided by Rossignol. The clothes were all Phung.

Using cashmere wool, with appliqué patterns, the designer shared her fantasy of this character who “weaves through the trees, cloaked in powdery snow … dazed by her own speed (but) aware of the elements around her – rock, snow, ice, stars, the forest itself”.

It was nearly enough to make one forget that the fashion show was taking place on the second floor of Galeries Lafayette’s “Maison” (home) store, with a wooden runway and wooden benches.  Even if the techno music by Camille Desprès didn’t much bring the mountains to mind, Phung’s designs certainly did.

The vibrantly colored cashmere, digitally printed silk, and woven jacquard were incorporated into sleek cuts, and at times the garments were detailed with crystals and gems to evoke the elements.

Phung's goggles say it all

The materials were meant to symbolize different things: the shimmering gems represented glistening snow, the woven jacquard embodied the snow-covered slopes, and the printed dresses were the “wild flames” of the character’s imagination, according to Phung’s description.

The young French-Cambodian designer also experimented with different colors: blues, maroons, and oranges, along with black and white. The color combinations were striking but did not clash: one design comprised a woolen jacket with blue, grey, maroon and white, worn with orange stockings and simple black heels. Other designs had the more usual hues, and instead emphasized the appealing cut of the clothes.

It was an impressive first day of Paris Fashion Week, with other designers also determined to shine.  

MOON YOUNG HEE

Moon Young Hee's simplicity

Earlier in the day, France-based Korean stylist Moon Young Hee made use of an art gallery on Place des Vosges, in the trendy Marais area of Paris, for her show.

The mood was set with a pared-down remix of Suzanne Vega’s hit “Tom’s Diner”, evocating … well, space and art somehow. As a few spectators tapped their feet, the models emerged, enrobed in thick wools, tulle netting, gauze, and velvets.

The colors were minimalistic: black, white, brown, and blue; the cuts however, were not. Flowing pants, layered coats, and scrunched sleeves. The designs reminded one of Comme des Garçons, but a subdued version.

Each model’s hair was loosely pulled back and tied at the very tip with their own winding strands, which looked effortless yet elegant. The accessories were marginal; the same black creepers on every model, although some of the outfits had accents of crystals.

The collection could be described as slightly gothic, somewhat masculine, and inventively shaped. If some of the models looked pregnant, it was in an entirely fashionable way. - J.M. De Clercq & L. McKenzie

Above: blue dress by Moon Young Hee, and colorful dresses by Christine Phung. (© De Clercq)

NEW BOOK ILLUSTRATES ART OF FASHION ILLUSTRATORS

Alexandra Compain-Tissier, Bill Cunningham, 2011; Les Inrocks magazine; watercolor

If photography is the “quintessential medium” for portraying the art of fashion, what role does illustration play?

This question, posed by art expert Stephen Heller in his introduction to Ilustration Now! Fashion, is more than adequately answered in the next 400 pages of this bold new book.

Published by TASCHEN, the colourful coffee-table tome shows how art, fashion and journalism fuse in the field of illustration. The book also emphasises that artists, using a variety of media, have a secure position in portraying fashion design - which photography can’t replace.

“Fashion illustration requires the unique ability to wield pen or brush in such a way that it not only captures nuance through gesture but also can readily transform the graphic representation of a garment, accessory or cosmetic into an object of desire,” says Heller.

The 90 illustrators featured in the book do this and more; they display their own artistic talent as well as “interpret” the work of fashion designers. Readers will immediately want to know more about the illustrators as well as the history of their “craft”. The book, edited by the Brazilian-born graphic designer Julius Wiedemann, provides that information as well.

In an in-depth essay that follows the foreword, historian and author Adelheid Rasche traces the evolution of fashion illustration from the 1600s to the present. “It wasn’t until the 17^th century that fashion trends began to spread internationally,” Rasche writes. “Because of France’s commercial and cultural supremacy, the nobility and upper middle classes across Europe tried to keep pace with the French royal court.”

Travellers to France were able to gape in person at the luxurious materials around them, while those who were unable to visit the country “had to rely on letters and journalism for information, but above all on visual images”.

These images came via etchings and copper engravings and could be considered as the first fashion illustrations in the early 1600s, according to Rasche. More than a century later, the first fashion magazines “established illustration as a recognized facet of the fashion trade” and two very different styles came into vogue: the flamboyance of Paris and the “simple, rational tastes of the British bourgeoisie”.

Samantha Hahn: Marc Jacobs
NY Fashion Week, Fall 2012
New York magazine/The Cut

The first popular illustrators were from France and Britain, Rasche recounts, but in the 1900s international competition came with the creation of American magazines such as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. Some illustrators did enjoy popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, although demand for their work would decline from the 1950s on, as photography gradually took over.

Still, fashion illustration remained “a dynamic means of expression embracing a whole range of artistic styles,” says Rasche. Readers will tend to agree with her assertion that the selections in the book “convincingly demonstrate the sheer creative scope” of the sector.

The illustrators, featured alphabetically, all manage to convey fashion’s “allure” through a variety of techniques, including collage, computer graphics and watercolour. They come from different countries, and work for a range of magazines as well as for famous designers, and the book gives an insight into their creativity.

Istanbul-born Cem Bora, for instance, uses collage to evoke the designs of clients such as Comme des Garçons and Balenciaga, while French illustrator Carlotta utilizes pen, gouache and other media for her economical, cartoon-like sketches. “Fashion is the reflection of life, and for me an illustration can nail an era,” Carlotta says in the book.

Lisa Billvik, Untitled, 2011, Catwalk Studio; pencil  

Some striking images also come from a diverse group of Swedish-born, Stockholm-based artists such as Cecilia Carlstedt, Lina Bodén, Molly Bartling, and especially Lisa Billvik and Maria Raymondsdotter - whose artwork emanates a sense of fun.

Meanwhile, Zé Octavio, Catarina Gushiken and Furia, all from São Paola, Brazil, bring colour and energy to the selections, just like the talented German illustrator Sabine Pieper and the Cuban-born, New-York-based artist Ruben Toledo.

“For me, style is content,” Toledo says. “I let the clothes, the woman, the mood and the style form the composition. Clothing tells a story, and my focus is to listen and communicate that story through art.” - L. McKenzie and J.M. De Clercq

FASHION WEEK SPONSOR MAKES DRINK FIT FOR ... A PARISIAN

Fashion fans may find themselves sipping cola instead of champagne at parties during the next Paris Fashion Week, which runs from Feb. 25 to March 5. But it won’t be just any cola as the French capital now has its own caramel-flavoured drink, called – what else – Paris Cola.

The company behind the product, Fonbelle, is a sponsor of Fashion Week and has been heightening its profile recently as it tries to push ahead of other cola contenders and also appeal to civic pride.

Rousseau shows off Paris Cola

“The main thing about Paris Cola is that it’s a local product, made with Parisian water and with locally produced beet sugar,” says Pollyanna Rousseau, Fonbelle’s marketing manager.

The company first developed the product in 2007, but it was only last year that Paris Cola became a viable commercial drink, competing with both international brands as well as a similarly named local beverage.

This year, it has launched a major offensive, with public demonstrations and free tastings in upscale Parisian supermarkets such as the Grande Epicerie.

Rousseau says she wants to position the cola as a drink one wouldn’t feel embarrassed to offer to a dinner hostess, much like a good bottle of wine.

It took eight months to create the right taste, she says, with studies conducted among consumers to make sure the drink wasn’t “too sugary, too caramel or too strong”.

“We wanted the perfect taste for a Parisian, and that was quite difficult,” she adds. “You had to forget about other products and find the taste that you would like to have as a French cola.”

If it's red it must be cola.

After the public testing, the company designed flashy bottles in glass and plastic for retail in French supermarkets such as Auchan and Carrefour, with the product now being available in more than 300 outlets.

“We targeted two kinds of consumers - first young Parisians between the age of 20 and 35 who are willing to try new things, and secondly the tourist market,” Rousseau says.

Fonbelle has long been active in the food-souvenir sector, and the idea is for travellers to have an unusual memento to take back home. The cola, for instance, is sold in glass bottles at stores that tourists frequent, such as the ever-crowded Galeries Lafayette.

The bottle, with a red label, is a deliberate design as consumers seem to identify the colour with colas, perhaps because of a famous international brand.

“When people ask why we’re using red, we explain that the Parisian flag is red,” says Rousseau. “So it makes sense.”

The label also bears images of the Eiffel Tower and two stylish Parisians – a young woman in the iconic “little black dress” and a slender man with an elegant silhouette.

This is meant to evoke the stylishness associated with haute couture and other luxuries, one of the reasons for the link with Fashion Week. Who knows, perhaps consumers will start calling the drink Paris Cola-Champagne. - L. McKenzie & J.M. De Clercq

DESIGNING DUO HIT THE ROAD WITH THEIR COOL HOSPITALITY

It wasn’t the kind of scene one expected to come across on a chilly winter evening in Paris. Out in the open, on a cobblestone square near the Marais quarter, several people sat at a long wooden table - eating, drinking and talking animatedly.

Not far from the table, other individuals stirred vegetables and noodles at a stove built on wheels, while one young man popped open bottles of wine.

Passers-by were invited to sit and enjoy the delicious-smelling food, with the guests including a former World Bank official, a well-dressed woman and her daughter, a market vendor, a backpacker, an artist and a journalist.

Getting things ready in Paris.

Welcome to “mobile hospitality”, a concept launched by the young Polish furniture designers Ania Rosinke and Maciej Chmara (pictured above) who met when they were both studying architecture and design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk.

The duo, whose chmara.rosinke company is based in Vienna, Austria, travel with their mobile-modular kitchen and dining table to various cities and invite the public to share free meals. Diners have included both the wealthy and the homeless.

In a couple of months, they hope to take their special brand of hospitality to the United States, offering meals in New York. The aim is not only to showcase their cutting-edge furniture, but also to get strangers talking to one another, they said.

Tasshon interviewed them about the project.

Tasshon: How did it start?

Chmara: We were invited to an art and design fair in Western Austria (ArtDesign Feldkirch), to make an ‘intervention’ in urban space, as we are working between design and art, and the urban space medium interests us very much. We didn’t know this area where we had to do the happening very well, so we decided to get to know the people from the area.

All folded up and ready to cook.

We wanted to make something that would create positive provocation. To get to know people better you have to talk, and the best talking you do is at a table. To keep people at the table you need good food, so the idea was born. We built the first prototype in a friend’s cellar in the Austrian mountains and went on to invite people to eat with us. We always did three dishes so that people had to spend two or three hours while having spontaneous discussions with foreigners.

  

Tasshon: What has the reaction been?

Chmara: The reactions have always been positive; in nearly three years we haven’t had any negative experiences. Sure, sometimes the mix of homeless and more wealthy people can lead to awkward situations, but it has always worked out. People asked us where we would cook over the next days, and they brought us wine, vegetables or homemade marmalade. We still have contact with some guests and several have become friends. It was always difficult to get the first person to sit at our table; once this happened, it didn’t take long until the table was full.

  

Tasshon: Who contributes to the cooking, serving, etc.?

Friends help to peel vegetables in Paris.

Chmara: We were always cooking on our own, and sometimes in galleries we had guest cooks. In Paris it was actually the first time that a cook really worked with us. It has never been difficult to get some sponsorship from an organic vegetable store or some private person or from companies or galleries, because people liked the idea. Sometimes we also paid for the food on our own.

Tasshon: How many cities have been involved?

Chmara: Dornbirn, Feldkirch, Bregenz, Vienna (Austria) Vaduz (Liechtenstein), Bratislava, Berlin, Milan, Paris, Lodz, Gdynia (Poland)… I for sure have forgotten one or two, but I think this was the most. And if it works out and we manage to organize sponsoring, we will go to New York in April and May.

  

Tasshon: Do you have other projects as well?

Chmara: Currently we are working on a bar and restaurant for Caritas (an organization that works with vulnerable people) in Vienna. Cooking as a social phenomenon will also play a big role. Besides that, people with social problems that come to Caritas will build together with us together and learn to construct a big of the furniture we’re making.

Checking the ingredients in an earlier project.

We also want to show that Do-it-yourself projects don’t  have to look “rough and ready“, but that you can build high-quality furniture with not much money. Along the way, we want to teach people and give them something to do.

An important aspect in our work is the relationship of people to the work they do with their own hands, looking at the future, at energy problems. In general, we have to develop craftsmanship and manufacturing more regionally and locally, but to achieve this, our approach to design, to our work and craft has to change. Besides that, we are working on many experimental projects that are not client-based.

Tasshon: What has been the best aspect of the project for you personally?

Chmara: The reaction of homeless people has been very nice. They said that normally there is a kind of soup kitchen at which you have to wait half an hour, and you feel very exposed… nobody talks to you and the food comes without any communication. So, many homeless people don’t go to the soup kitchen as they also want to feel respected. They told us that it was a pleasure to sit at a table together to eat, get to know new people and so on.

(Photos courtesy of the designers.)