Jaeger London Spring/Summer 2011

Jaeger London’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection marries fine tailoring in a modern silhouette with new-season prints and bold shades. Inspirations include early Alain Delon films, Pop Art and Surrealism.

Elegant slim-line tailoring is cut from a new contemporary suit block. Shirts feature graphic patterns with a hint of Roy Lichtenstein.

The collection is infused with an interesting mix of textures and fabrics, from Aertex knits through to paperweight chino-style suiting.

Trompe-l’oeil effects feature throughout and engineered shirting and suiting see historic patterns grading into one another.

Colour Palette
Midnight, Rose, Porcelain, Cornflower, Smoke, Silver, Tan, Sunburst, Jade, Burgundy, Khaki.

See more shots here.

Photos & text Copyright Jaeger London.

Blood is the New Black

In 2004, Mitra Khayyam launched Blood is the New Black in Los Angeles for several purposes.
First, she wanted to showcase emerging artists and introduce them to the public. Mitra also shares the profit of every t-shirt with the artist that created it.

Moreover, Mitra desired that the public explore new trends in art and design, as well as issues that have meaning to the artists, such as love, death, sex, money, social status, god, and more.

Topics of the 2011 spring/summer collection include vanity, mortality, youth and religion and incorporate the work of six international artists from Los Angeles to Amsterdam.

You can expect 100 designs by more than 30 international artists for the entire 2011 spring/summer collection.

Modeling the collections is Christopher Daze.

Preview the collection here.

Photos Copyright Blood is the New Black.

Suzan Heyns, the World Cup & Africa Fashion Week

Suzaan Heyns is a South African, Johannesburg based label, a brand known best for its avant-garde aesthetic.

Highly constructed, tailored, and sculptured garments create a feeling of conceptual androgyny, and steely hard-edged femininity, which is a common thread throughout Suzaan’s work.

Inspiration often comes from architecture, 1800’s sketches and old medical instruments, which give the brand its macabre yet structured sentiment.

An emphasis is always placed on quality fabric, which is fundamental within the design process.

Throughout the past couple of years Suzaan has concentrated on establishing her label showing at various fashion events.

Further highlights thus far have been: being chosen to showcase at Design Indaba ’08; collaborating for the What If The World Collective; showcasing at Cape Town Fashion Week ‘08, participating in Audi Joburg Fashion Week A/W ’09; and being asked to design for Anglo Gold Ashanti AuDITIONS collections at Africa Fashion Week ‘09, which won an award for the most creative range.

Recently Suzaan Heyns’s origami inspired show at Arise Cape Town Fashion Week S/S ‘09, has had an excellent reception.



Meet the other designers:
Top Fashion Design Stars In South Africa during World Cup
The World Cup, Africa Fashion Week & Dax Martin
The World Cup, Africa Fashion Week & Fabiani
Fundudzi by Craig Jacobs, the World Cup & Africa Fashion Week
Heni, the World Cup & Africa Fashion Week
Suzan Heyns, the World Cup & Africa Fashion Week

Image Description : Suzaan Heyns
Location : SCC, Sandton, Gauteng, South Africa
Credit : Simon Deiner / SDR Photo

Text Courtesy & Copyright Africa Fashion International.

Too Much "Quatsch" by Raphael Hauber

Quatsch—the German word for “too much stuff, rubbish, or ‘bullshit’”.

“Too much quatsch” is the inspiration for spring/summer 2010 by German designer Raphael Hauber.

Deconstructive in approach, Raphael bases his collection on the essentials of summer wear, as he features piles of denim jeans and t-shirts printed on the very same garments.

For embellishment and accessories, the collection is accentuated with natural leather and wood. Piles of wood are also found printed throughout the collection.

Photo 2010 s/s collection “Too Much Quatsch” Copyright Raphael Hauber.

Slideshow 2010 s/s collection “Too Much Quatsch” Copyright Raphael Hauber.

Rembrandt Repaints Palm Springs

Although already trading in the 1930’s, the Rembrandt menswear company was founded 1946 in Wellington, New Zealand.

Today, Rembrandt sells to over 400 retailers in New Zealand and Australia, producing four distinct lines: Rembrandt, Wayward Heir, César, and Kent & Lloyd.

The Rembrandt 2010 s/s collection was designed to revive the popularity of the mid-19th century architecture in Palm Springs, not only evoking images of art deco and Spanish-influenced styles but also recalling the “desert modernism” of Swiss-born architect Albert Frey and the modernist, airy structures of Austria-born architect Richard Neutra.

Palm Springs is enjoying a resurgence of popularity,” says Rembrandt designer Jonathan Hall, “attracting people keen to revel in the fantastic design, architecture, and attitude that made the town so popular in the middle of last century.”

The collection, entitled “Mirage,” adds space-age colors of chrome, titanium, and silver alloys to a palette of sun-faded colors and desert shades of sand and stone, all of which are punctuated by pastels that recall the splash period of British pop artist David Hockney.



Photo top right Albert Frey’s Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, Copyright Lockley at Wikipedia.
Photo middle left Richard Neutra’s Miller House by Ilpo's Sojourn, Creative Commons Attribution at Wikipedia.
Photo 2009/10 s/s collection "Mirage" Copyright Rembrandt.

Raphael Hauber & the Reality of Ausbau

AUSBAU—used often in relation to construction—is to develop and/or expand with the goal of improvement. In this 2009 a/w collection, designer Raphael Hauber and photographer Heinz Peter Knes expand their disciplines to construct an abstract art form that is free from any association of reality with symbols.

For Raphael, he cuts the photographs to the point that they can no longer lay claim to picturing reality. Such fragmentation allows the pictures to free themselves and assume their own reality—a sense of Concrete Art, the abstractionist movement of the 1930’s in which lines and colors are “concrete” in themselves.

For Heinz, the cutting is like challenging a sacred cow. But the cuts, shreds, and holes also symbolize the end of an era in analog photography, which has been supplanted by digital photography—a transition that he contrasts to the emergence of electronic music, from analog to digital. In the collection, therefore he incorporates a layer of each into every image.

Heinz Peter Knes was born 1969 in Gemünden am Main of Bavaria, Germany. Now based in Berlin, the photographer has been published in numerous magazines since graduating from Fachhochschule Dortmund in 1999. Although at times considered a fashion photographer, Heinz rejects the label in that he is captivated by everything that surrounds the clothing.

Born in 1977, Raphael Hauber studied clothing technology at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and Fashion Design at the Pforzheim University of Applied Sciences. Raphael founded his epynomous label in 2003 and is currently based in Eppelheim, southwest Germany.



Photo 2009 a/w collection “Ausbau” Copyright Raphael Hauber.
Slideshow 2009 a/w collection “Ausbau” Copyright Raphael Hauber.

Why Red? by Whyred

Swedish painter and sculptor Sven X-et Erixson (1899-1970) started his career as an apprentice at the age of 14. Known for his use of a wide variety of colors, Sven was once asked in a radio interview about his favorite color. “Red,” he retorted. “Why red,” the journalist questioned. “Well, blue then,” the artist replied.

Like art, fashion should never be one-dimensional. No one understands this concept better than Sven X-et Erixson’s grandson, Roland Hjort, who has fused the two worlds of art and apparel in Whyred, which, combines the simplicity of postmodern aesthetics to the classic icons of the 1960’s.

The Whyred man of the 2009 fall/winter collection can be depicted as calm and cool of an analytic nature that surfaces from a collage of cubist techniques and the modernist styles of Swedish furniture designer, Axel Einar Hjorth. Realism and abstraction are brought together to create a source of conflicting tension between conservatism and the avant-garde, which play on the motif that opposites attract.

The 2010 spring/summer collection returns the Whyred man to his roots in the pop culture of the nineties, highlighting specific parts of the masculine body and flirting with the bold monochrome spatial images of Peter Greenway’s most successful film, “The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover.”

Launched in 1999, Whyred is sold in 230 stores of 21 countries and runs an online shop. Check out the sales now!

Photo by Bengt Oberger Portrait of Sven X-et Erixson, Copyleft Wikipedia.
Slideshow 2010 s/s collection Copyright Whyred.

Shudy is a "Shoe Ready" New Beat at Pitti Uomo

New Beats is the area that Pitti Uomo dedicates to fresh designer talent and spanking new debuts.

Now in its 12th season, New Beats showcased 14 emerging brands and rising designers at the 76th Edition of Pitti Uomo. Among them was Shudy, an innovative line of men's shoe wear from Italy.

Shudy is a collection of recycled plastic and rubber-soled shoes, finely perforated for comfort, which comes in a kaleidoscope of multiple colors, ranging from dainty pastel tones to scrumptious sorbets.

The style—a reinterpretation of the classic moccasin. As for inspiration, Shudy looks to the Dadaist and Surrealist champion of art, Marcel Duchamp, and to the movement known as Cracking Art.

The Cracking Art movement was born in 1983 with a strong social and environmental commitment to revolutionize contemporary art through the creative use of plastic materials. Borrowing its name from the process of converting petroleum into plastic—a conversion of the natural into the artificial—Cracking Art seeks to fill the gap between man's organic past and synthetic future by means of recycling plastics to produce provocative art installations.

As for Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), he was a French artist who found mundane objects to present as artwork, such as a bottle rack or bicycle wheel, coining the objects “readymades.” The most influential yet controversial readymades include a urinal that he renamed a “fountain” and a portrait of Mona Lisa with a mustache, to which he ascribed Elle a chaud au cul, implying "the girl was horny!

The connection to Shudy? Shu stands for ‘shoe’, whereas dy is an abbreviated form of ‘ready’. Hence, Shudy is shoe ready!

Recycled, the shoe line is a resurgence of readymades—ready to make a radical social and environmental difference!



Photo top left by Carl Stas, Public Domain at Wikipedia.
Photo middle right from Cracking Art dowloads.
Slideshow Copyright Shudy.

Pitti Uomo's Special Guest: Undercover

Well, the doors have officially opened and closed for the 76th Edition of Pitti Uomo, which was held June 16-19 in the beautiful Renaissance city of art, Florence, Italy.

Although the brands in attendance were far too many to list, you may search them by style, specific item, country, and more on the Pitti Immagine Uomo N. 76 Exhibitors’ List page.

For the next few articles, I will highlight some of the main events surrounding emerging designers.

The special guest at the 76th Edition was Japanese label, Undercover, designed by Jun Takahashi.

Born 1969 in Kiryu of the Gunma prefecture (100 km from Tokyo), Takahashi studied at the Bunka Academy of Fashion. But before graduation, the young student had already developed his Undercover brand, along with classmate Tomoaki "Nigo" Nagao, who went on to found A Bathing Ape, otherwise known as BAPE.

Striking a balance between fashion and art, Takahashi seeks to evoke emotions of terror, youthful unrest, and his own sense of peace with himself as he merges music, cinema, street wear, and Japanese art of cartoon comics known as Manga, which dates back to 1874.



Photo Undercover 2010 s/s collection by Giovanni Giannoni, source Pitti Uomo.

Slideshow Undercover 2010 s/s collection by Giovanni Giannoni, source Pitti Uomo.

LAB—Magical Art Encapsulated in Japanese Design

So what does painter and writer Henri Fuseli of the 18th century have in common with 20th century designer Yōji Yamamoto? Local Art Base, commonly known as LAB!

Born Johann Heinrich Füssli in 1741, Switzerland—the second of 18 children—Henri was eventually expelled from his homeland, sojourning in nearby countries like Germany, England, and Italy where he changed his name to the Italian-sounding Fuseli.

Somewhat reckless in technique, Fuseli painted more than 200 works before his death, often emphasizing supernatural themes. At times superior to his paintings, Fuseli's sketches total 800, many of which are known for their exaggerations.

On the other side of the globe, and several centuries later, Yamamoto Yōji was born in Tokyo, graduating in law from Keio University in 1966. He furthered his studies at Bunka Fashion College where he earned a degree in 1969.

After his 1981 debut in Paris, Yamamoto rose to fame as an avant-garde designer whose signature is the over-sized silhouette frequently in black with multi-textured drapery.

At his debut at Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, Sydney designer Chris Cheng of Local Art Base unexpectedly brought together European art and Japanese design.

In his LAB Homme “Debut” collection, Chris reinterpreted the supernaturalism of Fuseli’s paintings, the exaggerations of his sketches, and the romantic narrative of his literary works, encapsulating them in the inventiveness of Yamamoto's modern Japanese styling.



Photo top left by the Yorck Project Copyright Wikipedia Public Domain.
Slide show photos by David Taylor, LAB Homme "Debut" collection, Copyright Lab Art Base.

C.Neeon Proves "One Cannot Live without Champagne and Gypsies"

What do Swiss architect Max Bill and Ukraine-born artist Sonja Delaunay have in common? At C.Neeon, it’s champagne and Gypsies!

Inspired by the Russian proverb, “One cannot live without champagne and Gypsies,” designers Clara Leskovar and Doreen Schulz bring together the architectural structure of Bauhaus and the colorful geometric sensations of Orphism in their 2009 a/w collection.

Born in Gradizhske, Ukraine, Sarah Ilinitchna Stern (1885 – 1979) moved to St. Petersburg at a young age where she was adopted by her wealthy uncle Henri Terk and assumed the name Sonja Terk. Sonja traveled extensively throughout Europe with her aunt and uncle, visiting art museums and galleries. Eventually, she wound up attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany, and the Académie de la Palette in France.

Sonja later married Parisian artist Robert Delaunay in 1910 and bore a son. One day she set about making “little Charles" a blanket similar to those of Russian peasants, with pieces of colorful fabric geometrically stitched together. Evoking images of Cubism—an artistic form that communicates through color and form—Orphism was born as Sonja and Robert applied their strong colors and geometric shapes to other artistic media, including textiles, fashion, and stage design.

Meanwhile in 1908, Max Bill was born in Winterthur, a city in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland. Max Bill went on to study at Bauhaus—a school in Germany that combined crafts and fine arts, harmonizing function and design in geometric designs and relationships of planned color. Artist, sculptor, architect, and typographer—Max Bill became an avid proponent of Bauhaus, which exerted a marked influence on art and architecture, as well as on graphic, interior, and industrial design.

So, sit back with some champagne and Gypsies and watch the slide show below to pay tribute to Max Bill, who would have turned 100 this year!

By the way, if you do not have any Gypsy friends, click on Azis in my play list below—he's a Bulgarian Gypsy and my favorite vocalist. C.Neeon proves it right: One cannot live without champagne and Gypsies. I know I can't!

Slide show C.Neeon 2009 a/w collection Copyright by Alex Kohout.
Photo top left painting by Robert Delaunay, 1912-13, Museum of Modern Art (NYC) Public Domain at Wikipedia.

0044 Paris Celebrates 10 Years of Revolutionary Romanticism

Although the fashion line was conceived in 2003, this year 0044 paris is celebrating its 10th anniversary of Revolutionary Romanticism. Director Seiichiro Shimamura has been unveiling this philosophy through interior design, artistic creations, and “made-in-France” fashions, which rise from poetry and short films and spring into shapes of clothing and accessories.

The flagship store of 0044 paris—a museum of sorts—is located in Marais at 16 rue du Bourg-Tibourg. Floral scenes and a Siberian Woolly Mammoth skull juxtapose unexpectedly, welcoming the visitor with intriguingly beautiful originality to reflect upon life, death, extinction, renewal, and how the marriage of opposites can invent a new aesthetic.

Red greets the visitor with passion, rebellion, revolution, and fire—inspiring you with every- and anything that deals with heat. The beauty of archaeology shakes your hand through fossilized skulls of extinct mammals, longstanding symbols of a Punk culture.

History will transport you through time to a large-scale imaginative world of mysterious fascination. The faith of others will hand you back in time through a French heritage of Catholic art, which will instruct you in the beauty of sublime.

Click on the slideshow of this year's current and future seasons to celebrate with 0044 paris a happy 10th anniversary!



Photo Copyright by 0044 paris.
Slideshow 2009 spring/summer & autumn/winter collections Copyright by 0044 paris.

Russian Fashion Week & Oleg Biryukov's Mosaic of Talent

Today Russian Fashion Week opened the doors at the Congress Center in Moscow, where numerous Russian and foreign designers will be presenting their 2009 a/w collections throughout the next week. One of the exhibiting menswear designers is Oleg Biryukov, who drew inspiration for his collection from the art and dress of the Byzantine Empire.

Mostly everyone knows something about ancient Rome, the center of the Roman Empire. But how often do you watch a movie or read a novel on Byzantium, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire? Eventually Byzantium came to be called Constantinople—the New Rome—and later, Istanbul!

What we term the Byzantine Empire merely refers to the Medieval Roman Empire that continued in the East as an economic power, trading heavily in textiles! What we must bear in mind, however, was that Byzantium was a Greek speaking empire of Greek culture. Although Byzantine dress was considered conservative, the Byzantines adored bright colors and elaborate patterns of embroidered imagery, worn primarily by the upper classes.

After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Moscow claimed succession to the legacy of the Eastern Roman Empire, becoming the Third Rome—hence the title of “Tsar,” which mutated from ‘Cesar’! Hinting to the painted glass and colored enamels in the Byzantine mosaics, Oleg Biryukov continues the legacy at Russian Fashion Week!

Piecing emerald and purple on the backdrop of blue and gold, Oleg enforces the strict norms and canons of Byzantine iconography, which depicts the physical world as a mere reflection of heavenly realities. Instead of hiding behind pretty words or embellished ideas, Oleg exemplifies the truth that modesty can beautify!

Photos Copyright by Oleg B!ryukov.

Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia

After posting my 2-part interview with sustainable designer and artist John Patrick, I received an email from his Dutch friend, Anco Sneep, director of Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia, which produces a natural red dye that dates back to over two millenia:

"A world without colour is barely conceivable for us. Nature provides for colour all around and anything we create, we create in colour. And–we’ve been doing so for thousands of years. Primeval human beings already used colours to outline drawings or illustrations, and all generations thereafter carried on doing so. These colours were made from natural resources. One of the most important materials was–and still is–madder.

The roots of the madder plant produce a genuine red colour. The ancient Egyptians had already discovered the incomparable madder tint: a belt dyed with madder root was found in the tomb of Tutankhamen. But the ancient Greeks and Romans also used this unique colour as a dye, which in the later Byzantium Empire was given the name Turkish Red. Famous artists like El Greco, Velasquez, and Vermeer used madder as a base for particular red tints in their paintings.

In the 18th century, madder–or by its scientific name Rubia Tinctorum –became a popular dye for textiles. Particularly in the southern Netherlands, in West Brabant and Zeeland, the plant was cultivated on a large scale. Madder became an important economic factor in this area.

After the German chemists Graebe and Liebermann discovered in 1868 how the red madder dye could be produced synthetically, cultivation of madder quickly declined and finally vanished.

Rubia® has developed a totally new process to extract the genuine madder dye very efficiently in an ecologically friendly manner. Elements of the system are specially selected madder under license.

The highest priority in the Rubia® research laboratories is continuous process control and optimization aligned with quality enhancement. In addition, the colour agent content of the different root batches is determined to permit fair compensation for the growers.

In the factory, the colour agent is extracted from the roots by means of a special Rubia® process. As market leader, Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia® comes from the only industrial installation worldwide to produce the authentic Turkish Red.

Rubia® red is the ideal dye for companies seeking to differentiate themselves through the use of authentic and brilliant colours, produced entirely on a natural basis. Rubia®–a new dimension in colour!

Highly praised Dutch designer Rianne de Witte has decided to work with natural dyes of Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia®!

Photos and Slide Show Copyright by Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia.