NMM launches Sailor Chic exhibition

A special exhibition called Sailor Chic celebrating the enduring influence of nautical styles on fashion is on display this week at The National Maritime Museum. As a maritime nation, naval and nautical styles have played an important part in British identity for over 150 years. The image of the sailor has variably been used to suggest obedience, order, bravery and loyalty but also free-spiritedness, independence and rebellion. For these reasons sailor styles have been adopted, imitated and reinvented by various groups designers and the fashion-conscious.

The popularity of nautical styles in mainstream fashion can be traced back to the Royal Family in the mid-19th century. More specifically it began with Queen Victoria, who commissioned a sailor suit in 1846 for her young son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, to wear on the Royal Yacht. This inspired a trend that soon permeated the wardrobes of affluent families and stylish boutiques in Britain and abroad. Over the following years its influence continued to re-emerge in art and advertising and on the stage, cinema screen, catwalk and High Street and can still be seen in clothing stores and high-end fashion collections today from H&M to Martin Margiela and Vivienne Westwood.

Sailor Chic displays a selection of important pieces from the Museum's rich uniform collections alongside key objects from fashion collections and archives across the UK and Europe. It will explore themes such as patriotism and empire, subversion and rebellion and gender and sexuality. It will also consider the impact of other forms of popular culture – stage, screen and music – on the work of high-end designers and High Street fashion. The exhibition runs until December.

www.nmm.ac.uk
26 July 2007

Fashion is Art for charity

An avant-garde fashion exhibition supporting ‘Help a London Child' will be on view from 12 July until 31st July at The Gallery on Charing Cross Road. A mix of new and established London designers have each been challenged to create and donate a conceptual garment that will display the sheer artistry of fashion. These garments on Wednesday were auctioned at the plush Cumberland Hotel to raise money and awareness for ‘Help a London Child', a charity that supports underprivileged children and young people across our capital city.

An inspiring host of designers showed their willingness to give back to the community they live and work, including g Giles Deacon, Hussein Chalayan, Gharani Strok, Eley Kishimoto, Preen, Basso & Brooke to name but a few.

Help a London Child was founded in 1975 by Lord Attenborough, with the aim of improving the lives of thousands of vulnerable children living in our capital city. The charity specialises in funding grass roots projects and supporting their work to improve the lives of these children.

For more information go to www.capitalradio.co.uk/halc
The Gallery, 125 Charing Cross Road , London WC2H 0EW .

12 July 2007

V&A celebrates 150 th anniversary

The V&A launched its 150th anniversary of its opening in South Kensington with a decadent cocktail party on Tuesday. As the world's leading museum of art and design, the V&A promotes knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the designed world, and it inspires creativity. To reflect this and to mark the occasion, the museum invited 150 leading designers, architects, photographers, fashion designers and artists to contribute a page to an anniversary album.

Fashion designers such as Christian Lacroix, Eley Kishimoto and Ben de Lisi are amongst the designers who contributed unique words and images what they find most inspiring about the V&A and its collections. Limited edition prints and canvases and be purchased from the museum website.

The V&A has been an ardent promoter celebrating the art and significance of fashion in our times. Its Fashion in Motion series, launched in 1999 with Alexander McQueen, showcases live catwalk events presented at the V&A.  Featuring some of the greatest designers of our time, Fashion in Motion brings catwalk couture to a wider audience by modeling it against the beautiful backdrop of the museum.

www.vandaprints.com
27 June 2007

V&A to exhibit Golden Age of fashion

The Victoria and Albert Museum in September will launch a glamorous exhibition showcasing Parisian and British couture between 1947-1957, a decade that Christian Dior described as the ‘Golden Age' of fashion. Dior's launch of the ‘New Look' for his first collection in 1947 shocked and delighted the fashion world, creating a new style that symbolised femininity. The full skirts and hour-glass silhouettes were considered highly decadent, synonymous with luxury, opulence and prosperity, following the austerity of the war years. 

The Golden Age will display stunning gowns and exquisite tailoring from designers such as Balenciaga, Norman Hartnell, Balmain and Givenchy, as well as Dior. It will explore the creation of couture design from the post war era to the global success of the major fashion brands by the late 1950s, at which point fashion began to change, influenced by the ‘youth-quake' of the early 60s. The skill and craftsmanship of haute couture will be revealed, showing a glimpse of the lost world of the exclusive design houses, and the inspiration behind some of the most famous styles of all time.

The event is set to become annual on the international calendar and the 2007 Gala committee is chaired by Alexandra Shulman, co-chaired by John Galliano and couture collector Daphne Guinness; guests, including fashion industry insiders, celebrities and other VIPs, are expected from across the globe. The event, which will be styled by creative director Michael Howells, includes an auction to raise funds for the development of fashion exhibits at the V&A.

www.vam.ac.uk
29 May 2007

New York fashion at V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum on Monday launched their New York Fashion Now exhibition. The show, which features Zac Posen, John Varvatos, Cloak, Sean John, Derek Lam and Proenza Schouler explores the stories of twenty designers who launched their own labels in the five years between 1999 and 2004. Key to the early success of some has been the focused support of the fashion and celebrity press, retailers and manufacturers, as well as the funded design competitions that help the winners pay their bills.

For many of New York's young fashion hopefuls this support has been essential. Young designers shoulder significant economic burdens in one of the toughest industries to crack, along with the expectation to deliver creatively each season. Further, many of the featured design labels were founded around the time of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The designers, along with their staff, factories and retailers, struggled in the resultant economic downturn. Still, the number of designer-led fashion businesses founded in New York City at the turn of the 21st century is remarkable.

New York Fashion Now captures this significant moment of design productivity, both within the city's mainstream fashion culture and outside it. The twenty featured start-up stories provide insight into how so many young hopefuls have prevailed at this particular moment. Zac Posen, arguably the most well-known of the featured designers, showed off a voluminous silk jacquard dress with embroidered flowers at the show. Looks range from a pair of fringed leather trousers from Lost Art by Jordan Betten to a torn, discarded Vietnam uniform, worked into a shirtdress by the Spanish-born Miguel Adrover — who's since moved home to Mallorca — to an intricately constructed chiffon dress by Jean Yu.

Sonnet Stanfill, curator of the exhibition, said she hoped the show changes the European public's perception about New York designers "that it's solely about interchangeable sportswear pieces. I wanted to show how they create clothes so different from each other." The exhibition runs until 23 September.

www.vam.ac.uk
18 April 2007

Great Brits exhibit in Milan

For the 2007 Milan Furniture Fair, the British Council and the Design Museum will showcase the work of a new generation of UK-based designers in Great Brits: Ingenious Therapies, an exhibition at Paul Smith's European headquarters in Milan from 18-23 April 2007.

The exhibition, titled Great Brits: Ingenious Therapies, features the five designers &made , Nadine Jarvis , Peter Marigold , Eelko Moorer and Hiroko Shiratori , and explores the twin imperatives of ingenious function and therapeutic action. Each of the designs in the exhibition is brilliantly contrived and crafted but at the same time addresses a particular human emotion or need, such as - fear, fiction, fantasy; escape; stasis and calm; perpetuity - all of which express a very contemporary take on the need for objects to perform a function.

Curator Libby Sellers said to WGSN: "This seemingly eclectic group are united by their honesty in their approach to design and their desire to find solutions to issues that surpass literal interpretations of functionalism in design.”

www.britishcouncil.org
www.designmuseum.org
12 April 2007

Colette celebrates 10-year anniversary

Colette, the must-see fashion boutique-cum-museum-cum-art house is celebrating its 10 th anniversary this year. On Monday the uber trendy store unveiled its window displaying special limited edition merchandise and inaugurating an exhibit of art culled by 10 different curators.

"We like diversity," told Sarah Lerfel, the store's fashion maven, as she offered a tour of products designed by the likes of Lacoste, Goyard, Repetto and Stephen Jones that have been customized with Col ette's canine mascots, Caperino & Peperone. Cartier also unveiled its new bag — the Marcello — decorated with the mascots. Meanwhile, Lerfel proudly pointed to an empty rack where Proenza Schouler's clothes for Target hung. "We sold out our 1,000 pieces in a day," said Lerfel. "We're waiting for our reshipment."

www.colette.fr
27 February 2007

V&A host Kylie Minogue fashion exhibition

Chanteuse and style icon Kylie Minogue will be the subject of an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in February.The exhibition will explore Kylie Minogue as a popular style icon and international performer.  On display will be her flamboyant stage costumes, accessories, photographs, sound and video. The exhibition will look at Kylie's career and changing image in a retrospective, whilst at the same time examining life behind the scenes and giving insight into how a major international tour develops - from initial concept to first live performance.

200 objects including 45 costumes and 60 photographs will be on display, including the overalls Kylie wore as Charlene in Neighbours and the gold lame hot pants she wore in her Spinning Around video in 2000. Hats by Stephen Jones and costumes from recent tours will also be featured.

Pop star bling will be a huge jump, and a risk, for the V&A, says the Telegraph. The V&A has a reputation better known as Britain's top museum for the decorative arts and to date has not showcased a pop star's wardrobe. "This is certainly a first for us but we are sure that it will be an incredibly fun and interesting exhibition," said a spokesman. “What we are particularly interested in is the way that she has quite self-consciously crafted an image through her wardrobe.” The exhibition is created and designed by the Arts Centre, Melbourne, home to Australia's biggest performing arts archive, including material generously donated by Kylie Minogue.

www.vam.ac.uk
13 December 2006

Bally exhibition

Bally is celebrating the refurbishment of its Bond Street store and 155 years of unique history with ‘A Heritage and History' exhibition. Delving into its extensive historical collection, the company will showcase some of the beautifully crafted achieve pieces that inspired its current collection. Bally has been making style and quality its hallmark for over 150 years, and its timeless look merges the classic and modern, fusing strong silhouettes with unique detailing.

It was this attention to detail, along with the opening of boutiques internationally that made Bally one of the world's first truly global luxury goods brands. Inspiration from its archive has shaped a new range of Bally shoes, and the emphasis of this season's clothing is on beautifully tailored garments in luxurious fabrics such as wool tweed, double-faced cashmere and deer skin. The exhibition runs from 4-31 October.

www.bally.com
30 August 2006

Hussein Chalayan exhibition

Conceptual designer Hussein Chalayan's ready-to-wear is as fit for the body as it is for exhibition. For his first solo exhibition, Chalayan's work fits seamlessly and convincingly into the very modern environment of the Wolfsburg Art Museum. Originally conceived by and presented at the Groninger Museum in northern Netherlands , the show moved to Wolfsburg (the town Volkswagen calls home) over the weekend, where it will run through Feb. 15.

The retrospective begins with the rust-encrusted buried dress from Chalayan's graduate collection for London Central Saint Martin's in 1993, which was displayed in the window of London retailer Brown's. It is the only disembodied piece in the grid-like and chronological journey through the topics and concerns, intellectual and stylistic, that have shaped Chalayan's career.

20 October 2005

Balenciaga in 2006 exhibition

The Paris Museum of Fashion and Textiles at the Louvre said Monday a retrospective tracing the Balenciaga's legacy - from founder Cristobal Balenciaga through its present designer Nicolas Ghesquiere - would be organised in time for the 2006 July couture shows.

The show, spread over the museum's two floors, will not be chronological, but rather thematic, showcasing archival designs along side those of Ghesquiere, who began his rejuvenation drive at Balenciaga in 1997. Contemporary artist Dominique Gonzales-Foerster and lighting designer Benoit Lalloz, who collaborate with Ghesquiere on Balenciaga boutiques, have been tapped to design the exhibition. Ghesquiere should be well prepared for the exhibition, having dedicated staff in recent years to catalogue the Balenciaga clothing and accessories archive. Every season, he introduces select styles under the label Balenciaga Edition.

5 July 2005

Partying at the Met

Another annual gala was held at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art this week. As always, it was a glittering and star-studded event. Vogue's Anna Wintour, Nicole Kidman and Karl Lagerfeld hosted the gala and among the guests were Claire Danes, Elle MacPherson, Naomi Watts, Sheryl Crow and Marcia Gay Harden.

The evening, for which guests had to pay $150,000 per table, was this year held in celebration of the new Chanel exhibition at the Met. Lagerfeld, Chanel's creative director since 1983, is not known for retrospection. He therefore had little to do with the organisation of the exhibition - which is being touted curator Harold Koda as a dialogue between Coco Chanel en Lagerfeld - besides approving the outfits featured and contributing to the catalogue. "I am not interested in the past," said Lagerfeld. "My task is to anticipate for Chanel what will be in fashion tomorrow." Maybe, but without the past there would be no Chanel.

3 May 2005

Design for honour

Yesterday, the Andy Warhol Museum announced that it had secured the commitments of a number of leading designers and celebrities to sketch shoes in honour of its tenth anniversary. The signed sketches, inspired by the works of Andy Warhol, are created exclusively for the museum's Spike-a-delic gala fundraiser and will be auctioned online through eBay, beginning on 1 April 2005. All proceeds from the auction will go to The Warhol's educational exhibitions and programs fund.

"Andy Warhol had a lifelong fascination with shoes and a remarkable career as an illustrator and artist. So it's fitting that in clebrating The Warhol's tenth anniversary, we'll not only pay tribute to the life and works of Warhol, but also to today's world-class designers who enable us to express and differentiate ourselves through their fashions," said The Warhol's Director, Thomas Sokolowski. Participating designers, artists and celebrities include, among others, Manolo Blahnik, Edmundo Catillo, Roberto Cavalli, Kenneth Cole, Christian Louboutin, Heidi Klum, Martha Stewart, Paloma Picasso and Narciso Rodriguez.

29 March 2005

Spectres at the V&A

Through the clothes of leading, cutting-edge designers, Spectres explores the influence of the past on the present. This new exhibition illustrates how the power of the historical muse shapes fashion today. The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has brought together beautiful historic costumes by designers such as Christian Dior and Elsa Schiaparelli, with clothes by today's leading designers including Jean-Paul Gaultier, Dries Van Noten and Hussein Chalayan. Admission is free. From 24 February to 8 May 2005.

www.vam.ac.uk
25 January 2005

Fur Peta's Sake!

Yesterday's opening of a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York heralded a rare collaboration between the fashion world and the animal rights activists People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

The exhibition, "Wild: Fashion Untamed", takes a look at the use of fur and feathers in fashion. "It covers animalism and concepts of femininity, sexual fetishes, seduction, excess, coquetry and class standing," curator Andrew Bolton told Reuters. PETA spokesman Michael McGraw saw the controversial exhibit as a way of changing fashion "from within the industry rather than from the outside." This time the organization refrained from throwing animal blood or holding a protest outside the museum, preferring instead to work with the museum to educate the public.

However, the exhibition is sure to raise tempers and temperatures with its, at times, shocking displays of opulence at the expense of animals. A pink ostrich dress by Roberto Cavalli, who sponsored the exhibition, a Prada dress made of ostrich feathers, a crocodile head piece and a jaguar coat by Christian Dior are some of the pieces that should garner some strong reactions.

PETA has its work cut out for it. Despite its frequent boycotts and protests, the wearing of fur has increased in the recent past. This is partially due to the hip-hoppers who wear bling and fur like it's going out of style. The latter of course was going out of style, but the hip-hop movement has almost single-handedly brought it back.

Thankfully high-street retailers have countered the sudden resurgence of fur with a great deal of fun faux-fur alternatives. PETA has provided all such shops and designers with a sticker proclaiming: "All our fur is fake", which they can stick onto their shop windows. TopShop went so far as to blow up the proclamation and hang it in its London flagship window. Further declarations were hung in its remaining 280 stores throughout the UK. Zara and Mango have followed TopShop's lead by announcing that they will be fur-free from January 2005 onwards.

www.metmuseum.org
8 December 2004

Marilyn Monroe exhibit opens

The original Playboy centrefold and wife of not only Joe DiMaggio, but also Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe had a knack for making the headlines and the pictures. The world seemed to conduct a long love affair with the beautiful actress. She, in turn, seemed to have one with the camera's. Director Billy Wilder once said that a camera to her was what water is to a fish.

In a new exhibiton at the Brooklyn Museum of Art more than 200 pictures of Monroe by 39 photographers will be shown. Photographers who worked with the legend are legendary in their own right: Richard Avedon, Gordon Parks, Robert Frank and Andy Warhol. The exhibition traces her life from life in a small town as Norma Jean to the big time as Marilyn Monroe. One of the curators of the exhibit, pointed out that her relationship with the camera was the most important one she ever had.

The centrepiece of the exhibit is a set of 59 photographs of Monroe taken the week before her death in 1962. The pictures were taken by Bert Stern and feature Marilyn drinking champagne "behind the scenes" and posing topless covered by a sheer scarf. Monroe's Playboy centrefold was shot by Tom Kelly and features prominently in the exhibition. It reveals the actress posing naked on a red velvet blanket. When asked what she had on during the shoot, she replied: "I had on the radio."

The exhibition also includes film footage of old commercials she played in and of her serenading President Kennedy. Perhaps the most poignant picture in the exhibition is not one of Marilyn but of a woman on the beach reading a newspaper. The picture was shot in 1962. The headlines read: "Marilyn Dead".

16 November 2004

Celebrate the London Look

Last week saw the opening of a new exhibition at the Museum of London. "The London Look: Fashion from street to catwalk" gives a broad view of British fashion over the last 200 years.

The exhibition was launched by the editor-in-chief of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman. The opening was attended by a smattering of fashion's celebrities such as Matthew Willamson, Julien Macdonald, Manolo Blahnik and Paul Smith. Work by such fashion legends as Mary Quant feature next to period costumes and even high street pieces from New Look and TopShop. The exhibition will run until 8 May of next year.

www.museumoflondon.org.uk
2 November 2004

Exhibition Black British Style

The Victoria & Albert Museum in London is hosting a new exhibition entitled "Black British Style". The exhibition opened last week and explores fashion and styling in all aspects of black life and culture in Britain.

Outfits worn by immigrants in the 1950s and 1960s feature alongside other extraordinary historical outfits and photography. Even the extensive (well over 1000) trainer-collection owned by Goldie is being exhibited. To accompany the exhibition a book titled "Black Style" has been edited by Carol Tulloch and is available for £ 19.95. The exhibition will run until 16 January 2005.

www.vam.ac.uk
11 October 2004

Fashion and Textile Museum Opens

A new addition to the gallery-driven regeneration of London's South Bank, the long-awaited Fashion and textile museum, will open to the public on Tuesday, 13 May 2003. Founded by British fashion legend Zandra Rhodes, the museum will focus on fashion and textiles from the 1950s onward, and will not be your 'typical' museum experience, according to creative director Gity Monsef.

The first show, in which 70 international designers chose their favourite dress from their own archive, is a case in point, as instead of involving a curator to select the dresses, the power was devolved to the designers themselves. Contrary to what was expected, most designers chose contemporary simplicity as opposed to their most over the top, show-stopping numbers.

Aside from two or three exhibits yearly, which can range from fashion to textiles to photography, the museum offers a large archive, a library and research centre, a mentoring programme for young designers, education programmes and community outreach. The FTM is open Tues-Sun 11-17:45; 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF; 0207-403-0222

13 May 2003

Ideal women-expo

For four months from January 31 onwards, the Centraal Museum in Utrecht (the Netherlands) will focus on 'the ideal woman'. What do contemporary fashion designers see as the epitome of femininity and allure and how important is the ideal woman in their work? Viktor & Rolf, John Galliano (Christian Dior Couture), Vivienne Westwood, Veronique Leroy, Ann Demeulemeester, Bernard Willhelm, Maison Martin Margiela, Junya Watanabe and Hussein Chalayan present their vision of woman in the 21st century.

In the Centraal Museum's Stallen, nine fashion designers will present their vision of femininity anno 2003 in the form of an installation, each of which will occupy a space of some 100 square metres. In addition the museum will show historical items from its own collection. Running concurrently in display windows in the streets en route to the museum Dutch designers, photographers and others will present their images of woman in the future.

February 4, 2003

Fashion photos in Design Museum

A new exhibition opened in London’s Design Museum this week called “Unseen Vogue, The Secret History of Fashion Photography”. It consists of fashion photographs, which were not published by the world’s best-known fashion magazine. From first efforts by famous photographers and great pictures by forgotten ones, to out-takes from iconic shoots and rejected covers. Chosen from more than a million images in Vogue’s archive, it includes previously unseen work by such legendary photographers as David Bailey, of his model and girlfriend Jean Shrimpton. Photographs by Cecil Beaton are to be seen as well as Jürgen Teller’s picture of Claudia Schiffer, images of Mia Farrow and Horst’s portrait of Gertrude Stein, yearlong friend of Picasso. The exhibition is on disply until February 23, 2003

November 6, 2002
www.designmuseum.org