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NUMBER ONE HUNDRED & FORTY TWO.

June14

Staying with fashion, Swedes Our Legacy have released a bumper crop of button downs as part of their summer collection. Bra häftigt!

NUMBER ONE HUNDRED & FORTY ONE.

June14

I’ve been in New York for the better part of a month now, so figured it was high time I started sharing some of the gems I’ve discovered in this AMAZING city.

First up, a huge highlight was visiting the Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty installation at the Metropolitan Museum. The retrospective of McQueen’s short but hugely influential career is nothing short of spectacular, giving a real insight into McQueen’s creative process and the themes which resonate throughout his collections; life or death, lightness or darkness, predator and prey, man versus machine.

I went into this exhibition largely unaware of McQueen’s contribution to fashion over the last decade, but left immensely impacted by this artist who managed to consistently blend the macabre and the saccharine into something ether-worldly and, ultimately, shockingly beautiful. As Andrew Bolton, curator of the exhibition, refers to it, the idea of the sublime was fundamental to McQueen’s work.

I was particularly drawn to McQueen’s unique method of incorporating natural materials into his designs. The concept of the natural world asserting it’s power over humanity’s echoes throughout the breadth of his collections, especially prevalent in his final, posthumous, show which predicts a future in which “the ice cap would melt … the waters would rise and … life on earth would have to evolve in order to live beneath the sea once more or perish. Humanity [would] go back to the place from whence it came.”

Personally, I was enamored by McQueen’s use of feathers (an aesthetic which continued to crop up), and in his SS07 collection his use of fresh flowers to create dresses that, as they withered, resonate in much the same way the Dutch masters’ still lifes do. There is a visceral quality to pieces like these.

McQueen managed to consistently theme his season’s contributions around a narrative. For me, the stand out dress of the exhibition hails from McQueen’s SS03 collection Irene, where “the collection told the story of a shipwreck at sea and the subsequent landfall in the Amazon, and it was peopled with pirates, conquistadors, and Amazonian Indians.” The dress itself, simply known as ‘Oyster’ is best described by Sarah Burton, McQueen’s Creative Director: he wanted it to seem “almost like she drowned—and the top part of the dress is all fine boning and tulle, and the chiffon is all frayed and disheveled on the top. The skirt is made out of hundreds and hundreds of circles of organza. Then, with a pen, what Lee did was he drew organic lines. And then all these circles were cut, joined together, and then applied in these lines along the skirt. So you created this organic, oyster-like effect.” It apparently took a team of three people, working exclusively on this dress, several months to complete. Worth it? Undoubtedly.

I love that Alexander McQueen was never afraid to push the boundaries - whether with regard to a silhouette or his choice of raw materials, his career is marked by creativity and courage. The exhibition was an eye-opening experience, and if you’re in New York you should definitely make the effort to immerse yourself in McQueen’s world.

NUMBER ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY FOUR.

November25

With weather in Sydney finally feeling like summer should, there’s been a leaning in my wardrobe towards a nautical, almost Hamptons yacht club, theme. Just this Tuesday a friend and I raided the treasure trove of op shops that exist on the Central Coast, and I was particularly pleased to come home with a pair of polo Ralph Lauren chinos for six dollars!

All that serves as an introduction to the S/S11 collection of CREEP by Hiroshi Iwai. Everything about these items sings for me, from the bandana adorned outfits paired with soft-toned bucks, the high contrast color items juxtaposed against peaceful autumn tints, to the elaborate patterns, clean cuffs, and excellent outerwear. CREEP is described as a line which combines innovative Japanese design with a passion for the simple beauty of functional American workwear. To me, that’s a marriage that is working splendidly.

NUMBER ONE HUNDRED & TWENTY ONE.

October22

I love the direction a lot of advertising seems to be heading. Rather than taking an explicit ‘here’s our product, go on you know you want it’ approach, companies are hiring talented individuals to build a narrative into which the products play a secondary role.

One such example is this new video When Boy Meets Girl by über talented Sydney lad Luke Farquhar (you pronounce that Fuckwa, clearly), for General Pants Co’s 10/11 summer collection. In short, its fucking hot.

NUMBER SEVENTY TWO.

May04

Interesting editorial for Crash Magazine (France), shot by Xevi Muntané. Chunky knits and silk scarves complement tailored day wear, perfect inspiration for the cooler weather that is creeping into May. More images after the cut.

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NUMBER FORTY SEVEN.

March05

Sruli Recht is one of a new breed of designers. Combining industrial design, product design and fashion design, Recht creates products that are so exquisitely beautiful it is almost painful. In his own words, his own blood gets on everything he makes.

Jewish by birth, Icelandic by location; Recht’s studio sits in The Armoury, down in the fishpacking district of Reykjavík. An appropriate location for a man who spends his days twice dying German flannel in ram’s blood (for his take on The Binding of Issac: a four cornered shawl), or laser cutting horse skin.

My personal favourite pieces from his latest work would be the Black Sable Horse Skin Whalet (I’m so in need of a new wallet and if I had a spare 170 Euros this would be it!) and the R¿ng, a white gold band with female thread, set to receive one of three uncut rough diamonds set individually into screw-in external thread-form propeller claws. Even the packaging is meticulous, housed in a hand painted corrugated card enclosure.

More images after the break.

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NUMBER THIRTY FOUR.

December03

Sarah Adamson is a Sydney based photographer with an nack for opening her shutter at just the right second to capture completely the truth of a moment on a negative. Despite an editorial background. she shoots primarily with analogue cameras and film, giving a particular nuance to her images. She’s one to watch out for. More images after the break.

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NUMBER THIRTY ONE.

December02

Cameron Smith is a young UK based fashion photographer, who apparently won’t go anywhere without his skate board. This series caught my eye with its interesting lighting and extended exposures. More images after the break.

Found via Design Is Kinky

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