FASHION: May 2012



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	Newsletter \| 10 May 2012




CURRENT FASHION FETISH: DAPHNE GUINNESS
This week sees a new addition to our Fashion Fetish series from famed fashion supporter Daphne Guinness. Melodic and haunting, this short is an intimate exploration of a woman's difficulty with her personal relationships. As windows to the soul, Guinness' own eyes serve as a platform for the different coloured lenses surrounding her. Guinness incessantly fills her red and teary eyes with hundreds of pairs of contact lenses, creating a display that explores fetish whilst appearing decidedly anti-erotic. Accompanied by Guinness' own singing, the film was inspired by the 1962 Jules Dassin film, Phaedra. In a Wildeian life-imitates-art coincidence, the film has close connections to Guinness' own life, and some of its most poignant scenes can be seen playing in the background of her own short. A white turban, worn by both female protagonists, is an evocative symbol of the unity between two women trapped by circumstances and struggling to assert their own identity. [more]


CURRENT LOST IN THE WORLD


Last week saw the launch of an exclusive new film by acclaimed filmmaker Ruth Hogben starring the one and only Kanye West. Hogben collaborated with the award-winning musician to create a film for his single Lost in the World. The song, which features Justin Vernon of Bon Iver, is taken from West's fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Hogben's piece breaks the mould of popular rap aesthetics while still celebrating the extraordinary talent that has made West a modern icon. See the pioneering fashion-meets-music film on SHOWstudio now. [more]


CURRENT FASHION FETISH ESSAY: STEPHANIE LACAVA


A brand spanking new Fashion Fetish essay is now available on SHOWstudio. In response to the ethereal vision of wet latex on supple soft skin in Poppy De Villeneuve's Fashion Fetish film, Stephanie LaCava talks to VPL's Victoria Bartlett, unpicking her fascination with all things medical. Exploring everything from Bartlett's passion for plastic to the evolution of VPL as a brand, LaCava's piece is a neat insight into the workings of a label that has transitioned pseudo-erotic garments into our everyday wardrobes. [more]


CURRENT FASHION MIX


This week's Fashion Mix offerings are celebrating London's best young design talent. We've got mixes from two boys who love great electro. On Monday, fresh from the success of his Topshop collaboration Maarten Van Der Horst's offers up an amalgamation of sounds, from synthesizer rock such as Kleenex to old-school 'swagga' from Notorious BIG. On Friday, designer Craig Lawrence takes to the DJ booth. Offering a great girl parade - whether its newcomer Grimes or Dalston dance trio Teeth - the playlist provides a healthy dose of energetic beats. So sling on your Hawaiian blazer or one of Lawrence's lively yarns, and head out dancing - as Santigold says , 'if we go, we go together'. [more]


FROM THE SHOP BODYWORK GRINDER, 2012


American performance artist Liz Cohen is most noted for her Elwood Body Works project, which involves not only the transformation of an East German 1987 Trabant car into a 1973 Chevrolet El Camino but also the complete metamorphosis of Cohen herself, a professor with an MFA, into part bikini model, part mechanic. Documenting the three-year project in large-scale photographs, Cohen captures herself removing every trace of German functionality and injecting the car with the raw sex appeal of a hip hop inspired low rider. Having hired a personal trainer and underwent breast enhancement surgery, Cohen models her newly sculpted physique alongside the car. While the images resemble the calendar pin-ups typically found in service stations, they are actually the product of a meticulous three year project in which Cohen exposes gender identity as infinitely malleable. [more]


FROM THE ARCHIVE MAKE IT UP


Perfectly timed with the arrival of the boisterous all-female cast of Lyrically Challenged comes Make It Up from our 2002 archive. Providing Les Desmoiselles d'Avignon meets Hans Bellmer's Poupèes, the project saw twelve blonde models made up in a vivacious, painterly fashion performance. Make-up artist Val Garland pushed her skills to the limit, using a dozen bodies of different sizes to enact her wildest abstract fantasies in maquillage, the whole process captured on video. See the fashion film for yourself, or revisit Garland's interview, discussing the methods and modes behind her transformative work. [more]


LATEST ENTRIES BLOG


Rei Nadal: Badges for Honourable Lovers While Tumblr can seem to be packed with misinterpreted quotations, skinny girls and cats, if you are careful enough you will be able to find one or two things that make all the time spent online worth every second. This is how I met Peter De Potter. [more]

Lou Stoppard: Gatz at the Noel Coward Theatre Who wants a mere mock flapper dress or an edited movie remake when you can lap up every morsel of Fitzgerald's finest word for word. [more]

Neal Bryant: Vimeo Awards - Nick Knight to Judge Fashion Category The Vimeo Festival + Awards aim to honour the best original videos that have been posted online within various genres. [more]



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