When you happen to read about stories like the one of the 29 year old jewelry designer Heaven Tanudiredja, you start believing to fairy tales.

His fashion life started when he was 15 years old, working as an assistant designer in Indonesia. He then studied and graduated at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp in Belgium and soon had some working experiences at Galliano, first, and Dries Van Noten later. But the fact is he never intended to become a jewelry designer: he just made a first jewel for a teacher of his at school, she liked it, everybody noticed it and people started placing orders. Heaven himself says he started as an accessories designer just because he had no budget to start a womanswear fashion label… and now his jewels, all hand beaded in his studio in Antwerp, are sold for around 5.000 $ at Barneys New York, just to name one.

He uses a lot of vintage beads because of his love, inherited by his mother, for 19th century antique pieces, especially 1930. He used to browse Porte de Clignancourt flea market in Paris looking for beautiful ancient glass beads, and that’s why his jewels are so unique and personal.

For me, it’s like if exotic flowers meet robotic shapes, giving the woman who wears his creation a super contemporary but in some way cyborg-romantic allure.

At the moment Heaven is still thinking about a clothing collection, though. He says: With jewelry, you only have the space around the neck to work in, and that’s it, you have to put everything there: your thoughts, your creativity. It’s almost like a dream, and the clothes bring it into reality.

Ariko

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“We are all animals” . Animals (real or fake) and their human counterparts

Assez vu

If you write about menswear is very common to take for granted many details. Unfortunately, unlike the women catwalks, the menswear dare not so much on creating new structures of dressing. While most fashion shows are just showcasing beautiful but somehow classic lines, with parades of collections that remind me something I’ve just seen in years, there are also few stunning surprises.

I’m going to introduce to you one of my favorite menswear brand, it’s likewise a refreshing to see a designer like: JUUN.J. A graduate of Esmod Seoul in 1992 he has started his career as a designer for Chiffons. In his own collection, the designer likes to create new silhouettes and garments with an overlapping of pieces creating a spectacular tension between them.

I really love the whole collection, I find JUUN.J closer to an artist than a fashion designer. His work is defined by a layering process that makes his pieces similar to sculptures; every garment is built with unusual volumes, furthermore his graphics solutions create gorgeous geometric shapes made of leather and wool’s patches.

Morethanlove

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JUUN.J 2012/2013 FALL/WINTER

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JUUN.J 2011 FALL/WINTER

‘Born Sleepy’ is the name of JW Anderson’s last collection. We previously talked about him, but finding on the web this exclusive preview of the male line, photographed by Alex Sainsbury on MDX, make his strong graphic signature catching our eyes again.

Colour blocks in strong shades that we first saw on JW Anderson women’s aesthetic find its way in the designer’s Fall 12 men’s offering. Bold, ironic and all the more stylish for that, JW Anderson is keen to set itself apart from the generic muddle of latter day menswear.

The Born Sleepy man is a young character living in a tv series of the ‘70, ready to go for a sky or walking around the corridors of his high scool. It’ probably the font chosen for the brand that makes me imagine him also on a boat, to advertise some tuna brand. Even if his creepy eyes wouldn’t suggest it our sleepy boy looks calm and easygoing, someone you would not be afraid of. He gives a nice feeling and explains me why I never could throw away my ‘70 coloured and padded skyjumper.

Is that printed cock there to balance the manhood of the collection? Don’t worry boy, colours and irony don’t take off any of that!

julikafrombudapest

I have been told that sleeping well is perfect for the mood, some good rest helps for sure our health and it affects all our daily activities. In addition to a good sleep why not also to improve the aesthetic side of our night or of our comfort zones? One week ago I ended up on the website of an amazing gallery called Yellow Velvet where the artists express their creativity through a curious media: the pillow.

At the moment I’m working on a fashion movie, so the first images that came to mind while looking at these amazing creations were motion pictures of people embracing their pillows or sleeping on their sofa in a snowy afternoon. Others fragments of memories came from one of my favorite movie: The Pillow Book, directed by Peter Greenaway. The movie tells the story of a young girl in Japan who grows up, obsessed with books, papers, and writing on bodies.

Thanks to Yellow Velvet  we cannot only sleep well but we can also have artist’s artworks under our noble head. The gallery presents: “Artnatomy“, an interactive exhibition of Cecile Dachary that takes place on the “Absolutely Fabulous” session of their site. It’s needless to say how much the result is interesting, both in the choice of physical organs depicted than in the surreal way she represents them sewing with embroidery or crochet techniques. She likes to contrast the delicateness of needlework and the notion of trash by using damask fabric and applying fabric images of organs, like embroidered bones or crocheted breasts.

Focusing primarily on the human body and its different forms, her work centers on the notion of memory and  the passing of time. One of my favorite cushion is “Balcony“, she created a pair of “boobs” made from pink damask covered by a pink crocheted breast with a raised red nipple; it’s not easy to see it, but there’s also a tiny silver nipple ring on it. An absolutely abstract and sophisticated way to bring human bodies in your bed.

Morethanlove

Following other choices of designers who have realized cushions for Yellow Velvet Gallery.

Charlene Mullen

Sophie Demenge . Oeuf NYC

Yves Andrieux

Gabrielle Soyer . Lindell & Co

ni[D] Design

La Cerise sur le Gâteau

Corinne Hellein . COCOhellein

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Ghosts before breakfast . Spirit if you are there, knock once!

Assez vu

The beginnings of seasons are like the silence before the storm. The shoots are done, the issue is out and we are ready for new collections. When I first saw the Oscar de la Renta collection (in the first image), I was thinking: ‘Oh what an interesting choice of color order!‘ It instantly reminded me of my time in university and our Traffic Light themed parties where everybody would dress according to their relationship status. Red would be unavailable and green would be ‘Go for it’.

Besides the university anecdote, after seeing the whole season together, I realized that most of the designers went for the same color combination of traffic lights! These bright and enchanting color selections bring an energetic vibe to our wardrobes. However these are colors that need attention while wearing. You never know what can hit you or hit on you while wearing these.

Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton and Michael Kors used what I call “the Jacket Over” styling technique in their collections. They have combined similar or same color outfits and styled them with jackets over the look. To have the bright colors of orange/yellow, red and green as a jacket over a simple white pants suit or even bolder, the same color outfit will bring your look to a whole new level. So to achieve the look either go for a white or nude color underneath outfit and get the color pop up or you can wear the same color on top and the bottom and shine like the sun.
The second option is to go long and lean. I prefer to be honest using this kind of bright colored long dresses and one pieces with oversized, vintage, even mens jean jackets to take to edge of and avoid looking like you’re walking the red carpet. Accessorizing here is extremely important and highly recommended. Dsquared, Giambattista Valli and Valentino are the leaders of this trend. This is very ideal for the summer nights.
A third final option for me is to wear these colors in pants combinations. Style a silk red shirt with, red pants or green shorts with green sleeveless top like the green Akris look. Gold could be used as a version of yellow therefore Alexander McQueen’s golden mermaids and Roberto Cavalli’s mythical goddesses. Go for Balmain with a gold pair of skirt of skinny pants with a denim jacket and gold accessories.

Whatever trend you follow, 20s, Mermaid, tehcno just colour up this summer in red yellow and go go go.

niente by nil

Jacket Over

Long and Lean

Pants under

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During Milano ModaUomo I went to the Vivienne Westwood show in corso Venezia. The show featured a contemporary Ötzi, a kind of defrosted Neanderthal man, a traveller in elegant checked suits or fun sporty printed leggins, with backpack and coloured male melissa plastic shoes or embroidered house slippers.

The frosted beards were there to focus our attention on the responsabilities we have for dangerous ice melt in the world’s ecosystem.

I felt at home beacause Ötzi is austrian-italian as I am… so I went with no fear to the backstage right after the last model to meet him and get to know him better. Back there I made this video of andreas kronthaler, who wears a beard like he does and designs the male collection with his wife Vivienne, while he was explaining the reasons of the rainforest t-shirt all models were wearing for the finale (unfortunately this one was very hard to take sorry).

In between all the classical male fabrics I liked the colour accents and the crazy prints, but most of all I enjoyed having dinner next to Vivienne on a roof apartment later that night and chatting with the many austrians in her staff. I also got a push to go on with the little thing that can help the planet: I always annoy friends and collegues asking them to recycle, and sometimes I feel stupid too, but seeing her worry about left over plastic plates at her own party, taking care that they weren’t thrown away, made smile satisfied.

If I am, at least, I am a pain in the neck as She is!

julikafrombudapest

pics by paolocolaiocco more backstage pics on the fb page

pics by kristinnkis

A dark and feminine circus populated by puppets, horses and mysterious ghosts: this is what I thought when I saw Stine Goya’s FW collection. The Danish designer, who started up her own label in 2006 after graduating at CSM the year before, combines special features and details to create beautiful fashion that adhere to people who seek authenticity and individuality in the everyday. Some elements of the collection made me also think to the tale of Pinocchio, the puppet who wanted to become a real boy: the donkey masks, the puppets… the collection itself is very sober and edgy but thanks to these kind of references it keeps a playful mood that intrigues me.

“The concept for aw11 was brought out from the world of performance and performance art. Theatres, string dolls, puppet shows and screaming phantoms all lie as inspiration for elements that are part of the collections silhouette, prints and colours. This sets a darker mood and prominence for the prints and colours in mauve, aubergine, red wine and curry.”

I especially liked the illusion jumpsuit with the puppet show print – the jumpsuit is a recurring item for Goya’s collections – and the last piece on show, the heavy knitted double colour (b/w) dress.

Ariko

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Backstage photos: Kristine Jacobsen

It’s not so easy to choose your favorite illustration among the thousands realized by the artist Fabian Ciraolo, his work is so amazing that I found it difficult to pick some photos and ruling out others. The artist’s work is aimed to brush up famous characters from the past and to depict them on his paintings wearing stunning outfits with floral and geometric textures.

Therefore we can find heroes from comics (defined by Fabian as Old school heroes) dressed with contemporary clothes within unlikely dreamy situations or hilarious scenes. His work is so perfect balanced in some of his pieces, handmade artworks defile digital scenes, they give birth to a parallel universe of characters transformed in unexpected new fashion victims.

We can find the subjects close to sheep or riding a tandem bicycle, while singers as Jem and the Holograms turn into models coming from a défilé. He also depicts girls seated in rooms full of sweets with “cupcake figures” in their mind.

I really love both the colors and the subjects than the patterns and the technique, there’s a very high quality of details that make every piece worth for contemplation and inspiration for an imaginary personal look.

Morethanlove