COSMIC WONDER - ZEN AND THE ART OF FASHION
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2 september 2010 - Remember playing memory games as a kid? Well, you can start playing it again, but in a fashionable way this time. Flemish photographer Barbara Iweins has been photographing people on the streets of Amsterdam for a while. She takes an hour or two per week to go bother these beautiful human beings at the corner of her house and takes pictures of their heads and legs. Combined, these pictures do not only make a beautiful exhibition, but also a fun and entertaining memory game.
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2 september 2010 - If you are too cool for school you need to stock up at your local Marc Jacobs store. Under the name Book Marc (yes, really) mr. Jacobs is bringing out cases, colored pencils and cool marble patterned tins. You can find all supplies on his website, under special items.
2 september 2010 - Yes… the rumors are true; after collaborations with Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney, Comme des Garçons and Sonia Rykiel, H&M announces the next collaboration will be with great fashion house Lanvin.
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Everyone scribbles a little every once in a while. During a boring phone call the best you can do is make funny little drawings on a post-it notes. Especially fun when you are good at it.
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Recently graduated from Kansas City Art Institute, Brian J. Hettler fuses digital images with heavily saturated colors, pop culture and virtual elements. His works are often chaotic, almost disturbingly colorful but definitely create an entirely new image.
Some of Hettler’s pieces are abstracted self-portraits that, according to the artist himself, although he mainly works in digital media, can act as paintings, densely layered, rich in projected surface quality, and built upon the precepts of formalism.
Funny thing is, Hettler draws inspiration from one of Holland’s renowned artists of the past, as he states on his website: ‘I pull inspiration from many places, although in my recent studio practice I have been studying the early paintings of Willem de Kooning and the layering process in which he searched for a resolved and emotionally relevant image.’
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While Kate Moss called it quits with her design duties at Topshop, another big brand revealed a little bit more about an upcoming collaboration. While rumors about H&M collaborating with Taiwanese haute couture label Shiatzy Chen were still going until a few weeks ago, breaking news hit BLEND’s headquarters. H&M supposedly reached out to top of the bill luxury brand Bottega Veneta for their annual collection of affordable high fashion.
While the Swedish clothing company didn’t make a statement yet, the brand released two videos that reveal some interesting characteristics of the man and female assigned to work on this special line. Their heavily accented voices, clothes and (according to an alert viewer) even their hands bear striking resemblances to those of Tomas Maier and Carolina Herrera. H&M will announce the designer’s names on September 9th.
This September, American musician George Lewis Jr. will release his debut album called Forget under the name Twin Shadow. With the sound of this record and his quirky style, Twin Shadow is the personification of the Brooklyn-based band hype. Lewis Jr. is right in the middle of the city’s musical epicenter and clearly knows his way around. The lush, romantic sound of his eighties inspired record received just a little bit extra from everything-I-touch-turns-into-gold production wizard Chris Taylor who's also partially responsible for the success of Grizzly Bear's album Veckatimest.
Today’s Tuesday Tune is the album’s stunner called Slow because it makes Twin Shadow’s dark and deep voice, which bears a striking resemblance to that of The Smith’s front man Morrissey, stand out and take you on a ride through his suburban, bedroom-recorded world of Forget.
Video games are a $40 billion-a-year industry, and have moved well beyond the simulated table tennis world of Pong. But is it art? Film critic Roger Ebert recently argued that video games can never be art. Author and game addict Tom Bissell begs to differ and breaks down his argument in his book Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter. However, the last thing you want to tell a gamer is what their medium can't be. Gaming by definition rails against that sort of arbitrary small-mindedness.
In 'Space Invaders: Art In The Computer Game Environment' the Netherlands Media Art Institute brings art and games culture together. In an artistic, playful yet serious manner, Space Invaders reveals the influence of games on art and society. This group exhibition with Dutch and international media artists examines the increasing blurring of the boundaries between game worlds and reality. In Space Invaders media art works illuminate the migration of the physical world into gaming systems. Conversely, gaming elements are more and more finding their way into physical space. By infiltrating both game environments and real spaces, the artworks clarify the nature and influence of the computer game environments, and provide greater insight into the role that computer games play in contemporary culture.
In short, Space Invaders shows the increasing blurring of the boundaries between the real world and the game world. In this exhibition gaming is more than sitting in front of a screen and playing a game; the relation with the real world is never far away.
Space Invaders: Art In The Computer Game Environment opens on Saturday, August 28th at the Netherlands Media Art Institute. The last day of the exhibition coincides with this year’s museumnight on the 6th of November.
VNFOLD - ISSUE III - LAST DAY PARADE BY CHRISTOPHER STARBODY from VNFOLD on Vimeo.
Argentinian foldable zine VNFold just released its third issue Close To Nature. Buenos Aires-based visionaries Agustin Merlo and Oscar Gómez Poviña founded VNFold; a magazine that you can check out online, open up on a table or hang on your wall.
VNFold’s shoots are beautiful, the content is absolutely renewing with fresh opinions when it comes to style and, not to forget, we’re just big fans of the sympathetic editors behind this fruitful South American concept. For BLEND’s paper issue, which is currently available, we did an interview with VNFold’s Merlo, which you can check out over here. Go to VNFold’s website to view the entire magazine.
To give its readers an impression of what’s going on behind the scenes of its marvelous productions, VNFold put a video online called Last Day Parade, directed by Chrisopher Starbody.
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American designer duo Meghan Lavery & J’aime Lizotte are both natives of Maine and have been collaborating since they met in 1999. Lavery studied tailoring at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC while Lizotte attended Massachusetts College of Art & Design and interned at Armani Exchange.
In the summer of 2009 they found themselves both living in Brooklyn and started working on their new label Shape Shiftr, which was a sort of case study about constant change in silhouette and form motivated by geometry.
The two designers like mixing muted colors with outspoken, lush tones and combine the use of wool and cashmeres with light fabrics such as silk. Their pieces look simple from a distance but are super detailed when viewed up-close. Shape Shiftr’s pieces represent the perfect venture into fall/winter dressing.
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Multi-instrumental American musician Sufjan Stevens is working on a new album, which will be released this year. In addition to the news he will be releasing this album called The Age of Adz in October, he dropped a first single for the crowd to download for free. This beat-heavy, sensitive yet strong five-minute-song is called I Walked and makes us curious for more.
This announcement and the free download come as a pleasant surprise, as Stevens just released his EP All Delighted People for digital download last week. Detroit-born, Brooklyn-based Stevens collaborated with his friends from indie rock band The National on their album High Violet. In exchange he was allowed to record in the band’s studio and the band will appear on some tracks of Stevens’ upcoming album.
The Age of Adz will be his first full-length album since 2005’s Illinois. Stevens is known for his obsession with outerspace, supernatural and apocalyptic fantasies, that’s why we’re not surprised by the choice of his title; it refers to the apocalyptic paintings of artist Royal Robertson. He used his artwork for the album cover and as general inspiration for the tone of the album.
These extremely high, grey flannel boots are characteristic for Alexander Wang’s ballsy designs. This 25-year-old American fashion designer was born in San Francisco and made his way up in the fashion scene by creating by one gorgeous collection after another.
Wang launched his first full collection of women’s wear in 2007, which caused an immediate buzz in the fashion scene. After winning a 200.000-dollar prize from CDFA/Vogue Fashion Fund his career took a lift. His edgy, somewhat masculine designs are simple but chic and these amazing, high-heeled boots represent his outstanding taste like no other.
COSMIC WONDER - ZEN AND THE ART OF FASHION
by Mo Veld (mrs.moveld@gmail.com)
Japanese phenomenon Cosmic Wonder has been enjoying international cult status since it’s debut presentation at the Centre Pompidou during Paris Fashion Week in 2000. And the wonderful aesthetic universe of founder and mystic force behind this fashion-slash-art label Yukinori Maeda is still expanding. Since 2007 the COSMIC WONDER stem cell split in three separate entities; the fashion cell is now called COSMIC WONDER Light Source, Maeda’s art with a capital A will be profiled under his own name Yukinori Maeda and Cosmic Wonder is the bastion of performances, installations and other fashion alien presentation forms by which Yukinori Maeda and friends will keep on enchanting our world.
The Big Bang happened quietly in Osaka. Yukinori Maeda (1971) who had studied architecture in picturesque Kyoto, decided that clothes are the most intimate habitat in which people reside day in day out, and so he founded Cosmic Wonder in 1999. He choose the raw unpretentious harbour city Osaka over hip and hectic Tokyo, so he could focus on building a solid fundament for his ‘fashion house’ without being distracted by ruling trends like manga and recycled pop culture. Cosmic Wonder made unforgettable impact with garment like objects that serve as decor pieces for their absurd, serene and utterly aesthetic performances. Wear ability is not really an issue, behaviour and how this is influenced by clothes on the other hand is. Fashion as art; a dress that seems to emerge from a wall like a curtain, a giant bra that fills a huge space on its own, a tent or sleeping bag built to get up and walk away in like wearable houses for mobile people. However inspiring, Yukinori Maeda really did choose fashion so there was also a Cosmic Wonder jeans line, presentations were given during Paris Fashion Week and the wondrous label hired renowned Parisian press agency Pressing from the very start. Back home Cosmic Wonder opened two hyper minimalist ‘stores’ in Tokyo and Osaka. These white cubes with Center for Cosmic Wonder painted in modernistic type on the spotless and window-less storefront serve as project spaces for a wide variety of activities like film screenings, installations and concerts while the collection is hidden behind mysterious panels. Simultaneously Cosmic Wonder has been manifesting itself in the international art scene from Tokyo to Paris and San Francisco. In 2005 Cosmic Wonder did a brief show at the MU in Eindhoven with live performances at the opening by Mister Maeda himself and concerts by befriended Japanese bands like Boredoms, ooioo and Hisham Bharoocha. A typical You Had To Be There event. If not, P arisian publisher Purple made a jewel of a book in collaboration with MU, designed by artist and Purple’s art director Christophe Brunnquell. Google and thou shall find a copy.
Cosmic Wonder may be a phenomenon of avant-garde good taste in higher cultural circles, Yukinori Maeda is very well aware of the fact that he hasn’t touched nearly enough people with his enlightening work. That’s why he decided to reshape Cosmic Wonder as from 2007 so that the different branches of this beautiful bonsai business can flourish each in their own distinct way. The metaphor of a traditional Japanese art form is not used in vain. Cosmic Wonder sets itself apart from the fast and fashionable culture of Maeda’s Japanese generation in every little detail; by meditative quietness and revealing content, by a deeply rooted, typical Japanese and indefinable sense of aesthetics, however experimental, and by sublime concentration. The launch of the new trinity COSMIC WONDER, COSMIC WONDER Light Source and Yukinori Maeda was celebrated with Cosmic Wonder Free Press 1 in 2007; the first edition of a series of publications in collaboration with Swiss cult publisher Nieves. “Free” doesn’t mean that it’s for free by the way; it refers to its freedom of form and content. The first edition focussed entirely on the new Cosmic Wonder order. Apart from the good news for globetrotting art and performance lovers, it is also very good news for our wardrobes. With Cosmic Wonder Light Source the possibility of actually living our lives in a Cosmic Wonder just came one leap closer to all of us. And if you happen to visit Japan any time soon, in February this year Maeda will open his third store called Cosmic Wonder Light Source in Osaka, entirely dedicated to his fashion. NOTE to fashion otaku; the collections will be numbered annually. Both the Spring-Summer 2007 and the Fall-Winter 2007-2008 collections are called Cosmic Wonder Light Source 1. Everything hitting stores in 2008 is number 2, and so on.
COSMIC WONDER Light Source
1-14-26 Minamihorie, Nishi-ku, Osaka
www.cosmicwonder.com
www.nieves.ch