LAURENCEAIRLINE is a new label from Africa, created from the belief that fashion and ethnic cultures can successfully colloborate to create possibilities for the future.

Their second collection for AW2012 celebrates prints and colours that come from ethnic, Japanese and Scottisch traditions, all of which (very symbolically) co-existing in one collection. The label has a futuristic as well as a classic look to it, and it will turn any modern man into a dandy.

June 8, 9 and 10 it’s time for the fourth edition of FASHIONCLASH Maastricht, an interdisciplinary event with international fashion talents. More than 100 young talents from twenty different countries come together to present their interpretation on fashion in the ‘Mosa decorfabriek’ in Maastricht. This varying fashion program is accessible to everyone.

The exhibitions are free to visit, tickets for the fashion shows will soon be available online. The shows will be very diverse, varying from Dutch labels Femke Agema, GomesEsser Design and Jonathan Cristhopher Hofwegen, who will show their newest collection, to international labels, including Ivana Pilja from Serbia, Pierre-Antoine Vettorello from Belgium and Hyerim Hong from South-Korea. Besides photography will be shown from Peter Godijn and Lonneke van der Palen, video’s from Maite Catti, and many more disciplines.

© Fotografie en sculptuur Madame Peripetie.

M12, or M-UnuDoi, is a Romanian fashionlabel, including men-, women-, and unisex items. The starting point for their spring/summer collection is the classic white dress shirt, reinterpreted and varying in length, silhouette and fabric.This collection consits mostly of dress shirts, skirts and dresses. The shirts are reconstructible, so it is possible to attach different sleeves or bottoms to the base. This way you can adjust the shirt your own, depending on your mood, the weather or the occasion. As follows, geometric lines and squares are created in the clothing, in combination with the modest colour palette, resulting in a minimalistic, clean look.

Column by Isadora Lebouille

If you are familiar in Amsterdam, you know the Athenaeum bookshop on the Spui square is a wonderful place to wander around. It offers all kinds of national and international magazines and you always leave with a nice stack of fresh reading material. However, less people are familiar with the fact that this well-known bookshop was founded with funds from the perfume industry.

The classicist Johan Polak (1928-1992) had inherited money from his mother, Sara Schwarz, who was the heir of family company Polak & Schwarz Essence: a perfume- and flavourings company. With the money he started the publishing company Polak & Van Gennep in 1962, and the Athenaeum bookstore just four years later and went down in history as a legendary publisher.

It is fascinating to see how the creation of perfumes has evolved to a billion dollar industry. It started in the 19th century with perfumers and chemists, who started small companies that developed fragrances. Slowly but surely a few of these companies developed to perfume houses. Halfway through the 19th century Holland played an important role in the development of the fragrance- and flavouring industry. Fragrance and flavour would almost always go hand in hand in these companies.

Chemists already developed many synthetic ingredients in the 19th century, such as cinnemaldehyde (cinnamon) in 1834; which means that they succeeded in creating the natural scent of cinnamon in a laboratory. This has contributed to the enormous growth of the industry, because it was cheaper, and because it contributed largely to the creativity of the perfumers because of the large amount of possibilities in chemical connections. A large breakthrough was the development of the synthetic ingredient coumarin. Originally natural coumarin comes from the tonka bean (pictured above), and it smells vanilla- and hay like.

Polak & Schwarz started producing fruit aromas, paint components and oils in 1889. By 1930 the company had become an important producer of different scents worldwide. In 1958 this family business was sold and continued under the name of IFF (International Flavors & Fragrances).

IFF has expanded to one of the five big multinationals of the perfume world, next to Givaudan and Firmenich for example. They receive orders for fragrances from companies such as Estée Lauder, l’Oréal and Procter & Gamble.  These companies in turn have the licences to market perfume lines for many fashion houses and celebrities.

Having their own perfume line is very important for the major fashion houses. Perfume generates money. It has an image that is highly individual and luxurious, but it also has a very big reach; perfume is a mass product.

This is illustrated by the reply of Yves Saint Laurent to the question: ‘What portion of Yves Saint Laurent revenues are accounted for by perfumes?’, which was ‘Eighty-three point five.’ (Chandler Burr, A year inside the perfume industry in Paris and New York, 2007)

And this is how the world of perfumes contributed to the development of the Athenaeum bookstore at Spui!

We love just about everything involving wood, so these wooden sunglasses by Proof are definately on our wish list for this summer. As the brand itself states: ‘We think that the wood medium adds a warmth and look that other materials can’t replicate.’ The glasses are handmade from 100% natural sustainable bamboo or ebony wood.

The wooden wearables are available in ten designs, including some vintage-inspired classics, often with a modern twist. Proof only uses wood species that are harvested in a sustainable manner. Next to that they offer a sunglass-recycling program and even their packaging is eco-friendly. ‘We strive to look for opportunities to reduce our impact on the environment whenever possible.’ You will not only look good, but even do good when purchasing a pair of Proof sunglasses: a share of the sale of each pair of glasses is used to support eye clinics in India, education in developing countries, and re-planting trees in Haiti.

Team:

Photography: Winter Vandenbrink
Fashion editor: David Motta
Hair: Hiro Hirata (Radio Hair Salon)
Make-up: Anna Priadka
Models: steven/nevs London igor/select london

Credits:

1.
left:
whole look KTZ

right:
hat BOL$HIE
t- shirt MODEL’S OWN
all the rest KTZ

2.
hat BOL$HIE
t- shirt MODEL’S OWN
all the rest KTZ

3.
whole look KTZ
socks PUMA

4.
t-shirt EXPECTATIONS
all the rest KTZ

5.
left:
kilt and trousers KTZ
boots UNDERGROUND

right:
kilt KTZ
harness worn as suspenders ASHER LEVINE
chain STYLIST’S OWN

6. & 7.
dungarees ASHER LEVINE
t-shirt and scarf EXPECTATIONS

8.
jacket BEYOND RETRO
dungarees BEYOND RETRO
shoes – Y3
cap OBEY

9.
jacket and shorts JEREMY SCOTT FOR ADIDAS
du rag and necklace STYLIST’S OWN

French actress Sylvie Testud (‘Karnaval’, ‘Stupeurs et tremblements’ and ‘Lourdes’) makes her director debut with her self-written script called ‘La Vie d’Une Autre’. The 25-year old Marie Speranski (Juliette Binoche) meets the love of her life, the cartoonist Paul (Mathieu Kassovitz) and they end up in bed. When she wakes op ‘the next day’, Marie is suddenly a 41-year old woman with a son, a husband named Paul and a beautiful apartment, yet she does not recall the last 16 years at all.

Trying to figure out what happened, Marie brings her son to school, helps the house cleaner and sends the nanny home early to cook dinner herself. But due to the surprised responses on her kind attitude, she finds out she has become a successful, but strict and harsh businesswoman. Also, where she expects to be at the beginning of a perfect romance, she is actually the middle of a divorce.

Sylvie Testud succeeds in a reasonable balance between drama and humor. Some of the funny situations are not very convincing, like when Marie finds out about the euro, the smoking ban in restaurants and the high-tech developments in cars. Besides it is not very likely that Marie decides not to tell anyone about her memory-loss, but tries to bluff through all her ignorance. Nevertheless, PAC film ‘La Vie d’Une Autre’ is definitely worth seeing in cinema, only if for the adorable kid who plays Marie’s son!

(Note to our non-French or Dutch speaking readers: we had a hard time retrieving the trailer with English subtitles, hence the trailer above has Dutch subtitles)

BLEND\ is looking for new online contributors! If you like writing and if you are interested in fashion, art, design, music and/or photography, do not hesitate to contact us.
More info via our online editor Anneloes Bakker at anneloes@blend.nl.

Oliver Kreylos has designed an augmented reality sandbox that projects a coloured topographic map in real time. This means contour lines and different colours, such as virtual water, appear while the sand is being manipulated.

The project is part of the University’s Keck Center for Active Visualization in the Earth Sciences, funded by the National Science Foundation in order to teach kids how land and water systems work.

The augmented reality sandbox is created using a Kinect 3D camera, a digital projector and simulation software running on a computer and an ordinary sandbox.

The Kinect camera is collecting images of the sandbox from above at thirty frames a second. These images are transferred to a computer running simulation software that will generate the different colours that represent different levels on the virtual map.

Realistic water movements are created using a set of Saint-Venant shallow water equations. By projecting everything in real time onto the sandbox, it appears as if hills, vulcano’s and rivers can be created in the sand.

Bacardi is 150-years-old and has survived the Spanish-American war, the ban on liquor and the Cuban revolution. Because Bacardi wants to bring people together they are celebrating their 150th birthday with not just one, but 150 parties! The kick-off, or party 1/150, will be on June 1st in Amsterdam, at an Invite Only party but for the real Bacardi fans there are 150 tickets to win! Counting up to a 150 in Holland will happen at various festivals and also exclusive parties at home. Be prepared! Do you want to know more and be part of this huge celebration? Click here for more info.