Grand Audio Car Visual: September 2008

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Sophia Kokosalaki spring 2009

Natasha Poly

Bruna Tenorio

Kasia Struss

Vlada Roslyakova

Heloise Guerin

Bruna Tenorio

Jourdan Dunn

Kasia Struss

Heloise Guerin

Vlada Roslyakova

Natasha Poly

Anne Demeulemeester spring 2009

Jamie Bochert

Georgina Stojiljković

Yohji Yamamoto spring 2009

Vlada Roslyakova

Heloise Guerin

Vlada Roslyakova

Heloise Guerin

Paris: At Balenciaga, Light Play
By Cathy Horyn
A super-thoughtful and technically interesting Balenciaga show this morning from Nicolas Ghesquière: very light, luminous and leaning again toward the futuristic. He opened with beige-pink jersey stretched and gathered over a kind of heart-shaped form on the bodices of mini dresses, followed by a more complex use of second-skin tops and matching tights for under many of the looks. Slim pants and tunic tops — in pink shades of beige and light gray — had quilting, almost like a moto-cross detail but more polished and delicate like couture.
Metallic fabrics that looked like leather were in fact silk, and silver and gold finale dresses — some with fringe and the beige-pink leotard idea — were made of tiny pieces of ribbon. The tights pulled over the shoes, with apparently an opening for the sole. Very interesting effect: it blanked out the shoes, or the talk of shoes. Ghesquière said the show was about absorbing and reflecting light. It was certainly absorbing and, at the same time, difficult to describe. By the way, he had a passage of male models in the show, in stiff dark suits without lapels and flicker of gold at the nearly closed neckline.

BALENCIAGA SS 09: CONSISTENCY OF LINE WITH COMPLEXITY
Submitted by Wayne

A thousand opinions will bubble up around Balenciaga SS09. Whether you found it good or bad it retained all the codes that makes Ghesquiere's Balenciaga such a compelling proposal. At the precise time he could have chosen to feed the machine the familiar, Ghesquiere distorted the familiar into something uncomfortable. Which is great. The cake and the cake eaten too. The collection looked like a past Balenciaga collection thrown up against a fun house mirror, rippling and warping before your very eyes. The torqued fabric, an idea reflected in the extended gloves and the stockings over the shoes...a familiar styling trick yes, (see mid 90's Margiela) ...the shimmering palette the odd conjunction of textures...it was a intelligent way to mirror your expected themes.As for the menswear...I'd get into it, literally because it is so cult. "Not for everybody"...from a brand the scale of Balenciaga can seem like such an unfriendly position to take but you have to admire the honesty of that.

Natasha Poly

Shannan Click

Kasia Struss

Iselin Steiro

Laragh McCann

Monday, September 29, 2008

Olivier Zahm

Olivier Zahm worked as an art critic for Artforum, Flash Art, Art Press and Texte Zur Kunst during the 1980s and early 1990s. He is a renowned curator and has worked with over 150 exhibitions of contemporary art throughout the world, including institutions like PS1, MoMA, and Centre Pompidou. In 1992, he founded Purple Prose magazine (1992 - 1998) with Elein Fleiss, and the publication has created spin-offs like Purple Fiction (1992 - 1998), Purple Sexe (1998 - 2001), Purple magazine (1998 - 2003), Purple Journal (2004 - present), Purple Fashion (1995 - 1998, 2004 - present), and Purple Books, a publishing house . The "realistic", sometimes dubbed "anti-fashion"-, aesthetics of Purple was a reaction against the glamour of the 80’s, and can be linked with the global counterculture of that time, with the work of Juergen Teller, Terry Richardson, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Mario Sorrenti.

Since 2004, Zahm is editor in chief of Purple Fashion, a biannual magazine attempting to bridge the worlds of art and fashion. Zahm and Fleiss also run the Paris-based think tank Purple Institute, an art direction society and consulting company aimed at creating links between the art world and industry. He has also art directed the Spring 2007 Yves Saint Laurent Homme campaign.

OLIVIER ZAHM, By KARIN NELSON

WHAT I’M WEARING NOW An Yves Saint Laurent leather jacket and ostrich boots, American Apparel jeans and a vintage Christian Dior shirt. I buy a lot of these T-shirts from Eleven on Elizabeth Street. They feel sweet against the skin. My watch is a Seiko from the ’80s. It looks like a gold Rolex, which I can’t afford yet. The glasses are Ray-Ban. I have five pairs, all in different shades of amber. I love amber. It’s a beautiful color for men. The only perfume I wear is because of its amber color — Azzaro, which is an old cheap cologne for workers.

STYLE CREDO To me, the best time for men was in the ’70s. I would love to look like Polanski or Jack Nicholson back then, the way they wore their jeans with just a shirt, a good watch, glasses and a nice white jacket. It was simple, but really sexy. At the beginning of this decade all the men got very glamorous. They started buying a lot of clothes. Me, I don’t like it. When you notice clothing on a man, I find it suspicious.

ON INSPIRATION Nothing is more inspiring than love and true sexuality. People say my magazine is very provocative or transgressive. Not at all. If there is nudity and sex, it is not to provoke, it is to show the beauty and love.

Song of the Day: Get Into The Groove

Christophe Decarnin used "Get Into The Groove" by Madonna to close the spring 2009 Balmain show yesterday.

I love the contrast between Madonna's style & Rosanna Arquette's style in the movie: "Desperately Seeking Susan".

Rosanna Arquette's character, Roberta Glass (a bored suburban housewife living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, who is fascinated with a woman she only knows about by reading messages to and from her in the personals section of a New York City tabloid) favored Louis Dell'Olio for Anne Klein by day, Victor Costa for evening.

Madonna's character, Susan ( a wild city girl who communicates with her lover through the personals section of the New York Post) , chose Maripol bracelets, many gold chains and visible black lingerie for day and evening.

During the 1980's , I would spend a lot of time at my grandmothers apartment in the South Bronx. It didn't look anything like the Battery Park or East Village that I saw in "Desperately Seeking Susan". However, I did see a lot of artfully ripped, tight acid washed denim. And I could always hear Madonna blasting from boom boxes on the street. That movie still inspires me....and Christophe Decarnin's stylist, Emmanuelle Alt of French Vogue.

For spring 2009, the Balmain woman is a mix of both Susan and Roberta - a rich dangerous girl who wants to go out and have some fun.