We are happy to announce the special partnership of Belgian model Hannelore Knuts and the ModeMuseum Hasselt in Belgium for a unique exhibition from March 27th 2010, displaying works from a wealth of international creative talent. With a distinguished modelling career spanning a decade, Hannelore has worked in the most prestigious fashion houses, crossed paths with many of the world’s best fashion photographers, and met many interesting artists from Belgium and elsewhere along the way. As well as a learned photographer, Hannelore is currently the model ambassador for Antwerp-based AIDS awareness charity, Designers Against Aids.
Curating the exhibition herself, Hannelore has called upon ‘connected souls’ to contribute to ‘ULTRAMEGALORE‘, including A#3’s Haider Ackermann – from whose magazine comes the above poster image by Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin.
The exhibit will include a fashion selection from the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, Prada, Rick Owens and several Belgian designers, such as Haider, A.F Vandevorst and Maison Martin Margiela.
Complementing the physical garments will be fashion photography from the likes of Juergen Teller, Ronald Stoops, Miles Aldridge, Alex Salinas and Serge Leblon.
Also displayed will be artistic works by Kendell Geers, David Sherry, Luc Tuymans, Elizabeth Peyton and more.
ULTRAMEGALORE promises to be a landmark event for the small museum, located in Hannelore’s birth city of Hasselt, and is set to attract significant critical attention for the exciting content and scale of the project. While Hannelore insists it is not retrospective nor homage to the ’supermodel’, we are promised a confronting insight into her artistic and cultural sphere. One surely not to miss.
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ULTRAMEGALORE – Fashion Icon Testimony
(27th March – 6th June 2010)
Modemuseum Hasselt
Gasthuisstraat 11
3500 Hasselt
Belgium
Givenchy x Riccardo Tisci x Sang Bleu x A Magazine
Sang Bleu magazine’s Maxime Büchi sat down with Riccardo Tisci directly after his Givenchy menswear show for Fall Winter 2010 in Paris, to discuss his inspirations, passions and his perspective on the media (and in particularly his work for A#8). The result is a candid and personal conversation offering genuine insight into Riccardo’s motives and opinions. Many thanks to Maxime, Riccardo, and the team at Givenchy for their support.
A MAGAZINE curated by Maison Martin Margiela ONLINE NOW
Returning to the early days of our journey we are delighted to present A#1, curated by Maison Martin Margiela in 2004 – the first in the numerical series of A after the founding issues by Dirk Van Saene (NºA), Bernhard Willhelm (NºB), Hussein Chalayan (NºC) and Olivier Theyskens (NºD).
Maison Martin Margiela is known for a subversive, intellectual and often satirical style that permeates through a signature white-washed world, becoming famous in the 90’s for its deconstructed garments and guerilla fashion shows – the antithesis of populist fashion of the times, and a vein being explored in parallel by Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo in Japan.
Please click here to see A#1 online at WWW.AMAGAZINECURATEDBY.COM, with another back issue released each month. A#2 by Yohji Yamamoto, A#3 by Haider Ackermann, A#4 by Jun Takahashi, A#5 by Martine Sitbon, A#6 by Veronique Branquinho, A#7 by Kris Van Assche and A#8 by Riccardo Tisci are also all available to view online now.
The Maison Martin Margiela held their haute couture week presentation yesterday in Paris, with an afternoon of audiences coming and going from an intimate curtained salon in the Maison des Métallos, in the 11th district. With an automatic curtain sliding across to reveal the eleven silhouettes, the Maison delivered a coherent theme of mid-20th century evening gowns reworked into hybrid silhouettes, or ‘garment morphing’ as they called it. Each look was announced by a deep resonating voice over loudspeakers, describing the deconstructed outfits and their original forms and fabrications. A white spotlight centred upon each piece, keeping the models faces in darkness, in the tradition of foundation couture presentations – focusing solely on the garment and not the beautiful models.
Since 1988, Margiela has been offering Line 0, an artisanal collection for women that takes vintage and used objects to construct one-of-a-kind unusual sartorial creations. Past pieces include a jacket crafted from a mirror ball, a dress from vinyl records, and a coat of artificial eyelashes. This season traded the wit and tongue-in-cheek innovation of seasons past, rather focusing on a tension between the original garments and their modern day re-pros. The idea of static frameworks contrasting with the flow and drape of silk and taffeta was key, with the skeleton of one tuxedo coat outlined with black pearls, and a layered ballgown reworked into a dramatic one shouldered bodysuit. In another piece, layers of mirror were sliced to create a 3-d mirror dress, and one outfit was entirely adorned with pearls from waistcoat to boots. Each piece took a minimum of fourteen hours to make, some needing up to sixty five hours for embroidery and detailed feather work.
See the video below, where the voice of the Maison announces:
“Number 6: Chloé is wearing a cocktail jacket and pearl-pants. Three cocktail dresses in taffetas changeant from the 1980s are dismantled and gathered into an evening jacket. The first one – a long gown – becomes an extra long sleeve. The second one hugs half of the bust to finish into a voluminous shoulder. The third one covers the other half of the bust and creates a ruffled sleeve. A pyjama pants is made of strings of black pearls.”
Jacket: 45 hours
Pants: 35 hours
Certainly an unconventional approach to couture, Maison Martin Margiela creates a most avant-garde concept for the most historically classic and rigorously structured week of the fashion schedule. With the sense of change in the air after Martin’s official departure, this presentation remained strong in it’s through-line, and although maybe lacking the humour of the past, wavered little in the vision of the house.
Riccardo Tisci showcased the most spectacular and luxurious of Givenchy’s yearly offerings last night, with the Haute Couture Spring Summer 2010 show at the Salon Impérial of The Westin hotel in Paris’s 1st district. With a hushed crowd of press, guests, customers and family and friends of Riccardo, the production was a contemporary vision of the rich history of couture at the house of Givenchy, and a glimpse into the highest echelons of the international fashion market.
In a true whirlwind of vibrant colour and opulent textures, Riccardo sent out twenty three looks in a slow and steady procession, a single walk for each girl through the two chambers and a final group walk to thunderous applause. The collection took cues from the decadence of 1970s disco culture, while maintaining many of the baroque references that have become signature to his aesthetic. Luigi Murenu gave the girls straight and middle parted hair, and Pat McGrath created an intensely hued eyelid of navy glitter shadow with a vermillion lip.
A tightly sculpted trouser suit opened the show paired with frothy ostrich and vulture feathers beneath, and was followed by a procession of sheer layered looks in duchess satin, hand pleated organza, stiff silk gazar or soft lace. Progressing through an elegant palette of nude, black and navy, these first looks rung true to Riccardo’s pedigree – albeit breaking new ground for the lavish embellishment in jet, crystal, and feathers. It was however the final seven looks that stole the show.
As soon as Hanne Gaby Odiele strode out with hands in pockets of a flared jumpsuit entirely covered in blue and black geometric sequins, the following minutes flew past in a kaleidoscope of sapphire, emerald and amethyst shades. Closing the show in a degradé fuschia gown with beige crystal bustier was supermodel Natalia Vodianova, in absence of Riccardo’s muse and close friend Mariacarla Boscono [performing in Rome].
Although a pointed departure from the gothic, bedouin inspired collection of last season, Riccardo has maintained the key codes, techniques and metaphors of his aesthetic – reinterpreted with his emotions of the season, optimism for the times, and a mastery of colour, light, shade and grandeur.
One of the most poignant and truly personal contributions to A Magazine curated by Riccardo Tisci is a letter to Riccardo Tisci from the eternally fabulous and debonair lady, the true fashionista’s fashionista – Anna Piaggi. A veritable style icon, Anna has been a writer and stylist in fashion since the 1960s, working predominantly with Italian Vogue and the defunct Vanity magazine, producing over 7,000 editorial pages in her lifetime. Anna is the muse of milliner Stephen Jones, as well as an avid follower and friend to Manolo Blahnik, Vivienne Westwood and Karl Lagerfeld among many others, and was given an entire exhibition dedicated to her fashion archive, wardrobe and life’s work at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
Anna’s wildly colourful personal style has no contenders to its vivacious attitude – with nonsensical clashes of pattern and palette and rich displays of embellishment and texture that render the poutish, petite woman as her very own work of art.
To Riccardo, Anna has written most warm-heartedly, speaking of his own poetry within his designs and the way that he is able to verbalise this in private to her. She likens his puns to ‘ex-votos’, religious votive offerings to Gods and saints that offer thanks, and has included an image of her own symbolic ‘ex-voto’ – an embellished eye on crude leather.
Read her kind words below:
“GIVENCHIC!
Dear Riccardo, the hints you give me after each one of your shows are always a surprise, an amusement, something to remember… a concentrate of the collection in a very few words, quick, light, spontaneous. And always with a very happy accent, a play with words, which I am always looking for. A little miracle each time, like a ‘grazia ricevuta’ (a received grace?), which is the meaning of each religious ex-voto, like the heart embroidered on a black dress in your spring-summer? NO, no, no, autumn winter collection 2008. I love ‘ex-voto’ (ex-votos?) and I have been even using the eye (see photo) as a jewel with a ribbon around my neck, with your beautiful ‘peep’ coat. My favourite quote of yours was ‘maori, fetish, baby doll’ and it stayed in my head for quite a long time. How great to have a bouncing relationship with fashion, to feel it as a pretext for free poetry, nursery rhyme… looking for your, your next collection-expression
As the first installment for 2010, we welcome you to to the world of Italian designer Riccardo Tisci, who is the designer behind Givenchy womens’ and mens’ ready-to-wear and haute couture collections, and curator of A#8 in 2008.
Riccardo Tisci was born in 1974 in Taranto Italy, and the only son among eight daughters. Riccardo studied fashion design at London’s Central St Martins, graduating in 1999. After a stint working for Ruffo Research, he was appointed creative director of Givenchy in 2005, after showing his own self-titled collection in Milan.
As we have spent the last weeks exploring A#7, it is very exciting to present the reflections of Kris Van Assche himself on creating an ‘A’. I asked Kris the following 10 questions this December, with over a year since his issue was released. His responses are intimate and thoughtful while remaining direct and informative – the words of a man with a clarity of vision and confidence in his work. Read below as Kris discusses the trials and triumphs of this project:
Dan Thawley: Your invitation to curate A#7 came at a crucial point in your life – as you began working with Dior in early 2008. Was it a hard decision to make A Magazine at this important time?
Kris Van Assche: Not really… It was a time when I was totally focused (more than ever) on ‘who am I’, ‘where do I want to go?’, ‘what are the differences between my own brand and Dior Homme?’, etc… It was actually quite healthy to put this reflection ‘on paper’ as you asked me to do.
DT: What are your strongest memories of making A Magazine?
KVA: “Each collaboration felt like a victory. With Dior, I felt like the whole world was pointing bazookas at me, so the fact to have people like Sarah Moon, Nan Goldin, Jeff Burton etc. accept to be part of this project was huge. There was the discovery of the new work of Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison … I knew their older work and contacted them to ask if I could print some… So they ended up showing me all this new stuff which was great! But of course, going to a laundrette in LA with three male pornstars and Jeff Burton all excited, that’s hard to beat.”
DT: Is there anyone outside of your own creative circles who you were very excited to ask for their ideas, images and thoughts for A Magazine?
KVA: “My close friend and gallery owner Barbara Polla was great help… But I have to say this project was a very personal one.”
DT: As a designer, did you find curating your own magazine difficult? The idea that everything inside becomes a reflection of your aesthetic, whether a true reflection or not?
KVA: “In the beginning, all these blank pages felt like a mountain of work, which it was, but in the end I had a hard time fitting everything in. I had a maquette of the lay out in my office in front of my desk, so for 2, 3 months I was constantly rethinking the whole thing… To be honest, I liked the exercise so much that I decided to launch my own magazine : “LONDERZEEL”, with my friend Barbara Polla, only 16 pages and on irregular basis, but a great platform to continue the reflection on identity and inspiring collaborations.”
DT: Each issue of A is a unique project, yet all together they carry a visual identity and a story. When you began, did you feel any relationships with the other magazines? Do you maybe have a favourite?
DT: Your own photography features quite predominantly in A Magazine. Seeing a designer’s world captured through their own lens is very exciting. What does photography mean to you? Is it a creative release?
KVA: “It is a tool, something that helps me to do my job as a fashion designer. I enjoy it because, as for fashion, it is all about proportion. It is also a way of capturing moments of reality, my main source for inspiration, and embellish them.”
DT: Do you feel the history of Christian Dior in the magazine also, or purely your own vision for the label of Dior Homme?
KVA: “Christian Dior never did anything related to menswear. Basically, his main goal was to embellish the female body. It appears a very basic thought, but I relate to it.”
DT: Working with editors Luc Franken and Kaat Debo, did you find that they translated your own vision into the format of A Magazine, or did they make you search beyond your original ideas for the project?
KVA: “There is the reputation of the A Magazine on one side, and the working process on the other : both push you to go beyond. Initial ideas kept on evolving. I took it even more serious because A is the type of magazine that people collect.”
DT: Looking back, what part of A Magazine are you most proud of? Is there something you wish you had done differently?
KVA: “I am proud of the fact that all people involved are ‘des coups de coeur’ : no name dropping, just true mutual respect and admiration. Of course, once it was finished, I was ready for the next one, because of course one can always do better. It felt exactly the same as after a show.”
DT: Finally, who would you like to see make their own vision of A Magazine in the future?
