Dear readers,
This Saturday I will be interviewing the Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen in front of an intimate audience at the SoHo House in Berlin. The event is not open to the public, but if you are a creative professional based in Berlin and interested in attending, please let us know by writing to info@sz-mag.com
It has taken years to produce Afghan Gold, the new photography tome from Steidl publishing, what with exacting natures of both Luke Powell, the photographer, and Gerhard Steidl, the publisher. But the result, an outstanding, slip-cased two-volume set, is a testament to the notion that some things are worth waiting for.
Powell had traveled extensively in Afghanistan in the 70s and 00s, documenting both the quotidian lives of its people and the magnificent nature in which those lives took place.
We are deeply honored for Steidl publishing to join us in celebrating the launch of our latest issue in New York.
We are equally excited for a special performance by Black Asteroid.
The men’s F/W 2014 fashion season is pretty much over, unless you hope that New York menswear will offer something worthwhile. Thom Browne, the most exciting American designer working today, probably does not, because he shows his menswear in Paris. His show pretty much closes the schedule for those who don’t care for Hedi Slimane’s inflated ego and his expensive Topshop imitations at Saint-Laurent aimed at people who clearly have too much money on their hands.
Browne’s show, as usual, could have been interpreted in several ways. It consisted of two parts, which could be dubbed flora and fauna (or fauna and flora if you care for the order of things). It could also be the hunters and the hunted. The point is – shock! – there were plenty of wearable creations next to elaborately designed Pillsbury Doughboy silhouettes. As usual, the construction and level of craftsmanship Browne presented were couture-like and looking at things crafted with great skill and care gives this reviewer a sense of almost silly joy.
Dear readers,
In this fast-paced, look-at-me, fifteen-seconds-of-fame-on-Instagram culture, we are once again proud to give you something lasting and meaningful. With our fifth volume we invite you to slow down. How about holding a printed book in your hands? If you need some recommendations, Rick Owens has put together a list of his current favorites for us. We also photographed his home library in Paris. I was granted an extremely rare privilege to travel to Germany to explore the world of Gerhard Steidl, the preeminent independent book publisher who works with the best artists in the world. It resulted in the biggest article I have ever written.
Last Friday Dover Street Market, a mini-department store run by Comme des Garcons that has become a franchise in its own right, opened its doors to the public.
The new shop takes up seven floors in an imposing-looking building that used to house a bank on the corner of Lexington and East 30th St. It’s a part of Manhattan few people interested in fashion have ever set foot in. This was evident during the Thursday’s preview, as you could easily spot the attendees on the way to DSM amidst the office drone lunch crowd.
This is the Comme des Garcons weekend in New York. The opening of the local Dover Street Market branch has been the talk of the town, but in addition to that the Comme des Garcons flagship boutique has reopened this weekend as well, with a completely new interior and concept.
I stopped by for a preview Thursday night. The crowd milled around the new, golden interior, checking out the freshly arrived S/S 14 merchandise. Rei Kawakubo was present, adjusting the mannequins just so.
Recently there has been a surge of books about the macabre side of our world, particularly about cabinets of curiosities. Usually, they are mere collections of photographs of weird things that sit on dusty shelves in some corner of Europe we associate with aristocracy and adventure.
The new title, Guillermo del Toro Cabinet of Curiosities (Harper Design, $60), is an entirely different thing. It offers a rare glimpse into the mind of an auteur. By definition the mind of an auteur is a singular thing and del Toro is the poster boy for this notion. Anyone who has seen his Oscar-winning film, Pan’s Labyrinth, will understand what I’m talking about. The sheer level of fantasy that permeates just this one of his movies has made its mark on the history of cinema.
When I met the German-born designer Daniel Andresen in his studio in Antwerp last month, he was looking at yak hair. The hair, spun into wool yarn at a cooperative in Mongolia, was a new experiment for this young designer whose understated knitwear is quietly sold at directional stores like Lift in Tokyo and DAAD Dantone in Milan.
Andresen is understated himself, a quiet, contemplative man who approaches his work without fanfare. “The yak might not work for the knitting machines,” he thought out loud, “it’s too uneven.”
This is the kind of know-how that shows Andresen’s hands-on nature of work. And when I say “hands-on,” I mean exactly that. Everything Andresen makes he makes himself using a couple of old knitwear Brother machines that are “programmed” by punch cards. “This is my production team,” Andresen pointed at his girlfriend, when I asked him where his knitwear is produced.
The Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky is known for his sweeping, panoramic photographs of human industry. And by industry I mean our antlike insistence on building things coupled with our desire to beat this planet into submission.
His new book, Water (Steidl/NoMa, $125), continues where his previous titles, Oil, Quarries, and China, left off. Burtynsky likes to tackle our complicated relationship with things we depend, that improve our quality of life and ensure our survival, often at the expense of everything else on earth, but he does it without any moralizing or sensationalism. He documents, we do the judging (and the lamenting). And, boy, does he know how to document.