It is with incredible sense of sadness that I write about the departure of Yohan Serfaty, who succumbed to cancer earlier today. Yohan was a talented menswear designer, but, more importantly, a sweet and gentle human being. He worked quietly and showed his menswear in Paris without fanfare. He designed from the heart and the world is now just a little more impoverished because that heart is no longer beating. R.I.P.
We would like to present to you Undercover Men’s Fall/Winter 2013-14.
Exclusive photos of the fall-winter collection from A1923 / Adiciannoveventitre, by Simone Cecchetto.
It’s no secret that fashion was late at adopting the Internet. The photographer Nick Knight is one of the few figures who early-on realized its potential as a platform for doing awe-inspiring things with fashion, especially the role of video. In 2001, he created what would become his virtual project lab, SHOWstudio. It is only natural that SHOWstudio’s latest undertaking, Splash!, involves Iris van Herpen, the Dutch couturier whose 3D printing techniques are equally innovative.
From April 3rd through April 9th, a live video feed from SHOWstudio will document van Herpen creating a Crystallization dress for Daphne Guinness. In lieu of a garment pattern Knight will film Guinness being doused with black and clear water. Van Herpen will then use Knight’s footage as a model for creating a one of a kind 3D printed dress. The entire process will be broadcast live. As the finale, Knight will shoot Guinness in the new dress, which will be displayed at the new SHOWcabinet space in London in June.
In 2009, in response to recession, Comme des Garcons created BLACK Comme des Garcons, a line of reasonably priced classic CdG garments replete with their own boutiques around the world. The practical nature of the project was reflected in the small, minimalist spaces themselves.
As part of the ongoing effort to outfit the various sides of the Comme des Garcons universe with their own scent, CDG is launching the BLACK perfume this week. The cedar and vetiver based scent also somehow seems practical and well-rooted. Comme des Garcons is no stranger to woody, incensey scents, having done the Hinoki and Sequoia perfumes, among others. BLACK continues the strong cedar base with hints of leather, liquorice, birch tar, and pepper wood, and tops it off with black pepper from Madagascar and incense from Somalia.
We are happy to share the lookbook of Sruli Recht’s Fall/Winter 2013 season. The collection is called Concentrated, a meditation on the many holocausts committed by humanity, past and present.
Fashion can be many things, likeable or not. Among these, fashion as theater is one aspect that gives it a certain kind of excitement. And by theater I don’t mean a mere parade of lavish outfits, but a convergence of the immaterial, in the form of designer’s ideas, with the material, in the form of a show that makes your heart jump even if for a second. Anyone familiar with the runway presentations of Alexander McQueen of Hussein Chalayan will know what I’m talking about. The fact that there is an incredible amount of painstaking work that leads up to the spectacle that lasts a mere fifteen minutes makes it all the more exciting because of how irrational the whole thing is.
Entering Boudicca space at Vyner street, 45, I suddenly remembered why this address sounds familiar – designers used to host Halloween events here, for which they invited their fans to participate and show their baking skills in creating craziest cakes for the occasion. Results were unpredictable and sometimes impressive – cakes in shapes of human-size skeleton, broken hearts, and monsters. Boudicca fans have quite an imagination.
Dear readers,
If you happen to be in New York this Sunday, you can stop by Atelier New York (304 Hudson St.) where the Russian-born designer Alexandre Plokhov will be holding a trunk show. You will have an opportunity to meet the designer and order items from his Fall/Winter 2013 collection, which we thought strong, in the size, fabric, and colorway that fits your specifications.
That graphic design can unite fashion, art, and music is an unusual proposition, certainly one I haven’t thought about, but going through the new book M to M of M/M (Paris) (Rizolli, $85) was an eye-opening experience. It makes sense on a basic creative level. All three disciplines demand visual representation and M/M, the design firm that has worked with the likes of Bjork, Yohji Yamamoto, and Hans Ulrich Olbrist since 1992 does it by putting the three disciplines through their own stylistic prism.