Autumn is always full of interesting fashion/design/art exhibitions, creative and stimulating books launches, film premieres etc. And what is perfect than attending these kind of arrangements followed by a coffee enjoying the last warm sunbeams of the year.
No matter if you are in Copenhagen, Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, Paris there will most certainly be one or more interesting creative adventures.
One of the things happening in London is the launch of book and exhibition portraying British designer Matthew Williamson. Colin McDowell himself has written the book, with forewords by actress and devoted Matthew Williamson fan Sienna Miller.
This lavishly illustrated monograph will cover the designers work, life and achievements in a definitive volume and celebrate the collaborations Matthew Williamson has executed over the years with seminal artists, photographers, architects and designers, and features word and image contributions from luminaries of the fashion world, including Alexandra Shulman, Anna Wintour, Zandra Rhodes, Joan Burstein and Sir Paul Smith.
The book will be sold internationally from Monday 18th October and will be accompanied by a display at the recently reinvigorated centre for visual arts, Somerset House, in London.
Matthew Williamson, Sommerset House, London, 13 October 2010 – 30 January 2011
Louis Vuitton Christmas decoration 2009
Although summer is hopefully not quit over yet (4 more days before it’s officially autumn) Christmas preparations have already begun.
I’m a sucker for Christmas (you might remember the photos I posted last December of various Christmas windows in London) and I cannot wait to stroll through streets of Christmas lights and lavish and creative window displays.
This year Louis Vuitton has already announced that their Christmas windows will have an Indian flavor. Starting Nov. 5, displays will pay tribute to Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, an ancient and joyous occasion to light oil lamps, wear new clothes and distribute sweets.
Vuitton has teamed with Indian artist Rajeev Sethi to conceive the windows, which will feature hand-painted paper trunks glowing from within.
Look forward to December where I again will show some of the most beautiful Christmas decorations and window displays - which will most definitely also entail Louis Vuitton’s Indian light fairytale.
Light installation by Rajeev Sethi
6 years after his death, The Richard Avedon Foundation will auction 60 works at Christie’s in Paris.
The sale’s centerpiece is an enormous print of the “Dovima With Elephants” (1955), which hung in Avedon’s studio for 30 years. The iconic shot of the willowy model in a Dior evening gown and bracketed by circus pachyderms is expected to fetch a half-million of the group’s $4 million to $6 million estimate.
The first museum to exhibit his work after his sudden death in 2004 was in fact Louisiana museum in Denmark. They had already made an oral agreement with the photographer a year before his death and The Avedon Foundation afterwards decided to keep that agreement. This retrospective exhibition also comprises the “Dowima With Elephants” mentioned above.
“Avedon: Photographies provenant de la Fondation Richard Avedon”, Christie’s Paris, 20 November 2010
Grace Coddington, creative director of Vogue plans to publish her memoirs. She has teamed up with former Men’s Vogue editor in chief Jay Fielden and together they are preparing a proposal for her autobiography. “We’re just starting, and I think it’s going to be a really fun project,” Grace Coddington told WWD, adding: “I’m hoping it’s going to be very rich in fashion history. It’s more than just about me.”
According to WWD the book will cover Coddington’s early life in Wales, her modeling days in Sixties London, the car accident that changed her career path and her ascendancy through fashion’s ranks as a stylist and editor at British Vogue and, later, its American counterpart.
This is not a first-time collaboration between the two. Jay Fielden helped out with the writing and editing of Grace Coddington’s 2002 coffee-table book, “Grace: Thirty Years of Fashion at Vogue”
Lately, the two of them have been spending a lot of time together. Jay Fielden accompanied Grace Coddington to the Paris couture shows in July and has also, according to sources, been interviewing her network of friends, as well as colleagues.
They plan to shop the finished proposal to publishers this fall, so I guess mid next year would be good guess for a launch date – I cannot wait!
Mats Gustafsson
I’m an image-fanatic! I collect art; take great pleasure in browsing through magazines and books and love going to museums and art galleries. Therefore, I couldn’t be more excited than the news of up-coming exhibition at the design Museum in London. They will from 7 November showcase Munich gallery owner Joëlle Chariau’s unique and outstanding collection of fashion illustrations. Co-curated by the fashion historian Colin McDowell, it brings together clothing by Poiret, Lanvin, Chanel, Alexander McQueen and others as drawn by Erté, Lepape, René Gruau, Antonio and Mats Gustafson.
It will be the first time this collection, which was put together over 30 years by, the before mentioned, Joëlle Chariau, has been displayed. Later on the exhibition will be accompanied with a book published by Prestel – if you can’t make it to London in time before the exhibition ends.
Drawing Fashion, Design Museum, London, 17 November – 06 March 2011
Cheap Monday
Copenhagen Fashion Week is barely at its end before Stockholm Fashion Week takes over.
A bit of a different set up and much more local, but they still have some cool brands to offer: Acne (who held an event during CFW) Hope, Whyred, Carin Wester, Fillipa K, Cheap Monday just to name a few.
However, those Swedes are cool and although they are so like us they are in a way totally different. Those of you who have been to Stockholm know what I’m talking about.
Should you pop buy Stockholm in the nearest future here are some city tips:
Stay at Story Hotel:
Eat lunch at Riche:
Shop: NK, Götgatan, Birger Jarslgatan, Acne’s flagship store at Norrmalmstorg
See the Vee Speers exhibition (runs until 5 September) and the Annie Leibovitz exhibition (runs until 19 September) at Fotografiska Museum:
Bonus info: In good weather take a bike trip round Djürgården and pop buy one of the restaurants at the sea front for some Swedish Löjrom/Toast Skagen.
Story Hotel breakfast room
New initiatives often follows a fashion week – and this time it’s the Danish Museum of Art and Design who this fall offers a number of free talks on subjects like the furnisher designer Finn Juhl’s drawings and documentation (this Wednesday at 4.30pm), Japanese: pictures and books and Danish fashion designer Erik Mortensen’s sketches.
And you better sign up for their newsletter – last Friday Valerie Steele, Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, popped by the museum and talked about fashion exhibitions in art museums.
Danish Museum of Art and Design
Ps. Those of you who don’t know it or haven’t’ been their yet – check out their library – it’s a mini version of the library at the V&A in London – a super inspiring intellectual oasis!
Minimarket
Today’s shows: Jesper Høvring, Simon Rasmussen, Veronica B. Vallenes, Ivan Grundahl, S’Nob de Noblesse, Minimarket, Wackerhaus, By Malene Birger and Henrik Vibskov.
Today’s shows covered the largest diversity to date; from Jesper Høvring’s couture dresses to Simon Rasmussen’s reworked second hand pieces. From one of the grand old men in Danish Fashion: Ivan Grundahl to Minimarkets Tribal expressionistic style and again to By Malene Birger’s sleek, international-edged and VIP-packed show. Shows, styles and expressions from one borderline to another.
However, my favourite among Friday’s show was Wackerhaus. Peach, mint-green, grey and black were the main colours in her SS11 collection. She showed beautiful details like lace on cute dresses, high-waisted trousers with pleats as well as sublime soft tailoring.
Wackerhaus had indeed something to live up to, having won the Max Factor New Talent Award – but I can assure you, she did not disappoint!
Wackerhaus
Wackerhaus
To avoid a long screed on all the shows, I have decided to focus on what I thought was the show of the day, and today’s shining star was with out a doubt Peter Jensen’s (Crown Princess Mary attended his show!) show at the Bumble&Bumble scene in Forum.
Yet again, he lived up to and surpassed my expectation. Wearable clothes with a quirky twist and an edge where it’s obvious that these he’s really enjoying what he’s doing. Prints and colours, the silhouettes and the styling all came together as a fresh, fun and light approach for next spring/summer wardrobes. Let the pictures speak for themselves.
The first day of anything is seldom fully successful – people need time to get in the mood – and that goes for fashion weeks too. Today it felt like the fashion crowd wasn’t quit ready yet after summer’s relaxations – today was the warm up. Nevertheless, day one still offered sophisticated design and stylish people (mostly the international buyers and press).
Two of the high lights of the day were the SPON DIOGO show with architectural and sculptural silhouettes in primarily white, citrus, black and grey and Rützou’s sexy, effortless and elegant collection with a touch of sweetnes; beautifully draped backs, gold on grey laced textile and hints of emerald green.
Furthermore, Rützou’s catwalk was as intriguing as last season – this time a morph between of a clean, sculptural almost Japanese looking art installation and Jørgen Haugen Sørensen’s art installation ‘The House That Rains’ placed on Skt. Hans Torv in Nørrebro, Copenhagen.
All in all promising prelude for the days to come…
