Having lots of something and very easily makes you take it for granted and that is exactly what has always happened to me in regard of tapestries. Being European, or even better, being from Spain, means that every old place you visit, every castle, every palace, every official building you put foot on will very probably have a tapestry hanging on its walls. And it gets so normal that it's hard not to take it for granted. You go, you see that thing up there and you don't even notice what it really is. For this reason I was very sceptical in my visit to the MET exhibition Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor, conceived as the sequel of the exhibition Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Magnificence that took place 5 years ago.
What I found regardless my scepticism was a quite impressive and majestic collection of tapestries, a total of 45 rare pieces that took my breath as soon as I entered the exhibition. As I mentioned before tapestries have never been my soft spot but the care in which this collection has been arranged really took my heart. The show covets the industry during 1570-1720, starting with the most important years of this art (second third of the XVI century) and finishing with Brussels (its former "capital") and its second Renaissance. Make note that the pictures you see in my blog seem mere paintings but think that those paintings are woven; the depth, the perspective, the colors, everything is achieved weaving threads of different colors... Looking at the tapestries very close is something of an amazing experience; they are actually flat. You see every stitch made and wonder how those men and women were able to create such gigantic pieces ("A Naval Battle" below is 13ft x 25ft) in which everything make sense, when they were able only to see a foot square at a time.
My friend J, whose work and recipes some of you may already know through her blog Rosetung, is finally (everyone was waiting for it) selling her knitting work via Etsy. The good news besides being able to purchase a warm splotchy or a cowl, is that she is selling her printing artwork that has been hidden for years in her room, therefore only close friends and family had the pleasure to enjoy them (i know this very well... I slept under one of her printings in New Orleans in awe, wondering why she never tried to sell them...) So I'm more than glad seeing these wonderful things enjoyable for everyone. :)
My personal trip to Noovo Festival in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, Spain. (part IV) by Angela Esteban Librero.
Day 3
On Saturday, there was a guided visit around Santiago ; I missed it because I already have been to Santiago many times so I stay in resting… At 12:30 I ran to the presentation of the magazine: B-GUIDED, which is a very cool magazine from Spain that comes out quarterly and is both in Spanish and English. For the cover of their last issue they featured Silvia Prada, an artist and illustrator from Barcelona who was there as well.
Cover of B-Guided
After the aperitivo, served as usual after the early afternoon presentation, some of us drove a little the surroundings of Santiago. Be delighted by the amazing views…..
Then back to the tent to check the Spanish designers that were showing that night. Some people drove to Finisterre which is 2 hours away from Santiago and didn't make it for the shows… Too bad!
The night started with SinPatron, a lot of green and yellow, cool cuts and very street wear
Then Txell Miras, definitely one of my favorites of the night with her amazing patterns
Jan Iú Mes really surprised me, they are something between Spastor in their beginnings and Dior Homme by Heidi Slimane
As for the young couple Luxoir, they show a lot of color and prints trying to reinvent the Spanish man
Years ago if you were an artist then you were poor (this still happens), therefore you couldn't afford to pay for a website, or you were too shy or lazy to ask some friend to design one for you. When myspace was born everyone got very excited: a web to show our portfolios for free, yay!. Myspace wasn't perfect though as it was too crowded of non fashion-related people and that made it difficult to find what we were looking for: promotion and fashion networking. Then Diane Pernet came to the rescue with her co-founded iqons*, a myspace type of web only for creative minds and for a while was a wonderful thing; I discovered quite a few interesting designers the same way some of my peers bloggers did. The project is fantastic but it has its difficulties: the navigation is not very good (too slow and uneasy) and the artists' images are too small to really enjoy.
The site functions as myspace or iqons* but gives a more important role to the images than the latest. With a very-easy-to-use design and navigation, Dripbook serves as a networking and web portfolio for photographers, fashion stylists or illustrators, but not only: they covet a wide range of type of work and kind of artists, from architects, hair stylists, art directors, tattoo artists, to woodwork artists or industrial designers. It is a very complete web and such a wonderful source of creative minds and fashion-related professionals. Unfortunately they only accept invitation-only sign ups but you can browse the work of the artists, which I can tell you, it is really worth it.
Pedro García Martínez is the head behind the fairy-tale like Spanish fashion labelPedro Y El Lobo (Peter and The Wolf, remember the famouschildren's story by Sergey Prokofiev?). Pedro was one of this year's selected designers to show their work duringMustang Fashion Weekendat the independent music festivalFIBin Spain. Together with 5 more designers, he presented his college final thesis "Instrumental". Don't miss the video he did for it!.
>>> When did you start designing clothing? /// Cuando empezaste a diseñar ropa? I really started when I rolled the Fashion Academy. Before that I used to paint T-Shirts, doing little things, all very DIY, customizing some garments and bidding in Fashion contests while I was finishing Natural Science in college.
/// Cuando entré en la escuela, la verdad. Antes de ello pintaba camisetas, hacía pequeñas cosas, customizaba prendas y me presentaba a concursos de moda mientras terminaba mis estudios de Ciencias de la Naturaleza, todo a un nivel autodidacta.
>>> Did you ever study fashion design?/// Llegaste a estudiar alguna vez diseño de Moda? Yes, I studied it in the Escuela Superior de Arte y Diseño de Murcia, I was part of the first fashion design graduation.
>>> Tell me about your collection "Instrumental". Where did you show it? Have you had any kind of economical support? /// Cuéntame un poco sobre tu colección "Instrumental". Dónde la presentaste? Has tenido algun tipo de ayuda económica por parte del ayuntamiento, familia, amigos? "Instrumental" was my final thesis. It is inspired in the music, in the instruments, the way their shape is similar to the patterns of clothing, as well as the musical graphic designs, everything wrapped in a decadent atmosphere. The collection has a very coherent base, the colors reinforce the visual character of the pieces and their shapes remind and evoke the musical world. I submitted my work to the Young Designers contest that Mustang organizes for FIB (Independent music Festival of Benicassim) and I won. They game me the chance to show my collection together with other famous designers. As an award they game me a symbolic sum of money to do the event. But I have had real financial help thanks to my family that has been and always will a great and unconditional support. /// La colección "Instrumental" fue mi proyecto final de carrera. Inspirada en la música, en los instrumentos, en cómo la forma de éstos se unía a la de los patrones base, en los grafismos musicales, y todo envuelto en una atmosfera de decadencia. La colección tiene una base muy coherente, los colores refuerzan el carácter visual, y posee cortes que le dan una fuerte presencia y que evocan a las formas del mundo de la música. Presenté este proyecto al concurso de jóvenes diseñadores que organiza Mustang para el FIB, (Festival Internacional de Benicassim), y lo gané, teniendo asi la oportunidad de poder desfilar con otros diseñadores ya conocidos. Por el premio me dieron una ayuda económica simbólica para poder llevar a cabo el proyecto. Ayuda económica he tenido gracias a mi familia, que ha sido y será siempre un gran apoyo, incondicional.
>>> Tell me about the video. Where did it come from the idea of a dress out of score paper? /// Cuéntame un poco sobre la experiencia del video. De dónde vino la idea de crear un vestido a partir de papel de partituras?
I thought of doing a video like that the day before my final thesis presentation. I was having a coffee with a score notebook and I thought how could I summarize the concept of my collection in a few images, then i decided to record some mini-videos. It was a lot of fun more than anything else. I started with my photo camera in one hand and with the other "converting music into fashion" (although my mom had to help me a couple of times...). The video is very amateur, it was shot in my room in Murcia, with my desk and my sewing machine. The model is my sister Lucía; I asked her to come back down with me to the waste ground below my house to filmed her for 5 minutes. When I finished the editing I ended up very happy with the result. I think i got exactly what I was looking for... ///El video se me ocurrió el dia antes de la entrega de mi P.F.C. [proyecto fin de carrera], tomandome un café y con un bloc de partituras en la mano, pensé en cómo podría reducir todo el concepto de mi colección en unas pocas imágenes, así que me puse a grabar minivideos. Fue más divertido que otra cosa, empecé con la cámara de fotos en una mano y con la otra a "convertir música en moda", (aunque mi madre me tuvo que ayudar un par de veces...). El video es muy casero, está rodado en mi habitación de Murcia, con mi escritorio y mi maquinita de coser. La modelo es mi hermana, Lucía, le pedí que bajase al descampado de debajo de casa para grabarla 5 minutos. Cuando terminé de montar los minivídeos acabé muy contento con el resultado. Creo que conseguí perfectamente lo que quería transmitir con el video, a mi manera...
>>> Where do you make the clothing? Where do you choose the fabrics that you will use in the collections? /// Dónde fabricas la ropa? Dónde decides los tejidos que utilizaras? I make the clothing with my dressmaker, who is such a lovely person, hand by hand, sometimes till dawn, every day. I like to walk in the fabric stores and I try to match the materials I choose with the the collections' concept, which I think I've got it so far. I also like to investigate with fabrics, manipulating them and making new ones, like the lace edging patchwork that i did for Instrumental, putting together little pieces of irregular shapes and leaving the seams inside out. /// La ropa la hago con mi modista, que es un encanto, mano a mano hasta la madrugada todos los dias. Suelo pasear por las tiendas de telas, e intento que el género que escojo interprete perfectamente el concepto que le doy a la colección, y hasta ahora lo he conseguido. También investigo manipulando tejidos, y creando otros nuevos, como el patchwork de distintas puntillas de encaje que hice para Instrumental, uniendo trocitos cortados de forma irregular y dejando las costuras hacia el exterior.
>>> What stage in Fashion design you enjoy the most? /// Qué fase de la creacion de una coleccion de gusta mas? When an item is finished, you look at the illustration and see that what you thought became reality... I think is fascinating.
/// Cuando una prenda está acabada, miras la ilustración y ves que se ha hecho realidad física... creo que es una sensación increible.
>>> Is there any designer who inspires you nowadays? /// Qué diseñadores actuales te inspiran? No one in particular. I find inspiring all kind of designers and labels that have little in common with each other, like Miuccia Prada, Hedi Slimane, Locking Shocking, Chloé, Phoebe Philo, or icons like Cristobal Balenciaga etc.
/// No tengo ninguno como referente, me influyen muchos diseñadores y firmas que poco tienen que ver entre sí, como Miuccia Prada, Hedi Slimane, Locking Shocking, Chloé, Phoebe Philo, iconos como Cristobal Balenciaga, etc.
>>> How do you see the fashion industry in Madrid? What do you think about the battle Cibeles / Ego? /// Como ves la moda en Madrid? Que piensas de Cibeles / Ego? The industry here is very difficult, I guess like everywhere else, you have to work very hard, being very patient and having a strong willpower. I'm brand new in Madrid, I've been here only for a month and a half now so I can't really say much about the situation. I will see how everything goes. I think Cibeles is an interesting catwalk to see certain fashion trends or sides that I might be interested in, and El Ego is a great platform for young designers and a great opportunity for them to show their work. /// La veo dificil, como en todos sitios, un trabajo duro, en el que se necesita mucha paciencia y fuerza de voluntad. Yo estoy recién instalado en Madrid, llevo un mes y medio, y bueno, asi que poco puedo decir, a ver qué cosas surgen y a ver cómo me desenvuelvo. Cibeles me parece una pasarela interesante para ver ciertos aspectos y propuestas de la moda que me interesan, y El Ego me parece una muy buena plataforma para jóvenes diseñadores y perfecta oportunidad para mostrar su trabajo.
>>> Where would you like to live other than Madrid? /// Dónde te gustaria estar si no estuvieses en Madrid? If I wouldn't be here I would be ... in Barcelona, Tokyo or New York, or a little town called La Arboleda, in Bilbao, where there are many lakes, animals, trees and someone very special... /// Si no estuviese aqui...en Barcelona, Tokio o Nueva York, o en un pueblecito que se llama La Arboleda, en Bilbao, con muchos lagos, animales, árboles y una personita.
>>> What's your next project? /// Cuál es tu proximo proyecto? Finding the way to produce my collection, seeing how Pedro Y El Lobo keeps growing and at the same time being able to make other projects that fill my time. /// Encontrar el modo de poder producir mi colección, ver cómo continúa Pedro y el Lobo y al mismo tiempo hacer otros proyectos que ocupen mi tiempo.
I only useflickr to host the pictures I will use in my blog so I never pay enough attention to the people that uses it as a website or as a window of their work. For this reason it always surprises me when people asks me to be their "friends" because I wonder what do they see in my flickr account that can be as interesting. Anyway, I appreciate it very much that people don't think the same way I do because if they would I would never receive the request of Elena Kulikova therefore I would never discovered her amazing photographic work.
When i attended pre-school i remember the pile of magazines we used to have in our classroom to chop them off and cut and paste and create our own very personal collages. It was a way to learn how to use our hands in the best of the ways, you know, cutting paper instead of our peers' hair. Ah, those were the days... My father still has my notebooks of the time, my first experiences with magazines, models and the like.
Elena's still lives bring me to memory those days and collages. And I can't think a cooler way to photograph perfumes or lipsticks.
10 magazine always surprises me with funny and very thoughtful articles.
In their issue #24 journalist Tony Marcus(A Whore's Life, pages 66-67) questioned the way we all "picture" a hooker, "what visually signifies a whore" in our images' code. Prostitutes are always recognizable, they dress in a very distinctive way. As Sheila Cousins (Graham Greene and Ronald Matthews) in her book "To Beg I Am Ashamed: The Autobiography of a London Prostitute" puts it, a hooker dresses the way she does because men need "their article labeled if they are to have the courage to ask its price".
Unfortunately, men are in general very predictable in their tastes so we all know what a man wants to see; legs and tits. Therefore, showing such attributes can be the perfect way to attract male attention (remember those Venetian courtesans in the XVI century?).
Fortunately, prostitutes use a wide range of attire possibilities, god bless them, as they are more free to mix stuff than anyone else. Hookers wear the most outrageous and avant garde pieces of clothing, they put together patterns, colors, shapes, fabrics and lengths in the most playful way.
As each decade brings its own fashion, that means a "street-fashion" is brought as well. During the 50's for instance, a London prostitute would dress in a very specific way: "Their three-inch patent shoes, their shiny stockings, their ankle bracelets, their tier of fox fur round the shoulders, come close to being an uniform". (extract from "To Beg I Am Ashamed ...")
Fashion-wise, it's always interesting to me to see the different ways that costume designers use to dress these characters, and yet the common codes they all share. Some instances:
True Romance (1993).- This is one of my favourite movies about a hooker and I still wonder why it didn't get any nomination for the wardrobe of Patricia Arquette. Best dressed hooker ever. The blue sun glasses that she wears during the film are still in our hipster collective-memory.
This is the las post on Cecil Beaton: Memoirs of the 40's, basically because I need to return the book to the library (this would be the third time i would renew it) and because i don't want you to think, oh please, Beaton again no ... !
* Cecil on Bébé (French artist Christian Bérard) and his theory of fashion as anti-art.
" Bébé, inspired, proceeded to illustrate with his pencil the fashions of the new dressmaker Dior. These, he says, have the same new sense of sex appeal as Chanel created after the First World War. A theory was put forward that fashion was anti-art, that "chic" was to art the same as sex appeal is to love. "
" She [Louis Dahl-Wolfe] was speaking from her New York studio, but had cancelled the sitting for which she had specially come in from the country ("Where we live it's where all the cows and things are -oh, it's quite rural.") because she felt a cold coming on. She didn't feel like taking pictures: she had to look after herself. It gave me the thought that over here people know better than those in my country how to take care of themselves:that old heroine Gertrude Pidout in the LondonVogue office continued to hold the fort even while suffering from 'flu till eventually she fainted in a bus trying to reach home one night. [...]
Louise Dahl-Wolfe and Carmel Snow during a Harper's Bazaar photo shoot
Louise told me of the aftermath of the dinner given by Carmel Snow, chief editor of Harper's Bazaar, at which Frances McFadden, another Bazaar editor, had asked me in what direction I thought fashion in photography were going. It seems I had answered that it was time to give up all this "piss elegance" and to get more reality into pictures. Two days later the "Editorial Beauty Conference" took place. The suggestion for the next cover came from Frances McFadden, who wanted a woman to be photographed with her hair all wet and set with pins before going under the dryer. Louise did not think that would be photogenic. Mrs. Snow said: "Oh, no!" And McFadden said wistfully: "Well, after all it is reality we're after!" "
Before being fashion stylist I started my career in the media business (TV, Films, Magazines) as a costume/wardrobe designer, alas, I decided the clothing that the actors would wear in a movie. In big budget films the costume designer not only decides the clothing an actor would wear, but designs it too, so it does the job of a fashion designer plus his/her own. Movies has been, and still are, my biggest passion as you might guessed, so working in the Seventh Art as a costume designer was a dream come true. For over four years I was in and out of a set every one day and sometimes months in a row. Unfortunately watching movies is not as working in them so after years of no sleep and creativity frustration, I started to switch to styling jobs and now is becoming rare to see me in a feature set. Nevertheless, I follow in awe and still love with all my heart costume design and good Costume/Wardrobe designers are my truly ever love, with Milena Canonero in the top top.
There are many books about Costume Design but the best I've found and the one that really tells what's going on is Deborah Nadoolman's Screencraft: Costume Desing. Naddolman, a costume designer herself, (Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Blues Brothers (1980) and director of the Costume Designers Guild, collected interviews with 14 of the best Costume Designers of today, including Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange, Marie Antoniette), Eiko Ishioka (Bram Stoker's Dracula, The Cell), Piero Tosi (Il Gattopardo, La Caduta Degli Dei aka The Damned) and Sandy Powell (Shakespeare in Love, Orlando). The book is an exquisite journey through the work of these incredible designers, their views, their sketches, anecdotes and knowledge. It is such a gem of a book thanks to the extraordinary selection of the best costume designers nowadays and their own personal voice in the telling of their work. Reading Milena Canonero's experience while filming Out of Africa when she discovered that one of the costume truck drivers was selling the wardrobe pieces to the native prostitutes in exchange of their "services" is priceless...
>>> the edition I have is in Spanish but it is published in English too
My name is Patricia Yagüe and I live in New York City where I work as a fashion stylist. I was born and raised in Madrid although I started to travel at age 17. I've lived in Dublin, Rome and now NY. I love the fact that fashion is such a powerful tool, something that people denies as such but religions, politics and wars all have their own uniforms, their own colors, and that's the first thing we learn to distinguish, even before knowing their beliefs.
Moses rescued from the Nile (detail). 1640
