At the same time that I came across the latest American Apparel ads, I saw a piece about a picture of photographer Terry Richardson standing with a number of male models during a photo shoot for a Diesel ad campaign.
Today is about shopping. I do like to support creative folk — often my justification for shopping — but I also have the tangential excuse right now that this post is actually about Valentine’s Day shopping, which should be of concern to anyone with a significant other. (No dear, that’s not a hint — I am an exception since we know I buy everything anyway, so there is absolutely no need to get me a Valentine’s Day gift — but I do think the necklaces from A.N. Original Jewelry are ab fab!)
Fab.com tends to find incredible products in all sorts of categories, but I am particularly taken with some of the jewelry designers they have turned up recently, especially in conjunction with Valentine’s Day. The Fab.com Valentine’s Day Gift shop features felt jewelry by Amy Pfaffman. The earrings aren’t particularly my thing, but the necklaces are really cute. They are laser cut felt silhouettes of famous modern chairs, which admittedly has nothing to do with Valentine’s Day whatsoever, but they are unique, attractive, and at $18 something of a no-brainer as far as little gifts go.
I was enthralled by the title of Chip Brown’s article on designer Marc Newson in this mornings New York Times Magazine: ”The Future Isn’t Futuristic Anymore”. Brown contends that Newson was captivated by the space-age utopia depicted on the Jetsons, but that while his own aesthetic over the years has been influenced by that paradigm, Newson has been disappointed by reality – by the fact of that future not panning out and leaving him feeling that “the future isn’t futuristic anymore.” I struggled over the course of the article to digest this assertion, since it runs seemingly directly contrary to an observation I have made repeatedly over the last decade or so — that the world we live in is, in fact, the world of the Jetsons. Sure, not exactly. We aren’t buzzing around from place to place in our personal little flying capsules, yada yada yada… But a lot of that vision has come true. (See Bob Sassone’s clever little piece on HuffPost Tv from a few years ago titled “So How Accurate Was The Jetsons?“)
The Jetsons Pictures & Photos – The Jetsons.
God, can I really not stay away from designer collaborations for more than a day? So, about that Marni for H&M… but actually, this time what I’m interested in is less the collaboration between Marni and H&M (although it’s that too), than the collaboration between H&M and Sofia Coppola. Coppola is directing the print ads for the campaign and the first ad has been released. It does make me intrigued by the clothes (although seriously it’s still not worth getting up and standing in line at H&M — I have sworn off that behavior for good). But more than anything, I love it as a photograph. Absolutely exquisite. The model is none other than British actress Imogen Poots, stunning herself, so that helps no doubt. Still, plain and simple, it’s a gorgeous photograph.
Meanwhile — as long as we’re talking about ad campaigns — there are the newly released American Apparel ads. I actually knew American Apparel before it was “American Apparel”, back when it was primarily a supplier of blanks for clothing manufacturers. I am ashamed to admit that once upon a time I produced several seasons worth of girls’ graphic t-shirts on American Apparel blanks (and even have a huge box of them left over in one of my closets, just waiting to be put to good use). I have been shocked to find, over the course of writing these posts, how prudish I am. I never would have thought, but it keeps coming up. Whatever the quality of their merchandise, American Apparel continues to churn out ads which are so offensive it makes it really difficult to imagine ever buying something from them again. I am trying to keep the images on this site relatively PG except where artistically required – you never know when my five year old might stumble upon the site left open on my computer – so I’m afraid I have to just link you to these photos. Follow the links, or not, as you wish. But please, please, do not buy merchandise from American Apparel. It has proven again and again to be a fairly despicable company.
Link to swimsuit ad (via Fashionista)
Link to underwear ad (via Fashionista)
It’s just unnecessary. Dov Charney is doing a good job of making the folks at Abercrombie and Fitch look sweet and innocent.
Since one photograph doesn’t make much of a post, I am going to throw in, as an added benefit, a few of my favorite kids’ fashion advertisement images that I shot (okay, admittedly including these is also a little bit of self indulgence, but the post did feel like it needed some serious rounding out — and really, what’s the fun of having a blog if you can’t occasionally be a little self indulgent?).
All images © Diana Cheren Nygren – All Rights Reserved
I’m kind of loving this project, so I have to give it a little plug. For Amy Lombard’s “Happy Inside (IKEA)” project, she has visited Ikea stores across the country and taken photographs of the rooms which have been staged in the store. Sometimes there are people in the pictures. Sometimes not. But in all of the pictures, the rooms come alive as spaces that are part of a story, and part of a life, rather than just a sales display. Amy is currently trying to raise the funding to get the photographs published as a book.
You can never be too rich (check) or too skinny (????). Instead of skinny, let’s say “stylish”. Now that’s an axiom I can get behind. Every thing you touch is an opportunity for style. Which is why I am so excited about the Pantone visa card.
Why are all things Pantone inherently awesome? I know, it’s an obsession of mine. In part, every color looks better when rendered as a Pantone chip. There is a Pantone chip for every color imaginable, so a bunch of them must be pretty darn ugly, but there’s something about a Pantone chip that transforms any shade into an opportunity for exquisite color combinations. All of the cards are great, by virtue of the Pantone reference, the elegant, bare bones simplicity, the beautiful saturated colors. The big problem, as it is with most products in the Pantone universe, is that you really need a bunch of them to achieve maximum impact. It’s tempting to get five visa cards, but I think I’ll pass. Can you imagine? If you’ve already got an Am Ex and/or a MasterCard, they’d give you something on the order of $2000 credit per card. I’d advise going with either 15-3827 Lavender or 16-1452 Firecracker (Design Milk also shows a fabulous color called Blue Curacao which looks like the clear water of the Caribbean, but Pantone does not show that color on its site, so I’m not sure what’s going on there). They are the most distinct looking on their own.
I promised myself I would have a balanced number of posts on various arts, and not just hammer fashion to death. But I just couldn’t resist this one. So I’m afraid it’s three fashion posts in a row. At least this one’s for the guys. (I promise, it’s worth making your way to the end of this post.)
Men’s runway fashion is its own animal, and one that I do not understand under the best of circumstances, but I am absolutely baffled/delighted by Prada’s Fall 2012 Men’s runway show. Miuccia Prada referred to her show as “a parody of male power”. Seen in that light, the show is comprehensible and brilliant. At the end of the day, the goal is to sell clothes. Seen in that light, I’m not sure what to make of the whole performance.
Much of the parody was in the small details – using denim for formal clothes, making what appears to be wool or mohair out of denim, decorating a dress shirt with rows of tiny football helmets, or fashioning white-tie neck gear out of mock turtleneck on a t-shirt. But there was also parody on a grand level. The show featured a number of types, of which I’ll address just a few.
First: The gentleman-of-a-certain age (I don’t believe this was one of Miuccia’s types, but it is one of mine, for I found it striking). Not to be a nagging feminist or anything, but can you imagine a womenswear show featuring ladies-of-a-certain-age?
Karl by Karl Lagerfeld
Is it just me, or is this whole affordable designer capsule collection thing just spinning out of control? I bet you’re getting tired of reading posts about designer collaborations. I’m getting tired of hearing of them and I am obsessed with the damn things. That suggests to me that something is clearly out of whack. Let’s take stock of the collections since the summer:
It seems like this retro vibe is everywhere lately. And not a revival of the 70s kind of retro, but the 1920s, 1940s …. I can hardly go a day without hearing someone mention how much she loves Downtown Abbey. The flapper look made a return on the spring runways. And that Jason Wu for Target collection, now the it has been released in its entirety … peter pan collars, pleats, prim and proper. Sending women back at least 60 years. There’s a reason I didn’t leap to discuss the collection once the full cookbook was released. The few things I had already discussed were pretty much the whole story.
In her review of the Golden Globes for WWD recently Bridgette Foley bemoaned the boring, simple, prettiness of the Golden Globe fashions. Generally when styles come back, they come back with a twist that makes them modern. The Louis Vuitton collection for spring has just enough twists to make it interesting, is sufficiently self-aware to be brilliant. But looking around, what’s particularly striking is how much plain old, retro, throwback, prim pretty there is. Without any irony. Without any modern twist. That was Foley’s problem with the Golden Globes, and I think it’s my problem with the bulk of Jason Wu for Target collection.
Thanks Anthony for the photos!
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