Overly cool brand Opening Ceremony has garnered a cult status through its locations in cities like New York and Tokyo. Luckily for us, London is finally getting a piece of the action, thanks to the launch of label’s first UK shop yesterday. Set in Covent Garden, the 3,000-square-foot pop up store has been opened to coincide with the Olympic Games starting later this month and the company’s ten-year anniversary in September.
The brand has already collaborated with the likes of Chloë Sevigny and Rodarte, but to mark the London O.C. takeover, designers including adidas, Norma Kamali, Topshop, Band of Outsiders, Charles Anastase, Christopher Shannon, House of Holland, Pamela Love and Proenza Schouler have created exclusive capsule collections for the store.
Combined with a selection of rare books curated by the Claire de Rouen team and set in a neon-coloured, geometric shape-decorated landscape courtesy of Studio Toogood, it’s safe to say we have found ourselves a new retail paradise. Let the shopping games begin.
If London is known for anything as a fashion capital, it’s nurturing and supporting a hotbed of creative talents all across the design spectrum.
For a second year running, Selfridges has selected its Bright Young Things. The project allows 15 newcomers from the worlds of fashion, art, design and food talents to create a window display for its Oxford and Duke Street stores.
With participants this year including womenswear designer/illustrator and CSM graduate Sorcha O’ Raghallaigh, who specialises in intricate metallic coloured and lace designs (Lady Gaga is a fan) and designer Maarten van der Horst, who gave a new and fashionable life to the otherwise dreaded Hawaiian prints, it’s a testament to the design talents that the Big Smoke has to offer.
For those more interested in non-fashion creativity, interior designer duo Tinker & Tailor have created a Twitter-friendly interactive space, while coffee connoisseur Jack Coleman made his own personal ode to the art of the brewing and roasting.
There’s never been a better reason to stop and take a closer look. Rush hour crowds notwithstanding.
Bright Young Things is on until February 29. selfridges.com
Launching tonight, The Photocopy Club is a monthly photographic exhibition of Xeroxed photographic work from all over the world. Held alternatively in London and Brighton, The Photocopy Club hankers for the days before email. Photographers are invited to post signed and dated photocopies of their work to the club. Each month a selection of photocopies will be exhibited and then sold. Eliminating digital files and emails, it’s about the tangibility of photography, pushing images off our computers and back into the physical world.
For Twin V we’ve gone to the roots of female creativity and taken a look at the growing young talent working right now. Twin spoke to Grace LaDoja, whose ambition and hard-work has singled her out from her peers. Grace’s eyes and ears are firmly locked on the youth culture pavement. The filmmaker has been documenting youth sub cultures since her first job at 17 and it was her childhood in London that shaped her world.
“Growing up in a three bedroom house with eight other kids around me I learnt if you don’t get up and do something you’ll be unnoticed,” says Grace. “In London you are surrounded by everything culturally relevant. I sucked it all up. I wasn’t the stereotypical black girl living in north London. I was into different music, different scenes on every level. I started running with the things surrounding me. I didn’t even skate but I was fascinated by the scene.”
As part of her first job at sneaker community Crooked Tongues, Grace flew around the world shooting films for brands like Adidas, Stussy and Etnies. Finally a year ago she set up her own production company LaDoja and Sons and has since worked with brands like Nike and Swatch as well as making documentaries such as London to Paris – a film about the cycling scene.
“I love youth culture and I want to document what’s happening now. In the same way as people look to the Eighties and Nineties I want to give kids in the future something to reference from this era. Eventually I’d love to make films like Spike Lee and Martin Scorcese, telling the story of what’s happening.”
“We live in a generation where everyone’s someone and wants to be their own boss. I feel proud to be where I am. I’ve got a space with 15 people working in there and we’re working with big brands. I’m doing something I love and I’m making money. I’m not faking it.”
Photographer Lina Scheynius delves into her past for her third book, 03, to a time when her photographs were intended for her eyes only.
While Scheynius is increasingly in demand as a fashion photographer, her personal photographs are, in contrast, a hypnotic hymn to sex, love and uninhibited freedom. Although the photographer’s previous books have been visual diaries detailing her recent life between London, Paris and Sweden, this time around she’s compiled a book of images taken between 1991, when she was just ten-years-old, and early 2007, just before her first magazine commission.
It’s an embryonic collection of pictures, revealing the same ethereal beauty, light and intimacy for which she has become known. Another chapter in her book of life.
‘Colour’ at Michael Hoppen Contemporary is enough to brighten anyone’s winter day. On show are a dynamic group of art photographers from Nobuyoshi Araki, Alex Prager, Tim Walker, Valerie Belin and Guy Bourdin – all of whose work is defined by their use of colour, pantone and hue. We love Daniele Tamagni’s energetic ‘Gentlemen of Bacongo’ which get another worthy outing having been moved straight from East London’s Trolley Books. It’s a vivacious display that livens up London.
Jarvis Cocker is increasing his already exponential creative credentials with an amazing sounding three day pop-up exhibition-cum- event at Village Underground in East London. He’s already tried it – with great success – in Paris. This time around interactive jams with the public who bring instruments, live graffiti from Pure Evil, pole dancing and hula hoop classes, spoken word and special guests are all part of the live line-up.
Get involved.
Identifying a comfortable and trendy dog cloth is turning out to be difficult, as more and more cute dog clothes are venturing in the global market on regular basis.
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