It was a kind of mock-gothic, Hollywood bridal party that only Mimi Wade, with her proven aptitude for taking the fantastically kitsch and making it fantastically sexy, could have pulled off. For AW18, Wade ostensibly stripped back her signature aesthetic but managed to retain a raw, vamp-like glamour even while working across a monochrome base.
Part of a new generation of designers in London adept at creating clans – the likes of Molly Goddard and Sadie Williams have delivered a powerful, unifying aesthetic language too – Mimi Wade has established a strong identity for her women, mixing a sense of nonchalance (this season through bias cuts and frayed hems) with feline sultriness (velvet bows, ruched, deep collars and puffed sleeves). It’s Wade’s World, and we want in.
Offering a dystopian and uneasy version of a salon the day after Valentines perfectly communicates the vision at the heart of Juno Calypso’s work. The new multi-sensory installation in Melissa Galeria space in Covent Garden is full of stark red light and casts of mannequins, offering a space that feels weird and uncomfortable. The subversion and play are recurring themes in Calypso’s work, who often works with mask, costume and theatrical stagings to explore ideas of femininity and sexuality.
Open from today, the installation will run until April, offering ample time to wholly immersive yourself in Calypso’s unsettling and compelling world.
Animation by Geriko | Juno Calypso exhibition in London
Stuart Vevers presented his Fall 2018 collection for Coach, bringing a splicing of American gothic and the New York underground scene together in one dreamy show.
With an abundance of textures, talismans, mixed silhouettes and heavy accessories, the show offered a rich and atmospheric vision for modern life. Fall 2018 also saw the introduction of Coach’s Dreamer Bag, inspired by romanticism and how it manifests in New York. Check out more from the collection below.
As London Fashion Week approaches, there are plenty of new names to watch out for. Meet four designers setting a new agenda for the British womenswear scene this season.
Matty Bovan
A Fashion East graduate and Charles Jeffrey contemporary, Matty Bovan is staging his first standalone womenswear show at London Fashion Week this season. His designs evoke an underground utopia, leveraging clashing textures, prints and colours to create a raw and powerful new kind of tribe. A nominee for British Emerging Womenswear Talent at the Fashion Awards 2017, all eyes will be on where Bovan is going next.
Sadie Williams
Having already been listed as one of Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” for The Arts in Europe as well as a host of other accolades and NEWGEN sponsorship, Sadie Williams has the industry talking. Her unique designs combine folk sensibility with futuristic patterns and materials, rendering a new kind of woman that is empowered, playful and adventurous.
This London designer is making waves with her sexy, disco-inspired aesthetic that boldly reclaims femininity and offers a fiery new interpretation. Working across a myriad of high energy fabrics and in bold, powerful shades Paula Knorr‘s designs make you want to stand up and make some noise. Read our interview with the designer here.
Another recipient of the NEWGEN award this year, Marta Jakubowski offers a refined and confident vision through her bright and precisely tailored pieces. Easily re-imagining familiar staples in new ways, Jakubowski’s geometric tailoring brings fresh energy to womenswear and sets an exciting precedent for a new aesthetic in seasons to come.
A new video from Alexa Chung, directed by Jesse Jenkins, evokes the magic and nostalgia of the British seaside. Starting with a laconic reading of a John Cooper-Clarke’s poem ‘I Mustn’t Go Down To The Sea Again’ the visuals introduce a lonely dancer, spinning on the beach between cliffs. As the boy, dressed in a mustard corduroy suit, explores along the promenade, he discovers the ‘fantastic’ venue, and the allure of the glitter and musical magic inside – a gathering of women dressed in pink satin dresses and striped shirts.
“I think I’m always intrigued by that stage of youth where you’re caught in between teenagedom and adulthood.” Said Alexa Chung, creative director of her eponymous brand, of the video. “There’s a synergy between what’s going on in the video: finding one’s place in the world, tentative expression, the joy of discovery and what’s going on with our brand. Progressively feeling more confident. Britpop largely inspired this collection and that sort of ultra-British experience of soggy chips and windswept beaches and old men’s pubs and disco revivals is a time and a place I wanted to revisit in this film.”
A tribute to the joy of discovery and the energising power of music, this is the kind of romantic escapism that’s perfect for starting the week.
A new solo exhibition from artist Camille Sanson addresses the experience of becoming a mother through her own experience. Personal and emotive, her series of photographs chronicles her body before, during and after pregnancy, at the same time evoking the state of her mental health through sculptural and transformative poses.
“I would love this exhibition to inspire women with mental health issues to seek their own healing through addressing their subconscious fears and finding a deeper connection within themselves and their shadows.” Commented Camille on the new show, adding that “It is not easy to undertake these journeys but ultimately so important if we are to strive to have a happier life, especially when bringing new souls into this world, so we can avoid transferring our own issues to our children and continuing unconscious patterns within them.”
Each image offers an unedited depiction of the body, but Camille works with paint and clay to emphasise the internal turbulence and tensions that women go through. As such, the images address the process of becoming a mother in its entirety, bringing the nuances of experience sharply into focus and offering a powerful call for communion and openness. In an age where women are increasingly breaking narratives about how they should feel and look during various events in their life, Camille Sanson’s contribution is timely, relevant and necessary.
The Veil, Camille Sanson
Gaia, Camille Sanson
The Mask, Camille Sanson
From the Waters, Camille Sanson
‘Absolution’ by Camille Sanson is at Herrick Gallery, 93 Piccadilly, Mayfair, London W1J 7NQ until February 3rd 2018.
Emma Tillman’s photographs chronicle the unseen moments in life, those, to steal from Virginia Woolf, islands of meaning which shore up against the ferocious momentum of time. It’s fitting that her book Disco Ball Soul, was named such: thoughtful, investigative and lingering, her portraits of friendships, romance and the natural world offer an energising and playful mosaic of her experience of the world. Here, she tells Twin about the images which have most impacted and shaped her life and work.
Alberto García-Alix
Alberto García-Alix is a Spanish photographer from León whose work was part of a movement that shaped modern documentary photography, but to me he is so much more. And that is where I will begin with this list. I would say in a word, he is shameless. And it is this shamelessness that draws circles around the core of ugliness and strangeness, illuminating it until it is light, despite all its rugged detail.
Taryn Simon is an American artist from New York City. Although I had come in contact with her widely regarded and well collected photography a handful of times in my adult life, I had not been touched by its power until one lonely afternoon at the Tate Modern in London. I wandered into a room full of her work from “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar” and finally understood.
That rainy day I explored the gap she so eloquently elaborated on. Between the brilliant precision of her semiotic examination of secrets and the divine poetry with which she captures them. Simon raises very potent questions, with elegance and beauty.
Manuel Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer from Mexico City and is considered one of the preeminent art photographers in Mexican history. His interest in elevating the quotidian at a time when photography, especially in his home country was staged and highly formal, attracted me from an early age.
In addition to his pioneering reach in exploring the everyday, Bravo sees texture as something deep and mysterious, almost sacred. These observations have haunted me from the time I was a little girl, looking through one of his books in the vast living room of a family friend.
Graciela Iturbine
Graciela Iturbine is a Mexican photographer from Mexico City, and protogée of another photographer mentioned here among my favourites, Manuel Álvarez Bravo. She turned to photography after the death of her six year old daughter and when I look at her images, they all seem to have the lingering sadness and mystery of death, even when the works are capturing subjects which are vividly alive. Otherworldly would be a better word, but overused, don’t you think?
Graciela Iturbine, Cemetery Juchita 1988
Ruth Orkin
Ruth Orkin was an American photographer from Los Angeles who was largely self-taught. She had a ground-breaking career as a freelance photojournalist during a time when the field was, of course largely dominated by men. But it was my contact with her famous photograph, “An American Girl in Italy” (1951) which includes her in this list. When I was twelve or thirteen, I was given a postcard which featured the photograph on the front.
I became obsessed with the story it told. There was an incredible amount of complex information contained inside. Historically, the photograph is somewhat controversial, and seems to be a Rorschach test for personal ideas about feminism. I for one, knew exactly what it meant; independence, freedom and self-determination. For that reason, I can’t say the photographer directly influenced my work as much as my way of life.
One night, many years ago now, I was at the Chateau Marmont waiting for someone who never came. The bartender, feeling bad for me, very graciously stayed past last call and regaled me with ghost stories from the hotel. One of them was the story of Helmut Newton’s death; a car crash in which he drove headlong into the formidable white wall guarding the hotel’s entrance. Until then, I had always heard his name but never quite put the pieces together, you might say. But his tragic demise piqued my interest and when I discovered his world, I was enchanted. Everything he photographed had a perverse sexiness. It was dark, physical, and expressed a glamorous power that I saw mirrored in my own interests.
I think about him now every time I pass that white wall, and say a little prayer for all who flirt with the dark side.
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer from Paris. The king of composition! The king of the candid! And man, what a life well lived. In 1952 he published his book, “The Decisive Moment” about his philosophical approach to photography (with cover illustrations by Henri Matisse, I might add). In it, he contends “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organisation of forms which give that event its proper expression.” And I couldn’t agree more.
Sally Mann is an American photographer from Lexington, Virginia who stirred incredible controversy in the 1990s for photographs of her children, mostly in the nude on the Virginia farm where Mann still lives with her family. I think the images are incredibly beautiful, touching, and unflinching. I love a little controversy if the source is worthy, and to me, these photographs have most definitely been an inspiring and worthy source for years.
A spectacular final show from Kim Jones had the crowds in a frenzy, which was taken to heady new heights when the designer said his final goodbye with Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss on either arm.
Fittingly the collection offered an overview of landscapes across the world, as well as looking inwardly at the heritage of the Louis Vuitton brand. Here aesthetic influences ranged from American rodeo to the Siberia, and looks were rendered with a dash of Titanium, introduced as a new precious metal. The iconic logo was made abundant use of, with fierce delivery through patent trenches and savvily printed on jumpers.
Speaking about the show, the designer commented that “It’s about clothes that can change, about fabrics that can travel on the body – and transform.” This was realised through an undulating rainbow of colours that ran from neutrals to neon and brought endless energy to the collection, while sharp details – fluro pockets, metallized monogram leggings – demonstrated the mighty power of Kim Jones at his best.
A new exhibition at the Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles brings the evolution of the female gaze to the forefront of the narrative. Aligning an international rostra of women artists, the exhibition celebrates a new era of photography in which the body is examined rather than objectified; observed rather than owned.
Exhibitors include Amanda Charchian, Remy Holwick, creative duo Honey Long & Prue Stent, and Magdalena Wosinska, who together offer an exciting harbinger of the future feminine narrative in photography.
Images span the mystic and mythic to snapshots of the mundane, with Charchian drawing inspiration from psychologist J.A. Lee’s interpretation of Greek philosophy, Prue Stent and Honey Long focussing on powerful juxtapositions of material and colour and Wosinska offering raw, intimate portraits.
The future looks bright, the future is female.
Future Feminine is at Fahey / Klein Gallery from January 18 – February 24, 2018.
When one thinks of Bethany Williams’ brand, it is not necessarily within the confines of fashion. Encompassing sociological issues, political arenas and cultural quarters, to talk about Bethany merely within the limitations of fashion would be doing the brand an injustice.
Having released her brand less than two years ago, Bethany Williams has been constructing menswear that is embedded within charities and communities, hoping to cause a real effect in the social space we engage with. Working with the charities San Patrignano and London College of Fashion, UAL’s Making for Change programme this season – two pioneering rehabilitative programmes which work closely with vulnerable women and supports their path torehabilitation through equipping them with craftsmanship and manufacturing skills and qualifications – and the model agency TIH Models,a new modelling agency supporting youth in London affected by homelessness, Bethany’s points of reference and areas of focus lay a typically socially attuned and sustainably-led focus on her third collection to date.
The menswear designer showcased at the DiscoveryLAB this London Fashion Week Men’s January 2018 through both a film created in collaboration with Crack Stevens entitled ‘Women of Change’ and the collection alongside, ‘Attenzione’.
The film is a poetic narrative that celebrates the strength of the communities of San Patrignano and Making for Change, and explores how fashion can incur social and environmental change.
Throughout the film, the theme of ‘second chances’ was explored, drawing parallels between the second chance given to the discarded materials from which Bethany created the fabrics at San Patrignano, and the second chance given to the women involved in both of these innovative programmes.
Through these social responsibilities that carry through the ethos of the brand, Bethany showcased a range that was less collection and more collective: shaped by the communities and charities involved, culminating in a selection of looks that tied together as a diverse multimedia display.
The presentation held an atmosphere of steadfast serenity, the models standing straight and majestic under a strong and direct spotlight in their ensembles, allowing for the audience to inspect the techniques and the fabric. The music emanating from the film was disarmingly enveloping: you were welcomed into the space, relaxing your senses in order to explore the film presenting life in San Patrignano and the resulting work they have created with the Making For Change community, Chris Carney Collections (a recycling facility where Bethany’s raw materials are sourced) and cottage industry hand knitters on the Isle of Man.
Bethany’s clothes are more than clothes – they are supportive measures, they are projects in itself. The garment design is led by sociological injunction and followed up with design rationale: recycled fabrics and the focal charities leading the shape, texture and function.
Speaking of her design process, Bethany notes: It always starts with the charity or community that I am working with, then it goes to the waste materials that I want to use, then it goes to the fabric and then from the fabric I work out the form: it is initially inspired by the charity I choose to work with from the start.
Bethany chooses to show one collection a year, due to the prolonged process involved in each collection, the level of external organisation and support expected, and the bespoke nature of the garments. Presenting around the London Fashion Week Men’s dates allows her to capitalise on audience, and frees up the year to focus on projects with various partners and institutions.
Sustainability is steadily growing as one of the key issues the fashion industry is choosing to address. Being a consultant and lecturer alongside her brand, Bethany has seen the approach others are taking: “I think sustainability has become such a big concern at the minute. I consult for bigger brands as well as doing my own projects, and companies are thinking about it, and thinking about the future. I work with Kering and they have their sustainability department and its massive. All kering brands also need to have a sustainability manager at your brand. They are looking at processes for luxury across the entire supply chain: people are really looking at it and thinking about the future.”
There are things that can make the heart beat faster – we all have our own hit list – but for London Fashion Week Men’s what will be a focus moving forward is the celebration of brands that are looking at the picture that far exceeds the fashion frame: brands where integrity and social responsibility is one of their first salutations.
And what would Bethany like her brand to stand for? Through her delightfully positive, softly spoken lilt “creating a solution through innovation”.
Kennedy magazine founder Chris Kontos shares his celebration of the Athens’ cultural life.
Athens is a city still unknown to many despite its recent resurgence as an artistic destination. Jumping on the gentrification train a bit later than other European cities, it still retains on old charm through its 1920’s apartments, vintage clothes boutiques and theatres that contradict the city’s almost anarchic architecture – a pastiche of different styles layered for years on top of each other.
We (Chris Kontos, stylist Daphne Iliaki and model Elina Vasilkovskaya) took to the streets of Athens, and visited a few of the city’s apartments, to revel in the mystery of a city that still captivates its residents and visitors alike.
A pioneer of sustainable fashion, Bethany Williams puts a social conscience at the heart of her work; the last collection ‘Breadline’, worked alongside the Vauxhall food bank and Tesco to highlight the poverty crisis hidden in plain sight in the UK. Here the collection was developed around food waste, and Tesco recycled cardboard. The results were not only socially aware and environmentally friendly, but also innovative, avant-garde and sculptural – a hybrid of responsible and covetable which is glaring absent for the most part in the British fashion industry.
Her latest collection ‘Women of Change’ put women’s rehabilitation at the heart of her collection. The designer worked with female prisoners and the San Patrignano drug dependancy program, subverting the gender narrative to bring men into fore of the solution through her designs. Each piece was created from 100% organic or recycled, even down to the buttons which are handmade in the Lake District by Jean Wildish, who plants her own trees for the production of wooden buttons, and handmade in the UK and Italy.
The collection was shown at London Fashion Week Mens through a film, directed by Crack Stevens, along with a live presentation with models from TIH – a new modelling agency that supports young Londoners affected by homelessness.
One of the most exciting designers on the London menswear scene, Bethany Williams is offering a vision for the future which fashion desperately needs. We can’t wait to see what comes next.
As London Fashion Week Mens kicks off, Twin offers a survey of the innovate designs from Grace Wales Bonner, the menswear designer who has the city smitten. And quite right, too. With her natural flair for 70s tailoring and exquisite eye for detail, the London designer riffs across the aesthetic spectrum of menswear –from studded cropped velvet jackets to pristine white, ethereal-feeling two pieces – always ensuring tightly executed and intelligent collections.
Whether she’s inspired by the streets of London and Dakar or the works of James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and Marlon Riggs, Wales Bonner creates romance that’s steeped in historical and cultural context – her shows are often accompanied with a rich set of literary references, and she produced a 10,000 word dissertation as part of her final collection for Central Saint Martins, in spite of it not being mandatory.
A winner of the LVMH young designer prize, as well as receiving the award for emerging menswear designer at the British Fashion Awards in 2015, Grace is guaranteed to stir the hearts and minds of the industry this season – as a new year begins, take a chance to catch up on the best of Wales Bonner’s work to date so you’re all switched on for her show on Sunday.
Blue Duets, SS18
Wales Bonner, Fashion Show, Menswear Collection Spring Summer In London
Wales Bonner, Fashion Show, Menswear Collection Spring Summer In London
Wales Bonner, Fashion Show, Menswear Collection Spring Summer In London
Filmed by Inez & Vinoodh, the new Saint Laurent SS18 video shows a heady collection of models dancing endlessly through the night to the fierce soundtrack of New Order’s ‘Blue Monday’.
Having created a seriously theatrical show under the glistening lights of the Eiffel Tower in October last year, this new video is the teaser we need to get excited for Saint Laurent SS18 all over again.
Start 2018 as you mean to go on: KENZO has just released a new ‘Move’ collection designed to fuel your energy and activity for the year ahead. Combining the bold, punchy colours and the house’s signature Tiger logo on the shoe with a global cast of dancers in the new campaign, the Move series is guaranteed to put a spring in your step this month.
The dance-themed campaign brings together dancers from across the board – from ballet and hip hop to dance and electro. Choreographed by the creative duo ‘I Could Never Be A Dancer’, the campaign sees the cast pulling a series of fierce and frenetic shapes. It’s a new year: time to move!
Available online and in selected stores from January 2nd.
For fall, Issue 17 took a closer look at the expectations and realities of self-reflection. We met the young, African artist Kudzanai-Violet Hwami on the eve of her inaugural solo show, and discussed shedding the weight of self-doubt in order to soar. Elsewhere, sisters Nancy and Lotte Andersen discussed their shared childhood and creative pursuits, while actress Joanne Froggatt questioned the limitations facing woman who dare to age on screen. Patrick Demarchelier took us behind the scenes at the Musée du Louvre exclusively for Louis Vuitton, before we embarked on a Californian road trip with Chanel. Meanwhile, as Browns East — the latest bricks and mortar retail innovation to hit London — opened, we discussed the vital fostering of raw talent with Browns CEO Holli Rogers and Farfetch’s Chief Consultant of Augmented Retail Susanne Tide-Frater. Speaking of raw talent, musician Cosima revealed her most uncomfortable self under the lens of Francesca Allen, while model and artist Larissa Hofmann turned the camera on herself for a self portrait redux. Here’s looking at you, kid.
This spring, Issue 16 offered a study in shedding the weighty debris of expectation, and forging your own identity, under whatever guise that may take. From the renunciation of labels with model Lulu Bonfils, to redefining femininity with the creators behind MoreMuhler, and reclaiming pink with musician GIRLI, we celebrated womanhood without limits. Similarly, we discovered how family is at the core of the work done by 90-year-old artist Betye Saar, and those sentiments were echoed by fashion designer Molly Goddard, who we shadowed for a day. Elsewhere, Chanel’s hyper real version of beauty was played with, and Louis Vuitton’s artistic vision for SS17 was realised. Photographer Dexter Navy experimented with the perception of future super Jean Campbell, and posing greats Erin O’Connor and Guinevere Van Seenus made the lens their own again. Twin also delved into the world of all-girl skate culture and friendship, while director Crystal Moselle and BFF Danielle Levitt discussed the red-hot power of teenagers with passion. It was a riot.
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