The times they are a-changing. The third issue of Twin is all about ambition: We ask Immodesty Blaize, Sloane Crosley, Simon Rich and Kristin Hersh to consider the meaning of female ambition, mega-model Dree Hemingway takes a ride in Simone Rocha’s winter collection, musician Alison Mosshart reveals the secrets of life on the road, set designer and artist Gary Cardsculpts an irresistible gang of bijoux-loving sloths, grande dame of fashion photography June Newton discusses life after Helmut, and Gia Coppola – the granddaughter of Francis Ford and niece of Sofia who’s next in line for Coppola fame – shoots an exclusive photo diary.
In the early hours of Saturday 28th August 2010 British photographer Corinne Day died after a long battle with cancer. Born in 1965, Day became known for her raw aesthetic and documentary-style. She first picked up a camera while working as a model, recording the everyday lives and struggles of her colleagues – and returned to the UK with a prolific body of work. In 1990 The Face magazine gave Day her first editorial commission – an eight page story featuring the scrawny teenage beauty Kate Moss, styled by Melanie Ward and entitled ‘3rd summer of love’. The resulting collection of black and white shots of a freckle-faced, squinting Kate Moss launched the careers of all three women.
Corinne Day’s career has been punctuated by controversy – not least for her 1993 Vogue shoot of Kate Moss in her Soho flat wearing boyish underwear and framed by fairy-lights. Yet it’s her hard-edged, grunge style that made her so influential. Like her contemporaries Juergen Teller and David Sims, Day helped to distort, disturb and reinvent the glossy face of fashion photography. But by the late Nineties she’d became disenchanted with the stale and airbrushed look of magazine editorials, turning instead to reportage. This body of work was collected in the book ‘Diary’ published by Kruse Verlag in 2000 – her anti-fashion antidote to the world of glamour.
Honesty was at the heart of Corinne Day’s life and work. On discovering her terminal illness in August 2009, she insisted on recording her entire hospital experience – combating despair with documentary. In her own words: “Photography is getting as close as you can to real life, showing us things we don’t normally see. These are people’s most intimate moments, and sometimes intimacy is sad.’’
Fusing dark synth, surrealist lyrics and the occult – you can’t accuse Swedish pop band The Knife of being predictable. Working out of Stockholm, the brother/sister duo, Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer, have been making electro hits together since 1999. Staying deliberately secluded from the mainstream, the twosome seem to want their music to stay a dark secret. The enigmatic band are touring one of their most unusual projects to date – an opera entitled, ‘Tomorrow, in a Year’.
Commissioned by experimental Danish theatre group, Hotel Pro Forma, the libretto is all about natural selection, taking inspiration from the father of evolution, Charles Darwin. We caught the show at The Barbican last month. It’s an astounding amalgamation of art and science – covering everything from evolutionary theory to Darwin’s love letters about his daughter, Anne. Innovative, enthralling and chilling – it’s opera, but not as we know it.
‘Tomorrow, in a Year’ the album is out now. The opera will be showing at the Melborne International Arts Festival from 21st – 23rd October.
This season, Yohji Yamamoto has created a Y-3 collection that returns to his avant-garde roots. Asymmetrical kilt skirts, big knit one-pieces and zipped-up jumpsuits all recall the Yamamoto of old, one set on both breaking and applying the traditions of his native Japan.
We love the collections’ brooding, moody and functional feel – T-shirts and coats read: “33 With You” and “23 Years In Prison”. This melancholic, prisoner of love theme has been brilliantly translated onto the small screen for a short fashion film starring brooding French footballer Zinedine Zidane, and a huge model clan. Its tough, heady and undeniably urban.
Watch it here….
Creative Direction: Lloyd & Co.
Still Photography: Alasdair McLellan
Cinematography: Theo Stanley / New Mountain
Editing: Frederic Taxi
Styling: Nicola Formichetti
Music: David Salom
Hair & Make-Up: Didier Malige & Gucci Westman
Location: Pier 54, Hudson River Park – New York City
Twin may just have found a new favourite gallery – Atlas on Dorset Street. One of the few London art spaces to deal exclusively in fine art photography, it’s the official agent of Magnum photographers – displaying (and selling) the works of masters like Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The current exhibit is from French photographer Dominique Tarlé. ‘Exile: The Making of Exile on Main Street’ is an intimate snapshot of the lives of The Rolling Stones over a six month period in the early Seventies. Taken while they were putting together their stellar tenth album, expect brooding black and white shots of the guitar-slinging Mick, Keith and the boys surrounded by gangs of gorgeous, good time women.
‘EXILE: The Making of Exile on Main Street’ is at the Atlas Gallery, 49 Dorset Street, London until the 31st August.
Under the cover of darkness 15-year-old best friends Nadia Dahlawi and Sara Jade would run away from their boarding school to see their favourite bands play rowdy sets in London bars. Not content as spectators, during their half-term break in 2003 they tried their hand at their first club night – arranging an impressive line-up including Art Brut and Les Incompetents.
A year later their label Young & Lost was born. Since then, the duo have become London”s indie scene sweethearts, casino online and can claim credit for putting out 7 inch singles from bands such as Golden Silvers, Noah and the Whale and Good Shoes, as well as DJing and promoting their own nights with acts like The XX and Laura Marling.
Now, aged 25, the Young & Lost girls have stepped away from spinning their golden empire for long enough to release a compilation, celebrating the release of fifty singles in five whirligig years. From the long-gone sound of Larrikin Love, to new flamboyant crooner Othello Woolf and the Bombay Bicycle Club – this is a fairytale chronicle of the journey of two clever musical madams. A story to be continued.
Raymond Cauchetier is to photography what Raymond Carver is to literature – a hidden talent that”s been somehow kept under wraps. Now, fifty years after he photographed on-set on Jean Luc Godard”s, “Breathless”, this barely known French photographer”s up-close, and collectible, images go on show at the James Hyman online casino Gallery on Saville Row. From Jean Seaberg, to Jean Moreau and Anouk Aimee – this is an exuberant chronicle of the French New Wave which, much like the pages of Vogue Paris, is awash with cigarettes, bare flesh and beauty.
La Nouvelle Vague. Iconic New Wave Photographs by Raymond Cauchetier runs until the 28th August.
For the best view in London get down to Frank’s Cafe in Peckham. The bar and accompanying art exhibition that’s perched on the roof of the Rye Lane multi-storey car park, is reprised for the summer.
Twin went along to the opening last week, which saw inhabitants of East London head south en masse to support Frank’s founders Paloma Gormley, Lettice Drake and Hannah Barry. We were particularly impressed by Paloma’s papa, Antony Gormley, who was spotted getting down to the sounds of the Thong Song. Rousing stuff.
Chelsea Leyland, the lithe blonde British actress who played at Twin’s New York launch party, shares her soundtrack for summer:
1. Richard Hell- Blank Generation
2. The Clash- Bank Robber
3. David Bowie- Never Known a Girl Like You Before
4. Florence and The Machine- Girl With one Eye
5. Prince- Cream
6. Jamie T- Sheila
7. Shelly Thunder- Kuff
8. Pantera- Cemetary Gates
9. Notorious BIG- Ten Crack Commandments
10. The Cramps- Human Fly
Last year, Anglo-Brazilian design duo Basso & Brooke embarked on an unusual research trip. The print obsessed pair set off along the great and ancient Silk Road in Uzbekistan. Along the way, they drew inspiration from the landscape, history and fabrics they encountered. Now, their silk route trail inspired collection is on show at the Design Museum.
With them for the ride was film-maker and regular Basso & Brooke collaborator Chloe de Carvalho who, as well as documenting the trip, made a 10 minute film full of folk-dancing, catwalk shows and ornate architecture that accompanies the exhibition.
Twin spoke to Chloe, who has collaborated with Basso & Brooke since 2003, about her enduring relationship with the duo – and the weird and wonderful sights of Uzbekistan.
What is it that you enjoy about working with Basso & Brooke? Most of all because I love their work. I also love how when they call me up to invite me to work on something it’ll always be something completely unexpected and unpredictable: Uzbekistan?!
What was the most inspiring aspect of being in Uzbekistan? The light in Uzbekistan is amazing. It’s this beautiful crisp, white light. And the country’s landscape is so vast it’s just asking to be shot with anamorphic lenses. It really inspired me to go back and shoot a fiction film there one day.
The other thing is the traditional dress sense: they do not shy away from prints and colours, actually, the more the better. And the layering is a brilliant: you can see a mixture of traditional Uzbek cloth with made-in-china prints with fluorescent detailing or velvety textures.
What was the most unexpected thing that happened while you were there? Well, I gave an interview during the Uzbek fashion week only to realize by the last question that the journalist thought I was “Basso & Brooke”. That cracked us up quite a bit.
Oh, and I went down for breakfast on the first morning in Tashkent to find Luiz Felipe Scolari (ex-brazil football coach) and Rivaldo (football player) having breakfast. As a Brazilian, in Uzbekistan, I have to say that was pretty unexpected.
What’s up next? There are a couple of different things I’ve been talking about with Basso and Brooke and I’m always looking forward to see what unexpected project will pop up next.
I’m also working on the script of my first feature film, a mystical road movie to be shot in Brazil.
Basso & Brooke – Adventures on the Silk Road is at The Design Museum until the 21st August. www.designmuseum.org
Basso & Brooke’s research tour to Uzbekistan:
Image above and below: Basso & Brooke, Design Museum by Ashley Woodfield.
But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver
In fifty, gold
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.
– Sylvia Plath, The Applicant
“The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed–would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper–the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.”
George Orwell, 1984.
“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! … Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey.
Everyday, artist Katie Horwich finds a discarded copy of tabloid newspaper, The Sun and paints the clothes that she is wearing onto the bare, naked Page Three girls. What started as a diary project while working in Boots chemist, where the compulsory uniform is an ankle length white pleated polyester skirt, and a navy tabard designed by Jeff Banks, has become an eight year magnum opus.
“It was a hot summer and I didn’t want to suffer alone so when I chanced upon a copy of The Sun on the pavement in front of me, I took it home and painted my unfortunate outfit onto Nikkala,” says Katie. Finding a copy the next day, she did the same. It soon became a compulsive ritual where she would scour the streets for discarded copies of The Sun, and then paint her days outfit onto the sartorially impoverished glamour models.
“Now, eight years later, I’m still extracting Becky from beneath a commuter’s heel on the tube,” she explains. “Peta’s more often than not in the Chinese take away at closing – until one day we open the paper and they’re not there anymore.”
‘Page Three Girls’ is on at Deptford’s Utrophia Project Space until 26 June, 2010. www.utrophia.net
Twin headed down to the Scala last week to catch up with Au Revoir Simone – the Brooklyn trio that puts out inimitably cool and wistful electronic pop. The ladies were in town for a rare London gig to celebrate their third album – Night Light – which is released next month on the ever hip label, Moshi Moshi.
We like quirky names – tell us where you got yours…
Annie: It’s from the movie Peewee’s Big Adventure. There’s a waitress in the movie called Simone who helps Peewee follow his dreams. So she inspires Peewee to go find his bike and he inspires her to leave her small town in Texas where she’s been waiting tables. And it’s something that they say when she’s leaving for Paris.
How would you describe your music?
Erika: I used to say lo-fi electro pop or keyboard pop, but I feel like with our new album we’ve entered this new…can we just say dream crystal?
Heather: I like it.
Annie: I don’t like it…
Erika: Nothing’s appropriate anymore…we’ve evolved so much.
Annie: I would say it’s all electronic music that doesn’t sound electronic…
Ok, so where do you get your influences from?
Annie: There is this band from Brighton called Electrelane and they have a way of making songs be simple but sound really big and beautiful.
Heather: And Stereolab – they have these amazing electronic soundscapes and
they’re warm too.
Erika: And we just played a show in Paris with Air, where we were all on stage together and we learned ten of their songs and they learnt five of ours and we did some covers. That was really cool, I feel we can relate to the way they write – they’re really attentive to the sounds, having several relationships with the sounds.
What’s the music scene like in Brooklyn?
Annie: It’s fun, its supportive, it’s collaborative – networking is so easy because everyone is so creative…almost everybody in our neighbourhood is a graphic designer or a photographer or video director, so there’s a really multi-talented support network.
Who are your favourite designers?
Annie: Oh there’s this designer called Rachel Antonoff, she’s new.
Annie: Yes she’s amazing.
Heather: We all like Philip Lim.
Erika: And there’s this website from New York called Refinary29.com that we all like. They have a great blend – not thinking about labels and designers. For me it’s just about finding rad stuff. We get to travel so much, this year I got to collect dresses from a beach shop in Singapore and amazing pieces from India.
So tell us, if we go to Brooklyn, what boutiques should we visit?
Erika: There’s this incredible one over on the Lower East Side called The Reformation and it’s this girl who had a clothing line called ‘Love by YaYa’ and she takes for example 80s silk pieces and cuts them to make them more contemporary.
Heather: Bird is really good; there are a lot of stores on the Lower East Side
Skipping naked through a deserted library sounds like one of those dreams where you inexplicably can’t find your clothes – or in this case, an image from the deliciously subversive world of Hasisi Park. The 27-year-old Korean photographer and film-maker’s images are beautiful daydreams flecked with raw reality.
Even her website bio is a glorious faction; from 2001 when she ‘put black-eyed Susan wallpaper on the windows’, to 2009 when she ‘renounced love’. And outside of her own make-believe world she has shot for big brands like Urban Outfitters and Converse, as well as making surrealist fashion films for Seoul Fashion Week.
“My clients haven’t asked me to shoot a totally different style from what I do mostly – which is really great.” says Park. “I carry my cameras with me all the time to capture intimate scenes and moments,”she continues. “They could be described as spontaneous moments – but I prefer to call them dramatic.”
See Hasisi Park’s work on show in ‘Untouched Secrets’ at the Curzon Soho from June 3rd. www.hasisipark.com
The heart of London’s design community beats faster than ever this week, as Clerkenwell hosts its own dedicated design festival. The first ever Clerkenwell Design Week, although actually only three days, packs in big names like Paul Smith, Tom Dixon and Tord Boontje as well as big ideas – like how to make clouds, snow ice-cream and the Chairless seat.
Look out for product designer Bethan Laura-Wood, and jewellery artist Wendy Ramshaw’s metre high brass and aluminium towers. Plus shoe designer Tracey Neuls has made two pairs of heels using Patricia Urquiloa and Tord Boontje fabrics that will be auctioned off. With new talents, ideas, exhibitions, food and pop-up shops – design junkies will be tripping out across the streets of EC1 in all directions.
Here, filmmaker Tim Foster brings ease, calm and serenity to the adrenaline-fueled scenes he shot backstage at Erdem’s recent show. And incidentally, who knew that the brilliant Erdem is also a Twin?
One woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure – so the saying goes – and for 26-year-old artist Erika Iris Simmons, recycling has become an art form. Using discarded tapes and forgotten old film reels she creates portraits of music and film icons; the results end up in galleries, rather than at landfill.
It started when, lacking cash for art supplies Simmons was forced to get creative with her materials. “I went through the house tearing up what I could,” she says. “That’s when I stumbled on the cassette tapes. I pulled out the ribbon and it reminded me of Jimi Hendrix’s hair, so that was the first thing I made.”
There’s now a wish-list on her website where people can donate their used objects, and wait to see what Simmons re-fashions them into. Topping her list at the moment are an old butterfly net, graduation tassels and vintage lace. We’re intrigued.
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