The trailer for the third season of Girls is here and the wait is soon over!
HBO is promising more drama between Shoshanna and Ray, Marnie drowning her sorrow in the gym, and of course, Lena Denham’s lead character Hannah twerking on someone’s grave. Watch the trailer below.
The new season premiers January 12, 2014.
This Friday, District MTV is taking over the Design Museum to showcase 80’s and 90’s style revolutions for one night only. The late night celebration is hosted by Harvey Nichols’ former Fashion Director, Paula Reed and co-curated by Double Decker, an independent curating agency specialising in design and applied arts. Rewind The Tape set out to explore the sub-cultures we grew to love, from Goth to New Romantic and Acid Rave to Pop – it will display the leading and emerging contemporary talent, including DJs, directors, photographers and designers, all of which were influenced by the 80s and 90s. Paula Reed will also be launching her new books, Fashion in the 80’s and Fashion in the 90’s, as well as head up a number of talks with with young fashion talent. The night’s other activities include 80’s and 90’s themed make-over sessions by London College of Fashion, exclusive film screenings by new directors including MVA and ASVOFF awarded Zaiba Jabber and upcoming DJ’s such as Edifeye and Siobhan Bell will take to the decks. It’s a night full of nostalgia, poping with entertainment and it’s not to be missed.
To be part of the experience, send images of your style during the decades and your pose could be featured during the evening. Send to: rewindthetape@designmuseum.org
Rewind The Tape – Friday 6 December, 6:30 – 10pm
Converse Skate Ambassador Pontus Alv had the idea to make a little film about cruising around Paris with a jump ramp and a couple of plates, inspired by 1989 and the Converse CONS CTAS Pro Skate sneakers.
“Back when I was a kid, we all had a jump ramp outside our house. We painted that and our grip tape and expressed ourselves in so many ways. I miss those days and I miss those details,” says Pontus Alv.
Alongside the film is a special edition newspaper also titled, Trocadéro Days. It features photography by Nils Svensson, illustrations by Pontus Alv and interviews with the other Converse Skate Ambassadors that were part of this project. Look out for it in all good Skate stores across Europe.
This week sees the much anticipated release of Anjelica Huston’s memoir. The first of her two part autobiography, ‘A Story Lately Told; Coming Of Age In Ireland, London and New York’ documents Huston’s eventful rise from director’s daughter to screen star.
Reading the press around this release it seems there is not much Huston hasn’t packed into her 62 years – modelling for Vogue, being shot by Richard Avedon and Helmut Newton, partying with Mick Jagger, her mother dying in a car crash and an attempted suicide alongside her iconic film roles in Prizzi’s Honor and The Addams Family.
The book also focuses on her high profile love affairs, most famously her turbulent 17 year relationship with Jack Nicholson. “When Jack and I lived together, every time the phone rang it was for him. It was difficult. It felt like his world and it was.”
With both her grandfather and her father winning Oscars, as well as her, Huston is steeped in Hollywood lore. Glamorous and classic, she lived a life that stars of today could only dream of. The length of her success is admirable, and in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine she claims, “I’m in it for myself, and I’m a woman. So yeah, I’m a feminist.” With no ghost writer, Huston has found the process of writing her memoir invigorating, “I feel like a chapter of my life is over, and part of writing the book, of this moment for me, is to say ‘Ok – that’s that.'” We wonder what the next installment will entail.
‘A Story Lately Told; Coming Of Age In Ireland, London and New York’ is available now on www.amazon.com
Text by Beccy Hill
Vivienne Westwood is working with her friend Ian Kelly, award-winning biographer of Brummell and Giacomo Casanova, to write the first authorised memoir of her life, due to be published by Picador in October 2014.
It will be personal memoir which will be formed partly of her own voice and partly by contributions from her vast network of friends, family and associates.
“Vivienne is much more than what you first see,” says Kelly. “She is passionately committed to human rights and to eco-politics, but as well as that I am keen to tell the truth about a huge-hearted, warm and witty individual, whose face and clothes are known the world over, but who is also recognisably the Derbyshire primary school teacher who met and fell in love with Malcolm McLaren and changed the world.”
The publication will cover Westwood’s life from before she was a well-known designer, to opening her infamous clothing emporium on the King’s Road, to starting up her own label as a self-taught designer and meeting her current husband Andreas Kronthaler. Her extensive political activism and charitable work will also be covered.
A book that we at Twin looking forward to get our hands on.
At the moment the Barbican is showing the stage production of Scenes from a Marriage, by Ingmar Bergman, in the theatre from November 14 – 17.
To complement the stage, they also present a short cycle of films by Bergman foregrounding the importance and influence of women in his work.
Ingmar Bergman was a Swedish director, writer and producer for film, stage and television. He is recognized as one of the most accomplished and influential film directors of all time and has directed over sixty films and documentaries.
His work is emotional and very honest, often portraying scenes of death, illness, faith, betrayal, bleakness and insanity.
Barbican are showing two films, the first one is Persona, about an actress who loses her voice during a performance and subsequently refuses to speak. The second one is Cries and Whispers, telling the angst-drenched story of a woman who is dying of cancer in the family mansion, and her two sisters who return home to comfort her.
Both films are starring the Norwegian actress and movie director Liv Ullmann.
Don’t miss out on these two beautiful films, order your tickets now at barbican.org.uk/film
Image from Scenes from a marriage
LE BOOK, the international reference book for fashion, photography, moving image and advertising, presents the latest edition of CONNECTIONS, this time in London on November 14 and 15.
In 2005 LE BOOK launched CONNECTIONS, a custom-made tradeshow for the creative community. At CONNECTIONS, an international network of creative talent and decision-makers gather under the LE BOOK label to form a new, living, breathing pulse of what’s going on in the world of trendsetting image-making.
The event is specially conceived for high-end professionals in the creative industry: creative directors, art directors, art buyers, image directors, marketing and communication executives, fashion editors and photo editors.
Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to view portfolios and reels, source new talent / services and meet with your creative peers. Because CONNECTIONS is like getting six months of work done in one day.
By invitation only – register now lebook.com/connections
If you happen to be in Copenhagen this week, don’t miss out on Copenhagen’s international documentary festival (CPH:DOX).
CPH:DOX is the largest documentary film festival in Scandinavia and is devoted to supporting independent and innovative film and presents the best and brightest in contemporary non-fiction, art cinema and experimental film. Each year the festival fills the Copenhagen cinemas with a selection of more than 200 films from around the world.
The festival is on from November 7 – 17.
Read more about it and order your tickets here: www.cphdox.dk
When we think of future technologies we often think of shiny silver slim stuff that streamlines our experience and simplifies our day to day. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, designer, artist and writer, is in fact invested in future processes that disrupt that ideology. A prominent voice on synthetic biology, a techno-science based on the intersection between nature and design, Daisy has worked on various provocative projects, notably E. chromi – a speculation on colour-coded disease detection that would allow you to diagnose yourself by looking at the colour of your faeces! With a degree in Architecture from Cambridge, time at Harvard, as well as an MA in Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art, Daisy has no formal training in science yet continues to push the field outside its comfort zone. Grow Your Own… Life After Nature, co-curated with designer Anthony Dunne, synthetic biologist Paul Freemont and biohacker Cathal Garvey at Science Gallery in Dublin is her most recent pursuit and will surely gather a host of controversial responses (Hint: it features human cheese)
Unlike all the tech and gadgets we deal with, anything biological is really a bit gross. What are your thoughts on their dissimilar appeal?
Drones are perhaps ‘sexy’ to the people in the tech community but others find them frightening. But I agree – biology is wet, it’s gloopy and it’s threatening when it’s growing. There is the idea that it’s okay in context but when it’s out of place, we don’t like it. At the Grow Your Own… we have Sissel Tolaas’ and Christina Agapakis’ Selfmade ‘human cheese’ that they made for the Synthetic Aesthetics project, displayed for the first time in Dubin. For some, this project is just disgusting and visceral, it’s gross…you don’t eat stuff from your body! But is this really from your body or is it your bacteria, and not you?
When do you think the context will arrive where biology in that sense is acceptable – will it ever happen?
Synthetic biologists talk online casino about being able to control biology … but will we actually be able to control biology in the same we control other design materials? That’s something that interests me as a designer, understanding what a machine or a designed ‘thing’ is when it changes or evolves, and whether we will ever tolerate that idea of change. You may have seen Suzanne Lee’s Biocouture jackets made from bacterially produced cellulose. For a lot of people there is something weird about the material aesthetic – we’ve become so used to mass-produced uniformity and somehow we feel safe with it, which in itself is strange.
You’ve just started your PhD, what are you going to explore?
The project is called ‘The Dream of Better,’ I’m exploring why we think the future is going to be better. What role has design played in constructing hope around technology? For example when you get a new iPhone you believe somehow that it’s going to make everything better, there is an inherent faith in technology and design for most people. When did everyone stop thinking that the Garden of Eden was where it was at?
That’s interesting because you often speak about the concept of perfection and I’m fascinated by what dictates perfection or ‘better’?
The world is so complex that someone in the end has to make that decision. You realise that you can put all these protocols in place but the decisions are often ultimately made in quite an esoteric way. A lot of my practice is about managing and opening up spaces within synthetic biology, as an emerging technology, and asking whether there is a role for art and design here? If synthetic biology is realisable, what should or shouldn’t we be making with it?
How do we know when we’ve reached the future? How do we know when we are there?
Maybe I don’t believe in the ‘future’. I’m not that optimistic about it and I don’t think that’s necessarily understood when I talk about my work. I remember having a conversation with my mum years ago and she said ‘I don’t think you should have children…I don’t think today’s world is a good world to bring children into, my generation has ruined it,’ which is an extraordinary thing to feel. But that’s what I’m curious about, the belief that some people have that ‘oh, its just going to sort itself out and it’s inevitable that it will’ … but will it?
Text by Monique Todd
Portrait of Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg by Harry Borden.
dublin.sciencegallery.com/growyourown
E. chromi, 2009. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg & James King with the 2009 University of Cambridge iGEM team.
The Synthetic Kingdom: A Natural History of the Synthetic Future, 2009. Photo by Carole Suety
Seasons of the Void, 2013. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Sascha Pohflepp & Andrew Stellitano
Gimpel Fils Gallery is currently showing unseen photographs by the British fashion and documentary photographer Corinne Days’s early work.
May the Circle Remain Unbroken shows the people that the work brought together and the friendships that formed over 20 years ago and continue to endure three years after her passing. It also illuminates Day’s pioneering approach to photography where the boundaries are blurred to the extent that it is impossible to dissect the constructed from real. Corinne and long term partner Mark Szaszy’s Brewer Street flat often doubled as a set where friends, models and muses all overlapped. In addition to the photographs, a series of music videos by Mark will be screened bringing to life the protagonists in Day’s work.
The exhibition is on display at Gimpel Fils until November 23.
This week the Fashion and Textile Museum opens a new exhibition that takes a look at the literature adored by fashionable women since the 1950’s. Curated by writer and journalist Sarah Vine the selection features novels such as Bonjour Tristesse, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Couples, Lace and The Secret History. The fiction in question has been choosen from the archives of Penguin Books, displayed together with designs by British couture house Bellville Sassoon, they explore the changing taste of some of Britain’s most glamourous women across six decades. With both literary classics and conterversal titles alike, authors such as L.P. Hartley and Truman Capote to Shirley Conran, Marian Keyes and Zadie Smith are highlighted, giving us an alternative view into a certain social history.
‘The design of Penguin paperbacks has always both captured and contributed to the visual culture of the day, connecting writers both old and new with the contemporary reader,” says Joanna Prior, Managing Director of Penguin General. “This selection of novels, alongside the glamorous Bellville Sassoon dresses on show, provides a glimpse of what the fashionable, style-conscious woman was reading during these decades.’
Fiction in Fashion is open until 11 January 2014.
Penelope Lively wants to reinvent our idea of widow. Her new book Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life In Time was published last week, written ‘from the view of old age’. In a piece for the Telegraph on Sunday’s Stella magazine, Lively writes ‘I had more than 40 years of coupledom; to find yourself alone after that is to feel curiously curtailed, as though now you are only a half, no longer a whole.’ She has had to adopt a whole new way of living, and she is not alone. It is a common known fact that women outlive their male counterparts, and she reflects ‘life expectancy for women in this country is 82, for men – 78. But in reality, looking around, the gap seems more pronounced.’ She believes widows of today are a force to reckoned with – they’re in better health and want to spend their time being active and engaged, ‘I look around at my widowed friends, and the stereotype evaporates: one is a briskly busy academic, another writes books that are read around the world, another – at 85 – is a sheep farmer’. Not Victorian matriarch’s dressed head to toe in black then.
Ammonites & Leaping Fish: A Life In Time is available from Penguin Books now.
Text by Beccy Hill
Next week on Monday, October 14, Fronline Club London is screening Pussy Riot – A punk Prayer, followed by a Q&A with co-directors Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin.
Last year in February the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot performed a 40 second ‘punk prayer’ on the altar of Moscow’s most esteemed cathedral. Through this act they openly challenged Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church, setting in motion one of the greatest show trials of recent times.
In Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, filmmakers Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin closely follow the trial, which sees three members stand accused of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred”. Through incredible access to the legal system, they show the courtroom where Nadia, Masha and Katia sit incarcerated in a small booth, articulately defending their actions.
Book your tickets now at frontlineclub.bookinglive.com
Mother London wants to see your bush. But in the name of feminism of course. Project Bush is an initiative that asks woman from all walks of life to have theirs photographed on Thursday October 3 anonymously, to stand up to the pressures of modern society.
In working with a number of feminist groups, Mother London’s campaign sets out to discuss feminism in 2013 – how does it manifest today, what are the challenges it faces and what does it mean to be a feminist? What they realise already is that it’s all about choice. However, when it comes to waxing culture, some young women feel the choice is out of their hands. And so by asking women to bare all, they hope to challenge the stereotype and help people see the choice is, in fact, all theirs.
All bushes will be displayed in a public exhibition at Mother London and all involved will be invited with their friends to a public viewing. So if you would like to have your bush anonimously photographed by top photographer Alisa Connan, 15 Minute slots can be booked all day and in the evening of the 3rd by emailing bush@motherlondon.com.
#projectbush
motherlondon.com 10 Redchurch Street, E1 7DD
Last week, during London Fashion Week, Twin went to see the private view of Dressing the Screen: The Rise of Fashion Film at Somerset House.
It was a screening exploring the role of female film makers in contemporary fashion film. Ground-breaking, subversive and sometimes playful female filmmakers are challenging stereotypes, shooting the female form in ways that are at odds with traditional representations of femininity and glamour and are questioning the relationship between garment and wearer.
It was a selection of 9 short fashion films, from an exhibition that will be on display in Singapore supported by ICAS and LASALLE, with over 20 films exploring the origins, history and pioneering role UK filmmakers and designers have played in the development of fashion film. An official fringe event of Digital Fashion Week Singapore 2013 will open to the public on September 28 and run for four weeks in the lead up to Digital Fashion Week Singapore. Curated by filmmaker Kathryn Ferguson and designed by System Sovereign X Fuur.
Kathryn Ferguson said: “Fashion film has become one of the main tools for showcasing new work and giving immediate access to fashion in an exciting and dramatic way. Digital Fashion Week Singapore is a truly pioneering event that demonstrates the hunger for innovation in the fashion industry in Singapore so it feels like an appropriate place to exhibit this work.”
Footage from the screening at Somerset house will be available at showstudio.com
For over 30 years, german photographer and film maker Peter Lindbergh has created a defining language of persona and iconography. His work is now the subject of a solo exhibition at Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld. Occupying two floors, the exhibition consists of photographs spanning the 1980s through the present, many never before exhibited, each personally selected by the photographer from his archives. The exhibition is a kaleidoscopic, non-linear journey into Lindbergh’s pictorial world.
The exhibition also includes poetry by Pulitzer Prize Nominee Forrest Gander. A recorded voice, reciting Gander’s poem will loop throughout the exhibition.
Twin spoke to the legendary photographer about his solo exhibition and highlights of his career.
The exhibition will be on display at Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld from September 7 until October 4.
Tell us about the exhibition, what can we expect?
This is an exhibition with about 35 images, many of them never presented in a gallery. Viewers can expect a mixture of portraits, landscapes and still lifes mixed with Forrest Gander’s reading of the writing he did especially for the exhibition, which will permeate through a sound system for the duration of the show.
How did the idea to work with Forrest Gander come up?
This idea came about because I love Forrest’s poems. He’s also from the Mohave Desert, where many of my pictures have been shot, so it made him the perfect collaborator. I just love the idea of words and images together and think that one will inspire or enrich the other.
It is not just fashion images but also landscape and still lifes, is there a link between them? I don’t think that there are many so called “fashion pictures” in the exhibition. It’s more about a poetic mixture of portraits, landscapes and some still lifes. I do lots of landscapes and stills when I’m out shooting and love to mix all these different types of images together. In the end, I always enjoy doing a portrait or something, even when I’m shooting stills of hands or the desert.
Do you have a favorite moment as a fashion photographer?
An important moment was at the end of the eighties, when I could not, or didn’t want to, photograph women in the style used by fashion photographers and magazines. This is why I refused to work for American Vogue. After Alexander Liberman called me in to ask me why, I explained to him that my view of women was very different from that of Vogue. He proposed that I take one of his editors and photograph the type of women that I want and to show him the results. So I went with Carlyne Cerf to Los Angeles and photographed six models in white shirts. The models were Christy Turlington, Estelle Lefebure, Karen Alexander, Linda Evangelista, Rachel Williams and Tatjana Patitz. This was the beginning of 1988. These women were later recognized as supermodels and dominated fashion magazines around the world.
How do you think fashion photography has changed since you started?
Although there are interesting photographers working today, I believe that mainstream fashion photography today has put itself in a corner by overusing Photoshop. This has created an image of women that I totally disagree with. For me, fashion photographs are portraits of women in the context of the time they’re shot. The definition of a woman was always more important to me than anything else in fashion photography. The term “fashion photographer” is not automatically identifiable with an interesting point of view, when you study the actual fashion magazines. I’m saying this about mainstream tendencies, there are, of course, interesting magazines out there today.
Where do you find inspiration?
Inspiration is everywhere and everything is inspiration.
Are you working on some new projects now?
We’re currently working on several upcoming museum and gallery exhibitions, as well as two book projects. These include a large museum exhibition in Zagreb, Croatia (April 2014), an exhibition at Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles (February 2014) and a second volume of “Images of Women” featuring work from 1995-2013.
This is the question currently being posed by the blog If U Weren’t Afraid. Hosted by Lean In, the campaign run by the chief operating officer of Facebook Sheryl Sandburg, the site features pictures of women holding up Post-It’s, whiteboards or notebooks with their answers. “Start my own company” “Explore the world alone” or even “Be silly more often”. There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of things we would all do if the ability to remove failure or fear was an option, but this is even more so as a woman. Studies show women are less ambitious than men, avoid leadership roles and are afraid to speak up.
The project aims to challenge women, to acknowledge that we all have fears and to share them with one another, in a bid to conquer them. “We hope the women on this blog will inspire you to ask yourself, ‘What would I do if I weren’t afraid?’ And then to go and do it.” So ask yourself what you would do today, and who knows, maybe you’ll start doing it tomorrow.
Text by Beccy Hill
You wouldn’t go to a supermarket to pick up a pornographic DVD. So why are magazines containing bare breasted women, misogynistic writing and adverts for escort agencies readily available alongside your eggs, bread and milk? This is the question currently being posed by feminist groups UK Feminista and Object, who have focused on Tesco as the UK’s biggest retailer, in the hope that other chains and newsagents will follow suit.
On the 24th August they are encouraging the public to stage family-friendly protests outside their local store, “talking to customers about why Tesco shouldn’t be stocking sexist, harmful lads’ mags, and collecting petition signatures.” Kat Banyard, director of UK Feminista, says, “Stocking sexist publications which fuel sexist attitudes that underpin violence against women is in complete contradiction to any claim of corporate social responsibility.”
Within days of the campaign’s launch back in May, with supporters contacting the supermarket via social media and emails, the company agreed to a meeting. “The supermarket already has a policy of not stocking adult or pornographic magazines, so,” says Banyard, “one of the key things we asked was why do they have sexist, pornographic magazines like Nuts and Zoo on their shelves?” A Tesco spokesperson responded that, “We are looking into the issues that these groups have raised and were happy to meet with them for a constructive discussion. We are also talking to our customers, to find out what they think, before we make any decisions about next steps.”
Join the debate and sign the petition at losetheladsmags.org.uk
Text by Beccy Hill
After their sell-out event, How Bazaar! in July, the Pamflet girls are back at the Dome Room tonight, hosting another summer salon. BIRDS IN THE WOODS sees Katie Kitamura, author of Gone to the Forest, and Evie Wyld, author of All the Birds, Singing, reading from their latest works. Katie, a New York-based art critic and Granta Best Young British Novelist as well as South-Londoner Evie will also take part in a Q&A after their readings.
The second half of the salon will take the form of a book club discussion, with Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea as the hot topic. The book in question is a Pamflet favourite, inspired by Jane Eyre and was originally published in 1966.
The Summer Salon takes place at The Dome Room at Drink, Shop & Do on 9 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, N1 9DX, London, from 7-9pm tonight, Monday August 5. The next salon, GENERATION, takes place on September 18 with Judith Mackrell, author of Flappers: Six Women of a Dangerous Generation.
Draw Blood for Proof is an intimate look into the work process of Mario Sorrenti.
A large collection of Polaroids, snapshots, ephemera, prints and contact sheets document over 15 years of Sorrenti’s work throughout the course of this tome’s 300-plus collage-style pages.
Flick through this hardback for insight into the mind of one of fashion’s most fascinating photographers.
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