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.’’
Poet Kate Tempest was possibly our favourite feature in issue two of Twin. We love her attitude, her words and her new video for Line in the Sand directed by Joe Roberts.
A steady hand, super sharp vision and infinite patience make artist Dalton Ghetti’s impossibly tiny pencil tip sculptures possible. For the last twenty-five years the Brazilian-born, Connecticut based carpenter has been spending spare moments carving everything from boots to buttons into graphite with the aid of a blade, needle and knife. These miniature masterpieces can take years to complete, and are so delicate that inevitably they often break. But Dalton persists, making miraculous, microscopic art to give away to his friends.
You don’t often hear Mexico and Sheffield mentioned in the same sentence – but Mexican cover band, The Limits, are the exception. Named after the cult Sheffield club which closed in 1992, The Limits play nothing but covers of songs by the likes of Pulp, Def Leppard, Human League, ABC, Joe Cocker and the Arctic Monkeys.
The truth is, The Limits are the invention of Mexico City artist Laureana Toledo. Her brilliant project – ‘The Name of the Band is The Limit’ is a 30-minute documentary, and a magazine that borrows from the iconic format of The Face – all in their honour. Page after page of primary coloured layouts leave you wishing that the band – and The Face – really existed.
Laureana Toledo’s debut book, ‘The Limit’, is available at Trolley Books, £24. www.trolleybooks.com
Twins share a relationship unlike any other. This was the starting point for psychology student Amber Gayle’s thesis, ‘The Twin Survey’. This rather beautiful hand-sewn tome is published by Evil Twin Books as a small edition, and is put together with Gayle’s identical twin sister, Stacy Wakefield. A personal study, it looks at relationships between 150 twins across the world, shedding light on the closeness, co-operation and complications of twinship. Made for twins, by twins we like the look of this book on a one-of-a-kind attachment.
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 brothers Gert and Uwe Tobias create fantastic, vivid and abstract works of art. Together, through ceramic sculpture, large-scale woodcuts, gouache paintings and typewriter sketches, they draw on the folklore of their native Transylvania.
Now, the Tobias twins’ work goes on show at Nottingham Contemporary. The pair blend ghoulishness – skeletons and monsters abound – with a bright, bold colour palette that recalls modern graphic design. In their hands, Transylvania’s haunting legend won’t be fading anytime soon.
‘Gert & Uwe Tobias’ runs until the end of October at Nottingham Contemporary.
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.
Holly Miranda is the modest type. Her softly spoken, dreamy debut album, ‘The Magician’s Private Library’, concerns that limbo state between sleep and wakefulness. Even though it’s produced by TV on the Radio’s David Sitek it doesn’t shout for attention like many of its Brooklyn peers. Musically, Miranda inhabits an altogether quieter space. This is soulful, thoughtful and deep-spun pop that requires a bit of hush. And we’re happy to oblige.
Holly Miranda plays Borderline on the 26th July, and Westminster Library on the 27th July. ‘The Magician’s Private Library’ is out now on XL Records.
Twin enjoyed a sneaky peak of Reiss’s AW10 campaign at the Soho Hotel last week. The brand have cleverly commissioned Jamie Morgan to create a fashion film to show off their upcoming collection. Entitled, ‘Elements’ the two minute black and white short heralds dramatic climatic condition – as models battle against wind, rain and blizzards. We love the silent, powerful and symbolic presence of a glossy thoroughbred horse, which leaves one with the question – is style nature or nurture?
As night falls, four spotlights cross the stage at Somerset House to spell out the name of a band whose success this year has been huge. “It’s good to be home,” announce The XX. Without a chart hit, the minimalist Wandsworth trio have found love everywhere from the critics to Shakira, who covered ‘Islands’ at Glastonbury. Tonight, they stick to their simple set-up – the softness of Madley-Croft’s voice complimenting Sim’s deeper, husky tones, while on an elevated platform, Jamie Smith plays electronic drums. Up close, The XX thrill, and in the process give power to all the shy, introverted and Emo kids of the world.
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.
Gil Scott-Heron has come a long way since the Seventies spirit of ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’. Forty years on, he’s back, and touring with the self-analytical, poetic and redemptive, ‘I’m New Here’. Scott-Heron offers up the wisdom of his growing years in vocals that are deeper, darker and more resonant than ever. These days he’s more melancholic than anarchic. ‘I’m New Here’ is intense and thought-provoking and rather beautiful – just not what you’d expect from ‘the godfather of rap’.
Gil Scott-Heron plays at Somerset House tonight as part of ‘The Summer Series’. ‘I’m New Here’ (Rough Trade) is out now.
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
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