Following last year’s collaboration with Barbie, next year MAC cosmetics are due to team up with the awesome French artist Fafi. They worked together on a line of sexy make ups. they’ll be featured on the packaging of the huge MAC/Fafi collaboration due next spring.
Celebrating all things design and fantastic, we wish to bring your attention to the work of 19th century designer William Morris whose work and ideas have had an enormous influence on the course of modern design and decorative arts, inspiring directly for instance the Art Nouveau movement in France and Belgium. William Morris remains in fact one of the most influential English designers. He was also an artist, a writer, a poet and a translator. In 1861, he founded his own design company which produced innovative and alternative works, some of which can still be purchased today.
Along with some of his artist friends of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, he was one of the principal founders of the British Arts and Crafts movement, a pioneer of the socialist movement in Britain, and a writer of poetry and fiction who inspired the creation of the fantasy genre. While he worked for some time as an architect, his most famous creations are his wallpaper and patterned fabrics designs.
Inspired by the writings of the art critic John Ruskin who preached a return to the inspiration found in nature and the medieval ethos of authenticity and craftsmanship, the Pre-Raphaelites refused the hierarchy of artistic mediums, embracing in one movement painting and the decorative arts. Morris can also be considered one of the founding figures of book art, a genre which he helped revive through the legacy of the legendary Kelmscott Press which he founded in 1891.
Finally, the work of Morris also presents an interesting tension between his aesthetic aspirations and political convictions. On the one hand, Morris and his daughter May were amongst Britain’s first socialists, working directly with Eleanor Marx and Engels to begin the socialist movement. Morris, like all his pre-raphaelite friends, also had a violent dislike of the prevalent bourgeois tastes in Victorian England. Yet, on the other hand, even Morris who believed that art should be affordable and hand-made cannot have ignored that, ultimately, his creations were luxurious objects that only could be purchased by the most affluent members of the Victorian upper classes.
Socialism vs the social reality of luxury design part 1…
Jim Houser is a skateboarder who works around this universe, he creates his installations like maps of what he has in mind. His paintings are inspired by science-fiction, animals, plants, travels and…secrets and he lists images and sounds catching his attention. Exhibition from January 28t until February 23rd.
Illustrative is a international forum for contemporary illustrative art, allowing established and emerging artists from the UK, France, Germany and other European countries to showcase their works. Its home base is Berlin, where Illustrative is held every year in September for three weeks followed by a further Illustrative in Paris.
Showcasing a variety of themes, styles and techniques, the show captures the status quo and the newest developments in illustrative arts. Each edition of the event is composed of a main exhibition and a series of thematic sections dedicated to specific topics and approaches (book art, fashion illustration, animation, set design, young talents, etc) . In addition to the exhibition, a series of events, discussions and lectures are held around contemporary illustration and associated areas.
Here is some cool stuff from the some of the emerging artists featured in the ” Young Talents ” section in the last Paris edition :
( From Cedric Quissola )
( From Didier Blondeau )
To coincide with the unveiling of her Spring/Summer 2008 collection Anna Vince is pleased to announce the launch of her new website.Featuring a comprehensive biography, design statement and a full back catalogue of all her collections, it will provide a valuable and entertaining source of information to both press and buyers.
The site going live also marks something of a triple celebration for the award-winning, Cordwainers-trained designer. Thanks to funding courtesy of the Topshop New Generation sponsorship scheme Anna will also make her London Fashion Week debut this February.
In recent years Anna’s work has won the designer acclaim for her ability blend heritage with modernity to create leather accessories which seamlessly bridge the gap between fashion and tradition.
Now, having cemented her reputation as one of the country’s most exciting accessories designers, a dedicated stand in the prestigious LFW exhibition tents promises to become an invaluable aid to raising her international profile.
To find out more just go to www.annavince.com
Credits:Photo: Babette Pauthier, Make up: Philippe Miletto, Model: Leanne, Text: Maia Adams
James White is a designer and illustrator from Halifax, Canada, He recently develop a series of posters.
Détournement d’attention is a creative high-end womenswear fashion label.
The concept is a french play on words expressing the rapture/ the diversion of someone’s attention.
Détournement d’attention is an experience narrated by an individual living in a city who has dreams to achieve. Those aspirations are in contradiction with the demands of such an environment leading to a critical appreciation of one’s surroundings translated through satire, poetry, humour……
