Organise

 This is what I did today:

Reorganise my past, filing trips, memories, tickets, postcards and assorted scraps according to place and date.

I think this may mean a new start for my blog. I was starting to find the way in which I was blogging to be unnatural and tedious. So here's to a new start - curiosities from everyday life. 

#1. 

From my time in Strasbourg, the 'centre of Europe' and stronghold of the EU parliament,  a town which for me is filled with brilliant sunlit memories which seeps through every crack and corner of my mind. 

From the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain - for their Art is Arp exhibition (dedicated to one of the most renown dada families  - the Arp family). 

This delightful poem, printed on the back of the brochure is at first apparently simple, then amusing, confusing and whimsical... it is also beautifully clean and clear in design. 

Configuration Strasbourgeoise

je suis né dans la nature.

je suis né à strasbourg.

je suis né dans un nuage.

je suis né dans une pompe.

je suis né dans une robe. 

j'ai quatre natures.

ja'i deux choses.

j'ai cing sens. 

sens et non-sens. 

nature est sans-sens. 

place à la nature. 

la nature est un aigle blanc. 

place dada à la nature dada.

je me modèle un livre à cinq boutons. 

le tour de force du sculpteur est une sombre bêtise.

extrait 1931

My translation : 

Strasbourg Configuration

I was born in nature.

I was born in a cloud.

I was born in a pump.

i was born in a dress.

i have four natures.

I have two things.

sense and non-sense

nature is without sense.

space to nature.

Nature is a white eagle.

dada place to dada nature.

i mould myself a book with five buds (my note: could also be buttons).

the tour de force of a sculptor is a sombre foolishness.

Instrumental

 Opinions are divided. Many would say that fashion designers and fashion students do not work, AT ALL, many would say that we work our behinds off. My personal experience  - which is informed by my 'work' ethic, tells me that I do both. The 'Break' I am now on, is precisely that. A time to o work and not to work - it is a time to relax, recharge, to find inspiration and motivation and to get started on a major project that will dominate my physicality and mental state for the next few months. My time is now split between doing errands - which I do not enjoy, and designing - which I do.

As a dreamer, I enjoy taking flights of fancy, putting my imagination onto paper and cloth, letting my hand act as a medium for my subconscious. Images captivate my attention on the verge of sleep and force me to emerge from my downy refuge to lean on the cold wooden bedside table where my notepad rests. I wake up in the morning, my mind still heavy with sleep and try to make sense of the boggled scribbles i had previously made, i take delight in unravelling the confusion. On the other hand I do not find the realisation of these dreams to be an enjoyable process, especially when my limited skills and patience cannot help me physically conjure up the sparkling phantom images in my mind.  But sometimes I come across something that seems to express exactly what i am thinking...

Underwater scene with the Cristal Bachet, Glass Harmonica, Ondes Martenot. 

Body Art

 I'm not entirely sure how I came upon Nicole Tran Va Bang's work, but it was on one of those prolonged surfing/researching sessions. When I saw it I was struck by the beauty and  of the images and was immediately reminded of a friend and her interest in body mod and tattooing.

Playing with people's perceptions of their bodies and the ways in which the body can be 'altered'. Nicole Van Ba Trang's shows more than just beautiful women, her un-traditional way of capturing a traditional subject (the nude) is thought provoking and witty. 

Check out more of her work @ http://www.tranbavang.com/photography/

Fashion and Intellectual Property

 While Post-modernism has most certainly made its mark, the creative industries, particularly the fashion industry, are profoundly modernist. Constantly searching for the new, the individual and the unique, fashion designers often go to extremes only to have the fruits of their labour imitated by fast-fashion chains within moments. While some may say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it an also be highly annoying. Imagine putting your heart, soul (and money, blood, sweat and tears) into a work, only to see it being copied and sold on the streetside below. Not nice. But as fashion designers, we'll all willingly and sometimes thoughtlessly or subconciously 'draw inspiration' from the works of other designers, often many at once, and piece these little bits of inspiration  - in the form of a sleeve, a collar, a cuff - together to create something with which we can express ourselves. We create and ride along with trends, waves of communal thought in which many designers share ideas.. "It's not copying, it's the zeitgeist" we say. 'Exaggerated collars are so very NOW!' We often come up with our own versions and see them copied, wish, we could do something about it, but fail to consider that a collar is purely something that goes around your neck  - and that there aren't that many ways to design one (Well you tell me, but I don't think there is) - so there isn't much space for variation anyway. This is why Intellectual Copyright is not prevalent in the fashion Industry, but it may be a good thing...




Here's what Johanna Blakely, Deputy Director of the Norman Lear Center,  had to say. 


Johanna Blakely; Lessons from Fashion's Free Culture. 

Michael Anastassiades

 It depends on my mood, but I always appreciate those things that express complex ideas through the simplest means .. like maths, direct language and analogies.. Not to say that I am good at any of those. I'd say that Michael Anastassiades' work is a prime example of this. Conceptually motivated but communicated through the purest of means, It's like comparing a haiku and a sonnet - a metaphor and a verbosequasitryhardwannabeintellectualrambling...  I find it really very emotive. 


The Social light and the anti-social light. 

The social light is based on a heart-warming idea, glowing  only when there is conversation in the surrounding environment. Conversely, the Anti-social light only glows in complete silence, noise causes the light to dim and eventually switch off.

The Message Cup - a portable, mobile voice recording and playback device, designed for message exchanges in the household. Individuals record and playback messages by turning the cup up and down.

Michael Anastassiades' foray's into jewellery - Bronze and Swarovski crystal rings ... 

 Geometric, multi-faceted and different from every angle.. Beautiful in so many ways. 
Look further at http://www.michaelanastassiades.com/

Sparkle and Glow

One more for today. Just incredible, like Christmas, the one and only Hussein Chalayan.
I aspire to one day be able do things like this.

Electrified

 Warm colours warm you. Cool colours cool. What if this was to be expressed in the cloth you wear, sleep under and wrap yourself in. A blanket takes on a homely and warm print when heated, a summer jacket cools itself against the skin and refreshes the eye with lively, icey prints. 








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