Opening to a cranked-up and cracked-out chamber orchestra's musak rendition of 'Material Girl' straight from a hotel elevator, Jeremy Scott's show proved he is no master of understatement. And that's exactly why we love him. For S/S 2009 Jeremy has evidently been inspired by the credit crunch and the safe... [more]
An essential component of Paris Fashion Week is strong, strong coffee - especially when, like tonight, a show is running way, way late. Jeremy Scott has dragged us out to the Elysee Montmartre near Pigalle for the final show of the night - and that take-out check is the invite.... [more]
On the streets of the Marais, the lovely Morgane Dubled kindly let me snap her picture (despite the barrage of several thousand a few moments earlier on the catwalk), showing the rather chic chiffon-bound heads Gaultier gave to all his models.
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...well half of it at least! The perils of juggling two camera phones (and trying not to drop either off a balcony). Please note the dance troup in dashing Gaultier jerseys noirs emoting for all they're worth.
Jean Paul Gaultier, it seems, is in the mood for dancing - as if the dance-hall venue, ballet school decor and modern dance troupe limbering-up and then performing an interpretive dance to open his show wasn't enough of a clue, Gaultier also had his favourite all-rounder Coco Rocha perform a... [more]
Gaultier's catwalk featured the trappings and acoutrements of a ballet school, including a corps de ballet completing their warm-up in sliced and diced Gaultier chiffon and Tatouages bodysuits
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Rei Kawakubo's collection, like her venue, was dark. Dark in physicality and dark in psychology. Perhaps only she could show a collection ostensibly for summer in a pit of blackness and entirely swathed in that self same shade. There were slight exceptions: silver and white was used for projecting body-amour,... [more]
When people say they are 'left =C3=ADn the dark' at a Comme des Garcons presentation, it usually relates to Rei Kawakubo's ever-cerebral design vision. This season, however, it's quite literal - there isn't a speck of light in the venue. Luckily, Comme's ever-helpful staff - with torches - were on... [more]
Ann Demeulemeester's opening outfits were a revelation - two pleated and gathered short dresses like brief Greek chitons in white silk-chiffon. Standard fare for a Spring womenswear collection you may well think, but from the Queen of androgyny who has previously dressed her girls (and boys) as contemporary interpretations of... [more]
Primitivism and Futurism seem two overriding influences on the collections so far and although Issey Miyake have always pitched their tent in the latter category, this season they went tribal. If Westwood printed her garments with the estimated $30 billion it will take to save the world's rainforests (plus... [more]
Paris, I am constantly told, is a very very small city. Unfortunately it proved far bigger and more confusing than I anticipated this evening, as I managed to miss the first half of the Yamamoto show. Westwood started an hour late, yet before many guests were in their seats: Yamamoto... [more]
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'DO IT YOURSELF' proclaimed Vivienne Westwood's invite and show programme, and while many fashion declarations of 'make do and mend' ring hollow, Westwood's position as punk provocateur gives her more kudos than any other. In the seventies, she declared that she loved the ideas of kids ripping off her SEX... [more]
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The very definition of a feel good finale!
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I now know exactly what I want for my birthday
Much mythologised but rarely felt is the true 'fashion moment', where something is so utterly, thrillingly wonderful that it transcends mere seasonal fashion and becomes something closer to art, something timeless, something truly monumental. This evening's Margiela show was such an event. A celebration of the house's 20th anniversary, the... [more]
White coats are pretty much always the rage chez Martin Margiela. This season's show is taking place way out in the 19th, in a huge open-air black tent - and the seating is pretty much a free-for-all. Tres egalitarian...
My somewhat cryptic invite may contain all the information to get to the venue, but god (and Margiela themselves) only know what the cryptic figure six on the reverse stands for. For the record, so far I've seen '1', 'A' and blank. The plot thickens...
Far from exciting on a purely visual level, to accompany our S/S 2009 front-of-house reportage from the Paris collections SHOWstudio have recruited - well, cajoled - model Lily Donaldson into touching base with us via PHONECARTE throughout the course of the week. Calling from very taffeta-lined trenches of la mode,... [more]
Fashion seems to have a fascination with discomfort. Crippling torsos with corsetry, shackling the legs with hobble skirts and stretching tendons to breaking-point with higher-than-high heels: these have been part of the fashion lexicon for decades, even centuries, and are not prone to change. Bless seemed to be on a... [more]
Dazed Digital's Contributing Editor Susanna Lau shares red wine, pretzels and her views on the season's shows while waiting for the fun to begin at Bless' gallery installation.
A F Vandevorst wanted to talk about one thing: sex. In every permuation and persuasion, it siffused their collection, with acres of slit silk charmeuse, chantilly lace insertation, tights stitched with seams up the back and outlining shadows of suspender-belts and garter, and heels so high the models had... [more]
A perpetual cause of consternation for me is fashion's reliance on lateness - which more often than not leads to me sitting cold-arsed on a wall outside of the venue waiting for everyone else to catch up (usually including the designer). Alas, if today's Rick Owens show taught me anything,... [more]
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I felt I really should show my face before beginning today's coverage!
Evidently, Gareth Pugh's invite wasn't just an exercise in clever graphicism: his entire S/S 2009 collection, from two-toned wedge shoes to laser-cut eyelashes, was rendered in black and white. Or more precisely, light and dark. In a venue flooded with light, thanks to an uncompromising installation of fluorescent tubes, his... [more]
Just in case anyone missed the fact that Gareth Pugh is showing in Paris this season, he handily spelled it out across the poster-sized invite for his show, also the first of our Paris S/S 2009 collections. Breath is decidedly bated...
When we launched our project last year to create an Internet fragrance, our initial focus was on the ground-breaking aspect of creating, marketing and selling a perfume wholly online, keeping the concept of the scent itself strictly under wraps. Now, we are able to bring more details of not only... [more]
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The unfortunate side-effect of concluding our Future Tense project during London Fashion Week is that some of our contributions were inevitably delayed by the hectic demands of the press junket. Daryoush Haj-Najafi's essay 'Glamour's Changing' is a case in point - but it was definitely worth the wait. Dissecting the... [more]
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This will be my last posting as Editor in Chief of SHOWstudio. After seven glorious years working on probably the most innovative and certainly most challenging project in international fashion media, I am leaving to take up a professorship in fashion imagery at The London College of Fashion.
The decision... [more]
Today, after seven amazing years, Penny leaves us to become Professor of Fashion Imagery at the London College of Fashion. To say that she will be missed by every member of SHOWstudio is a very large understatement.
I was more or less half-way through the maelstrom of coloured chaos that was... [more]
As our frantic blogging this week has perhaps displayed, London Fashion Week is becoming an increasingly jam-packed affair, but this season Nana Aganovich and Brooke Taylor of young London label Aganovich have decided to opt out of the rat-race and present their collection via film here on SHOWstudio. From 6pm... [more]
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It is an astonishing fact, given the rate at which fashion turns around and reinvents itself, that one of the most highly anticipated shows on the London Fashion Week calendar is by a designer who has been in the game for nigh on forty years. But people know a good... [more]
As yesterday marked the end of our Future Tense project, we figured the best way to go out would be with a bang. Or rather, with a bash. Celebrating the launch of Hywel Davies' book '100 New Fashion Designers' along with the film season's finale, SHOWstudio, Laurence King and Diesel... [more]
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After five intense, immense weeks of daily Future Tense films from a huge range of talents at every level of the industry, we end on a high courtesy of Parisian shoe supreme Pierre Hardy. Accessories mastermind of Balenciaga and Hermés in addition to his eponymous label, Hardy’s film focuses, of... [more]
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As Topman's design initiative MAN is due to show tomorrow, we decided our last Future Tense essay should similarly focus on the interesting and increasing wave of new menswear design that has contributed to the project, shown on the schedule and indeed often passed through the MAN initiative. Fashion features... [more]
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Opposites seem to attract: on the London Fashion Week schedule at least. By contrast to Danielle Scutt, Erdem would never knowingly offer anything vulgar - his delicate, floral festooned dresses are the stuff little girls' dreams are made of, and big girls too, judging by the number of guests sporting... [more]
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Vulgarity. To many it's a dirty word, but Danielle Scutt has made it her leitmotif. This collection was Scutt's return to the schedule after last season's look-book - always a rather limp substitue for the flash and dazzle of a runway show, but luckily showcasing a fine collection of tough... [more]
Mother nature appeared to be a significant source of inspiration again this season for Peter Pilotto's S/S 09 collection. Cocoon like jackets worn over tight knee length shorts, with their rounded shoulders and hips, dominated the catwalk in a variety of fabrics and natural woodland hues. Green metallic fabrics had... [more]
Our penultimate Future Tense contributor is New York-based designer Kai Kühne and his aptly-titled ‘Myself’ label. Starring none less than Chloe Sevigny and filmed by fashion photographer Marcelo Krasilic, Kuhne’s film is reminiscent of the hard emotional sell of many a modern fashion behemoth – perhaps Calvin Klein’s mid-nineties ‘Obsession’... [more]
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It seems fitting (pardon the pun) to show Sinha-Stanic’s Future Tense contribution on the same day as their London Fashion Week show, focussed as the piece is on preparations for their latest collection. Minimal and severe (just like their uncompromising clothing), in a time of fashion hyperbole Fittings does... [more]
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Today’s first Future Tense film from Swedish label Nakkna, titled In the Flesh, has a decidedly haunting melancholy quality. Focussed on a slowly-moving tableau intercut with footage of complex lobes of pleated fabric like innards and rich, bloodied colours, the film has the odd feeling of a Géricault oil-painting come... [more]
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One of her models may have taken a tumble in her tricky bronze platform sandals - frankly, in a season of beyond super-elevated heels, it was only a matter of time - but this was the only stumble in Roksanda Ilincic's refined S/S 2009 show. This collection was seemingly inspired... [more]
Basso and Brooke turned to the orient for inspiration this season, although this was as much the orient of Blade Runner neon and postmodern harajuki pastiche as coromandel screens, kimono patterns and K'ang Hsi porcelain. Of course, all of those references were there: witness the delicate china foliate heels, painted... [more]
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Nathan Jenden's collection was an odd, odd mix. Titled 'I WANT CANDY', it was nevertheless no bubblegum ode to pretty-pretty. In fact, it was difficult to discern exactly what the show was about: opening with a vivid satsuma-orange draped crepe dress, then whizzing through bustled suit jackets, flounced derriere-groping mermaid... [more]
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The success of Lulu Kennedy's Fashion East over the past few years cannot be overstated - a clutch of her former proteges now form the hot tickets of every twenty-first century London Fashion Week, while two have already flown the nest to further electrify New York and Paris. Kennedy's imprimatur... [more]
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Henry Holland's show quite literally started where the other left off, opening to a raucous round of applause as Agyness, semi-official house model, media muse and the last exit of last season strutted out in the first outfit. This time the clothes, however, were quite different: gone were Winter's tailored... [more]
For Future Tense, Pelican Avenue truly pushed the envelope, working with a displacement video to transform the moving part of an image – namely a model in a Pelican Avenue outfit - by shifting pixels across time to create an abstract form liquidly changing its shape with every frame. The... [more]
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With London Fashion Week well and truly underway and Britain's latest and greatest putting their wares on the runway and their hearts on their sleeves, it seems a fitting time to launch Kay Barron's Future Tense essay, examining the integral role - and inbuilt pitfalls - of London's current... [more]
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I am down at the Southbank centre in London where I have installed our anechoic project as part of 'Digital Design Day. It's proving to be quite popular as the sounds of crystal, feather and taffeta ricochet through the concrete hall.
As the name suggest, Carola Euler’s film Serve focuses on the bright whites of tennis and all it entails. However, her Future Tense offering is no simple ode to sportswear. Distinctly eroticized - often subtle, occasionally blatant - with visuals focused on her chalky palette and a striking, amplified soundtrack,... [more]
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Away from the catwalks and mayhem of mainstream Fashion Week here in London the scholars of fashion and design are also presenting their own new and unique collections. Last night the ‘Nobel Textiles: Marrying Design to Scientific Discovery’ exhibition celebrated its opening with the premier screening of the documentary film... [more]
Inspired by the sensuous, sexualised and yet surreal work of Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico, our latest Future Tense film from London label Modernist is a black-and-white fairytale of sorts, drawing on the considerable talents of filmmaker Lorna Lavelle and stylist Mary Fellowes to devise its striking and intriguing monochromatic... [more]
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Bo Van Melskens is not, as some may reason, the name of this Berlin-based label’s designer, but a fictive character – a female dandy serving as muse and inspiration for both designer Sarah Elbo's collections and her Future Tense film. When I’m Asleep… takes the viewer into Bo’s universe, inventing,... [more]
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Googly-eyes affixed to invites? A giant Pac-Man ghost in luminous pink at the entrance and yellow dots from the cult eighties arcade game snaking around the venue? All the signs indicated that the Giles show would be so, so wrong. Right? Wrong. Giles Deacon's collection was one of the best... [more]
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If Christopher Kane was inspired by The Flintstones, Louise Goldin took Judy Jetson as her heroine, spinning us on a breathtaking, awe-inspiring journey into outer space. Inspired by satellite views of the earth through remote sensing (that old chestnut), Goldin's research pushed her aesthetic towards NASA-esque shapes that abstract away... [more]
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"Wilma Flintstone" were genuinely the first words that fell out of my mouth at Christopher Kane's opening outfit, an oddly-cutworked skirt and leopard-knit sweater in primary red and yellow. And indeed, The Flinstones were his inspiration, evidenced in the tough, prehistoric hoof-like shoes, animal prints and, most consistently, in Stegarausus-eque... [more]
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In Baudelaire's words, genius is childhood recovered at will. Eley Kishimoto certainly thought so, basing their entire spring show around childish wonderlands, fairytale characters and the monsters and ghouls of toddlers' imaginations. All provided ample inspiration for their prints - always "kawaii," but this season even more than usual. Rainbows... [more]
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Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Or rather, everything blue. That was evidently the message Aquascutum decided simply screamed 2009. The old is the label, the new is the design team, and the borrowed is, ironically, the blue - borrowed from Rothko's abstractions. However, the ubiquity of this... [more]
No, those are not my real eyes reduced to mere pinpricks through the fatigue of London Fashion Week, but the googly-eyed invite to Giles' outstanding show earlier this evening. Due to a couple of teething problems with our new and rather snazzy cameraphone, our runway coverage has been delayed. But... [more]
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Due to the uncharacteristically (well, frankly, unbelievably) punctual running of S/S 2009 London Fashion Week, I shoulder-barged my way into the Emma Cook show just a little too late to make the start. Nevertheless, even from my perch in the gods this was a good show. Emma's muse, Susie, was... [more]
Maybe it’s in the name, but Future Tense seems to have inspired films that counter the oft-hurled acusation that contemporary fashion relies on the cliché of retro. Take Peter Bertsch’s film under the label Peter Hornstein as an example: inspired by reflections on the face of William Sylvester in Stanley... [more]
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Considering their South-East Asian roots, the Korean Cultural Centre was a fitting venue for this morning's SteveJ & YoniP show. Prior to the main event guests were treated to a veritable feast of jasmin tea, Korean snacks and live music courtesy of a talented harpist, all of which decidely... [more]
Last night was a landmark: 25 years of London Fashion Week, its significance evident by the fact that the celebratory reception was held at no less than 10 Downing Street. Featuring the cream of British Fashion, including our own Penny Martin and Nick Knight, the event drew attention to both... [more]
“Pure, graphique, slick, dark” were the words used by Rad Hourani in his Future Tense proposal. The resulting short, in multi-toned black-and-white lit like a Mappplethorpe photograph come to life against a soundtrack reminiscent of a Bruce Nauman installation. Luckily, Hourani’s collection – cerebral without being didactic - withstands both... [more]
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Inspired by ideas of modular dress, restyling, customisation and the age-old adage of share and share alike, our latest Future Tense video from Sabine Braeuninger of Customer’s Own Property updates the ‘swap shop’ concept for the twenty-first century. Braeuninger’s models dress, undress, strap, button and pleat themselves into various elements... [more]
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The final show of the day was Paul Smith - held at Claridges, bastion of W1 chic, but a collection distinctly Eastern in flavour. Or rather Middle Eastern, seemingly inspired by desert sands and Nomadic Berbers with grease-drenched hair, sunburned skin and a few too many turbans for comfort. There... [more]
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It's always difficult to heap hyperbole on Todd Lynn's collections; not, I hasten to add, through any fault of his own, but because as the old saying goes, the truth is in the tasting. The intricacies and idiosyncracies of Lynn's genuinely formidable tailoring can only really be seen and appreciated... [more]
When Louise Amstrup's press release stated that Wim Wenders' 1984 film Paris, Texas was a main inspiration for her S/S 09 collection, and the Velvet Underground was credited for providing the soundtrack, my hopes were high for Ms Amstrup's show.
Although still present in her collection, Amstrup strayed from pastels to... [more]
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In a season thus far of designers playing it profoundly safe, it was left to Marios Schwab to inject some much-needed adrenaline into an otherwise atrophied London Fashion Weak (sic). And what adrenaline. Schwab's show was tough. Hard. Aggressive. And overwhelmingly, sensationally sexual: please note, sexual, not sexy. They are... [more]
As our London Fashion Week coverage and Fifteen Minutes of Fashion projects kick off, we also launch another element of Future Tense. Through until the final day of the project on Thursday – coincidentally the penultimate day of fashion week - we will have contributions from a selection of young... [more]
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Transforming Jolibe’s garments and model into a series of geometric exercises, like Rorschach’s eponymous ink-blot test brought to life, the label’s video for Future Tense utilises film technique to the hilt to make it’s graphic point. With their mannequin spinning in white space, Jolibe’s camerawork amputates, multiplies and mirrors the... [more]
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'Roaming reportage' seems an apt term for my coverage of the Luella show, crouched as I was between the photographers' legs to get a halfway decent shot. And despite the searing heat (a glazed pavillion may look nice, but sweating inside one packed with 300-or so other people isn't so... [more]
Impossible though it is to locate (although maybe that is more due to my lacklustre navigational skills), Luella's S/S 2009 venue - the temporary Crystal Palace on the banks of the Serpentine - is rather smashing nonetheless.
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Dialogue from Silence of the Lambs isn't usually the fodder of fashion press releases, even at its darkest schlocky echelons. But Peter Jensen is an exception to every fashion rule and that's the reason we love him. For S/S 2009 the show was titled 'Jodie', as always betraying both his... [more]
Transparency, PVC and shrink-wrapping are hardly usual fashion fodder – except, perhaps in rather specialised Soho retailers - but Rie Rasmussen turned to both as inspiration for her latest collection and her Future Tense film. Just as her striking collection exposed, wrapped and framed the body with transparent layers, so... [more]
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A vision of couture in a decidedly 21st-century mindset, Jantaminiau’s kaleidoscope contribution to Future Tense is certainly bewitching. Focussing on his S/S 2008 haute couture collection, over 500 photographs were edited and looped into this mesmerizing display demonstrating the increasingly complex ‘evolution’ of outfits. With a film redolent of the... [more]
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Uncharacteristically sexy is an apt and succinct summary of Ann-Sofie Back's latest collection, but more naturally for Back this was nothing to do with the 'tits 'n' tan' Footballers' Wives school of appeal. Back's collection focussed on cosmetic surgery, both in the rhinoplasty-style bandages and markered 'areas for improvement' on... [more]
'Le Style Anglais' was the title of PPQ's latest collection, and indeed what Amy Molyneux and Percy Parker offered seemed an foreigner's view of classic, cliched archetypes of modern English dress. Somewhat agressively millinered and tripping through a bower of fresh (ish) flowers worthy of any Cotswold cottage, their models... [more]
The fruit of a long-term working relationship with photographer Chris Vidal, Laitinen’s film closes our penultimate week of Future Tense. Filmed just outside the label’s hometown of Helsinki on models cast on the streets of the capital, Laitinen’s black and white silent short has a melancholic and dark feeling characteristic... [more]
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Yesterday afternoon offered a rare treat: the chance to hear Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren in conversation with our very own Penny Martin, a fitting accompaniment to both London Fashion Week and The House of Viktor & Rolf at the Barbican. The conversation came on the back of a presentation... [more]
It seems fitting that we begin our S/S 2009 London Fashion Week coverage with the Topshop Unique show, given that the retail behemoth provides the financial support behind so many of the season's key players. The Unique show inaugurated the Topshop Show Space, for the second season a cavernous concrete... [more]
Sunday's Off Schedule offerings for the S/S 09 season got off to a decidedly sunny start, undoubtedly helped by the surprisingly warm climes outside, with the Spijkers en Spijkers show at the Vauxhall Fashion Scout venue. Tangerine lips and St Tropez tans successfully transported the audience to an early... [more]
With their first show scheduled for tomorrow, London-based Olanic took inspiration from Old Blighty itself for their Future Tense offering. Taking a tongue in cheek view of British Summertime (or, perhaps the lack of), Olanic create the ultimate ‘trans-seasonal’ wardrobe, slicing their imagery into a triptych to maximise the effect... [more]
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Generally, designers have shied away from traditional catwalk footage for Future Tense. However, designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista embraces the conventions of runway reportage, cramming his entire S/S 2009 show into just over a minute and providing an overview of his aesthetic for the new season into the bargain.
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Whether it’s a small step for man or a giant leap for mankind, the feet taking that leap should always be exquisitely-shod. That, at least, is the natural point of view for footwear label Finsk, whose experimental Future Tense animation Crystal Corolla features Star Wars-style space-bound geometric crystals ‘giving birth’... [more]
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Created in collaboration with filmmaker Monica Elkelv, London-based designer Louis de Gama’s contribution to Future Tense, The Other Self, is an experimental approach to the notion of narrative. Influenced by avant-garde films of the 1960s and centred around the abstract symbolism of a white dress against any linear narrative, de... [more]
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An extension on the designer’s ongoing themes of subtle interplay between wearer, garment and habitat, Raeburn Design’s film provides the most sports-orientated of our Future Tense series. Focussed on the great outdoors – naturally enough for a collection inspired by the German winter camouflage known as ‘Schneetarn’ – Raeburn’s... [more]
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With her leather-shrouded accessories inspired by seventies Horror films, seventeenth century Vanitas Paintings and Nick Cave lyrics, Natalia Brilli’s Future Tense film naturally expresses the dark, melancholy and slightly chilling vision central to her work. In collaboration with photographer Jean-François Carly and Maria Luisa’s Robin Schulié, I Feel is heavily... [more]
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SHOWstudio, is looking for a talented, self-initiating, senior graphic designer to work alongside its front-end web developer. You will be working in a small creative team, under the guidance of the Creative Director and Head of Interactive.
SHOWstudio is an online fashion broadcasting company that creates live and experimental fashion media... [more]
A label whose clothing often requires directions, guidelines, or “how to” instructions attached to the packaging, the Future Tense film created by TELFAR perhaps has more in common with an in-flight safety demonstrations than a conventional ‘Fashion Film’. Not that this is a criticism. Showcasing TELFAR in his own designs,... [more]
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Thomas Engel Hart declares that the secret of successful menswear (and its result) is a cool client. As such it should come as no surprise that both his most recent collection and his Future Tense film focus on the difficult-to-define cachet of branché. Featuring Engel Hart’s S/S 2009 collection, inspired... [more]
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For Future Tense, London-based design Bora Aksu chooses to delve within his own design process and animate his trademark design illustrations, with the help of video artist Dan Harris. Laid against watery luminescent colour and refracted light, this delicate and melancholy film plays out over a fragile instrumental soundtrack that... [more]
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Centred around Eva, the alter-ego of designer Cecilia Sörensen, Future Tense takes a step into dreamlike fantasia. Based around Sorensen’s latest collection, itself inflamed by historic images of her ancestor’s garments, this short spans out an Alice in Wonderland-style dreamscape of muse and inspiration where anything and everything is possible.... [more]
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Our first Future Tense film of the day sets a somewhat dark tone typical of the designer Txell Miras. Indeed, Citing the work of Kafkha, Tarkovsky and Bergman as influence upon her designs, Miras’ offering was never going to be anything approaching standard catwalk footage. Her film offers a life... [more]
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Created with filmmaker Jeon Seung Hwan, Steve J and Yoni P’s Future Tense short has all the sophisticated gloss and polish of a modern pop spectacular. Featuring a dazzling spectrum of refracted colour and what amounts to a space-age dance of the seven veils, the resulting video is a feast... [more]
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The whole ethos of SHOWstudio is to do exactly that - to show the studio and thereby open up the creative process to the same scrutiny given to the finished product. The exhibition Fashion In The Mirror has a similar premise, examining self-reference and exposure of the 'nuts and... [more]
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Offering a somewhat slower and more plaintive pace than we are used to in Future Tense, today's film by the label Trosman betrays the designer's self-confessed penchant for National Geographic magazines and the work of Charles Eames and Frank Lloyd Wright. Jessica Trosman's film is inspired by three classic artisan... [more]
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Taking us where no man (or woman) has gone before seems to be one of the necessary remits of Future Tense – and Romy Smits has certainly taken the ‘Future’ element of our project to heart. Her collaboration with animator Roland Maas and his cyber-supermodel creation ‘Babelle’ negates the need... [more]
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We close today’s Future Tense video selection with a piece from Indian-born Ashish Gupta. Drawing on Film Noir references and arguably more narrative than we have seen so far - albeit in a decidedly oblique manner - Ashish’s film may raise more questions than answers, but still provide a perfect... [more]
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Documenting and investigating the intimate relationship between the maker and the creation, Romina Karamanea’s Future Tense short explores the very process of fashion design, from the experimental calico toile on the dress form to the glamour of final garment and photographic shoot. Placing the viewer into the alternate viewpoints... [more]
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With its eerie imagery of overt pastel-hued and pastoral-viewed perfection, Rubecksen Yamanaka's film for Future Tense is somewhat reminiscent of the sinister turn-of-the-century vision of Picnic at Hanging Rock. These allusions are not wholly coincidental, given that the labels most recent collections were inspired by bisque dolls and Victorian nature... [more]
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In conversation with ‘100 New Fashion Designers’ author Hywel Davies, Aitor Throup discusses the motivations that brought him to fashion alongside his own unique contributions to modern menswear in his Future Tense short. Providing a bird’s eye view of the creative process and with sketches literally taking shape before... [more]
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Sometimes, it’s the least conventionally fashion-themed of our Future Tense fashion films that can make the greatest impact – for instance Chris Liu’s Hypercube, created entirely from coloured sugarcubes animated into striking geometric patterns and pixellated cityscapes. With visuals indicative of both Liu’s London base and the colours and... [more]
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Inspired by the stop-motion animation work of Jan Svankmajer, Aleksandra Olenska’s Future Tense film is, in her own words, a short fashion fantasia, a fairytale flurry of mirrored legs, refracted light and waltzing perfume bottles. Featuring both her own designs and the objects that inform and inspire her work, Olenska’s... [more]
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Designed in the industrial backlands of Mannheim, German Label Postweiler Hauber closes this week of Future Tense with Guido – a simple, stripped-back film of the title subject posing in Postweiler Hauber cycling shorts and sandals. However, in line with the labels trademark fascination with geometry and plays on silhouette,... [more]
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There are increasingly few things that will drag me onto the cold wet streets of London on a Saturday morning - but Yves Saint Laurent is an exception to every rule. Today, YSL's latest 'Manifesto', featuring Inez and Vinoodh's acclaimed campaign for the esteemed house starring the no-less venerated Ms... [more]
Our second contribution of the day again comes from a Japanese designer, but the dark vision of Seiko Taki couldn’t be further away in spirit from Mikio Sakabe’s Future Tense film. Centred around sepia-toned retro-futuristic images of sixties Japan, intercut with a recurring Space-age meet Machine-age ‘M’ logo straight out... [more]
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Seïko Taki's Future Tense film looks to nostalgic visions of childhood for its inspiration, although the resulting film is anything but sickly-sweet or rose-tinted. Taki herself declares ‘The way we look at things is rarely the straightest way but more often a dissymmetry,’ and in this instance this idea manifests... [more]
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A fascinating element of Future Tense is the global vision many of the young brands featured seem to have already developed so soon in their careers. Heather Blake’s global view is quite literal – her short sharp shock of a film barely touches forty seconds, but manages to whisk us... [more]
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Julian Oliver is a software developer based in Madrid. levelHead consists of a solid plastic cube which is then tracked by a camera, so that on the screen in front of you it appears that there is an escher-like room inside with a lone white figure. By tilting the cube,... [more]
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All too often, when fashion falls into the realms of art it can forget and even denigrate the body it seeks to dress. The tremendously talented Sandra Backlund is a notable exception, as her Future Tense film proves. Working with filmmaker Marcus Werner Hed, Backlund's video captures seemingly offhand, intimate... [more]
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Another Digital Music entry by Japanese sound artist Satoshi Morita. Klangkapsel invites the user to slide into a full size capsule and experience a soundscape that is also supported by numerous vibrations throughout the pod. Lying down in the capsule you are completely immersed in the eight channel field recording... [more]
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Reactable won the coveted Golden Nica in Digital Music and is the work of Sergi Jorda, Gunter Geiger at the Music Technology Group, Universitat Pompeu Frabra, Barcelona. A camera situated beneath the table tracks the players fingertips and the position and orientation of the pieces. Users can then create music... [more]
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I've had a good look around the exhibition and thought I would select a few pieces and take some photos. The first is an interactive piece by Tsutomu Mutoh from Japan called Optical Tone, which also won an Honorary mention in interactive art. It comprises of four glowing spheres that... [more]
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With her A/W 2008 collection inspired by the universe of David Lynch’s High School femme fatale and Man Ray’s Solarisation techniques, it may be expected that Danish designer Louise Amstrup’s contribution to Future Tense would be a somewhat dark and mournful affair. The resulting film - created with photographer Mads... [more]
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Populated with Tilda Swinton clones, bell-encrusted tuxedos and upside-down ballgowns, the minds of Viktor and Rolf are fascinating depths to mine. Now, the opportunity is ripe for you to pose your own conundrums to the dynamic Dutch Duo. On Saturday September 13, Penny Martin will be in conversation with Viktor... [more]
Everything is set up and the organisers will now spend the day taking groups of press through the exhibition. All artists are to stand by their works and speak when questioned. So far I have done 2 TV interviews and 1 Radio so if any viewers in Germany are reading... [more]
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"I just had this picture in mind of a woman who's an artist. She finishes painting, has an appointment to go to, and runs out as she is with wet hair." This comment is indicative of the fresh, dynamic quality Cathy Pill is bringing to couture, and to Future Tense.... [more]
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Inspired by the age-old concept of ‘the perfect woman’, the contribution of twins Truus and Riet of Spijkers en Spijkers to Future Tense makes for unsettling viewing. Modernising this conceit for a world where ideal beauty is measured and meted-out in airbrushing, retouching and post-production, their film examines and exposes... [more]
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Oft crafted from the debris of everyday life – old watch innards, cast-off rings, fused spectacles – Husam El Odeh’s unique artisanal jewellery is nevertheless always spectacular. In his Future Tense film, there is little to distract from El Odeh’s trademark pieces – indeed, his S/S 2009 collection moves of... [more]
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Everything works and I've spent the last hour or so playing with the lights to get the best from the space. The stand is away being painted, then I will get to work tidying up the space and making sure its safe. For now, here's a slightly menacing image of... [more]
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From the playful to the sinister: our second Future Tense film of the day again comes from a Japanese label, albeit with a very different aesthetic perspective. Translated as ‘layer’ or ‘make-up’, the Japanese word Keshou echoes Kosmetique’s own title, derived from designer Kanya Miki’s aim to improve the body... [more]
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I arrived at the gallery this morning to find everything I had asked for set up and working, which is a great relief. They even custom made us this fantastic photographic light! I am slowly unpacking the equipment I sent from London and keeping my fingers crossed that it all... [more]
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With animation skills worthy of Monty Python (a distinct compliment in our book), this film from Hall OHara is our first piece of pure animation in the increasingly-packed Future Tense programme. But dispel any memories of the traditional Warner Brothers-style ‘cartoon’ from your brain: Hall Ohara’s work with Japanese animator... [more]
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I have arrived in Linz, Austria to set up 'The replenishing body' as part of Ars Electronica. I have my tiny pc and my trusty camera and plan to post a few blogs showing the process of setting up the exhibition and, hopefully, of some great interactive work. Work starts... [more]
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Closing our first day of Future Tense September programming is
Siv Støldal’s 2 Wardrobes, created with filmmaker Lewis Ronald. Based on Siv’s recent collection, this film is an examination of garments within the wardrobes of two Norwegian men – providing surprisingly ample inspiration for both Siv’s collection and this film.
... [more]
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Surrealism seems to be a keynote of many of our Future Tense films – but Patrik Söderstam takes the surreal and the symbolic to its absolute limit. Upper Corner 1, taken from an upcoming conceptual art project by the ever-prolific Söderstam, may be entirely devoid of clothing but is still... [more]
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