Transform your dressing rituals with a masterclass in putting on clothes - well, latex - the pleasurable way from the duo behind Atsuko Kudo. Coinciding with the display of Kudo's Armour for Prostitutes in SHOWstudio's Selling Sex exhibition, our Dressing for Pleasure LiveStudio saw the latex doyenne and her uniformed dressing duo slowly apply layers of their second-skin creations to gorgeous model Viktorija Skyte - transforming her from a nude statue to a fearsome fetishistic Superwoman. Subverting the strip tease, the broadcast offers a potent exploration of the dialogue between clothing and empowerment.

From stockings to choker, then gloves to whip, watch each garment go on in our exclusive uncut footage, available in full now for twenty-four hours.

The creative team behind Atsuko Kudo bring a sensuous soundtrack complementing today's re-stream of their Dressing for Pleasure LiveStudio. Creative director Simon Walter Hoare presents an artfully selected taster selection from the six-hour long mood-music that accompanied last week's broadcast. Picture unwinding to the light notes of Erik Satie's piano playing and Kate Bush's soft crooning while slowly easing on your seconds-skin shine. Latex up now. 

The lack of body variance in fashion imagery is an age-old sore-point. But there's no-one really more qualified to make an informed case on the issue than fashion commentator Caryn Franklin. Co-founder - alongside Debra Bourne and Erin O’Connor - of All Walks Beyond the Catwalk, an initiative focused on championing diversity within the fashion industry, Franklin has long been an advocate of the importance of broadening the types of women represented in fashion imagery.

Her work couldn't be more fitted to Marie Schuller's Fashion Fetish offering Visiting Hour. The film displays a potent vision of a sensual, confident and powerful older woman, offering an antidote to the narrow view of female sensuality often portrayed by mass media outlets.

In our latest essay Franklin explores society's tempestuous relationship with the sexual older female. She asks boldly, 'Why is adult female sexuality threatening? Why does the mind and spirit of a full-grown woman need restraining? Why does our media condemn women to appear as sexualised girls? And why, the one I ask most frequently...Why does the fashion industry prioritise the infantilised form?' Read on now.

Those who missed latex designer Atsuko Kudo's recent lesson in dressing for pleasure will have twenty-four hours to access a full on-demand re-stream today, 25 May from 17:00 BST. Watch Kudo envelope model Viktorija Skyte in layers of shiny second-skin fabric - and hear Kudo and her partner, Simon Walter Hoare, discuss their own love of latex - in a unique exploration of the dialogue between clothing and personal empowerment.

Remember - the un-edited footage is only available for twenty-four hours! Don't miss out.

Internet Week New York ended Monday with a bang (or a shutdown prompt?) at the 16th Annual Webby Awards Ceremony, where SHOWstudio garnered its second Webby for Best Fashion Web Site.

Among the luminaries, founders, and filmmakers accepting awards were Spike Lee, Bjork, and New York Mayor Bloomberg.  Although, some of the biggest rounds of applause were directed at apps like Dropbox and Instagram (appropriate given the crowd, and which we lovingly use here at SHOW.)

Before descending on awards night, various industry leaders, engineers and internauts led panels, parties, and workshops at the cavernous Internet Week headquarters on Mercer Street, SoHo, through the previous week.

The talk that resonated most with me and the work we do here at SHOWstudio, was called Digital Galleries.   Led by Julia Kaganskiy of The Creators Project, the discussion traversed art on the web, and issues of collecting, curating, and preserving it. The gems of the talk were questions raised around digital art’s context, ownership, and, ultimately, its limits.

Relaunching 10 years’ worth of SHOWstudio content was no small feat (and we’re still in the process of republishing archive projects).  Not only did we need to find right design that most elegantly and respectfully displayed a wealth of media, which our designer so aptly provided.

A massive task lay in the collation of archive content that was very much published in the context of its technical capabilities and how people used the web at the time.  Images were optimised and saved for web at sizes and resolutions we’d now consider thumbnails. Interactives were built often requiring proprietary software and plugins that current browsers no longer support. Some pages elluded us, despite links and references.  Databases were queried, archives mined.

While ground breaking in their time, the very context some of our born-digital works were created within now rendered them obsolete.

Questions arose.  Do we rebuild interactives that no longer display?  Or, do we respect the original work better by simply providing links to plugins where possible?  Do we display low-res images and video where originals were not found? Design wise — do we replicate the original look and structure of web based projects like Experiments in Advertising, or do we grab the content and reconfigure? How much of the context is the art?  Can we rebuild a medium to fit the message?

According to Whitney curator Christiane Paul, museums and institutions take on the responsibility to preserve and archive work (for example, something that’s only visible in Netscape 3).

Not all artists working with technology are so lucky.  Works the V&A collect harken back to   the 60s, when visual artists created some of the first computer art.  Sadly, much older material is locked inside pandora-esque boxes — archived technology whose user manuals, in the minds of engineers long dead — remain inaccessible.

Does the future bode ill for web-based art as well?  Optimisticly, Paul suggests if more of us have access to older browsers again (via the Cloud), we’ll be able to experience these works again.

That would be exciting for some of our older interactives, but what about projects which aren't simply a file?  For example, Nick Knight's Pussycat Pussycat project ran through Tumblr.  Again, this is a deeply contextual work developed on a social media platform.  If Tumblr fades away, how much of Knight's project will too, and how does one save it?

In an age when digital art gains value via shares/like metrics (not just the pricetag the art market ascribes it), it's difficult to know if value is lost when the medium becomes obsolete, bought out, or old hat.

Perhaps it is still in the hands of institutions to preserve work such as this, but many major institutions are looking to projects like the Google Art Project to house their work online.  Interestingly, the project's Data Lead Piotr Adamczyk mentioned that often, Google can provide the “best” image of an artwork anyone can see online.  In their archival processes, the images they take are better than many museums could provide on their own web sites.

John O was a lovely man.
John O was a lovely man and my black and white printer in the 1980s.
There were two brilliant printers then, John O Driscol and Brian Dowling.  John O printed black and white and Brian colour.
I worked with John O on all the early Yohji Yamamoto campaigns and then on Martine Sitbon and then Jil Sander and on all my portraits.
John O could print in ways that no other printer could or had ever attempted.  Using hand cut masks he managed to create prints that looked so beautiful and complex you would think they could only have been possible in Photoshop, 10 years before Photoshop was invented!
 He had the patience of a saint and an unflinching determination that would mean all night printing sessions were a regular occurrence.

There is something magical about an old fashioned darkroom, everything bathed in the red light, the trays of chemicals and just watching the image appear from nowhere on the wet paper.  Magical and in John O's lab totally wondrous even awe inspiring.
To allow us to view and discuss the images he would rest the wet prints on an angled viewing board where they glistened and sparkled as the water ran off them.
The deepest of blacks, jutted right up against delicate smooth dove greys.  Wood smoke and jet.
Depth of tone that made your head spin.
He created prints that felt like that could knock you clean over, they had such powerful visual impact.

It is a sign of any great artist and craftsman, that his or her work physically reminds you of that person, and John O's prints certainly did.
Physically John O was big man, bearded with curly light brown hair and a big strong frame.
He was easy to smile and his eyes twinkled with mischief and delight.  In all those years I can never remember him being sad or cross.
I can remember his singing and I remember his laugh.

He had a huge O. Winston Link print hanging in his darkroom, which he loved. It's the picture of the train at night, caught and rendered motionless by O Winston Links 100s of carefully positioned flash bulbs.  Maybe it was the huge amount of effort and care this photographer had put into his work that touched John O, as it was exactly the effort and care he would put into creating one of his stunning prints.

John O always wanted to work for the best photographers and in the 1990s he moved to New York and printed for one of the greatest photographers of all time, Irving Penn.  I know he would have made his new client really happy.
John O was a lovely man.

John Driscol passed away last week from lung cancer.

Liberty Ross is the latest SHOWstudio contributor to offer up her unique view of Fashion Fetish. The model collaborated with photographer Polly Borland to create Dollywood, a subversively sinister view of eroticism. Liberty explains, 'I wanted to make a film that blurred the line of primitive sexual fetishism with naive and childlike play. To me the act of dressing up, tying up and fetishism has its primal urges in childhood.' Inspired by Borland's current artwork, the provoative work tackles the taboos surrounding fetish, questioning the extent to which sexual acts have their basic roots in youthful urges.

The piece certainly upholds SHOWstudio's committment to unpicking all elements of fetish, not just traditional, polished views of female sexuality. Watch Liberty Ross for Fashion Fetish now.

I love Polly Borland. My new friend and fellow Hollywood transplant. She is an amazing artist and I was thrilled when she agreed to collaborate with me for "Selling Sex" SHOWstudio's Fetish Film series.

Polly gave me two books of hers when we first met - "Bunny" and "Smudge". 

I was instantly struck by how similar some of her images were to some of my own I made for SHOW - Dress Me Up Dress Me Down.

I knew we spoke the same language and therefore could create something powerful and thought provoking. To me the act of dressing up, tying up and fetishism has its primal urges in childhood. I wanted to make a film that would blur the line of primitive sexual fetishism with naive and childlike play. I think Polly captures that fractured dynamic of vulnerability and desire so well in DOLLYWOOD.

I hope you enjoy our film.

There's something fascinating about sub-cultures. Maybe it's the romanticism of youthful rebellion and diehard loyalty, or, perhaps, just the appeal of a bunch of nattily coordinated outfits - who doesn't admire the Prada-esque embellishments of the Pearly Kings and Queens?

From Nick Knight's own Skinheads, an exploration of the aesthetics and activities of skinheads in East London in 1979-1980, to John Paul Gaultier's Clash-tastic punk couture show from Spring/Summer 2011, deviant groups and underground movements have long  inspired creative work. Queen of fashionable punk has to be Vivienne Westwood, who jumped on the rebel-culture bandwagon way before the rest of the fashion-pack caught on.

Punk, in fact, is far from dead. Today, fashion is having a love affair with the movement. Prolific models such Alice Dellal and Abbey Lee are lauded for their elfin-punk beauty, and designers such as Henry Holland and Jeremy Scott push punk season upon season. Even Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel, the bastion of neat tweeds and Parisian elegance, got into the London spirit by presenting a punk inspired offering for the recent pre-spring/summer 2013 cruise collection. The resultant opulence was a spectacularly obscene Marie Antoinette meets Sid Vicious vision. Maybe it can all be put down to Jubilee-fever - 'God save the queen' and all that.

Committed punk fans, tired of these mere sartorial odes, will be thrilled that the best ages of the movement are being given due respect in a new book and exhibition celebrating the work of photographer Simon Barker (aka Six). A member of the 'Bromley Contingent' from 1976 to 1977, Barker spent his youth backstage, capturing the very first punk concerts on camera. His previously unseen images - featuring cult favourites such as Jordan, Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene and Adam and the Ants - document the earliest foundations of punk. You'll be treated to candid shots of punk icons partying in their pokey bedrooms and kitchens, experimenting with the styles of dress that later became famous, albeit at this stage relying on their grandmothers’ castaways. The accompanying book offers an extended selection from Barker’s unpublished archive, as well as notes from those who experienced the primitive days of punk first hand.

For an immediate fix of rebel-goodness check out SHOWstudio's own tributes to punk. Revisit PUNKATURE to see Knight and stylist Alister Mackie team up to juxtapose the beautiful fashions of Autumn/Winter 2011 against the savage grace of punk, or check out Head-Dressing from 2010 to see avant-garde hairstylist and designer Charlie Le Mindu create a headpiece live in SHOWstudio, accompanied by a performance by French experimental art-punk band La Chatte.

Punk's Dead will run from 8 June until 7 July 2012, from 12:00 to 21:00, at DIVUS Temporary, 4 Wilkes Street, London E1 6QF.

Future Self is a new installation by london-based collection rAndom International that maps and replicates human movement. The project, presented in the above video, involved two dancers interacting with each other and a large LED based structure as part of a dance performance coordinated by choreographer Wayne McGregor and composer Max Richter.

As the dancers moved around the installation, 3D cameras (Kinects) recorded the shapes made by their bodies and replayed them on a brass grid of over 10,000 LED lights. Rather than mirroring the dancers, the installation re-interrupts the movements into a beautiful digital form that resembles its own form of communication, as if the LEDs are communicating with the dancers and vice-versa.

The wonderful performance marked the opening of the installation, which is currently located in the MADE exhibition space in Berlin and will be showing until 2nd June.

Video sharing apps are currently getting a lot of attention since Facebook's acquisition of Instagram, with many people citing them as the next big social platform. There are already many popular video sharing applications on the market, notable Viddy, which has passed 27million users and SocialCam, which has 51.5 million monthly users.

Vyclone is a new video sharing application that has just just been released (UK only) that aims to take the concept of sharing further, allowing users to share in the process of capturing the footage as well as sharing the finished product.

The app works using location services so that users can see who else in the immediate area is also filming. Once the user has filmed and uploaded up to 60 seconds of footage you can then choose to have the footage edited together with other users to make a quick 'multicam' edit of the footage. This allows the finished video to contain several different vantages of the same event.

Vyclone was initially devised to cover music concerts, but the creators soon realised that the technology could be used to film anything from; short films of your friends, to citizen journalism, to large scale festivals, which was far more exciting than just gigs and concerts.  

The concept behind the app is really exciting, and as the idea of co-creation is something that hasn't really been explored with other imagery sharing platforms I can imagine it becoming very popular.

iQ by Intel is a new web based social-publishing platform that aims to narrate the impact of technology on our lives and provide an increased insight into the brand Intel.

In what resembles a digital magazine, similar in appearance to Google's news aggregator Newsmap and Flipboard, Intel employees curate aggregated and self created content. iQ, designed primarily to be read on smart phones and tablets, pulls in curated content from the leading thinkers, engineers and scientists at Intel, as well as pulling in content from wider technology sites like Mashable, TechCrunch and social networking streams.

As the site has just launched the content is primarily pulled from a couple of recognisable sources, but as the flow of information continues to grow, it will only be articles that have been recommended by a certain amount of people that will feature on the front page. Intel wants the experience to be democratic, with a view of engaging their younger audience and further encouraging discussion about technological developments, which they belief will push the human race forward.

Whether this is an attempt for Intel to reveal more of the brand to their audience or to push their backing of touchscreen devices, or to even encourage coverage of Intel, it will be interesting to see the platform develop further and its great to see them sharing the technological developments that are exciting them.

The Touché project is a new sensing technology being developed at Disney Research Pittsburgh by Ivan Poupyrev in collaboration with Munehiko Sato and Chris Harrison.

The technology aims to not only detect touch, such as a finger making contact with a screen, (something that we have all become familiar with) but also to simultaneously recognise more complex configurations of human hands and body as the user interacts with any given object.

During the testing, highlighted in the slightly corporate attached video, Disney have added the touch recognition to computer devices and everyday objects, but amazingly also to the human body and liquids. Using touch sensitivity material a single wire can be connected to make previously unresponsive objects and environments touch and gesture sensitive.

This technology greatly increases the range of touch interactions that will be possible in the future, not only further enhancing touch screens, but also in new scenarios where touch control was previously unusable, which is incredibly exciting.

Imagine being able to control your phone, music player and many other devices by taping your wrist in certain ways; thankfully with the ongoing development of Touché this is becoming increasingly more realistic.

Those who follow Nick Knight's work will know that he sees photo opportunities everywhere. From glamorous pictures of latex-clad models to shots of the plug in his bathroom sink, nothing escapes the beady eye of Nick's lens. If you've glanced over our adorable Pussycat, Pussycat project you'll also see that Nick has a penchant for Instagram, the handy web tool that lets you upload pictures straight from your iPhone with an added filter.

Nick can see potential and beauty in the humblest objects, hence why his web followers are treated to an abundance of daily depictions of the many things he sees when going about his work in and around SHOWstudio. There's everything from candid portraits of some of the fabulous guests who stop by to visit us at Bruton place, to images of the little objects and ornaments dotted around our central London headquarters. Most recently, Nick's been shooting, as well as watching, the throne. Our feeds are full of images of Kanye and co, on and off the stage, during their current stay in London.

See all the visual action for yourself by following Nick Knight on Instagram at @showstudio_nick_knight or on our Tumblr and Twitter accounts.

Phillip Lim's In Fashion heart-to-heart may be over, but fear not, there's more sartorial goodness still to come. Next to take to the floor is London's rising star Simone Rocha.

Head to SHOWstudio at 15:00 BST to watch the discussion live as it unfolds.

Super stylist Jonathan Kaye brings eighties dance music back with a smashing soundtrack. Hits in his period tribute range from Donna Summer’s Dinner with Gershwin to Chaka Khan’s Earth to Mickey. Like any good stylist, Kaye also knows how to make contrasts work for him - here a soothing Vince Guaraldi piano concerto from the Peanuts soundtrack juxtaposes with soul sister Carol Lynn Townes’ powerful vocals. Bring out that inner retro spirit now!