NEWGEN Men’s Lucky Seven
The British Fashion Council and Topman have awarded seven up-and-coming talents with NEWGEN Men sponsorship for the Spring ’14 season. First-time honorees include Agi & Sam (designed by Agape Mudmulla and Sam Cotton), Astrid Andersen, and Nasir Mazhar, while Matthew Miller, Lee Roach, Shaun Samson, and Martine Rose are returning NEWGEN veterans. The designers will receive funding to present their lines at the London Collections: Men, which kicks off June 16, and join the ranks of former winners like J.W. Anderson, James Long, and SIBLING.
Playboy‘s Artist Pals Are Rethinking Sexy—But Is It Porn Or Art?
The famous old dodge—”I read Playboy for the articles”—is getting a contemporary update. Thanks to a revamp and a prominent new hire, you can now look at Playboy for the art.
The magazine recently signed curator Neville Wakefield as its special projects director, and he’s been working on some highbrow—albeit playful—extensions. His first official venture involved commissioning three artists (Aaron Young—left, Malerie Marder, and Alex Israel) to create work presenting the 2013 Playmate of the Year, Raquel Pomplun, within the context of art. “I think it’s a reimagining of what Playboy can be,” said Wakefield, who’s working on another art-centric supplement for November.
The effort got us wondering: When is a picture art, and when is it erotica? “I think it has a lot to do with context,” offered Wakefield. “Porn has an efficacy when it comes to arousal, but [these works] are meditations on a person and a condition, so in that respect, they are art.” We put the question to the artists themselves; their original works debut exclusively here.
Aaron Young:
Playmates are “always working with their bodies,” said Aaron Young, so he covered a nude Pomplun neck-to-toe in paint and had her press her body (in one case, dragging her) across canvas for a series inspired by Yves Klein’s press paintings. “This definitely has rich and deep connections to art history,” he said. “I mean, there have been so many different kinds of nudes, why not work with the most popular nude in America?
The bottom line: Is it erotica? “If somebody has a good enough imagination, I’m sure it probably could be. But I think that expressing an idea through any medium can be sexy. I mean, I find dry conceptualism sexy, sometimes.” Continue Reading “Playboy‘s Artist Pals Are Rethinking Sexy—But Is It Porn Or Art?” »
Charlotte Gainsbourg and Uma Thurman Wish You A Merry Christmas
The talk of Cannes today isn’t even in the festival: It’s Lars von Trier’s latest, Nymphomaniac, which stars Charlotte Gainsbourg (left) as a woman recounting her erotic experiences after surviving a vicious beating. (Uma Thurman, Stellan Skarsgård, and Shia LaBeouf costar.) Von Trier being famously unstinting, the film depicts unsimulated sex—but according to one of the film’s producers, Louise Vesth, who spoke at the festival today, it will actually be a high-tech visual effect, where images of stunt doubles having sex will be digitally imposed onto images of the more famous actors. Naturally, it’s been the buzz of the Internet all day. For my part, I think the most boundary-crossing detail isn’t the F/X, but the release date: The film is slated to come out in von Trier’s native Denmark on Christmas Day. God Jul, as the Danes say.
For more from Cannes, visit our red-carpet coverage.
On Our Radar: GLASS
When it comes to swimwear for gents, there’s a new kid on the beach, repping a hip breed of shoreline swagger: New York City’s GLASS. “I kept thinking, What would both Gianni Agnelli and Jean-Michel Basquiat wear [to the pool]?” founder John Glass told Style.com. The designer, who grew up between New York, Martha’s Vineyard, and London whilst studying history and, as of late, working in branding at Tom Ford, is a man of varied interests. While in the U.K., he hung out with a Savile Row crew—even tagging along on trips to tweed mills in Scotland, obsessively educating himself on tailoring along the way. “I started the line because I felt that swimwear is like a blank canvas, allowing for creativity and originality across one product,” says Glass. His swimsuits are a departure from the formal three-piece looks of his past, but the designer’s wares boast a wide scope of studied, albeit quirky, prints, like a lo-fi Crayon Paisley and an Egyptian-funky Hieroglyphic Stripe. “Wear them anywhere you want to be happy,” suggests Glass. “From a sailboat in the Mediterranean to a hot day in NYC.” Glass debuted his line only last month, but he’s already planning for next season—keep your eyes peeled for potential pop-ups at Art Basel in Miami and Rio’s Carnival.
GLASS’s new trunks are available, starting today, on Moda Operandi.
Designer Diary: Alice Temperley’s Postcard from Dubai and Doha
London-based designer Alice Temperley recently traveled to Dubai and Doha, Qatar, to shoot her latest collections and open a new boutique. Here, Temperley shares the details of her desert adventure, and some behind-the-scenes campaign snaps, exclusively with Style.com.
Our first store in the Middle East opened in the Dubai Mall three years ago. Earlier this month, I traveled back to the hot, hot, hot UAE to open our second store, in The Gate mall in Doha, and to shoot our Titania Temperley Bridal campaign and our Temperley London Fall collection, Byrds. A few people from the London HQ, and my little sister, Matilda Temperley, came along. Matilda is a professional photographer, and she shot the campaigns in a desert location just outside Dubai.
We were up bright and early to shoot on the sand dunes during sunrise at 4:30 a.m. We shot until 9:00 a.m.-ish, when it reached a sweltering 117 degrees (and it is not even summer yet!).
Me playing with veils and trains. Continue Reading “Designer Diary: Alice Temperley’s Postcard from Dubai and Doha” »