28 posts tagged "Inez van Lamsweerde"
Finally, The Doctor Prescribes M&Ms
Don’t let Raquel’s expression fool you—art is uplifting. That, in a nutshell, is the guiding principle behind RxArt, the nonprofit that works to install artworks in hospitals and healthcare facilities. To that end, the group is having its 12th anniversary benefit in New York Monday night, honoring Dan Colen, who is about to undertake a major installation at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital pediatrics unit. (Given the setting, he’s trading his occasionally R-rated material for something more PG: M&Ms.) Tickets are still available for the Monday night party, where art by Colen, Terry Richardson, Inez and Vinoodh (whose photograph Freja and Raquel with Bill Clinton by Chuck Close is above), Aurel Schmidt, Marilyn Minter, and more will be on auction. You can get a jump on bidding online, but to take it home, you’ll want to be able to fend off competitors at Milk Gallery on Monday night. Even if you don’t walk away with a piece, you won’t go without reward: Each attendee can pick their own T-shirt, courtesy of Pickwick & Weller.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit RxArt.com.
On Our Radar: Dalila Barkache
You might have already caught jewelry designer Dalila Barkache (and her exquisite taste in clothes) in Style.com’s Summer Shopping Guide this week, along with the likes of Inez van Lamsweerde, Phoebe and Annette Stephens of Anndra Neen, and music producer Caroline de Maigret. Since launching her line during Paris fashion week in October 2011, when she didn’t even have a showroom yet, the Paris and Tunis-based designer has been making a name for herself with her eponymous line and its best sellers, like her gold and diamond engagement ring sets.
“I always wanted to do something distinctive—my first thought was being a perfumer but the school was too expensive,” she tells Style.com. “One day a friend asked me if I would consider passing the admission test to get in the jewelry school, and that was when I first thought going into it.”
Good choice—after studying at the highly acclaimed Ecole de la rue du Louvre, she landed her collection ($460 to $8,000) in Dover Street Market. And at the moment, she’s in L.A. hard at work on a collaboration with the graffiti artist Neck Face, then off to Tunis, and then Tangiers. Dalila Barkache is one to watch. One of her new rings is pictured, above.
Anja Rubik: Let’s Talk About Sex
It may not come as a surprise to those who have seen her work gravity-defying wonders in an Anthony Vaccarello gown slit just about to her sternum, but Anja Rubik isn’t shy about sex or sexuality. And now, with her relaunch of 25 Magazine, she’s creating a forum to talk about it.
Rubik has been involved with the magazine since 2009, when she and then-boyfriend (now-husband) Sasha Knezevic signed on to work on the Viennese title, but she’s since taken full editorial control and rebranded the glossy in the image of Viva, the Bob Guccione-published erotica mag targeted at women, which ran from 1973 through the end of the decade. But mere smut it isn’t; the new issue, shot entirely by women, features photos by Inez van Lamsweerde, Annie Leibovitz, Ellen von Unwerth, and Paola Kudacki, whose “Heroes of 25″ series is pictured above.
Calling in from her native Poland—between shooting in London and jetting off to Cannes, where on Wednesday she’ll launch the magazine with a party at Pierre Cardin’s manse Palais Bulles—Rubik spoke with Style.com about sex versus sensuality, men versus women, and the lessons she’s learned as a newly minted editor. Key among them: Don’t fear the nipple.
Tell me about the vision for 25.
I had the idea because I really loved the magazine Viva from the seventies, which was a Penthouse publication for women. I loved the vision of it, and that was what formed the inspiration for me. 25 is basically directed toward very strong-minded, ambitious women, who are very comfortable with themselves and their sexuality. I was thinking a lot recently and looking how sex is approached nowadays, and nudity, and bodies. Erotica kind of disappeared. The way we approach sex is either really prude or very vulgar.
What will be in the new issue?
Every picture that’s in the magazine is shot by a woman. We have incredible photographers, like Inez [van Lamsweerde], Emma Summerton, and Katja Rahlwes. Annie Leibovitz donated pictures. Ellen von Unwerth. Basically, the magazine consists of beautiful images. It’s less of a magazine, more of an album. And in general, 25 is more than the magazine. We were trying to create an identity, to do a lot of projects connected to it. We’re doing one with Net-a-Porter that will launch quite soon. We did a video with Barnaby Roper and Kanye West that will launch at Colette. It’s a whole lifestyle, a whole vision.
Were there editors you looked to for inspiration or advice? Or other magazines?
I had a lot of references from past magazines, and Viva was the very big inspiration. [But also] Playboy from the seventies, Penthouse from the seventies. And of course editors, yes, Carine [Roitfeld] was a big inspiration as well. Fabien Baron is incredible; I think he has an incredible vision, so clean and minimalistic, that influenced the magazine as well. But I didn’t want it to be too clean on the other hand, because the inspiration was the seventies, and the magazines in the seventies are very far from that. It was a bit of a struggle. And I don’t want it to be taken too seriously. There’s a lot in it that has a sense of humor, a wink.
Do you think men and women approach sex differently?
I think it’s definitely different. In general, I think women approach it in a more sensual way, and a more personal way than a man. A man looks at it and thinks is it sexy or not. A woman will look at every little detail and more of the feeling of the image rather than is the girl sexy. For a woman to take a sexy picture, it takes way more than for a man.
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Versailles On Video, Courtesy Of Inez And Vinoodh
Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin had enviable access for their latest project: the run of Versailles, a luxury that’s historically been reserved for the likes of Louis XV. For Secret Garden, the video they created for Dior and posted to their Tumblr today, the duo shot models Daria Strokous, Melissa Stasiuk, and Xiao Wen Ju careering through the palace to the sounds of Depeche Mode. They’re not the last fashion tenants to take over Versailles, either. Next month, Chanel will show its Resort collection in its hallowed halls.
Plus, for more on the photographers, visit Style.com’s The Image Makers: Inez and Vinoodh.
Fashion’s Nights (And Days) At The Museum
When we set out to tell the story of 2011 by the numbers, one loomed especially large: 661,509, the record-breaking number of visitors who lined up, often for hours at a time, to see the Costume Institute’s Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (left) at the Met.
But it wasn’t just a banner year for the Met and the late, great McQueen; designers and museums forged a strong bond this year, one that looks likely to continue well into the next. Museums across the globe invited designers into their halls and the results have made for some of the best exhibitions in memory.
During Couture week, Hussein Chalayan opened a retrospective at Paris’ Musée des Arts Decoratifs, where next year, Marc Jacobs and his work for Louis Vuitton will take up residence. The City of Light also played host to Ralph Lauren and his collection of automobiles (it also now boasts an enormous new RL store and restaurant, one of the town’s new favorite spots for burgers). And Florence is the new home of the Museo Gucci, opened during Milan’s Spring 2012 week with all due fanfare, and a Blondie performance to boot.
In America, socials flocked to San Francisco for the opening of Balenciaga and Spain (which also traveled to New York) and to Dallas for The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, which debuted earlier this year at Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts. Just this month, Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte opened RODARTE: Fra Angelico, a show of the dresses their created for their June presentation at Pitti, at L.A.’s LACMA.
Farther afield, Dior went to Russia, where house jewelry designer Camille Micelli sent us this postcard, for Inspiration Dior, attended, naturally, by a lavish party. And the Netherlands continues to be a slightly off-the-radar destination for fashion’s cultural tourists. A retrospective of the work of Azzedine Alaïa is now on view in Gronningen, outside Amsterdam, and the capital’s contemporary-photo museum, FOAM, which hosted the likes of Jefferson Hack for a panel on What’s Next, which followed a retrospective of work by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin—one which eventually became the germ of their new career-spanning anthology, Pretty Much Everything.
Here in New York, the more traditional homes of fashion, like FIT’s Fashion Museum, were busy, too. The museum recently opened the first part of The Great Designers, including Armani, Dior, Givenchy, and McQueen, and plans to open part two in March. Chief curator and museum director Valerie Steele also worked with clotheshorse and collector Daphne Guinness on an exhibition of her own holdings—which, it turns out, Guinness keeps organized via computer database.
Next year, all eyes will be on Miuccia Prada for the next Costume Institute exhibition, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada on Fashion. But before then, there’s a Louboutin retrospective in London to look forward to, on the heels of the shoemaker’s victory-lap 20th anniversary year. And WWD reports today that several fashion labels are taking a renewed interest in their own histories, too. Balmain is ramping up its archival holdings, and Chloé recently brought on an in-house archivist, in anticipation of a retrospective planned for its 60th anniversary next year.