7 posts tagged "Tracey Emin"
Britain’s Boys Are Back in Town
It’s been a big week for the London Collections: Men, with Rag & Bone and Pringle of Scotland announcing that they would join the likes of Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, and Burberry in presenting during the city’s third menswear showcase this June. “I think London is pretty much the home of menswear. Look at Savile Row and the great heritage we have. We invented the suit!” said Dylan Jones—the editor in chief of British GQ and the chair of London’s men’s collections—at an event at the British Residence in New York last night. The occasion, which drew the likes of BFC chief executive Caroline Rush, Dominic Jones, Nasir Mazhar, Sibling’s Cozette McCreery, Lou Dalton, and more, marked the announcement of London’s Spring 2014 menswear schedule. The lineup includes the above-mentioned international brands, as well as talents like Christopher Kane, Richard Nicoll, and James Long. Long, fresh out of the London Showrooms, which visited New York this week, offered, “When I started menswear in London, we had to struggle to have a voice. It was very behind womenswear. Now, all these supportive people have made [London menswear] happen, and it’s so funny being in New York and having menswear be the focus.” Caroline Rush concurred. “The womenswear designers have great recognition, but to put that spotlight on these incredible menswear brands is really important,” she said.
One might wonder why the British Fashion Council chose to reveal the London menswear roster in Manhattan rather than on its home turf. “We’re here tonight…because so many New York designers have supported us since we launched 18 months ago,” said Jones in his speech, noting that Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Tom Ford, and more had all lent a hand. He added that Tommy Hilfiger, David Furnish, Tracey Emin, and Details magazine will all be throwing “amazing” parties during the upcoming shows, which will run from June 16 to 18. “When [everyone] goes over to Milan, they’re going to have one hell of a hangover,” he laughed. The complete Spring 2014 London Collections: Men schedule is available at www.londoncollections.co.uk.
London Parties For Fashion Week, With Dinner, Drinks, And A Few Well-Placed Torsos
You don’t get to much shopping in the course of a busy day of London fashion-week shows. But last night, two of the city’s marquee boutiques found another way to welcome fashion weekers to town: Over in Chelsea, Joseph was hosting dinner at the store’s Joe’s Café, and back in the center of town, Browns had set up shop in the Royal Academy vaults to celebrate the store’s launch of Club Monaco in the U.K.
First, dinner. Joseph served up a nicely British repast of beet carpaccio and sea bream, one partaken of by Charles Anastase, Pat McGrath, Tamara Mellon, and Katie Hillier, as well as acclaimed chef and British-cuisine cheerleader Mark Hix. Meanwhile, over at Browns, where the likes of Tracey Emin and Sophia Hesketh could be found, Hix’s team of mixologists from his pop-up Speak Easy were treating guests to high-class cocktails, including a dangerous dark-cherry-flavored concoction. The spirit at Browns was a bit more Frenchified: The party’s host was Lou Doillon (left), and Le Baron’s André Saraiva had hopped the Channel to deejay. Or perhaps the mood was more transcontinental, what with Club Monaco being an American-owned brand, and the after-party going down at London’s recently opened outpost of the Box. Welcome to the global village.
Best to down another cherry cocktail, stop thinking about geography, and start looking at the art decorating the scene. The Royal Academy vaults had never before been opened to a private event, and the sculpture-strewn space may have been the real star of last night’s party. Vaguely creepy and seriously cool was the general verdict, and designer Saloni Lodha, who had presented her collection the previous day, was already making plans to relocate her show to the Royal Academy next season. “You think they’d let me do it?” she mused, staring up at a bank of muscular stone torsos hanging off one wall. “I mean, I don’t even know how Browns managed to pull this off. I didn’t even know this was down here!” As Doillon might have noted, après moi, le deluge.
Naughty Nicoll
The decor at London’s new House of Voltaire pop-up shop, sponsored by the nonprofit Studio Voltaire gallery and nestled above footwear designer Rupert Sanderson’s Mayfair flagship, is traditional. The merchandise you’ll find there? Not so much.
Designed by the young U.K.-based architecture firm 6a, the shop is meant to evoke a Victorian Bond Street boutique, with rich hunter green walls and classic white-paned windows. But its stock, curated by Studio Voltaire’s artistic director, Joe Scotland, would raise Victorian eyebrows. Take Richard Nicoll’s tees and scarves, created in collaboration with the feminist artist Linder Sterling. A new spin on the graphic-printed dresses the duo turned out a few seasons back, the limited-edition items have a collage of shots from vintage porn, modestly covered up by blossoming flowers. “Porn in the seventies and early eighties was a lot more romantic than it is now,” Nicoll offered about his risqué inspiration. “Linder and I both wanted to support the charity, but on a selfish note, this was an opportunity to have a bit of fun and create something that my friends and I might want to wear. And it’s completely different from your average day designing womenswear.” (Are erotically themed shirts enjoying a moment right now? The Nicoll/Sterling tees call to mind the sexy Robert Mapplethorpe-screened ones Chloë Sevigny included in her Resort ’11 collection for Opening Ceremony.)
Reserved shoppers shouldn’t fear, though. The Studio Voltaire shop has plenty of more subdued items, too, from a brick-printed jacquard suit by the installation artist Anthea Hamilton to a teapot by YBA star Tracey Emin. Her most famous piece may have been a tent embroidered with the names of her lovers, but schoolmarms can rest easy. Sometimes a teapot is just a teapot.
House of Voltaire is open through December 4 at 19 Burton Place, London.
A Week Of Their Own, Shorts For The Girl Who Has Everything, And More…
Is New York’s combined men’s and women’s fashion week hurting menswear designers? The ones who’ve moved shop to Europe—where menswear is shown in June, rather than September—say yes. Will New York follow suit with its own dedicated men’s week? [WWD]
The latest addition to the White House Correspondents Dinner: Donatella Versace, who will sit with The Daily Beast. [WWD]
Naomi Campbell is refusing to testify at the trial of a Liberian warlord who allegedly gave her an enormous blood diamond during a stay at Nelson Mandela’s ranch in 1997. The super claims she never received an enormous diamond (proffered, the story goes, in the dead of night), but fellow guest Mia Farrow remembers differently. “You don’t forget when a girlfriend tells you she was given a huge diamond in the middle of the night.” [Page Six]
The Wall Street Journal clocks a new trend: leather shorts, the must-have for the girl who has everything. (Clever designers figured they’re the one item the girl who has everything doesn’t have.) The paper gives a fairly comprehensive rundown of the options, from Alice + Olivia to YSL (pictured) to Chrome Hearts’ $3,100 version. Which, for the record, Ikram can’t keep in stock. [WSJ]
And Malcolm McLaren was laid to rest in London today at a funeral attended by Dame Vivienne Westwood, Tracey Emin, Dinos Chapman, and McLaren’s partner, Young Kim. [Vogue U.K.]
Siren’s Song
If the YBA movement—that’s Young British Artists, in case you weren’t gallery-hopping in the Saatchi-mad nineties—has a staff photographer, it’s a post held by Johnnie Shand Kydd, who’s shot everyone from Sam Taylor-Wood and Tracey Emin to Damien Hirst with Kate Moss. Many of those famous sitters, Emin and Taylor-Wood among them, came to Charing Cross last night to celebrate the lensman’s latest book, Siren City. And though those ladies are no doubt sirens (Taylor-Wood showed up with her new, 19-year-old fianc&233;, Aaron Johnson), it’s not a fellow artist whose song Shand Kydd heeded this time around: It’s the city of Naples.
“Whenever I find myself discussing Naples, I don’t feel like I am talking about bricks and mortar. The city’s an organism, almost human—like a very beautiful lover but with severe mental issues,” he said. So maybe a little bit more like his previous subjects than we first thought. All eyes were on the photographer as he described the city’s eerie, paganlike vibe (and, Emin noted, dark alleys and suspicious characters: “Were you ever frightened taking pictures in Naples?” she asked). With luminaries like Bella Freud, Earl Spencer (the late Princess Diana’s brother, and Shand Kydd’s stepbrother), and Agent Provocateur co-founder Serena Rees in attendance, we wondered if, post-Naples, a return to portraiture was in order. In terms of subject matter, the brass ring is still out there: “I would like to photograph Lucien Freud. He is a great, great painter and physically totally compelling.”
Siren City is available for purchase at www.othercriteria.com.