Tokyo Diaries XV

A mental travel preparation.




Naruse Inokuma Architects Setagaya Flat, 2011

Moving in. A wooden box of medetative emptiness. Moving. Unfinished finished surface manipulation. Just moved in. The completeness of nothing. Moving away. The souvenir: a feeling of removal.
/HORST

The Real Winner Of Paris Fashion Week, An Afterthought

Gareth Pugh Fall/Winter 2013

Poetry aside, comparisons forgotten - I will now speak my word and thought, as it is.

The best collection for Fall/Winter 2013, presented during Paris Fashion Week, was - by far - presented by Gareth Pugh. It was a romantic, psychologic and deeply emotional exercise in womenswear, respectively its recurrent icon: the dress.

A balance act of soft and hard, cut and dimension. It felt massive and out of proportion, out of sight with the 'real' world. Women disappeared in grey pyramids of crispy textiles - just to be resurrected again as superhuman goddesses. Similar ideas have been proposed by Junya Watanabe and Thom Browne, and lately also by Maison Martin Margiela or Giles but it never felt as 'right' and logical. The transformation of each look happened so meticulously, one had to look twice to feel the 'difference' - just to arrive at the total other end, in the end.
/HORST

A Short History Of The Grid In Popular Culture VI

or 'How Horst Influences Fashion'






1. Calvin Klein Spring/Summer 2013
2. Marni Spring/Summer 2013
3. Ming Pin Tien Spring/Summer 2013
4. Phoebe English Spring/Summer 2013
5. Sportmax Spring/Summer 2013

Each season, at least five design houses follow the call and demands of Horst. This phenomenon can be explained as 'collective consciousness'. Ideas and observations float. Minds are transparent and diaphanous. Just like an open grid.
/HORST

Image credits Catwalking

Ani/Mate V

1. Final Fantasy IX Kuja, 2000
2. Christopher Kane Spring/Summer 2012

Christopher Kane introduces the Transformers flower dress. And thus equally refers to the sweet (かわいい, kawaii) and brutal (むごい, mugoi) of Anime. Meanwhile the idea of 'origami' is as present as the Japanes fetish for hi-tech (q.v. boots/sandals).
/HORST

Der Hüftknoten

1. Comme des Garçons US Vogue 1983
2. Ann-Sofie Back Spring/Summer 2007
3. Wendy & Jim Fall/Winter 2002
4. J.W. Anderson Fall/Winter 2011

From neck to hip. Take a bow for the waist-tied knot. A construction that can easily be achieved within one thought and a few seconds. Which may remind myself of wearing the wonderful Raf Simons T-shirt-attached jeans again.
/HORST