Tokyo Diaries V

A mental travel preparation.

Ikuo Amano Shiseido クレ・ド・ポー

Intensity is what I expect. Purity is what I assume. There is nothing but pink lipstick - the world and every human being immersed in its lucid gloss. I want to be blinded by artificial beauty.
/HORST

Post Paris XXIV

A false encyclopaedic guide to the Paris collections, presenting:
Veronique Branquinho Fall/Winter 2013

1. Veronique Branquinho Archive
2. Adriano Brusaferri Spindle tools used to calibrate organ pipes, 19th century
3. Satoshi Saikusa Valentino Haute Couture Fall/Winter 1993

Paris re-opens the chapter of False Encyclopaedia. And since Veronique Branquinho's last show was my first show, this is an appreciation post. Celebrating craft, sincerity and stringency. The colour beige, the bustier top and turtleneck, the Belgian rigor.
/HORST

Chronology

1. Erwin Blumenfeld Vogue, January 1950
2. Daniel Sannwald Pop Magazine, Spring/Summer 2012
3. Steven Meisel Vogue Italia, February 2012

Continuing Man Ray's photographic legacy and experiments with solarization and overexposure, Erwin Blumenfeld created some of the most iconic Vogue covers. In a tribute to Richard Hamilton's 1969 'Fashion Plate' series, Ashley Heath of POP adds make-up to a photographic collage and Steven Meisel stages a fetishized peek-a-boo mask for Vogue Italia. While each approach is so different, the results feel so associated. The collective accoutrement: lips and eyes.
/HORST

A Short History Of Lips In Popular Culture II

1. Frédérique Lucien Sans Titre, 2010
2. Richard Burbridge Great Exaggerations, Vogue Italia March 2005
3. Maison Martin Margiela Spring/Summer 2009
4. Comme des Garçons Fall/Winter 2008
5. Inez Van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin Theatre Group, Vogue Paris August 2009
6. Prada Fall/Winter 2002 & Comme des Garçons Fall/Winter 2000

Glazed, attached or cut out. A symbolically supercharged Man Ray motif, lips are regarded as gate to the human soul, exchanged through the soft breeze of a thing called 'kiss'.
/HORST

A Short History Of Lips In Popular Culture

1. Man Ray Le Baiser, 1930
2. Comme des Garçons Fall/Winter 2004
3. Comme des Garçons Spring/Summer 2006
4. Man Ray A l’heure de l’observatoire – Les Amoureux, 1934
5. Comme des Garçons Fall/Winter 2009

A surreal kiss between Man Ray and Rei Kawakubo that has never been. Paired and displaced, multiplied and supersized. For Man Ray, the 'nakedness of two faces' was a socially tolerated form of sexual portraiture and therefore being chosen. Rei Kawakubo says: ‘If you are to put color on the face, it need not to be on the lips. It can be anywhere’. While Man Ray tends towards sensuality, Rei Kawakubo prefers destroyed feminity as an anti-position and de-sexualisation. And lips don't lie.
/HORST