Tokyo Diaries II

A mental travel preparation.







Yoshihiko Ueda Mies van der Rohe, 2012

The foreign view and observations of a visitor - a fundamental exercise of Modernism. Accept, adapt, react. Ueda embarked on a pilgrimage to photograph and document more than just a site but an emotional state.
/HORST

Post Paris XXV

25th anniversary double feature with John-Michael O'Sullivan, discussing:
Balenciaga Fall/Winter 2013

"It's about America. It's not about couture." Those were the words Helmut Lang used to explain why he turned down Balenciaga in 1996, and instead packed up his label for a new life in New York. Couture was the past, then; and no-one could have dreamed then that the past would come to so utterly dominate the future.

There have been four designers at Balenciaga - or rather, at the brand set up by a company who purchased the name from Balenciaga's family long after he'd died, and even longer after he'd abruptly closed his business. Michel Goma, the old-school couturier; Josephus Thimister, the tortured dreamer; Nicolas Ghesquiére, the temp who managed against all expectations to escape the archives and translate Balenciaga into the 21st century; and Alexander Wang, the American picked because the label's owners decided they wanted it to be 'approachable'.

But instead of a brand new start, the cracked black-and-white marble floor on Wang's runway felt funereal, like the marble in Slimane's intensely divisive remaining of Saint Laurent. Chill, cold, unyielding: less a new start than a requiem mass. Chill, ice-white bark textures, cold colours, unyielding shapes: and yet the 'approachable' , marketable, profitable energy of a young American designer kept breaking through the cracks.

/JOHN-MICHAEL

The premier appoggiatura of 'Wangciaga' confronts us with a backwards-minded collection that puts the hard-edged feminity of Nicolas Ghesquière into question. Its anti-tools: the nostalgic, ladylike elegance of Cristóbal Balenciaga combined with the retro-fiction of Kenneth Price and cyber-organic wood-carvings of H.R. Giger.
/HORST








1. Balenciaga Fall/Winter 2013
2. Balenciaga Vogue Paris, July 1948
3. Balenciaga Henry Clarke, 1951
4. Saint Laurent Boutique, 2012
5. Balenciaga Evening ensemble, 1967
6. Kenneth Price Mountainside Sculpture, 2009
7. H.R. Giger New York City X, 1981
8. Balenciaga Fall/Winter 2013

More reviews by John-Michael O'Sullivan 1972 Projects

Miusing Escher VI

1. Miu Miu Spring/Summer 2013
2. M. C. Escher Reptiles, 1943

Tin opener and luxury handbag. Lizard and cactus. Again, we are confronted with symbolism without meaning (see Welcome To Tomorrow). The still life as chain of associations, as exquisite corpse.
/HORST

Numerica

Marble shelf Paolo Ulian

My love for numeric numbers has become quite obvious during the years, pursuing the concept of a continuous 'series' (i.e. Balenciaga Questions or A Short History). Now the numeric number comes in marble.
/HORST

Codes Of Construction, Epilogue

Hernández Cornet Spring/Summer 2013

From hardware to hardwear. From hardcore to heartcore. Backstage impressions from the Hernández Cornet Spring/Summer 2013 collection. As always, it's all about the details, the shim and the shimmer.
/HORST

Image credits Erika Helin