Psycho Teddy, 2014

or 'Going Down In La La Land'

Top J.W. Anderson
Shirt Comme des Garçons Homme Plus
Trousers Comme des Garçons Homme Plus

My new imaginary-non-imaginary friend comes in shape of a children's toy gone wrong. Jacquard woven in signal colours, this companion has an alarming effect on passers-by. Whispering with a grim smile: 'W-A-R-N-I-N-G. I'll take you with me.'
/HORST

Hip Teens Over 30

Yohji Yamamoto Spring/Summer 2014

Have we yet discussed the best collection for 2014? Junya Watanabe was quite close - with shredded hippie anti-structures. And now, after a few weeks of thinking, I came to the conclusion that it is Yohji's time. Fluoroscent neon bigotry, disgusting, hip and trendy, self-questioning, fantastic.
/HORST

Post Paris XXXIII

A 'False Encyclopaedia' double feature with John-Michael O'Sullivan, discussing:
Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2014

It's a boy/girl thing.

Before Raf Simons became boldface RAF SIMONS, he was just a shy Belgian student, hanging around with the cool kids - kids like his girlfriend, Véronique Branquinho, who would go on to collaborate with him at Ruffo, and to teach at the same fashion school in Vienna. And though Simons' star quickly outshone Branquinho's, you get the sense that he's never entirely shaken the vestiges of that outsiderish-ness, that lack of the intrinsic cool which Branquinho so effortlessly had.

The surfaces of this collection were so alive with associations to the past - the neon-pink shoulders from AW09, the rainbow stripes from Jil Sander Spring 2011 - that you had to pick away to get to the nancy-boy softness of thigh-grazing polo shirts, pinafore vests and fluid tees. Increasingly, his own-label collections seem as much about the flesh left exposed - the lean, gangly legs and arms emerging from cropped shorts and sleeveless shirts - as they are about the garments themselves. And the barrage of slogans (like the Jean Prouvé house, and the Calder mobile, and the Warhol illustrations stamped onto his last Dior womenswear collection) felt like semaphore; appropriated shorthand for a message that Simons won't, or can't, quite articulate.
/JOHN-MICHAEL

Undeniably, there is some kind of excitement attached to Raf Simons. And when you divide its parts, there is nothing exciting about it. Maybe it could be called 'Analytic Pop'. Ordinary things we know, signature ideas we crave, irritation we surrender to. Rave and advertising. Subculture and commerce. Raf is selling himself, selling out, selling dreams. A mass-media machine, a masturbation factory, a perpetuum mobile. The TV station that will exceed MTV. We have to admit the 'happy yeah' and swallow the pill.
/HORST








1. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2014
2. Jean Prouvé 1962 & Alexander Calder 1957 & Raf Simons 2011
3. Helmut Lang Spring/Summer 2004
4. Raf Simons & Véronique Branquinho Ruffo Research, 2000
5. Andy Warhol Four Dollar Signs, 1982
6. Damien Hirst Lullaby, 2002
7. Dior Fall/Winter 2013
8. Raf Simons Spring/Summer 2014

All about John-Michael O'Sullivan

A Short History Of The Comic Strip In Popular Culture VIII

1. Walter van Beirendonck Spring/Summer 2012
2. Erwin Wurm Fat Car, 2001

The moving comic sculpture. Walter van Beirendonck and Erwin Wurm almost made me cry. Together, they presented walking absurdity during the Spring/Summer 2012 menswear finale. A collection that could easily be entitled 'POW, BOOM, BANG'. Worth shedding a happy tear.
/HORST

A Short History Of The Comic Strip In Popular Culture VII

1. Bertrand Lavier Walt Disney Productions, 1947-1995
2. T. Kelly Mason Lifestyle (Red Balloon), 2013
3. Erwin Wurm The Artist Who Swallowed the World, 2006 & Untitled, 2008
4. Thomas Scheibitz Captain Amely, 2007 & Sumpfblüte, 2008

The comic/al in scultpure. If taken and misused as a literal idea, recreating a Disney scenery in 'real' life (Bertrand Lavier) or using comic sculpture as static performance of an ironic story (Erwin Wurm) - enriched with the seductive quality of pop, the materialized comic strip slowly turns into 'strip-tease'.
/HORST

Mystic Silver

Shirt Comme des Garçons Homme Plus
Trousers Ann Demeulemeester
Shoes Ann Demeulemeester

The objet trouvé coated in fluorescent or metallic colour. Paint-by-number paintings of dolphins and puppies, filled with mirrors, glitter and textured wallpaper. Plus: a dark room with neon lights.
/HORST

Anselm Reyle: Mystic Silver, Nov 9 – Jan 27 2013, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany

Per Refusal

Dior Spring/Summer 2013

What was I saying on twitter? - "Amazing veil setting. Sharp, severe and aggressive. Bye romanticism. Raf Sander for Dior. A striped homage to Helmut Lang." The beautiful defeat of a man and a name. The birth of another modernism.
/HORST

Image credits Style.com

A Short History Of The Grid In Popular Culture IV

1. Sølve Sundsbø Dazed and Confused, June 2012
2. Kraftwerk
3. Tim Mara Table Top, 1989
4. Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 1989
5. Jean Paul Gaultier Spring/Summer 1992
6. Sølve Sundsbø Dazed and Confused, June 2012
7. Sarah Moon 10 Magazine, Spring/Summer 2008
8. Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2012

What if the idea of clothing was enhanced by holograms and light projections. Possibly controlled by bare thoughts. The Overprojected installation was a first attempt, the hologram fabrics by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton an affirmation of this thought.
/HORST