scars, imperfections, and failure.

10sei0otto cracked horse leather derby

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:06:11 -0700

10sei0otto cracked horse leather derby

Comme des Garçons Photographed by Mattieu Belin

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:01:20 -0700

Comme des Garçons

Photographed by Mattieu Belin

Julius F/W 2013 [crack;] via Rizm

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:30:27 -0700

Julius F/W 2013 [crack;]

via Rizm

Comme des Garçons 1983

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:01:08 -0700

Comme des Garçons 1983

WENDERS: I don’t know anyone who keeps the hours that you...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:01:00 -0700

WENDERS: I don’t know anyone who keeps the hours that you keep. But it’s good to hear your voice. I wish I could be in Tokyo with you right now. We could go play some pool and eat some blowfish.

YAMAMOTO: Yes, I remember—the poison fish.

WENDERS: You took me to the restaurant that served that poison blowfish, and I thought, “This is very, very dangerous, because any little mistake the cook makes … You die.” [both laugh] I was so nervous—even the dessert there seemed like poison dessert. But we survived it.

Yohji Yamamoto interviewed by Wim Wenders

Athleticism is rarely a quality praised, or even acknowledged, in fashion. But it is also one that is hard to dismiss in a designer like Yohji Yamamoto, who once concluded a runway show with a martial-arts demonstration in which he appeared to karate-chop a male model.

Along with Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo, Yamamoto was, of course, at the fore of an influential wave of avant-garde designers who emerged from Japan in the 1970s and early 1980s. Born into wartime Tokyo in 1943, he first studied law, but opted instead to go to work for his mother, a seamstress, and enroll in Bunka Fashion College. It was after a brief sojourn in Paris that he established his first label, Y’s, in Tokyo in 1972, debuting his eponymous line back in the French capital nine years later and blowing away the tight dresses and padded shoulders of the sartorial moment with the billows of dark fabric and a brand of intellectual playfulness that instantly earned him a place as one of the most forward-looking, paradigm-breaking, and versatile artists in contemporary fashion. But for a man whose work has consistently been associated with the cutting edges of things, Yamamoto has always remained remarkably trend-phobic, choosing to operate within a framework that has less to do with the whims of seasons and more to do with the development of ideas, as exemplified by his frequently loose, asymmetrical cuts, enveloping drapes, ample uses of black, and recurring flirtations with sexuality and androgyny. In this way—as well as others—Yamamoto has always described his relationship with fashion as one built around a kind of tension that’s palpable in his clothes, where freedom (you can dream up whatever you want) and restriction (you are beholden to commerce, rules, reactions, and deadlines) are in a constant tug-of-war.

But back to athleticism: At the end of the 1980s, Yamamoto took up karate, eventually earning his black belt and embarking on a kind of sporting life that would undoubtedly inform another of his endeavors. In 2002, Yamamoto began collaborating with Adidas on Y-3, a line of sneakers, exercise clothes, and other active-minded pieces that applied the high-fashion sharpness of his main line to sportswear. As Yamamoto recalls, the idea for Y-3 first emerged when he requested some sneakers from Adidas for a show, which was intended as a subversive nod to the brand’s currency with street kids in Japan, who, at the time, were going through one of their periodic infatuations with triple-striped track suits. The conversation that ensued led to a discussion about Adidas creating some special sneakers for Yamamoto, which led to another discussion about more fashiony nips, tucks, and variations that could be applied to other kinds of athleticwear, and ultimately to the development of the entire line, which came to include accessories and even fragrances. Indirectly, Y-3 also paved the way for other fashion-sportswear brand collaborations (as well as the advent of the designer sneaker), and helped establish a stronger, more frequently traveled bridge between the runways and the street—the impact of which, among other things, has been a profound increase in the speed with which the ideas and attributes of high fashion wend their way into how people dress in their daily lives.

The merging and intermingling of these disparate worlds has become an area of frequent exploration for a number of designers on both sides of the aisle—and one that Yamamoto has continued to examine, and even comment on, in his own work. In fact, it was at the end of a laser-lit, superhero-themed Y-3 show in 2010 that Yamamoto tapped into his considerable gifts as both a martial artist and a performance artist in delivering the aforementioned karate-chop, a sudden blow that leveled his opponent—after which the designer himself was swiftly taken out by one of his female models.

Filmmaker Wim Wenders, who memorably captured Yamamoto in his own habitat for the 1989 documentary Notebook on Cities and Clothes, recently reconnected with the designer, now 69, in Tokyo to discuss 10 years of Y-3, how he maintains his edge, and why it’s still best not to mess with him in a dark alley.

WIM WENDERS: Where are you right now?

YOHJI YAMAMOTO: I’m just finishing up in my room at the office.

WENDERS: You always work so late.

YAMAMOTO: Where are you?

WENDERS: I’m in the office, too—in Berlin. But it’s in the middle of the day here. So you had a long day again as usual?

YAMAMOTO: Very, very busy—and yes, that’s the usual. You know, at this point, I’ve become like a clothes-making machine.

WENDERS: I don’t know anyone who keeps the hours that you keep. But it’s good to hear your voice. I wish I could be in Tokyo with you right now. We could go play some pool and eat some blowfish.

YAMAMOTO: Yes, I remember—the poison fish.

WENDERS: You took me to the restaurant that served that poison blowfish, and I thought, “This is very, very dangerous, because any little mistake the cook makes … You die.” [both laugh] I was so nervous—even the dessert there seemed like poison dessert. But we survived it.

YAMAMOTO: Yes, we did. Do you remember the bet?

WENDERS: Which one? [laughs] Oh, the pool game.

YAMAMOTO: Exactly.

WENDERS: I lost—or I think I lost. Do you think you lost?

YAMAMOTO: I think I won the bet.

WENDERS: Yes, you won … Absolutely. And now it all comes back to me! We said that if I lost, then I would have to take part in a men’s show and go on the catwalk.

YAMAMATO: You still have to do it!

WENDERS: I will! I remember when Samuel Fuller walked in your men’s show in Paris. That was so fabulous! Sam was so proud to be showing your clothes. I would be, too—I’m doing it all the time anyway. I’ve had to fix some of the old suits because I’ve had them as long as we’ve known each other—or even longer.

YAMAMOTO: You are a very good dresser. [laughs]

WENDERS: I wasn’t before. Over the years, though, I have developed a sixth sense when it comes to who is wearing Yohji. I can see it right away.

YAMAMOTO: Well, recently, the new winds have started blowing to me. My company, my business, has been growing.

WENDERS: Thinking about the film that we did together, Notebook on Cities and Clothes: Do you realize that it’s almost a quarter of a century old now? Can you imagine? We were both young men when we made that movie. So many things have happened to you since then—and over the last 10 years, especially.

YAMAMOTO: Yes, yes. But at the same time, I feel like I have become a living fossil in the fashion world. Without even noticing it, in my own collection I have moved away from the street style. I was on a Japanese designers’ pedestal—considered a maestro. My design was getting closer to a couturier’s work, and I felt like I was missing something. But I always want to have a new challenge involved. I need to put myself to the test, and if I make mistakes, it doesn’t matter. What matters to me, instead, is making my dreams come true and putting them on display. At a certain point, I stopped seeing my clothing worn by people on the streets … It seemed like they were being treated as museum items.

WENDERS: Well, you’ve been designing for how long now?

YAMAMOTO: Around 50 years. I started working in Tokyo about 40 years ago, and I’ve been showing in Paris for 32 years.

WENDERS: So you are not a fossil, you are a dinosaur. [Yamamoto laughs] But a dinosaur that is in good shape.

YAMAMOTO: Well, for my next men’s show, you will have to walk on the stage.

WENDERS: Okay, just give me a call. I’m nice and thin right now, but don’t wait too long, because I’m going to gain weight again.

YAMAMOTO: [laughs] I’m planning to make a very strange fashion show right now in Berlin.

WENDERS: What is going to be so strange about it?

YAMAMOTO: I’m going to do a show by using my archives—my old work.

WENDERS: I think the last time we saw each other was at your beautiful exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum a couple of years ago. You showed some things from your archives there, too.

YAMAMOTO: The Victoria and Albert was an exhibition, though—a retrospective. But I’ve never done an archive show before.

WENDERS: You’ve been collaborating with Adidas on Y-3 for 10 years now.

YAMAMOTO: Yes, it’s 10 years already that I’ve been doing that.

WENDERS: I remember how excited I was when that started—I still have some beautiful vintage shoes from the first or second year. How did working on that develop?

YAMAMOTO: It’s been growing every year. We now have a whole team of five or six people who are involved in it. They all work with me on Y-3. It all happened spontaneously. In the beginning we just wanted to borrow some ‘three stripes’ trainers from Adidas for my Fall-Winter 2000-01 show. In Japan, the three stripes were everywhere, and the young crowd did not take them off even when it was time to go to bed. So I decided to ring up Adidas and ask them. I was sure that they would refuse and was pleasantly surprised when they said yes. Then we started discussing with their designers how the sportswear of the future would look and decided that we would need high-tech fabrics, bright colors, and fashionable silhouettes—in short, everything the full-price prêt-à-porter collections had. So that’s how Y-3 came about. For Y-3, I am creating something that has never before existed in the world … It developed naturally and grew the way children develop and grow. More things were added—accessories, hats, bicycles, soccer balls—but the original idea has not changed. You have to treat Y-3 like it is an independent human—in that way, the brand already has its own character. The sports world and its technology seek practicality and functionality, attempting to reduce excess, while fashion is seeking the opposite. So together with Adidas, we created something that did not exist before—and completely projected the future. Adidas is a very personal inspiration to me. It has enriched my creative life. It’s an exchange between different cultures, different ideas, and most of all, it is teamwork. Japanese and German people are intelligent sorts—our working rhythm is the same. So Adidas and I, we just like each other. So what are you doing right now?

WENDERS: I’ve been working on this documentary about my favorite photographer, Sebastião Salgado. He and I have been discussing something that I wanted to ask you about. If you’re working as a filmmaker, a writer, an artist, or in any creative field, as you become older, you often realize that, in a strange way, you always do the same movie, write the same novel, make the same painting. There is a language to your work that you can’t cast aside—it’s in you and it’s who you are. Do you feel like that’s true for you in any way? Do you feel like you’re designing the same clothes over and over? Or do you feel like you can still totally reinvent what you do?

YAMAMOTO: I feel like I’m doing the same thing every year. In my main line, there are boundaries and rules, whereas in designing for Y-3, I am more free. I can work without any taboos. But then there is also a schedule to fashion—the deadline is always set. So maybe the fashion business is a good business for me in that way because I’m basically lazy, man.

WENDERS: Well, for a lazy man you are the worst workaholic I know. Do you at least take some days off after a show?

YAMAMOTO: I have no imagination about holidays, vacations, or retiring life. I can’t imagine about those things.

WENDERS: I am the same way. Donata [Wenders’s wife] tries to convince me that we should have a holiday, but I don’t know how to do it. It’s a difficult concept for me—to go somewhere and not do anything. Don’t you think it’s a strange idea, the holiday? To travel somewhere in order to—

YAMAMOTO: Not to do something. Yes, it’s very difficult for me, too … But when you describe it the way you just did, I like it. [both laugh]

WENDERS: Do you still play guitar?

YAMAMOTO: Not anymore. I no longer have emotion for playing guitar or making music. If I do it again, then maybe the title of the song I play will be “Goodbye.”

WENDERS: Let me know if you change your mind, because I loved your music. I wish I could still play the saxophone but I’ve lost the habit.

YAMAMOTO: The saxophone?

WENDERS: Yes, I used to play the saxophone. But it’s been too long since I’ve played, and if you don’t keep it up, then it’s probably the same as what happens with your fingers and playing guitar—your mouth doesn’t have the feeling for it anymore.

YAMAMOTO: Yes. You have to be dedicated. I also don’t have much time now because Keiko and I recently started living with a baby dog, which is a big responsibility. I cannot go out at night, because none of the coffee shops or restaurants accept animals in Japan. So when do you finish the film?

WENDERS: I’m still working on it, so hopefully we will finish this spring. I just shot with Salgado in Paris, and now we’re going to Brazil in a couple of days, to his hometown to shoot with him there. He’s a beautiful man and he does fantastic photography. But Donata and I might be in Tokyo later, in the next few months, so maybe we can see then if I cannot beat you at least once in pool. Maybe you will give me a chance.

YAMAMOTO: Oh, I’m sure you will lose again. [laughs]

WENDERS: I’m already intimidated—I will have to practice. Are you still fighting? Are you still doing martial arts?

YAMAMOTO: Not really. The best moments in my life recently are just before going to bed. Those are my happiest moments.

WENDERS: So your black belt is no longer active?

YAMAMOTO: I’m not sure. But if a crazy man wanted to have a street fight with me, I still might be able to beat him.

IS by Individual Sentiments Kangaroo Leather Derbies That toe...

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:01:00 -0700

IS by Individual Sentiments

Kangaroo Leather Derbies

That toe construction is beyond words. Individual Sentiments has really struck a chord with me here. Through retaining their classic shape and introducing a few more avant-garde elements to the shoe they have really created something unlike anything else. I need these for the summer. Yes, need.

IS by individual sentiments Kangaroo leather fold over boot

Tue, 07 May 2013 17:01:20 -0700

IS by individual sentiments

Kangaroo leather fold over boot

Rick Owens 2006

Fri, 03 May 2013 17:30:35 -0700

Rick Owens 2006

Rizm Closet Julius MA FW2013 Exhibition Opening More Photos

Fri, 03 May 2013 17:01:17 -0700

Rizm Closet Julius MA FW2013 Exhibition Opening

More Photos

YOHJI UNPLUGGED “An Evening with Yohji Yamamoto” at Soho House...

Wed, 01 May 2013 17:01:18 -0700

YOHJI UNPLUGGED

“An Evening with Yohji Yamamoto” at Soho House Berlin, the second installment in the four-part Yohji-thon during Berlin Gallery Weekend, provided another intriguing view of the Japanese designer and his work. Yamamoto bared a great deal in conversation with i-D’s Terry Jones and architectural designer Asif Khan. Among the tidbits Yamamoto served up Friday night:

On how he developed his personal taste: “I’m a big victim of women. I have been controlled by femme fatales for more than 60 years. And even now.”

On the difference between taste and fashion: “I hate fashion. Or the word fashion, which sounds colorful, extravagant, expensive and gorgeous.…I never wanted to walk the main street of fashion. I have been walking the sidewalks of fashion from the beginning, so I’m a bit dark.”

On explaining his style: “I have no style as Mr. Yohji Yamamoto. I’m working each season against something, always antisomething though I can’t remember it all. Mainly I design clothing as an antitrend, antifashion [so] naturally I’m spending my life in a big paradox….I don’t really trust my point of view always, and sometimes rebel against myself too. I only like it when my work surprises myself. I don’t feel my work has a style. It’s more about the approach I take. It has to make me happy somehow, even though it makes me sad a lot.”

On the real/young Yohji: “I’m from the typical story of WWII, the only son of a WWII war widow. I had no idea of the meaning of family. We were just the two [of us], and she was missing her husband of whom I had no memory. She was expecting two men from me and I feel I’ve been carrying big luggage on my shoulders since I was five years old. Sometimes my mother told me directly ‘Yohji, you are the only reason I live.’ It was terrifying.”

On his clothes always seeming to protect the woman: “I told you already, I’m a victim of women. I naturally love women but at the same time, I hate. I want revenge in some way. The reason I could continue to work till now is revenging.”

On whether women are better clothed or unclothed: “Better clothed. As much as possible!”

On the greatest lesson learned from his mother so far: A long silence…“She was too busy to educate me, she just worked and worked. One day when I was a primary school student, I stole something from a shop. I found a very charming new eraser. The color was sort of pink and pale green. It looked delicious, and I ate it. And then I found out it was an eraser. I know I’d done a wrong, bad thing. One of my ex-ex-ex brothers [friends] told the story to my mother. My mother fell to the floor and started crying. She rolled around and around on the tatami mat, and I felt very sexy. So — I found out my mother is a woman. It was a big education.”

Devoa Paper Coated Denim (worn) via Fascinate

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:01:19 -0700

Devoa Paper Coated Denim (worn)

via Fascinate

The Rosenrot It’s a rarity that I specifically advertise...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:01:29 -0700

The Rosenrot

It’s a rarity that I specifically advertise another blog directly but this has been a long time favorite of mine. Gracia has amazing insights on fashion theory and beyond that her personal musings are what really keep me reading. In her most recent post she continues discussing the idea of “clothing as armor” which any of my readers know I identify with to the nth degree. As a male it is very enlightening to be able to hear the other perspective on this especially from such a well written source.

Aitor Throup: New Object Research Exhibition at H.LorenzoFull...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:01:18 -0700

Aitor Throup: New Object Research Exhibition at H.Lorenzo

Full Set

Individual Sentiments Spring Summer 2013

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:21:14 -0700

Individual Sentiments Spring Summer 2013

Sruli Recht Store ReykjavíkFull Set

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:30:37 -0700

Sruli Recht Store Reykjavík

Full Set

An exclusive look in to Rick Owens’ Paris home featuring...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:01:04 -0700

An exclusive look in to Rick Owens’ Paris home featuring his own line of furniture and artworks by Barry X

IN a salon where subjects like universal education and health care benefits once held center stage—a room groaning with elaborate boiserie, inlaid mirrors and parquet flooring—a taxidermic monkey now looms over a massive stone-gray table. Rick Owens, the iconic expatriate American designer, has taken up residence in the former French Socialist Party headquarters on the Place du Palais Bourbon, a few blocks south of the Seine.

“The building was empty for 20 years before we got it in 2004. It was hideous: office cubicles, insulation tiles, a real rat warren. I think it was too daunting for most people to take on—not too many people would do it the way we did,” Owens says, explaining that he “just ripped things out, but left the concrete floors and some of the other stuff—the bare bones are good.”

If a house in need of a total (or, in this case, artfully partial) renovation suits Owens, it may be because it conforms to his particularly unorthodox artistic vision, a love of polished imperfection that informs the clothing that has made him famous—a mode of dressing (and, more recently, home furnishings) that could be described as high-end, glamorous grunge. (Owens himself has called it “glunge.”) These creations have mesmerized the fashion world since he launched his first collections in the early ’90s, growing into a global phenomenon built on a foundation of skinny leather biker jackets beloved by everyone from teenagers (who admittedly have trouble scraping together enough babysitting money to purchase the original) to customers Owens proudly describes as “fierce grannies.” Among the other codes of the house are a willingness to treat sable with an irreverence usually reserved for sweatshirts and the employment of trumpet skirts and narrow trousers dedicated to elongating the body. Virtually everything is made in a palette that a former associate likened to the color of a dying bird.

Owens, who was born in 1961 in Porterville, California, came to Paris with his then-partner, now wife, Michèle Lamy, in 2003, when he was hired as creative director at Révillon furs. He met Lamy in Los Angeles in the late ’80s. He had been studying to be a painter at the Otis College of Art and Design but switched to pattern-making; Lamy, originally from Paris, had a sportswear factory at that time and employed him. Today, she is his muse, his goddess, his artistic other-half, the force behind his fur and furniture lines and, by default, his translator. “My French is still nonexistent,” he laughs ruefully. “I am so horrified I didn’t pick it up easily. I live with a mean French lady, and when she hears my French she can really give me a look of disdain.”

Though he remains a quintessentially American guy—soft-spoken but strong-minded, a long-haired, louche, super-fashionable version of Gary Cooper—Owens, like so many American artists before him, is besotted with Paris, thrilled to think that Montesquieu and Proust trod the very same cobblestones he crosses every day. Gazing out a window at the Ministry of Defense garden at the back of his house, he dreamily observes, “On days when there are visiting dignitaries reviewing the troops there’s a little band that plays the Marseillaise. It’s so sweet.”

This Left Bank building, whose glorious front rooms date from the early 19th century, but whose back area is an unimpressive addition from the ’50s, served until recently as Owens’s entire headquarters and living space. A few months ago he moved his showroom to another Paris location, but the furniture designing still takes place here. The fur department remains in situ, with a second-floor atelier featuring a curtain of mink pelts drying overhead, an eviscerated bear draped over a chair—purely as decoration, Owens confides—and a rack of rare python biker jackets, typically Owens-esque in their feral decadence. (Who knew scales could grow this big?)

This afternoon, a few days after Owens’s well-received fall 2013 runway show, the designer has been persuaded to conduct a house tour, clad in his usual uniform: unlaced sneakers, shorts over trousers, a halter T-shirt atop a garment he calls his “level” turtleneck (because of the straight line across the shoulder, in front of the throat). We ascend the narrow wooden stairs (he has plans to widen the staircase, rip out the charmless elevator and flood the place with light) and arrive at the living quarters, decorated almost exclusively with the furniture that Owens has been designing since 2006. Monumental and dramatic—combining the influences of Robert Mallet-Stevens, Donald Judd and Le Corbusier—the pieces, though spectacular in an Art Brut sort of way, are not exactly what you would call warm and cozy. They aren’t meant to be—Owens says they are the antithesis of his clothes, which place a premium on slouchy comfort. “With the furniture, I completely disregarded what’s practical—that’s art, that’s magic!” If the materials are wildly ambitious and the prices insanely high, if these antler chairs and petrified bark tables are scaled for a Texas oligarch or a Middle Eastern potentate, Owens merely shrugs. “The furniture started as a hobby for me. I mean, it’s not like I collect cars or anything. It was a personal indulgence. Frankly, I was surprised when we started selling it.”

Even when the decor is not Owens-designed, it is hardly candy-colored. On the floor of an area he refers to as Michèle’s gym—”I hate boxing,” he says. “She’s into cardio; I can’t do it”—is an elegant all-black boom box (words that don’t usually go together), a recent gift from Cher, a new acquaintance who has become a fast friend.

The master bedroom is dominated by a bed that is a replica of the one they had in L.A., a humongous creation made of felt-covered plywood, a design that Owens has also rendered in alabaster, in an edition of two. (Should you be considering asking him to increase this to three, bear in mind that it will weigh two tons—the person who previously purchased this $180,000 item had to have his floor reinforced.)

“How do we make all the things around us beautiful?” Owens asks rhetorically, explaining his interior design philosophy. “Every switch plate, every sneaker, I want all the everyday stuff to be great. I would like a rock crystal toilet!” In lieu of a crystal facility, there is a wonderful library, which Owens refers to as his “panic room,” and features rugs repurposed from surplus military blankets. Owens-designed shelving holds tomes that range from Scotty Bowers’s scandalous memoir, Full Service, to a compendium of Fellini films to seven bound volumes of Interview magazine.

“”When you think about it, my niche has been around forever. Sarah Bernhardt wore a taxidermied bat in her hair!””

“Honey, are you decent?” Owens calls out as we approach the next landing, where Lamy is just finishing up in her custom Owens-designed hammam. And here is the lady herself, surprisingly diminutive (birdlike, you might say), with a wicked grin that reveals her trademark mouthful of gold teeth. She is friendly and welcoming, and the two of them seem like they couldn’t be happier, but suddenly you find yourself wondering, OK, so there is a marble hammam and a bed that could sleep a family of 12, but can you get a cup of coffee around here? The answer is not really; though the work area has a full catering kitchen, the living quarters don’t even sport a dorm fridge, which Owens says is fine with him. “We have minibars on each floor—I can always get a cookie.”

As it turns out, the couple takes most meals at the Brasserie Le Bourbon on the corner: “We need to get out of the house anyway,” Owens says. Recently, they were having dinner at the restaurant when Pierre Cardin, still designing at 90, approached Owens and complimented him on his work. “I was just so touched, he’s so French!” Owens remembers. “It made me feel so validated, like I had achieved major French acceptance.” Not bad for a California boy with a schoolteacher mom and a very conservative social worker dad, who grew up in a house with a library that contained volumes of Colette and Huysmans but no TV. (Nevertheless, Owens watched television at friends’ houses, and it’s easy to guess his favorite program: The Addams Family, which was clearly a formative influence.) His parents travel to Paris twice a year to see his women’s runway shows, and every season his mom asks if he’s embarrassed she turns up in bright colors. (“No, mom, it’s fine,” he reassures her each time.) She was at his most recent show in February, which offered Asian-inspired women warriors marching to a Wagner soundtrack, their pre-Raphaelite hairdos literally blowing in the wind via steam machines.

Over lunch—the catering kitchen supplies orange juice and mineral water and a nearby bio (French for “organic”) restaurant sends over delicious chicken and couscous—Owens talks about his guiding aesthetic, common to both his fashion and his furniture. “When you think about it, my niche has been around forever,” he says. “Sarah Bernhardt wore a taxidermied bat in her hair! What I am doing is really a reformulation of exoticism.” We are in the room with the monkey (Francois Mitterrand’s former office) sitting on Owens’s Alchemist chairs—a triangular affair that he describes as “meant more for perching than for reading.” (Halfway through the meal this becomes readily apparent.)

The conversation turns to the underpinnings of virtually all his creative work: “It boils down to construction, creating my own language from the inside out, but always keeping my signature,” he explains. “Clothes are supposed to be about experience—the damage, the patina, accepting it and enjoying it, making it part of life. We all get impatient when things are too prim.”

Still, despite his many European influences—his entire opus, he says, smiling, owes a serious debt to Madame Grès, the French fashion designer and master cutter, and Eileen Gray, the avant-garde Irish furniture designer—Owens’s collected works aren’t exactly Continental; they are the product of an imagination that resides in a very specific Rick-land. His signature is so recognizable that it has inevitably turned up, massively copied, in high-street stores all over the globe, but Owens takes this in stride, even thinking of it as a compliment, though he admits that lately he has been considering his legacy. He says he is thrilled to be so influential, “but if I wasn’t credited, then it would hurt. And if someone was doing it better than me it would kill me. There are moments I want to claim my space a little more strongly. Sometimes I worry, Will I be a small footnote in fashion history?”

He laughs and that Gary Cooper–esque, all-American modesty reemerges, especially striking, and even a little touching from a guy who heads up a nearly $100 million business. “I know I should just be grateful paying the rent. I started out to do what’s cool and what amuses me, and I still try to operate like that. For a long while it was about struggling to survive, struggling to get better. Now it’s about staking my place.

via WSJ

Yohji Yamamoto at the end of the Yohji Yamamoto fashion show...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:32:59 -0700

Yohji Yamamoto at the end of the Yohji Yamamoto fashion show ‘Cutting Age’ at St. Agnes Church on April 25, 2013 in Berlin, Germany

Boris Bidjan Saberi via H.Lorenzo

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:01:32 -0700

Boris Bidjan Saberi via H.Lorenzo

Rest In Peace Yohan Serfaty I was shocked to learn of this...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:01:10 -0700

Rest In Peace Yohan Serfaty

I was shocked to learn of this talented designer’s passing late last week. It truly is a loss to the world of fashion and design as Yohan has lost his battle to cancer.

Personally I am saddened by this loss not only because I respected and admired him as a designer but as a visionary. Yohan had a unique way of presenting his work that seemed to create such a harmony between the models and the clothing while creating a unique environment to absorb this all.

This was especially true in his installations which I always enjoyed above all else. The fusion of sculptural art and fashion work perfectly together to communicate a feeling to the audience.

Yohan Serfaty Archive on Black Paradox

Photo from Le 21ème

Obscur A/W 13 via Mercury-Maeda

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 17:01:28 -0700

Obscur A/W 13

via Mercury-Maeda