Garden - Animal Print Trend.

Why animal prints have never gone out of fashion? 


For my Garden Project, I wanted to do wildlife, and Animals is a major part of wildlife, and from that Animal print came in my mind which has never and, arguably, will never go out of fashion simply because it reminds us of a time when, as hunter-gatherers, we would envelop and adorn ourselves in the warmth and wonder of genuine exotic skins.

Fashion has embraced this deep-seated connection with animal style prints and clothes and accessories remain crafted from these beautiful skins into such art pieces as ostrich handbags, crocodile belts and snakeskin purses to this day.

Pattern synergy

It is also the remarkable synergy of the patterns on genuine zebra skins, for instance, that make it enduringly popular and glamorous. And these pelts aren't only used in their traditional appearance.

More and more trendy stores are catering for the alternative in society, offering animal print clothes and accessories that have been dyed bright pinks, greens, blues and oranges, adding versatility to an already exciting combination of patterns and colours.

Even couches, ottomans and other furniture look particularly impressive in exotic skin print and, if history is anything to go by, animal print will join the irrepressible in our society and never, ever go out of fashion. Animal print became really popular for women during the hippie movement. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_print


Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2114915

Juicy Couture - Zebra inspired collection

Louis Vuitton Zebra Collection

Roberto Cavali - Famous Animal Print Designer.

Roberto Cavalli 


(born 15 November 1940) is an Italian fashion designer from Florence. Is very famous for his amazing animal print dresses. Roberto Cavalli designs RC Menswear as well as the youth aimed line Just Cavalli, launched in 1998 and comprising today men’s wear, women’s wear and accessories, eyewear, watches, perfumes, underwear and beachwear. I also came across his Angels & Devils Children Collection, the Class line, two underwear collections, shoes, eyewear, watches and perfumes. In 2002 Cavalli opened his first café-store in Florence, revamping it with his signature animal prints. 

It was reported in April 2008 that Cavalli had put his business up for sale.

http://www.robertocavalliblog.com/

Dress Behind Bars - Prison Clothes as Criminality

Guest lecturer Juliet Ash gave Chelsea College of Art Textiles students a talk on 
criminality in prison clothing. 



This project examined prison dress in both an historical and contemporary context and within the prison film genre. Its primary focus was in the UK and the USA while it also considered related global practices, particularly within the context of late 20th and early 21st centuries. There have been numerous academic studies of prison life and history, but this is the first publication which focuses exclusively on prison dress. This invisibility or visibility of prisoners has dominated prison history from the 18th century to the present. Prison dress provides an arena for the discussion of both the individual and the institution in relation to politics, gender and race. 

Smithsonian Folklife Festival

Inspirations from the Forest.

When you enter a forest,
     what do you see?
When you are climbing a mountain,
     what do you hear?
When you are hiking through grasslands,
     what do you feel?

This exhibition explores the ways our national forests—timberlands, grasslands, mountains, and waterways—have served and continue to serve as inspirations to those who create works of art.

No matter who you are, or where you live, you can be inspired by your environment. Many of the artists and writers featured in this exhibition have drawn from their experiences in the outdoors to transform natural materials into splendid objects of beauty.

As you walk through the exhibition, focus on how artists and writers

• draw inspiration from the world of nature,
• tell a story through poetry, art, and music, and
• learn from the past and share their traditions.

This exhibition, Inspirations from the Forest, was produced by the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, in conjunction with the USDA Forest Service and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exoticism in Design Lecture and Diaghilev exhibition at the V & A

Claire Rose talked about Exoticism in Design, After researching and understanding about the exoticism culture, I visited the V & A museum for the Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909 - 1929. I learnt that Diaghilev's greatest achievement was his dance company - the Ballets Russes. Created a century ago, the productions of the Ballets Russes revolutionised early 20th-century arts and continue to influence cultural activity today.


Visually, the first Ballets Russes seasons were marked by the exotic designs of the Russian-born artist Léon Bakst. His bejewelled colours, swirling Art Nouveau elements and sense of the erotic re-envisioned dance productions as total works of art. 


There were some interesting Russian ballet costumes that I got attracted too. 

Nikolai Roerich (designer), costumes for female dancers in The Rite of Spring, 1913.

Pablo Picasso (designer), costume for the Chinese Conjuror 

The productions of 1915-19 were both the most conservative and most experimental. The Ballets Russes toured popular works to new audiences in North and South America. Yet there were long periods in Europe without performing, in which the company could workshop original ideas.

Léonide Massine emerged as a talented new choreographer, drawing on influences from the countries of his travels, notably Italy and Spain. 

The designs and colours used in Ballets Russes productions forged a new aesthetic in the 20th century. Knowledge of the company's revolutionary ballets filtered through to theatre, fashion and daily life, including interior design.

Vincent Van Gogh 

The term Japonisme came up in France in the seventies of the 19th century to describe the craze for Japanese culture and art. Van Gogh like so many other Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists was one of the admirers of Japanese art. The Japanese influence is obvious in his art work.

The Fad For All Things Japanese

With the treaty of Kanagawa in 1854 between the American delegation headed by Navy commander Matthew Calbraith Perry (1794-1858) and the Japaneseshogunate government, a period of 216 years of Japanese isolation ended. In the years following, huge numbers of Japanese artifacts and handicraft articles flowed to Europe, mainly to France and the Netherlands. The Paris Exposition Universelle in 1867 had a Japanese stand and showed Japanese art objects to the amazed public.

All things Japanese were suddenly stylish and fashionable. Shops selling Japanese woodblock prints, kimonos, fans and antiquities popped up in Paris like mushrooms. The Impressionist painters and Post-Impressionists like Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec or Paul Gauguin were attracted and impressed by Japanese woodblock prints. In 1875 Claude Monet created his famous painting La Japonaise, showing his wife dressed in a Kimono and holding a Japanese fan. He later contemptuously called his own painting "trash".

The term japonisme was created by the French journalist and art-critic Philippe Burty in an article published in 1876 to describe the craze for all things Japanese.

Vincent Van Gogh. 

Roberto Capucci - Italian Fashion Designer.

Italian fashion designer and artist Roberto Capucci (born 1930) is revered by 
contemporary designers for his innovative silhouettes and masterful use of form, color, and materials. This exhibition--featuring over eighty works, as well as original drawings and sketches--will be the first survey of his work in the United States. It includes work ranging from the beginning of his career as a boy genius of Italian fashion to his legendary sculpture-dresses--including his seminal 1978 "Colonna" silhouette, based on the Doric column--as well as his series of sculptures from 2007 honoring the city of Florence.




Capucci refers to his work as "a study in form" inspired by art, architecture, and nature. His early career was intertwined with the rise of the Italian fashion industry and of Italian high fashion following World War II. He opened his first couture salon in Rome in 1950 at age twenty, and by 1956 the international press had declared him Italy's best designer, lauding his "vigor, imagination, and uninhibited originality." In 1962 he moved to Paris, where he created both classical and experimental collections, incorporating surprising materials such as plastic and stones. Capucci returned to Rome in 1968, where he has continued his work as couturier and artist.

For Capucci, the act of creation is a complete sensory experience; he has described it as an assault—of art, beauty, colour, emotion, music, nature, poetry. For the viewer the experience is magical and unforgettable.

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/411.html

Monique Lhuillier’s Floral Fantasy

Lhuiller was born to Michel J. Lhuiller, a businessman of French descent, and Amparito Llamas, a Filipino society figure and former model of Spanish descent.

Monique Lhuiller's Floral Fantasy collection has been such an inspiration for me, as I have a love for flowers. I have been researching on her for quite a while and have come across some of her fabulous designs. Monique Lhuiller is known for her bridal wear. 

This is one of my favourite Monique Lhuiller Floral Fantasy designs. 

http://www.projectwedding.com/blog/2010/10/17/monique-lhuilliers-floral-fantasy/

http://www.moniquelhuillier.com/

Gertrude Jekyll - Garden Designer

Jekyll should be more correctly categorized as a planter than as a "designer". She did indeed design, but did it through her plantings rather than traditional design aspects. She was one half of one of the most influential and historical partnerships of the Arts and Crafts movement, thanks to her association with the English architect, Sir Edwin Lutyens, for whose projects she created numerous landscapes, and who designed her home Munstead Wood, near Godalming in Surrey

Jekyll is remembered less for her outstanding designs but instead for her subtle, painterly approach to the arrangement of the gardens she created, particularly her "hardy flower borders" (not herbaceous borders). Her work is known for its radiant color and the brush-like strokes of her plantings; it is suggested by some that the Impressionistic-style schemes may have been due to Jekyll's deteriorating eyesight, which largely put an end to her career as a painter and watercolorist. In works like Color Schemes for the Flower Garden 

Jekyll was one of the first of her profession to take into account the color, texture, and experience of gardens as the prominent authorities in her designs, and she was a life-long fan of plants of all genres. Her theory of how to design with color was influenced by painter J.M.W. Turner and by Impressionism, and by the theoretical colour wheel.

Lancelot 'Capability' Brown

A biography from the Garden and Landscape Guide

Born - Died: 1716 – 1783

Lancelot Brown is the most famous English landscape designer. Lancelot Brown was born in Northumberland and served an apprenticeship with Sir William Lorraine. Brown moved to Buckinghamshire in 1739 and was employed by Lord Cobham at Stowe in 1741. This gave Lancelot Brown the opportunity of working with William Kent and John Vanbrugh. He later practiced as an architect in his own right. On some occasions Lancelot Brown designed both the house and its park. In 1764 Lancelot Brown was appointed Master Gardener at Hampton Court. His practice expanded rapidly and he was often away on coach tours. Many examples of his work are open to the public. Many others are well maintained as golf courses. Lancelot Brown's nickname 'Capability' came from his fondness for speaking about a country estate having a great 'capability' for improvement. Lancelot Brown's popularity reached a peak at the time of his death. It then fell into decline, as explained in our online history of English Garden Design since 1650. Lancelot Brown's reputation reached its nadir in the 1880s. It then began to recover and by 1980 he was being recognized as a genius of English garden design. Lancelot Brown described himself as a 'place-maker', not a 'landscape gardener'. It was the nineteenth century, which saw ‘landscape gardening’, becomes a trade name. Two of Lancelot Brown's letters on garden design are on the CD.

Famous Garden’s designed by him

Syon Park

Clumber Park

Weston Park

Eustan Hall Garden

Read more: http://www.gardenvisit.com/biography/lancelot_capability_brown#ixzz1LKxsnGGb

Tim Walker - Photographer

While doing my Popup Project I came across Tim Walkers photography. I have researched a lot about him and so far I have come across some of his work, He is a famous british fashion photographer, his photographs have been apart of Vogue, month by month for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style.

Born 1970's and has graduated in BA Photography at Exeter College of Art. In spring 2008 he had his major design show in Design museum London. Victoria and Albert museum and The National portrait Gallery include Tim Walkers photographs are in there permanent collections.

For instance, deciding to colour tint a group of cats or projecting a film onto the side of a house, or screen set within a rising tide at sunset. Or posing his models in an oversized knitted sweater and scarf, next to a huge camera or glove or under a tree bearing cakes

Vogue cover

Vogue magazine cover

Tim creates evocative images full of textured nuance and intriguing detail and his innovative photography is amongst the most imaginative and exuberant being produced today.

• Tim Walker (Stern Portfolio Paperback), Te Neues Publishing Company, June 2006
• Pictures by Tim Walker Special edition, Te Neues Publishing Company, June 2008
• Tim Walker Pictures Hardcover, Te Neues Publishing Company, June 2008