Serpentine Galleries X Comme des Garçons

London's Serpentine Galleries continue to celebrate its expansion and rebrand with the launch of a fragrance due for release this Spring. SERPENTINE has been created in collaboration with Comme des Garçons on the occasion of the gallery’s £14.5 million Zaha Hadid-extension of the Sackler Gallery as well as its new brand identity designed by Pentagram in September 2013. 

Christian Astuguevieille, creative director of Comme des Garçons Parfums, was inspired by the galleries’ unique surroundings of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park in the heart of the capital to produce a London-specific eau de toilette of botanical grassy notes from the Royal Park juxtaposed with urban benzoin and asphalt. The unisex fragrance “captures the experience of visiting the Galleries and the Park” says Serpentine Director, Julia Peyton-Jones and Co-Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, who have also commissioned Tracey Emin to design the fragrance’s artwork. Emin’s characteristic monoprint aesthetic depicts a lovers’ embrace with handwritten text that reads, ‘The Grass, The Trees, The Lake, And You’, which will be printed in luminous silver foil on the transparent bottle and packaging.

Artwork detail by Tracey Emin

While SERPENTINE marks the first collaboration between Comme des Garçons and a cultural institution, the avant-garde luxury label is well known amongst the art crowd. Under the direction of founder and designer Rei Kawakubo the brand’s Dover Street Market outposts in London, New York and Tokyo present a seasonal programme of conceptual retail environments designed by international artists and creators that house wardrobe staples for the curatorial chic. This latest addition to the Comme des Garçons Parfums collection will undoubtedly vie for attention amongst the critical eyes and noses of the cognoscenti.

SERPENTINE will be available exclusively at the Serpentine Galleries gift shop, Dover Street Market and Comme des Garçons Perfume Shop from 28th April 2014 following a worldwide release on 5th May 2014 - the unisex eau de toilette will retail at £56.00.

Image courtesy of Serpentine Galleries

My Funny Valentine

Salvidor Dalí X Chanel No 5

Happy Valentine's Day - love from @JMVELARDI XOXO

Musée Karl

Earlier this week the fashion industry descended on Paris for the capital’s annual Spring-Summer 2014 ready-to-wear shows. As with every season the hype around high-end labels whose heritage is rooted in the City of Light makes for high expectations. Luxury markets continue to defy a precarious economy; the fashion month across London, New York and Milan all positively contribute to the predictive economic barometer, however it is the finale in Paris, home of the highest concentration of the world’s leading luxury brands, where spectacle as well as style takes to the catwalk.

The House of Chanel is synonymous with the French capital and since his instruction as its Creative Director in 1983, so is the name Karl Lagerfeld. Chanel is one of the last iconic fashion houses to remain a privately held company and this privileged status has granted Lagerfeld carte blanche to envision and materialise both ready-to-wear and couture collections for over two decades. Every season Chanel resides within the ornate Beaux-Arts style of the Grand Palais, playing host to extravagant sets and theatrics that have earned Lagerfeld a following beyond front row fashionistas, to a greater audience in awe of both contextual breadth and sheer scale that is dedicated to only a fifteen minute show.

The art world is never too far from the fashion action. From Jeff Koons and Stella McCartney to last season’s Louis Vuitton collaboration with the Chapman Brothers (Game of Corpses, August 2013), the contemporary art meets luxury brand equation has proved to be a profitable currency of consumer culture. If designers had any intentions of art collaborations for 2014, Lagerfeld was ready to eclipse the competition with an impressive collection of 75 works of art, installed as a backdrop along the 340 metre catwalk. Ironically, the show overshadowed the departure of Marc Jacobs at Louis Vuitton the following day – arguably a pioneer of the art-luxury formula who successfully worked with a host of artists including Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and Stephen Sprouse to name only a few, during his sixteen-year tenure at the French luxury house.

In the year of the Venice Biennale and with London’s Frieze Art Fair opening later this month, the Grand Palais was restored to its former self as the centre of art and culture through Largerfeld’s contemporary lens. Transforming the space into an art gallery to accommodate his evocative mixed media collection: each and everyone conceived by the designer himself,

“I made everything. I designed it and made small models… it’s not different young artists it’s only one old artist. It’s me”.

Karl Lagerfeld amongst his 75 artworks

Chanel has long been the source for artistic inspiration – the house’s enduring Chanel No 5 scent was screen-printed by Andy Warhol; Tom Sachs transforms its recognisable monochrome branding into killing machines – and it’s no surprise that the designer was inspired to create a collection for his customers to ‘go to an art opening’. 

Art’s infiltration in popular culture through collaboration and accessible limited edition production has created an editorial niche in fashion and lifestyle PR. Damien Hirst is a fine example - a brand in himself with several retail outposts under the name Other Criteria (Money Maker, April 2012). Hirst like many of his contemporaries actively collaborate with the worlds of mass market to bring the art on the walls to the silk around one’s neck to even the dinner plates in one’s home (Fine Dining, April 2013).

On fashion designers Largerfeld explains,

“In the past designers wanted to be socially accepted. That’s not modern anymore because nobody cares about that anymore… now they want to be part of the artwork… but the artwork doesn’t want to be taken for fashion… it’s ridiculous because art is always something with zeitgeist… the only one who understood it was Andy Warhol, who really got the right idea that those things can live together”.

— Eric Wilson (@EricWilsonNYT) October 1, 2013

Lagerfeld’s ambitious installation precisely brought art and fashion together in a brazen pastiche of nearly every art medium imaginable. Eric Wilson from the New York Times tweeted the caption ‘The Metropolitan Museum of Chanel’ when confronted with the designer’s homages to Duchamp, Kadinsky, Lavier, Pollock, Oldenburg, Koons, Twombly and Jones. The visual codes of Chanel - camellias, quilting, chains, pearls, boucle and interlocking Cs – were rendered in a mélange of Pop art humour with conceptual execution around themes of sex, politics, power and wealth that would sit comfortably in the Gagosians and White Cubes of this world in what is an art-hungry marketplace. 

The monumental set fed the equally insatiable Instagramers and social media camps who documented a colourful quartet of industrial towers, leather-chained pylons and ladders; graphic canvases emblazoned with the distinctive house typeface; a glossy quilted sumo; an oversized, upturned 2.55 model handbag hung on the wall and a relic of a Chanel No 5 bottle in marble were sculpted in the inanimate style of Claes Oldenburg; large childlike textile sculptures draped adjacent to seductive mannequins in repose à la Allen Jones. Detail is paramount for a brand that battles counterfeit on a global scale and this was no different on set with witty title plaques for each work – High Tension, New Narcissus – that only commanded greater wonder to the impermanence of it all.

Playful, pretty and anything but pretentious was the designer’s intention,

“It’s the spirit of today: of fashion and the world of art, which have a tendency to take themselves too seriously”.

Lagerfeld was bang on the monet with the show’s soundtrack, choosing Picasso Baby by Jay Z, naturellement, that had been performed earlier in the year at New York’s Pace Gallery (Picasso Baby: Art History?, July 2013) to an exclusive crowd of art world cognoscenti. The song is littered with art bombs from Basquiat and Bacon to Condo and Christie’s that only fuelled what must have been an extraordinary experience of art overload once the models began to walk. 

The performance element to Lagerfeld’s vision was the moving colour palette charts that decorated dresses and accessories throughout the 90 looks in the collection. Art references continued with Pointillist make-up, Chanel-branded paintbrushes and sketchbooks as well frivolous leather-quilted art portfolios that will no doubt cater to next year’s art school trustafarians.

Leather-quilted art portfolio for art school trustafarians

Lagerfeld has been quoted to say his artworks were not for sale however just as followers of fashion will subscribe to the waiting list for the IT-accessory of the show – an earphone-shaped necklace with giant faux pearls – so may art aficionados express their interest in Musée Karl.

Will this year's Frieze Art Fair have the pleasure of Mr Lagerfeld's critical eye? When asked by Style.com’s Tim Blanks what he was collecting these days, the eighty-year old designer, ever nonchalant, replied, ‘books. I have no space for art’.

View details of Chanel's Spring-Summer 2014 show at chanel.com

Images courtesy of Chanel, Style.com, @jackie_frank, Associated Press & Getty Images

Game Of Corpses

Earlier this week I headed to the South coast of East Sussex to explore the historic town of Hastings and its characterful surroundings. My local guide was fellow Slade alumni @djbrass, a resident of the area for several years, whose exceptional knowledge of all things creative made my inaugural visit extra special with great finds from the worlds of art and design. Many Londoners decamp along this coast line to live in idyllic bohemia and this includes the capital’s Jerwood Foundation who opened an outpost along the seafront in 2012. Now a little over a year old, the HAT Projects-designed Jerwood Gallery exhibits contemporary British art with both temporary displays as well as a permanent collection of modern art housed in a tile-clad black box, congruous with its neighbouring native black wooden net huts located on The Stade.

The current contemporary exhibit in Room 6 of the intimate museum showcases works by Jake and Dinos Chapman. Exquisite Corpse presents a series of etchings on paper from the collaborative siblings created in 2000. Part of a larger body of work – and an important source to where successive works have originated – the eight images on display have been inspired by a parlour game developed by the Surrealists called cadaver exquis or exquisite corpse, where the series and exhibition title takes their name. To be executed collectively, a sheet of paper is folded several times; the paper is passed around for each participant to add parts to a body, which in turn is folded again to conceal previous additions. The technique subsequently produces a haphazard composition of varying scales and styles. 

 Exquisite Corpse, 2000

The formula is unsurprisingly favoured by the brothers grim, grotesque and shocking - skulls and swastikas contribute to the visual DNA constructed by the brothers of decay and destruction that have been trademarks of this YBA duo for over two decades. The nature of the printed medium allows for exquisite fine detail: hairy limbs uncomfortably share form with oozing orifices shredded by razor sharp claws; shower heads spray blood within a landscape of richly textured uproots, inhabited by decapitated children with bestial deformities. While the tradition of print provides a gravitas by default, the series is deserving of an appreciative eye for the provocative that is relayed in monochrome innocence. There is beauty in the ghastly and the attention to detail is seductive in both context and execution.

Macabre as brand is no easy feat, yet the Chapman Brothers have successfully presented both an accessible and accepted narrative that transcends from the conceptual white cube walls, via household recognition, to the image-conscious runways of high fashion. 

Chapman Brothers X Louis Vuitton F/W13

The artists have collaborated with none other than French luxury house Louis Vuitton, under the direction of ready-to-wear menswear designer Kim Jones, on a capsule collection of accessories due for release this Autumn. 

Featuring a floral motif of winged-eyeballs and crazed embroidered creatures, the limited edition collection reflects the continuing addiction for contemporary art affiliation within luxury brand strategy as well as society’s own perverse, clandestine attitudes that fuel the Chapman Brothers’ deviously playful practice.

Exquisite Corpse is part of Jerwood's Summer programme and runs to 2nd October 2013 – for visitor information visit Jerwood Gallery.

Jerwood Gallery

Rock-a-Nore Road

Hastings

East Sussex

TN34 3DW

Exquisite Corpse images courtesy of Tate
Louis Vuitton images courtesy of Style.com

Ker-Chin-Chin

Wine collectors will already regard their cellars as a gallery of fine taste equal to any art collection, however collectors may want to keep Dom Pérignon’s 2003 Rosé Vintage above ground. The prestigious champagne house has invited Jeff Koons to produce a limited edition collaboration package that includes a scaled down version of his 2008 sculpture Balloon Venus, inspired by the ancient fertility statue Venus of Willendorf. The voluptuous vessel, exaggerated by Koons’s trademark inflatable aesthetic is anything but understated and the same can be said for its price tag – at $20,000 this is Dom Pérignon’s most expensive collaboration to date, after David Lynch, Andy Warhol (A Toast To Pop, July 2010), Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Newson. The iconic bottle’s label and foiling mirrors that of its presentation box in metallic majenta – a nod to its rosé interior.

 

   Balloon Venus, Dom Pérignon 2003 Rosé Vintage

This is not of course Koons’s first foray into the cellar – in 2010 Baroness Philippine de Rothschild continued the annual tradition since 1945 at the winery of Baron Philippe de Rothschild to commission an artist to design the label for its Château Mouton Rothschild bottles. Koons joined Picasso, Dali, Freud, Bacon and Warhol in this exclusive club with a reworking of the classical fresco image from Pompeii of yet another Venus - the House of the Venus Marina III - superimposed with an infantile silver line drawing of a sun and sailing boat. Château Mouton Rothschild 2010 remains one of the most expensive of the Moutons from the winery’s vintage from Pauillac over the last decade and is sought after by wine and art connoisseurs alike.

 

This latest luxury association with an art world grandee is somewhat of a first with regards to its price bracket, inevitably posing the question: is Dom Pérignon’s 2003 Rosé Vintage the most expensive champagne in one’s cellar or is Balloon Venus the most accessible Jeff Koons one can collect? Whatever camp it lies, Dom Pérignon affirms the high-culture-formula to be much more than a trend in recent years but an essential staple in a brand’s heritage and a profitable identity strategy that justifies larger than life price tags, and in this instance, larger than life lifestyles. For when money is no object, why not have one Balloon Venus in the cellar and the other on display upstairs. Chin-chin to the best of both worlds. 

To find out more about Koons’s luxury lifestyle collaborations from this year read Fine Dining - a commission by French porcelain manufacturer Bernardaud to celebrate their 150th Anniversary with a collection of plates for L’Art de la Table.

Visit Dom Pérignon for more details on this year's limited edition Balloon Venus release due in September.

Supersonic Style & Substance

There is only one horse racing meeting on the British Season’s calendar that commands the ‘royal’ prefix. The great and the good have descended on Berkshire to witness the pomp, pageantry, fashions and thoroughbreds of Royal Ascot since 1711 and this year its style and substance are joined with another attribute: supersonic.

Once known as the royalty of the skies, Concorde returns in an immortalised sculpture entitled ICON, designed by international creative Sebastian Conran. The magnificent sculpture, comprising of an authentic Concorde nose and visor, makes its first public outing at the world-famous Royal Ascot meeting this week as a cultural addition within its Grandstand enclosure. Read more about this unique artwork that boasts the credentials of completing hundreds of thousands of miles of supersonic flight in my piece for Berkshire travel guide When in Windsor.

Images courtesy of Parker Hobart

Visit ICON's official website for more information about its conception. 

Festival Des Métiers By Hermès...

Billed as, ‘the secret language of the Hermès ateliers’, the Festival des Métiers declares the French house to speak but one language: the language of luxury. While ‘luxury’ finds itself affixed to anything and everyone these days, Hermès has unequivocally defined understated luxury since 1837.

Like a travelling circus coming to town, Festival des Métiers is a coup de goût of spectacle and magnificence that arrives in London from China, before touring the Continent. Craftspeople from across France and Switzerland come together in a contemporary and interactive makeshift atelier under a canopy of trademark-orange wires and spotlighting, designed by Paola Navone, to perform their unparalleled craftsmanship for all to admire. 10 different crafts are being showcased at Chelsea’s Saatchi Gallery spanning leather handbags, fine-jewellery, silk and timepieces. 

In a defiant act against counterfeit culture, the specialist craftspeople reveal their practice tête-à-têtes with visitors at their workstations; the use of a special glue to stretch silk flat onto the printing bed; the process of constructing a tie with only a thread and needle, and the importance of a steady hand for a one-chance stroke when using platinum at €4000 for a few hundred millilitres.

Having recently recorded soaring profits in 2012 from its 364 worldwide boutiques, numbers are just as important in the boardroom as they are in the atelier. From its Parisian head office at 24 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, artwork is selected and consequently interpreted by in-house illustrators to reduce complex images into monochrome lines and shading that can take up to 2000 hours to complete before it can be sent to be screen printed, as well as entering into the archives of timeless design. 50 are the maximum number of gauze screens – relative to the number of colours required - that are involved to make a signature silk scarf. 900ºC is the temperature achieved to set the first brushstroke of a male tiger’s fleshy pink nose on a porcelain change tray before an outline can be transferred to the rest of the tray by hand. A silk garment requires 2 threads for the sabre artisan to cut away and transform a two-dimensional surface into a silk velvet relief. Hermès is the only luxury house left that continues to sabrage by hand, providing a bespoke service on ready to wear items and silk scarves that require several days for completion. Executed by a sole artisan, this fading skill is currently being taught to a handful of apprentices to preserve the traditions and values that Hermès continues to master across all its ateliers with finesse.

Go behind the scenes of ultimate luxury with this photo series (below) taken on the opening day...

Festival des Métiers runs to 27th May 2013 at Saatchi Gallery, London between 10am to 6pm - for more information visit hermes.com

Saatchi Gallery

Duke of York's Square

King's Road

London 

SW3 4RY