FTV Review
The Paris Art Fair
Many London designers are known for creatively taking the street kids style and successfully translating it into wearable collections. The design team Red or Dead is one of those fashion houses that does just that for their Spring show in London.
Wayne Hemingway,Design Director : "At Red or Dead our mission is to produce challenging clothing at an affordable price on a non-elitist level. We want fashion and high fashion for everybody."
The shows here are small compared to those on the continent but you can't ignore the impact of London. It's usually the first place to distill street style into new fashion. That knack for the new has made Red or Dead one of London's most innovative labels.
While practicality is one thing, looking hot may be another. In that department, NY designer Sylvia Heisal is pleased to oblige. The 31 year old, diminutive designer has brought a downtown sensibility to uptown dressing, by teaming classic tailoring with hi-tech fabrics.
Sylvia Heisal: "The only things that can be new now are things with technology. These things are really different, by what they do and how they feel. That's really modern."
Some of her designs are made from sailboat fabrics. They can no longer protect the fluorescent colours from UV rays anymore because of the thinning ozone layer. So she uses the discontinued sailcloth material for her clothes.
Heisal, who has been making clothes since a kid sees her collections as pumped-up sportswear, the ultimate in modern luxury
Dada The Art of Rebellion
Dada was an art movement born out of strong disgust with the atrocities
of the first world war. It originated in Zurich, Switzerland in 1916.
Dada members felt that art didn't have to be
serious or even make sense. Their spirit gave the art world a kick in the
groin and it still hasn't fully recovered.
It was a school of art that that was never meant to be defined or taken
seriously. Even it's name Dada was taken randomly from a dictionary. Yet
by thumbing their nose at convention, artists like Beatrice Wood
challenged us to the question what is and isn't art.
Francis Naumann,Author :
"What they had in common more than anything else was a defiance of
convention. They didn't want their work to resemble the work of the past."
In 1917, a signed urinal by Marcel Duchamp was rejected as non-art by an exhibition committee. The group, decided to fight back. They published a magazine called "The Blind Man", which defended the urinal as art and held a wild soiree called "The Blind Man Ball". It was a party that went down in history for wild antics such as one of the members drunkenly climbing on a chandelier and nearly killing himself. (And everyone getting shockingly friendly towards the end of the party.) After it was all over everyone went home and they slept five of them together in Marcel Duchamp's bed.
Tippi Hedren, dada ball host : "The original Dada ball was
created after the First World War in retaliation for all the men being
killed, and this is to benefit aids. There are so many people dying
senslessly, that there is a correlation".
"It's very difficult to explain dada, you just know it when you see it".
Katharine Hamnet: " A new directive from Greenpeace came out on September 12th which showed that PVC is much more harmful for the enviroment than was previously suspected. Then I thought I really can't use this, it's embarrassing. I nearly had to cancel the show. Of course I'm a fashion designer first. I really want that glitzy, shiny look, and we're trying to find alternatives. If we can't, we'll have to withdraw the collection".
Hamnet's show was full of deliberately sexy, trashy outfits. Elements that have become her trademark as a designer.
KH: "When you're young and beautiful I think you should celebrate it. And I hope that's what what my clothes help people do".