Poncho Yay or Nay???

Usually I would definitely say NOOOOO. I don't know why but I just don't like Ponchos. But this one posted by The Sartotialist some days ago caught my eye. Where the hell is this black thing from? I want it so badly... I would wear it like that or with a black skirts, there're so many ways but no poncho...

girl posing and reading in yohji yamamoto

Credit all @ pretty pretty

The Mode Museum (MOMU) Antwerp presents a retrospective exhibition of fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto March to August 2006. I guess this is no news to the most of you. You might have already noticed that the museum visitors are permitted to try on a selection of garments by the designer, to get the ultimate feeling. This exhibition is still on my list and I'm really looking forward to it.

On Pretty Pretty you'll find a girl posing and reading in yohji yamamoto's garments. Here're my favourites. Visit the site to see them all.








Credit all @ pretty pretty

Guess I've lost my umbrella...

I'm one of these persons who tend to constantly loose their umbrellas. That's the reason why I don't have one and even if I had one I wouln't take it with me because I know I would leave it somewhere. My last umbrella was acutually stolen - no joke. I left it in a cafe and just outside on the street I realised that I must have left it inside, rushed back and it already was gone. I really liked that one...

So Bill Cunningham from the New York Times tells us that the "new generation has nothing to do with umbrellas or trench coats". I wouldn't say that! I've just posted a whole trenchcoat report in my streetstyle section a couple of weeks ago. Most of the photos were taken by The Sartorialist in NYC. So the "hoody-thing" might only be a younger girls thing...

So where're the umbrellas? The ones ment as fashion statement. Or is the umbrella the forgotten accessory, the one which just doens't go with fancy little spring styles!? This question inspired me to start a litte internet research on this question. Tray6 is a new design company intent on combining fashion and function to create high-quality, high-design products. Their umbrellas are quite nice, but still quite usual. Much more interesting is a Japanese site called gendaiya (unfortunately only in japanese) selling traditional japanese models.

Bless are known for their ability to reinvent everyday products. So the umbrella of course was one of these items. Or what about a tiny little one for your purse? You can store your Knirps in a nice little fashionable fur case. Visit their website (soon also in english!) for more suggestions...

At least I hope there'll be no necessity this summer to think of which umbrella to buy. I guess I'll stick to my strategy to stay inside until it stopped raining. So no hood would damage my hairdo and no water either ♥

Daddy Cool

After that there'll be no baby-posts for a long time, I promise. I was just thinking that this guy from sweden is a really cool looking dad. He reminds me a little bit of Steve McQueen, what do you think? Please gimme some more stylish papas like that ♥ This picture is stolen from a quite nice swedish streetstyle website called sthlmstil.se

::: Pregnancy Alert :::

Do I have to feel guilty for not having a baby yet? Maybe I'm the only one who sees pregnant women everywhere lately... but isn't it a fault not having a baby at the age of (nearly) 26 in a country where 2005 was the year with the lowest birthrate ever? The Germans start to die out. So every pregnant woman around sticks out like a sore thumb and gnaws at my conscience. Natalia is having her second baby at the age of 24 and I am still focussing in my studies, instead of starting a family. And I will continue doing so at least until the age of 30, that's the plan. Although ther're a lot ot nice little thing for mother-to-be's. Agent Provocateur launches a very nice maternity serie (via papierblog). I've even choosen my buggy, but - calm down - I don't have a name or toys yet - although the "Ugly dolls" are really cute. I hope I'll look like Natalie while I'm pregnant if not, I guess I'll have to rethink this pregnancy thing first.
By the way Britney is pregnant again! Although this is definitely NO reason to also do so! Not to mention all the other still pregnants (Brangelina, Rachel Weisz...) and newly moms (Gwyneth Paltrow, Katie Holmes).
But that's enough for now, I'll go and walk my dog. At least one little creature I have to take care of...

Comic | Tragic ::: Sleek Editorials

I really love how Sleek is trying to retell stories with their fashion editorials. There're three really good women fashion ed.s in the spring 06 edition. My favourite one is The Tragic youth of Lucy by Johnny Gembitzki visualizing the life of Lucy Snowe in Charlotte Bronte's novel La Villette. I ♥ the girl's school athmosphere and the mixture of romantic and preppy-like styles, although Lucy doesn't seem to enjoy herself very much. The model is Jessica Herrick.

See the whole editorial here



The second quite weired editorial is called The Mask by Jean-Francoise Lepage referring on Chuck Russells film The Mask (yes, the one with Jim Carrey). "It's crazy... I've lost all control. When I put on this mask I can do anything... be anything, but it's ruining my life." (Stanley Ipkiss in The Mask). The model looks more ruined than anything-doing. On the first photo she's wearing an absolute georgous white leather trench coat by Ramosport. The model is Sena Cech.

See the whole editorial here


In Room for One model Kemp happily dangled herself over a hotel balcony four storeys up without a harness. Gosh, what are the people doing to our models these days? This editorial is inspired by the film Last Tango in Paris one of the great explorations of cinema's visual possibilities by Bernardo Bertolucci. No easy stuff, but well done in this case.

Make up your mind here

Credit all @ Sleekmag.com

If it's in InStyle...

I must confess that I ♥ InStyle. It's trashy, quite informative and sometimes reminds me of what just can't be worn anymore. Nearly EVERY woman my age I know reads InStyle and I somehow don't like the feeling of them thinking, "Ah, now I know where she has that style from...".
By the way the ladies shown in may's german InStyle wearing my beloved PRADA overknees don't look good at all. If I wear overknees I want to show that I wear overknees, so why hiding them under a long skirt? Actually Sarah Mc Donald looks really good, that's the way I would style them (guess I'll copy her look the next days)...

If you're still looking for your pair (if the InStyle publishing couldn't block you) I have something for you. Not the expensive PRADA version and not the cheap DIY version, something in between. MANGO offer a really nice pair in their online shop. And these do only cost 5,90EUR!!!


Credit: German InStyle. Mai 2006

Vogue Germany Mai 2006

Credit: Vogue Germany 5/2006

Natalia Vodianova is not only on Germany's Vogue's Cover next month. Discover Susie Bubbles opinion on Vogue's model sorting for may.

Memory Lane

♥



Source and more: Nymag.com

The Youth of Today ::: Schirn Kunsthalle

ANUSCHKA BLOMMERS / NIELS SCHUMM: RUTH PAPWORTH@SELECT MODELS, 1998
AUS DER SERIE “CLASS OF 1998”, 1998
Credit: Schirn.de


ANUSCHKA BLOMMERS / NIELS SCHUMM: SUSAN CROZIER@SELECT MODELS, 1998
AUS DER SERIE “CLASS OF 1998”, 1998
Credit: Schirn.de

I've been to this exhibition yesterday and I'm not quite sure what to think about it. On the one hand it was very interesting to see so many new and young artists I've never heard of before, on the other hand I felt quite old. There were so many under 20 visitors, people you usually won't meet in art exhibitions at all. What exactly is the intention of this exhibition? To reach as many people as possible? Especially to get a younger audience? The Schirn is famous for its mass compatible exhibitions, without loosing their reputation as a very good working exhibition hall. I ♥ the Schirn! But I'm not sure about this one. It seems as if Max Hollein (director) is trying a bit to hard this time. The diversity of the youth scene was a big issue during my youth days. Maybe the gap is to big now - I'm 25 - but where exactly are these scenes? Every boy and girl is dressed the same - at least in Germany. No diversity at all. No Punks, no Girlies, no Grunge, no Fruits, no anything at all. H&M's the uniform and some sad exceptions suffering from beeing the odd ones out. The exhibitions seems to be a dream about a more interessting world. What do you think?

You'll find the pictures I've taken of this exhibition in my Livejournal.



Credit: Schirn.de


Credit: Schirn.de


:::


e-flux:

THE YOUTH OF TODAY
7 April - 25 June 2006

A growing emphasis on the media, individuality, and commercialism is producing a constantly increasing diversity of youth scenes. Girlies, greasers, hooligans, rappers, ravers, streetballers, train surfers, traceurs, and yamakasis are just some of these disparate "artificial tribes" to which today's young people feel they belong. Whereas during the cold war of youth cultures one still had to decide between clear alternatives like punk or pop, young people today, as a rule, pass through a whole series of scenes. This exhibition shows how contemporary art confronts the various life worlds of teens, twens, and postadolescent thirty-somethings whose experience of youth culture often extends into their family lives and careers. This presentation of the 160 works of 50 international artists such as the Young British Artist Tracey Emin, the American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia, and a large number of newcomers will outline the influences of youth culture on society's aesth etic and political realms.


L. A. RAEVEN: TEST ROOM, 2000
Credit: Schirn.de

ALEX TENNIGKEIT: YOU’RE LOOKING GOOD IN THAT GUCCI BIKINI, 2004

Credit: Schirn.de

The enormous variety of youth scenarios, styles, and genres mirror a chaotic and ambivalent field of young people's cultural production. The adolescent generation's universe is accompanied by a multi-media flood of information which clings to it like its second nature and resolves contradictions, or so it seems. There is no generation conflict, and the thirty-somethings apparently are into the same codes as the teens and twens - in terms of language, music, and clothes. The unisex label not only deterritorializes different bodies and sexes. It also brings forth different strategies of identity formation allowing new social contexts: communities and urban spaces. So what about today's re-constitution of the (sexual, socio-cultural, urban) subject? What follows from the autonomy of the sexes and the destruction of traditional role models?

ALEX MORRISON: HOMEWRECKER, 2001

Credit: Schirn.de


RITA ACKERMANN: GET A JOB, 1993
Credit: Schirn.de

The rebellion - against parents, adults, prevailing values, and the state - so frequently associated with youth also manifests itself in the multi-optional character of an open society. Skaters vs. hippies, punks vs. eager beavers, ravers against the night, and all together against war. The once desirable and timeless ideals have been reduced to human scale and human time. The loss reveals a re-formation of the individual as a post-modern, fragmentized subject. And it is the collage and the assemblage again that - as artistic means refined by computer-based sampling, animation, and digital imaging - permit the creation of a heterogeneous "new" world. Proliferating environments and installations, such as the artist Laura Kikauka's studio "Funny Farm", reflect these complex contexts and are the basis for unique possible worlds generating themselves in which comics and psychedelic holography, punk and sexual desire coexist.

LAUREN GREENFIELD: SHEENA TRIES ON CLOTHES WITH HER FRIEND AMBER, 14, IN A DEPARTMENT STORE DRESSING ROOM, SAN JOSE (“COVER”), 2002
Credit: Schirn.de

The exhibition also explores the relationship between individual and group and the place young people assign themselves in society - issues prevailing in different youth cultures and their lifeworlds. In this regard, the club forms a multi-layered field of forces where young people search for a language of their own - for speechlessness as a different, a physical language - and hope to find an autonomous, exempt space which unites the political, sexual, and aesthetic utopias. The importance of hedonism as a model of the nineties club culture lies in its rejection of intellectual dominance and the subversive role of the body. The body suggests itself as a writable and rewritable surface on which signs freely form units and personal identities constitute themselves. Many of the shown works explore this changed body and present it in surroundings that strike us as claustrophobic. This contrast between bodily and spatial topology is not only a main concern of Pierre Huyghe's and Collier Schorr's work but also at the core of Mike Paré's "Teenage Geography" and Bjarne Melgaard's reactionary anthropoid apes.

GAVIN TURK: CHE, 1999

Credit: Schirn.de

Pose and transformation count among the traditional exercises when it comes to internalizing adult models or rebelling against them. They may also support the personality's reconstitution and the young people's individualization when employed as strategies of differentiation between themselves and adult persons. Thus, the significance of pose and transformation is equally undermined though - turning into a "shifter", as Rosalind Krauss has called it, i.e. a semantic shell that can be moved in all directions without ever taking root. Today's youth lives in more than just one youth culture, they go through several scenes, one after another or sometimes different ones at the same time. Growing up - whether in a positive or in a negative sense - cannot be seen as an absolute value providing a point of orientation from which today's youth might derive current forms of meaning. They develop autonomous systems that are complex enough to find no sympathy and flexible enough to combin e with other systems. Complexity primarily describes the end of universal aims and the possibility of singularization. Matt Greene's Gothic post-hippie dreamscapes reminiscent of de Sade, and Rita Ackermann's girl paradises full of tough Lolita vamps all strike us as equally closed and untouchable microcosms.

LIST OF ARTISTS: Abetz/Drescher (DE), Rita Ackermann (HU), Joe Andoe (US), Marc Bijl (NL), Anuschka Blommers / Niels Schumm (NL), Slater Bradley (US), Daniele Buetti (CH), Ian Cooper (US), Annelise Coste (CH), Sue de Beer (US), Amie Dicke (NL), Philip-Lorca diCorcia (US), Iris van Dongen (NL), Tracey Emin (GB), Luis Gispert (US), Anthony Goicolea (US), Janine Gordon (US), Matthew Greene (US), Lauren Greenfield (US), Kevin Hanley (US), Esther Harris (GB), Rachel Howe (US), Pierre Huyghe (FR), Laura Kikauka (CA), Clemens Krauss (AT), Hendrik Krawen (DE), Liisa Lounila (FI), Marlene McCarty (US), Ryan McGinley (US), Alex McQuilkin (US), Martin Maloney (GB), Bjarne Melgaard (NL), Alex Morrison (CA), João Onofre (PT), Lea Asja Pagenkemper (DE), Mike Paré (US), Frédéric Post (CH), Bettina Pousttchi (DE), L. A. Raeven (NL), Julika Rudelius (DE), Collier Schorr (US), Kiki Seror (US), Ulrike Siecaup (DE), Hannah Starkey (IE), Tomoaki Suzuki (JP), Alex Tennigkeit (DE), Sue Tompk ins (GB), Gavin Turk (GB), Alejandro Vidal (ES), Banks Violette (US).

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT
Römerberg
60311 Frankfurt, Germany
phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-0
fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240,
welcome@schirn.de
www.schirn.de

Elena Mirò ::: For Plus Size Fashionistas...

Dear plus sized "fashionistas" (sorry F.A.D.) this is something for you. Elena Miro showed her collection at this seasons milan fashion week for the first time. No need to pull on leggins and XXXXL-Shirts. Show your sexy curves and check these sexy ladies out:






Credits all @: Elena Miro

Week #14 Artist ::: Esra Ersen

This weeks artist ist Esra Ersen. The Turkey born artist is currently exhibited at the Frankfurter Kunstverein.
Read more...




all photos taken by maret

"I want to be loved by me" ::: Part II

Credit: Sleek

At first it’s comical to watch a middle-aged woman imitate the most famous blonde bombshell of the twentieth century. But the mixture between self-portrayal and idol worship in
TINA BARA’s photographs is also disconcerting: an unpretentious woman exposes the tragedy of an icon who could never be herself...
Read the whole text on Sleek







Credit all @: Sleek


TINA BARA
Born 1962 in Kleinmachnow, East Germany. Lives and works in Berlin and Leipzig, Germany, and Bonisdorf, Austria

EXHIBITIONS
Kunstwerke 36, Art Project, Große Bergstraße, Hamburg, Germany, 3 May – 26 May, 2006
marilyn, Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany,
25 March – 1 May 2006
marilyn, Women’s Museum Dallas, Texas, USA,
20 September – 22 October, 2006, travelling exhibition; further venues: Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida, and others

GALLERY
Galerie Christa Burger, Munich,
tel. +49 89 28996550,
www.galerieburger.de

COURTESY
All images the artist and Galerie Christa Burger, Munich

:::

"I want to be loved by me" ::: Part I