Dazed

runway report

SS13 FASHION WEEK MEXICO CITY Ushering in a new Mexican wave with Mercedes-Benz

The bastions of high fashion – New York, London, Paris and Milan – will always lay claim to their own respective and established territories within the global market. But the Mercedes-Benz/ Dazed Fashion Broadcasting project invests in the industry’s outlying areas: those previously overlooked cities whose younger generations of designers are proving to be real contenders on the global stage.

The sixth instalment of the project takes place in Mexico, a country with a colourful history that was visibly woven into the distinctive threads shown at the country’s fashion week in November.

The clash between the pop sensibility of some designers and the more loyal adherence to tradition of others is evidence of Mexico’s creative scene.

A multiplicity of reference points and ideals coexists comfortably, reflecting a wider sense of acceptance between everybody involved.

Fashion Week Mexico City is an all-encompassing affair that sees a relaxed atmosphere maintained between buyers, bloggers, special guests and designers.

The 21 shows hosted by MercedesBenz were held in the Santa Fe tent, which not only showcased the best emerging talent, but considered the global impact of Mexican clothing in recent years; from crochet to embroidery to the bold clash between streetwear and

Clockwise from above: LYDIA LAVIN The main impetus for Lydia Lavín’s SS13 collection was embroidery techniques collected from local craftsmen in Cuetzalan, Puebla. The colourful collection is an innovative collision of new and old.

CARLA FERNANDEZ With garments resembling traditional huipiles and rebozos (local pashminas), Carla Ferdandez’s collection, which was inspired by the Mexican Caribbean, distilled her country’s rich aesthetic heritage. Her garments were made at the hands of Yucatán and Campeche craftsmen, and referenced the archaeological drawings of Miguel Covarrubias.

organic fabrics such as wool, linen and untreated cotton.

Many designers have taken inspiration from the nation’s rich aesthetic heritage, from the first collection by California’s Shaun Samson to the Givenchy’s AW10 couture collection (inspired by Frida Kahlo).

So what’s next for Mexico?

And what can we expect to see filtering through internationally? Here Dazed selects a handful of the country’s most promising designers from the event to take a closer look.

PINK MAGNOLIA The SS13 collection from Pink Magnolia took inspiration from designer/founder Paola Wong’s previous collaborative ventures with Disney and Swarovski.

Chiffon, silk and lashings of glitter stood out among the a-line skirts, culottes, bodysuits and the collection’s staple: white platform shoes.

MALAFACHA Victor Hernal and Francisco Saldana, the creative force behind Malafacha, delivered ready-to-wear Seine trousers and raincoats for a collection inspired by a Kurt Weill song based on a Roger Fermay poem. The 20 looks, or “teams” as the designers call them, epitomised light-weight, springtime simplicity.

TEXT NATHALIE OLAH PHOTOGRAPHY CUAUHTEMOC SUAREz

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Electroshock Therapy

After 22 years of grotesqueries and provocation as one-half of the art scene’s most notorious duo, Dinos Chapman is releasing his debut album. He tells Nathalie Olah why this isn’t sound art, but music proper

The instruction was simple: go and find the man behind sculptures of Hitler, conjoined twins and mutilated corpses. The shadowy figure they call Dinos Chapman. He’s undertaken a mysterious new music project called Luftbobler, they said, and is residing in a remote location, somewhere on England’s south coast.

Martin Sheen travelling the Nang river by boat this isn’t – more a 10am Southeastern train service from London Victoria to Kent. But what lurks at the end of that journey is a man whose work with brother Jake has received innumerable cries of, “The horror! The horror!”

Yet in person Chapman is surprisingly affable, and he’s smiling as he pulls up to the station in his grey Land Rover, He is wearing a fake-fur bunny costume for which he proffers no explanation, but all is soon explained by the press shoot evidently underway outside the converted water container he calls home (his second, in addition to his place in Spitalfields).

Stepping out of the car, Chapman opens a door that weighs two tons and would break your fingers if they got caught, he says, before leading the way down long halls lined with his own work and others’, stopping at a sizeable sculpture in the main hall, a Gary Hume.

“I swapped that and had it installed here but kept Gary waiting on our sculpture for four years. Jake eventually ruined it by telling him it had been ready the whole time.”

He trails off as he begins tapping his iPhone furiously, explaining that Jake has sent him a link to a website that has permanently locked his internet browser. “Do you know how to get out of it? He’s a real shit, my brother, sometimes.”

After more failed attempts to fix the device, Chapman opens the door to a kitchen presided over by two excitable boxer dogs, Woody and Snoopy (the latter only has one eye thanks to a run-in with a thorn bush). He prepares coffee while waiting to continue the shoot to promote Luftbobler, an album of cacophonous, cinematic electronica inspired by the likes of Squarepusher and Stockhausen.

It’s a remarkably listenable offering from a man whose visual art has always challenged audiences. “Everybody’s going to expect noise,” he says, pulling up two chairs at a kitchen table with a view over the Kent countryside. On it stand two church candles, embellished with felt-tip drawings of cats exclaiming “miaow” from their vaginas and skeletons wielding scythes and declaring to small dogs, “For youz the war iz over.”

“People are going to make comparisons with the art,” he continues. “Everyone’s going to expect thrash metal or some earbending dissonance from one of the Chapman brothers, but that’s too easy. That’s what I’d imagine artists would make. For me, it was always important to make music. I don’t want to punish people, y’know, ‘Ooh look, isn’t this irritating?’ I don’t want any special dispensation just because I’m an artist.”

The 13-track record, released by The Vinyl Factory, has the perturbing Chapman aesthetic running through droning basslines and set off against unexpected, melodic high notes. Opener

photography Lina Scheynius

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“So It Goes” and the title track are housey throwbacks spliced with explosive sounds of ammunition, while “Reaktorsnuhsnuh” has a disconcertingly saccharine feel. “Smeyes” – a Tyra Banks reference, yes – demonstrates some pared-down minimalism, while closer “Alltid” evokes a landscape of epic proportions. “That track makes me laugh,” he says. “It’s like a couple of tired old cowboys creeping across a desert.”

Chapman’s music resembles sculpture. Taking “bits” built from sounds constructed on his preferred software, Ableton Live, he pieces tracks together during late-night stints in the studio in Kent and in the basement of his London home. “The thing I’m most interested in is evoking a sense of place. An atmosphere. The bass is like rolling thunder and then there’s these funny little things in the foreground doing whatever it is they do. The one-fingered piano bits I envision as some kind of demented child stabbing the keys in a horror film.”

Although the horror aesthetic is present, Luftbobler is still, as its creator says, music in the truest sense. While its inception and conception might be unorthodox, the result has appeal far beyond the art world.

“I had 15 hours of stuff. And when The Vinyl Factory first approached me I was initially thinking about putting the whole lot on vinyl and saying, ‘I’m not going to do any editing to this.’ Of course, at this point I still thought it was all an elaborate joke. But when I realised that it was being taken seriously I decided to go back and rework a lot of it.

It was a really slow and quite painful process getting it all down to 13 tracks.”

And the title? You might assume it’s the name of a German aircraft, a nod to the brutalist aesthetic of 80s synth music, but you’d be wrong.

“We went to Norway last February and I bought the equivalent of an Aero. It was called ‘Luftbobler’ and I thought it was such a funny word. It’s very evocative but you can’t imagine what it is. I mean, people think it’s German or Danish.

I just liked it because it sounded ethereal.”

With that, Chapman is summoned outside to wrap the shoot. The fire alarm sounds on account of the smoke machine installed in the hallway and Chapman turns as he walks back down the corridor. “I should probably sample that,” he says, looking up pensively.

A few seconds later he is outside. “Scowl!” the photographer shouts by way of direction. “Imagine you’ve just killed someone.”

Chapman smiles. It is not the reaction the photographer had hoped for and Chapman apologises, laughing.

“Sorry”, he says, fixing his smirk and shooting the team a sardonic glance. “I’m just imagining who that would be.”

After they finish he rids himself of the all-in-one fauxfur and returns to the Land Rover for a short drive to the local pub, where the landlady greets him and leads the way to a fairy-light bedecked table. It is an unlikely setting to continue a conversation about an album defined by its spooky, horror-drenched sound.

“I’m always surprised when I think of how long I’ve been making music, but it’s always been in private. I never imagined anyone else hearing it.”

This has given Chapman – a man who describes himself as painfully shy but hiding behind the guise of a rabid show-off – the freedom to create an album that is entirely his. “There are so many people out there that hate the art with a vengeance, so I’m used to it. But I care about what people think of the music because it’s new and delicate.

“I like sitting in a basement or in my studio here and just fiddling with things. It’s like trying to bang square pegs though round holes. You can do it if you hit it really, really hard. So I refuse to learn to use things properly. I can literally spend hours trying to find out why there’s no sound coming out of the speakers before I look at the back and realise it’s not plugged in. I’m that kind of...” He shakes his head. “I just have no interest in learning to use things properly. That idea of, ‘Don’t do this’ – fuck it, I’m doing it. That’s what I do and that’s what Jake and I do and it works.

“I can’t remember how I made any of the sounds on that album. On one of the tracks there is something that sounds like a German voice, but it’s not. It’s not even a voice. All I know is there’s a beat repeat that’s done something. But I like that.

I like to run fast in a direction and not know how to get back.”

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“Everyone’s going to expect thrash metal or some earbending dissonance, but that’s too easy.

For me, it was always important to make music.

I don’t want to punish people"

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“I have no interest in learning to use things properly.

That idea of, ‘Don’t do this’ – fuck it, I’m doing it.

That’s what I do and what Jake and I do and it works”

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You would expect the caustic Chapman wit to struggle to find its voice in the much more sincere medium of music. Yet it is still there; something Chapman attributes to his approach when making it.

“It’s just about the mentality in which you create something. The playfulness is in bringing together extremes and seeing what happens; horror and humour, horror and innocence.

Like getting the opposite poles of a magnet and pushing them together really hard. Interesting things happen. It’s a bit like when we made a sculpture of Hitler for a golf course. You hit the ball where his balls should be and his arm goes up. It’s funny and it’s mocking and yet the Jewish Leadership Council took great offence, because they said a sculpture of Hitler was offensive. But we were taking the piss. They should have been applauding us.

“The result of that was somehow getting the Nazis and the Jewish Council to agree that they hated this sculpture and so we were like, ‘Well, that worked!’”

So is it this taste for collision that has informed the Chapmans’ work and Luftbobler, as opposed to a love of horror itself?

“I do have a soft spot for horror,” Chapman admits, but he only elaborates when far away from the cozy confines of the pub, back in the Land Rover on our return drive to London.

“One of my favourite horror films is Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (1981), directed by Walerian Borowczyk, but it’s disappeared. I’m trying to get the Barbican to track it down and show it. I first saw it at the Scala in King’s Cross, when they used to do all-nighters. I can like a film for a three-second bit in the middle. Literally every week I buy ten DVDs and watch them in succession or just listen to them while I’m drawing. At the moment it’s zombie DVDs. “I have imagined some of the tracks as soundtracks to situations, not necessarily films. One of the tracks reminds me of Apocalypse Now, and when my brother heard it he asked, ‘Is that from Blade Runner?’”

So Jake has heard the record, and presumably likes it?

“Yeah, well, he says he likes it. And he’d tell me if he didn’t. He says he listens to it in his car. Jake’s always played music. You couldn’t get any sense out of him as a teenager because he was always practicing guitar.”

The brothers are working towards an exhibition in the Ukraine but have a loose plan to collaborate on a music project when it’s wrapped. “My only stipulation is that Jake doesn’t get to stand in front playing guitar and pretend that he’s the boss.

I’m not standing in the back. He’s going to sit on a stool like Val Doonican and he’s going to have to wear a long wig to make him look crap.”

He admits that he and Jake have yet to fix a date for the project. Chapman’s reluctance to plan too far ahead is palpable, and reflects a much more fundamental belief that underpins much of his work: the importance of embracing the present. For him the future is nonexistent and the past exists purely as hearsay.

“I mean, I love Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings,” he admits, “but I want to draw all over them. I’d love to know what it was like being a medieval man, but it’s never going to happen so it’s a waste of time.”

Cue outcry at the brothers’ embellished Goyas and their improvements to watercolours by a young Adolf Hitler. “That’s only important as a symbol.” Chapman explains, eyes looking forward along the dark road, the sight of London a cluster of lights peeping over the horizon. “Jake got on more personal terms with Hitler than I think he ever wanted to. When he was painting on top of one of his watercolours, he was licking his paintbrush and halfway through realised that Hitler had probably done the same.”

The road splits and Chapman leans forward to consider which lane to take. “Where was I?” He asks, and after some quiet thought, remembers. “That’s right,” he says, “swapping spit with Hitler.”

And had this affected his brother irrevocably? “Oh, undoubtedly,” he replies, smiling.

LUFTBOBLER is released on February 25 by The Vinyl Factory

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Rock legends PRimal scReam get Ready to Play Ray-Ban’s 75thanniveRsaRy celeBRation ...and you could Be theRe Come together! To celebrate its 75-year history and inextricable link with rock’n’roll, Ray-Ban has joined forces with Dazed to host a one-off party with those trailblazers of British rock, Primal Scream.

At this momentous occasion, the band will collaborate with a surprise guest to perform a song of your choosing. Readers who vote on songs in advance will be in with a chance of winning tickets and joining a select audience at the event’s secret, intimate London location. Here to get you fired up is the Scream’s main man himself, iconic frontman Bobby Gillespie, who has a few thoughts to offer on his favourite collaborations, the current state of music and why his band is still the best at what they do.

You’ve also collaborated with a lot of people.

Who stands out, apart from the Ashtons?

I got onstage with Grinderman last year in a big theatre in Australia. We did ‘Bellringer Blues’. But the best was with the MC5 at the Royal Festival Hall a few years ago: that was pretty amazing, standing on stage with Wayne Kramer.

What makes a performer or performance legendary?

That’s a bit tricky. Johnny Thunders is a legend to me, because he really gave his whole life to playing rock’n’roll music, and he’s just really pure. He meant everything; he never played a note that had a lie behind it.

Do you think a lot of performers aren’t that into music any more, that they’re in it for the wrong reasons?

Like, just to be famous and all that crap? Well, it’s kind of funny at the moment. Like Tricky said in one of his records (‘Tricky Kid’ from Pre-Millennium Tension, 1996), ‘Everybody wants to be naked and famous’. I thought that was a good line and it’s still relevant.

There’s no critique of society because their families have done pretty well in the system.

And that doesn’t make for interesting music?

You need diversity, you need people from all different backgrounds because otherwise you’re only gonna get one kind of voice, one strand of society, that runs the media. A lot of people came out of the same kind of educational system and it’s all the same people running the country and the music industry, too.

What do Primal Scream stand for today?

We just love playing really; we can rock any place and that’s why we’re still one of the best, man.

For a chance to be at this special event, join dazed’s Facebook competition from august 27–31. visit dazeddigital.com and follow @rayban_eyewear on twitter for updates BoBBy gillesPie wears Ray-Ban 3025, 001/58 aviators

Are record labels playing it safe?

The whole culture is so conservative, and I hope there will be a reaction towards it. The bands now seem to come from privileged backgrounds.

This Ray-Ban event will be a legendary occasion; what makes a legendary moment for you?

I once got to play ‘No Fun’ with the Ashton brothers.

That was a highlight. It was Ron Ashton on the guitar and Scott Ashton on the drums from The Stooges, Mascis on the guitar from Dinosaur and Mike Watt from the Minutemen on bass. This was about 2002, 2003, in Brixton. That was amazing actually, singing ‘No Fun’ with two of The Stooges.

Covering songs is nothing new for Primal Scream. How do you approach using someone else’s work?

Most of the time we only keep the words, we change the melody and we completely change the song structure, the atmosphere. In the 80s we did a version of ‘So Sad About Us’ by The Who. It’s kind of typical sexbeat; you know, freakbeat.

We took all the drums out and slowed it right down and made it completely empty.

We completely changed it.

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elegance is refusal

text nathalie olah

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11 of our favourite female musicians prove coco chanel’s fierce motto still rings true with their own colourful spin on Karl and carine’s little BlacK JacKet proJect 27/07/2012 18:37

LAUREL HALO

PHOTOGRAPHY GARETH MCCONNELL STYLING EMMA WYMAN

Brooklyn’s bombastic bass cadet finds beauty in New York’s streets

CONFUSED

You’ve described your approach to music as visual, inspired by shape and motion. What are your favourite things to look at?

The Manhattan skyline, the view while flying over clouds or mountains or cities at night, Michigan beaches, architecture, the northern lights, smoke and new cities.

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What is it about Brooklyn that breeds such a wealth of musical talent?

Supply and demand – you have to work harder here than most other places.

Everyone’s got a fire under their ass: I have a friend who’s an architect and their office is in the same building as Jay Z’s studio; during her 80hour weeks she starts to smell the weed from downstairs around 8pm.

She’ll leave around 1am or 2am and when she comes back at 7am she can still smell the weed cos whoever it was went all night. It doesn’t stop – it’s an inspiring place because we’re all in it together.

How can the past shape the future?

Like a chimeric sculptor of memory and identity politics.

What makes something timeless?

Basically, the Chanel logo, right?

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NJENA REDDD FOXXX

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The bad-ass bookworm is out to school all the silly bitches

PHOTOGRAPHY SEbASTiAN MADER STYLiNG CATHERiNE NEwELL-HANSON

‘Ima Read’ by you and Zebra Katz was played at the Rick Owens show in Paris last season. Do music and fashion have an important relationship?

The music, the atmosphere, the fire and the clothing all worked so well in that show, as if they were all made simultaneously by the same flash of lightning. I think music and most artforms are inseparable.

How does your sound reflect your style?

They are mirrors of each other, but imagine that each mirror has its own map of flaked silver-nitrate, meaning they are constantly gaining character with experience. Right now, I sound like ‘that bitch’, so I guess I look like ‘that bitch’ too.

What makes something timeless?

When it transcends the biases and boundaries we make for ourselves.

When something cuts to the core of humanity, and becomes so much a part of people’s lives that they preserve it and pass it on.

What’s next for you?

THE WORLD.

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PEGGY wANG

PHOTOGRAPHY COLIN DODGSON STYLING KAREN LANGLEY

CONFUSED

How is it working with three boys every day?

I didn’t think I’d be able to handle the egos, but I serendipitously found myself with these three, who haven’t got a shred of self-worth; plus they bathe and do laundry like, ten times more often than I do.

You’re often described as ‘cute’ and ‘adorable’.

Does this get annoying?

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No! I actually draw on these instances during periods of intense self-loathing. I remind myself: ‘Once someone wrote something about me being cute in passing on the comment section of some guy’s blog that two people read.’

Does your style reflect your sound?

They probably have a lot to do with each other on a subconscious level.

I’m not very meticulous – I don’t want to have to try that hard – and I’m drawn to very basic things like colour and shape (although not basic things in general). I also think that maybe the best way to look is to pull off something really unflattering.

What makes something timeless?

It’s rare these days to not look back on something, whether it was last week or a month ago or a year ago, and just get a kind of sudden sour taste in your mouth. Like, we live in this culture where people are like, ‘Ugh, remember when we thought that band was cool? Remember when I dated that gross guy? Remember when I wore that ugly dress to that dumb party?’ It’s like this weird purgatory of stuff that isn’t old enough to be nostalgia yet, and we’re too busy constantly trying to keep up with the times to consider what we actually think about anything.

Anyway, something timeless transcends all of that.

It’s something perfect that remains perfect even in hindsight. It’s something we come back to over and over again that makes us feel sure about ourselves.

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The Pains of being Pure at Heart keyboardist on things that make her go “ugh”

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A*M*E

PHOTOGRAPHY cAMEROn ALExAndER STYLInG EMMA WYMAn

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Getting inside the pop packaging of south London’s 17-year-old newcomer What do you wear to dance?

I did ballet from the age of eight, and back then it was a leopardprint leotard. Now when I’m rehearsing it’s all about leggings, a baggy top and a pair of trainers, possibly still all leopard-print.

Can pop still be classic?

Absolutely. I’m a massive 90s fan and when I put on a great tune from that time I feel like I’m being taken back there.

Classic tunes made now should do the same in 20 years.

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Does your sound reflect your style?

Completely. My sound and my style go handin-hand. Both are bright and upbeat.

Who are your female idols?

Beyonce, Diana Ross, Aretha franklin and Rihanna - all these women are legends in their own right.

I’m inspired not just by their music but their image too.

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JeSSIe WARe

PHOTOGRAPHY KIRIll KUleTSKI STYlInG nell KAlOnJI

leading British music to a 90s neverland where glamour reigns and laconic soul is the law

CONFUSED

What influences do you draw on and how does your sound reflect your style?

I am definitely influenced by women such as Grace Jones, Annie Lennox and Sade – they had such strong looks. I love that classy, timelessyet-cutting-edge look.

When I want to look more androgynous I look to the 80s and 90s tailored stuff, but on the other end of the spectrum, there’s Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren.

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Is being a performer about more than just the music?

I think so. It’s one thing making an album, but then you have to win people over when you perform live. First impressions are important so I always make an effort onstage.

What makes something timeless?

If it’s accessible and relevant to a lot of people, and has a beauty about it.

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SAMANTHA URBANI

PHOTOGRAPHY MICHAEL HEMY STYLING ELIZABETH FRASER-BELL

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Friends’ frontwoman proffers up a piece of her searingly strong mind What role does the city play in your music?

The DIY thing allowed us to become well known in New York (and beyond, via the internet), and nurtured our evolution as a live band. It feels like we take that spirit of DIY partying with us wherever we go.

Is it important for you to have creative control over the visual output?

Yes! I grew up primarily as a visual artist and it’s important that anything I’m creating is holistic. Any time I’ve lost touch with the visual element of Friends, I’ve been disappointed – but not surprised – at the loss of impact of the message or aesthetic I’m trying to impart.

What makes something timeless?

Time is non-linear!

There are basic instincts that most humans share. Anything that appeals to those instincts can stand on its own without being dated by the era in which it was produced.

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LIANNE LA HAVAS

PHOTOGRAPHY SARAH PIANTADOSI STYLING AGATA BELCEN

The British soul songbird indulges her inner tomboy

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How is it spearheading soul out there right now?

It’s great. I’d like to change people’s traditional perception of soul. It’s music that you sing from your heart and should be delivered with feeling.

If I can represent that, then I will be happy.

Does your sound reflect your style?

I hope so, in the way that I mix my boyish style with femininity.

I also hope that both the music and the style come across as elegant, in their own way.

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Does London play a big part in the music?

I suppose it does in the way that London has offered many great opportunities to play shows. There are a great many venues that are all about up-and-coming talent and new music, which is exactly the way I started out.

What makes something timeless?

Honesty and true, pure soul.

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caroline polachek

phoToGraphY BrUno WerZinSki STYlinG raY TeTaUira

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elegance and idealism inspire chairlift’s better half What is it about boy/ girl music-duos that have such enduring appeal?

Maybe it’s like those pioneer plaques that were sent out into space, where there’s one of each specimen, male and female.

There’s also the contrast and duality of who brings what to the sound. Now is a great moment for boygirl duos: Beach House, Trust, Peaking Lights, Dominant Legs, Xeno & Oaklander...

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How do you influence each other?

I make him late, he makes me on time.

Does your style reflect your sound?

I was going to say no at first, because our music can get really ornamental and I normally gravitate towards big, basic shapes when it comes to clothes. But then I realised the attitude is similar: it has to feel good and have an elegance and idealism, and sometimes a childish sense of humour.

What makes something timeless?

Soul. Time is always accepting applications for new aesthetics and new forms, or even the re-purposing of old ones. Spirit is what makes something eternal.

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AlexiS kRAuSS

PHOTOGRAPHY micHAel HAuPTmAn STYlinG mel OTTenBeRG

Sleigh Bells’ siren on her kickass wardrobe What is it about boy/girl duos that have such enduring appeal?

The harmony and the tension. They are universal and inclusive all at the same time.

CONFUSED

You and Derek met when he was looking for a female vocalist.

How did you develop that into a creative relationship?

When we met we were essentially strangers.

As a result, our creative relationship was never fettered by baggage or other distractions.

Does your style reflect your sound?

Yes. Like our sound, I keep my wardrobe tough but feminine.

Our latest record was influenced by Cyndi Lauper, Def Leppard and Slayer, so there’s been lots of shredded denim, bold colours, vintage t-shirts, bangles and studded jackets.

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What influence do you and Derek have on each other?

Derek’s the brother I never had. We take chances because we have more confidence in each other’s abilities and feel constantly inspired by one another. I know Derek has my back and he knows I have his.

AlexiS wears jacket from cHAnel AW08 hair SHin ARimA at FRAnk RePS using ReDken make-up cHRiSTiAn mccullOcH at Tim HOWARD mAnAGemenT using DOlce & GABBAnA THe mAke uP

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DELILAH

PHOTOGRAPHY ALEX SAINSBURY STYLING ELIZABETH FRASER-BELL

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Evolving girl power, one pop song at a time Does the city play a part in your sound?

Definitely. Growing up surrounded by the city’s energy has opened me up to so many exciting artists and educated me on tons of good music that I incorporate into my own songs.

What does femininity mean to you?

All too often I think women forget that our vulnerabilities are what make us sexy and powerful. I think women have come a long way and proved that they are as strong as men.

In defence of that we can sometimes hide our vulnerabilities.

I sing about mine and try my best to embrace them always.

What makes something timeless?

Timeless for me is when someone or something is versatile. When it can move and change yet still stay true to its originality. The ability to evolve often makes someone or something timeless.

DELILAH wears jacket from CHANEL pre-fall 12 hair SHERMAN HAWTHORNE at MANDY COAKLEY using BUMBLE AND BUMBLE make-up ADAM DE CRUZ photographic assistant HUGO YANGUELA

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venus x

PHOTOGRAPHY sAM HessAMIAn sTYLInG JAsOn FARReR

The Ghe20 Goth1k party starter is all about the benjamins Do you enjoy being a rabblerouser?

Of course. I get to tease people, freak them out a little bit and fuck with their heads.

CONFUSED

Is it fair to say clothes play a big part in your sets?

Definitely. I like weird stuff like cheap photowrap and cybergoth clothes.

What are the main influences feeding into your work?

At the moment I am really into money, everything about it, where it comes from, what it’s really worth.

It’s everywhere and I can’t ignore it.

I listen to a lot of Latin music, reggaeton and dembow.

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What makes something timeless?

The memory of it. If it was a great experience then it’s timeless and everyone remembers it felt amazing.

venus x wears CHAneL jacket from AW12 hair bRITTAnY PAPPA make-up MICHAeL AnTHOnY

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DAZED & APPROVED Your indispensable guide to this month’s hottest new looks, music, books, films and art happenings HIS’N’HERS This season’s louis Vuitton bags evoke two very different historical moods. For men, the epi souple sac weekend and the sirius Case reference the quintessential blackand-white cinema scene of snappily dressed rogues in brogues being carried off by steam trains. For women, however, the wooly paillettes, leopard, and goat-fur Transsibérien bags in all their daring seem far more akin to 70s high-glam. it’s a unique combination, exemplifying Vuitton’s knack for combining great craftsmanship and design with functionality.

TexT NaThalie olah phoTography aNdrew NudiNg

DAZED

sTyliNg Nobuko TaNNawa

louisvuitton.com

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fashion

TImE FOR THE TRadER Titanium carbide, stainless steel and sapphire crystal come together in the grand prix-inspired Trader watch, created by Nixon. unswerving in its precision and unparalleled durability, the 48mm model is also capable of nailing time to a tenth of a second. a sports watch in all but its slick, precise craftsmanship and sharp black and steel form, its quiet confidence is cut through with yellow accents.

FLOWER POWER seasons flower and fade but the perennial appeal of Viktor & rolf’s signature scent Flowerbomb endures, thanks to the unique combination of jasmine, orchid, rose and patchouli. This season sees it relaunched in a new edition of its crystalline bottle complete with a pleated pinksatin corolla. it marks the arrival of a scented rollerball and lipgloss too, which will be sold as part of an exclusive giftset available from November. viktor-rolf.com

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ANDROGENIUS As the name suggests, Gentle Metal – Chanel’s new unisex eyewear line – is a fusion of masculine and feminine. The full range of styles includes aviators – seen here in acetate – and comes in a variety of finishes complete with metal tips. chanel.com

CONFUSED

MAISON MARTIN MARGIELA x H&M Maison Martin Margiela has bunked up with H&M. See for yourself how the house’s elusive, label-flouting stance works in collaboration with one of the biggest names in commercial retail – the diffuse results have just gone on sale. maisonmartin margiela.com hm.com

METAL GEAR SOLID Calvin Klein Jeans’ latest denim line, Liquid Metal, comes in pewter, bronze and bluesteel. The metallic-looking, leather-coated skinnies for men and women have had us galloping like Tin Man down the yellow brick road (aka the corridors of Dazed), our hearts a-tick at the injection of colour they’re bringing to winter wardrobes. A limitededition range of Liquid Metal aviators coincides with this autumn’s launch.

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BACKPACK BRITAIN British brand Gola continues 2012’s theme of patriotism with a new line of backpacks inspired by the great British outdoors and named after the conquerors of Mount Everest.

Braced for a wind-beating, the Hillary, Bonnington and Tenzing designs feature resistant nylon bodies and a suede outer finish, while a line of school-inspired satchels is available in an appliqué washed-canvas finish.

fashion

calvinkleinjeans.com

gola.co.uk

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26/10/2012 21:13

DAZED

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN x PALLADIUM Most designers go in for collaborations with brands, but for the second season running, Hussein Chalayan is actually collaborating with a metal, via its industry champion, the International Palladium Board. Defined by its unique combination of properties, palladium is a lightweight, sturdy derivative of platinum. Last year Chalayan cast it into shapes that were woven into dresses.

Now he has created a line of accessories proper, including a series of metal wigs inspired by the blowing hair depicted in classical sculpture. The accompanying bracelet uses leather to replicate the wig’s fluid shape.

TOMMY HILFIGER x BLAUER Four jackets – two for women, two for men – are the result of a collaboration between Tommy Hilfiger and clothing brand Blauer, known for its high-performance durability in serving the US police forces and the White House guards. The all-American firm is perhaps the only one capable of rivaling Hilfiger’s own fervent patriotism. Each design is limited to 200 editions, comes in a range of autumnal shades and is individually numbered and hand-waxed.

husseinchalayan.com palladiumboard.com

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fashion

tommy.com blauer.com

CARHARTT WIP x AIAIAI Danish headphone firm AiAiAi has teamed up with Carharrt WIP for special editions of its TMA-1 and in-ear Pipe headphones. Joe Goddard of Hot Chip is one of many internationally renowned artists who have tested the TMA-1, and both are available in four signature Carhartt colourways – black, grey, light grey and cypress – with changeable leads. carhartt-wip.com aiaiai.dk

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26/10/2012 21:13

JORDAN ASKILL x TOPSHOP Following a stint at Dior Homme in Paris, Jordan Askill has had success with his eponymous line of jewellery, inspired by nostalgia and youth. Now he’s joining forces with Topshop for an exclusive line of animal busts; here he opens up to Dazed about the children’s tales that continue to inspire his work...

Oscar Wilde: “The Happy Prince” (1888) “Its focus is on the idea of true happiness as it relates to something precious, such as swallows and gems.”

L Frank Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) “This was also played to me on vinyl. It’s a dreamlike magical journey, and looks at the importance of the people in your everyday life.”

Kenneth Grahame: The Wind in the Willows (1908) “Set in a pastoral, whimsical version of England filled with animal characters with human values. It conjures pictures of England and willow trees that I’ll never forget.”

May Gibbs: Snugglepot and Cuddlepie (1918) “This story brings to life native Australian flora.

For me, growing up, it gave these flowers and trees a real-life presence.”

fashion

BOOK NOW With geometric silhouettes of a near-architectural quality, Wooyoungmi’s designs function as armour, protecting wearers from inclement urban climates and all strains of that highly transmissible infection, mundanity. Each garment is cut with such sensitive attention to detail that the brand has become a member of Paris’s La Chambre Syndicale. The story of how titular founder Woo Young Mi won this accolade, along with how she brought her vision to an international audience, is the subject of a new book, Wooyoungmi Repository: 10 Years of Creation, available at her SS13 show in Paris next year.

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Margery Williams: The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) “My parents used to play this to me on vinyl before I went to sleep. There was something so sad yet so happy about a soft toy that after years of love was disregarded by humans, but was then able to run free with the other creatures, like a magical afterlife.”

wooyoungmi.com

topshop.com askillprojects.com

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FEARFUL SYMMETRY The arrival of its Alty and Fabre En designs marks a shift towards pared-down classicism for Japanese shoe brand Onitsuka Tiger, and a return to its sporting heritage. The Alty takes inspiration from the 1960 Rome Olympics, and includes a circular imprint reminiscent of Japan’s national flag, while the Fabre En’s high-top design hails back to a 1975 basketball shoe. Both come in four colourways. onitsukatiger.co.uk

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hair Yumi NakadadiNgle using aveda make-up aNgela davis deacoN at sue allatt RepReseNts using Rmk models soo Joo at uNioN models, tomo kuRata at Next models

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DAZED 78

[cult vip]

the wizard of oz

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from hypererotic surrealism to dreamy fine art, renegade oz illustrator Jim leon’s work is being rediscovered after decades of obscurity. nathalie olah looks back on a life that changed with one acid trip

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quiet and didn’t push his work on us. He just handed me this scene of an angel, a cottage with a woman standing in the doorway and more of what I would learn were his typical busty women. I had never seen anything like it before and decided to print the image straightaway.”

Leon’s first contribution appeared in the aptly titled Brave New Morning issue, #31.

Neville, recently returned from New York, had written a searing article about the decline of the 60s revolution that seemed to fit with Leon’s apocalyptic sensibility. By fusing

nudey abandon with scenes of workingclass struggle, his work embodied the excitement, and subsequent return to reality, of the waning hippy movement.

It also created a tense, fragmentary quality that was reminiscent of the non-linear structure of William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, which Leon continued to cite as an influence throughout his early career. In return, he was granted an allaccess pass to the Oz community, and soon the magazine and its associates in the underground press were heading to the ICA to witness the artist destroying a papiermâché sculpture of William Blake’s head.

“It was the era of the ‘happening’ and this whole thing – destroying his idol in public – was Leon’s big ‘happening’,” Anderson says, with an audible titter. Impervious to the prescribed rules of even his avantgarde contemporaries, Leon made work that, despite its provocative and disturbing nature, could often verge on what Anderson calls “kitsch”.

Take for instance a series of pop paintings depicting Rubenesque women on top of fondant fancies and sponge cakes, or the cover and callto-arms commissioned during the Oz trial of anachronistic cranks marching together in a parade of Disney-level joviality (Anderson cropped out some details in light of the magazine’s legal issues, including an oversized penis entering a gargantuan, glowing vagina). The cover was the most famous in

Oz’s history, and the issue (#36) immediately became a collector’s item, going on to become one of the most expensive issues ever sold.

This creative autonomy and total disregard for his critics won Leon favour as a designer and illustrator, and by 1973 he was producing work for the International Times and Rolling Stone. Unbeknown to his newfound colleagues and admirers though, he had a previous life; he spent the 60s living in Lyon, France, with a wife, Monique, with whom he raised two children, before leaving his family for London to pursue his new career.

“We didn’t know about that,” Anderson admits.

“Leon was a very shy man who seemed, at times, to be quite depressed.”

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mousy-haired” artist covers and opening spreads in some of Oz’s seminal issues.

His previous work told, in meticulous detail, stories of bestiality, incest, necrophilia and

etheric impregnation.

“All the good stuff, basically,” Anderson adds, without laughing.

“A real finger-in-theeye to thought police.”

When he entered into a three-year association with Oz in the summer of 1970, Leon was fresh from a trip to California that saw him work on counterculture magazine the Berkeley Barb, and help found UC Berkeley’s People’s Park, a symbol of leftist politics and free speech that was the scene of a tragic skirmish between protestors and state police (under governor Ronald Reagan).

“He came into our studio on Princedale Road, Ladbroke Grove, looking to get published.” Anderson recalls. “He was very

CONFUSED

By 1970, Londonbased underground magazine Oz had embarked on a voyage of sexual discovery.

Libidinous tales had taken the place of angry satire, prompting criticism that the formerly Australian publication had lost sight of its younger readers. In response, editors Richard Neville, Felix Dennis and Jim Anderson hatched a cunning plan to hand creative control to a group of prepubescents.

The resultant Schoolkids OZ issue (#28), however, had the lessthan-desirable effect of landing all three men in jail.

Fifteen-year-old Vivian Berger’s Rupertthe-Bear parody of a particularly explicit Robert Crumb sketch became infamous as the linchpin of the 26-day obscenity trial that took place the following year.

But its notoriety is misleading; the real erotic aesthetic of the magazine’s latter years was far more adult, reaching its apex in the work of an illustrator who was forbidding in his exploration of all our psychological nether-regions.

“It was scary,” Anderson says of Wolverhamptonborn Jim Leon’s art.

“Humourless, disturbing, uncomfortable.” But these attributes won the “small, pink-faced,

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It was not just his family that Leon kept under wraps – in France he had developed a whole separate career and following that the Oz editors were oblivious to. He organised gigs and designed posters for Pink Floyd and the Rolling Stones, and created sets for theatres in Villeurbanne and Paris and backdrops and costumes at the Lyon Opera. Leon also art-directed Jacques Demy’s seminal, Catherine Deneuvestarring Peau d’Ane (Donkey Skin, 1970),

the epitome of the gaudy French aesthetic that originated with Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast, 1946). He provided a characteristic level of colour and a nearCatholic abundance of gold that combined with the wider theme of incest to create a film as tense and disquieting as the rest of his work.

When, on May 1, 1973, he underwent a mystical experience after taking a generous hit of acid, his career was sailing as meteorically high as his mind. But the upshot of that trip was a return to painting proper and a move away from sexual subject-matter.

His final works for Oz (which came to an end with issue #48 in November 1973), included a series of circular erotic drawings, although Anderson’s favourite appeared in issue #40: “A scene of seemingly unrelated

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figures – a woman with her legs spread and a couple embracing in the corner – wound together by repeated motifs and organic patterns.”

Following his mystical experience – his encounter with what he called the “Goddess of Nature” – Leon replaced his surreal, epic eroticism with NewAge dreamscapes punctuated by crystalline forms, astrological measuring devices and Moorish shrines. He stuck with his new style until his death in 2002, arguably at the expense of any further commercial success.

While the phantasmagorical element tapped a 70s zeitgeist, his posttrip work failed to chime with critics. He was trying to become a fine artist, but was hampered by the very kitschness that had won him favour at Oz. Leon had his champions, though.

One unlikely devotee of his later work is former Tate curator/ spokesman Simon Wilson, who, in his early 20s, attended one of Leon’s shows in Lyon, only to find an artist who systematically destroyed the work of others, stole his wife’s purse and disappeared

back home to England.

A few weeks later they met again at Lyon coffee house and artist hangout Le Caveau and became close friends.

Writing about Leon’s later paintings in a 2005 essay in New Statesman, Wilson described them as depicting the world “as it was, or as it will be, or could be – healed from the ravages of man, a paradise regained, presided over by a few seraphic beings of enigmatic and radiant beauty, or by infinitely mysterious inanimate objects.”

Speaking at his home in south London, which holds the largest collection of Leon’s work outside of France, Wilson elaborates on Anderson’s analysis:

“I wouldn’t necessarily describe Leon’s work as ‘kitsch’. He was certainly a pop artist, which was at odds with his subject matter.

But Leon was also a visionary, whose later work reminds me of John Martin in its ambition, scale and grandeur.”

At the time that Leon was making a return to fine art, Wilson was busy acquiring Martin’s work for the Tate’s permanent collection.

The Victorian painter’s Hollywood-scale scenes of apocalyptic destruction had fallen short of critical acclaim in his own lifetime, but enjoyed a renaissance during the 70s that was amplified

by Wilson’s effort. Leon was fated for similar criticism. The pursuit of fine art plunged him into relative obscurity, exacerbated by an increasingly misanthropic side to his personality and an inability to cooperate with clients.

He was cut off from the established art

world, and as a result, the romantic quality that had once been so popular appeared misguided. While Wilson lauds the artist’s “anti-materialist” stance in those years, it no doubt had the effect of embittering, as opposed to empowering him as an artist.

“He never owned property. He never had any money. He was, indeed, a kind of holy innocent. He was also impossible, but he was, in some sense, an example to us all,” Wilson wrote in his New Statesman article. Such praise came despite Leon nearly causing an irreparable rift in the Wilsons’ marriage when he turned up unannounced, lived on their sofa for several months and failed to complete a painting that the Tate man had forked out a considerable amount of money for.

By the late 70s, poor and plighted by alcoholism, Leon, still separated

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CONFUSED

from his wife, had moved back home to the West Midlands, justifying his professional failings through notions of bohemianism. He hadn’t spoken to the editors of Oz for some years. Dennis was busy creating his publishing empire, while Neville continued to write and travel and Anderson had embarked on a rehabilitative stint in California. Leon’s work had been buried along with the underground press in the UK, and only a handful of collectors in Lyon considered his work to be of any value.

“The problem with Leon’s late work is it lacked a conceptual element,” Wilson explains. “You can comprehend it in a French context, because of the tradition of surrealism and writers like George Bataille. But in an Anglo-Saxon context his work is all too visceral and instinctual. A painter who’s going to be acquired by museums needs to be painting about painting. The problem really was that Leon was an illustrator.”

In 2012, it is his contribution to the prevailing image of early-70s London, as opposed to art history, that affords him a lasting legacy. Dennis and Anderson continue to stress their desire to see Leon’s work remembered, and Wilson regrets not being able to forge for Leon a canonical home. However, ten years after his death from cancer, with the emergence of image sharing, interest in Leon’s work has been on a recent and unexpected rise.

Crystalline structures, shamanistic symbolism and translucent prisms are relevant

again thanks to the emergence of CGI artists such as Tabor Robak. While the renewed interest is still partly ironic, perhaps the time will come soon when we can begin to take seriously the quixotic fixation at the heart of Leon’s late work, with its unbridled belief in the limitless potential of the imagination.

Portraits of JIM LEON by JEAN-PAUL VALERY [previous spread, clockwise from top:] OZ #36 cover; CLOS JOUVE, 1995; FAITS DIVERS (NEWS IN BRIEF), 1988; END OF AN ERA, opening spread of OZ #31, December 1970; FROM A SKETCHBOOK, 1970

[this spread, clockwise from top] UNTITLED TONDO, from OZ #31; UNTITLED, 1971; UNTITLED LANDSCAPE, 1996; UNTITLED, 1979; UNTITLED, from OZ #40, 1972

28/09/2012 11:34

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DAZED

Fashion Week goes global WiTh mercedesbenz Mercedes-Benz continues to host the most prestigious fashion weeks internationally.

This year, in collaboration with Dazed, it launched Fashion Broadcasting, a film-based initiative that highlights fresh talent from cities outside the usual fashion centres. In October, having already covered Berlin and Cape Town, the project extended its reach to Moscow and Beijing: two cities one border and 6,000km apart, each with very distinct ideas of what constitutes innovative fashion.

As is befitting to the capital of the world’s fastest-growing superpower, Beijing SS13 championed the ergonomic efficiency of sportswear, with a series of collections drawing on urban wastelands, sciencefiction landscapes and utopian notions of the robot, the superhuman and the indestructible jacket. Metallic fabric defined the work of celebrated menswear designer Simon gao, while Lucy Zhang’s womenswear showcased translucent paper designs folded using the principles of origami. Innovation was key, dictating an aesthetic that was slick and only ostensibly futuristic – few designers used the term to define their work, emphasising instead its suitability to the climate of modern inner-city life. Here too, fashion reflected the booming economy. In Beijing, the market potential of a designer’s work is discussed between shows that are still heavily legislated by the government, in spaces hired out by department stores.

Mercedes-Benz’s involvement, however, meant that more money than ever before found its way into the hands of the young designers, bolstering creativity, generating authenticity and capturing the imagination of the actors and musicians who took to the front rows at former factory D.park.

Across the border, Moscow was home to not just one, but three fashion weeks. And while the other two defined themselves by their proximity to wealth – shown through a lessthan-fetching array of furs,

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synthetic fibres and diamante detailing – the Mercedes shows centred on designers whose work paid homage to russia’s rich cultural heritage. yanina Vekhteva’s hauntingly romantic, feminine designs utilised silk, chiffon, organza and lace, while the work of Leonid Alexeev was informed by the golden age of cinema.

Entirely monochromatic – white, black and grey – and influenced by the films of godard and the photography of Irving penn, his menswear designs hailed a time of high sartorial grace and drama.

Their rise to become centres of innovative fashion may still be in the fledgling stages, but Moscow and Beijing have made bold strides in asserting their identity within the global fashion market. Dazed selected a few favourite designers to take a closer look at. dazeddigital.com/ projects/fashion broadcasting

TexT NATHALIE OLAH pHOTOgrApHy gLEB SErEDA, SILIANg MA

22/11/2012 17:50

[l-r, top to bottom] Leonid ALexeev; JASon GUo; SiMon GAo; CABBeen; Leonid ALexeev; CABBeen; SiMon GAo; SiMon GAo; YAninA veKHTevA; Leonid ALexeev; Leonid ALexeev

Cabbeen One of China’s most successful domestic brands, Cabbeen transformed the gasoline tank in D.park into Cabbeen World, comprising an eclectic mix of tattoos, totems, woollen jacquards, architectural fashions and combats.

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BEIJING:

Simon Gao Simon gao delivered a debut show of androgynous, sciencefiction inspired menswear that was attended by actor Li Chen.

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JaSon Guo Taking home the menswear prize for his collection, Jason guo showed loosely structured suiting in two opposing fabrics, playing with the idea of camouflage. The theme was “existence after disappearance.”

MOSCOW: Leonid aLexeev Saint Martins graduate Alexeev’s simple, cinematic designs achieve unisex appeal through their inclusion of long shirts and jewellery, with geometric figures as a nod to religious iconography.

Yanina vekhteva Described as “intellectual femininity”, yanina Vekhteva’s pastel designs were displayed in an apple tree, hanging from branches.

She explains her philosophy thus: “your dresses should be tight enough to show you’re a woman and loose enough to show you’re a lady.”

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how The midwesT wenT To poT “all you had to do was not get caught,” explains James higdon, author of The Cornbread Mafia, a history of america’s largest ever homegrown marijuana syndicate. the operation was headed up by federal fugitive Johnny Boone, kingpin of a generation of poverty-stricken Kentuckians with moonshine and pride in their blood. in its magnitude, criminality and gangster modus-operandi, the story rivals the best of prohibitionera legend.

Which is why, since the book’s publication, people across america have been snapping up copies, as well as attending readings at double capacity to hear the story relayed to a soundtrack of chitlin-circuit blues, Jimi hendrix and ike & tina turner. Without question, higdon’s is the most thorough account yet of this pivotal episode in america’s – and pot’s – history. “the story of the Cornbread Mafia is much greater than the simple arrests of 70 people who grew 182 tons of pot,” writes higdon. “it’s a story of bloody bodies in the back seats of cars... of kidnappings, helicopters, lions and bears and an infamous sex tape involving cocaine, a Doberman pinscher and a fugitive with a legendary endowment.” at one point the account even extends its reach to Mr Nice himself, but despite being a hero of UK outlaw marijuana culture, howard Marks remains largely unknown in the US thanks to “Son of Sam laws”, which prevent convicted criminals from making money off their crimes. Next to some of Boone’s cronies, he comes off as relatively vanilla. “Farmers were paid $1.60 a pound to raise tobacco, or they could grow marijuana for a $1000 a pound,” higdon explains. and the men prepared to risk their freedom to seize that opportunity were some of the shrewdest psychos in the whole of the upper south.

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But its not all bongs and backdoor deals, higdon insists. “i have a strange relationship with pot. i haven’t always liked it or the people that smoke it. i want to provide as many cultural touchstones that are non-marijuana-related as possible in order to get that non-pot-smoking audience connected to this story. that’s why the book focuses on Catholicism, prohibition and rhythm ’n’ blues rock’n’roll.”

Slowness on the part of British publishing means copies are only available from international sellers and the book itself is fast becoming a thing of rarefied value, not unlike the substance to which it is devoted.

TexT Nathalie Olah

[this page, clockwise from top] JohnnY Boone, 2007, photo by JAmes hiGdon; cap by ChARLie BiCKeTT, photo by JAmes hiGdon; meRRiLL mATTinGLY of the marion County sheriff department collecting cut pot-plants, photo by sTeVe LoweRY

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[this page, clockwise from top right] Police officers identify hidden pot plants in a cornfield in Marion County, photo by STEVE LOWERY; JEFFREY BOONE visits father JOHNNY in prison, photo courtesy of JOHNNY BOONE; JOHNNY BOONE, 2008, photo by JAMES HIGDON; JOHNNY BOONE (front row, second left) and JIMMY BICKETT (front row, first left) inside Manchester Federal Correctional Institute, photo courtesy of JOHNNY BOONE; police helicopter landing in a pot field in Marion County, photo by STEVE LOWERY

CONFUSED

“Farmers were paid $1.60 a pound to raise tobacco, or they could grow marijuana for $1000 a pound”

28/08/2012 17:12

DAZED & APPROVED Your indispensable guide to this month’s hottest new looks, music, books, films and art happenings

DAZED

InsIder: eugene souleIman sumptuous slicked-back topknots, sash-belts and kimono silhouettes accompanied a contemporary gothic aesthetic in the haider ackermann ss13 collection.

The neat chignons, held together by thread, were the work of visionary hairstylist eugene souleiman, who brought years of experience to shaping one of the seminal shows of the season.

fashion

What was the main inspiration behind the hair that we saw at the show? i based it on a man’s sumowrestler hairstyle. only 30 people in the world are actually trained to do this look, so you can imagine how hard it was teaching a team how to do it before the show!

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How would you describe your working relationship with Haider ackermann?

The man is a complete joy and a genius! i always understand where he is coming from.

We share similar taste and inspirations, and we both like complex women. evIsu HerItage like a letter from the past, the evisu heritage collection arrives brandished with handwritten detail, taking inspiration from Japanese utility clothing of the 1950s. and if you don’t know what that looks like, it’s all there in the seagull and daicock designs, cut from raw selvage denim and given a new slant with the aid of some evisu graphic application. evisu.com

TexT naThalie olah phoTography Billy Ballard sTyling emma Wyman

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did he work with you on developing ideas? yes, haider showed me reference pictures. i’ve wanted to do this look for a show for years – i could not believe it was coming to fruition. Feminine elegance with the strength of masculinity!

hair hiroshi matsushita make-up laura dominique at streeters model ben allen at select photographic assistants dale cuts, frankie gomez styling assistant suzi rezler make-up assistant kamila siemiatkowska

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how would you describe your style?

I just wear what I like on any given day. Usually there’s a denim jacket and men’s shoes involved. I rarely wear things without pockets.

What are your ambitions for the future?

They’re simple: continuing to meet and collaborate with talented and creative people, in fashion and beyond.

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What are your career highlights so far?

Walking for Marc Jacobs in New York, Chris Kane in London, Fendi in Milan and Rick Owens in Paris this season. I’d never even been to Europe before and it didn’t hit me that I’d been in so many great shows until I got back home.

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FirSt expoSure: AthenA WilSon Rather appropriately, the Creatures of the Wind show this season was opened by a girl who was just that: an otherworldly creature. Blackbobbed and statuesque, homegrown American Athena Wilson heralds a new era of bare-faced beauty. See her in this issue’s “Crystal Blue Persuasion” editorial on page 76, shot by Collier Schorr and styled

by Robbie Spencer.

Selector: Sibling Since starting SIBLING in 2008, Sid Bryan, Joe Bates and Cozette McCreery’s keen eye for colour and fun-loving, pop sensibility has elevated knitwear to the level of credible high-fashion. Dazed asked McCreery what sights, sounds and soft furnishings continue to inspire the yarn-spinning supremos... siblinglondon.com

Jean-michel basquiat and Keith haring “dJ” candles from Ligne Blanche, Paris christopher nemeth rope-print cushions from Nemeth, Tokyo casbah perfume

by Robert Piguet Peanuts moleskine diaries little roy: Battle for Seattle (Ark recordings, 2011) reggae covers of Nirvana songs.

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rAF SimonS x Fred perry Raf Simons returns to Fred Perry for the first time since 2011. In what proves to be their most experimental collaboration yet, the 28-strong collection boasts a vast range of design and colour options, including detachable double-collars, contrast-panelled shirts, city shorts, printed scarves, checked trousers and bomber jackets. Prints have been disproportionately blown up to give a deconstructive slant on the check, piedde-poule and camouflage designs that have become a part of the Fred Perry brand heritage. Available from February, the collection will be stocked in all Fred Perry Laurel Wreath shops. fredperry.com rafsimons.com

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Artist Trojan (aka Gary Barnes) was only 21 when he died of an accidental drugs overdose in 1986.

The enfant terrible of the infamous Taboo – the clubbing preserve of Soho’s polysexual cognoscenti – he made the (geographically) short migration in his late teens from Croydon to an East End council flat that he shared with Leigh Bowery. By the time of his death Trojan had exhibited paintings in London, Tokyo and New York, and had established a name as one of the UK’s most exciting emerging talents.

Trojan’s partner at the time of his death was influential filmmaker John Maybury. His biopics Love is the Devil (1998) and The Edge of Love (2008) centre on the lives of Francis Bacon and Dylan Thomas respectively, but wear with some prodigious style the effects of his early loss. Time and experience mean Maybury is now ready to treat that relationship, and the work produced by Trojan and their circle of friends, with the candour it deserves. The ICA’s Trojan: Works on Paper is the upshot of that shift. A journey

through mid-80s ephemera and gay-scene get-up, it also includes some rare pared-down, personal shots, including this portrait taken by fashion designer Rachel Auburn. As John Maybury recalls, Trojan was still 18 when they made one of their regular visits together to Auburn’s studio in Westbourne Grove...

“We’d come up with ideas for shoots like this just to entertain ourselves. We were just like kids today. In fact the whole thing was like today, only different. There were a couple of clubs back then: Taboo (in Leicester Square) and one called Cha Cha’s at the back of Heaven (in Charing Cross).

It was a network of friends and people, most of whom had been to art schools like Saint Martins, but it was pre-internet and pre-mobilephones, and everything was communicated via word of mouth or via flyers and certain shops or other places dotted around.

It was also pre-Aids, of course, and we were young kids who thought we were untouchable. Trojan’s death

was the worst possible way to be reminded of our mortality, and it’s taken a long time for me to go through all of the photos taken from those years. I’m glad I have.

They make me laugh. We took ourselves seriously creatively, but always wanted to have a good time and have fun. It was before the YBA movement, a time when it was still embarrassing to admit you had a gallery or a dealer... an art dealer, that is.

That didn’t detract from your credibility as an artist, though. Trojan had a sense of humour and in many ways his work was also humorous, but he was on his way to becoming a very successful artist. We did a group show in Italy together with Peter Doig, who’s now a superstar artist, and Trojan sold about ten pieces, which have now been scattered all over Italy.

Despite the personal tragedy, his was a creative spirit that still resonates with artists today. Chris Ofili and Sarah Lucas have both cited him as an influence, as have Meadham Kirchhoff, whose aesthetic is really reminiscent of Trojan’s look. He had

expensive taste, funded by his occasional activity as a rent boy, and liked to paint his face and wear Chanel jackets, scarfs bought from Liberty and bright-coloured shorts.

He has also played a considerable part in my films.

A lot of what happened with Trojan went into Love is the Devil, which is about Francis Bacon and his lover dying.

I’m much older and hopefully a bit wiser since making that film, and I’m ready to celebrate the considerable talent that Trojan unfortunately ran out of time to ever fully realise.”

TEXT NATHALIE OLAH Until Nov 18, TROJAN: WORKS ON PAPER, ICA, The Mall, London, SW1Y. ica.org.uk

28/09/2012 14:25

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Accessorising the Future with YKK As if to mark the occasion, the final night of the International Talent Support (ITS) Awards coincided with an electric storm of nextlevel magnitude, which rolled in over the mountains into the historic port of Trieste, Italy. It came at the end of a three-day showcase that saw an equally jaw-dropping array of new designers compete for one of the coveted prizes, which come in three categories: fashion, jewellery and accessory design. Judging the talent were leading authorities in the worlds of art, fashion and design, including world-renowned artist Marina Abramovic, style blogger Susie Bubble and Dazed’s own Robbie Spencer.

Event partner YKK sponsored the accessories category, offering €10,000 to the winner of the YKK Award for engaging with the firm’s now ubiquitous fastenings. The worthy recipient this year was Benjamin John Hall, for creating a line of shoes that, through unorthodox use of fireproof zips, straddles the line between fashion and fine art.

“The YKK zip is made with specialised fibres so it doesn’t burn at all,” explains Hall, “which allowed me to create a shoe that I could set alight to distort and mould the leather.” His collection, “Birth, Life, Death and Resurrection”, enigmatically explores said themes while referencing cinematography.

Each shoe stands as an enduring relic of the process in which it was conceived: filled then bled of ink, inflated, illuminated and – in what seems to be Hall’s favourite trick – set on fire.

TEXT NATHALIE OLAH PHOTOGRAPHY ROwAN CORR

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His work meets YKK’s requirements, as explained

by Kei Kagami, fashion director and consultant for the brand: “To win this prize your approach has to be completely new; it’s not about being wearable, but altering our understanding of what an accessory can be.”

This quality was also displayed by Serbian designer Ana Rajcevic, whose futuristic headpieces won her €8,000 for Accessory Collection of the Year. Both designers’ work acknowledges the necessity to engage with technology, and exemplifies the beautiful, as well as practical, results this can deliver. ITS has a tradition of unearthing future thinking design talent – it helped launch Shaun Samson, Mark Fast and Aitor Throup – and 2012 was no exception. benjaminjohnhall.com

its Awards

central image courtesy of BenjAmin john hAll

28/08/2012 16:30

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PHOTOGRAPHY MASAAKI SASAKI You’d be forgiven for thinking that contemporary technological development in Japan was centred solely on making things smaller and enhancing virtual experiences.

While that emphasis undoubtedly presides over trends set in Akihabara, Tokyo’s gaming district, Japan also continues to pave the way for developments in locomotion and machinery, thanks to one individual in particular.

Professor Shigeo Hirose is arguably the most important robotics engineer in the world. His portfolio catalogues a series of innovative and historically pivotal inventions impacting the fields of robotics, arms, automation and disaster control. His 30odd academic prizes include the first Pioneer in Robotics and Automation Award from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and he has worked with the United Nations to develop a remotecontrolled robot capable of clearing landmines. During a break from teaching duties at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, he fills us in on the present state of robotic engineering, the future of artificial intelligence and his career-long frustration with the inconsistencies of science fiction.

How did your career in robotics begin?

I always wanted to do something in my life that allowed me to dream. Robotics asks you to imagine a world that doesn’t exist yet, with technologies that work in a different way to how they work now. I studied mechanical engineering and graduated from Yokohama National University in 1971, 41 years ago. A year later I had invented a snake-like robotic arm, and I’ve been adapting it ever since with my team of students – we’ve made 30 or 40 new models.

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What made you first decide to make a snake-like robot?

Well, a snake is very interesting. It is simple but capable of doing a lot of things – it can move, it can wrap itself around things, it can lift itself up. I am still developing practical applications for the snake robot but it is already being used in different ways.

We invented the gastroscope, for instance, which can travel into a patient’s gut and allow doctors to view their insides. It isn’t perfect and we are waiting for some breakthroughs but it has been used. And in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster last year, one of the arms was able to go in and treat areas that were too toxic for humans to access.

What else have you developed outside of the snake model?

I invented the Soft Gripper – it’s like an arm that can close around an object. The holonomic omni-directional vehicle VmaxCarrier, which you can control remotely.

Also, a planetary exploration rover, the Soryu V, which can climb vertically and navigate uneven terrain. While doing this however, I have always been developing the snakelike robot, throughout the whole of my career.

What will the future look like?

Maybe not so different from the present day, except every machine will have become very easy to use and will have adapted to follow the order of the people.

The accumulation of tiny inventions creates very useful machines. For example, in the case of the automobile, the basic idea is four wheels and one engine. But look at how much cars have changed over time! They are entirely different to what they used to be. These developments will be happening in every field.

So we shouldn’t be preparing for a future that resembles a science-fiction film?

I think science-fiction writers have lots of misunderstandings about technology. In a lecture I showed a scene from Total Recall and discussed the contradictions in the story.

For example, there is a car being driven by a humanoid, which is very strange because if we’ve reached a point of making such advanced humanoids, then the engineer would have certainly installed the same intelligence in the car.

We wouldn’t need a humanoid!

It’s as if the science-fiction writer thinks the current taxi

will be preserved and the humanoid developed. But if the humanoid is invented in future, then all the other machines will have evolved at the same rate. This is why I don’t particularly enjoy science fiction.

Is there any science fiction that you like?

No. I’m always trying to find contradictions in the story.

When can we expect to see humanoids?

At the moment it is still a future target.

We can imitate the human, as proven by the (humanoid robot) Honda Asimo, but developing something like, say, a tactile sensor that can sense things as though it were skin is still very difficult.

The materials that make up a human being are very different to what we have in technology, as is the energy source.

If the raw materials are entirely different then it stands to reason that the product will be too.

So robots and humans won’t be indistinguishable for a long time then?

If we can develop a way of accurately replicating the muscle mechanism of a human then we’d be able to make a very good machine, a very good robot. But the technology is very difficult.

I’ve been watching it for 40 years and believe that the humanoid might happen in about 40 or 50 years’ time.

But in that time all other machines will have evolved to become more intelligent too.

Will the intelligence levels of machines ever match that of humans?

The accumulation of computer technologies is what changes things and in terms of intelligence it will take a long time for this to develop in any significant way. If some mad scientist decided to create something that thinks for and controls itself, then he might be able to in the near future. We have cars that can drive themselves and planes that can fly themselves...

Scientists also have to be very careful with what they create. I’m not saying it’s impossible.

What do you make of humans developing robotic elements to add to their own anatomy, aka ‘cybernetics’?

I know people do such things and it works but I feel that it is mostly just for advertisement.

It is not so useful.

What is your view of the use of robotics in warfare?

Unfortunately, robot technology is very strongly related to weaponry. The Tomahawk (missile) is a kind of robot – it checks the shape of the ground and flies and hits targets. And of course, aeroplanes and tanks are becoming very intelligent these days.

But at the same time, the iRobot PackBot, a military robot that was used in the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq, was also used at the Fukushima nuclear plant after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.

Have any of your inventions been used in a way that you weren’t comfortable with?

Some of the technology might have been used in a bad way and then in other cases in a good way.

Take a knife, for example. It was designed as a weapon but it’s one of the most important implements used in surgery and improves people’s lives. But technology is technology.

It is not related to war or peace. We have to develop and sometimes it will be used for war and sometimes for peace. But that’s politics.

Why have Japan always been the forerunners in the field of robotic technology?

Well, we don’t have many natural resources and we realised that this was a way of guaranteeing survival.

THE INCREDIBLE INVENTIONS OF SHIGEO HIROSE [CLOCKWISE FROM TOP] ACM III (1972-75) An early snake-like robot design capable of navigating a maze along flat surfaces. The ACM (Active Cord Mechanism) formed the prototype for the majority of Hirose’s inventions to come.

Soft Gripper (1976–84) The snake-like mechanism of the Soft Gripper can flexibly grab an optionally shaped object – in this case, a small boy. Hirose developed two models, including one that is belt-operated.

CT Arm (1990–93) Mimicking the trunk of an elephant, the CT (Coupled Tendon-driven) Arm was developed to access complex environments such as the insides of nuclear reactors.

VmaxCarrier (2000) Four omni-discs, each with eight motorised wheels, form the VmaxCarrier.

Riders direct the vehicle via remote control.

ACM–R5 (2005–) A robot equipped with advanced control-systems to mimic the motion of an amphibious snake.

This is perhaps the most futuristic-seeming of Hirose’s inventions and forms the basis of other models he is developing.

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