THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME AUTUMN
WINTER 2007
£ 3.00
¤ 4.00
AW 2007
I NTRO D U C TI O N — 03 — 4 4 – 49
THE NE W FASHION FORMUL A
0 4 – 11
03 Introduction THE NEW FASHION FORMULA
WE OPENED OUR DOORS IN MARCH THIS YE AR . OUR COLLECTION OF LUXURIOUS FABRICS AND SIMPLISTIC
04-11 ESSENTIALS Photographed by Andreas Larsson and Jason Pietra
WARDROBE STAPLES AND ACCESSORIES , ALL AT ACCESSIBLE PRICES , PROVED TO BE SOMETHING THAT NOT ONLY WE
12-13 Interview Q&A WITH MICHAEL KRISTENSEN & REBEKKA BAY Text by Lee Wallick
16 – 43
WE KNE W WE WERE ONTO SOMETHING GOOD WHEN
AT COS HAD BEEN MISSING. OUR PHILOSOPHY, MAKING SOPHISTICATED FASHION AT TAINABLE , CONTINUES FOR AUTUMN
14-15 Scandanavian Design SWEET AS SCANDI Text by Edward Peacock
WINTER . THE WOMENSWE AR WINKS AT THE
L ATE 1950S AND E ARLY 1960S , WHILE THE MENSWE AR E XUDES A L AT TER- DAY DRESSED ELEGANCE .
16-43 THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME Photographed by Alasdair McLellan, Styled by Joe McKenna
THE MAGA ZINE YOU ARE HOLDING IN YOUR HANDS SUMS UP WHAT COS IS ABOUT THIS SE ASON. ALISTAIR MCLELL AN
44-49 Behind The Scenes WARP DRIVE Text by Murray Healy, Photographed by Ben Weller
HAS PHOTOGR APHED OUR SUGGESTIVE FASHION STORY SHOWCASING OUR NE W COLLECTION ( P •16 ) , JONATHAN
50-55 Influences STRIKE A PROSE Text by Jonathan Heaf
HE AF WRITES ABOUT WHICH LEGENDARY BOOKS HAVE SET 0 4 – 11
57 LEGAL 58 STORE INFORMATION 50 – 55
FASHION TRENDS ( P • 50 ) AND EDWARD PE ACOCK E XPLORES THE ROOTS OF OUR SCANDINAVIAN AESTHETICS ( P •14 ) , WHICH ARE A GRE AT INFLUENCE ON US. WE HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS FIRST ISSUE OF COS MAGA ZINE AND FIND IT AN INSPIR ATION FOR THE SE ASON AHE AD. IF YOU WANT TO SEE MORE OF COS , PLE ASE VISIT ONE OF OUR STORES OR ONLINE AT COSSTORES.COM
Cover: Natasha Poly and Eddie Klint photographed by Alasdair McLellan, styled by Joe McKenna
E S S E NTI A L S — 04 —
E S S E NTI A L S — 05 —
The White Tuxedo Shirt
The Little Black Dress
THE ONE GARMENT A MAN CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MANY OF IS THE WHITE SHIRT. THIS SEASON, DO IT DIFFERENTLY WITH A MODERN CUT TUXEDO SHIRT, TEAMED WITH JEANS FOR A MORE RELAXED STYLE.
A SILK DRESS IN CHARCOAL OR CLASSIC BLACK IS THE DEFINITION OF UNDERSTATED ELEGANCE AND THE SOLUTION TO ANY PARTY-DRESS DILEMMA.
TUX SHIRT ¤59 £ 3 9
SILK PARTY DRESS ¤ 7 9 £ 5 5
E S S E NTI A L S — 06 —
E S S E NTI A L S — 07 —
The Day Tux
Men’s Must Haves
A TUXEDO IN COTTON CAN BE WORN THROUGHOUT THE DAY AND INTO THE NIGHT FOR A LOOK THAT IS A CUT ABOVE THE REST. TUX JACKET ¤ 190 £ 125, COTTON SLIM FIT TROUSERS ¤ 59 £ 3 9 COTTON SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £35, LEATHER BELT ¤ 2 9 £ 19
Tan Belt ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5
Leather Gloves ¤ 59 £ 3 9
Scarf ¤ 2 9 £ 19
Leather Boots ¤ 150 £ 9 9
Cord Trilby ¤ 2 5 £ 17 Leather Bag ¤ 150 £ 9 9
E S S E NTI A L S — 08 —
E S S E NTI A L S — 09 —
Women’s Must Haves
The Coat AS AUTUMN BEGINS, THE WOOL COAT IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT ITEM IN YOUR WARDROBE. OPT FOR A STYLE AND CUT THAT SUITS YOU. COAT¤ 125 £ 7 9, LEATHER GLOVES ¤49 £ 3 5
Patent Leather Ballerinas ¤ 6 9 £ 4 9
Patent Leather Belt ¤ 2 5 £ 17 Large Leather Bag ¤ 2 25 £ 150
Patent Leather Boots ¤ 125 £ 7 9
Small Leather Bag ¤ 9 9 £ 69
E S S E NTI A L S — 10 —
E S S E NTI A L S — 11 —
BREAKFAST IN BED
HOME OFFICE
Make a lazy morning spent horizontally perfect with a few things of absolute comfort and good looks from our store.
Attention to detail never goes unnoticed. We have collected a few simple things of beauty to make work just a little bit easier.
WOOLLEN SOCKS ¤ 18 £ 13, BREAKFAST LUNCH TEA COOK BOOK ¤ 2 9 £ 19 HAND KNITTED WOOL BLANKET ¤ 9 9 £ 6 9, MENS PYJAMA TROUSERS ¤ 3 5 £ 2 5 LADIES PYJAMA TROUSERS ¤ 2 5 £ 17 AND PYJAMA SHIRT ¤ 2 9 £ 19
FOAM LEXON TRANSISTOR RADIO ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5, FILOSOFI NOTEPAD A6 SIZE ¤ 5 £ 3 .50 FILOSOFI NOTEPAD A5 SIZE ¤ 9 £ 6 GRAPHITE PENCIL SET ¤ 17 £ 12, RULER ¤ 4 £ 3
I NTE RV I E W — 12 —
I NTE RV I E W — 13 —
Q&A WITH MICHAEL KRISTENSEN
Q&A WITH REBEKKA BAY
— HEAD OF COS MENSWEAR DESIGN
How would you describe this collection? The Autumn / Winter collection is made up of modern, clean, sophisticated new silhouettes with smart cuts, highend qualities and technical fabrics. Is there a particular character the collection evokes? We haven’t had a particular character in mind but if the collection evokes a person, he is the modern man with a big city mindset. He understands and definitely appreciates good style and great quality. What are the trends for this season? Major trends for this collection are refined qualities, a luxurious feel and a new take on the masculine silhouette. The colours are muted with a few highlights. It is a season where outfits often come in shades of the same colour. What is the collection’s strongest defining characteristics? Upgraded qualities and clean, modern silhouettes. Fashion now is very three-dimensional. We are proud to say that our shapes and fits are very up to date and still fulfil the needs and comfort of the cosmopolitan man. What inspires you? Danish and Scandinavian designers from the 1950s and 1960s. I love the furniture from that period. That functionality, the beautiful colours, and the fantastic lines and shapes. So much of their work still looks cool today. How many designers have achieved that? If you can produce something that looks modern and functional, but at the same time is timeless, it is a huge indicator of getting it right.
Which essentials should a man have in his wardrobe? A smartly cut suit, a perfect white shirt, a great coat which has already become a signature in our collection. A chunky knit in a soft lovely quality, a cashmere jumper with a real touch-me effect which is tactile and flattering. And finally, a soft washed leather jacket. What was your first fashion moment? Wearing a pair of slim, black, fitted trousers – very 1980s New Wave. I had slicked-back rockabilly hair and wore a white shirt and very pointed shoes… I’ve been through so many phases, but this was the first time I realised I was into fashion. I very quickly gravitated towards the shops and people that were into fashion – I realised we spoke the same language. Who encouraged you to become a designer? It came over years of being creative and being very ambitious about my dreams. I’ve always been an aesthetic person. I love being surrounded by beautiful things. Sometimes I can even get frustrated that people don’t feel the same way. My mission is to offer men great choices in clothing. Why do you feel you were picked to do this job? Maybe because I have a good mixture of skills, intuition for trends and then, hopefully, my personality. It is important to both have a healthy distance to what we are doing in fashion, and at the same time have a passion for it. I love what I do. —
— HEAD OF COS WOMENSWEAR DESIGN
How would you describe this collection? The Autumn / Winter collection is focused on modernity, simplicity, functionality and comfort, a natural continuation of the Spring / Summer collection. The colour palette is muted with muddy greens and mustardy yellows, dark purples and inky blues and endless variations of neutrals. Quality-wise, crisp shirt poplins, silk/wool mixes, soft leathers, polyester/cottons and vintage-feel wools defines the season, alongside luxurious melange jerseys, cashmeres and fine merino yarns. Is there a particular mood to this collection? The mood for the Autumn / Winter collection is obviously darker and ‘heavier’ than for the Spring / Summer collection. Whereas Spring / Summer was very focused on the clean fresh feel of papery cottons, winter is focused on textures, layers, and contrast in fabrics and silhouettes. We are – as always – influenced by mid-century furniture and architecture, textiles and ceramics. Eames, Jacobsen, Wegner, Lucienne Day, George Nelson… they all seem to pop up season after season. For Autumn / Winter we wanted to create a mood of sober grown-up grunge, a sophisticated and luxurious take on layering and contrast, a play on proportion, volume and silhouettes. Which three pieces should a woman have in her wardrobe? A white shirt, a little black dress and a great coat. What can’t you live without? A crisp white shirt, my ipod, my husband and son, green tea in the morning and bicycle trips on Hampstead Heath.
When was your first fashion moment? I think I was 11 or 12 years old… I had seen these amazing Italian leather ballerina shoes, that I had to own. But on a budget of 200 Danish kroner in pocket money a month it seemed almost impossible. I had to beg and cry to make my parents pay three months pocket money upfront… I wore the shoes thin! Who were your style icons growing up? I have always loved photographs – my father is a photographer. As a kid I could spend hours flicking through photographic books. I especially remember one called Kvinnor i Paris (Women in Paris), all black and white images of women in everyday situations, from the market-stall holder to the cabaret girls. Besides that, it would be the Hitchcock blondes, Catherine Denevue in Hunger, Isabelle Adjani and Christopher Lambert in Luc Besson’s Subway, Béatrice Dalle in Betty Blue and Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction stay in my memory as iconic dressers. What’s the most important aspect of clothing for you? How it all comes together in one garment; the fit, the quality, the style, the comfort… For me, quality is not only in the fabric and the stitching, but also in the wearability, that the garment keeps well and washes well. I like ‘easy’ clothes, dresses that you just pull on and they make you feel like a million dollars, shirts that makes you feel clean and crisp and coats that pull your outfit together. I think clothes should reflect the wearer’s personality rather than the other way round. —
SC A N DA N AV I A N D E S I G N — 14 —
SWEET AS SCANDI Ever wonder what makes Scandinavia so cool, apart from the low winter temperatures? That pareddown, stripped-back chic that characterises modern Nordic style – from houses and interiors to graphics and fashion – is the legacy of some of the 20th century’s greatest architects and designers, as well as the harsh winters of the region. Text by Edward Peacock Photography by Gerry Johansson
SC A N DA N AV I A N D E S I G N — 15 —
Nordic Europe has long been admired for cool, crisp design and respected for even longer for coping with its cool, crisp winters. Odd as it may seem, the two things are not entirely unrelated. It is partly because of the need to spend a larger part of the year inside than in warmer climates that the manmade environment came to assume a greater significance: the form and function of spaces in which people live and how they live in them become more important. Thus as the Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians and Swedes preferred, rather sensibly, to stay indoors and out of the cold and darkness of winter, their countries developed a distinct style and taste in architecture and interiors. The need to create comfortable, liveable spaces within beautiful landscapes and such variable climates fuelled what became known as Scandinavian Functionalism or Modernism. It was a movement which began in the early 1900s and continued to develop and grow across the century. The movement has a distinct identity and regional roots, but also drew on external influences as diverse as traditional aesthetics in Japanese architecture and design, to the slick International Style of architecture, made famous in the early 20th century by Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Though all Nordic countries have contributed to the progress of Scandinavian Functionalism, the main developments occurred in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Early players include the Finnish architect and product designer Alvar Aalto, active from the 1930s and responsible for some of Helsinki’s most notable public buildings such as the Finlandia Hall, as well as interior products like the Savoy vase in curviform glass and Paimio chair in bent wood. A notable Swedish architect operating in the early 20th century was Erik Gunnar Asplund, who planned Stockholm Public Library and the Skogskyrkogården and also featured at the 1930 Stockholm Exhibition which did much to promote function-led design; as did the buildings of his fellow Swedes Sven Markelius and Ivar Tengbom.
BOSTADSHUS, HALMSTAD
So what characterises Scandinavian Functionalism? As the name might suggest, proponents of the movement pursued a form-follows-function approach to design, with things planned and constructed primarily to meet the demands made of them in use. As it developed, the style also sought to provide buildings with light, fresh and peaceful interiors, typically valued for bringing something of nature into the home – particularly important when at times it is difficult to get out of the house and into the surrounding nature. Scandinavian living has long been informed by an appreciation of the wide-open and uncluttered habitats that typify the region – ranging from dramatic fjords to Arctic tundra, rolling sand dunes to majestic glaciers and islandspotted seascapes to lake-strewn plains – characterised overall by a certain spare elegance and tranquil, elemental character. As there has long been a love of nature among designers and consumers, so too is there an appreciation of natural materials such as leather, hide, stone, mined metals and, in particular, timber from the almost endless tracts of pine and birch forests.
Moreover, until the last century many parts of the region were rather poor and remote, and just as much as an innate fondness for natural materials, the general Scandinavian appreciation of using such things also stems historically from the hassle and expense of importing and transferring goods across the great distances involved.
THE SCANDINAVIAN FUNCTIONALIST The Scandinavian Functionalist movement gained greater momentum after the interlude of the Second World War, predominantly with the work of the Danish modernist architects and designers who flourished during the 1950s and 1960s. Chief among these were Jørn Utzon, best known as creator of the Sydney Opera House, prolific furniture maestro Hans Wegner and Arne Jacobsen, who created some of the period’s best-known buildings and some of its most iconic design pieces, among them the ‘Egg’, ‘Swan’ and ‘Ant’ chairs (made famous in the nude portrait of Christine Keeler straddling a copy of the chair). Such developments went hand in hand with the greater wealth brought to Scandinavia during the course of the 20th century, wealth that permitted higher design specifications and more expensive materials. Any tendency to showiness or decadence was usually tempered, however, by the inherent taste of the people and the growing ideals of social democracy that flourished across the region, with its intrinsic egalitarianism perfectly complementing the concept of ‘beauty for all’ that permeated Scandinavian Functionalism. This contributed to a low-key, understated sense of style that continues to predominate across the design spectrum, from architecture and interiors to graphics and fashion. The factors and sensibilities drawn together by the functionalists and modernists in their distinct pared-down style of architecture and design still survive in essence today. Along with the continued use of natural material, employment of clean lines and organic curves in design, the main features of Scandinavian style, both then and now, are the quality of finish, overall purity of vision, and, crucially, the concept that detail should be intrinsic to things rather than added on in attention-seeking decoration. The palette is very often simple, monochrome mixed with natural hues and the overall effect recognised for both its chic feel and calming vibe. Though the Scandinavian Functionalist movement as such has passed, along with most of its major stars, its influence and teachings remain pivotal in Nordic design, and many major decorative product manufacturers – Stelton, Asplund, Iittala, Rosendahl, Fritz Hansen, Marimekko – remain true to its spirit and continue its legacy. Whether in furniture, ceramics, glass, fabric or even fashion, new designs or ever-popular masterpieces, you will find their wares sleek, chic – and very often cool. —
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALASDAIR MCLELLAN STYLED BY JOE MCKENNA
WOOL BLAZER ¤ 125 £ 7 9, SHIRT ¤ 3 5 £ 2 5
WATER REPELLENT CAPE ¤ 125 £ 7 9
WOOL BLAZER ¤ 175 £ 119, SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5, TROUSERS ¤ 5 9 £ 3 9, SHOES ¤ 125 £ 7 9 OPPOSITE: SLEEVELESS TUXEDO SHIRT ¤ 3 9 £ 2 9, SILK
WOOL PENCIL SKIRT ¤ 5 9 £ 3 9
WOOL
CASHMERE CHUNKY RIB JUMPER ¤ 9 9 £ 6 9, SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5
OPPOSITE: WASHED LEATHER JACKET IN NAV Y ¤ 2 90 £ 190 LONG SLEEVE T-SHIRT ¤ 2 9 £ 19
KIMONO SLEEVE COAT ¤ 125 £ 7 9, SILK BLOUSE €¤ 4 9 £ 3 5 MENS STYLE SHOES ¤ 8 9 £ 5 9 OPPOSITE: WOOL
ALPACA KNITTED DRESS ¤ 6 9 £ 4 9
CASHMERE SCARF ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5, SHIRT ¤ 3 5 £ 2 5 SILK
WOOL SHORTS ¤ 5 9 £ 3 9, STUDDED BELT ¤ 2 9 £ 19
LIGHTWEIGHT MAC ¤ 175 £ 119, SHORT BOMBER JACKET ¤ 9 9 £ 6 9 OPPOSITE: WASHED LEATHER JACKET IN NAV Y ¤ 2 90 £ 190
COTTON/WOOL DRESS ¤ 7 9 £ 5 5 MENS STYLE SHOES ¤ 8 9 £ 5 9
EDDIE: THREE BUTTON WOOL BLAZER ¤ 175 £ 119, SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5 NATASHA: SATEEN DRESS ¤ 7 9 £ 5 5
PINSTRIPE WOOL BLAZER ¤ 150 £ 9 9, STRIPED SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5 OPPOSITE: TWO BUTTON WOOL SUIT ¤ 2 50 £ 175 STRIPED SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5, LEATHER BELT ¤ 2 9 £ 19
WOOL JUMPER ¤ 6 9 £ 4 9, SHORTS ¤ 4 9 £ 3 5 OPPOSITE: SILK DRESS ¤ 7 9 £ 5 5
WOOL BEANIE HAT ¤ 19 £14, SILK
COTTON CARDIGAN ¤ 5 9 £39,
LEATHER BELT ¤ 2 9 £19, WOOL HERRINGBONE TROUSERS ¤ 6 9 £49 OPPOSITE: WOOL TRENCH COAT ¤ 225 £150, SHIRT ¤ 4 9 £35, WOOL PINSTRIPE TROUSERS ¤ 6 9 £49
WOOL BLAZER ¤ 125 £ 7 9, SHIRT ¤ 3 5 £ 2 5 OPPOSITE: WOOL COAT ¤ 175 £ 119, SATEEN DRESS ¤ 7 9 £ 5 5
VEST ¤ 19 £ 14, LEATHER BELT ¤ 2 9 £ 19 OPPOSITE: THREE BUTTON WOOL BLAZER ¤ 175 £ 119
TR A N S L ATI O N S — 52 —
WARP DRIVE Manteco is not your run-of-the-mill textile company. Set in a beautiful Italian landscape and run by the same family for generations, this is a company where good quality makes up its very fabric of being. And owner Franco Mantellassi sure knows how to tell a good yarn. Text by Murray Healy, Photographed by Ben Weller
B E H I N D TH E SC E N E S — 46 —
B E H I N D TH E SC E N E S — 47 —
‘Where others drink milk,’ declares Franco Mantellassi, ‘we eat fabric.’ Franco is the charismatic president of the Manteco textile company, although he’s clearly not one for formality, dressed in a colourful striped shirt and yellow trousers, greeting visitors to his factory like old friends.
forklift truck bringing more in all the time. Marco cuts open the polythene and pulls out tufts of the material; it’s a bit like pulling stuffing from the broken seam of a teddy bear. ‘Cotton,’ he says – and it does feel a little like very soft cotton wool. He shows me wispy handfuls of wool, linen, viscose, polyester and other fibres in bright orange, sky blue and deep magenta.
Manteco is in an enviable position in the textile industry. It’s one of those friendly, family-run, quality-obsessing companies that you assume simply don’t exist any more in our globalised world of bargain-basement production. And its own heritage is part of an even longer history; that of Italian textile production in Prato, near Florence, an area renowned for producing the finest fabrics in the world for centuries. It’s not a massive operation – the Mantellassi family employ 300 staff in total – but the manageable size makes it possible for them to check the quality of every single roll of fabric at every stage of manufacture. It also allows the company to be fast-moving and flexible; it can offer the kind of tailor-made service demanded by clothing manufacturers who know precisely what they want; clients for whom the one-size-fits-all approach of larger companies simply isn’t good enough.
‘We recently started working with organic cotton,’ explains Marco excitedly. ‘It’s new and expensive at the moment, but this is where fashion is going.’ For cotton textile to be truly organic, he explains, you have to use vegetable dyes, which have a limited spectrum, so they’ve started experimenting with ways of growing cotton plants to produce the raw product in different colours. Marco shows me three samples, in earthy shades of brown, orange and green. ‘In the past, cotton varied in colour according to where it came from,’ he says. ‘Red soil containing lots of iron produces brown cotton, and so on. This is ancient knowledge.’ ‘He is full of ideas,’ says his father proudly.
‘It’s one of those friendly, family-run, quality-obsessing companies that you assume don’t exist any more.’ COS is one of those demanding clients. ‘At its core, COS is about quality,’ says Michael Kristensen, the company’s menswear designer. And that quality has to be reflected in every part of the design process, which is why we use Manteco. We’re really proud to be able to say we can work with one of Europe’s greatest suppliers. They’ve got a massive collection of textiles, so whenever we visit they’ll have exactly what we’re looking for. And if we need a fabric in a certain colour, they can turn that around for us too. They’re also very enthusiastic and very friendly! I suppose that’s to do with being a family of owner-makers.’
Franco has arranged to take me on a tour of the factory with his son Marco, Manteco’s supervising manager. His other son, Matteo, also works for the company; more involved with the design aspect of the operation, he’s just had to fly out to Paris to meet clients. And even though she has no official title, Franco’s wife, Patrizia, attends the textile shows in Paris and Milan and greets the company’s guests in Prato.
From the storage warehouse we move on to one of the many buildings where these big cubes of fibre are prepared and spun into yarn. This is another vast space, lined with banks of chugchug-chugging machinery – big, mysterious boxes forming great metal corridors along which inspectors move, keeping a constant check on quality. I see machines that break down the bales of fluffy fibre; that blend together colours to produce a marbled mixture; that brush and press and thin the mixture out into a sheet of gauzy material. I watch it being fed into drums and transformed into a continuous cord, snaking through spools into other machines that spin it into ever finer, ever stronger thread, until finally it becomes a yarn ready for the looms. Marco opens one of the machines and shows me the miniature turbines that spin the yarn up to 60,000 times a minute; there must be hundreds of these in this part of the factory alone, which explains why it sounds like an airport runway. In other buildings, more specialised spinning processes take place. Banks of machinery are given over to creating core-spun yarns, for example, where a single thread of, say, elastic or nylon is fed through the centre of a yarn to give it a greater degree of stretch without interfering with the feel of the final textile. On several occasions during the tour, Franco says, with a grin: ‘It’s very easy! But very difficult!’ Which just about sums up the magic of watching something go into a machine at one end and come out as something completely different at the other.
The idea is for me to see for myself how Manteco turns raw fibre into the yarn which is used to weave the four to five million metres of material that they sell to clothing companies every year. We start at the beginning of the process, at the warehouse where the raw fibres first arrive. A vast space that could easily double as an aircraft hangar is piled high with two-metretall cubes of what looks like compressed fluff tightly bound in polythene sheeting. The bales are stacked according to colour – black, white and a broad palette of intense hues – with a
On yet another site are the buildings containing the looms, table-like machines surrounded by rollers which produce a deafening chattering noise, like the sound of a thousand monkeys tapping away on old-fashioned typewriters. The yarns are introduced to each other at right angles from two different drums, the weft yarn criss-crossing the warp with such speed that the shuttle is virtually invisible; you’re simply aware of a fabric growing before your eyes at the rate of a centimetre every few seconds.
Manteco was founded in 1943 by Franco’s father, and Franco has been running Manteco for 40 years now. The industrial estate where the family’s textiles are produced is a bit of a surprise. Its low-level buildings – post-war modernist masterpieces in brick and concrete that boast a Prouvet-style elegance – are dotted amid the Tuscan hills, almost completely obscured by dense forestation. Just as any first-time visitor to New York gets a sense of déjà vu as they explore the most-filmed city on Earth, so the landscape around these factories is spookily familiar to anyone who’s ever looked at Italian renaissance art. It’s like looking out from the Mona Lisa’s window. (La Gioconda herself was born in the district, the wife of a medieval Tuscan silk merchant.)
B E H I N D TH E SC E N E S — 48 —
B E H I N D TH E SC E N E S — 49 —
‘Where others drink milk,’ declares Franco Mantellassi, ‘we eat fabric’.
There are so many different types of fibre being spun and woven in so many different ways, each with different properties and characteristics, each with its own dedicated machines in different buildings on different sites. Marco and Franco patiently explain the various processes; the differences between ‘worsted’, ‘carded’, ‘open-end’. To be honest, most of it goes over my head: there’s way more to see here than can be digested in a single day. ‘This is like school,’ laughs Franco. ‘Maybe it’s better if you stay here one week and study?’ Actually, if I stayed here for a whole year and studied, I suspect I’d still be wondering round the factory floor like it was some sci-fi movie set. And even if I could understand what’s going on technically, that still wouldn’t be enough. There’s obviously a lot of wisdom and intuition at work here – the kind of innate knowledge that only comes after years of ‘eating fabric’. In the Manteco headquarters, a 32-strong research and development team is dedicated to devising new structures and new blends, creating ever finer textiles, sourcing organic fibres, pre-empting the future while dipping into the past; a selection from fabrics from previous seasons takes up a whole wall in the design room (not the entire archive, though – that’s stored off site). Here, eight textile designers create collections for seven different ranges every season, from the high-end, superrich ‘1943’ to the traditional ‘Lanificio Franco Mantellassi’, to the more sophisticated ‘Matteo’ line. The team maintains a close relationship with their clients’ designers – a relationship that makes Manteco flexible enough to adapt to their requests as well as anticipating their needs. If fashion designers have to live a year in the future, then Manteco have to stay at least one step ahead of them. ‘Keeping in constant touch with our clients is most important,’ says Marco. ‘This way we can be sure of providing exactly what
they want, when they want it.’ Manteco are particularly pleased to have COS as a client. ‘We specialise in high-quality fabrics,’ says Marco. ‘COS demands the highest quality, which gives us a chance to play to our strengths.’ My tour of Manteco ends in the finishing plant. This is the most labour-intensive part of the journey. In each of the other factories I’ve only seen two or three members of staff, darting between machines, monitoring the various automated processes. In contrast, this area is seething with human activity. There are dozens of workers here, feeding fabric through vats, loading it into man-sized drums, poring over it with fingertip searches for imperfections, while voices boom over the PA system. Here textiles are washed, dyed, dried and treated; pile is brushed and trimmed; surfaces are worn, coated and carefully distressed. ‘What all these processes have in common,’ Marco says, ‘is that they bring out the peculiarities of the textile; they enhance its anima, or soul.’ This is one area where our photographer is asked to put down his camera; the Manteco finishing magic is a closely guarded family secret. Franco proudly shows off the family’s newest piece of machinery: it is designed to create a vintage finish, continuously manipulating and ironing roll after roll of fabric in such a way as to give it that soft, lived-in feel before it has even left the factory. ‘This is what designers are asking for, more and more,’ he says. ‘Fabrics with a lived-in feel; fabrics that already have life. This is the future.’ If anima is the future of fashion, then the Mantellassi family is going to be kept busy creating fabric for designers for generations to come. —
I N F LU E N C E S — 50 —
I N F LU E N C E S — 51 —
STRIKE A PROSE From the decadent flapper beauties in The Great Gatsby to Helmut Newton’s stylised amazon women, there’s no doubt that literature and fashion have always been good bedfellows. Here, Jonathan Heaf lists his favourites tomes and debates which works have become seminal in sartorial history.
Red Snapper Books off Charing Cross Road couldn’t seem more out of place. This literary idyll sticks out of London’s official tourist mecca – the pullulating area in and around Leicester Square. If you fight your way there, through the armies of squabbling school children, piles of fast food wrappers and street artists badgering old folk for a pound, then what greets you will more than make up for the trudge. The tiny, quaint store specialises in literature from the Beat Generation, modern first editions and rare art and photography books. Even if you’re a little intimidated by the decadent, poetic types that usually sit behind the shop’s till as you enter, the window display alone will egg your inner bookworm on to mist up the glass wantonly. Cool ain’t the word. If Nick Hornby set High Fidelity in and around a specialist bookshop rather than a record store, you can imagine it might look a lot like Red Snapper (although, obviously, the soundtrack wouldn’t have been quite so popular). The shop is an antiquarian’s paradise, especially for those interested in rare style books: signed one-of-a-kind Ralph Steadman lithographs and out-of-print Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs paperbacks sealed lovingly in shrink wrap are crammed in alongside 1960s psychedelic alt-lit, modern yet impossible-to-find photographic catalogues and more first editions than you’ll find anywhere outside of the British Library. If it’s coffee table wowfactor you’re after in a book collection, you could do worse than to start your search here. But what makes a book stylish, or influential? What makes a book – whisper it – cool? Are such things quantifiable or entirely subjective? Is it about where you buy it, who wrote it or whether it looks good on your tabletop? As one gazes over Red Snapper’s impressive collection, the rookie browser can’t help but begin to ask just these questions.
‘COWBOY KATE & OTHER STORIES’ SAM HASKINS, RIZZOLI, NEW YORK: 1964
Why, for example, was David Bailey’s Box of Pin Ups (1964) such a cornerstone in photographic history; who decided that Daphne du Maurier’s short story Don’t Look Now (1966) and Rebecca (1938) or Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls (1966) would have such an impact on the history of visual culture? Which is more influential: Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code or The Inheritance of Loss written by last year’s Man Booker Prize winner Kiran Desai? And why can Red Snapper books get away with charging close to £250 for a firstedition, first-print run (what’s known as a first/first) of Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full (1998)? Truth be told, the significance and impact of any particular book can only really be weighed
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up long after first publication. And it often has little to do with how popular the book is at the time or how many first editions are sold. Even someone like JK Rowling admitted as much earlier this year. ‘Do I think the Harry Potter books will last? Honestly, yes,’ Rowling told the BBC in July on completion of the seventh and final Potter book. ‘In 50 years time, if people are still reading them, they deserve to be read, and if they’re not, then that’s okay.’
SOME OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL BOOKS TO HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED OVER THE PAST 100 YEARS
What is important, is whether a book captures the zeitgeist of a particular era. Especially if it’s an era of cultural friction or rapid cultural change. Take the Beat Generation writers, for example William S. Burroughs. You see, if novels such as F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby began to set the trend for lifting the veneer off the inner workings of the American way of life through an author’s personal experiences, then the third novel and arguably William S. Burroughs’ seminal work, Naked Lunch, ripped the lid off and kicked the Great American Dream right between the Star Spangled Banners. The plot, for those unfamiliar, is held together by a series of vignettes, or short stories, within which appear several unbalanced and often sadistic characters. The book explodes with hallucinogenic fantasies, deranged creatures of the night and satirical black humour. As part of the Beat Generation, along with the period’s poster boy Jack Kerouac, Burroughs’ book came bang on the point of ignition for what was to become known as the ‘culture war’ in the 1960s, and served to be one of the first pieces of literature to express disgust at the control in America’s consumerist post-World War II state. It’s books such as Burroughs’ Naked Lunch that inspires shops such as Red Snapper to stay stocked and stay open. In the list below are some of the most influential books to have been published over the past 100 years. Although mostly visual works, without exception they are viewed as classics of either their time or style, and all have had a profound and lasting effect on 20th-century literary and visual culture. Not only did they impact designers, artists, authors and thinkers during their own cultural lifetime, but many still continue to do so today. Of course, there are yawning gaps – this is meant as merely an introduction, a winking overview – and some, I dare say, you may not agree with. But then, provoking a reaction is exactly what it’s all about. Please, read on and get angry: if it’s any comfort, in most cases, it’s exactly what the authors would have wanted. — Jonathan Heaf is Senior Commissioning Editor at GQ Magazine.
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The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald: 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald can be heralded as one of the last century’s greatest writers who rose to prominence towards the end of the First World War, coinciding with the Roaring Twenties in North America – a period coined by the author himself as ‘The Jazz Age’. Although nowadays it’s often all too easy to take for granted just what a profound impact this upper-middle class Irish Catholic from Minnesota had on 20th-century writing, it serves well to revisit this, his second novel and without question by far his greatest work. What The Great Gatsby achieved, perhaps more so than any other of the author’ s works (of which he only completed four, dying of a heart attack aged 44), was to take in the period’s social surroundings and set a novel against and within it. The end of the war in Europe ushered in a new wave of prosperity, individualism, technology and decadence in American society, and what the author was able to do so stylishly was conjure up all the sparkly glamour – the debauched weekend parties that Gatsby hosted, the flamboyant cars, the loosening sexual attitudes, the excess – while also weaving in more sinister themes concerning deceit, corruption, sex and revenge. After all the misery, insecurity and bloodshed of the Great War, America breathed out, then partied, and the book reflects the period’s renewed attention to the pursuit of pleasures. Somewhat surprisingly, it wasn’t until it was republished after World War II that commentators began to see its significance. From Ernest Hemingway to the philosophy behind clothing designer Ralph Lauren, the influence The Great Gatsby has achieved is arguably unsurpassable. Cowboy Kate & Other Stories, Sam Haskins: 1964 Sam Haskin’s dreamy book has gone on to become one of the most recognisable and most referenced photographic works ever published. Cowboy Kate & Other Stories is often regarded as the first creative black-and-white book of the 20th century; its brilliance laying not so much in the technical aspect of the images themselves – although they are certainly not without merit – but rather in the groundbreaking way the series was presented and ‘designed’ to form an extended visual narrative. Almost unheard of at the time, Sam Haskins wasn’t just a photographer but an art director to boot, skills he honed while working as an advertising photographer in his hometown of Johannesburg in the early 1950s. Published slap bang in the middle of the cultural earthquake of the 1960s, the blonde girl shot and directed by Haskin in this book captures and personifies everything exciting and revolutionary that was happening to women at that time. Beautiful, sexy, in control, playful and mesmerising in front of the camera, the peek-a-boo eroticism that skips and winks from every page lifts the reader up into a brand new world where sexual barriers are being torn down and youth, beauty and free will triumph. The book was immensely popular at the time and went on to sell nearly a million copies worldwide; today, every art director’s shelf looks empty without it. Box of Pin Ups, David Bailey: 1964 The mythological coolness of a David Bailey photograph, and the mythological coolness of David Bailey the man, has its roots in the period he is most famous for, and as it happens, the period that the photographer himself likes talking about the least – the early 1960s in London. As Bailey is so fond of saying: ‘The 1960s were great for the hundred or so ponces in London like me who were taking pictures or making movies or being Mick Jagger… but ask a coal miner from South Yorkshire what he thought of the 1960s and he’ll tell you just how cool it really was.’ But for all Bailey’s modesty, he was part of a movement of photography (along with fellow East End boy Terence Donovan) that would not only change the look and feel of the medium, whether that be in fashion magazines or celebrity portraiture, but also leave behind a body of work that would come to represent the period as its most iconic.
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Before these bullish, scruffy males tornadoed through the studio doors, the world of glossy magazines, models and expensive clothing was all very pretty, mannered and impenetrably middle class. Some of Bailey most iconic portraits were taken for a project entitled, David Bailey’s Box of Pin Ups, published in 1965. It was with this publication that the tie between David Bailey and 1960s Swinging London became inextricably forged. Some of his greatest, and most iconic, portraits are held within: Mick Jagger with the fur collar, the Kray brothers, the Rolling Stones, Cecil Beaton with Rudolf Nureyev, Andy Warhol, Michael Caine as Harry Palmer with his unlit cigarette and thick black framed classes, David Hockney, John Lennon and Paul McCartney… The list is exactly what it was seen as at the time and is still seen as today: a definitive collection of the booming London glitterati accumulated by a man who was embedded within the very seams of the movement.
his daughter in a red Mackintosh, one almost identical to that which his child wore on the day she drowned. Stylistically, through direction from Nicolas Roeg, the film is incredibly powerful, the symbol of the red raincoat being the most remembered and the most influential.
White Women, Helmut Newton: 1976 Perhaps with exception of that other pioneering 1970s photographer, Guy Boudin, Helmut Newton’s photographs have inspired, affected and influenced the history of fashion photography more than any other artist. You only have to glance at any advertising campaign shot by current darlings of the fashion world Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott to see just how much Newton’s techniques and templates have endured within modern fashion photography.
“Newton unearthed the sense of discomfort women endure to be alluring.” His work took taboos such as female empowerment, sex and sadomasochism and trained a humorous eye on the fashion industry while also digging deeper into some of its less appealing traits. Of course, he’s best known for his work with the female nude, his photographs tough, cold, sometimes aggressive and often disconcerting. In 1976 Newton published his first book, originally titled Women which feature some of his most radical and, for many, shocking work from this period. Many of the photographs are of procilen-pale, expressionless, all-powerful women in a state of undress and what Newton did so incredibly stylishly was to unearth the sense of discomfort women endure to be alluring and expose the delicate power struggles bound up within the very industry in which he was working. Don’t Look Now, Daphne du Maurier: 1966/1971 It is through adaptation into film that Daphne du Maurier’s novels have found their power, influence on visual culture and, on the whole, a much wider audience. The film Don’t Look Now is perhaps the most revered among art directors and cinematographers. Although other adapted stories have included The Birds (1963) and Rebecca (1938), both of which were transformed onto the silver screen by horror maestro Alfred Hitchcock. Similar to Borroughs, du Maurier’s writing directly succeeding World War II took a turn for the strange, or rather her writing became a place where she could unleash a much more terrifying side of her imagination. The film version of Don’t Look Now – as anyone who has sat cowering behind a pillow while watching it will testify – pays tribute to Du Maurier’s conjured terror fantastically well. The plot involves a couple, Laura (Julie Christie) and John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) whose daughter has recently drowned in a tragic accident at home. With their grief threatening to destroy their marriage and keen to remove themselves from the location of such an incredible loss, the pair take a working vacation to Venice, where John has been contracted to restore an ancient church. The ensuing drama involves two strange elderly sisters who claim to be in psychic contact with the couple’s dead daughter, a serial killer who has evaded capture by the Italian police and John’s glimpses of a childlike figure resembling
The Bikeriders, Danny Lyon: 1967 If Hunter S. Thompson was the trigger-happy Gonzo wordsmith born out of New Journalism, then Danny Lyon is this movement’s most innovative and exciting visual precursor. Lyon is best known for two projects: The Bikeriders (1967) and Conversations with the Dead (1971), the former being what Lyon described modestly as ‘an attempt to record and glorify the life of the American biker’. But it’s far more than simple photojournalism. The images in the book are striking and intimate, a result of Lyon imbedding himself directly with a pack of wild-boy American road hogs. Like much of Lyon’s work, this sort of commitment and access is unique; Lyon actually became a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club so he could travel, fight, ride and drink right alongside his rebellious and frequently unpredictable subject matter. Lyon’s photographs of the gang not only look incredibly cool, but rather than trying to capture the riders as they were commonly, and wrongly, regarded (unruly philistines who would kill you just as soon as they’d look at you) the photographs are imbued with Lyon’s undeniable sense of respect for the bikers. His controversial choice of subject matter set a new trend in the 1970s for photographers focusing on America’s darker, more menacing undercurrents.
JUNGLE FEVER BY JEAN-PAUL GOUDE, 1982
Jungle Fever, Jean Paul Goode: 1981 Jean Paul Goode is the most famous art director you’ve never heard of. But that’s not to say you won’t be familiar with much of his work. Remember Grace Jones’ iconic album artwork for her greatest hits compilation, Island Life? Jones all red string bikini, ripped muscles and posing like some sort of space-aged Olympian? That was Goode’s handiwork. Having arrived fresh from Paris in the late 1970s, at the age of only 25 Goode became art director at Esquire magazine in New York – a lofty title and a great break for one so young. But it wasn’t until he hit the Manhattan disco scene, regularly attending glitter dens such as Studio 54, that Goode first encountered the muse that would shape and create much of his career. He told i-D magazine in February last year, ‘When we met [Jones and Goude], I thought, “Wow, I got me a disco star!” Her shows were super tacky and she was in tears… I though she was too young, too promising, to be just a fag hag.’ But under Goude’s visual direction Jones became an icon of her time, and Jungle Fever (Goude’s first and rarest book) lays out some of their earliest and most revolutionary work together. Goude transformed Jones silhouette into a near-demonic piece of graphic art: at times terrifying, but undoubtedly unforgettable. There’s hardly one fashion designer, art editor or graphic designer who doesn’t hold this publication up in reverence. — Jonathan Heaf is Senior Commissioning Editor at GQ Magazine.
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