India Mahdavi’s Home signature

25 novembre 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

India Mahdavi signing at La bibliothèque du Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, nov, 22th

Trained architect India Mahdavi has successfully evolved as a designer and style icon, showing us (again) that a designer can easily, today, move to different areas of creation, becoming transversal. Till the end that night, the Bibliothèque de Arts Décoratifs was crowded with friends and people.

Home, a book written with Soline Delos, journalist at Elle Decoration is a small guide, full of tips and tricks, do not expect more, it’s well.

In fashion you mix an H&M top with a Balenciaga’s pants and a Comme des’ coat. The illustrations in the guide show that your home can be decorated as well mixing a Bouroullec’s lamp, Ikea’s furnitures and a Rupert Shrive’s sculpture.

This publication is like a new version of 70′ publications (see below) like Pénéla, Habitat, or 1000 idées de rangements (1000 ideas of storage for your home). A mix between the tone of a woman magazine, DIY and edgy designers choices, all for the bourgeois-bohemian inside of you.

1000 idées de rangements (1000 ideas of storage for your home)

Habitat, notebook for international distribution on themes of interior planning, design and decoration

Habitat, inside pages

Pénéla, la première revue féminine de bibliothèque (the first women’s magazine library)

Street | Voguing, part I

21 octobre 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

Two of the guest at New York Voguing club Escuelita

When i was in New-York city this summer i met my dear friend Karolina (dancer and designer), the one who brought me in this club. We were talking about a book dedicated to voguing: « Voguing and the House Ballroom Scene of New York ». Completely into street dancing Karolina gave me the whole story.

Fascinated i ask her to write a article about this moment of street culture, this a double post about it.

I guess it is fair to say that people in general connect Vogue or Voguing with Madonna and her song « Vogue » from the beginning of the 90’s. What Madonna did and still does is what might be her greatest skill; she highlighted an underground movement and showed it to the world. But she never was and probably never aimed to be part of these underground communities she « discovered ».

A legend has reached a certain level which includes winning trophies at earlier balls

The last past years Voguing has gone through a revival at least when it comes to the fashion and dance scene. It is part of our time to commercialize underground creativity and it is fashion forward to be inspired by it. When someone like Rick Owens plays typical « voguing music » by underground artist Zebra Katz at his show (AW12) it is automatically accepted, hyped and spread by the fashion world, as well as by other medias.

The scene

The voguing scene on the other hand is not really affected by this. It has been around since the 70’s with roots that goes back almost hundred years in time. Voguing developed in a New York African American and Hispanic gay community and was a form of social survival in a society one felt excluded from. The voguing community is playing with set normes and our society’s stereotypes and codes. It has its own social structures and it is within the community its members mainly want to win respect, prestige and climb the latter, be legendary!

World famous Waacking dancer Dallace Zeigler visited Escuelita, danced and won a voguing battle for the first time in her 30 something long career

The battles

Drag queen ballrooms (balls) existed in New York already in the 1920’s. It was about dressing up in extravagant outfits and show it off. In the 70’s and 80’s this evolved into what we today call Voguing. This happened in the form of battles where the main goal was to win Grand prize. Model poses were added to the runway walk and influenced by martial arts and acrobatic movements voguing started to develop in different dance forms and runway styles.

In the legend category at Voguing club Escuelita only people who have been recognized as legends can compete

It was a quite cruel and hard enviroment where this took place and the battles were sometimes a way of picking a fight on the dance floor. It happened that people brought weapon to be able to defend themselves. The balls or battles often started in the early hours of the morning when the « girls » got off work, prostitution was quite common, and continued into the day after. The battles were all about reputation but also about survival since there was prize money involved.

Text and photos by Karolina Brock
More info about Karolina Brock here

To be continued

Street | Vogue ball at la Ménagerie de verre

15 octobre 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

Some pictures of The world of super heroes ball a vogue ball organised by François Chaignaud and Cecilia Bengolea at la Ménagerie de verre.

Back in the nineties last night at La Ménagerie de verre when i was wearing flashy outfits influenced by house music and the voguing.

But everything partially started in the seventies in the ballrooms of New York city among Afro-American, Hispanic, gays, lesbians, and transgender communities.

Of course the genre was popularized by Madonna’s song « Vogue » in 1990, but it is interesting to find the influence of voguing from artists such as Prince or even Siouxsie (i remember her strike the pose during live shows) at the nineties. It’s also easy to imagine a designer like Jean Paul Gaultier being more or less a part of this community.

Benjamin Dunkhan

Underground culture: Poses from fashion magazines and martial arts, DIY clothes and drama !

Left: François Chaignaud

Cecilia Bengolea

Strike the pose !

The Kills, Future start slow

2 août 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

Red Collector

21 juillet 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

Chers lecteurs,
Luigi di Donna is eccentric, exhuberant, enthusiastic and the luxury magazine he created one year ago is like him: über-something. The price (30-40 euros) is high, the format is that of the sleeve of a 33 rpm and the weight is 9 pounds! It is not the usual magazine you read in your train!

For the last release dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, Luigi told me that a limited edition weighing 44 pounds and delivered in a special case designed by Moynat had also been created!

Luigi di Donna, a former photographer, with the help of 5 designers and photographers focus on the regular subjects of luxury (fashion, art, architecture, design, decoration, travel…) keeping one priority: the quality of photography. With such a pedigree i was expecting a magazine layout with a strongest personality, but it is not the case, unfortunatly. The graphic design, even the logo need more impact without interfering with the photography.

We never seen so many fashion magazines in stores than today. Every tiny stores in NYC got tons of design and fashion magazines. On fashion blogs or on paper, fashion photography is everywhere. Such magazines as Red Collector or Exhibition try to put the quality to the highest level.

Desy Sáfan-Gerard | Body conscious

18 juin 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT ~ Un commentaire

A performance of the artist Desy Safan-Gerard with the model Maria Clark.

Transversalité artistique

This performance was a perfect cross-over between dance, music and illustration.

Desy Safan-Gerard born in Chile, studied both music composition and psychology before becoming a painter.

2005

During 30 minutes, Maria Clark, the model, strikes poses on the contemporary music of Pierre Boulez: Notations I, II, IV and VII using her body as a medium, while the artist Desy Safan-Gerard is translating the gestures and the music on canvas. The process is completely improvised.

At the end we were a bit astonished, like in a transe both by the performance, the physical presence of Maria and the music, it could have continued, as you only start seeing the multiple conversations between the painter, the performer and the music.
I ask to the artist if she did such works with different kind of music. She responds that she did it with Shostakovich and Piazzola, and perhaps it could be interesting to see the results on experimental musicians like Thelonious Monk or Kraftwerk.

2002

Corinne Bonnet owner of galerie Dufay-Bonnet gave us an unusual experience, a travel in time, with the add of a public reader it would have looked like we were back in caves in New York City or Paris during the sixties.

Watch the video.

Desy Safan-Gerard website
Maria Clark website

LIVE IT UP: VIVE LA FÊTE

2 juin 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

LAST NIGHT, VIVE LA FÊTE, BELGIAN ROCK BAND WAS PLAYING LOUD THEIR ELECTRO-ROCK MUSIC AT LA MACHINE DU MOULIN ROUGE IN PARIS. AT THE SAME TIME JAYZ-Z AND KANYE WEST WERE DOING THEIR GREAT « WATCH THE THRONE » SHOW AT PARIS BERCY.

ELS PYNOO, VOCALS, WEARING MARLIES DEKKER’S BRA, IS TERRIFIC. SHE IS SURE A MUSE AND IT IS NOT SURPRISING THAT KARL LAGERFELD ASK THE BAND TO PLAY FOR VARIOUS CHANEL SHOW IN 2002.
ROCK’N’ROLL POWER !
BELOW DANY MOMMENS (GUITAR)

ELS PYNOO, DRESSED LIKE A SUPER HERO, WONDER WOMAN & TECHNO-BLONDIE

THE USUAL SHITTY VIDEO OF THE EVENT.

Curation | Sweet charity, Bob Fosse (1969)

19 mars 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

Discovered during the exhibition Louis Vuitton x Marc Jacobs at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, i spend minutes mesmerized by the dancers. Shame on me cause I didn’t hearded about Sweet Charity (Bob Fosse, 1969) before. Already a cult movie and Suzanne Charney is just amazing.

Musée des Arts Décoratifs | Louis Vuitton x Marc Jacobs, 1er étage

19 mars 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT ~ Un commentaire

L’exposition qui célèbre quinze ans de collaboration est divisée en deux parties. Le premier étage est consacré au malletier, le deuxième étage au directeur artistique américain.

Le premier niveau plongé dans une pénombre aux tonalités rappelant le cuir vieilli est un vrai parcours initiatique. Il permet de mieux saisir la personnalité du malletier le plus connu au monde. Indispensable et passionnant donc.

En 1848 Napoléon III est le premier président de la République française puis empereur en 1852. Sous son impulsion Paris redevient une capitale impériale, une vitrine de l’Europe. Un grand programme d’urbanisation est lancé et le baron Haussman, alors préfet de Paris (1853) s’en voit confier la direction. La France est en pleine révolution industrielle (1830-1870).

Louis Vuitton (1821-1892), doté d’une intelligence pragmatique et d’un amour du travail bien fait, saura parfaitement saisir les changements et les opportunités naissantes de ce milieu du XIXe siècle.

Dans le même temps, les Grands magasins (le Bon Marché est créé en 1852) et les magasins de nouveautés prennent leur essor et donnent accès à un plus grand nombre de femmes et ce à moindre prix aux robes à crinoline qui font alors fureur.

Charles Fréderick Worth établit sa maison de couture en 1858 au 7, rue de la Paix, dans le quartier de l’Opéra, alors épicentre de Paris (s’y retrouvent les joailliers et les couturiers Paquin, Jacques Doucet…). Louis Vuitton avec qui il s’est lié d’amitié, établi en 1854 sa maison spécialisée pour « l’emballage des modes » non loin de là, rue neuve des capucines.

Worth devenu le couturier officiel de l’impératrice Eugénie de Montijo, étoffe la garde-robe des femmes de la haute société française qui l’habille presque exclusivement. Sous son impulsion, mais aussi dû aux usages et aux nouveaux mode de vie de l’aristocratie et de la grande bourgeoise, les accessoires et les tenues vont se multiplier (tenues d’intérieur, tailleur du matin, robes de ville, pour l’après-midi, le dîner, robes de bal…) il sera alors nécessaire d’emballer ces vêtements dans des malles adéquates…

Malles d’un voyage – Trunks for one trip

Les armoiries (initiales) des propriétaires sont apposés sur les bagages

En 1877, Louis Vuitton dépose le brevet d’une toile rayée – Ci-dessus malle pour homme, toile rayée finition cuivrée (1882)

1888, la toile Damier intègre le nom « L. Vuitton marque de fabrique déposée » dans le motif

Malle pour homme, toile cannée finition métal peint dite mauresque (1889), coll. Louis Vuitton

Malle cabine, aluminium (1892)

Ci dessus, un des registres dans lesquels sont tenus les numéros d’identification de toutes les serrures montées sur les bagages rigides de Louis Vuitton depuis la création de la société.

1896, Georges Vuitton crée l’emblématique monogramme « LV » positionné au sein d’un ensembles de rosaces.

Suite ici

CHINA IN PARIS

14 mars 2012 ~ CHRISTIAN POULOT

BELOW ZHU WEN, WINNER OF CHINA CREATIVE DESIGN CONTEST « MOST POPULAR DESIGNER AWARD » AND CHEN WEIXIONG, CEO AND ART DIRECTOR OF BOBAOLON.

CHINA IN PARIS IS A FASHION EVENT THAT MIX TOGETHER PEOPLE OF FASHION, ART, MEDIA AND FINANCE. ORGANIZED BY THE CHINA NATIONAL GARMENT ASSOCIATION AND SUPPORTED BY THE FÉDÉRATION FRANÇAISE DE LA COUTURE, THE EVENT TOOK PLACE IN THE SALONS OF FRANCE-AMÉRIQUE.

ZHU WEN IS THE DESIGNER OF THE BRAND LILIAN WEN AND FUTURE CHIEF DESIGNER OF BOBAOLON. BOBAOLON CREATED IN 2006 IS A MAJOR CHINESE CLOTHING COMPANY, LOCATED BOTH IN PUNING AND GUANGZHOU. THE NEXT MOVE OF THE COMPANY IS TO INTERNATIONALIZING THE BRAND.

LILIAN WEN OUTFITS