homage to lolita

Everyone remembers Stanley Kubrick's classic film Lolita!

Chantal Thomass homage to it:

chanel mobile art

Finally got over Pipilotti!!! No, seriously: listen, you guys. I cannot possibly post the same day I experience all these things. I am not - despite visiting mobile art exhibits - mobile blogging. I have mentioned several times - and as a reader, possibly through a feeder, of this blog you should be aware by now - that blogging is NOT my business, but a passion (I always was good at writing and story telling in my own way and after I won an impossible case against my landlord, I also knew a talented lawyer was lost on me).

I feel blogging somehow will be important for me later down the line and will become a part of my business, etc. So, I really try to take this seriously - I want you to know - despite the fact that time is scarce and time is money. Therefore here - late, but don't hate - finally the pictures and impressions of the Chanel Mobile Art exhibit in beautiful Central Park on an incredible Fall day early afternoon on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 . The day after the election. So the mood was really amazing, it was the first day with a new president elect and it seemingly still has not sunk in with many... so in this trance, we got here....


Mobil indeed. That was the impression throughout the more or less hour and a half spent on the reserved patch of the park. The capsule looked like it just landed and the wind blew the thousands of leaves from the countless trees in a whirlwind, it almost blew me away how beautiful it looked and felt.


First thing that most probably became visible to anyone upon entering the gated area around the space ship was the very cool Chanel wind breakers everyone was wearing. Black, shiny nylon with embossed CC logo buttons in crisp white. "We can't keep them" said one of the guards or "helpers" after we came closer to check them out and we let them know that we thought that that was indeed sad. I am sure there were a few inquiries about if they could be purchased - somewhere - I mean, anything that bears the famous logo is instantly a desirable item, right?

And of course they got us right where they wanted us from the get-go! No uncertainty about where you were and why you came. Because of Karl Lagerfeld and Chanel. There were a few very famous artists too.


"Can't take the cameras in. No pictures inside." O.K. I started to take some out front, opposite the mirrored building which was some administrative office which kind of disappeared by reflecting the spaceship everywhere you looked... cool!!



I will for sure always remember this day and I am glad I took all the pictures! The exhibit was organized very well and I loved the voice of Jeanne Moreau narrating me via MP3 through the space... Some installations were better than others. I guess I loved the compact powder mirror/TV screen in the giant Chanel bag the best (Sylvie Fleury), along with the wishing tree of Yoko Ono. Then that photographer Nobuyoshi Araki was excellent! That is about it.

It was clearly an attempt to advertise the brand (Chanel) in an alternative way and that succeeded, but there where several instants when I asked myself: What am I admiring here? Advertising? A brand? So far so good. Not the absolute worst try I'd say.

After the show we went bike riding through the park and that again, was probably my favorite part, after all. The scenery, the fresh air, the clouds, the time of a new beginning...

...a young couple taking wedding pictures in central park...

... and when I finally got home at sun set, the Empire State building was blue (New Yorkers know that there is no such thing as the color blue on the ES). For a moment I reflected... "Ah! It's the color of the democratic party, yeyh!" It summed up the day for me!

Good night!

chanel exhibit in central park

Yeyyh! On Nov. 4th I have a reservation (thanks to my hubs, who was experienced and savy enough to book wayyy in advance. By now all tickets - which were free - are "sold" out) to see this "Star Trek”-style spacecraft, which temporarily lands in Central Park (from Oct. 20 to Nov. 9.) and houses art from artists recruited for the project including Sophie Calle of France, Sylvie Fleury of Switzerland (who is a idil vice fashion fan since the very beginnings), Subodh Gupta of India and the Russian collective Blue Noses.

Each was asked to create a work that was at least in part inspired by Chanel’s classic 2.55 quilted-style chain handbag, so named because it was first issued in February 1955.

I will be reporting my own view after I have seen the exhibition, but as this is exiting, I can't wait until then and have to show you a couple of images I found in the NYC tabloids...


An aspect I'd rather don't think of too much is, is that Chanel will pay the city a “use fee” of $400,000 (not that we do not need it, but it is only a sad fact that the sluggish economy puts the city up for sale further). It's advertising for the French brand, needless to say.


In an interview, which was done on opening night a couple of days ago, Karl Lagerfeld did not seam very happy about the exhibition and kept mentioning that "it is too tight here... too many people, too much art and not enough space"... well, we'll see!

The convergence of art, architecture and fashion is common place these days. A Louis Vuitton bag designed by the artist Richard Prince is constantly spotted on the streets of New York, Basel and London. The Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s creations for Louis Vuitton were sold in a special shop that formed part of a Murakami retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. The architect Rem Koolhaas has helped define the look of Prada shops, and Frank Gehry recently designed a line of jewelry for Tiffany & Company.

“Art is art. Fashion is fashion,” Mr. Lagerfeld said. “However, Andy Warhol proved that they can exist together.”

multilingual

As I am multilingual, Native Swiss (from the German part) living and working in the USA for a decade and a half, English being my now second language (you be the judge, read my blog), speaking fluent Italian and just about well French, some words in Spanish and Turkish, I am thinking of adding another language to this blog... German, ja, das tönt wirklich nicht schlecht, neh, that way I won't have such a hard time anymore when I return to good old Switzerland speaking Swiss German. I am searching for words sometimes and das geht ja nun wirklich nicht, denn ich bin ja Schweizerin und natürlich stolz darauf! Also ja, jetzt ist es raus und ich werde mich bemühen diese Übersetzungen zu machen, wenigstens teilweise, huh? Bis bald auch auf Deutsch, gell?

Falls ich das dann manchmal vergesse oder eben einfach keine Zeit dazu habe dann übersetze den Text doch einfach selbst hier:

dictionary

pretty feminine men

Hey! Guys keep telling me to make men's clothes...
I only do it occasionally for a dude or two and my dad of course, who deserves a good men's piece of idil vice any day. Other than that, I just don't think for men really and I always thought I'd make a men look gay anyway, and unless one IS gay, that would not be appreciated...

Hey, hey, but as of late there is a lot of gender bending happening and I might design a couple of things for mister.

Tons of feminine men's wear is to be found everywhere, just look around. I really liked this ruffled cowgirl/boy blouse from the Fall/Winter '08 collection of French designer Alexis Mabille. Pretty feminine!

alexis mabille Fall/Winter 2008