Analogue Chic

Archive for the ‘Craft and Art’ Category

Check out these fashion and textiles exhibits on the West Coast!

At the DeYoung Museum of Fine Arts

To Dye For

July 31, 2010 – January 9, 2011

Textiles and apparel featuring all types of resist-dyeing methods, from ancient to modern.

 

 

At the Museum of Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising

The Art of Television and Costume Design

July 27, 2010 – September 4, 2010

Emmy-award winning costumes and a Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland special exhibit.

Also check out The Annette Green Perfume Museum on the 2nd Floor

 

Via CANBlog

 

Also be sure to check out my other list of fashion exhibits in the US and Europe this summer, here! 

Have you visited any of these exhibits? Tell us what you thought and send in your photos!  Leave a comment below, or email me, Allie {at} AnalogueChic {dot} com.

 

{Woah, 3 posts this week!  Can you tell I’m on sabbatical from wage-slavery? }

A couple of great  links from my new blog-discovery, ethniciti by interior designer Bill Sands. Both these references are helping to fuel my longstanding intrigue-bordering-obsession with Mali.

Malian fiber arts at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San Francisco

Aboubakar Fofana, Malian-French fabric artist (sorry, his site is currently French only)

If you’re traveling this summer, check out one of these fashion-related exhibits in the US and Europe.  If you know of any others, drop me a line, and I’ll add them here.  [Updated 6/6; 6/17; 7/12]

NYC

Metropolitan Museum, Costume Institute

May 5, 2010–August 15, 2010

American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity

[...] the first Costume Institute exhibition drawn from the newly established Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at the Met. It explores developing perceptions of the modern American woman from 1890 to 1940 and how they have affected the way American women are seen today. Focusing on archetypes of American femininity through dress, the exhibition reveals how the American woman initiated style revolutions that mirrored her social, political, and sexual emancipation. "Gibson Girls," "Bohemians," and "Screen Sirens," among others, helped lay the foundation for today’s American woman.

Metropolitan Museum, Howard Gilman Gallery

June 8, 2010 – October 17, 2010

Hipsters, Hustlers, and Handball Players: Leon Levinstein’s New York Photographs, 1950–1980

Born in West Virginia in 1910, Levinstein moved to New York in 1946 and spent the next thirty-five years obsessively photographing strangers on the streets of his adopted home. Early in his career, Levinstein was quoted in Photography Annual 1955: "In my photographs I want to look at life—at the commonplace things as if I just turned a corner and ran into them for the first time." With daring and dedication to his subject, Levinstein captured the denizens of New York City at extremely close range. He used his superb sense of composition to frame the faces, flesh, poses, and movements of his fellow city dwellers in their myriad guises: sunbathers, young couples, children, businessmen, beggars, prostitutes, proselytizers, society ladies, and characters of all stripes.

Read the rest of this entry »

For centuries, it was easy to identify an upper-class woman by the amount of fabric she was wearing– yards and yards of it.  This has implications from art history to the hijab debate in Islam.  Nowadays, the opposite may be true ("It’s better to be cold and stylish, than to be warm and frumpy.").  But there is still a class of women, even in our modern democratic society, whose role it is to be fertile and look attractive for their husbands.  I’m talking about you, Fairfield County.

Here are two artists who deal with women (and men) and fabric. (Also see Shadi Ghadirian.)

Elene Usdin, Femmes d’Interieur series

In this series of pictures on “Femmes d’intérieur”, I want to play with the codes, to re-arrange them, giving a cushion or a chair or a pair of shoes the same attention as the subject. It’s my way of depersonalizing the woman, of turning her into (perhaps what she always was): the object, the woman-object. Upending things in effect poses the question: what is the social status of a woman? The reference to “great classics” of painting is a good way to illustrate how a woman is corseted by her rank and the social position of her husband or her own family.

To speak of just one of these photographs : the portrait of “Georges”, is the one of (Georges) Sand, the writer, who in her own era deconstructed the codes corseting women. I have chosen to repaint the famous portrait of her by Charpentier which shows Sand with an amused smile.
In my vision, she is inviting the viewer to sit down on her, she is the woman-chair. But attention: on the armrest there lurks an aggressive barracuda which reverses the notion of the submissive woman. A kick in the nose to what society once expected of women. And today, is their independence so much more meaningful?

Quotes via Elene Usdin.

Andre Wagner, Black Holes series

I was unable to find any artist statement or curator’s description of this series.  Many different intended meanings could be read into the series title… Optimistically, my interpretation is that this series is a commentary on the tendency of people in the West to view people of other, non-Western cultures, even people of non-European descent living in the West, as one simplified image, identified by their foreign clothing, rather than as individuals.

It appears he has digitally erased the flesh of his subjects as well as the background, leaving disembodied clothing, although you can still see wisps of hair peeking from the pallu of the girl on the left in the first photo.

All images copyright to their respective creators.

Via PSFK.

 Please come and see me at Earthstock Connecticut, taking place on the campus of Tunxis Community College, my alma mater (ok, one of them), on Sunday, May 2, from 10-4.  There will be lots of great food, cool exhibits, and family friendly events. 

10% of all sales will be donated to the Tunxis Sustainable Energy Fund, to be used for implementing sustainable energy in TCC’s facilities.

More information here.

I just came back from a quick trip visiting family in Atlanta (aka HOTlanta, aka The A-T-L).  It is a wonderful thing to stay in the same time zone and move several climates closer to the equator.  Break out the sandals and mini dresses!

I had been in metro Atlanta for a few days a couple of years ago for a work-related conference in Decatur, which I loved for its artsy vibe.  I was looking forward to having more time to savor the flavor of the city itself.

I did some recon by searching through local Atlanta blogs and crafters’ websites, figuring they would be the kind of folks I would hang out with if I were a native. 

She’s A Betty was really helpful, and led me to Atlanta.net, which is touristy but has good information.  This two-part series on Indie Fixx, although posted in 2008, was a goldmine, and most of the listed businesses, at least in Poncey-Highlands, were still there.

We loved Poncey-Highlands so much, we spent 2 afternoons hanging out on North Highland Ave– also, because stores in Atlanta have a very weird open schedule.  Many were closed on Monday, which is somewhat standard, especially for small, sole proprietor shops, but quite a few others were closed Tuesday and/or Wednesday.

Things to know before you go:

• People will greet you on the sidewalks, and you may do likewise.
• Spring-time pollen is a force to be reckoned with – it literally creates drifts on the sidewalks.  Be prepared.
• Public transportation from the suburbs to downtown is almost non-existent.  Thankfully, ZipCar operates in Atlanta.
• Beware rush hour on the bypass roads.  This is a commuter city, and there are a lot of feeder roads and bedroom communities surrounding it.  A LOT. Ride with a friend and use the HOV lanes.
• The airport is HUGE.  On your flight out, make sure you have plenty of time just to get from security to your gate.  Because I will not let you cut in front of me in the screening line, just because you got there 20 minutes before your plane leaves.

Here’s what we did in the Poncey-Highlands neighborhood:

Read the rest of this entry »

 {That is the literal translation of the Spanish word for umbrella, sombrilla.}

These parasols from Japan-based DiCesare Designs are killing me right now.

Available from White Rabbit Press.

I love that they are 1) reminiscent of 19th century bonnets; 2) help prevent skin cancer; and 3) they don’t come in ridiculous Hot Topic-esque prints, because they could so easily go in  a very wrong Goth-Lolita direction, but stay sanely within chic-yet-whimsical territory.

Tanning is so overrated.  Oh, and it makes you look older faster.  Oh, and you can get skin cancer.  Last year, I regularly went out into drab downtown Danbury with my pastel painted faux-paper (i.e. polyester) parasol from the amazing Chinese dollar store here. And occasionally wore a hat from my collection.  I think if I owned one of these parasols, I would go out in full My-Fair-Lady-at-Ascot garb all the time…

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a real job posting I saw on Craigslist this morning:

Anthropologie is looking for Display Coordinators
Open Hire Scheduled for Thursday, February 25th from 9am until 2pm
Store Address: 1365 Post Rd. East, Westport, CT 06880
Phone: 203.259.0043
Please bring your resume and portfolio.
Two years experience required.
The successful display coordinator will have a fine arts, applied arts, or design and architectural background. Installation experience is preferred.
Display Coordinators are responsible for the successful implementation of all display elements within a store–windows, signage, platforms, shelf uppers and jewelry cases. This person must be highly creative, with a thorough understanding of the Anthropologie point of view, and a constant awareness of trends in fashion and home furnishings. Knowledge of various textiles and materials as well as familiarity with power tools, basic construction techniques, and installation is preferred. A fine arts, applied arts, design or architectural background is beneficial.

OMG, I wish I had more experience so I could apply.  Good luck if you do!

A truly fabulous exhibit opening at New York’s South Street Seaport Museum, about the SS Normandie.

Movie stars, art deco up the wazoo, fabulous vintage photos, plus stylish travel– it’s all here.  The exhibit opens to the public on February 25th.

Decadence. Definition:

Lalique created the famed walls of eglomisé glass and elegant glass columns which filled the dining room and Grand Salon, as well as the magnificent dining room service wear of the S.S. Normandie, much of which is now part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His brilliant eye and skilled hand were also responsible for some of the smallest appointments aboard the ship. Lalique crafted the small crystal bottles that housed the Jean Patou fragrance created specifically for Normandie’s passengers.

Oh, and the souvenir t-shirt is very cute too.

Via PFSK.

A continuation of my sporadic series, What is Analogue Chic?

I got some great leads last week on analog-reinterpreted music equipment.

Lovely bamboo-cased electronics by Elium Studio, available at Lexon.

A wooden turntable from Brooklyn-based furniture design company BDDW.  I did not see this on their website, it may have been a one off, but it is intriguing and lovely.

Today our lifes (sic) are surrounded by incredibely (sic) flat, compact, multifunctional and boring machines. There is a basic human need for real, analog and touchable things… – Florian Busco via PFSK

There is something so humanistic and soothing about natural material – and yet, manufactured materials that are designed to look natural, like faux wood grain, is so repulsive, it feels like a betrayal.

Via PFSK.