>> Just after the shows had finished and just before I took the Eurostar back to London, I had a rare charmed day in Paris which started off with receiving a beautiful bouquet of roses in the morning and finished off with a loud slurp of Kotteri ramen. In between I also had a fairly chillaxed photoshoot in what can only be described as a Elle Decoration meets Vanity Fair fantasy of an apartment, where I came across this ultra rare December 1985 issue of French Vogue, where David Hockney was commissioned to design the cover and contribute 40 pages of his work. To me, this was a folkloric issue, one which I never thought I'd get to flick through in person but here it was - a relic of a time period when 40 pages in a mainstream fashion magazine could be given up just like that, without a single tie to advertising credits, and where a cover dared to show an off-the-wall Cubist representation of Celia Birtwell, as opposed to a circulation figure-friendly celebrity. Now who's the one getting all nostalgic about a time which isn't even my own? Still, it's hard not to admire the audacity. David Hockney of course was and is art royalty, but I still can't quite imagine Vogues of any country giving up 40 pages just like that for one singular artist or creative. The pages consist of Hockney's photomontaged "joiners" collages, drawings and paintings alongside text, which talks about our need to change "perspective", questioning the classical one-point-perspective system as well as the role of modern day static photography.
Now let us begin a journey to a more complex perspective that puts us in this world.
Fast forward to a much more accessible and very present art/fashion collaboration and I'm really rather entranced by this editorial in the latest S/S 13 issue of Pop, which sees American installation artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe provide artwork that is seamlessly integrated with Francesco Carrozzini's photography of Liya Kibede, styled by Stevie Dance. To top off this collaborative triumph, China Chow (daughter of Tina) was the creative director. It's quite a mouthful of a combination that shouldn't really work but for me, really does due to the photographs of Kibede peering in and out from Freeman and Lowe's strange superimposed collages and surreal cacophony of elements. Taylor Swift's emoji #LikeEver cover might be grabbing all the newsy headlines and I also quite like the manic K-pop stare of Kim Huyna but this season's art cover is really doing it for me. Not to plug plug plug but I've also written a short n' sweet RAAAAAVE about Christopher Kane as well as a longer n' lefty point of view piece on all the shabby chic elegance that's going on for S/S 13 led by Phoebe Philo at Celine and Miu Miu, if you care to pick up an issue.
