“Observed by a foreign traveler in the beginning of the 19th century, a black boy dances on the street and shows off his old boots with open pride.

The fact wouldn’t be so significant if the boy wasn’t completely nude. For the traveler, the situation is incomprehensible; for the child, though, it makes sense. As the Carnival dancer who will one day swing down Brazilian streets, what he happily shows is not only a pair of boots but one of the most eloquent symbols of ascension and social distinction in Colonial Brazil.

At that time, a pair of shoes differentiated the poor from the rich, the slave from the free, the catechized Indian with a soul from the non-catechized one without a soul – and the boy knew that very well. To the unaware European, the only thing to do was to write down another picturesque case in his travel notebook.

Many images like that will give the few hints that guided us in this attempt of recomposing the footwear’s path in Brazilian lands, from the Portuguese boot that was buried in the sand in 1500 to the prodigiously balanced stiletto coming on the catwalk…”

Download an english excerpt of O Calçado e a Moda no Brasil: um olhar histórico.

 

Mary Arantes goes to England

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

After taking part in the Brazilian Design Bienal, which was held in Curitiba this year and will take place in Belo Horizonte in 2012, the work by Mary Arantes of Mary Design was one of the selected for the itinerant exhibition in England. Mary is well known for her noticeable handling of precarious materials. Her work conveys a poetic sense in jewelry/objects, which are mostly made from techniques or visual references of Brazilian pop art. The exhibition named “Jewels from Brazil” visits the Queen’s land in September this year and stays there until June 2012, when the last exhibition will be hosted at Flow Gallery in London.

The foreigner look at the Brazilian creative production continuously opts for the share that makes use of the precarious materials and is based on expressions of the pop culture. They are intriguing objects that seem to puzzle the appreciation based on the environment of the industrial design, which surprise for their high standards in both functionality and esthetic appeal. Although they may be poor in the appearance of the elements that constitute them, they are luxuriously creative in the final result. The exhibition is held by The Hub and will take place at the following galleries.

The Civic, Barnsley: from September 15 to November 4, 2011
Hanson St, Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2HZ.

The Hub, Sleaford: from November 12 , 2011 to January 8, 2012
Navigation Wharf, Carre St, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, NG34 7TW.

Walford Mill Crafts: from January 14 to February 26, 2012
Stone Ln, Wimborne Minster, Dorset BH21 1NL.

Flow Gallery, London: from April to June 2012

1-5 Needham Rd, London, W11 2RP.

Images: courtesy of Mary Arantes

 

SPFW: Alexandre Herchcovitch

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

It is rare to look contemporary in menswear without recurring to women’s fashion. Alexandre practically minimizes the possibility of mixing genders to fill up the runway with virility and drama. The collection starts from survival outfits that are ready to face extreme conditions after environmental catastrophes. There are a lot of masks, sunglasses, protective textiles and heavy combat boots, which support creative tailoring with ample pants, protective coats and plenty of black in a show of great impact. As well as many others, I want to buy Alexandre, but the prices are as dramatic as the scenery that he has pictured for this fashion show. However, it is just and fair to say that this problem is not all his own. It is neither a local appreciation. I have talked to several foreigners on these days of fashion weeks, and they are all shocked to see the high cost of fashion in Brazil.

Imagery: Agencia Fotosite

 

SPFW: Osklen

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

Besides introducing another idea of Brazilian Fashion in the imaginary (and inaugurating a market for this share) Osklen has the merit of having revealing the hues of meaning of the expression “lifestyle” to the country. It also belongs to Osklen, and it is related to something that the fire, which has recently burned down 10 years of history of the brand, cannot destroy.  Yesterday’s fashion show lessens the focus on the new and did not register the usual heights of emotion. But everything was there: the reinvented silhouette, neutral tones and strong colors, the unusual tricot, the singular refinement, the discreet and elegant fusion of urbanity and spirit of adventure, among many other things that we recognize as Osklen. It is worth reminding that keeping an unmistakable fashion image is a valuable property, and it is still rare in Brazilian production. Those who like and those who don’t know what Osklen has.

 

SPFW: Ronaldo Fraga

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

The silhouette betrays the image we have of the body in this collection that has  defamiliarization as its core Idea and Ronaldo seems to be a  concentration  of himself; theatrical and with something to say, not being afraid of juxtaposing layers of information with the clothes. Playing with forward and reverse, he shaped his tribute to Pina Bausch in a dreamlike show that forced the perception of what something is or is not to the limit. Nothing has front, back or gender. Neither should the spectator have only one reference. And it is not all about fashion. It is neither about beauty nor ugliness.

 

Fashion Rio: Second day

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

From the brands that used to take part in Fashion Rio for 10 years, there are 6 left this season, and most of them are focused on beachwear. It makes all sense. In the meantime, Brazil has created the cool beach and has cut off excesses, although it has not left palm trees and the sunset aside. It also makes all sense. Rio de Janeiro, this extraordinary and controversial seaside city that is often mixed up with the country, has a vocation and all the clichés that result from it, and taking advantage from them is as important as breaking through them is.

This was what Yamê Reis got in her first collection for Totem, which is a carioca brand par excellence and one of the remaining ones of the past line-up.  Keeping in mind the beach style of the brand, Totem was able to balance the obvious tropical style with well- constructed pieces, controlling the presence of prints and injecting light and relaxed elegance to the collection.

Another veteran of Brazilian beachwear, Salinas, passed very well and came up with the idea of the scarf bikini for the season.

Espaço Fashion is still a fresh brand, which shows great empathy towards the Brazilian woman, who has now lived the rising economy, goes to shopping malls and consumes trends. In the fashion show, it alternated red looks and reptile prints, which represented the “exaggerated” side of the brand with good plain dresses.

On a day dedicated to brands from Rio, OEstudio kept its interest in urban fashion even though it didn’t point out any new courses nor great issues, as usual.

The images of the fashion show are by Charles Nasseh, downloads by Chic. The one of Pier Mauá is by Agencia Fotosite.

 

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

The scrambled genders that were served on the third day assured its popularity. There were two womenswear collections, another one only for boys, and one that was literally hybrid. As the main dish, the presence of the transsexual Lea T., showing bikinis for Blue Man on the runway and being photographed the next day by Terry Richardson on the sands of Ipanema for the advertising campaign of the brand. (Above)

The clothing is beautiful to see, sophisticated in a contemporary way and certainly comfortable to wear. The cool comfort and the stripes speak louder at R.Groove.

Not everything needs to be ordinary to result in good sales. Coven simplified in the right way, eliminated volumes and imported patterns from Indian henna tattoos to make an intelligent and commercial collection.

In order to assure its permanent presence in the line-up, the newcomer Agata found its level in white, adopted a wild side and did not go unnoticed. I believe it will return next season.

In charge of wrapping up the night, Blue Man, which is historic brand when it comes to beachwear in Brazil, filled up the runway with a casting of very good-looking boys and girls, including Ana Beatriz Barros.

The brand reached the objective for the presence of Lea T. In terms of bikinis and trunks, everything is correct and there are few novelties in the show, which aimed and hit the target of spontaneous media.

Imagery: Agencia Fotosite. Lea T in Ipanema, Folha.

 

Brasilian Beachwear: Fashion Rio third day pick Radar

By Eduardo Motta In Moda

The Lenny show, one of the most astonishing brasilian beachwear brand , was rich in new ideas.

This time, putting the usual modernist lines in second plane, the tribal decor emerge upon nonocromatic fabrics in a quite elegant and powerfull collection.

Images: Fashion Rio cortesy. Fotosite

 

The Copy

By Eduardo Motta In Texts

The copy has haunted the best intentions since the dawn of time. There was a time when reputation still oscillated between fraud and the innocent didactic method. Nowadays, it has slipped to criminality all of a sudden. Recently, a report published in Piauí Magazine (June edition) about its investments in the world of Brazilian fashion aroused excitement. It would go unnoticed if it did not show the names of those who were supposedly involved. There aren’t any predecessors of this situation here. National fashion has a short history, it used to be despised by the local intelligence, and a desert of discussion surrounded the subject.  Actually, there was a protective net, which was efficient, but critically colorless and compromised with the evolution of a business that was shaping up. This report that was published in a magazine that used to be an alien to the segment followed another direction. From the journalistic point of view, it was well constructed, but the supposedly documental impartiality barely veiled the irony. The stylistic resource is well known in the segment, but pointing towards the contrary direction, it did not please. Although the approach was new, the practice of copy among us was not.

IN THE PAST

There was no notion of individual, neither of subjectivity. Authorship only came up in modern age along with the Industrial Revolution and mass production, which have given way to the idea of individual, the one who represents a particular expression out his choices. The copy, which used be an attribute of old times, and did not use to have such a bad reputation, then started being considered lack of originality and an offense against the authorial rights. In colonial Brazil, we learned to overvalue the foreign culture. The historian Frederic Mauro wrote about the exaggerated appreciation of the society from that time for foreign clothes. “It was the characteristic of a hidden inferiority complex in relation to the European fashion”. And he was right. Nowadays, we are not entirely free from the perverse face of this admiration. In the end of the 1960s, we learned to travel abroad to observe and copy collections, and this was our first fashion school. That is how we learned to compose styles and discern levels of quality. It was only in the passage from the 1980s to the 90s that universities that are focused on the segment came out. Besides talent, they were the only antidotes to the vices that had been acquired.

IN FACT

There is copy all over the world and we, Brazilians, can conserve our self-esteem intact, as we do not suffer from any irreversible stigma that pushes us to this practice. It is actually just a matter of choice. It is just and fair to say that the Internet has placed the notion of authorship in doubt, that in music there is the sampler and in art there is the appropriation and reference. But the fact is that without a conceptual alibi, the copy harms some of the obvious rights and places us in the unsophisticated company of piracy and forgery. However, it is not always the image of evil. Chanel, for instance, used to get flattered and see a kind of love in her copiers. Madam knew that copy was the best way of popularizing her brand, and it is worth reminding that it is the only opportunity to wear something close to Balenciaga for most of the people.

UNFORTUNATELY

The report was right when detected copies in the first line fashion of Brazil. The problem is that, in this level, copying is not illegal; it is at least inelegant, taking into consideration what the brands and the likely authors in this position represent to the consumer’s imaginary (and wallet).

Fashion has a short term, and legal controlling methods have become too slow and clumsy in such a volatile context. Maybe, not even the justice is in charge of judging this situation. It is actually on the public. In this case, the problem is really related to three basic rules: attributing the status of author only to those who are only one; values of originality should be only given to what is really original, and, the most important of all, paying a price of copy for what is a copy. And it should always be cheaper, isn’t that true? In France, an entity was created to break with the appetite of copiers over seasonal products, considering a certain set of similarities.

 

 

Mathias Hahn and the color position

The E8 is a table designed by Mathias Hanh. It´s quite long, can accommodate up to 12 people and its functional appearance, with some modesty, suggests its use as a work place or an object holder. He enjoys creating these accessible, receptive pieces, which seem proper to the daily practical needs and also with an interest in not getting disconnected from the real life. The use of the color is what reveals the complexity of his mind. In this case, I don’t recall having already seen a project like that, where the color is applied in the opposite surface of the piece. (Except in an yellow Havaianas sandal, isn’t it?)

This is the Wooden Chair, the name goes directly into the matter and combines the idea of revealing the assembly points that structured the project. Again the color is a good result of its unexpected use. The images are from www.dezeen.com.

Rosa Chá by Herchcovitch in SPFW

An undeniable signature of Alexandre Herchcovitch at Rosa Cha, capable of setting it apart from the beach fashion and even so placing it in a position, if not a safe one, a possible and challenging one. The black lacework over the rose compositions, something between lingerie and diving suit, brings up the fetish content of this project. In a singular way, it is true, but more to a refined and perverse eroticism than to the abundant carnal of the Tropical Summer. Still the girls looked provoking, extinguishing the presage of the ones that do not expect from the designer, a sensuality that highly meets what a beach fashion requires. Well, it is not about that anymore, isn’t it? About beach fashion? Images: announcing SPFW.

Estadão and the Inhotim

Garden at Inhotim

What a sad article, the one signed by Jotabê Medeiros at the Estadao of Sao Paulo on the 15th. The subject is the Inhotim, the Museum of Contemporary Art, which is on open sky and is in Brumadinho, a city one hour from Belo Horizonte. Who has already been there knows that a project like that is even an ambitious one, and there is no way of not taking such huge funds.

One of the several buildings constructed to take the works in

The odd is that the journalist takes ambition and large money expenditures as they were as evil themselves. He dedicates to point out the probable irregularities without offering any trustable data to confirm what he states. The only information is that the TCU has not approved one of the Museum requests, and that was about the time period they would use a probable Convention Center to be built in their area with public funds. However the article says it was only a project and not an executed fact. Regarding funds and exemptions that the Museum has raised so far, he even takes the care to register that they were done according the existing Brazilian Laws on Cultural Support.

Cosmococa, from Oitica and from Neville de Almeida, and to Red, from Cildo Meireles

In various passages the insinuations are more adequate to gossip magazines used to kill the time on waiting rooms than to the respectful Part2 from the Estadao. It’s a devious and repressed text. It makes everything looks ugly and wrong without saying why. The author also does not know, or ignores on purpose, any quality in the project, or even in Contemporary Art. One can allege that this was not the theme, but then which theme was it? I have finished reading it without knowing if there is any kind of irregularity on the construction of that bridge, neither why aggressive politics of artistic residences would be reprehensible. In compensation, I have learned that gorgonzola cheese with pears is something very reprehensible, and serving them or eating them, is practically a guilty confession (sic). I have also become more suspicious about optimistic statements from humble country ladies (again sic).

Hélio Oitica in open sky

After the achievement of transforming a 15 Reais ticket (the price of a ticket for a movie theater in any main city) into something almost sinful, the author of the article has forgotten several points to keep the objectivity of his theme. He leaves behind the fact that this is the country where everyday bridges are built in a hurry to lead to private farms instead of giving access to Art Institutions. He also does not consider that, among several eccentricities of the Brazilian super rich people, there are almost no registrations of the ones that have chosen to spend their millions in cultural institutions. None of that would justify irregularities, obviously, in case they exist. However the Inhotim collection, either the botanic as the art one, and the entire project as a cultural and social accomplishment, it´s something to get proud of and not to get ashamed of, as the author of the article makes it sound like.

Heritage

Gucci, Prada, Chanel, Dior, Hermés, Louis Vuitton. These and other brands of the same high level have turned themselves to their own history and started selling the past as the best to be consumed at the present.

That can be translated in the reissue of the home classics that is the most usual.
Dior is reissuing historical perfumes, Vuitton is doing the same with the centenary handbags, for example, and it also takes other forms. It’s when the marketing starts to hit the refrain of the existing years, of the quality and the reliability refined with the time, and there they go. It’s not difficult to understand that this is a symptom of the economic crisis that bothers Europe. Stable values are the ones that really count on the decision to buy in uncertain times.

However, it’s not what or how that is the most substantial in that situation. These are super evaluated aspects in the approaches that focus only on the immediate market strategies. What needs to be noted is the fact that those brands can appeal to these arguments and actions. They exist since decades and besides generating experiences and richness, almost all of them, in one or another way, has invested and still invests either in the brand construction as in other areas.

That’s the Prada case, which holds the name and the capital to the contemporary culture, or Gucci, who plans a large Museum, or Armani, that is not that old and sponsors huge expositions, and also others that are committed to ecological projects. During their thin or fat years, they have engaged themselves in one cause, have promoted others and now they mean something beyond the object they sell.
That’s true, they have spent a lot of money on that. But with that money, that seemed being used for no refund, they have built what today keeps their houses up. Each time that the world threatens to collapse, the heritage come back and speaks loud. Images: two lustrations from Rene Grau to Dior, Prada logo and centenary handbags in and old Vuitton catalog, poster of Cartier Foundation in Paris, created and supported by the watch and jewelry brand and dedicated to hold Contemporary Art.

Alexandre Herchcovitch for men at SPFW

The Death rounds the Fashion and Alexandre Herchcovitch, who was never affected by creative osteoporosis, has let the skulls out at the fashion performance to show a very well composed collection. The simple vision of those horrifying teeth could bring the worse fears out. However, the skull-boys were so well dressed, that what could be a B movie, has become quality fashion. It worth talking about movies as the collection departure platform was the Seventh Seal, from Bergman, a beautiful and somber 1656 movie. Where Death plays a game with the character performed by Max von Sydow and that has a predictable result.

It’s even better talking about tailoring, this champagne of the dressmaking. In this case, a very well one served by the designer. They were all there, the small, the big and the always decisive inventions in modeling that Alexandre knows how to do. Images: announcing SPFW

Jean Vigo

Last Saturday, a bit full of killing time with Avatars and truculent detectives, I try to find an antidote. I bought a complete Jean Vigo, what means only 4 pictures including the irreparable Zéro de conduite: Jeunes diables au collège.

Besides that, the box brought À propos de Nice, an acid and poetic documentary about the French resort,

L’Atalante, maybe one of the best approaches about love and relationship that the movies have already produced (the couple on the bow reminds you of something?)

And Taris, roi de l’eau , a documentary with elegant shots that are out of the standards until nowadays, that the director has done about a French swimmer.

All of them filmed between 1930 and 34, when Vigo died being 29 years old. Besides the short career and a few pictures, it’s not difficult to see that he gave the guide to the best of the French and worldwide cinema.

The great movie theorist about Jean Vigo is the Brazilian critic Paulo Emilio Sales Gomes and his texts about the director have just been published integrally by the Cosac Naify.

See François Truffaut’s reaction when he read this material:

“It has come to my hands the manuscript of the most beautiful book about the movies that I have already read. It’s the monumental book about Jean Vigo, his life, his work.” François Truffaut, Cahiers du Cinéma, 1954.

Some place in the past

Aesop is an Australian brand of products for hair, skin and body that uses only botanical ingredients and was already born under the sign of the environmentalist movement. The store project opened recently in Singapore has 30 km of coconut fiber hanging on the ceiling. Matching the clear and velvety tones of the ambience, the fibers help to create a unpretentious effect, trustable and cozy, attached to the brand identity.

The metal clipboard lamp has gotten this new face with the use of wood. The Rooms studio signs this project of fine execution that rocks to a classic design with vintage-affection-environmentalist appeal of the new/old material.

This is a telescope with all advantages that the modern optic can offer, even it doesn’t seem like it and that illusion, that could be depreciative in the recent past, nowadays would be an advantage. Again it’s the wood that plays this role as an antidote against the possible technological coolness and that warms the relation to the object, that has the same measurements of the one created by Galileu. In that case, it’s worth saying that Galileu’s was also a wood one and that one is a recreation using the same patterns, as a tribute for the 400 years of the original one. It’s from Odoardo Fioravante and was developed for the Palomar-AYL.

Here and there, and even in larger numbers, examples like that are appearing. They leave behind any technological and futuristic patina in order to adopt another one, based on aspects and techniques that ask for the nature and for the efficiency of the solutions in the past.

As in all areas that the appearance counts, there are several levels of adoption of these tendencies. There are cases where the measures are effective and simple solutions, out of the commercial interests, and are recuperated in good time.

In other ones, the wave hits only the surface, or evokes the nostalgia, that is never too consistent, but it’s interesting seeing how things turn out and impact on the architecture and design in several areas. The images are from Aesop and from Rooms, the telescope is from Emanuele Zamponi and all of them are downloads from yatzer.com.

The Anarchitecture of Gordon Matta-Clark

The work of the North American and son of the Chilean Gordon Matta-Clarck, being exhibited at MAM, in São Paulo is a blow. The instinct is his, as well as it was the one from Oiticica in Brazil, but it is also from an age. While we were painting the 70s with psychedelia and flowers, he was invading buildings, cutting and extracting entire pieces of them.

These metaphorical hollows, radicals to the point of throwing the artist in the 80s and 90s to the limb, nowadays give him a special place in the history of the Contemporary Art. Once, with a rifle, Matta-Clarck has shot all the Windows of a building in New York. In another one he used money from a scholarship to finance the project of a construction invasion. He has done cuts in large scales and has organized night visits in the most absolute illegality. The audacity granted him law suits and a resting period in Europe.

He has also divided entire houses and has organized a boycott to the Bienal in Sao Paulo, during the Brazilian Dictatorship. This art of war, that literally went through the urban grid, without giving a minimum attention to the space conventions, delimitated by the architecture (and for so many others) tells us about a time that people face things, refusing the inclusion in the systems, were they whatever they were and particularly the art one. It’s also a testimony of a time that things were precariously registered.

His work survives dispersed, in pictures and fragmented audiovisual registrations. However, even the view formed during these last decades is claiming about such precariousness, if all the resource spare has gone to the potential of the ideas and accomplishments, it has worth it! Matta-Clarck is one of these seminal artists, has threaten the life in the big cities, has run in the gastronomy and was already guiding himself for a global vision and against borders, what took him to perform interventions in several parts of the world. This one above he performed in Paris, in a ruining building that surrounded the Georges Pompidou, at that time was still in construction.