Elle in French means her. Elle magazine aims at young women interested in fashion and beauty trends

Elle Magazine 1995

Photographer:Micheal Tompson

Fashion Editor: Jo Banker

Hair: Pascal Dangin for Waren Tricomi Salon NYC

Make up: Rumiko for Armino Salon Ishi NYC

Model: Georgia

Brand/Label: Iceberg, Cristian Lacroix, Chanel, Helmut Lang, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein,Gianfranco Ferre

The rest of the issue has: The new Cinquecento Sport, Lancome cosmetic, Cristian Dior cosmetic, Mary Quant Nail Polish, Clarin Lipstic, Arden spa skincare, Hugo Boss Parfume, Jean Paul Gautier Parfume, Amarige Givenchy Parfume

HST – Creative is run by the husband and wife team Satish and Hilary Tailor. HST specialize in Product design, trend and colour direction and branding strategies. Although they have an impressive canon of work with big name brands mainly in the world of sports apparel (puma, addidas…) what really stands out tome is the collaboration with a startup company designing denim motorcycle jeans.

Maples owners brief to Satish was to design a pair of high quality denim jeans lined with Kevlar. He wanted his jeans to not only meet the protective requirements of a motor cycle trouser, But to look good also. He wanted them to be stylish enough to be worn out every day. As Satish is not only was a denim enthusiast and expert he also has the experience of designing pumas motorcycle racing suite. So was an ideal candidate for design work.

The result was the world’s first raw selvage denim, Kevlar lined motorcycle jeans.

Branding for the company is firmly rooted in the resent revival of classic biker styles. Using traditional styling the jeans are hand finished and made to measure. On the outside they look like classic raw denim jean as worn throughout the fifties and sixties by rebel bikers, rockers and ton up kids<café racers>. And could easily appeal heritage blue jean enthusiasts. But of course the carefully integrated Kevlar lining gives an extreme level of protection. The maple logo is on all of the custom made steel rivets and buttons. The back pockets embellished with an M curling of to a small red sewn maple leaf. They definitely look the part. The authentic look goes hand in hand with authentic production methods and choice of fabric…

Selvedge denim.

…made using original shuttle looms. Firsts used for work wear from the mid-late 19th century. American companies were the main producers of this hard wearing fabric. The shuttle looms use continuous cotton threads which pass horizontally back and forth across the loom. ‘The weft’ interlaced with the vertical thread called ‘the warp’. By this process an edge seam is created that resists unraveling. So this fabric with its own edge thus derives its name… Self-edge which became selvedge or selvage. It’s called raw as the denim is untreated unwashed… Using an indigo blue threading one direction with undyed cotton opposing and then by offsetting the over and under patterns of the weave on the weft creates selvage denims diagonal twill coloring. These shuttle looms were used by jeans manufacturers until the faster cheaper projectile looms became available to produce denim that was still highly durable but of not such a fine quality. Many of the now disused shuttle looms got bought up by Japanese denim producers who now make much of the selvedge denim used by modern vintage style and heritage jeans companies.

 

Kevlar . is a man made material light and extremely strong. Used in body armour etc…

Kevlar:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar

Burberry, a very well established brand with 150 years of history, is a pioneer in  new digital market strategies. The label has been one of the first to use social networking such as Facebook, in order to share store openings and announcements, product campaigns, catwalks, footage and even behind the scene contents. The brand has also a very important visibility on Twitter, Instagram, Google, Pinterest and YouTube.                                                                                                                                                     One of their early digital campaign,  `The Art of the Trench` micro site, owns part of its success to the sense of belonging that created in people. Through the website people could share pictures of the trench coat taken on the street by themselves and also see hundreds of other people wearing it.

                          

Within the Burberry website the bespoke section allows people to customize and purchase their trench coat: change sleeves, buttons, lining and eventually even share their design through social medias.              In this type of strategies people are used to market a product of which they are also the target. In other words the target and the strategy are one and the same thing.

                                                                                           Another section of the website features new bands and musicians performing their music, while wearing the latest Burberry collection. It is a clever market strategy that points to a very specific demographic target, and once again puts people at the center of the action.                                                                                  In collaboration with Google, Burberry launched Burberry Kisses, a platform which enabled people to capture and send virtual kisses. Participants captured their kiss in Burberry Beauty lip colours.

                                                       

As  Apple was about to launch the iPhone 5, it teamed with Burberry and used the device camera to capture the womenswear S/S14 show, posting the images in real time in thirteen screen across London, New York and Hong Kong. Burberry went even further, in 2010 when it staged the first 3D shoppable livestream catwalk as part of its Fall collection.                                                                                     Burberry though, is not the only one to have used the great potential of the digitized market: in 2012 Topshop Unique developed an interactive live-stream catwalk for the Spring/Summer collection. The feature `Customize the Catwalk` in the stream of the show, allowed viewers to pre-order items in a preferred colour, buy the accessory, make up and even the music which was playing at the time.

Oscar della Renta generated catwalk coverage live on his Tumbrl and live pinned his bridal show on Pinterest ,while Salvatore Ferragamo created an in-store experience where customers can pre-order and style themselves. Brands and designers have come to realize the power social medias and digitized marketing both have and the market itself has come to relay on it.

Intellectual property is the general name under which arise the rights related to Copyright, Unregistered Design Rights, Registered Design Rights, Patents and Trade Marks.
Under those original work can be legally protected from theft.
The work owner can decide under those rights who can use its property and its the owner responsibility to pursue infringement.
A Patent protects an inventor from others copying its invention and gives the right to him alone to manufacture, use and sell a product. Though the invention must follow two criteria: that has never been publicly disclosed before the date in which the patent application has been filed and that it is truly original and not just a mere modification of something that has already been disclosed to the public.
Copyright exist in artistic works such as painting, drawings, fabrics and photographs. The work must be original and the right is automatically created once the design is recorded. It lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years after his death.
Uk Artistic Copyright exist in sculptures, architecture and work of artistic craftsmanship. Again the work must be original and lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years.                                                                                                                                                                                    UK  Unregistered Design Rights exist in 3-D work such as furniture or interior design. The right protection lasts either 10 or 15 years. In the last 5 years anyone can copy the design but is subject to the payment of a royalty to the designer.
Uk Registered Design Right protects the appearance of a product: shapes, contours, lines, colors, and textures of the product. The design must not have been disclosed for more than a year and must differ from existing designs in the market place. Protection lasts up to 25 years and is renewable every 5 years.
Unregistered Community Design applies to the same type of designs protected by registered design. The right only lasts 3 years.
Registered Community Design allows the registration to be effective throughout the European Union unlike Uk Registered Design which provides protection in the Uk only but all the other aspect remain the same.
Trade Mark protect mark and only seldom can protect the shape of a product. If the mark is not distinctive enough registration will be refused.
Community Trade Marks offers protection in 28 member states.

Reference:
http://www.acid.uk.com/what-is-intellectual-property-ip.html

Fiber are the basis for all textile which are made in 3 stages
-spinning
-weaving or knitting
-finishing
Textile fabric can be natural or synthetic

Natural fibers come from plants, animals and minerals, normally they have short fibers called staple fibers except for silk which filaments can be up to one kilometer in length. Cotton, Linen, Wool and Silk are the source for natural fibers.
Cotton and Linen comes from plants, Wool and Silk from animals.

Synthetic fabrics have continuous filament fibers, which means are long and do not always have to be spun into a yarn. Viscose (which comes from pine trees or petrochemicals), Acrylic, nylon and polyester are the source for synthetic fibers.

Polyester and Nilon Microfibres can be blended with synthetic or natural fabric and are used for outdoor clothing and sportswear
Thermoplastic polyester and Nylon Microfibres can be heat-treated to make their texture warm and stretchy. They are used for underwear, sportswear and knitwear

Blending fibers improves the appearance e performance of the fabric, but also the comfort combining the properties of each fibers, it also reduce the cost of yarns and fabric. Polyester and cotton makes shirts more crease-resistant. Cotton and lycra makes jeans more confortable and stretchy. Acrylic and Wool makes trousers less expensive than 100 percent wool trousers.

Elastane is always blended with other fibers, it is durable, crease-resistant, stretchy and has low warmth.
Tencel is a natural microfiber (made from cellulose derived from wood-pulp), it is soft, breathable, durable, crease-resistant and biodegradable and has low warmth.

Mercerization is a treatment that strengthens cellulose material like cotton treads and gives them a lustrous appearance, it results in the swelling of the cell wall of the cotton fibers which causes the surface area to increase and gives the fibers a softer feel.

Calendering is a process that modifies a fabric surface by passing it trough heated rollers, some are embossed and impart patterns on the fabric. It increase sheen and luster, reduce thickens and air permeability.

Emerising is a used to give the fabric a suede-like finish. The fabric is passed over a rotating emery-covered roller (or multiple rollers).

“To live outside the law you must be honest” Bob Dylan

Disobedient object is without doubt one of the most emotionally and intellectually engaging exhibitions I have ever been to. At times heart breaking, at others infuriating, always interesting and at points humorously dark. No exhibition has ever been further apart from l`art pour l`art aesthetic. Indeed its dense and important contents almost become overwhelming. It is poignant that the exhibition title is: “Disobedient Objects” rather than disobedient artwork, because the objects made by activist as part of social movements have played a key role in cultural and political changes and do not intend to be a commodity or a phenomenon of the art elite, quite the contrary a cultural awakening that should be a staple of life for everyone.
The exhibition informs us “Objects can help to cement a movement…objects also act as ambassadors. Tokens made by people involved in isolated struggles allow others to touch a cause that is far away or beyond their own experience. ”
Objects that comes from all around the world and exposes very important issues ranging from: authoritarianism, death penalty, civil rights, women gay and LGBT rights and equality, gender stereotypes and sexism, racism, apartheid, wealth disparity, poverty, commodity and consumerism, globalization, neoliberal capitalism, environmental issues and climate change, robotic warfare.
Disobedient objects puts a spotlight on forms of resistance that changed the world and thanks to which we can today enjoy many freedoms and rights. The makers often had limited materials to work with and had to resort to their own imaginations and creativity. No wonder then that we find such a varied use of media which spans from readymade objects turned into new purposes, textiles, paper Mache`, banners, video games to robotics and homemade drones.
The power those objects have is the power of ideas, and often they spread with force all around the world to become highly symbolic of a particular struggle or situation recognizable worldwide.
This is the case with the Italian student protest in 2011 against cuts to education. They created Plexiglas and cardboard shields decorated as books to push against police. Each student picked their own book with which to protect themselves. When the police struck against the students they also struck against the book, which became an attack on learning itself. The idea spread around the world and it’s now seen in protests against cuts on public learning and education internationally.
More absurdist types of protest have given birth to disarming objects, which caused confusion and uncertainty on how to respond to them. Is the case of the inflatable cobblestones used in 2012 both in Berlin during the May Day Demonstration and the general strike in Barcelona, actions of the Eclectic Electric Collective. A “happening” which broke the binary dynamic between protesters and authority which ridiculed the police.

On the same line in 1988, Communist Poland, protests were illegal. 10.000 people turned up in Wroclaw wearing orange hats and chanting ”we are the dwarfs”. The police had to arrest all dwarfs and a year later the government collapsed.

The black humor of the molleindustria video games, to which I had stumbled upon many times before, is present in the exhibition. To win the phone story game the player has to force children to mine Colton in the Congo, prevent Chinese fabric worker from protesting, manage consumers and dispose of industrial waste in Pakistan. This is just one of the many “radical games against the tyranny of entertainment”, to put it in their own words, available on their website, while Apples and iTunes stores banned the video game just four days after its release. How not to mention the Barbie Liberation Organization that in 1993 switched the voice of 500 Gl Joe and Barbie around and returned them to the store, to highlight the problematic about gender stereotypes.
More dramatic are the moments in which we approach objects such as the Tiki Love Truck, a vehicle commemorating John Joe Ash Amador, sentenced to death by the state of Texas. After the execution his family and British artist Carrie Reichardt took his body to a cabin in the wood to cast his face. Ten days later the Tiki Love Truck drove through Manchester with a John Joe Ash death mask. A touching moment in the exhibition which speaks very loudly of the horror of death penalty.

Also hearth breaking is the pendant Herman Wallace asked a fellow prisoner to make. Wallas was wrongly convicted for murder and often in solitary confinement because of his affiliation with the Black Panther Party. And again the heart aches in front of the Arpilleras, appliqued textiles made by Chilean women during the Pinochet dictatorship, which tell the story of their life of survival and resistance and separation from their loved ones taken away by the military. The women would often hide a note in the back of the Arpilleras addressed to the unknown person who would buy the work. Women from all over the world have been inspired by the Arpilleras and use the media to tell their own story. The American textile artist Debora Stockdale, resident in Ireland, depicts the use of Shannon Airport by the American military for refueling their planes or carrying weapons and prisoners, nonetheless the Irish commitment to neutrality.

The stencils of many Syrian people’s faces on the exhibition wall is an example of the graffiti used in Syria and tells the individual story of the people that died under the Al-Assad regime. These Stencils became a very important form of resistance in Syria. People concealed them in X ray cards, inside newspapers or at the bottom of paper bags and had to be executed quickly and very importantly clandestinely.

Still there is so much more to this exhibition than first meets the eye, yet it is made clear by the curator, the collection is not exhaustive and in no way offers a total overview the numerous ”dissident artifacts” created worldwide by people whose strong beliefs and ethics have led them to take direct action in order to change the rules of the game. Those who haven’t had the opportunity to visit the exhibition have sorely missed out. But of course with the current state of unrest, people will undoubtable continue to resist, protest and create those objects that disobey.

On show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in west London from late July up until the 1st of February 2015 with free admission

The website logo emphasizes and employs a very successful and clear design via the use of words, colours and graphic elements.

freecycle

In the 1980s green became a political symbol, the colour of the green party. It symbolized the environmental movement and it’s related to environmental issues. Recycling and sustainability are an answer to those.

Arrows indicates trajectory: a movement in space and through time. The circle created by the arrows is therefore is therefore a cycle which repeats itself: a recycle. The two arrows positioned each on the words also suggest the interchangeability of the order of the words: cycle free, free cycle.

The five green drop shaped design on top of the arrow are suggestive of a leaf and appeal once more to the idea of nature and environment.

Symbols used to designate recyclable materials:

The website layout is pretty simple and straight forward, and even when accessed from different devices, personal computers, mobile phones or tablets, the design remains exactly the same.

It is made out of a very few colour palette and no images, except pictures of the product advertised by people in the section apt to posts, and of course no commercial advertisement.

Simplicity though is not to be misunderstood as poorness of communication, its is instead synonymous of clearness and accessibility. Compared to other recycling websites, such as http://www.recyclenow.com or http://www.snaffleup.com , freecycle is the most plain, therefore allowing users to quickly serf through it, making searches and information easy to find. That`s exactly what make the navigability efficient and very successful.

The website content is prominent in regard to a consumerist society and the speed the consumer has to keep up with the constant evolution of the product and in respect to the harmful effect of human activity to the biophysical environment such as pollution and environmental degradation through depletion of resources, destruction of the ecosystem and the extinction of the wild life.

The unique strategy offered by the website is that of common benefit of both those who will get a free product and those who advertise it, prompted towards it by a cost free removal. At the same time the website creates a sense of generosity which helps strengthen local community ties and promotes environmental sustainability and reuse.

In the picture a Potlatch figure is welcoming the guest

Potlatch is a gift-giving ritual practiced by indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest Coast of Canada and the United States and is traditionally the primary economic system.

Watercolour by James G. Swan depicting the Klallam people of chief Chetzemoka at Port Townsend,
with one of Chetzemoka's wives distributing potlatch

Freecycle Worldwide:

• Over 85 Countries

• 5.000 plus groups

• 7 million members

Freecycle on:

• Google plus

• Twitter

• Linkedin

• Facebook

Luckily, not all designers follow a calculated marketing strategy or rely on trend forecasts to create a successful product. .
Ann Demeulemeester is one of those designers, a true outsider who has never been interested to look out for trends, but always remained true to her vision of androgynous beauty, intricate cuts which capture movements in shocking and apparent simplicity and more than often limiting herself to a palette of blacks greys and whites. Demeulemeester cut is what makes a Demeulemeester piece: “I can make 10 jackets of the same color, same two pockets and same length, that will look like 10 completely different jackets when you put them on, It’s about the way they are cut”, she says. “The cut of the clothes is not something immediately obvious, it`s more like an attitude that seems to be coming from the person, it’s just how it feels, but it`s already cut in the clothes”, she explains in an other interview.
in November 2013 she left her label in the hands of those who had helped her create it, her departure from the fashion house was announced in a hand written letter sent to every prominent fashion figure that had supported her throughout the years.                                                                                                                                                                                              In October 2014 Patty Smith and P.J. Harvey joined her for the presentation of The Girl of Flanders book at Dover Street Market in London. The two musicians performed a short acoustic set in a first time collaboration.

Ann Demeulumeester and Patti Smith have a very strong and long-lasting friendship and the designer has always spoken of Patty Smith as a great influence in her work and a true soul mate. The picture of Smith on the Horses record shot by Robert Mapplethorpe, mesmerized and inspired the young Ann Demeulemeester.

Some time later she tracked down Patti Smith and sent her a package tied with black ribbons.
“On the other side of the world, shadows fell on the girl who had recorded Horses. With her true love gravely ill, she was fated to continue life without him. At a time of deep loneliness she received a package from Antwerp—an exquisite white box tied with black ribbon—like a photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe. She set it on her worktable by the window, laid the ribbons aside, and raised the lid. There, beneath layers of immaculate tissue, were three white shirts“ reads the forward of the book written by Patty Smith.
That was the beginning of their friendship, which also lead to two collaborations. ‘Woolgathering’ the Spring Summer collection in 2000, which takes the name from a short autobiographical novel written by Patty Smith. Excerpts from the novel are embedded into the garments made of silk, tulle and cotton and Smith red some extracts during the runway  presentation.

The other collaboration happened in 2006 for the Fall Winter menswear collection, in which Smith walked down the catwalk carrying a clarinet.
There is palpable link between Ann Demeulemeester work and the music world, her shows are often backed by music from by the likes of sonic youth, birthday party, suicide and obviously Patty Smith. This has been used at times by critics to dismiss her work, labeling it as Gothic or rockiest, but the magic of her cut allowed the brand to find its place in a varied market and not only one niche, in fact Demeulemeester clientele isn’t only the rock type.
Demeleumester fits her womanswear collection on different body shapes, her own and some friends, each representing a different type. “You need to do this,” she says, “or you are making haute couture, which will be perfect, of course, but only for one woman. My clothes are worn by many different women, each with a different body. It’s my job to find a solution that will fit them all.” The same applies to the male form.
Ann Demeulemester label also produce womenswear and menswear shoes, her boots became another important signature of Demeulemeester style.

Other type of merchandise are jewellery and various accessories which have the distinctive appearance of her work and could  be perhaps be considered a strategic market plan as perfumes are for other fashion designers.

                                          

The Design Museum in London, has recently put together an exhibition called: Women Fashion Power. The exhibition intend to highlight the way fashion, culture and history are strictly related one to another. The semiotic of fashion therefore, the relation between signifier and signified, the symbol behind clothes, the message which is directly related to the social background and the contest in which the message is communicated.
Yet i have been so disappointed when coming across a garment by Vivienne Westwood, a long pastel pink and mauve silk gown and over robe, pinned to it, at the height of the heart, a picture of Chelsea Manning and in bold red capitals the word TRUTH….beside it few words on how Vivienne `also used her fashion brand as a platform to promote political and environmental campaigns and works tirelessly for social and environmental causes`….but not even one word about Chelsea Manning…..

      

Why have they not even mentioned Chelsea Manning name???
Bradley Edward Manning, now Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, was a United States Army soldier, arrested in 2010 and convicted in 2013 for leaking large set of classified documents concerned with the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and U.S diplomatic cables. He has allegedly leaked the cables to Julian Assange, but Manning has always refused to implicate the editor-in-chief of the WikiLeaks website. One of the most controversial video published by WikiLeaks shows a group of unarmed men being gunned down in a Baghdad street by an American Apache helicopter. When a van, carrying children in the back, stops to help one of the injured men, the American helicopter opens fire again. The title given to the video: `Collateral murder`. Manning was in 2009 an intelligence analyst and had access to classified databases. Adrian Lamo, a former hacker from California, denounced Manning to the army counterintelligence, claiming he had a private chat with Manning after learning their common interest in Wiki Leaks. Their conversation went over several days in which Manning finally suggested he had leaked 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables; and 500,000 Army reports to Julian Assange. Chelsea Manning, began hormone replacement therapy after being sentenced and is now a trans woman.
It is obvious that Vivienne Westoowod intended to draw attention to Chelsie Manning cause and plight.
She wore the garment the 6th of May 2013 at Metropolitan Museum of Art Gala in New York during the opening of the exhibition PUNK: Chaos to Couture.
‘The most important thing is my jewellery which is a picture of Bradley Manning. I’m here to promote Bradley and he needs public support for what’s going on with secret trials and trying to lock him away and he’s the bravest of the brave and that’s what I really want to say more than anything. Because punk, when I did punk all those years ago my motive was the same: Justice. And to try to have a better world. It really was about that. I’ve got different methods nowadays’ said Vivienne Westood.                                                                                       The two very long band which runs from each end of the collar, separately from the over robe, recall the judicial court dress. The word gown comes from the medieval Latin `gunna` . Gown worn by judges, derive indeed from those worn every day by their medieval predecessor, which became formalized into uniform in the course of the 16th and 17th  century.                                                                                                                                                       It is a clever remark that the designer makes by stylistically imitating the judicial gown and have a picture of Manning pinned to it with the word Truth in red bold capitals. In true punk attitude Vivienne Westwood used the dress, the garment as a protest and statement.

Watch the video below for more detailed information on Chelsea Manning

I have been particularly amazed by Derrick Lenticulars: beautiful illusory and surreal animated images, a half way between video and photography. They have been exhibited in solo shows at Scream London and SODA Istanbul and featured works at Miami Verge and Frieze Focus

Please check out his website

http://derricksantini.com/

Derrick is also part of the GODOG project together with Joe Hunter, Mark Anthony, Martin J Tickner, Phil Knott, Jonathan Bailey, Khashayar Naimanan. They are an autonomous collective of creatives coming from different disciplines, each with their own experience and expertise: fashion, photography, design, art, music and publishing. The group collaborates in personal projects or commercial ones, promoting innovation and originality through creative contents. Every week a new tread or “bark” is up on their website and every member responds through the use of different media at the bark with what it has personally evoked in them.

Check their website:

http://goddog.com