Courtney Love is a woman that needs no introduction – rocker, actress, icon and iconoclast. Lover and hater. Saint and sinner. And she and Riccardo Tisci have history. The first landmark in their relationship was a private Love concert hosted at Givenchy’s avenue Georges V headquarters in June 2007. The celebration? To toast Love’s upcoming solo record Nobody’s Daughter. Love took to that intimate, salon stage wearing an haute couture dress from the previous day’s A/W 2007 show. And the rest, as they say, is history. Nearly three years later, Love collaborates with Panos Yiapanis, one of the most influential stylists of our generation as well as key court to the house of Givenchy – Panos and Riccardo’s collaboration at Givenchy menswear in particular has brought the most culuturally relevant men’s clothes since the heady days of Slimane at Dior.

And it is this spring Courtney Love will finally release Nobody’s Daughter under the moniker of Hole, her band that has regrouped under a new line-up. Key of which is guitarist and new creative sparring partner Micko Larkin, a ramshackle-romantic character hailing from London outfit Larrikin Love, a band which shone brightly for one album in 2006 then disbanded in 2007.

Ahead of Hole’s three showcase gigs this February 2010 – 17th at London Shepherd’s Bush Empire; 19th Milan Magazzini Generali and 21st Amsterdam Paradiso – Dazed and Confused magazine ran a cover story with the self-proclaimed dirty blonde, featuring the following tribute from Tisci:

“Courtney is an icon. Lot’s of celebrities in the last ten years have tried to be rock’n’roll, but Courtney is the real rock’n’roll, the goddess of rock’n’roll.

What I love about Courtney is that she is so unpredictable. When I met her she became my muse. I design with Courtney in mind in a way – you really want to design for a woman like that. She’s got soul. She’s super rock’n’roll but at the same time, super intelligent. I love strong women with a lot to say, and she has a lot to say.

She did a private concert for Givenchy at the couture salon, which was amazing. We put her in a dress from The Goddess collection – this white dress, super-couture with embroidery. I loved her in it. Anything you put on her becomes Courtney Love, she’s such a versatile monster! She does movies, she does great… she does music, she does great.

Sometimes when you meet your icons you’re scared you’re going to be disappointed, but when I met Courtney I was even more in love because she can talk about everything, from art to fashion to music. I dressed her around two years ago; the first look was this blue suede couture coat with a muslin dress underneath. The next day she appeared in the press in this leopard-print Givenchy outfit with black degrade from the jacket down. It’s important that you wear what you really feel it’s good for you to wear. Age doesn’t matter, sometimes you see girls who are 20, wearing clothes that could belong to a woman of 50, and sometimes you see a woman of 50 dressing young and they look really good. It depends how they carry the clothes. This is what I love about Courtney – when she puts on clothes, they become Courtney Love.”

A#8 features a collage by Love, a mood of charged feminine energy, flowers, disorder nobility and nothing. THE MOST CAKE, is a recurring metaphor, a lyric culled from Hole’s 1994 release ‘Doll Parts’. It’s here she scribes her preoccupations – ranging from the Book of Kells to greed, sex, money, Marie Antoinette, Anne Boleyn and Lady Jane Grey. Riccardo, Panos and Givenchy are called as well as other creative forces like photographer Steven Klein and taxidermist Polly Morgan…

The practice of a young designer reinvigorating an iconic Parisian house has now become a formula. But it’s not an easy one, it’s a mine-filled path that’s seen more than a few car-crash appointments in the past ten years. Get it spot-on, however, and magic can be made  – the creation of a cultural shift and a bold vitality for our times.

One of the most fascinating things about this youth/establishment formula, is the possibility of building icons out of the young pretenders to the throne; turning them in 20 or 30 years to names as revered as their maison’s founder. Ghosts etched on the labels inside each piece, Christian Dior, Cristóbal Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy are landmark designers feted in archives and collections across the world; as much an inspiration for fashion students and cloth junkies today as they were as contemporaries 50 years ago. But today, Hedi Slimane, Nicolas Ghesquière and Riccardo Tisci sit beside their figureheads, their own contributions praised in magazines, glued in sketchbooks, pinned to mood boards, and imprinted with excitement into a fashion fans developing, interrogative mind.

There’s no hard and fast rule for getting a reinvigoration right (if there was the industry would be a lot simpler and the conglomerates even richer). But there has to be a rebellion and a contemporary steadfastness in amongst a sense of respect and understanding. There can’t be heartache for the past, there has to be a hedonism for now.

In A#8 curated by Riccardo Tisci, a double page shows the art of Seb Patane (‘A Fancy Dress’, courtesy of Maureen Paley gallery, London) contrasted by an image selected by Riccardo from Monsieur Givenchy’s 1961 collection. It’s this original photograph that perhaps encapsulates the dynamic Tisci has with past and present, the pure elegant lines of a lady’s dress and opera gloves contrasted with the, very Tisci, heavy, ornamental scarf veiling the models face. An arresting image, the explanation for the masking is impossibly simple: the studio model’s face is blanked out so as not to distract from the cataloguing/promotion of the clothes when archiving the collection.

That something as tiny and insignificant as this detail should draw a parallel to the work of Givenchy today and the brutal/beautiful modern handwriting Riccardo has forged of his own is extraordinary. A subtle coincidence, but it might be one that alludes to why he was the right man for the job.

Artist Marc Turlan works with magazine imagery; tearing, cutting, and decontextualising paper to create disrupted works with flattened elements of the sculptural.

In collaboration with Nike and commissioned by Riccardo Tisci, Turlan turned his scalpel on two intense faces in A#8, removing everything but their confrontational glares for a figurative take on Nike Air.

Another work shows an adolescent of middle-eastern origin, shrouded in an oversized hoodie silhouette and referencing religion, a well-established strand within the world of Tisci thematics.

A brand that reaches beyond sportswear, Nike’s purposeful clothing provides an adaptable uniform for a broad cross-section of society, with the athletic juggernaut’s sneakers going on to ground the feet of many more, including Tisci himself.

Yet portrayed here is a subculture culled from underneath. It’s the heavy mood of angry, disenchanted street kids in hoods, the next Brazilian talents kicking footballs in tees under baking sunlight and an evergreen grouping of teens-twentysomethings united in voice.

Not unlike the attitude – and casting behind – Tisci’s brave menswear for Givenchy itself…

A#7 curator Kris Van Assche muses on the topic of collaboration, with particular reference to Londerzeel, the experimental zine the designer has founded with friend, gallerist Barbara Polla. This feature was orignally published in AnOther Man issue 9, Autumn/Winter 2009.

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In his collaboration with artists, Dior Homme’s artistic director Kris Van Assche has found inspiration for his collections and the material for Londerzeel, a beautifully printed, open-ended experimental zine. The project, the result of the deep bond and mutual respect between Van Assche and gallerist Barbara Polla, presents the work of many artists and photographers that have informed his recent designs.

“Collaboration is vital, essential for me. It is truly stimultating to collaborate with artists from all horizons – Wim Mertens’s music, Jeff Burton’s or Nan Goldin’s photographs, Zoe Cassavete’s films. My collections grow richer from each experience, because my vision becomes wider, more generous. I met Barbara Polla when she was invited by a mutual friend to the second Kris Van Assche show. Afterwards, she came to see me backstage and talked to me straight away about a project. She’s unique and in a class of her own. Her freedom to be herself is outstanding – her whole life is organised around her wishes. She makes her dreams come true through persistance and unshakeable willpower. She is radiant and holds a special place in the heart of contemporary artists – she’s not your typical gallery owner, she’s very close to her artists and very kind. Only Barbara knows how to combine rigour and outrageousness in order to create something new, whether it be an exhibition, a cosmetics line or a magazine. I was surprised when she told me she wanted to write a book about me. It has been a strange experience and in fact I’m still not entirely sure I’m at ease with there being a book about me!

It was at Barbara’s gallery Analix Forever that I met collaborator Andrea Mastrovito. I was immediately drawn in by the delicacy and expressiveness of his drawings, as well as their poetry. His world is exuberant and passionate – I’m touched by the work he has done for me; he’s the greatest poet I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet. And even though fundamentally we’re incredibly different, we have a strong connection between us. Two of my favourite images of his in Londerzeel follow each other, involving Andrea tearing a botanical encyclopaedia in order to ‘replant’ flowers. It’s an idea that meets with my world and my clothes.

Londerzeel is named after the town I come from. The town’s banality made me feel different at such a young age. It’s an ordinary place, neither beautiful or ugly, with people passionate about football and full of goodwill. I can’t say I led a fulfilling life there as a teenager, but it is the place where the people I love live. The zine is a project with complete freedom – I’m the artistic director and Barbara is the managing editor. In Londerzeel I wanted to collect projects that were not related to fashion. It is a way for me to tell the same story, to convey the same aesthetics but using other means, other mediums. We are working on a follow-up but we won’t set ourselves a deadline – when we have something to tell there will be another issue.”

Interview Dean Mayo Davies

www.krisvanassche.com

www.analix-forever.com

“From our point of view, a fashion designer is a creator of signs on the scale of life. From one season to the next, he builds up a complex and sophisticated language all of his own which enable him to articulate his proposals, his poetic, political or simply amusing messages.”

- the words of M/M Paris on the DNA of fashion through designer ideology and how we intrepret it all.

“The history of fashion for us therefore is something made up of a compression of all these signs, all these languages, which compose then decompose in the different aspects of creation.”

The importance of uniform in fashion cannot be underestimated – it’s a multi-layered concept that infiltrates on many facets. Think not only of the designers’ world, itself a repeating aesthetic and concept of codes – their ideology – but also the way everything is sold on the rails in store; coats, jackets, shirts and pants lined up on a gleaming metal bar. Wherever you may visit globally, it will adhere to the vision. The true beauty, and power, of uniform however is in its ability to mean something to everyone – it’s a universal language, alluringly repetitive and iconic.

In 1996, Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak instigated a project with renowned photographer McDean (Another Magazine, W, Vogue, Jil Sander, Calvin Klein) to turn their theories on fashion and uniform into a ‘collection’, a reference portfolio of men and women aligned to instantly indentifiable groupings.

We have UPS driver in his brown shirt, pen in pocket; the biker kitted out with full motocross armour, the jockey in resplendent silks, the fireman and a generation-X Hare Krishna, complete with hoodie and scuffed sneakers. Then there are the branches of military…

Of course, to the observer it’s the latter which is most identifiable within the world of Yamamoto. Think of his army jackets, long, wool naval coats and the tailoring which makes its wearer look quietly, progressively noble.

McDean, former assistant to Nick Knight (another name with Yamamoto lineage – that late 80’s silhouette in black with red, amongst other campaign material, burned into the consciousness of any avid fan) has produced a striking set of visual stereotypes, elevating these common dresscodes into moments of frozen beauty.

Article by Dean Mayo Davies.

A creative powerhouse, beyond the fact they – Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak – are a humble duo, M/M Paris have become the go-to agents for their conceptual take on the world of visual communication. With an eclectic client list that reads from Björk [watch their video for 'Hidden Place' here] and Balenciaga to Vogue Paris and Arena Homme +, their post-punk, emotive handwriting weaves a language of its own and an intellectually satisfying, multi-dimensional one at that.

They have enjoyed a fulfilling relationship with designer Martine Sitbon, directing and dissecting show invites, producing standalone works that don’t necessarily preview the collection but instead act as character-heavy postcards of whimsy alluding the personality and preoccupations of Sitbon. Showcased in A#5, here is a selected edit.

A BLOG is delighted to present Dean Mayo Davies as our latest external author, as we showcase his work – thorough yet concise articles which are truly relevant in the world of A MAGAZINE.

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AS BLACK AS MIDNIGHT ON A MOONLESS NIGHT. The lynchpin or at least Lynch-influenced editorial photographed by Alex Salinas in A#6, curated by Veronique Branquinho.

Years after its publication, this foreboding shoot carries another resonance. What was at the time a celebration of Veronique’s archive 1998-2007, nearly ten years’ worth of it, is now viewed as perhaps one of the most definitive print celebrations of everything the designer encapsulated.

The recent closure of her company came with a heavy heart, but here, on paper, there is the black-gilded soul that built Branquinho into such a developed, evocative voice. The darkness, the ‘romance for the doom generation’ that formed the part-core of her work explored over 26 pages with models Anouck Lepère, Kim Peers, Tamara Van der Perren, Merel, Lara Streck and Gersande Coudyser.

Her gang is deeper than surface aggression however. It’s claret-red and sophisticated. A quiet brutalism, her silent assassins wear silks and le smokings. And if subcultural groups – teds, mods, rockers, punks, ska boys – are so important to the history of contemporary fashion and youth identity, then these bruised, pristine girls are Veronique’s very own subculture.

It’s a celluloid moment that has somehow remained timeless – as enigmatic today as ever. Her mood is one still so relevant to fashion and fashion culture. The embodiment of eternal.