“We are so honored that our Fra Angelico Collection from Pitti Immagine in Florence has come to LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and to see it installed amongst the museum’s masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance is an incomparable experience for us.” – Kate and Laura Mulleavy of Rodarte.

Collection on display in LACMA’s Renaissance Room until February 5, 2012.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, California.

See the collection’s only fashion shoot “Elle Fanning by Bill Owens” for A#11 here.

Above: Polaroids at LACMA by Autumn de Wilde.

Above: “Lime Silk Georgette and Crinkle Silk Chiffon Pleated Gown with hand molded Easter Lilies, Feather, and SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS” by Rodarte.

A BLOG is pleased to announce that the guest womenswear designer for the January 2011 edition of Pitti Immagine is the London-based British designer Gareth Pugh. Gareth’s beginnings in the East London clubland scene have developed into a refined, futuristic vision of directional contemporary high fashion, that will be showcased in a special presentation in Florence, Italy for Pitti next year.

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A word from Lapo Cianchi, communication & events director of Pitti Immagine:

“In February 2007 we organized an event in Milan with Boombox which, at the time, was one of the East London creative community’s symbolic venues. Gareth Pugh was already one of the leaders of the generation of young British fashion designers who helped to make that evening so exciting.

We have followed his work in London and Paris, seen his style evolve – from the Gothic atmospheres of the early days to today’s decidedly flamboyant effects – as well as the way he presents his collections: the video screened at the last Paris fashion week brought new energy to the discussion on the use of multimedia technologies in fashion.

So we had all the right reasons for inviting Gareth Pugh to Florence and Pitti, where there is plenty of space for fashion experiments which can dialogue with the city’s unique historical and artistic venues. We are very happy that Gareth Pugh responded to our invitation with such enthusiasm”.

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“It is an incredible honour for me to be invited to show in Florence with Pitti. Their pioneering approach is very freeing and I am very excited to be part of the Pitti experience“. - Gareth Pugh

Pitti Immagine 11-14th January, 2011
Florence, Italy.
www.pittimmagine.com

Watch Gareth Pugh Spring Summer 2011 featuring Kristen McMenamy, directed by SHOWstudio‘s Ruth Hogben:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkxy7msTx0E[/youtube]

Above: A still from Gareth’s Spring Summer 2011 video shown in Paris.

In an exclusive collaboration, we offer Erik’s never-before-seen photographs from the upcoming Nomenus Quarterly #10, released online on September 1st, 2010.

(This interview and gallery is presented in two parts. Click here for the UNDERCOVER article)

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An interview with Erik Madigan Heck, part II: HAIDER ACKERMANN

(Continued from part I: UNDERCOVER)
DT: Well let’s switch the discussion back to another body of work you just finished for Haider Ackermann. You were recently flown over to Florence to photograph with Haider for his first menswear collection at Pitti Uomo. Can you tell me about how that collaboration came about, and what it was like when you got to Florence?

EMH: I actually had never met Haider before the shoot in Italy, he was preparing for his presentation, and Michele Montagne suggested I fly over to make a series of photographs, as she had seen the project I did last year with Ann Demeulemeester.

When I arrived in Florence it was a couple days before the show and it was a bit chaotic, but I just started shooting immediately. Haider would style a look on one of the models and then I would take them to different parts of this ancient Palazzo and photograph them individually. I consider myself very much an environmental photographer, so working in Palazzo Corsini was a dream. There was so much history to build off of in each space within the Palazzo, so my job was very easy.

DT: What was the interaction between you and Haider on the shoot?

EMH: I would show Haider images as I worked periodically, but mostly I left him to work with Michele on the styling and took the models to random quiet corners in the house. I like to work alone, and have it be quiet, you always get a more pure sentiment I think when it’s just subject and photographer left to face each other alone. I view photography as a sort of dance between subject and death. You have to stare it in the face by yourself.

DT: Can you speak about the actual images presented below (from Nomenus Quarterly 10), and do you have a favorite image from this series?

EMH: There are around 25-30 final images I chose for Haider, and they really range quite dramatically in their appearance. After I arrived and had a chance to really sit with the collection for a while I understood that both conceptually and aesthetically the photographs must vary as much as his constructions did. My interpretation of Haider’s collection was that it was very romantic, while also being vastly different from piece to piece. I really wanted the photographs to mirror this inconsistency, and create a sort of book of images that were all individually beautiful, but didn’t necessarily seem to fit together- like a box of old photographs you would find at a flea market. It was easy enough with the environment and the casting. Everything present was already eclectic and eccentric. I just had to document the interaction.

I think the portrait of Kate Summers is probably my favorite image. She has such a beautifully classic face, and it was a pure moment. There was no make-up, no lighting, she had just turned away from Haider as he was styling her, and I captured her frozen. It looks like a very posed photograph, but in fact she had kind of turned around and looked up right at the exact moment I put my camera up. It was Henri Cartier Bresson’s decisive moment.

DT: Last question, but relating to what we were speaking on earlier, do you view these photographs for Haider Ackermann as more than just fashion images? What is the political motivation underneath them, or do you like everyone else also sometimes make images that are just for the sake of fashion?

EMH: You’re trying to catch me aren’t you! I will say this, one of the most powerful things anyone can do today is to make something truly beautiful. I don’t believe that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder- that is a fallacy. Beauty is universal, its been proven by numerous philosophers over the last century, we all know something beautiful when we see it. So yes, I think the series for Haider is political in that I have created some very beautiful photographs. It was circumstantially different than a lot of my other work, in that I didn’t have time to premeditate a contrived plan for how the photographs would evolve, but I certainly was familiar with Haider’s work before arriving. After sitting with his collection I knew that I wanted to create something strange in terms of sequence, because the way the clothes came together as a whole collection was unusual. In fashion, as in contemporary art, everyone tends to work in series. It is comforting to most artists to create a series of relatable imagery rather than one stand-alone image. However, I personally prefer viewing photographs and paintings as insular objects, so with this project I made a point to move away from having to work in a unified manner. I suppose I was trying to think differently about how we are supposed to look at photographs in sequence and in relation to each other, so I wanted to just take as many individually beautiful images as I could and not have them have to relate to each other necessarily.

(To read part I, click here.)

Nomenus Quarterly #10 is launched online on September 1st, 2010.
http://www.nomenusquarterly.com

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Photography by Erik Madigan Heck.
Styling by Haider Ackermann.
Location: Palazzo Corsini, Florence, Italy

The following is an extended conversation between Dan Thawley of A Magazine and the artist Erik Madigan Heck, who is the Editor of Nomenus Quarterly. They discuss Heck’s working methods, his two most recent photographic series’ for Haider Ackermann and Undercover by Jun Takahashi, and his opinion on the state of fashion today.

In an exclusive collaboration, we offer Erik’s never-before-seen photographs from the upcoming Nomenus Quarterly #10, released online on September 1st, 2010.

(This interview and gallery is presented in two parts. Click here for the Haider Ackermann article)

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An interview with Erik Madigan Heck, part I : UNDERCOVER

DT: It is interesting to hear you speak about your work. I’ve read some transcripts from two lectures you gave, one in New York and one in Sao Paulo where you talk about your working methods and how you approach fashion. You seem to discuss fashion in a more considered, and conceptual manner. Is that right? You don’t view your fashion images as simply commercial or traditionally editorial, but you talk about them almost as fine-art projects. Can you elaborate on this?

EMH: Yes, that is correct. When I was in graduate school at Parsons I was always grappling with how to make my fashion work fit into an art context, or at least expand the vocabulary used to discuss my fashion photographs, mostly because at the time graduate school was concerned with teaching you how to verbally contextualize your work alongside your contemporaries. For the most part my professors dismissed fashion and fashion photography as a cheapened artistic practice that really didn’t have any relevance to the art world. I disagreed considerably, granted I was in an MFA program, not a fashion program, but I always felt that fashion could be discussed and considered with the same amount of thought and social depth as art photography is discussed in journals like Artforum. And I still feel that in reality both are the exact same, even if the intentions for fashion and art images are different. For both types of photographs are a catalyst to discuss something larger, whether it’s a portrait of a woman by Katie Grannan hung in Chelsea, or a portrait of Guinevere in a fashion spread, you can speak about both images in relation to feminism or the current role of women if you choose to take the conversation there. There is nothing inherent in the Katie Grannan photograph that makes the discourse different. It’s just that the art world enjoys intellectual discussion more so than the fashion world at this particular moment in time. However I actually think there is a lot more interesting things happening in the underground fashion scene now then there is in any gallery I’ve stepped into in the last couple years, and I say that after spending a lot of time in galleries in this city. Just look at someone like Carol Christian Poell and what he has done with fashion…

DT: Where does your work fit in to this?

EMH: My work is always changing, but I suppose I am an advocate of more considerate fashion photography, or at least fashion photography that can engage viewers outside of the very small industry that we work in. We have to keep in mind how small our industry really is, and how boring it can be if we just stick to glossy skin with standard fashion poses in a studio. I consider each project I take on and each issue I curate of Nomenus Quarterly with an extreme amount of thought now as time goes on. I have become very much about trying to subtly intertwine my imagery with literal historically relevant information and research, partly because I feel a responsibility to my audience and to the fashion designers whose work I’m documenting. Each project is now about how do I approach this particular fashion designer’s collection ontologically, rather than seasonally, and consciously negating what everyone else is doing around me. I have become very aware of how history affects the images that are being made now, and I try to bring attention to this by referencing specific moments in time with my work. I attempt to use the clothing to talk about things other than just the clothing- things that may be in the back of our minds that are ultimately more important than just a shirt or pair of pants.

But I would like to draw a distinction, because often time there is a misconception that my work is nostalgic, and it’s not about nostalgia at all. It’s definitely not about trying to make “old looking” images, its more complicated than that, and each project appears the way it does depends on a multitude of factors. For example the series I did this spring with Comme des Garcons was a very important project for me personally, because it was taking a brand we know very well and trying to make it face its own nationalistic identity. Comme des Garcons is the most iconic Japanese brand, but I’ve felt that it has always had an identity crisis in the sense that it desperately wants to be Western. It’s always photographed in a very Western manner, and its branding has always seemed a bit more British than Japanese in my opinion. So I thought I would reference the history of Japanese photography from the mid 19th century (when Dagguereotypes first made it to Japan) to create a time warp that most Westerners immediately associate with Japan as a nation. I wanted to make the most literal photographic references I could make in terms of recreating sets that were standard during the 1860s for Japanese portrait photography. We even flew in original objects and props from Japan to help with authenticity. I wanted people to be hit over the head with Comme des Garcons as being the most iconic and stereotypical brand to encapsulate Japan, by accessing the Japan that we all have seen in geography books: the bathing scenarios, the umbrellas, etc. I wanted Comme to be face to face with its history, and I felt the best way to reconcile this was by placing the current collection in this specific time capsule and see what happened. And I think it worked, it definitely put the images in a whole other world altogether- away from just fashion, and literally removed from photography’s inherent sense of depicting time as truth.

DT: That’s interesting that you talk about the altering or removing of time. That is a good tie in to the current project you just finished with another Japanese brand, Undercover by Jun Takahashi, which is a bit controversial. Can you explain the photographs and what you were trying to do with this project?

EMH: Certainly, like all projects the starting point was really studying Jun Takahashi’s oeuvre. I thought about what I could add to the conversation he began with Undercover some years ago. The most important thing I had to remind myself is that the history of Undercover as a brand lies in the street not in high fashion. Although he has crossed over here and there Undercover is considered to be higher end street fashion, especially with this current collection. For me its such an interesting brand because of this cross over from highbrow to street wear, mostly because the price is still extremely expensive. I immediately began thinking of what street culture means now, and specifically African-American street culture, being the origin for so many references in what we consider to be “street culture” that has made its way overseas. I thought, how I could dive into creating a series of images that can access some of the stereotypical psychological fears of the street, or touch upon some darker elements from the street that may or may not even exist anymore here in New York. Many would argue that street culture is dead. So I wanted to think about hip hop street culture as a romantic past notion and from the very stereotypical outsider or white upper class perspective.

I helps that I live in Harlem, the part of New York City that still has a stigma amongst most white middle and upper class people as being very dangerous because of its all black population. I’ve lived here for four years and have definitely watched south Harlem turn into an extension of the upper West side, that is to say, very safe and in the middle of gentrification. But when I tell people I live in Harlem they still kind of seem hesitant as if the projects are still burning, or teenagers are being shot dead in the streets, which I assure you is not the case. So I thought it would be interesting to create a series of photographs that depicted brutal murders in Harlem in the old newspaper style of documentary photographers like Weegee who almost strictly photographed murders throughout the 1940s and 50s. I wanted to give people a series of photographs that didn’t appear to be staged at first glance, but came across as real documents of violence. The series really became a personal comment on Harlem as a place now. Being the quintessential African American neighborhood for the US, I wanted to play up how the community is still perceived by white Americans in 2010. The truth is we might have voted for Obama, but many of us still wont cross 125th street at night out of fear that we’ll be harmed.

The danger with creating this series was that it’s very easy to immediately dismiss the images as naïve, or made purely for shock value. But I wanted to challenge people to really think about what they are looking at, because that’s what street culture does at its core and that’s what Jun Takahashi does with Undercover. The street as a metaphor brings an energy and thought process to a more or less commercialized culture, until the mainstream eventually appropriates it and in turn makes it commercial. Which is what happened to hip hop in the mid 90s by white suburban kids like myself, and what hipsters have done to New York in the last 5-10 years. I used to listen to Wu-Tang Clan in math class, while going to a top-notch private school. Its funny how fast street culture expands through a society, from the origin to the suburbs…

DT: Is this really the role of fashion though? To discuss political and social issues, or is fashion really just about clothing and style, and you are choosing to bring it to another place for your own personal reasons? You studied political science before getting your MFA, can your background have something to do with this desire to stimulate the mind first?

EMH: I absolutely feel that it is the role of fashion to not just create luxury goods but to help educate the populace through alternative thought, and I don’t think I am alone in sharing this opinion. Read any interview with Hussein Chalayan, or look at how LVMH is trying to attach itself to social institutions like the MoMA. My educational background undoubtedly comes forth into my image making, but I also think the fashion designers I choose to work with are also very overtly political in their work. Rei Kawakubo is arguably one of the most radical feminist designers we have seen since the 1980s, like Louis Bourgeois, altered the shape of the woman’s body. Ann Demeulemeester, who has become a dear friend of mine, is one of the smartest designers I have met by rejecting fashion altogether and creating her own insular world that is constantly evolving as our world does, but according to her own understanding of time. I think that we have reached a period where the element of money has become the central focus in fashion, and its very scary to me. Its scary to pick up a fashion magazine today and see a litany of thoughtless spreads created by photographers and stylists who aren’t truly realizing the power they have to make something thought provoking, and instead are imitating their surroundings. I think people should want to alter the norm, or want to make a statement of some sort, even if it is as simple as attempting to create the most beautiful image ever made- which in it self can be a very powerful political statement. Instead we discuss who is paying for the spread, and how to appease an advertiser who wants the same look as their competitor. And that is very frustrating.

DT: To play the devil’s advocate though, isn’t that what fashion is at its core? We’re in the business of selling a product.

EMH: Yes we are, and in Art it’s also about selling a product too. A painting or a sculpture are also commercial products, but there are ways to create that can stimulate minds and conversation, and there are ways to do it where we are just filling pages with catalog imagery and the latter is too often what we are settling with. There is inarguably an establishment of photographers and art directors accounting for 90 percent of what we consume visually in fashion today, we all know their names- they are celebrities. From them we see the same aesthetic formulas time after time: furthering this sort of inverted hipster-utopian American Apparel culture. They are essentially sending the message to emerging photographers that in order to be successful you have to find your recognizable formula and never stray from it. Just look at the obvious examples of Terry Richardson or Juergen Teller, I feel silly even bringing them up because its so mind numbing. It assumes people are stupid and by feeding them mindless snap shot imagery we can all be like the person in the photograph, or are on an equal playing field with the photographer. To take it one step further, the current mindset assumes photography itself is pretentious unless it’s immediately accessible with a point and shoot and a flash. My argument is that we are now perpetuating a culture where standards have become inverted, where serious artists are now looked at as pretentious, or worse, not even discussed. Instead street artists from the LES are put on the front of magazines around the world, and they aren’t Basquiat- or anywhere close. How is someone like Dash Snow immortalized by the fashion world, instead of an actual great artist like Gerhard Richter or Anselm Kiefer who have proven themselves over decades? Lastly, I don’t think it’s enough for those photographers who we do see publishing constantly in the magazines to become comfortable and formulaic in repeating the same image over and over until we can’t take it anymore. I speak for everyone when I say that if I see another 30 page Juergen Teller spread that looks exactly like everything else he has ever produced, I’m going to throw the towel in. The thing is I actually like some of his work. Juergen has produced some iconic images, but at this point you wonder if he is capable of doing anything interesting, or if we’re forever burdened with the same image….

(To read part II, click here.)

Nomenus Quarterly #10 is launched online on September 1st, 2010.
http://www.nomenusquarterly.com

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Francesco Bonami is the artistic director of Pitti Immagine and senior curator at large of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. On the occasion of Pitti Woman Nº6, he offered this insightful, elegant prose to preface Haider Ackermann’s carnet de voyage, the inspiration journal created for A Carte Blanche called ‘Opium’.

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Forget about me – The candle’s been snuffed.

The Emperor, the mesmerizing book by Ryszard Kapuscinski on the last days of Ethiopia’s last Emperor Hailie Selassie begins with those words borrowed from a Gypsy tango. Like a candle the old Emperor has been ‘snuffed’ from History. The writer describes the sounds of footsteps echoing in the empty palace. The Emperor abandoned by everybody – alone. Power deprived of the powerless, it’s like an empty barrel.

Haider Ackermann’s deserted Palazzo is romantic, mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. The abandoned building has been transformed into a ghostly place. Ackermann’s vision has the rhythm of a Gypsy tango and the sensual feeling of the hazy light of North Africa. A Fata Morgana, a mirage moving solitary within the walls of a Renaissance Palace. If you could imagine a person where the brain has been switched with the heart you could envision Haider Ackermann’s way of seeing, thinking, feeling. The heart is thinking. The brain is pounding. In Florence, the ghosts of Jean Genet, Hailie Sellassie and Arthur Rimbaud are getting together, surrounded by many Fata Morganas that float over the soft horizon of a liquid desert.

Haider Ackermann is celebrating the walk of shame of people whose days weighed over their nights. Again from The Emperor an image which mirrors Ackermann’s universe: “I see him now as he walks, stops, walks again, lifts his head upward as though absorbed in prayer. O God, save me from those who, crawling on their knees, hide a knife they would like to sink into my back. But how can God help? All the people surrounding the Emperor are just like that – on their knees, and with knives. It’s never comfortable on the summits. An icy wind always blows, and everyone crouches, watchful lest his neighbour hurl him down the precipice.”

A Palazzo that became a body. A Palazzo that felt like a person. The attic turned into a skull. The people moving inside like thoughts, nightmares, desires.
People wearing clthes, shedding their skins. Like in Fellini’s Roma women move like leaves, men standing like branches. Women and men with arms like fluttering wings – ready to fly somewhere else.
Another ride into another journey somewhere else. The Palazzo dreams of being a desert, the only architecture the dunes, decorated by a molding made of clouds.
Candles turning into stars. The steps become silent, no more echoing of the empty room. Emptiness starts filling the space. Silence searching for the shade.

Women moving into men. Men moving into women. Clothes like flags flapping into the wind. Nobody’s talking. Nobody’s pounding. Everybody’s feeling. Someone is walking in the Palazzo or is it just me, following myself?
Haider Ackermann sails up the river of fashion like the Marlowe of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, inside the jungle of moods, memories, tales and legends. Noises all around. THey could be lovers hiding, they could be insects crawling. Leaves, bushes, hair, sweat and breath, fog.
Darkness, and again the light of another candle ready to be snuffed, ready to be forgotten again.

© Pitti Immagine Discovery / Haider Ackermann

In apparent correspondence with the heavens above, last night Raf Simons presented his Spring Summer 2011 menswear collection for Jil Sander at Pitti Uomo Nº78, only minutes before pouring rain engulfed the Tuscan skies. High in the hills of Florence at the Villa Gamberaia, the defilé took place on manicured lawns amidst a maze of hedgerows, as a blazing sunset faded and coloured spotlights invaded the 14th century terraces.

As a throbbing electronic soundtrack hushed the audience, bright white lighting carved a route through the gardens and the first glowing silhouette marched down the runway in a bolt of polished nu-rave colour. From intense neon yellow and orange through to popping magenta, turquoise and cobalt blue, the palette injected the minimalist mens collection with a fresh and youthful energy, bouncing like a psychadelic trip across the verdant gardens.

Employing Raf’s technical prowess in outerwear construction and synthetic fabrics, the collection covered a gamut of contrasting tonal combinations in macintosh coats, suiting, knitwear and cuffed micro shorts. Blazers were given belted backs and striped day-glo details in the vein of Simons’ own Fall Winter 2010 collection, and rolled to the elbow layered with striped knitwear. A graphic floral story followed in last summers’ portrait prints, emblazoning crisp white short-sleeve shirting with shadowy digital flowers. The daywear story was supported by a more sombre procession of charcoal suiting – with trousers sitting high and slim, grounded with a round toe black brogue.

With the file of suiting silhouettes making the finale exit, the skies broke and rain took over. Reaching for red, white and black umbrellas (kindly provided in anticipation) everybody fled to the tented garden party awaiting, as the DJ decks began pumping under the able hands of Marcelo Burlon. Happily fed and watered at the buffet, guests wandered around the stunning gardens and through the villa, with the show and the lucky weather the hottest topic of the night.

Covering little new ground in silhouette or styling, the collection certainly won its praise with the progressive use of fearless colour in classic, crisp shapes. With aspects that harked to Raf’s earliest collections for Jil Sander coupled with a firm nod to the recent developments at his own label, Simons turned out a youthful, high-impact collection – a wearable, covetable concept that is sure to garner both editorial and commercial success.

To view the whole collection please click here.

American photographer Erik Madigan Heck has carved a sure path through the cultural spheres of art, fashion, and film in the past decade – having graduated Parsons School of Design and going on to found Nomenus Quarterly, a niche visual product that is part online magazine, part printed art project. His selective eye and accomplished technical prowess have seen him cross paths with many of the world’s greatest fashion designers, influential artists and institutions to produce the nine past editions of Nomenus.

In the lead up to his tenth magazine (released in September this year), we present these archive images from Nomenus Nº7, entitled “Ann Demeulemeester: Male Retrospective, 1996-2009″. This selection of his stunning black & white photographs is chosen from a wider portfolio that will be exhibited in collaboration with Ann Demeulemeester in Antwerp this year.

Erik’s photographs capture the brooding quality of Ann’s menswear coupled with an unbridled youthful spirit. The bright, sunny images were shot in Mourning Park, New York, and break traditional barriers of fashion imagery, with liberal use of movement, unconventional framing and an inate human connection with the subjects. Styled by Emily Barnes, the models wear a mix of garments from across the Demeulemeester archive – with dramatic woolen capes and jackets, long white shirting, heavy leather boots and a myriad of hats, scarves and other subtly embellished accessories.

Erik Madigan Heck will be shooting Super 8mm film to document Haider Ackermann’s Pitti Immagine event in Florence this week, exclusively for Style.com and for a special feature in Nomenus Quarterly Nº10. Keep reading as A BLOG catches up with Erik shortly to discuss his photography, his magazine and inspiring beauty.

All photographs: Erik Madigan Heck
Styling: Emily Barnes @ See Management
Additional styling: Jesper Gudbersgen
Make-Up: Yuka Washizu @ Joe Management
Hair: Wesley O’Meara @ The Wall Group
Models: Marcel, Stas, Ian Denig, and Scott Weidman @ DNA Models. Ariel Collins, Matthew Krause, Julius and Tripp Dixon @ Next Models. Ludwig P, Ramon and Yuri @ Request Models.

“We’re searching for the man behind the Ackermann woman. It’s just a start.”

The emotional oeuvre of his womenswear will truly be a difficult act to follow, but this is the next challenge taken by A#3′s Haider Ackermann, who will present his very first menswear silhouettes at Pitti Immagine in June.

As the womenswear guest of Pitti Immagine, Haider will primarily show his pre Spring 2011 womens collection, but has chosen to create a small selection of mens pieces to complement this landmark occasion outside of Paris fashion week.

Pitti released the statement below as a preview to the ideals behind his new work:

“Between force and fragility, between masculinity and femininity, the Ackermann women, with a distant gesture speaks about beauty, about melancholy, about wandering, about escaping a certain nostalgia…
about love… for men whose gesture are as « lointain », élégant, masculine, illusive, decadent, reserved, debauched…
his heart on the run… Carte blanche, named « opium ».”

Haider’s event for Pitti Immagine will be held on June 16th at the late-Baroque Palazzo Corsini in Florence, Italy. Please keep reading for more updates.

Above image: Portrait by Johan Sandberg for Purple Fashion Spring Summer 2006.

A is proud to announce that the next occasion of Pitti Immagine in Florence, Italy will play host to two of our most esteemed collaborators as the guest designers for the mens and womens collections showings.

As the 78th edition of Pitti Uomo, the designer who will present their spring summer 2011 mens collection is Raf Simons for Jil Sander. Having shown his ten year retrospective in 2005 at Pitti, Raf returns at the helm of Jil Sander. In the words of Pitti director Lapo Cianchi:

“for us, having seen his recent work for Jil Sander, we are again – or rather still – fascinated by his extraordinary ability to be in step with the times”.

As the 6th edition of Pitti W, presenting his pre-spring 2011 collection will be none other than A#3′s curator Haider Ackermann.

“We have been tracking Haider Ackermann since his first shows in Paris and now that his poetic, his visionary talent and his feeling for memory have come together with increasing dramatic and seductive force, we decided that the time has come to offer him a different stage – our stage where he can feel free to continue his personal story or perhaps even be inspired to experiment with something new. We too are very curious”.

The next Pitti Immagine takes place in Florence between the 15th and 18th of June 2010, and is an international fashion trade fair. At its highest level, Pitti provides a new and exciting stage for fashion designers to explore different mediums and a new environment to express their vision and reach a new audience through creatively focused fashion events.

Click here to see our previous coverage of their unique work, with last year’s UNDERCOVER and Proenza Schouler events.

Two of the 20th century’s contemporary masters of fashion sit side by side, their dark reflections mirrored on a glass table. Both choose black to shade their worlds with an intellectual and very human beauty – taking fabric to tell their culturally obtuse yet equally poetic stories. From the West comes Tunisian-born Azzedine Alaïa, whose dramatically body-conscious and skintight garments sculpt the feminine form – and from the East, Japanese-born Yohji Yamamoto, with a philosophy that celebrates the “air between the skin and the garment”. Benoit Peverelli captures their moment in film, while Laurence Benaïm, Creator and Director of Stiletto Magazine, talks to the two men on the eve of exciting projects – Yohji’s Pitti Immagine exhibition and Azzedine’s Marc Newson-designed shoe boutique opening in Paris. Here are some selected quotes from their talk:

THE BIG ART

Yohji Yamamoto: I prefer to show the hidden body. I’m a man but I think that what is on the inside is sexiest. If this season I have suggested a symbolic body by using pleats and tucks to indicate the figure, the bosom, the side, the back, it is because I don’t like to show the body ostentatiously. I prefer to dream.

Azzedine Alaïa: People pay more and more attention to themselves, to what they eat. The more interesting the body becomes, the closer I get to the skin.

WINTER FLOWERS

YY: Azzedine Alaïa has always tried to preserve the pleasure in his creations. It’s his priority. I admire his pride and his freedom.

AA: Yohji Yamamoto’s clothes, even when voluminous and floating, still define the body. THrough the work we are united by something unique, something which goes further than time, than our encounters. The mutual respect has become a friendship. It’s an alliance of presence.

RED PASSION

YY: Red isn’t a colour, it’s a light.

AA: There are red reds, violet reds. Red is another black. I never get bored of it.

THE FUTURE SOFTLY

YY: With my eyes turned to the past, I walk backwards into the future.

AA: Every morning I ask myself:”What will I learn today?”. I don’t make plans. I live by the day. I’m in good shape or I’m not.

FOREVER LOVE

YY: I like everything that is big in love. Even the excess.

AA: When I love, I embrace, I touch, I pinch.