NFL & Bloomingdales Join Forces with CFDA

This story courtesy of We Heart The outlandish headgear is the result of a collaboration between the NFL, New York department store Bloomingdale’s and 48 members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA). Each member has designed a helmet for a special auction in aid of the NFL Foundation, a non-profit which does all sorts of great youth and community work. The auction is now open and runs until 4 February, and you can bid on all the lots, including the hardcore helmet of Richard Chai, the cuddlier Loomstate lid, or the homage to New York from Bloomingdale’s themselves, through the NFL auction site. Bidding starts at $248, but expect to have to put your hand much deeper in your pockets to score one of these unique items.
@Bloomingdales
@nfl
@CFDA

Karl Lagerfeld Trainers

The interest stirred up at the Chanel couture show was all about the footwear!  Karl showed trainers with EVERYTHING - and didn't they look great!  Sadly, the trainers come as part and parcel of the couture outfit and are not available for purchase on their own.  Mean or what ......

Chinese Phenomenon Zeng Fanzhi

Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi, is a graduate of the Hubei Academy of Fine Arts and enjoys an obsession for calligraphy. After a work from his Masks series sold for a (Asian contemporary art) record $9.7 millions dollars at a Christie’s auction in 2008,  Zeng became an international star. Zeng uses one brush to studiously paint his subject on the canvas while the other destroys it with a frenzy of linear strokes ...

Amazing Image to Celebrate the New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Moonrise in New Zealand by photographer Mark Gee

Kahlo and Rivera Together Again in Paris ....

Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera “L’Art en fusion”, an exhibition at the Musee de l’Orangerie, Paris devoted to the legendary couple.  The event confirms the couple’s ‘togetherness’.  After a divorce in 1938 they were reunited one year later.   A number of canvases are being  shown in France for the first time.  Exhibition finishes on the 13^th January.

An American in Paris (almost) Christmas Card ..

American artist Billie Jean Spille's signature style Christmas tree ....

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM ALL AT THE FASHION BLOGGERS ...

Stunning Invisible Cyclists Helmet

We cyclists are  increasingly nervous about cycling in the city.  We're also conscious of arriving at our destinations with our hair plastered to our heads when a normal helmet is worn.  Now there is a stylish solution ....
Hövding is the result of an intensive research and development process that started in 2005. Throughout the years the company has developed a unique expertise in airbag helmet technology. Thousands of cycling accidents were re-enacted and compared to hundreds of hours of normal cycling with Hövding.
The unique airbag was developed in collaboration with airbag manufacturer Alva Sweden and extensive testing has been carried out to ensure the airbag provides the protection required. The development work around Hövding has resulted in a number of globally patented solutions.  www.Hovding.com to view the video. (Story courtesy of www.luxuryculture.com)

The Importance of Being Galliano ...

Galliano is creating the wardrobe for Stephen Fry's production of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest to be staged in London next year.  One of our favourite and funniest stage plays we are delighted it will also feature one of the Bloggers favourite and most creative designers.  We have always felt that Galliano was better suited to the stage ....  We're looking for tickets now!

Yayoi Kusama and George Clooney Join Forces for W

W magazine's cover sees the Hollywood heartthrob wearing an Armani suit and shoes as customised by the reclusive Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (one of our favourites), renowned for her obsession with dots. But before you think that the connection is completely random, just as with Kusama herself, there is indeed method in the spotty madness - GC was promoting his new movie The Monuments Men .

Yayoi Kusama: Self Obliteration

Japan’s Polka-Dot Pioneer on a Life at the Mercy of Her Art

“She says that if she doesn’t paint she wouldn’t exist,” says Martín Rietti of his latest subject, 84-year-old Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. “Her work has an authenticity that I don’t often see in contemporary art.” The Argentinian director visited Kusama at her studio in Tokyo ahead of her latest show that opens at the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, curated by Deputy Chief Curator of MALBA, Philip Larratt-Smith, and Francis Morris, who curated her retrospective.  See the video on:

http://www.nowness.com/day/2013/6/28?utm_source=EM&utm_medium=EMA&utm_campaign=EMA12052013

Aha! Imaginative Gifts from the States

For last minute Christmas gifts there is still time to visit our favourite American 'gift' emporium for witty and imaginative items at prices to suit all purses.  We love this mat but not certain it would have the effect intended! www.aha.com

Japanese Sex at the British Museum

Tue Dec 4 2012

You’ll need to choose your companion carefully before heading off to the British Museum’s latest show. You’re obliged to leave the kids at home (the exhibition has an over-16s age restriction), but you might also consider arriving without your grandma, new boyfriend or work colleague, for ‘Shunga’ promises to be one of the museum’s most socially awkward displays.
A sexually explicit feast of paintings, prints and illustration, the exhibition celebrates an erotically charged style known as ‘shunga’ or ‘spring pictures’. It was produced in Japan between 1600 and the mid-1800s, a time when the country was secluded from the rest of the world, and enjoying its own internal order and culture. It wasn’t seen as taboo (though it was notionally illegal for a time, and is certainly seen as distasteful in Japan now), nor was it designed to feed the imaginations of a particular sort of gent: it was created by celebrated artists and lapped up by men and women from all classes as art, not porn.
Seen together, the artworks offer a window into a culture that saw sex and sexuality in entirely different terms to polite European society, and the show itself demonstrates a brave move on the part of the British Museum, whose duty it is to explore the history of human culture, no matter how uncomfortable. So arrive with an open mind, and be prepared for ‘Shunga’s sometimes funny, sometimes tender, sometimes shocking (there are enlarged genitals, masturbation and even an amorous octopus involved at one point) works of pure art.www.britishmuseum.org  
Article courtesy of Time Out

Louis Vuitton's Trunk Show in Moscow!

LV's two story giant trunk in Moscow's Red Square, designed to house a Vuitton exhibition, is to be dismantled.  Locals and politicians complained about it obscuring the Kremlin and being too close to Lenin's grave.  Pity as it was a pretty eye catching stunt!

The Parisian luxury menswear brand Berluti is breathing new life into Tati’s universe: To mark the opening of its boutique store, the shop’s awnings bear the work of illustrator Sempé, collaborator on Tati’s original animated films; Berluti is also helping in the restoration of the star’s acting debut, Soigne ton Gauche. “What characterized his work is the attention to detail in each frame, costume and color,” says Mallez. “He had a sense of humor and tenderness. Everything was done with a craftsman’s approach.”

 Jacques Tati on Nowness

Marilyn stars in new Chanel No.5 Campaign - Move Over Brad!

http://www.luxuryculture.com/home.html?gotourl=LN/features/0001178/luxury-now/490_ln
We knew that Marily had said it but we had nevery actualy heard her say it.  Now for the first time we can hear Marilyn's teasing statement on how she sleeps in Chanel new ad campaign.  Sign in to Luxury Culture (link above) to hear the audio ...

Isabella Blow at Somerset House

THE wardrobe of Isabella Blow will go on display at Somerset House this week from November 20 , as part of a new exhibition. Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore! - in partnership with The Isabella Blow Foundation and Central Saint Martins - will feature 100 pieces from the style maverick's personal collection.
"The exhibition will be bittersweet," said friend and heiress Daphne Guinness, who bought Blow's wardrobe in its entirety at an auction in June 2010. "Showcasing her clothes is what she would have wanted."
The dedicated showcase is set to feature pieces by Alexander McQueen and Philip Treacy - including the headdress that the milliner designed for her wedding, Stylist reports.
Blow is known for having discovered some of fashion's most well-known names, including McQueen (whose entire graduate collection she bought for £5,000), Sophie Dahl and Stella Tennant. A fashion editor, consultant and muse, she was renowned for her bold, daring and extrovert style.

Schnabel Retrospective in Greenwich

The last major survey of Julian Schnabel’s work was in 1987 at the Whitney Museum in Manhattan. Peter Brant was already keen on the artist before then, but after the big show he began collecting him in earnest. Artist and Film Director Schnabel was first established as a star of the Soho art scene in the 80's.

Now The Brant Foundation Art Study Center  in Greenwich, Conn. USA, has organized what it bills as the first comprehensive exhibit of Schnabel’s work since then, comprised of close to 50 abstract and figurative paintings and sculptures stretching from the late Seventies to the present day, the majority of them, like “Accatone” (1978), from the Brants’ own collection.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts Female Photographers

She Who Tells a Story: A Window into the World of Female Photographers in the Middle East

The perception of Middle Eastern women by the rest of the world is challenged, dissected and put into context in an expansive new show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, featuring twelve leading female photographers from Iran and the Arab world. Curated by Kristen Gresh, “She Who Tells a Story” focuses largely on women photographers from Iran, chronicling the work of Jananne Al-Ani...   more...