An Iridescent Pheasant

I have just learned of a bird called the Himalayan Monal. The male of the species sports stunningly beautiful iridescent feathers in saturated jewel colors. It is the national bird of Nepal, and state bird of Uttarakhand, India. Just looking at it mesmerizes me.

Photo by Ajit Hota

Photo by Dibyendu Ash

BEAUTY: Sculpture For Easter--Laurence Le Constant

Artist Laurence Le Constant (previously here) covers sculpted hares with antique paper and feathers giving the contours of their bodies new meaning. The results are charming but also hauntingly beautiful on a different level.

Top to bottom: Augustin; Charly; Coco; Henri; Leonard; Max; Tristan; Voyou

https://www.laurenceleconstant.com/

Wreaths 2019

An expression of the season...

BEAUTY: Art For Halloween--Laurence Le Constant

French artist Laurence Le Constant was trained as a sequins designer and worked for prestigious haute couture workshops like Chanel, Dior, Emmanuel Ungaro, and Prada when she branched out and started working with feathers. After her grandmother died in 2010, she made a work of feathers on a resin skull as a tribute. She continued making these feathered skulls for other female family members, friends, and women at large who have passed on.

Her website says:
"In the series MY LOVELY BONES, the artist becomes an archaeologist of memory. First-named MICHELINE, TINA and MARIA, her vanitas are portraits of prominent women from near and far, echoing her personal genealogy. Each piece is unique and requires hundreds of hours of work. The carefully selected feathers, are glued one by one on a resin base. Halfway between funerary outsider art and haute couture, the artist sculpts feather like one would weave a cocoon. Incantatory gestures, hypnotic technique, behind the symbols loaded with anxiety, she tries to ward off oblivion."

Le Constant gets her feathers from animals farmed for the food industry in Europe and never uses feathers from protected or endangered birds.

Top to bottom: Caroline; Clarissa; Coline; Colombe; Desiree; Estella; Frida; Genevieve; Janice; Mirella

https://www.laurenceleconstant.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Misc. Paris Fashion Week SS '16

Fashion season is over. There were some interesting shows in London, Milan, and Paris, but overall the season as a whole felt a bit lackluster. Too many collections shown were just versions of hip-hop, streetwear, or basketball clothing. Ho hum.

Here are some miscellaneous details from Paris Fashion Week.

At Haider Ackermann it was all about the waist with obi-like sashes and high-riding belts worn on the outside of jackets. Of course Thom Browne trumped this with his literal geisha outfits seen here!

In an interesting Hundredth Monkey moment, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli at Valentino showed the kind of sateen Japanese tour jackets GIs brought back from Asia after WWII...just as we saw Kim Jones do at Vuitton here!

AND Christian Dada designer Masanori Morikawa decided to show the exact same detail--embroidered tigers and cranes along with the flags of Japan and Korea--on sateen jackets as well as leather motorcycle jackets...the collection was inspired by Marlon Brando in "The Wild One." These elements showed up on shirts and trousers too!

Perhaps the most startling shoe of the season came from this Christian Dada collection: are you sitting down? A FEATHERED ENGINEER BOOT! The classic motorcycle boot is here covered with guinea fowl, and multicolored feathers...as well as an all-black version. It IS a black leather motorcycle boot, after all...

And before we leave the 50s Asian souvenir jacket motif, Saint Laurent slipped one in during a collection of grunge-glam-rock based on Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love...

...as did Masaharuyashiro with embroidered palm trees, a wolf head and various crests.

Kolor showed a whimsical shoe: a mash-up of a hiking boot and a sandal! Love it! (It shares thematic territory with Balmain's lace-up desert boot, seen here.)

Finally, Julien David showed a whimsical idea that coincidentally crossed my mind the other day. I was trying to think of something new for a collection or a fabric, and as I took a shirt out of my closet, disappointed at some wrinkles it accrued while hanging, I realized that a way to avoid such disappointment is to pre-wrinkle the fabric. Go for it, do it up good. Wrinkle the hell out of it. That way, no one will see "wrinkles." David used a wool suiting material that was forcibly wrinkled twice to make sure it retains its form!

http://www.haiderackermann.be/
http://www.valentino.com/
http://www.christiandada.jp/
http://www.ysl.com/
http://www.miharayasuhiro.jp/
http://kolor.jp/
http://juliendavid.com/

We now return to our regularly scheduled program...

BEAUTY: Sculpture--Kate MccGwire

The disquieting work of Londoner Kate MccGwire gets its power from the material she uses: feathers. Referencing serpents and feathers as scales (birds are descended from reptiles), her hypnotizing, often site specific work evokes images of strange undulating creatures, water, bodily functions, and the penis.


Top to bottom: Evacuate; Evacuate detail; Evacuate detail; Slick; Lure; Warp; Corvid; Discharge

http://www.katemccgwire.com/

BEAUTY: Mixed Media Art--Ronald Cueppens

Belgian graphic artist Ronald Cueppens uses many different materials to create his evocative assemblages including fabric, leather, thread, paper, feathers, wood, and ceramic.


Top to bottom: Appelpitjes Gegeten II; Bloedneus; Dream Child I; Entre-nous; Extra Hearts

http://www.ronaldceuppens.be/