BEAUTY: Set Design--Louis Vuitton

And here we are starting Paris Fashion Week and what a way to make a splash .. literally. For their Spring Summer '27 surfer-inspired collection (which I am not showing because, frankly, it is not that motivating to me), Louis Vuitton created a jaw-dropping set of an enormous breaking wave, consisting of real water cascading down a structure into two pools. The runway and showspace floor was completely covered in soft sand. Wow...

https://us.louisvuitton.com/

BEAUTY: Clothing--Misc. Milano Moda Uomo

Milano Moda Uomo closed yesterday, and there were some pleasant Fall-Winter '24-'25 collections. Here are a few little details from collections I did not write about but I just couldn't let pass by...

Fendi did not have a theme and Silvia Venturini Fendi proclaimed no need for one--"A collection is a collection, period," she said emphatically--but one can see a certain English rural landscape dressing emerge. Among the protective outerwear were some great skirts.

Over at the Fondazione Prada, it was the set that caught my attention. The collection for FW '24-'25 from Mrs. Prada and Raf Simons apparently was a comment about how the business world creates an atmosphere that is prison-like and keeps people away from the natural world (well...yeah). Models first walked through a maze of spartan cubicles to emerge into the runway area which was created to float three feet over an actual meandering stream and grasses, on glass plates. Audience members watched from uncomfortable office chairs while mist hung in the air. What a feat of engineering to create a complete interior meadow encased in glass.

And finally, Dhruv Kapoor created a pretty cool chunky, lug soled shoe that was both a lace-up and a belted buckle!

https://www.fendi.com/
https://www.prada.com/
https://dhruvkapoor.com/

"Techtopia" by BOSS

Presented last week at Milan's Allianz MiCo conference center, the BOSS FW '-23-'24 show was a jaw-dropping spectacle of set design. Sophia the Robot, created by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, greeted audience members as they arrived at the reception area of what BOSS calls their Techtopia, "a vision of the workplace of tomorrow, where game-changing technologies are combined with lush green spaces." Audience members sat at desks with Sophia while the models navigated the layout of the space. Maybe I have simply seen too many sci-fi films but this seemed much more DYS-topian than U-topian. There is something eerie about the five pods scattered around the presentation space that housed a man doing yoga, the BOSS synth-lab for manufacturing fragrances, a VR pod of people reclining in chairs engaged in an unseen digital reality, and two meeting rooms filled with floating plants on a conference table. The bright, clinical lighting is harsh and unrelenting. The entire scene is absolutely worthy of a sci-fi film (it feels a bit like "THX1138") and carries an undercurrent of dread... but the clothes are lovely! While not of the experimental nature of some of my favorite designers, current head of BOSS Marco Falcioni created a collection that Vogue journalist Luke Leitch called "an almost anthropological and at times surreal excavation of the tradition of 'executive dress' at a social moment where Lazy Girl Jobs are trending and 'Working Girl' [the 1988 film] feels like a historical document." Please do take a moment to watch the show below, and marvel at the stage design on the show.

https://www.hugoboss.com/

BEAUTY: Installation--Simon Birch

Hong Kong-based artist Simon Birch has opened a massive art gallery-installation space in Los Angeles called The 14th Factory in collaboration with a host of other artists.

"The 14th Factory is a monumental, multiple-media art installation that will transform an empty industrial warehouse near downtown Los Angeles into a mythic universe created collaboratively through video, installation, sculpture, sound, paintings, and live performance. The 14th Factory weaves together elements of popular culture–science fiction, punk music, graphic novels, and film–with critical re-examinations of social and historical narratives, especially interconnections between East and West. Conceived by Hong Kong-based British artist Simon Birch, the vision of The 14th Factory is to create a new, independent paradigm for socially-engaged art, a kind of guerilla action where art occupies and re-energizes underutilized or even derelict urban spaces and gifts them back to the community in the form of a transformative experience.

Throughout its run, the project will feature collaborative works by a global community of interdisciplinary artists representing Greater China, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Entering The 14th Factory, the visitor becomes a central player in a contemporary hero’s journey, leaving the ordinary world behind and setting out on a voyage of adventure and, ultimately, of transformation. Along the way, the journeyer gathers allies, encounters obstacles and battles adversaries, until reaching the challenge and the ultimate prize: A gift that can be passed on to all."

Birch collaborated with Paul Kember of KPlusK, an architectural firm in Hong Kong to create The Barmecide Feast, an immersive replica of the last set seen in Kubrick's masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey," complete with underlit floor. Coincidentally, Kember's uncle and great-uncle both worked on the original Kubrick set!

http://the14thfactory.com/
http://www.simon-birch.com/
http://www.kplusk.net/contact.html

"Before The Dawn" at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Regular readers know that I was lucky enough to land tickets to see legendary Kate Bush's instantly-sold-out show "Before The Dawn" last year in London--I saw the show late in its run, in September, 2014 and reviewed it here.

And now, as part of an exhibit entitled "Make/Believe," some costumes and model set designs for her show are on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London until January 3rd, 2016. Take a look at the photos below, via Kate Bush News, of the exhibit followed by photos of the actual sets.

Photo: Ken McKay/REX

Photo: Ken McKay/REX

Photo: Ken McKay/REX

http://www.vam.ac.uk/whatson/event/4414/makebelieve-uk-design-for-performance-2011-2015-222474108/