Fashion forerunners have recently taken the Margiela route- ditching traditional modes of showing collections in favour of something more imaginative.
Last week in London Calvin Klein became the latest label to dip a toe outside the fashion pond. Collaborating with Turner prize-winning London artist Martin Creed, CK aired their SS08 collection in a cavernous World War 2 bunker set to a symphony orchestra playing dramatic outbursts as a serene parade of models in Calvin Klein circled the stage in time to the thunderous drumming.
Creed masterminded the entire arrangement, choreography, ‘music’ and lighting, bringing the collections to life in a stripped back and surreal spectacular.
Meanwhile at Design Art London, David Lynch and the shoe designer Christian Louboutin, both absolute masters of their medium, demonstrated an affinity for erotic fetishisation. Lynch, in his signature sinister style, photographed curvy ladies wearing only Louboutin's famed red-soled heels. Not exactly wearable, I doubt we'll see Carri Bradshaw strutting down Broadway in these any time soon.

Venice Biennale - one complaint, two words- Video Installation.
Too many home videos, not enough concept, no cinematography.
Okay, I get it: an artist is neither a director nor a cinematographer. But that should not mean that his “work” should not be either beautiful, conceptual/inspiring/thought provoking/ challenging, or all of the above.
An excessive amount of video art, more specifically, an excessive amount born from an uninspired womb, left me thinking I had seen commercials more Art than some of the installations screened at the Biennale.
I found it difficult engaging in a 20-30 minute video installation when you were running on a (limited) 8 hour day, and two full days’ pavilions. I felt I was continuously scratching the surface of a film clip I did not have the immediate leisure to watch.
Bearing all this critique in mind, “Seven Intellectuals In Bamboo Forest”, by Yang Fudong, was a beautifully shot biopic, of 7 Japanese students set in five different parts. Silently enchanting, it still proved itself too long to watch the full-length clips - which I intend to seek out post Biennale.
Ciao, Arrribaderchii Venice.

WORDS BY ANGIE LAWSON

They may have been sporting crop t's and cutesy Jap hairclips, but something snapped in frustrated gals of late-80s American suburbia which made them grab geetars and take to the stage, venting all that pent up creativity in true punk style. Hello Kitty! never looked so fierce.
Last night was the launch of Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now!, a book which documents the feminist punk movement, which ripped out of Washington and across the world in the early 1990s, and contains a foreword by one of today’s most fabulous and outspoken feminist muso's, the Gossip’s Beth Ditto.
Wet Dog and Valerie played, plus none other than our own Macromantics !
Known as an innovative hip-hop diva with her own spin on diction and a wiley sense for wordsmithing, Melbourne girl Macromantics (aka Romy Hoffman) started out playing in Noise Addict with Ben Lee at the tender age of 15, and is now signed to riot grrrl stalwarts Kill Rock Stars, birthplace of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill.
All proceeds from the event went to Ladyfest London.

Muqliza Imroni aka Lisza lives in Jakarta Indonesia and is heading up a new wave of young edgy and talented designers and illustrators from the captial. Her kooky square head figures featured in the Curvy book this year and here's what she say about the-
"Once upon a time up in my head, there was this neighbourhood called "Squared and Disfigured" where all the neighbours are a little too obssesed with fashion that their clothes are worth more than themselves, so they all made a solemn promise which says "a good eye is the only thing you need when it comes to style". Super cute!
Also check out Lisza's jewellery line here.

I could not have more praise for Louise Bourgeois and her macabre mathematical mind. There is precision, obsession, distraction, in her art. Certainly, she knows exactly what she’s doing. The work she produces is a calculated representation of her past, her present, her pains. The beauty, of these pieces, is overwhelming.
The enormity of her suffering, understood though it is, has surely only been eased (suppressed) by creating works that require dedication and calculation to match or surpass a pain accepted, but not yet subsided?

Embroidering chance, and found objects, into absolute intention to sculpt unquestionable inspiration to us civilianoids, Louise Bourgeois is a scientist of emotion, and material.

I, myself, was moved eventually to tears by a bronzed piece ‘Spiral Woman’. No explanation, just a something that triggered another something inside of me – maybe related to a something in my past that’s something I haven’t dealt with, hmm...err. Ah, a little suffering never hurt anyone.

Words by Angie Lawson

www.liz-adams.com

I'd gathered that fashion doyenne Karl Largerfeld was eccentric, purely from his extreme appearance. But the full breadth of his quirk, which encompasses a huge intellect and addiction to work, was revealed by Rudolph Marconi's recent documentary.
An incredibly intimate nosey into the designers life, it captures his insomniac working method, views on art and loneliness and often hilarious, often acidic pearls of wisdom. Always immaculately groomed, he squelches around stiffly in tight pants and heavy leather boots, fingers stacked with chunky silver rings (about 5 per finger), surrounded by people on phones he declares, "People who spend time talking on mobile phones in turbulent times are sexual freelancers." Often mentions his German mother who spoilt him as a child, "like a male Shirley Temple," she was very bossy and once told him "You're six years old, make an effort or shut up." An attitude reflected in Karl, particularly when the filmmaker asks him if he ever gets lonely, fumbling to question him about sexual partners, Karl shoots back "Spit it out or change the subject", then says grandely "I strive for solitude."
We see him as master of ceremonies, playing host in his self- designed modernist home, snapping Nicole Kidman alone in a room at a Chanel party, playing Mugato with a blonde Zoolander male model and witness his unwillingnes to fly without the pillow he's had since a small child. An intriguing character, this insight into a razor sharp-wit ultimately left me really liking Lagerfeld, kook and all.