These accessories/art pieces by Ukrainian fashion designer Konstantin Kofta are inventive, exquisitely manipulated, eerie, and tactile. The entire lookbook for the collection Hug can be viewed on Kofta’s Website.

Konstantin Kofta believes that the perfect is hidden in the sacramental places away from an ordinary vision littered by common standards. [He] strives to fuse unusual components to achieve distinctions that add to the person’s lifestyle rather than just to the wardrobe.

{Body has been one of the most prominent subject matters in the history of visual culture. We try to make sense of reality largely through our physical existence – the body. Yet, though our psyche resides in flesh, it can never be in complete control of this mysterious vehicle, with its perpetual transformation of tissues and cells; viruses and bacteria.}

Alice Auaa‘s entrancing autumn/winter 2013 ready-to-wear collection, which showed at Tokyo Fashion Week, contains more than a little hint of the macabre, Gothic, and Victorian mourning. Featuring gorgeous, dark, structural coats and romantic dresses, this collection abounds in ruffles and cobweb-like threads, as well as apocalyptic distressing, and is strikingly mysterious and sinister in its feel.

Pictures via Fashionising

Also check out a few other intriguing images from the show on Twisted Lamb.

I was also blown away by Alice Auaa’s mad Alice in Wonderland spring/summer 2013 collection.

Opening on May 10, Strychnin Gallery in Berlin will feature a group show, Kingdoms of Twilight and Magic, focusing on the enchanting and often breathtakingly detailed art of doll-making, including the work of Marina Bychkova and Elena & Ekaterina Popovy, as well as that of visual artists.

To the Center Within (I)
{A collaboration of Eden Nova and Asha Beta}

“Stereo Leg” and “Crystallized Leg”, pictured above, are two stunning creations from the Alternative Limb Project, which designs beautiful custom artificial limbs that are as much fashion/art statement as prosthesis.

Musician and model Viktoria Modesta Moskalova, who commissioned the pieces, says in her statement:
“It was really fascinating watching people’s reactions because most of them were speechless. Some had never stood next to a person with a prosthetic limb and the ideas they might have of what an amputee might look or act like is, in most cases, negative. So when they do clock my appearance and then see the leg, it is very challenging for them. Most importantly, when the limb is attached and I’m walking with it in my full composure, it has a power that is beyond something that can be described. I think I have dealt with people’s responses pretty well, as they have been incredibly positive even if they were initially shocked. It’s a special piece that needs to be exposed only in special circumstances to be fully appreciated, meaning on stage, on film or as part of an art installation.”

>Hikari Shimoda’s Website
Hikari Shimoda on Tumblr<

Previous post on Hikari Shimoda here.

The first three images are a series called Whereabouts of God. The images depicting children in superhero costumes were part of a solo show, In a World of Dead Gods, which exhibited at the Artcomplex Center of Tokyo in December of last year. Her statement for the exhibition is this:

“A catastrophic earthquake hit Japan on March 11, 2011. Not only did this earthquake kill many people, but it has also called attention to a nuclear power plant explosion without precedence. This horrible tragedy occurred as a result of this society’s reliance on nuclear energy. Responsibility for this has thus been transferred from the adults to their children. Those who are born into this world are instantaneously burdened by an atrocity of whole-world magnitude. They are also required to save it. We must now face a new reality in order to live in this world. Through images of children wearing such costumes as those of Superman or Sailor Moon, I am expressing indirectly problems that the world now faces.”

These disturbing and uncannily lifelike sculptures by Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere are incredibly visceral and eerie. The repulsion instinctively triggered in the viewer comes from their verisimilitude, and the sense of reality of this nameless, grotesque, distorted, half-human, seemingly fluid flesh; combined with their beauty, the delicate, subtle mottling of colors, the pure realistic visceral fleshiness of the works, and their technical grace.

As De Bruyckere says: “It is not because you never see a head that it looks like it has been cut off. It is, rather, that I no longer think the presence of a head is necessary. The figure as a whole is a mental state. The presence or absence of a head is irrelevant.”

Noir et Blanc
Publication: Vogue Korea, January 2013
Photographer: Lee Gun Ho
Models: Ji Hye Park & Kim Sung Hee
Stylist: Lee Ji Ah
Hair: Han Ji Sun
Makeup: Park Hye Ryung
Set styling: Da Rak