Two Animation Sequences
+ The beautiful sequence depicting the tale of the Three Brothers in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1:
+ A surreal stop-motion sequence from Tarsem Singh’s The Fall:
Tags: animations, avant-garde, creepy, hauntingly beautiful, movie clips, surreal
Anouk Wipprecht: The Merging of Technology and Fashion
Anouk Wipprecht is a Dutch fashion designer who works in the emerging field of “fashionable technology,” defined by Sabine Seymour as “the intersection of fashion, design, science, and technology.” Anouk seeks to create a “higher state of connectivity between the body and our clothing,” a physical and psychological relationship wherein what we wear responds to us, and we are also affected by what we wear, producing something more than just the traditional function of coverture/adornment. What results is one-of-a-kind, architectural, avant-garde garments with bold silhouettes, vested with circuitry and a regalia of plastic tubes and the ability to respond in a unique and remarkable way to human bodies.
Picture via Coilhouse
The Birds, an installation piece inspired by the Hitchcock filmExamples of Anouk Wipprecht’s “wearable tech” include Fragilis, a dress that eerily mimics the function of the human heart and veins through motion and lighting (similar to the Heartbeat Dress, which conversely uses sound, recording the heartbeat of the model and relaying it to the audience through speakers embedded in the dress):
Daredroid, a dress that “combines pneumatic technology with open-source hardware and human temperament to provide you with a freshly made White Russian cocktail”:
And Intimacy (a project headed by Daan Roosegaarde), a set of garments that become more or less transparent and opaque in relation to their proximity to each other:
An interesting interview with Anouk can be read over on Fashioning Technology.
Tags: anatomical-themed, anouk wipprecht, avant-garde, bioart, biomechanical, fashiontech, fragility, futuristic, high fashion, wearable art, weird science projects, white
Fashion Fix
Photographed by Sam Hernandez
Model: VelocityI don’t particularly care for the background in this picture, but I love how it displays the leather corset and cowl/collar-piece by Antiseptic Fashion; it shows up all the details wonderfully, the tortured textures and sinuous shapes and asymmetrical lines, looking like hammered metal, some ungodly-beautiful combination of medieval armor and the modern avant-garde. Absolutely stunning designs in my opinion.
Found on the Tumblr circuits. I have no idea who the fashion designer is, or any of the other people involved, but I love this avant-garde, alien-warrior-like look.
Photographed by Katarzyna Widmanska
Makeup & hair: Marianna Jurkiewicz
Crown: Kasia Konieczka (previous post about her here)Tags: antiseptic fashion, asymmetrical clothing, avant-garde, conceptual fashion, corsetry, dark romantic, futuristic, haute couture, headdresses, high fashion, leather, military/warrior chic
Mandy Greer
from Zuster Sweostor Systir, 2010Mandy Greer creates impressive and intriguing installations/works of fashion art that have a gnarly and very intricate look, an effect that seems both ancient and synthetic, like overgrown crochet/knit flora and plant life, like an embodiment of folklore in a modern DIY aesthetic. She creates “mystically driven and darkly beautiful” worlds, the studied chaos of entanglements at once symbolic and material, and deals with motherhood, eroticism, human relations to nature, and mythology in her works. Impossible to exactly describe, take a look at the pictures below.
Tags: avant-garde, conceptual fashion, crochet, earthy, installation art, knitwork, mandy greer, modern fairy tales, mystical, mythos, nature, otherworldly, roq la rue, sinister arts and crafts, twins/doppelgangers/doubles, wearable art, witch-priestess
Twisted Kingdom: Otherworldly Costume Designs by Katarzyna Konieczka
Katarzyna Konieczka, sometimes known as Kasia Konieczka, makes the most incredible avant-garde costumes with a dark-conceptual bent. Encased in plastic, strapped into body-cages, wrapped in wire, and torturously beautiful, her costumes give off impressions of dark, twisted kingdoms, space-age worlds, daemonic sci-fi medical fetish suits, and labyrinthine strapped insane asylum couture.
Tags: alien beauty, asymmetrical clothing, avant-garde, corset lacing, corsets, fashion photography, headdresses, high fashion, insane asylum aesthetic, leather, medical-themed, post-apocalyptic
Alternative Hair Show 2010
This amazing image is from the Alternative Hair Show 2010, which took place on October 17 in London. See more looks after the cut.
Tags: avant-garde, hair, runway fashion
Una Burke’s Medical Armor
I’m probably the last person to blog about this since it’s made the blogosphere rounds, but I thought I would anyway, just for the record. This is Una Burke‘s “medical armor,” a conceptual collection of artwear inspired by prosthetic devices and medical braces and the process of healing from trauma, titled Re.Treat. The warrior-like body armor is reminiscent of medical corsetry, and also of wearing human flesh as a shield against psychological harm. The means of protection also become a means of entrapment, binding the body tightly. She cites a few of her influences as Hans Bellmer, Alexander McQueen, and Erwin Olaf. On her Website she states the pieces were made from “undyed vegetable-tanned leather which is reminiscent of Caucasian flesh” – I couldn’t help finding that last part a little funny.
Tags: avant-garde, collars, corsetry, erwin olaf, fetish, hans bellmer, historically inspired, medical braces, medical-themed, sinister arts and crafts, trauma, una burke
3 Style Icons
I guess they’re kind of a holy trinity for me.
What I admire about them is their ability to create an image for themselves, to forge and strike a visual identity from the inert mass that flares for a pretty near eternal instant.
Descriptor: Vintage VixenMmm, Dita. What I love about the burlesque queen is that she’s always impeccably dressed, and preserves the glamor of the Golden Age of Hollywood while putting her own twist on it. She has a very distinctive, consistent style, which is complete and cohesive. She goes for the elegant and glamorous side of retro rather than the kitschy. And she does it through and through. She doesn’t dress casually even to go to the supermarket. With her signature black curls, vividly red lips, and lily-white face, she can be dark, bold, vampish, yet she’s feminine, delicate, and always elegant. She infuses the more mundane, casual present with some of the fascinating and voluptuous glamor and the tightly-controlled, put-together beauty of the ’40s and ’50s. I think Dita is a perfect example of self-transformation and creating beauty through styling. Her retro look of wickedly defined, bright red lips, jet-black sculpted hair, and clear white skin, is an immortal classic. Dita’s book, Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese, is gorgeous and a lovely read.
Descriptor: Experimental EpidemicThe multitalented Destroyx AKA Amelia Arsenic, vocalist for industrial/alternative band Angelspit, is another one of my style heroines. Her blog, www.destroyx.com, is all kinds of goodness. Her ability to style and adorn herself absolutely blows my mind. She combines cyber, fetish, gothic, and retro looks with daring, elegance, and innovation, to create an edgy, sophisticated, and utterly unforgettable image. Even though she takes elements from so many different styles, I think that above all, her style is really only her own and one of a kind. I love the complexity, eclecticism, elaborate accessorizing, and layering that go into her outfits. She is a makeup guru. Her looks are bold, gorgeous, and original. She represents the pinnacle of achieving interesting effects through makeup and styling – becoming something more than just yourself visually. Angelspit’s got amazing visual design and aesthetics with her influence, and Destroyx and ZooG (the other member of Angelspit) make a powerful creative duo.
Descriptor: Wayward Victorian Girl/Insane Asylum InmateEmilie Autumn is a quirky solo musician who makes self-styled “Victoriandustrial” music. She has a lovely style all her own, which is a kind of bastardized-period, feminine, torn, tattered, wispy, layered, ribbony, very pink-themed goth look. Her hair is divine, a very beautiful shade of pink and/or red. Aside from the Victorian influences, there are fey influences and influences from the Elizabethan period, which show in her music as well. Her style is light, ethereal, and fairy-like, as well as grungier girl-punk with the requisite studded cuffs and tattered fishnets. Bloodstains, hearts, and teatime are recurring elements. Emilie has an incredible ability to create an image, and this can be seen in all the artwork, design, extra features, and images on her Opheliac album – a testament to her creativity and styling genius. She is charming, alluring, and promises to take you beyond the mundane, into a secret world of melodramatic madnesses, anachronisms, oppression, and trauma. Her whole aesthetic concept revolves around the “Asylum.” Her style is very coherent, but has lots of variety and potential. Her very basic and most replicable look is something like a tattered white tank top with a heart patch, or a tea-stained corset, with bloomers, red-and-white stripey stockings/asymmetrical legwear, and of course, her heart makeup.
Tags: 1940s, 1950s, avant-garde, destroyx, dita von teese, emilie autumn, insane asylum aesthetic, latex, retro, victorian, vintage
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