From the National Film Board of Canada to Google, we are seeing an unprecedented push into interactive, non-linear animated storytelling. Now another deep-pocketed player has entered the fray: Facebook’s Oculus Rift.
Oculus formally launched its in-house Story Studio division last month at the Sundance Film Festival. The production studio will explore non-linear and augmented reality storytelling concepts made possible by Oculus’s virtual reality headset, which will become publicly available later this year. Reports from Sundance suggest that the Rift experience is very unique and provides the most immersive animated experience yet.
“Bullfighter” is an upcoming Story Studio project written and directed by Alberto Mielgo.
Taking a cue from Google, which called upon former Pixar director Jan Pinkava to serve as creative director of their Spotlight Stories group, Oculus has hired another Pixar alum Saschka Unseld () to be the creative director of Story Studio. Other Pixar veterans have also been brought aboard including Max Planck, who serves as supervising technical director, and animator Ramiro Lopez Dau who is overseeing the animation for some of the films as well as directing a project of his own called
The Oculus Story Studio team is headed by software developer Edward Saatchi and currently consists of around ten people. The group plans to produce five films this year, and “with each one we want to explore and learn something about storytelling in VR,” says Unseld. “With it’s magic and wonder, with it’s comedy and empathy, with it’s truly feeling presence in a scary situation of being in a bullfighting arena, and with it’s how would it feel like if we could be inside of an illustration.”
“Lost,” the first Oculus Story Studio project was debuted last month at Sundance. (Click to enlarge.)
Story Studio has pledged to make their research open-source so other creators can benefit when they create their own VR film projects in this burgeoning field. To lend more Hollywood credibility to the endeavor, in addition to the Pixar hires Oculus has also announced that director Rob Stromberg will direct one of their upcoming shorts. Other creative figures involved are illustrator Jillian Tamaki, who is co-directing with Unseld, and art director Alberto Mielgo, who is writing and directing
Cherished After several years of happy coupledom, Matt and Evan can relax in the knowledge that their little family has survived the worst of it. The two older girls are away at college, the twins have yet to fully hit teen angst, Matt is doing well with his part time security consulting, and Evan is about to be promoted to captain—it seems like things are calm and bright.
Until they aren’t.
As the holidays approach, Evan and Matt get a shock no parent is ever prepared for: feisty Miranda, Evan’s eldest, has a new boyfriend, Kent, and they are talking marriage after just three months together. In fact, Miranda wants to bring him to Thanksgiving dinner—along with his parents, Blake and Cornelia.
Blessed Lives are in transition as everyone gathers at the stunning Hamptons beach home of Daisy and Bennett to celebrate the christening of their new baby. Griffin and Jim—secretly growing tired of their rootless lifestyle—are in a rocky spot in their relationship. And as the godfather, Griffin finds himself yearning for something he's sure Jim won't be interested in.
Fatherhood.
Matt and Evan are looking to reconnect during the long weekend, as their respective careers pull them in separate directions. With less time spent together, Evan grows concerned about what will happen when the last two kids leave the nest.
1st Edition of Cherish published as an eBook by Loose Id LLC, November 2012.
The celebration known as Carnival has no singular description. In Trinidad and Tobago, it's celebrated between June and July, sometimes with participants rubbing down their bodies with mud and paint. In the Bahamas, it takes place around Christmas, stemming from the time slaves were permitted to spend time with their families around the holidays. In Martinique, Carnival is celebrated in the days leading up to Lent, and often includes a massive bonfire around Ash Wednesday.
"Carnival really straddles a lot of different modes," New Orleans curator Claire Tancons explained to The Huffington Post Arts. "It's an artistic practice, it's a mode of public address, it's a tool for resistance. It's a touristic device. It is not one thing for one person."
Ebony G. Patterson, Invisible Presence: Bling Memories, performance, April 27, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
Tancons is the co-curator of "En Mas: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean," an upcoming exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans. The exhibition, also curated by Krista Thompson, art historian and professor at Northwestern University, explores modes of contemporary performance art that are influenced not by the dominant trajectory of the European avant-garde, but by the Carnivals of the streets. Often such carnivals are spurred not by aesthetic experimentation but by independence struggles, civil rights movements, and population migrations, to start.
"Carnival has the ability to reach out to the social sphere and the public space," Tancons continued. "It can be rowdy, it can be spiritual -- by deed of it being both a popular festivity and one which is steeped in religious and spiritual tradition, one which is neither pagan nor strictly religious. It is also a very powerful mode of artistic expression and element of cultural identity."
The project of "En Mas" is threefold. First, Tancons and Thompson commissioned nine contemporary artists, all with roots to Caribbean tradition, to each stage a performance. The performances were spread throughout different locations throughout Carnival season in 2014. (If you couldn't tell from the aforementioned examples, Carnival season extends to almost a full year, depending on where you're standing.) Nicolás Dumit Estévez performed in the Dominican Republic, Marlon Griffith in Trinidad, Ebony Patterson in Jamaica.
Nicolás Dumit Estévez, C Room, 2014 at Museo Folklórico Don Tomás Morel, Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Photograph: Raymond Marrero.
The second phase, which is currently in motion, is the exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans, an effort, as Tancons explains, "to bring performances back into the museum context." She explains: "It's really going to be a survey of modes of presenting the afterlife of performance." Each artist's challenge is to adapt his or her performance to fit the gallery sphere, thus shifting the mechanics of the thing from public to private, from for the many to for the few.
Each artist takes an individual approach in archiving and representing their past performance -- the coffins used in Ebony Patterson's Jamaica performance will be on display along with a three channel video projection documenting the original. Marlon Griffith will display costumes used, as well as one major monumental element re-fabricated and scaled down for the gallery display. The exhibition, part archive, part artwork, displays past relics alongside replicas of lost, destroyed or immobile objects, blurring the line between documentary and performance in itself. "It's interesting to follow the fates of these different objects and appreciate the value they've incurred depending on the use that is made of them and the way they are presented," said Tancons. "That's something I wanted to highlight."
Tancons and Thompson are aware of the precarious role they play, adapting the all-embracing rituals of parade and performance to fit into a (sometimes very stuffy) white cube. However, for Tancons, the main shift took place in the project even before the museum was involved.
Charles Campbell, Actor Boy: Fractal Engagement, performance, April 21, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Photograph: Marvin Bartley.
"As you know the title of the exhibition 'En Mas' is a pun, on the idea of mas as short for masquerade and en masse, which stems from a French expression to be in a mass, in a group. Since the beginning I have been questioning: Who were the masses in en mas? The question of the masses could already be felt and critically dealt with during the performances themselves. Who had access to the spaces of the performance? How could space be cleared for some of the public performances to take place?
"Depending on the modes of engagement the artists chose, they encountered various difficulties. Ebony Patterson had difficulty obtaining a parade permit. The question of the masses need not only be posed in the gallery context. It is already present in the very translation of the notion of Carnival from one that is understood to be popular to one that may be more rarified... An artist like Marlon Griffith questions the fact that a contemporary Caribbean audience used to witnessing Carnival should not be able to also appreciate more challenging, more critical contemporary artistic production in a medium with which they are already familiarized. The translation from, not so much the gallery space, as maybe an artistic discourse, could already be felt in the streets. What is that Carnival space and who does it really belong to?"
John Beadle, Inside-out, Outside-in, 2014, Nassau, The Bahamas. Image courtesy of the artist.
For Tancons, the final phase of the project is especially important, as that is when the exhibition will, in the care of Independent Curators International (ICI), tour throughout institutions in the Caribbean as well as other destinations worldwide. This gives the exhibition the chance to come full circle, as audiences of the parade overlap with those of the gallery space, allowing the two performative worlds to collide.
"First of all, it's not that often that contemporary art travels to the Caribbean. But also, the reason why we attempted the feat of covering various key landmarks in a Carnival season was to be able to show them to all these different populations who may only ever have previously only been able to witness their own cultural event. Now they will be able to appreciate those of the neighboring islands. In one exhibition you have an entire year worth of Carnival."
The exhibition is as much a lesson in alternate art history as it is an abbreviated tour through Caribbean customs.
"In the context of contemporary art and the discourse thereof, it is one of the cultural traditions through which artists of Caribbean descent have found a path toward performance. At a time when the discourse of performance is so prevalent within the contemporary art context, it's important for me to highlight these genealogies of artistic practices and where they stem from. They were not inspired by the European avant-garde of the last century, which is the discourse usually associated with performance art. Instead they were inspired, at least in part by, some of these cultural traditions which offer an incredible repository of creative practices."
"En Mas: Carnival and Performance Art of the Caribbean" features artwork by John Beadle, Charles Campbell, Christophe Chassol, Nicolás Dumit Estévez, Marlon Griffith, Hew Locke, Lorraine O’Grady, Ebony G. Patterson, and Cauleen Smith. The show runs from March 7 until June 7, 2015 at the Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans and is organized as a traveling exhibition by Independent Curators International (ICI).
Charles Campbell, Actor Boy: Fractal Engagement, performance, April 21, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Photograph: Marvin Bartley
Charles Campbell, Actor Boy: Fractal Engagement, performance, April 21, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Photograph: Marvin Bartley.
Christophe Chassol, BIG SUN, video still, 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.
Christophe Chassol, BIG SUN, video still, 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.
Christophe Chassol, BIG SUN, video still, 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.
Nicolás Dumit Estévez, C Room, 2014 at Museo Folklórico Don Tomás Morel, Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Photograph: Raymond Marrero.
Nicolás Dumit Estévez, C Room, 2014 at Museo Folklórico Don Tomás Morel, Santiago de los Treinta Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Photograph: Raymond Marrero.
Ebony G. Patterson, Invisible Presence: Bling Memories, performance, April 27, 2014, Kingston, Jamaica. Courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.
Cauleen Smith, H-E-L-L-O videostill. Location: Booker T. Washington Auditorium. Cello: Monica McIntyre. Cinematography: William Sabourin, 2014.
Cauleen Smith, H-E-L-L-O videostill. Location: Booker T. Washington Auditorium. Cello: Monica McIntyre. Cinematography: William Sabourin, 2014.
The curtain goes up on the New Delhi World Book Fair on Feb 14
You might love reading, and the stack of books on your shelf could be growing at an almost alarming rate. It’s possible that there isn’t a new release you haven’t got your hands on, but it’s also possible that despite all this, it’s been a few short (or long) months since you saw the inside of a book store.
All those one-click buys and doorstep deliveries have made it easier for you to stay put while your book travels to you; convenient of course. Perhaps a little too convenient, though and occasionally, a bit boring too.
Thankfully, every year, February arrives with a pretty neat solution. As summer begins to dip its toes into Delhi’s chilly air, billboards appear with promises of nine days of packed bookshelves and nothing but complete indulgence for every book lover in the city. Part of the city’s calendar for 41 years, the New Delhi World Book Fair (NDWBF), organised by the National Book Trust (NBT), is now a major event, demanding both the attention and attendance of anyone looking to spend a little time with books.
While around it, the whispers which talked of threats to brick and mortar bookshops and physical books have grown to frenzied, worried discussions, the fair has survived, and survived well. One would assume that the numbers at the fair would dwindle, with people opting for better, cheaper offers and new generation Kindles and Nooks. Fortunately, and surprisingly, this has been far from the truth.
Kapil Kapoor, Sales and Marketing Director at Roli Books India, says that the kind of turnout NDWBF sees takes publishers by surprise too. “Anyone who comes to the book fair knows that it sees massive footfall. The numbers are unprecedented, really. Sometimes as publishers we are shocked, since the general vibe you get is that readership is going down. But when you go to the book fair, there are throngs of people, and sometimes it even gets difficult to manage the crowd,” says Kapoor, adding that these numbers have shown no signs of slowing down.
This fact is underlined by Caroline Newbury, VP Marketing and Corporate Communications at Penguin Random House, who says that while the footfall obviously varies by book fair and location, generally speaking the World Book Fair in Delhi always shows a strong footfall and good consumer interest. “Last year there were times when our stand was full to capacity with customers and even on weekdays and early in the day there is a steady stream of buyers.”
M. A Sikandar, Director, NBT India, has a lot to do with this growth trajectory. “I came from a different city. I had grown up and worked outside Delhi, and then when I got here, one of the first culture shocks for me was that the city had no real book culture. There were no libraries or book stores where people would just sit around.”
Sikandar says that he began with approaching different organisations and ministries, as well as NGOs. “I talked to officials at the CBSE, Kendriya Vidyala and some ministries. After all, my job was not just to put up stalls and stands for publishers. My primary duty was to get people to read.” Sikandar also noticed that the fair dates conflicted with the start of preparatory months in schools and colleges. “It takes years to shift dates, since the plan has to be made in advance. I started the process of changing the dates in 2011. Hopefully, in 2016, the dates will be moved to January. It’ll be colder, but hopefully people will still come.”
Newbury, though, doesn’t think that the dates have posed too big a problem. “There is no doubt that a large number of visitors are students but the fair draws readers of all ages. Running for 9 days, I think it gives a long enough period for as many people as possible to attend.”
The marked improvement in fair attendance has also prompted a rise in participation among not just distributors and booksellers, but also publishers themselves. Last year, 906 stalls out of a total of 2051 were set up by general and trade publishers. Kapoor feels that most publishers turn to the book fair as a strong brand building exercise.
“For publishers, there are two important reasons for putting up their stall at the fair. We do not say let’s maximise our sales and do maximum revenue at the fair. The retail aspect is not really a publisher’s job. The sale that happens is added benefit, but more important for us is that it is a very good brand building exercise. At your stall, you can display all the books you’ve published, including the older ones, and showcase them in one space. In no bookstore will you find a shelf just for Roli. At the fair, you can say, this is our brand, this is the work that we do.”
Shobit Arya, founder and publisher of Wisdom Tree, agrees, adding that in today’s scenario, there is barely a bookstore where a publisher can display even 20 per cent of their complete publishing list. “A book fair gives you a fantastic platform to expose the whole catalogue. Also, at a bookstore, your criteria of buying a book are primarily the author and the subject. The publisher is a subset. At a book fair, publisher is your first filter. This definitely provides a unique branding opportunity.”
This opportunity, to expose your brand to potential readers becomes even more important for the smaller and independent publishers, for whom fewer distributors and greater invisibility constantly pose a challenge. Even with financial constraints, many independent publishers try to book both standalone and shared stalls. This year, some of them include Duckbill, Karadi Tales and Zubaan Books. In Duckbill’s first year at the fair with their own stall, shared with Karadi Tales, Sayoni Basu says that for Duckbill, it is definitely a brand build exercise.
“And because it is very interesting to see how readers respond to one’s books. Whether they walk into the stall at all or walk by looking uninterested! And also because we hope it will be fun.”
Of course, a stall at the fair is a big dent for a small publishing house, and some, like Yoda Press, have opted to have their books displayed by their distributors instead.
Nishtha Vadehra, editor at Yoda, says, “Two years back we did have a stall but we just about made back the money from the sales. That time it was also a Yodakin (bookstore) and Yoda Press stall. But as a small niche publisher it’s also difficult to shell out the kind of cash a full stall requires.” This year Yoda Press titles, like “This Side, That Side: Restorying Partition” and two new poetry titles, “The Fingers Remember” by Aditi Rao, and “Rococo and Other Worlds: The poems of Afzal Ahmed Syed translated from the Urdu by Musharraf A. Farooqi”, will be displayed with their distributors Cambridge University Press and May Day bookstore.
The book fair, with titles you’ve missed in bookstores and publishers you didn’t know about, is a browser’s goldmine. Is it so much a buyer’s, though? While sales might not be of primary importance for publishers, they are undeniably one of the reasons to set up a stall in the first place. And with all those almost sinfully low discounts online, how do the sales figures compare? For Penguin Random House, things seem to be moving along satisfyingly. “I can’t share precise sales figures but we see a considerable amount of business during the fair. Having a dedicated stand allows us to showcase not only our bestsellers but also the wide range of backlist we publish, which may not normally be available in high street retail due to space constrictions. This allows readers to be able to discover and buy books they may not have noticed before,” says Newbury. Kapoor maintains that while not of foremost importance, sales are also not ignored by Roli Books. “The weightage would be 70 per cent brand building and 30 per cent sale. We try and give offers, some promotion, something to attract customers.”
Over the years, this need to attract customers has grown; a direct result of the impossible attraction of cheap and readily available options online. The once attractive 15 to 20 per cent discounts are satisfying fewer people, and you see a marked rise in offers, combo packs and other measures to grab eyeballs. Kapoor says that the trend of cheaper online sales has been a very destructive force for publishers.
“We have started giving more discount, though not unreasonable ones. And for many people the satisfaction of coming to a book fair is buying a book right then and there.”
Arya adds that even if publishers wanted, they couldn’t combat e-commerce players by matching them in discounts. “A book fair acts as a perfect foil to the mechanical experience of buying through e-commerce.” He believes that books in India are reasonably priced. “I don’t think one would go all the way to Pragati Maidan to look up books and then buy them online to save money that you actually would have already lost by having a samosa and chai there. “Offering extra discounts towards the end is just greed and desperation getting the better of you. Nothing else. The devil unfortunately can be matched only by another devil, which is remaindered books. Or by getting together to ensure that only healthy competition prevails.”
The remaindered books, combo packs and increasing discounts might be measures to combat an increasingly shifting and competitive market, but for readers, they are yet another reason to head to Pragati Maidan on February 14, to celebrate a very different, but very important kind of love
Location: London, UK Primary media: Digital, pencil Education: Newham College of Further Education [Higher National Diploma (HND), graphic design] Central St Martins University of the Arts [post-graduate, character animation] Major projects: “Easy” music video for Mat Zo and Porter Robinson [co-director with Timothy McCourt, character/prop designer/animator, 2013] “Prototype” music video for Viktoria Modesta [character designer/animator/layout/background artist, 2014] season two [assistant animation clean up/in-betweens] More: Tumblr/Blog/The Line Animation
creator Matt Groening will make a guest appearance on tonight’s episode of the IFC sketch comedy series (10pm ET/PT). In the episode, Groening, who plays himself, files a lawsuit against angry bike messenger Spyke (Fred Armisen) over bootleg “Bart Ska-mpson” T-shirts.
The Portland-native Groening, who hasn’t acted since a walk-on cameo on in 1988, told that the most difficult part of the role was pretending to be upset by the shirt because he finds bootleg merchandise “hilarious” and would have been “delighted by a real-life Bart Ska-mpson t-shirt.”
Grant Faustito is ready to put his years of hard work to the test, and the contest where he can lay it all on the line happens to be at his favorite yearly event, Biketoberfest. He is more than prepared for the week in Daytona Beach—or so he thinks.
Casey Bunker's never been to a bike week before, and he's excited about his first one. When he runs into the sexy older biker on the way there, he's thinking there might by yet another first for him to try.
Talk about the perfect storm—combine one hot biker, a chance of a lifetime, and a hurricane in the mood to whip some trouble, and Grant may have just about as much as he can handle.
Caution: This was previously published in the Story Orgy Road Trip anthology that is now out of print. Even though the base story remains the same it has been edited again and polished all nice and pretty for you to enjoy.
Book Review
It's not hard to understand why Havan Fellows and I are friends. We definitely seem to like the same types of men, and, in 'A Guy Like Grant', the author has pulled out all of her stops on the "holy-crap-I-gotta-have-him-right-now" type. I mean, seriously? Tall, built, rides a motorcycle, old enough to know better, but still young enough to get the job done, and he's got drive coupled with ambition. Oh, yes, my friends. Grant is hot, with a capital H. And Casey is bound and determined to keep him.
"I've had sex." Casey spoke quickly but softly, knowing if he didn't, he'd stay quiet and maybe miss an important moment in life. "Maybe not tons, but I'm not a virgin with women or men. There are certain things I haven't done…yet, but want to. Bad."
I am not ashamed to admit that a lot of this book reminded me of my own, extremely memorable spring break in Daytona Beach. Ahh, the old days. *grins* Anyway, I think you can understand the appeal of Bike Week, hot guys, and letting your fantasies run wild. The fact that a hurricane is bearing down on them, forcing Grant and Casey to stay together, inside, doesn't hurt the sexcapade they get up to.
A very hot read which left me wanting more, and hopeful that Grant and Casey's relationship will continue behind the curtain. Thank you, Havan, I really needed this.
DISCLAIMER: Books reviewed on this site were usually provided at no cost by the publisher or author. This book has been purchased by the reviewer.
Ten years ago the Black Rapture transported thousands of people, seemingly at random, from Earth to the strange, inimical world they call the Labyrinth. Will Teller was one of them. Surviving that meant joining an army and becoming better at killing than he's comfortable with. It's enough upheaval for anyone's life. The only problem is, apparently no one told his commanding officer that.
Pride, and heart, stung by abandonment, the icily controlled General Nathan Kearney has decided that Teller can either find the wayward lover, or he can take his place in Nathan's bed. That's pretty good motivation for a straight guy, only thing is - Teller's sexuality seems to have gone a bit Magic-8 Ball on that issue. Suddenly Nathan's starting to look pretty good, and the only question is whether or not Teller wants to be the consolation prize?
There’s more than one way to achieve a goal. For example, let’s say you want to direct the opening couch gag for . You could:
1.) Spend decades becoming a famous figure in the animation world and hope that the producers of the show will one day invite you to work with them,
or
2.) Don’t ask for anybody’s permission—just animate your own damn couch gag, drop it on the Internet, watch it become an overnight hit, and let producers come to you.
Indie Australian animators Paul Robertson and Ivan Dixon chose the latter approach when they created this pixel-art fan tribute and posted it online on February 1st:
Within a day of uploading it to YouTube, producers had contacted them to license the opening. The opening will air in front of this Sunday’s broadcast of which was confirmed in a tweet yesterday by showrunner Al Jean:
.@thesimpsons Pleased to announce Simpsons pixel couch gag will be at head of 2/15 ep. Thx Ivan, Paul & Jeremy! https://t.co/qaAtfhDy8S
— Al Jean (@AlJean) February 10, 2015
The initial email that producers of the show sent to Ivan Dixon went to his spam folder. “I actually thought it was a hoax,” Dixon told the “We secretly hoped they would pick it up, but it all came so fast.”
The cover to the first issue of “DreamWorks Magazine.” (Click to enlarge.)
Who said print media was dead? DreamWorks Animation is launching this month in the U.K. (Download a sample PDF.) Each issue, priced at £2.99, comes with a free gift; the first issue includes a Toothless grabber, jumping Po, and Shrek slime snot.
Here’s an example of the type of content you’ll find inside:
The words “power front row” conjure images of an inscrutable Anna Wintour, but in 2014 there are a lot of globally important front rows she doesn’t sit on. This is the age of the menswear-FROW. Kanye West grabs headlines for Givenchy; Lenny Kravitz gets flashbulbs popping for Saint Laurent; Tinie Tempah Instagrams at Burberry.
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David Gandy, supermodel turned designer. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images for Burberry
The profile of the man-FROW has risen as menswear sales have boomed by 18% in the past five years. We have London Collections: Men now as well as the shows in Paris and Milan. As the shows have become more important, so have the people who attend them. Choosing guests requires “integrity, taste and an element of surprise”, says Nicki Bidder, managing partner of Starworks Group brand management agency.
“Across all markets,” Bidder says, “menswear consumers tend to be less influenced by celebrity endorsement than women - so the curation of a front row can be rooted in a designer’s personal choice of creatives they respect or know, irrespective of celebrity.”
The state of the market also influences the guest list. “If there is an amazing Chinese actor sitting front row, it often indicates where a brand is trying to expand,” says Daniel Marks, director and partner at The Communications Store public relations agency. Using a fashion show to forge relationships with topical names also helps build buzz. (Think Moriarty actor Andrew Scott attending Topman at the peak of Sherlock mania.)
But for Marks, shows must give the right impression to the people in the room, not consumers: “The real opinion formers I want to see at a show are journalists and buyers. That 15 minute experience helps understand what a brand stands for. When you are sitting at a show you want to see peers and colleagues and competitors you admire.”
The power list
Kanye West Musician, designer and entrepreneur
David Gandy Britain’s biggest male supermodel – often seen in adverts for Dolce and Gabbana - and sometime underwear designer for Marks & Spencer
Mario Testino One of the world’s most successful fashion photographers
Tinie Tempah Musician, ambassador for London Collections: Men
Bobby Gillespe Primal Scream singer, husband of stylist Katy England, one-time Marc Jacobs model
G-Dragon South Korean musician and designer
Chen Kun Chinese actor and singer
Lenny Kravitz Singer, actor and trendsetter
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Jourdan Dunn, supermodel. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images for Burberry
Jourdan Dunn Outspoken British model, face of Maybelline and TV show host
Tim Blanks Fashion journalist and main reviewer for style.com; CDFA’s 2013 media award winner
Carine Roitfeld Editor and stylist, founder of CR Fashion Book
Delphine Arnault Executive vice president of Louis Vuitton, founder of the LVMH Young Fashion Designer Prize
Francois-Henri Pinault CEO of Kering which owns Gucci, Stella McCartney and Saint Laurent
Nick Grimshaw DJ and ambassador for London Collections: Men
Sitting by the canal in North London, a stone’s throw from Central Saint Martins, Christopher Kane reflects on his time at the great art and design college. “I was there for six years, from my foundation year when I was 17, through to my BA and MA,” he says. “I recently looked at my MA collection again and it was nice to do that – lots of great memories came flooding back.”
Kane is an elfin-faced man with bright-blue button eyes, a sweep of sandy hair. He speaks in a silky Scottish burr and has an easy, impish laugh. He’s in a great position to take a trip down memory lane, even though he’s only 32. He’s the high priest of London fashion, a role he’s ascended to with ease since that award-winning set of fiercely confident neon-lace dresses he debuted for his MA in 2006 brought him instant industry attention. He was properly ordained last year when Kering, the fashion conglomerate that owns Gucci and Saint Laurent, bought a major stake in his label. Kane became the first London ready-to-wear designer to attract foreign investment for 13 years; the last time that happened was to Stella McCartney in 2001.
With great power, of course, comes great responsibility. Developing the Kane brand in a way that will make it a global success is a delicate venture. In his autumn/winter 2014 collection – the first since the Kering investment – he launched accessories, a symbolic step towards becoming a household name. A name that will have advertising hoardings over Broadway, signature perfumes, and stores from London to Kuala Lumpur, if Kering have any say. (The first store, on Mount Street in Mayfair, is due to open later this year.)
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From the new collection by Christopher Kane. Photograph: Linda Nylind
In a bumper show that had nearly 60 looks, half of the models carried bags: holdalls, clutches, shoulder bags, box bags, the works. The models whizzed past the audience and, in the blink of an eye, the bags with their signature safety-belt fittings became objects of desire. That is the Kane effect.
“We wanted something iconically Christopher Kane,” he says, “and the safety-belt made sense, it had been there from the start [he first used the device in his MA show]. There’s that pressure to do an it-bag, but it wasn’t the agony we were expecting.” Maybe that was because he hired a “trusted friend” as a consultant, and “went at our speed, developing and experimenting until it felt right.” Part of that experimentation meant dispensing with the usual kerfuffle around designer handbags (the new range is just for women, men’s bags launch in spring 2015). His haven’t been christened with girls’ names, as has become the convention; Kane makes a face at the idea. “It’s a nice bag, but it’s just a bag,” he says, no nonsense. The hardwear - all those bits that hang off a bag, adding kilos to its weight - were streamlined too, because “girls carry around iPads and all sorts these days”.
He’s road-testing one of his totes today, wearing it with a charcoal cashmere sweater, black jeans, and brogues with gold filigree details – a barely audible whisper of luxury. Like a lottery winner new to his fortune, Kane is taking baby steps towards finding out how to display his enormous success – although the same can’t be said of his work, which is advancing with sure strides. His collections are never pedestrian (they’ve been inspired by everything from Frankenstein to CAD scans), but there’s always been a push and pull between fantasy and reality in his designs.
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Christopher Kane autumn/winter 2014. Photograph: Victor Virgile/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
His studio location helps; he still works in Dalston, and, though the area is becoming gentrified, it is still not the uptown world of luxury fashion. Kane bemoans the lack of a Pret A Manger, but recognises that living and working in E8 widens his view, even if it’s difficult to locate a crayfish and avocado salad. “I have been working in Dalston since 2001, when I started from my bedroom. There are trendy kids but also eccentrics. It’s changed so much, but remains one of my favourite places in London.”
Kane is a modern designer: his clothes are different enough each season to keep short attention spans focused, but they’re fundamentally wearable, often with an off-kilter familiarity. His special skill is taking something mundane, unremarkable or even ugly, adding a twist, and making it into something that women want now, now, now. He’s done that time and again: stadium rock denim for spring/summer 2008, granny crochet blankets for autumn/winter 2011, pool slides for spring/summer 2012, or botanical diagrams for spring/summer 2014. He describes his modus operandi as “challenging your own and others’ perceptions. I have never understood what people mean by bad taste. It’s just society saying it doesn’t understand something.”
While the front row wait to Instagram the latest example of Kane cool as it comes down the catwalk, he always shows items that everyone would want to buy. Kering didn’t sign on the dotted line out of the goodness of its heart, Kane’s stuff sells. The team at Matchesfashion.com call the label a consistently strong seller, and they already have a waiting list for the bags. A spokesperson for Net-a-Porter says there are sell-out pieces every season, with dresses and sweatshirts always performing well. His signature ideas include biker jackets, cardigans, pastels and - most of all - neon.
“I have an encyclopaedic knowledge of neon,” he says (something you can’t imagine Giorgio Armani declaring). “We come back to it because, after a few seasons without it, you need something with a bit of a kick.” This season, his knitwear came in bleached-out yellow and green, but the bags had their neon pink and green elastic details. “I did neon when everyone thought it was tacky and cheap,” he sighs. “Now it’s the new black.”
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Christopher Kane spring/summer 2007. Photograph: Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage
That Kane is so pragmatic about his work is probably due to Tammy Kane, his older sister and deputy creative director. It’s probably no exaggeration to say that without Tammy there would be no Kane label. The siblings are very close, provoking comparisons to that other fashion brother and sister, Gianni and Donatella Versace. Tammy began as a muse and fit model, and now works beside Christopher on the design, juggling their growing business baby with her real two-year-old daughter, Bonnie.
They grew up in Newarthill, a rural village near Glasgow, part of a family with five children, and their childhood doesn’t sound like fashion central. Yet, despite the five-year gap between them, they bonded over TV programmes such as The Clothes Show; labels popular at the time in Glasgow, including Patrick Cox and Benetton, as well as collections by Christian Lacroix, Jean Colonna and Versace. “I remember watching those shows and the hairs standing up on the back of my neck, and I was just a kid,” he says. “We saved our pocket money and spent it on clothes in the Versace store in Glasgow.” Kane devotees all know the sweet story of how the 12-year-old Christopher saved up to buy Tammy, then 17, a hot pink dress for her school leaving dance.
They weren’t just playing dress-up. There was always a plan. Only six years after that movie-worthy pretty in pink moment, Christopher was on the foundation course at St Martins, then on Charing Cross Road in central London, following his future Kering stablemates, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney. Tammy moved to London with him. “It was such an honour to walk through those doors,” he says. “It was a chapel, because anyone who was anyone went there. I worked my arse off but I had lots of fun along the way.”
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Christopher Kane autumn/winter 2011. Photograph: Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho/WireImage
The tutor on the college’s famous MA course was Louise Wilson, who encouraged unique thought and a strong work ethic. She was a huge influence on Kane and he remained close to her after he graduated. She died in May this year, and her death has put him in a reflective mood. “Louise’s passing was a huge shock to me, she was mine and Tammy’s biggest supporter,” he says. “She was the glue of that college and meeting her set us on our path. She had this great phrase: ‘There’s always someone better than you, so you need to work 10 times harder’.” The lesson was drummed into him and got results: soon after graduating, Kane became a boy wonder – consulting for Versace, having tea with Anna Wintour and creating sell-out collections for Topshop. His label, now eight years old, is ready for its next phase, turning all that potential and talent into a fully-formed brand.
Kane is a much-liked figure in fashion. He’s personable, fun and doesn’t use the clichés of fashionspeak. Though there are signs that now his business is shifting, he’s raising the drawbridge a little. Personal details, such as where he’s off to on holiday, are kept private, and he’s now become tight-lipped on even such dating-profile basics as his favourite films. While he’s excited about the prospect of doing future advertising campaigns, he won’t tell me which photographer he would shoot with, for fear of being copied. “You need to protect your work,” he says, a steely tone entering the honey of his voice, “it’s my intellectual property, as it would be in any other creative industry.”
When we meet in July, he’s gearing up for September’s show - which, as always, will be the most anticipated at London Fashion Week. He’s keeping up the momentum, despite the exhaustion of creating six collections a year. “I don’t think people realise how hard it is,” he says. “You’re doing these shows and it’s very personal. You’re often an emotional wreck afterwards.” All to make the hair stand up on the back of the audience’s necks, as those Versace shows did to him years ago. “You have to push it, be on your hands and knees, because that’s how you get a good collection,” he says, “I want people to say ‘I’ve never seen anything like that’.” While the content of spring/summer 2015 is anyone’s guess, it’s safe to say it will be unique and you’ll want to wear it immediately. That, right there, is the Kane effect.
"I never wanted my name up in lights," says Paula Gerbase, the founder of 1205, explaining her deliberately anonymous brand. "As a label we focus on the clothes."
Gerbase's work is often described as androgynous. She certainly has the pedigree, having trained in the womenswear atelier of Hardy Amies before a five-year stint as a head designer for Savile Row tailor Kilgour. But while her silhouettes tend to be loose and her collections designed for both genders, Gerbase considers the term outdated. "People call a woman in trousers androgynous, but they've been wearing them for so long that for me it doesn't really count." A better term, she says, is unisex: "There is a focus on cut, detail, precision and severity that can be perceived as masculine. Feminine, to me, relates to anything tactile, like the use of baby alpaca."
1205 AW2014.
For autumn/winter 2014, Gerbase took inspiration from sculptor Barbara Hepworth and the artists who colonised St Ives in Cornwall during the second world war, living alongside the local fishermen. The references are clear in smocks, overalls, fishing jumpers, blanket coats and wide-legged trousers, in leather, mohair and marino.
Gerbase loves the idea – which she sees as typically masculine – of curating a wardrobe over a lifetime, instead of buying clothes that put the wearer's body on show for others. Her label isn't showy, but every garment includes a "little code" or "hidden message": small, deliberate 'mistakes' "like the wrong-coloured right cuff or an unexpected internal pocket," she says: "With these surprises I try to communicate with the person wearing the clothes in subtle ways."
She is serious about comfort and function, too. "At Hardy Amies the goal was to make something a person will put on and just forget about – if you feel conscious and have to adjust yourself all the time, that is not a successful garment. That has really stayed with me." 1205.eu
Nick Passmore, design director of Whistles, has a confession to make about the brand's debut menswear collection, which launches this month.
"Every woman in the Whistles head office fancies the Whistles man," she says. "He is quietly and confidently stylish without being overly groomed or preened."
It's no wonder he's confident with these clothes in his cupboard. The menswear stays true to the Whistles philosophy. The clothes are, as Passmore says: "Contemporary, easy to wear, linked to classics, but with a modern approach."
This translates to an overcoat with sloped shoulders for extra slouch, simple coloured sweaters and sportswear that includes the perfect marl joggers and minimal trainers. It's a capsule wardrobe for a modern man – not too scary, but not too boring.
"The Whistles' man cares about style over fashion," says Passmore. "But he's confident enough to pull off a fashion forward piece too." Sounds like someone we'd like to meet.
