In the 1985 movie Weird Science, a pair of happy misfits use tip-top technology and nerdy know-how to create something truly beautiful: in the form of ‘real life’ woman and sexed up diva Kellie Le Brock. The Australian fashion label Romance Was Born have created something equally beguiling with their Spring/Summer 07/08 collection, also called Weird Science. Sending coke-bottle spectacles, high-waisted acid wash and even a DNA inspired headdress down the runway at Rosemount Fashion Week, a real highlight of the collection is the label’s collaboration with hot Sydney artist Del Kathryn Barton. Del Kathryn Barton, who has previously collaborated on the label’s Regional Australia collection, will once again provide a unique fabric print that will be reproduced across a range of garments. Romance’s own misfit duo, Anna Plunkett and Luke Sales, know nerds get their revenge in the end. [see also Del Kathryn Barton]
Also by KATRINA SCHWARZ
Australian fashion brand Lover, founded by Susien Chong and Nic Briand in 2001, arouses a particular type of devotion. Like the fashionable muses that inspire Lover’s strong and feminine collections – Patty Hearst for the ‘Black Rose Army’ (Spring/Summer 06/07); Rolling Stones groupies and biker babes for ‘Altamont’ (Winter 07) – fans of Lover know all about yearning, obsession … and waiting lists. Get in the swim and place your pre-orders for Lover’s newly launched Spring/Summer line, ‘One Plus One’, which includes the label’s first foray into swimming cossies.
Hot Box, by Barcelona-based Ana Mir and Emili Padros — for Emiliana Design Studio — is a design object with a different type of consumer in mind. If most highfalutin design firms pitch their sleek wares at Prada-clad architects and inner-city aspirants, the envisaged audience for the Emiliana Hot Box is another breed entirely: the chilly sex worker. A translucent structure that emerges from the ground, the Hot Box was created with the notion of providing warmth and light for those who spend a long time waiting on the street — namely prostitutes. Read more
Urs Fischer at Cockatoo Island
Cockatoo Island in Sydney Harbour has a fascinating – if checkered – history. A former convict prison, a shipyard and a reformatory for wayward girls, the island also has a fascinating present as the site of a new installation by Swiss artist Urs Fischer. Fischer visited Sydney under the auspices of Kaldor Art Projects, whose previous projects have included Christo & Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast – One Million Square Feet (1969) and Jeff Koons’s floral Puppy (1995). Visit Cockatoo Island between now and June 3 to view Fischer’s artfully clunky and wonderfully gritty works – a skeleton climbs into/escapes from a packing case; impossibly contorted forearms are suspended from the ceiling and in the installation’s central piece, a huge knobbly structure, recalling both tree branches and disembodied limbs, spans the island’s central forecourt. A ghoulish spectacle.
YOU'RE SAYING (2)
FizzGig said | 2 July, 2007
Utterly Brilliant apparel! I heart those big daks :P… are there carrots attached to the drawstring?
HAVE YOUR SAY
Katy Smail’s illustrations are kind of like candy floss sticking to wind blown lips — sweet, tempting, yet always just a little bit out of reach. Read more
We caught up with New York-based artist Sam Weber recently to get the inside word on where most of his creativity is unleashed: his studio space. In regards to your workspace, what are the props for your daily inspiration? ‘I wouldn’t say there is anything specific, although I am fairly particular about where I like to work, and what sort of stuff I like to have around me. There are things that I look at often, a book of Max Ernst collages, one on Yoshitaka Amano, and a big stack of clippings from magazines and the Internet that I will periodically leaf through to get inspired’. Read more
When Big Brother means nothing more than a new low in television standards, the warnings of Orwell’s classic 1984 are more poignant than ever. Miniluv — or The Ministry of Love in Oldspeak — is where Winston was brutally tortured, brain-washed and ultimately learned to love Big Brother. And no, he wasn’t watching TV. Wear your highbrow literary tastes with pride. Created by graphic-tee fashion label the-affair and printed on soft American Apparel, this tee is available for purchase through our online store.
Comedy troupe Summer of Tears edited itself into the classic ’80s movie Teen Wolf, starring Michael J. Fox, providing a new and gut-bustingly hilarious side-plot.
Architect Jean Nouvel is on a roll. His projects are popping up everywhere, but this may be the grandest. In choosing Nouvel’s design, the competition judges stressed that this ‘is the most important act of architecture since the Eiffel Tower’. Read more
If you ever happen to find yourself riding across the mid-west on horseback with an iPod jangling about in your holster, be sure to let Calexico soundtrack the experience. They’re cleverly fusing a range of genres, mixing some good old country with US indie, a bit of jazz and even, in 2003’s Feast of Wire, some smatterings of electronica. Lead singer Joey Burns gives a healthy amount of cowboy twang and the soaring orchestral background and sweet country guitar licks add a real atmosphere to the music.
Listen to the Calexico song, Convict Pool.
The wealthy of this cramped metropolis we call New York don’t have lavish backyards — they have rooftops. Jwilly’s Rich People Rooftops NYC set on Flickr documents the spaces where the uber-rich of Gotham throw their cookouts, compost their kitchen scraps, or lounge on hot summer days high above our humble heads. Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
I was just recently introduced to the work of artist Misaki Kawai. I must say that my interest in her work has since become something of a creative obsession. Her trippy, child-like figures and animals, painted in the most expressive, perfectly satisfying candy colored hues, are more than enough to send me running for the bag of jelly beans and jolly ranchers hidden in my cupboard. Read more
Ok, so I’m speaking from first-hand perspective here because as I type on this warm morning, with the faintest slither of sun creeping its way through the privacy blinds in my living room, I’m wearing the very same shirt that the dude in this photo is wearing. Yup, the same damn one. Perhaps I’m not looking quite as groomed as he is, but hey, it’s a start. Australian fashion label Das Monk is my new favourite t-shirt label and this shirt is more comfortable to wear that a thousand pairs of Ozone socks. Das Monk? Yes it is.
The Telegraph just posted some photos of the migration of golden rays (also known as cownose rays) off the coast of Mexico. It’s guaranteed to restore your sense of wonder at the world.
I was listening to the Brazilian singer, Gal Costa, when I first came across Alex Prager’s photographs, which provided the perfect collision of music and imagery. We asked the Los Angeles-based photographer a few questions about her process and influences. Read more
Philip Toledano’s photo series, ‘Days with my Father’
Photographer Philip Toledano’s photo essay, Days with My Father, documents his 98-year-old father. Accompanied by some simple text, the images are intimate, heart-breaking, and ethereal, honestly depicting the nuances and tenderness of the photographer’s relationship with his subject. Read more
We have a Threadless Human Giant T-Shirt, the first season of Human Giant on DVD, and a fifty dollar Threadless voucher to give away to a randomly selected Lost At E Minor subscriber. Read more
This beautiful ultrachrome print on Hahnemuhle rag paper, measuring nine by twelve inches and in a limited edition of just 100, is available for purchase through the Lost At E Minor store. Read more
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Ms Romance said | 17 May, 2007
I just wanted to let everyone know that a number of really important fashion players told me this was the best show of the whole week. Belinda Seper and Kristie Clements (who are surely the most influential women in Australian fashion) both rushed backstage to congratulate Anna and Luke - something they rarely/never do.
Kudos to Romance Was Born for making garments that challenge expectations and dare to be different.