folds

Last week myself and a couple of friends went to the barbican to see the 'future beauty - 30 years of japanese fashion' exhibition.  

I can honestly say that it was the most inspiring exhibit ive seen for a while … the Japanese just have the knack of making extremely complex designs look effortless, which is something I really admire.

They really are the masters (in my opinion) of shape and form and fold and layer.. I almost can’t describe it ... it’s something that is Japan.

My friend bought the accompanying book .. though the garments really need to be seen to really see the beauty…

I love Rei Kawakubo … at the exhibit there was a video installation with interviews with the main designers, she seems stern with her blunt fringe (her haircut is now almost as famous as the anna wintour do) and her matter of fact attitude, but I think under that is just someone who takes what she does really seriously and someone quite humble and shy, I felt for her as she fumbled her way on stage and then scurried away like a mouse.

Her designs, particularly the ones below look equally beautiful lying flat as they do worn ... 

And today I went to the Whitechapel Gallery to see the John Stezaker exhibit.

He slices and dices, folds found images and melds them together to create new ones. Taking away a lover in an embrace, replacing parts of faces with the branches of a tree, taking away the part of a human that gives us the most information, emotion, intereaction ...  the result is visually interesting but also creates a sense of mystery and want, who are these characters and what are these images saying? i love the idea that he's created them out of found images and yet they are completely believable, hes created a narrative out of staged and calculated photographic scenarios.