Have you already checked out the Camp exhibition at the Met? Were you able to hop on over to Montreal to gag at all the spectacular Thierry Mugler pieces on display at the first exhibition dedicated to his prolific career? If not, then no worries — no matter where you are in the US, we’ve got you covered with 5 museum exhibitions worth a visit this summer. Read on.
If you’re looking for a more traditional museum exhibition, check out The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This show within the museum features works contemporary Chinese artists who have fostered an intimate relationship with their materials. The exhibit is not your typical paintings, but instead much bigger demonstrations of materiality with immersive installations. This exhibit will end January 5th so make sure to get in there before its too late.
This next museum is not for the faint of heart — if you’re looking for something a bit creepier this summer, check out the Vent Haven Ventriloquist Museum. This world’s only museum dedicated to ventriloquism is located in Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, and is pretty much exactly as it sounds — a bunch of ventriloquist dummies staring at you as you roam around. Fun, right?
The Museum of Sex in New York remains one of the city’s best modern museums. It’s the perfect place to learn about and embrace the human form and check out some funny but interesting pieces — their photography exhibitions are not to be missed. However, you can also just pop in to bounce on inflated breasts and get an Instagram photo.
Next up is the country queen herself, Dolly Parton. Within Dollywood, there is The Chasing Rainbows Museum located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Featuring numerous stage costumes from concerts and special appearances as well as all sorts of other memorabilia, this museum is sure to astound you with color and take you on a trip through the lavish life of Dolly.
Finally, The Neon Museum in Las Vegas is a hidden gem. While the city is known for its more high-profile attractions (HAVE YOU SEEN ENIGMA YET), this one is somewhat overlooked. The Neon Museum, or more specifically the Neon Boneyard is filled with old Neon signs from local stores and other establishments throughout the ages. Seeing them all illuminated at night is a must, and pure Instagram bait.
Showing in Shanghai for the first time, Prada‘s Spring/Summer 2020 collection was a retro and playful feast of pastels and ’90s tech. An optimistic spirit was palpable throughout the presentation. The Italian designer’s signature sharp tailoring was more relaxed, with extended fits and a type of deconstructed ease that radiated comfort and elegance. A retro-theme was emphasized quite literally with decorative floppy disks and cassette tapes adorning certain looks — maybe a statement on the obsession with nostalgia? Or more just a metaphor for referencing the past to move into the future. Either way, the collection as a whole was delightfully tongue-in-cheek and clever, demonstrating the type of prizes one finds when thinking outside the box.
Over the weekend, models strutted down a spiral runway at the Fendi Fall/Winter ’19 show in Shanghai’s Powerlong Museum. This marks the first time the Italian designer has presented its men’s and women’s collections together.
The show opened with one of the new men’s looks, which featured a tan suit with black lapels, and a nude-colored mesh turtleneck styled under a button up shirt (a recurring motif in the show), and white patent leather boots that gave off a downtown rocker vibe. Another standout was a printed varsity-like jacket that combined different colorful graphic prints, from a four leaf clover to the designer’s distinctive logo, in a playfully striking contrast to the otherwise tailored and traditional menswear.
Acne Studios opened their first brick-and-mortar flagship store in Beijing at the reputable Taikoo Li Sanlitun complex. Using much of the original architecture of straight lines and glass façade of the space, the in-house team at Acne Studios continued the open and minimal interior theme (emphasized with simple and organic-looking materials) designated at its other boutiques.
The white, high gloss, lacquered walls and the beige floor contrast signature stainless steel walls, rails, tables, and shelving. Additionally, the store’s open layout is anchored by large sculptural displays (made by British designer and long-time collaborator Max Lamb,) found in the front and the back of the store. Lamb also designed some custom rugs for the store, bringing a soft warmth to the space. For the opening of the store, the designer created a line of unique products for purchase in China only: featuring an exclusive down jacket based on the main collection design and small leather goods in beige with hidden lucky messages inside.
The new Acne store in Beijing is open now at N3-13, No.19 Sanlitun Road, Taikoo Li North Village, Chaoyang District, Beijing.
Today Coach announced that their Pre-Fall 2019 show is moving to Shanghai. The designer chose Shanghai because of the youthful energy and vibrancy, in hopes of joining the similar “bright lights, big city” attitudes that both New York and Shanghai share with each other.
Features include specially designed accessories, ready-to-wear and sneakers created by Stuart Vevers, creative director of the label, with Chinese cultural icon collaborations. “Staging our Pre-Fall show in Shanghai is a big moment for Coach and for me personally,” Vevers said in a statement. “I’m most looking forward to taking the spirit of the new Coach and the attitude and energy of New York to Shanghai to connect in an exciting and memorable way.”
CEO and president of Coach Joshua Schulman shares a similar sentiment, saying, “As we celebrate 15 years in the market, we look forward to building an even closer connection between Coach and our fans in China.”
Coach’s Pre Fall 2019 runway show will be held on December 8th and take place on Shanghai’s popular waterfront The Bund.
Earlier this week Dior Homme staged a second runway showing of its Winter 2015 collection in Guangzhou, China, and despite being the fashion house’s third presentation in the country, this particular event was the first of its kind to be held in the city’s landmark opera house, with over 600 guests. The collection, themed Opening Night and Day Dreaming, combines beauty and innovation, linking the heritage of Dior Homme with the modernity of today’s China. “It was a privilege to return to China with our runway show as this collection plays with codes of a techno-sartorial elegance,” said Dior Homme Artistic Director Kris Van Assche in a statement. “Showing it in Guangzhou puts it in a new perspective. It enhances my work on modernity and heritage as well as my research on plurality and individuality.” International and Chinese models walked the runway to a live performance by 40 musicians from the Guangzhou Symphonic Orchestra playing original pieces by French composer Koudlam who also made a surprise appearance.
French-Italian sportswear company Moncler—renowned for its heavy-duty down coats and accessories—recently celebrated the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth. Moncler provided technical equipment for the first Italian mission, including uniforms, tents, sleeping bags, helmets, and backpacks, and so it would only be appropriate that this summer the brand also outfitted the celebratory K2-60 Years Later team.
Image: Moncler.
In keeping with the principle that the climbing experience is also a style experience, the new attire—six high-protection down jackets—draws inspiration from the Moncler Lionel Terray Collection, the brand’s historic body of work masterly developed by the French mountaineer Lionel Terray, an early adopter of its clothing. In the 1954 expedition, Italian climbers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni were supplied with Moncler jackets developed by Terray’s highly-extensive knowledge of the outdoors.
Image: Moncler.
The K2-60 Years Later mission—composed of Pakistani climbers and Italian mountaineering ambassadors—set out in mid-June and is backed by Evt-K2-CNR, an organization which has worked in the mountainous areas of Hindu-Kush-Karakorum-Himalaya for 25 years. Along with the Italian Development Cooperation and Pakistani authorities, it has helped create the K2 national park, which has a surface area of 10,000 square kilometers.
Image: Moncler.
The current expedition will be participating in the Keep Karakorum Clean campaign, a program whose initiatives have collected 40 tons of waste and installed 12 toilets in the mountains. Follow their progress here, and prepare for your own high-altitude adventure (or this coming winter), by visiting Moncler here.
In August of this past year, the narrative rights of author Kevin Kwan’s debut novel, “Crazy Rich Asians,” were purchased by Hollywood production agency Color Force within only two months of its official release. A move, perhaps slightly less ostentatious than the story that it tells. Wrapped in cultural innuendos and notes on couture, the book glossily catalogs the impressive, if not greater-than-Gossip-Girl life sense of luxury expanse and designer extravagance that satiated walk-in closets and red oak armoires in most of mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and other nearby Chinese-populated nouveau riche communities in the 90’s and early millennium years.
From Gucci to Goyard and Prada to Pucci it seemed there was no cessation to the potency of the logo in the largest market in the high-end fashion sector, which, by the way has been largely dominated by men. While this Escada-embossed dome that wealthy Asian shoppers so lustrously built did very well exist—and thanks to the team behind The Hunger Games will again on silver screen near you soon—according to English-inspired Chinese menswear brand Bosideng, there is a growing passageway out.
“In China there is a new movement that is definitely happening. People are not running to logos anymore, it’s much more about style,” says the company’s Design Director Amelia Pretious. “Men are picking quality over a printed tee shirt with a big name. In particular, the younger generation is looking at things in a new, contemporary way.”
Bosideng Design Director Amelia Pretious
Like the other fashion houses Kwan describes in his novel, Bosideng lives in the realm of the high-end luxury variety, but while international, it is certainly unimposing in its style; focusing on the subtle cues of its mixed heritage instead of trying to squeeze into flash trends that pervade the market.
“Menswear is changing so much that men want to be more individual. Of course [Bosideng] has elements of branding, such as our name on our buttons, but in terms of splashing our name across everything, that’s just not us,” said Pretious.
Established in The People’s Republic of China in 1976, the fashion label is proud of it itself, proud of its homeland, and prouder to be the first global brand of its kind. “Every collection looks back to China, it is such a huge source of inspiration” smiles the designer, where it houses over 12,000 retail locations.
Creative insight ranges from matters of tradition—for Bosideng’s Autumn/Winter 2014 season the horse zodiac is a motif that races through the collection—to ideas less concrete, still developing. For researching the same collection, reflective of the country’s ever-evolving creative climate, the brand explored elements of China’s contemporary art scene, taking inspiration from Liu Bolin (“The Invisible Man”) and The Power Station of Art in Shanghai. Rich in stimuli these ideas were then rendered to completion through English technique, the other half of the brand’s brain. While China is very much the home to Bosideng, London—the headquarters for the design team and site of the company’s first European flagship—is where it really gets interesting.
Pretious headed the design team for luxury Scottish brand Crombie before starting Bosideng London almost a year ago, and brought with her a strong knowledge of outerwear and textiles. While the designer’s appointment made sense at the time considering Bosideng’s foundation is its down wear (a range of beautiful pieces that look almost as great as they feel to wear), it is Pretious’ steadied and surprising re-imagination of Chinese impetus and English craftsmanship now (and then back and forth, and then back and forth), that is far more important.
Like a poetic phrase one gets from translating two foreign languages too far, what results from Bosideng’s cultural interplay is almost a beautiful accident—if it weren’t so smartly executed. For F/W14, the icon of the horse (taken from Chinese calendar) was matched with the British’s love for equestrians: groups of leather accessories and jockey trainers quickly became reoccurring members of the collection’s cast, an illustration of Bolin was commissioned and printed onto a graphic tee, and through intricate placing of delicate Chinese lace a camouflage print was formed. Images of heritage became sporty, smart notes of contemporary flair.
Together these elements were used to tear apart the constructs of normal sportswear and formal suiting. “The idea was to mix things up. We looked at the heritage of the brand and translated it into a contemporary way,” said Pretious after the collection’s first unveiling at New York Fashion Week last week. Almost ironically, the presentation, sandwiched between with an on-going pop-up shop at men’s specialty store Rothmans, hints that the forthcoming American retail debut of Bosideng will be a big, subtle bang.
Images courtesy of Bosideng and headshot by Ernie Green.
Shanghai can put a spell on you. It’s so big, cinematic and confusing that said spell could, really, be a curse to the traveler not privy to a comfortable and accommodating place to say. On the other hand, the spell could also be enchanting if you do find the kind of hotel you could live at. One that places the crazy at a distance. We suggest the Banyan Tree Shanghai on the Bund, which is a full service urban resort that has offered luxurious views of Shanghai’s sweeping financial district from it’s perch across the river since it opened, but starting this month, they’ve taken things to the next level.
To the roof top to be exact with the opening of TOPS, the first and only bar in Shanghai to offer a full, 180 degree, unobstructed view of the bustling city across the river. Already they’ve got a line up of internationally renown DJs spinning for nightly parties to match the exquisite modern cocktails shaken and stirred by professional bartenders, and a selection of avant-garde tapas specially-crafted by the urban resort’s chefs.
Once you’ve taken care of business in Shanghai, you can while the rest of day away downstairs in the confines of their renown Spa, featuring a fully stocked gym (with Yoga center) and a relaxing or swimming pool and then turn it up a notch by night at TOPS.
