Daily Archives: February 19, 2017

Keiko Hirosue hopes to see a change in how shoes are made in the US. Photograph: Maria Spann for the Guardian

It turns out that there are a lot of heels in the shoe business. You would be surprised how much [shoe design] in the corporate world is just copied! I was a little nobody and I wanted to say this isnt right to the director of Topshop, Elizabeth Dunn, a bespoke shoemaker and London transplant, tells me, her voice rising with emotion.

At Brooklyn Shoe Space, a professional shoemaker co-working space and collective that also offers classes for the public on how to make everything from simple moccasins to stitched oxfords and high heels, former employees of Big Shoe are hoping they can change the industry, one step at a time.

As Keiko Hirosue, the founder, talks, three other shoemakers in the collective have made their way to the childrens table where we are sitting, sharing their stories of leaving the corporate design world to strike out for themselves.

The toddler-height table was added at the shoe collective when one of the members, Ritika Wahal, a designer of childrens shoes, asked Hirosue if she could bring her son, then only 18 months old, to the workshop with her. Hirosue responded by getting small furniture and toys to keep the boy occupied while his mother worked on her shoe line at the wooden worktable two feet away. These days, Wahals son continues to visit the shoe collective, where his mother makes him shoes in everything from fine crocodile skin to novelty leather which he picks out himself.

Brooklyn Shoe Space taps into so many aspects of the current zeitgeist its a shared working space, part of the maker movement and marks a return to locally made, bespoke products while serving as a place for womens empowerment and support that it seems remarkable that independent shoe collectives are not popping up wherever young urbanites congregate. Yet.

All the women at the collective left corporate jobs in fashion design because they missed being close to the product, finding their own design inspiration and working with their hands, which they are eager to show me are calloused and abused from hours spent stretching leather over shoe lasts and hammering nails.

My fiance says I have the hands of a 60-year-old, Rebecca Heykes, a young shoemaker in a mod dress and boots of her own design tells me with a laugh. All around the workspace are in-process shoes, with hundreds of thin nails holding the leather in place, a testament to the hand-destroying work.

While all the shoemakers can talk endlessly about the joy of designing and painstakingly creating a prototype, none of them want to spend weeks making 30 identical pairs. So recently Heykes and Hirosue banded together with several investors to open their own manufacturing facility, renting space near their collective in the increasingly upscale neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In keeping with the spirit of their collective, they hired their two factory employees through a program that pairs recent immigrant women with meaningful work.

The two factory employees, who had no background in shoemaking, were taught the craft and now make about 50 pairs of handmade shoes a month for independent shoe lines.

There is no room for fast fashion at the collective, where weeks can sometimes be spent on creating a custom shoe for an individual client. Hirosue and the other women are big proponents of American-made shoes, on a small enough scale to ensure quality and careful attention to every detail.

They talk in hushed tones of Prince Charles John Lobb shoes, which they tell me are rumored in shoe circles to be the same pair he had made specifically for him more than 30 years ago. He gets them resoled over and over, Wahal tells me, leaning in closer.

Ultimately, Hirosue wants to see a change in how the US manufactures shoes, with prototypes made locally at collectives like hers instead of being packaged off to China or other countries that supply overseas low-wage labor to the fashion market.

But handmade shoes dont come cheap. The shoemakers sell their shoes at prices comparable to those at high-end designer shops, with stitched oxfords selling for around $400, simple sandals for $200 and one-off totally bespoke pairs of shoes selling for around $2,000.

While they continue making inroads with fashion brands across the river in Manhattan and hustling to find new boutiques to carry their individual lines, all of the shoemakers regularly teach classes at the workshop to help ends meet during slow times. Shoemaking students come from across the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, with a split of 40% men and 60% women.

Students typically spend five days learning the bare basics of shoemaking, walking away with an original pair. Hirosue herself started out as a hobby student, taking a quick class on fetish shoemaking when she first dipped her toe in the cordwainer waters 13 years ago. Once you start making, it is so addicting, she tells me.

The students who take classes at Brooklyn Shoe Space are a mix of those who simply want to make a special pair of shoes for fun and those looking for a little more technical knowledge before designing their own lines. Everybody wants to be unique and wants custom everything, Heykes explains, which has helped the shoe collective get about 10 inquiries a day from prospective students as well as designers. Being able to Instagram a pair of custom shoes and show off to friends also doesnt hurt when it comes to bringing in prospective students, Wahal adds with a smile.

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Cobbling together: the Brooklynites who gather to make handcrafted shoes - The Guardian

Toujours, the Museum as Witness A selection of works from CAPC Contemporary Art Museum Bordeaux February 18May 22, 2017

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Museo Amparo presents a selection of some of the most important works from the Collection of the CAPC Contemporary Art Museum Bordeaux, representative of different moments in its history. The show includes pieces from the early years after the Museums foundation as well as from the 1980s, when it became more established; it also highlights its role in presenting new generations of artists and curators that represent the zeitgeist of different periods.Toujoursreveals a collection in constant movement, aware of cultural constructs and the spirit and ideas of its time.

The exhibition titleToujours always in Frenchis taken from the sculpture by Jack Pierson that welcomes the visitors to the show. This word evokes the idea of the continuity of an institution, of a collection and of the works created by the artists that have shaped the history of the CAPC. With its different definitions, the idea of continuity also refers to the time that has passed since the Museums foundation, its activities, the consistency of its programs and the commitment of the teams that have worked there.

How does a piece of art transcend? The wordtoujoursalso alludes to the museums role as witness to history and to its main mission: acquiring, conserving, studying, and exhibiting its collection. This is why the show focuses on a selection of pieces that establish a dialogue between them. Conceptual pieces by artists such as Daniel Buren and Sol LeWitt, closely related to the Museums first program of exhibitions or presented in later shows organized by Harald Szeeman and Marie-Laure Bernadac, coexist with emblematic interventions by artists such as Annette Messager and pieces by more recent creators such as Leonor Antunes, Wolfgang Tillmans and Lili Reynaud-Dewar.

This selection of works seeks to underline the museums role and its historic responsibility in the construction of a collection. Each piece is a witness, an idea, an opinion and it forms part of the history of the period in which it was made. It can thus be said that the pieces acquire a new meaning, because a collection reflects the different ways in which artists are witnesses as well as active participants of their time.

Toujoursproposes an interpretation related to the current socio-political context and the continuity of certain historical phenomena. It also analyzes possible relationships between language, movement, and space. Each piece has its own cultural reference and when juxtaposed with others in a new context, a dialogue is established in which a new analysis can ariseanother point of view about the history of a place (which could be the museum) or about our common history.

Among the works included in the exhibition areWall Drawing no. 2, 196890 by Sol LeWitt that establishes a link between Minimalism and Conceptual Art.Encadrant-Encadr, 3 rythmes pour 4 murs, 1991, created specifically by Daniel Buren for his solo show at CAPC muse that year, occupies an important place in the CAPC collection.Inventaire photographique des objets ayant appartenu au jeune home dOxford, 1973, by Christian Boltanski, a representative piece of his ongoing research on memory, and the most recent acquisition, Somnium, 2011, by Rosa Barba, a film inspired on the novel of astronomer Johannes Kepler, considered the first science fiction novel. The images present an uncertain landscape, inhabited between fiction and reality.

Excerpt from:

Museo Amparo - E-Flux

The temptation for filmmakers to return to material that helped establish their careers must be powerful, but it is rarely wise.

Its been 20years since Danny Boyles Trainspotting was released. That film captured the zeitgeist inan era of progression in the way films were made.

Revisiting such an iconic piece of popular culture engenders more risk and potential benefits. The new film will never live up to expectations unless it exceeds them.

Trainspotting 2 is a good film, which answersone question. The other question is whether it ought to exist. The answer to that will vary depending on whether the presence of one film will affect your regard of another.

Boyle has returned, as has screenwriter John Hodge. Most of the characters from the original return too, almost all of them having been in a state of arrested development for the past two decades.

Renton is back in Scotland to face the consequences of his betrayal. Sick Boy, now going by Simon, is still bitter about that betrayal. Begbie is angry and psychotic; nothing has changed. Spud is back to square one.

Are these men doomed to run in circles for their entire lives? Probably.

When the original Trainspotting was released, Boyle was in the middle of a movement of film that was inventing a new cinematic language.

Twenty years later and Boyle is still speaking that language. Its still engaging, and its still energetic, but its predictable, and in many ways, its forced. Perhaps it takes the vitality of an unproven filmmaker to make a film as innovative as Trainspotting.

Nostalgia, one of the characters says to Renton. Thats why youre here. Youre a tourist in your own youth.

Its an acknowledgement on Boyles part that he, himself, is looking back, but just becausehe is aware of what hes doing doesnt give him a good reason for doing it.

Its not a question of whether Trainspotting 2 is entertaining, or whether its good. Its both. But Renton, Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud are no longer immortalised in a time capsule in 1996. Perhaps they ought to have remained in the decade that defined them.

Theres a moment in Trainspotting 2 in which Renton is fleeing from a dagger-wielding pursuer. He leaps up onto the roof of a moving four-wheel drive in an effort to escape, urging the driver to step on it. For a brief moment, he smiles. The spirit of the original is in there somewhere, but ultimately it may not be enough to justify this new outing for some of the most memorable characters in recent cinema history.

See more here:

Trainspotting 2: The movie we could have done without - The New Daily

Is it any surprise that fashion designers have become politically-motivated in the current political climate? It shouldn't. At its core, theirs is a world about identity and self-expression, and so there's no time like the present for designers and models and editors to speak out about the ideals and progressive causes they have always embraced and defended.

The topic of politics was unmissable during this past New York Fashion Week. It was on the runway in the form of the obviouspolitical slogans adorning clothing in the collections of Public School, Prabal Gurung, Jonathan Simkhai, Christian Siriano, and the CFDA's Planned Parenthood campaign, among othersor the slightly more nuancedthe political considerations in the clothes shown at Calvin Klein, Gypsy Sport and even Jeremy Scott.

It was in the street style and in the front row (Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and Tiffany Trump both made multiple appearances; Clinton herself turned up on the last day at a stamp dedication for Oscar de la Renta). It was the talk of even the most raucous after parties. It was in the video W released yesterday of 81 different figures from the fashion world repeating the simple phrase I am an Immigrant.

While there may be an impulse by some to dismiss all these statements as the silly worrying of urban elites who should simply shut up and make pretty dresses, theres something else going on. This isnt a simple matter of left vs. right politics as we knew them in America for decades. All the unease in these corners hasnt sprung up over the idea of tax cuts, a smaller government or how best to deal with the future of Social Security. This isn't even sour grapes over the fashion industry's preferred candidate's loss. This runs much deeper.

It is because the goals and rhetoric of the Donald J. Trump administration, and the formerly fringe movements propping up his mandate, are at direct odds with the vulnerable people and values that have historically found refuge and protection within the fashion industry.

Behind the Scenes of Ws I Am an Immigrant Shoot with Adriana Lima, Anja Rubik, Maria Borges, and More

Fashion is, at its most powerful, about defining yourself through the way you dress and present yourself to the world. Whether it's someone codifying their social status through the predictablesay an affluent New Englander adorning themselves in the preppy chic of cable knit sweaters and polo shirts, or in turn, working-class Brooklynites appropriating those codes to re-invent themselvesor the proverbial story of the small-town aspiring fashionista who moves to the big city and redefines herself in thrift-store finds and Hood by Air sample sales, the power of clothes is here for both.

The dream of fashion is that identity is not something that is necessarily rigid and fixed from birth and class, but that identity is something that can be self-realized. This has been true especially in recent years as evidenced by the blurring of the masculine and the feminine on the runways, in the mixing of the high and the low in editorials, and in the ever increasing (though with long ways to go) celebration of diversity of all kinds, from race and religion to age and body shape (see Ashley Graham at Michael Kors this season, or the real women at Creatures of the Wind). The fashion world hopes that the clothes it produces lead to expression of one's chosen self-identity, whether it happens to be something someone adopts for a lifetime or changes every day.

This emerging movement on the right, however, sees identity as something absolute and fixed. They seem aghast at recent social progress and they somehow feel attacked when others speak up. In this emerging conservative mindset, Muslims shouldn't be offended by the phrase "radical Islamist," transgender people shouldn't complain about not having access to bathrooms, and concerns about voting rights are dismissed. The argument behind Trump's immigration ban seems to be that if you're a citizen from one of seven Muslim-majority countries, you have to jump through hoops and pass extreme vetting until it's 100 percent absolutely certain you arent one of the bad ones, or that if you're from Mexico, you're not one of the "bad hombres," in Trump's inarticulate phrasing. It's the racially-tinged equivalent of "guilty until proven innocent." They have defined their enemies at home in strict terms as well. All feminists, in the words of two worryingly prominent trolls whose names need not reprinting, will wake up one day and find themselves depressed, lonely cat ladies. Or, they're "nasty women," to quote Trump again. And anyone who has ever been offended by anything is simply a snowflake. These, by the way, are the "nicer" examples of their insults.

We Will Not Be Silenced: Political Statements Hit New York Fashion Week Street Style

This is why fashion has responded the way it has.

Its why Business of Fashion started the #TiedTogether campaign meant to make a clear statement of solidarity, unity, and inclusiveness. The campaigns white bandannas were shown on the runway at Tommy Hilfiger and passed out to guests at Calvin Klein.

Its why Gurung sent models down the runway wearing T-shirts proclaiming love is the resistance and Stronger the fear, and Siriano showed his own People are people shirt. Its why Public School showed hats that read Make American New York because they (wished)[http://www.essence.com/fashion/woke-new-york-fashion-week-moments] "the rest of the states were like New York from an inclusivity standpoint, from a diversity standpoint, from an action standpoint." It's why Raf Simons, after showing his namesake collection in New York, told WWD, "If you want to have a voice, you cant walk around it. If you have a voice, use it.

Fashion is a world where freaks and geeks have always been welcomed, if not outright thrived, where everyone from a young Puerto Rican illustrator like the late Antonio Lopez to the Minnesota-born, underground voguer Shayne Oliver can become the toast of Paris, and where immigrants like Oscar de la Renta and the children of immigrants like Alexander Wang can build empires. It's an industry that has long stood up for charitable causes, like its admirable and early advocacy to raise awareness and funding for HIV/AIDS and breast cancer research.

In other words, what may seem as recent "woke activism" has always been running just under the surface in the fashion community. The underlying message of the recent collections is that despite the niche it occupies in the cultural zeitgeist, for people in fashion, the personal has always been political, and designers are going to use the only platform they have, their runways, to stand up for the causes and individuals they believe in. In the end, there are some values that shouldn't be politicized at all.

'Make America New York' Is the New Motto of the Fashion Elite

I Am an Immigrant: Fashion's Biggest Names Issue a United Statement

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Why Fashion Has Every Right To Be Political Right Now - W Magazine

Outside, the world is abuzz aboutDonald Trumps presidency and the latest Kanye controversy. But inside this downtown New York building, the clock has been turned back to the early days of hip-hop.

Cameras are rolling on the set of the new VH1 series The Breaks, as a miffed music manager has burst into the offices of the Village Voice.

Its not the sort of thing you do,the manager, Nikki, fumes to a reporter.

Im not you, Nikki, Im a journalist. The truth is non-negotiable,the music writer fires back.

A moment later, the episodes director pumps her fist.

Cut it, print it, kill it. You got it,says Neema Barnette. Then the directorturns to a reporter to offer some finer context on the divisions inhip-hop at the time.See, Im a Harlem girl. Biggie, thats Brooklyn. Jay Z. Well JayZ is Jay Z.

The Breaksis a time machine of sorts and not just because of the outsized influence of the Village Voice. Chronicling an era when hip-hops role as a spark for both mass protest and mass commerce was just an ember, the eight-part series marks a new entry in scripted televisions growing rap canon.Where Empiredropped a soap opera into the contemporary hip-hop world and The Get Downexamined a birth moment in the late 1970s, The Breakssplits the difference.

Set in New York in 1990, the show lands at the cusp of thegolden age ofhip-hop a genre too new for anyone to know where it wouldgo, but too promising (for some) not to believe that the destination would besomewhere significant.

That period was very violent and very rough, but also very innocent in a lot of ways, especially the music,saysSeith Mann, a veteran director of shows such as The Wireand a co-creatorof The Breaks. And thats what we want to capture in the show how hip-hop grew from that innocence to a dominating business, how people in the arc of a season try to make choices so that they can make art.

Some of them,he addsdryly, wont stay innocent.

Picking up where a 2016 VH1 original movie left off, The Breaksfollows the interlocking lives of a group of people with various roles in the burgeoning sphere. Theres a trio of strivers that includes a wannabe producer, Deevee (Mack Wilds), the management acolyte Nikki (Afton Williamson) and a rookie radio-station programmer David (David Call). They cross paths withvoluble mini-mogul Barry (Wood Harris), a talented but gang-affiliated MC (Antoine Harris, no relation to Wood) and the thirsty reporter, Damita (Melonie Diaz).

Inspired by Dan Charnasacclaimed nonfiction history The Big Payback(Mannsfellowco-creator),The Breaksincludes among its executive producers John J. Strauss, an executive producer on Mozart in the Jungle,another show about dogs eating dogs in a musical subculture.

As with that Amazon Prime video series, the multiple plot lines of The Breaks nearly all involve characters desperately seeking to carve out their place in a world Nikki trying to establish herself in Barrys company, Damita looking to be the genres go-to chronicler whose animating principle remains more passion than money (though the latter is not entirely absent).

The Breaksis set a few years before artists such as A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, De La Soul and Wu-Tang Clan began flexing their cultural influence and solidifying hip-hops East Coast movement.

I think theres something really romantic about it; it just seems like a more dreamy era,says Wood Harrisduring a break in shooting. It felt like a time anyone could be a mogul and with a beeper, which if you tell a young person about now, they will laugh,he says, chuckling as he gesturesto a prop on his belt. Or think its something that only exists on YouTube.

That's hardly the only playful affect: "The Breaks" brings the dorkily endearing names of the era ("Chuck Chillout") as well as the baggy and colorful fashions. Theres also another kind of wink-y appeal to The Breaks.Much of the show plays on the audiences familiarity with how much rap blew up.In the second episode, when Deevee argues with his hospital-worker father who wants to send Deevee to South Carolina because he doesnt think his son is involved in a real business the audience can nod knowinglyat the younger mans insistence on hip-hops bright future.

Still, the creators say theyre intent on driving home how precarious a moment it was for the genre.

It wasnt inevitable that hip-hop would become as massively popular as it did,Mann says. Hip-hop in those early days was dicey it could have gone the way of disco and go-go.

Nor was it clear who would document its ascent. Though hip-hop journalism at the time had a heavily male component, producers tip their Snapbacks to pioneers like Raquel Cepeda and dream hampton.I think what surprised me is how much women were involved in covering it and bringing the news to the wider world,Diaz says. Its just not something you hear about a lot.

Those looking for a heavy original musical component to the show may be only partly satisfied. While bits of new songs, written by former Little Brother member Phonte Coleman and produced by DJ Premier,are heard,the creators chose to focus more on dialogue and character than beats.

Overt references to real-life figures also are somewhat scant, though tracks from Public Enemy, already well-established by 1990, are present, as arefictional portrayals of new jack swing artists like Keith Sweat. (This fictionalization is by design, say Seith and Charnas, giving them freedom to create without becoming caught in a tangle of rights and legal action.)

Charnas says he actually pitched the series to Fox as far back as 2010, long before Empire,and was met with indifference and even confusion. He soon landed at the shows current venue.

Everyone at VH1 got it right away,saysthe author, who often serves a truth-checking role on setthat has ledcolleagues to dub himthe Treasurer of the authenticity bank account.

The Breaksmakesa lot of sense for the network,said Chris McCarthy, president of MTV, VH1 and Logo.VH1 has always been comfortable both with looking back and celebrating the present.So, hip-hop in the 90s is a very natural place to be.

In recent years, the network has developed a programming slate that draws a large female African American audience, including reality franchises such as Love &Hip-Hopand Basketball Wives.But scripted is a more expensive undertaking, and if the appeal for a hip-hop show stretches into broader demographics, the accompanying risk grows too.

Also debatable is whether televisions hip-hop era has reached its saturation point.

After a breakout first season, Empirefell off a cliff both in the ratings and, to many observers, creatively, while The Get-Downmade a comparatively small splash in Netflixs zeitgeist pool. Hip-hop may now be such a cultural given that the idea of how it emergedis only of modest interest.

Creators of The Breakssay anyone taking that view ismaking a mistake.

I dont think Obama is president without hip-hop it brought so much into the mainstream,saysCharnas, who underscored that connection in The Big Payback.

What's interesting about the time and hopefully the show is the unwitting heroes in hip-hop. A lot of people who werent setting out to change the world were the ones who did.

The Breaks

Where: VH1

When: 9 p.m. Monday

Rating: TV-14 (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14)

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steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

Twitter:@ZeitchikLAT

Excerpt from:

With 'The Breaks,' VH1 revisits the '90s hip-hop scene when success ... - Los Angeles Times