CELEBRATING MONOGRAM

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Margherita Nannuzzi

Since the 1970s the photographer Cindy Sherman portrays herself in imitation of cinematographic aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s in Untitled film still. It is not a self-portrait in the traditional sense but a representation of stereotypes handed down by american and italian cinema: the young woman who arrives in metropolis, the housewife, the unprejudiced (or rather the femme fatale), Alfred Hitchcock’s blonde and woman victim based on the famous image of Anna Magnani. Although it’s a cliché, the pictures are made by an artist and resemble an original but are also fake stereotypes, because the cinema itself produces stereotypes to whom reality tends to look like. The combination of elements like light, make-up, costumes and, especially, types of angles and shots allows us to associate those photographs to films which we have already seen, besides, we are deceived by the female glance, that is always turned elsewhere. Sherman’s photographs seem apparently kitsch, because fashion photography expresses the  concept of “inauthentic” par excellence, but instead Sherman is making us an analysis and a reflection that are typical of modernist avant-garde. The Louis Vuitton maison for its 160 years, has chosen, among various artists, Cindy Sherman for celebrating the iconic Monogram pattern, created in 1896 by Georges Vuitton to pay homage to his  father Louis. Cindy chose the trunk (that she calls “my travel office”) but this time she doesn’t make a self-representation but she uses a model as alter ego. The model takes from the trunk the cosmetics to disguise herself as a clown,  a character become very interested for Sherman in the last ten years. The trunk, a casket enclosing a traveller’s dreams, has been the inspiration for the LV 2014 Winter collection.

FROM FASHION TO THE BIG SCREEN: CHANEL’S JACKET

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Margherita Nannuzzi

“Among the things that will never go out of fashion there are jeans, white shirt and Chanel’s jacket». These are Karl Lagerfeld’s words, who will present December the 1^st a short film entitled Reincarnation, that reveals the anecdote behind the history of the famous Chanel’s jacket: in 1954 the French stylist was particularly impressed by the jacket worn by an usher in a Salzburg’s Hotel. According to the shape of that jacket, Chanel designed a timeless piece of women’s fashion.

Exactly in the early 1950s, when fashion and women returned to dream after the great straits of World War II and while Hollywood was offering sexy beauties from tight-fitting clothes like Marilyn, Coco Chanel, instead, preferred to create simple models and make women’s clothing more functional, without ever sacrificing femininity and elegance.

The male cut tweed jacket characterized by straight line, that Chanel combines almost always with a knee-length skirt, is still very imitated and loved whether on the catwalks or in department stores. Many fashion houses reproduce the model almost every year: just look at Pinko, Elisabetta Franchi, Denny Rose and even Zara’s catalogues, just to list some of the most affordable brand!

The trend of fashion tends to be cyclical, which means that its deepest essence is change, speed, transformation; but those items of fashion like Chanel’s jacket seem to be crystallized by time, because the same pattern of jacket is revived every year with just a few small variations.

One of the last tributes to the Chanel’s jacket is Woody Allen’s one in the movie Blue Jasmine (2013). The white wool Chanel’s jacket and the Hermes bag, worn in many scenes of the movie, symbolize for the female character, heavily exhausted and indebted due to the dirty business of her husband, the only connection with the marvelous life she led in the high society.