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Series (Ten Cupolas) c.1999

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Christian Dior’s Gallery in the 1950s showing Braque and Picasso.

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Katherine Hamnett campaign, shot by Juergen Teller 

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Curator stems from the word, curare, meaning “to take care”. In September of this year, Joseph opened a menswear store on Savile Row. The whole design focuses on the interplay between contrasts and is representative of Joseph’s collections.

Joseph Ettedgui, who opened the first womenswear store in London’s Chelsea in 1972 and introduced menswear in 1997, began in a hairdresser’s salon. He used his shopwindow to attract attention to the Kenzo Takada’s jumpers which sold immediately, pre-empting his ability to know what women want.

This is an early Kenzo design from the Met in New York. It is actually from 1971, but gives you an idea of what Joseph started to collect. There is also a great knitted jumper on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Takada Kenzo sketch from March 3rd, 1978, Military floral embroidered pleated shirt dress.

Taking care or ‘curating’ your shop front and the interior, is a great way to drum home the broader aesthetics of your brand. From Acne’s conceptual window installations, to APC’s display of four or five staple items, the shop window is a way for a brand to assert its character and to let the shop be judged by its cover.

It can also be funny. The brand Shrimps commissioned Matilda Goad to take over the shop window at the oldest surviving Italian delicatessant, ‘Lina’ on Wardour Street. During London fashion week, they peppered the window with large red shrimps and fake fur across the spaghetti.

Joseph moving onto Savile Row says a lot about the kind of menswear that it wants to be associated with and is a great example of using the history of Savile Row with simple modernist architecture to communicate the character of the brand. 

Alex Eagle’s The Store, that recently relocated from Walton Street to Soho demonstrates the importance of creating a lively in-store experience that blurs the boundaries between gallery and shop. With the first event this week, she is hosting various evenings including an upcoming poetry night for Robert Montgomery with Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, revealing a series of drawings and poems sent between London and Paris. Montgomery has excitingly just created his own publishing house with Greta Bellamacina entitled The New River Press. 

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Designer Thomas Browne creates an installation at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. 

The installation makes you think about ideas of uniformity and self reflection within fashion. Browne has covered a wall with mirrors from the museum’s archive. He has derived inspiration from the 18th century mirrors, finding as many mirrors as possible to showcase the idea of an effect. Just as with his shows, he wants to create an overall experience rather than just focus on one thing. The installation evokes, ‘reflection and uniformity’, which Browne notes, ‘have been with me since my first collection.’

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Monday.

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One thing that you may not know about Yves Saint Laurent is that he bought this enchanting Majorelle Garden in Morocco in 1980 with his partner Pierre Bergé. He loved the garden stating: ‘We were seduced by this oasis where colours used by Matisse were mixed with those of nature’. In fact he saved the plot from being sold to a hotel and honoured his statement to “make the Jardin Majorelle become the most beautiful garden – by respecting the vision of Jacques Majorelle.” Saint Laurent’s ashes were scattered here in 2008. 

Before Saint Laurent, artist Jacques Majorelle, had loved his garden for almost forty years, and had continued to enrich it with new varieties of plants from all five continents, fashioning a “cathedral of shapes and colours,” into an impressive garden. The giant cactuses remain amusingly characterful. To discover your own miniature cathedral of shapes and colours in London, visit the Botanique workshop that sells a range of miniature cactuses in Exmouth Market. The shop is beautifully crafted and curated. 

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Excited to have some new shows in the mix.

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Loved interviewing Harland Miller ahead of his show at Blaine Southern Gallery in Berlin. Soon to be published

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Francis Bacons studio in Dublin

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Itchy Scratchy Patchy at Dover Street Market

Love magazine and Itchy Scratchy Patchy paired up to present this pop up stall at Dover Street’s new flagship store on Haymarket this week. Amid new designer booths, the girls had been busy making customised patchwork t-shirts withe glow and the dark stickers. The Love t-shirts coincided with Love magazine’s club edition and remind us once again that being in a gang is cool. What is also very exciting is the fact that Itchy Scratchy Patchy has launched their new collection of iron on badges, including mushrooms, flowers and caterpillars. Christabel Macgreevy’s beautiful horticultural designs give a softer edge to the current prevalence of hardy streetwear. 

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(via Watch Grimes in Stella McCartney’s new perfume ad)

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The biggest luxuries in life are light, space and time. You can never have enough of those.

Architect Peter Marino, April 14th 2016