HP MAGAZINE VOLUME 31 JANUARY 2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

From The Editor’s Desk “If you live by your dreams to fulfill, you are absolutely unstoppable” — Chandrama Mallick

I

n delight to introduce the fashion feature weekly based. This is my first edition.

One of the journals based on the fashion magazine initially published before. I am a student studying masters in fashion styling and communication from UnitedWorld Institute of Design, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

It is a solo project to understand our primary footsteps towards building a fashion journal on individual basis.

The theme based on the models of the fashion industry in our city. Like the starting point is the city where we live and breathe in. many more itself there to explore. The aesthetics and simplicity of the city is made with the heritage bearing the concrete and unfinished raw beauty. My fashion journal also aims at exploring the readers to the simplicity from every single aspect.

We are majorly featuring the sustainable designer Soham Dave known for his biggest contribution in the fashion world towards preserving indian crafts and artisans. Fashion is not only a term to be celebrated but to be felt if we are able enough to dig the roots through.

HP MAGAZINE- the fashion journal aiming to show each and every point where a fashion view is at. Fashion includes apparels and accessories both. It is the whole backstory behind the production to keep it. It is not only a material to be worn or used but an emotion to be a part of our life.

We have to cultivate contentment with what we have. We really don’t need much.

When you know this, the mind settles down. Cultivate generosity. Delight in giving.

Learn to live lightly. In this way, we can begin to transform what is negative into what is positive. This is how we start to grow up. – Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo.

We are eagerly waiting for the readers to deeply dive into the lively breathe issue and explore a new direction to what life can be!

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Editor Chandrama Mallick

Contributor Gayatri Iyer Image Credits Google Compilaton Chandrama Mallick Advertising Brands Kenzo World Kenzo Balmain Chloe Gucci Dolce & Gabbana Tim Walker Yves Saint Laurent

C R E D I T S

CEO Harshit Patel

Volume’31

Fashion The interests towards the fashion inspired from the arts background. Here we have taken inspiration from artfroms as such pre-raphaelites and suprematism. We admire the way it is. Fashion is a pasision to be celbrated. This edition hope will deliver you something fruitful.

Soham Dave

Moral fiber

Gayathiri Iyer

Framed The current sensation model Gayathiri Iyer who is a model cum an actress basically from Sounth Indian States. She placed roles in Bollywood movies. Her contribution is none less important to be praised of.

In this edition learn from her the unknown facts still to be discovered.

Taal- a beat of emotions

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Culture This edition will help you explore the unknown world of hidden cultures around the world. Lesser known facts about them will bring limelight into their culture and lifestyle in this part.

Beauty Beauty has no definition. It is self explanatry and expressed. It can be hidden in any forms. This journal we bring out beauty in the artistic format.

Art name: Nouveu.

Luxury Let us know about the interesting facts about the icpnic luxury brands and its traditions around the world. We all dream of luxury but hard to get, get chance to live in it by diving in this edition.

Chanel

Fendi

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

Back to the pre Raphae modern light

Photographer ZAKI CHARLES PHOTOGRAPHY Designer ALICE TEMPERLEYGEMY MAALOUF

JANUARY’2021

elite in the

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, group of young British painters who banded together in 1848 in reaction against what they conceived to be the unimaginative and artificial historical painting of the Royal Academy and who purportedly sought to express a new moral seriousness and sincerity in their works. They were inspired by Italian art of the 14th and 15th centuries, and their adoption of the name Pre-Raphaelite expressed their admiration for what they saw as the direct and uncomplicated depiction of nature typical of Italian painting before the High Renaissance and, particularly, before the time of Raphael. Although the Brotherhood’s active life lasted not quite five years, its influence on painting in Britain, and ultimately on the decorative arts and interior design, was profound.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed in 1848 by three Royal Academy students: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was a gifted poet as well as a painter, William Holman Hunt, and John Everett Millais, all under 25 years of age. The painter James Collinson, the painter and critic F.G. Stephens, the sculptor Thomas Woolner, and the critic William Michael Rossetti (Dante Gabriel’s brother) joined them by invitation. The painters William Dyce and Ford Madox Brown, who acted in part as mentors to the younger men, came to adapt their own work to the Pre-Raphaelite style.

The Brotherhood immediately began to produce highly convincing and significant works. Their pictures of religious and medieval subjects strove to revive the deep religious feeling and naive, unadorned directness of 15th-century Florentine and Sienese painting.

The style that Hunt and Millais evolved featured sharp and brilliant lighting, a clear atmosphere, and a near-photographic reproduction of minute details. They also frequently introduced a private poetic symbolism into their representations of biblical subjects and medieval literary themes. Rossetti’s work differed from that of the others in its more arcane aesthetic and in the artist’s general lack of interest in copying the precise appearance of objects in nature. Vitality and freshness of vision are the most admirable qualities of these early Pre-Raphaelite paintings.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

On a merely visual level, their performances outshone both the source material they portrayed and, at times, even the artist: we remember Millais’ Drowning Ophelia, for example, mainly for Elizabeth Siddall’s compelling portrayal of the tragic heroine—she remained immersed in a tub to a point where she became severely ill. Similarly, Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti strikes the viewer not because of its subject matter (femmes fatales had been a popular subject in art since the 1800s) but because of the ethereal features of the model, Alexa Wilding—funnily, Rossetti originally used Fanny Cornforth as a model, but then overpainted her features because his patron, Frederick Leyland, considered Cornforth’s features too earthy for the subject.

Pre-Raphaelite models were, oftentimes, artists in their own right too. “The works of what has been called the ‘Pre-Raphaelite sisterhood’ display a greater melancholy and not an assertive sensuality, as did those of their

JANUARY’2021

male counterparts, thus moving to the female gaze,” said Aurélie Petiot. Elizabeth Siddall, of course, was an artist in her own right: she started painting and drawing under the tutelage of Rossetti in 1852, and then leading art critic John Ruskin became a patron of her art, which favored Arthurian legends and other medieval subjects.

“You must take care not to rival The Sid,” Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote to his sister Christina, who had similar artistic aspirations.

Marie Spartali Stillman, hailing from the moneyed, London-based Greek diaspora, was an accomplished painter who tended to portray Arthurian and Italian subjects.

She used techniques and references to characters of the Italian Renaissance: for example, she painted the first meeting between the poet Petrarch and his muse Laura, and a Madonna who had a characteristically Botticelli-like appearance. Unfortunately, according to art collector and benefactor Charles Fairfax Murray, she

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

“ruined her reputation by running down her own work with characteristic self-denigration.” Evelyn De Morgan

was an accomplished painter whose works combined Pre-Raphaelite art with Aesthetic and Symbolist elements. She was fond of mermaids, medieval subjects and allegory and used personification to articulate spiritualist concepts. Famously, the signature of her painting Aurora Triumphans, which she initialed as EP, was overwritten to the initials of Edward Burne-Jones. “She was full of mischief, told a story delightfully and her laughter was irresistible, but wherever painting was concerned she was all eagerness, seriousness and absorption,” a fellow student at the Slade School recalled. Several of her works were bought by William Imrie of the White Star Line.

The models also influenced fashion. “Garments worn or seen in Pre-Raphaelite pictures were counter to the prevailingly corseted and be-ribboned fashions, and sometimes worn by models in everyday life,” said Marsh, referring particularly to the fashion displayed in Burne-Jones and Spartali Stillman families. “Despite a brief vogue for loose Aesthetic dress, as satirized in cartoons and musical theatre like the opera Patience, other women regarded the ‘hippyish’ styles as hideous and unstructured, but that may have been partly envy of unconventionality.”

It is, however, a stretch to make comparisons with “it” girls and muses from the twentieth century, who enjoyed 360-degree fame as personalities, artists, and performers (see, for example, Edie Sedgwick or Zelda Fitzgerald). “With the exception of Jane Morris, whom Henry James wished to meet as the epitome of the Pre-Raphaelite woman as early

JANUARY’2021

as 1867, Pre-Raphaelite models were not generally public celebrities in their lifetimes,” said Marsh.

“But from the 1860s, art patrons asked artists for any new ‘Queen of Beauty’ and certainly they were forerunners of the Professional Beauties like Lillie Langtry in 1890s.” What’s more, their accomplishments were always overshadowed by gossipy or salacious anecdotes on their personal lives. Elizabeth Siddall embodied the notion of tragic muse: after an all-consuming love affair with Dante Gabriel Rossetti, marked by social isolation and rejection from his family due to her being from a working-class background, and by depressive episodes due to Rossetti’s infidelity, she died of a laudanum overdose following a stillbirth.

Similarly, Euphemia “Effie” Gray Millais is mostly known to the public for her humiliation in her marriage to John Ruskin, which was never consummated, and her leaving him for John Everett Millais. “He alleged various reasons, hatred to children, religious motives, a desire to preserve my beauty, and, finally this last year he told me his true reason,” she wrote to her father. “He had imagined women were quite different to what he saw I was, and that the reason he did not make me his Wife was because he was disgusted with my person the first evening.” Starting in the 1920s, Modernism erased Pre-Raphaelism: it was seen as kitsch. Their renaissance in the 1960s was due to the fact that Pre-Raphaelite artists were seen as forerunners of the exponents of the counter-culture movement, and to the fact that rich collectors such as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Seymour Stein, both influential figures in the music world, enabled the translation of Pre-Raphaelite imagery into pop culture.

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

A Day With Gayathiri Iyer The Current Sensation

Gayathiri’s entry and accession in bollywood has just taken a span of 3 years where she has bagged projects by the most acclaimed names in bollywood and already has an award in her kitty.

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Gayathiri is known for Raid where she shared screen space with Ajay Devgan in a Rajkumargupta directorial & still gets called lovingly as “mukta yadav” by fans of the movie. Her demure ‘mukta’ took a jolt in her next as a second lead in Vikram Bhatt horror thriller Ghost ,where she played a closet lesbian with steamy bed scenes which brought out the bold avatar in her . Her next was an altbajali mafia webseries “family” ( later renamed as cartel) opposite Vivek Oberoi which unfortunately got shelved in the post-shoot. But the Balaji connect presented her first TV stint as a Main negative lead in Haiwaan for Zee.The audience loved her subtle negative & seductive act in Haiwaan which won her the Zee rishtey Best khalnayak award for 2019. We are waiting to see her next outing with Abbas Mastan in Penthouse and what this versatile damsel is going to stun us with.

Gayathri Iyer is an actress, known for: Raid (2018), Tyson (2016) and Jaggu Dada (2016).

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

C u r v e s

JANUARY’2021

a n d

l i n

HP MAGAZINE

e s

f o r

F a s h i o n Photography & retouch: Magdalena Czajka Model: Diana / Wave Models Styling: Ewa Michalik Make-up&hair: Justyna Beck

Magdalena Czajka Suprematism for Meow Magazine

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

The Suprematists’ interest in abstraction was fired by a search for the ‘zero degree’ of painting, the point beyond which the medium could not go without ceasing to be art. This encouraged the use of very simple motifs, since they best articulated the shape and flat surface of the canvases on which they were painted. (Ultimately, the square, circle, and cross became the group’s favorite motifs.) It also encouraged many Suprematists to emphasize the surface texture of the paint on canvas, this texture being another essential quality of the medium of painting.

Though much Suprematist art can seem highly austere and serious, there was a strong tone of absurdism running through the movement. One of Malevich’s initial inspirations for the movement was zaum, or transrational poetry, of some of his contemporaries, something that led him to the idea of zaum painting.

The Russian Formalists, an important and highly influential group of literary critics, who were Malevich’s contemporaries, were opposed to the idea that language is a simple, transparent vehicle for communication. They pointed out that words weren’t so easily linked to the objects they denoted.

This fostered the idea that art could serve to make the world fresh and strange, art could make us look at the world in new ways. Suprematist abstract painting was aimed at doing much the same, by removing the real world entirely and leaving the viewer to contemplate what kind of picture of the world is offered by, for instance, a Black

Square Suprematism, the invention of Russian artist Kazimir Malevich, was one of the earliest and most radical developments in abstract art. Its name derived from Malevich’s belief that Suprematist art would be superior to all the art of the past, and that it would lead to the “supremacy of pure feeling or perception in the pictorial arts.” Heavily influenced by avant-garde poets, and an emerging movement in literary criticism, Malevich derived his interest in flouting the rules of language, in defying reason. He believed that there were only delicate links between words or signs and the objects they denote, and from this he saw the possibilities for a totally abstract art. And just as the poets and literary critics were interested in what constituted literature, Malevich came to be intrigued by the search for art’s barest essentials. It was a radical and experimental project that at times came close to a strange mysticism. Although the Communist authorities later attacked the movement, its influence was pervasive in Russia in the early 1920s, and it was important in shaping Constructivism, just as it has been in inspiring abstract art to this day.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

Art Deco Style of Living High fashion takes inspiration from all sources, from the natural world to fine art. But perhaps there is no better synergy than that between fashion designers and architects. While architecture gives us the spaces we live and work in, high fashion is constructed to give us wearable art.

Designers who dabble in architectural fashion use their materials as building blocks, constructing a wearable form in the same manner architects utilize concrete, cement, and glass to build up their structures. Fashion giants such as the late Pierre Balmain and Gianfranco Ferré even come from an architecture background.

Balmain was clear in his enthusiasm for incorporating architectural elements into his designs, stating “dressmaking is the architecture of movement.”

Location Palazzo Orsi Mangelli.

Styling by Damian Foxe.

Photographs by Thomas Cooksey JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Hallmarks of fashion inspired by architecture include exaggerated proportions and swooping angles and particular attention to construction and shapes. To create a three-dimensional, architectural look, fabrics are often manipulated through pleating, folding, and layering in order to build up the final effect.

These days, fashion houses like Balenciaga, Marchesa, and Chloé have included pointed architectural nods in their collections. Whether the contemporary work of Frank Gehry for Balenciaga or the delicate details of Arabesque architecture for Chloé, each designer interprets their architectural inspiration to meet their individual style.

And the admiration can flow both ways. The late Zaha Hadid was known to dabble in the fashion world, bringing elements reminiscent of her own buildings into her designs.

From classic church interiors to cutting-edge skyscrapers, fashion designers often take inspiration from architecture. Let’s look at some side-by-side comparisons of fashions and their architectural influences.

Fine Art to Natural World – Fashion gets inspiration from all sources. However, the synergy between fashion designers and architects is unparalleled.

Architecture produces inhabitable art while fashion gives us wearable art. Designers who dip their toe into the world of architectural fashion, use building blocks to form the garment. In the same manner that architects use concrete, glass, bricks etc to construct the building, designers make high fashion

dresses. Fashion Industry giants like Gianfranco Ferré and the late Pierre Balmain have an architectural background. Balmain has even said “dressmaking is the architecture of movement” while incorporating architectural elements into his design.

Coco Chanel famously said that “fashion is architecture: it is a matter of proportions.” As with most things the iconic designer said or did, it wasn’t long before the world followed her lead.

Classic designers like Versace, Balmain and Cardin all studied architecture before changing to fashion, while legendary architects like Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry have taken time off from creating buildings to work on jewelry and bags. There’s a complex interaction between the design elements required in both architecture and fashion, so it’s not shocking that so many creatives have tried their hand at both.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

Architecture

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

in

Fashion

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid, and Luis Barragán are not names you would typically associate with fashion runways, but new collections from brands like Phillip Lim and Milly are drawing inspiration from these iconic architects. We interviewed ten fashion designers from labels including Rosie Assoulin, Chloe, and Maison Kitsuné to discover the high-design works that serve as reference points for this season’s garments.

The relationship between architecture and fashion fields have received many studies. Some researches have considered them as parallel worlds, while others have proven that the link is an interrelationship. Generally, architecture and fashion have many common sources: art, science, and technology. This makes them sometimes close worlds, and in many other cases, they are mixed. However, it is wise to assume that the best situation when one field becomes a source to another, and they support each other within a logical visible relationship. Architecture gives inspiration to fashion, per contra fashion achieves notability for an architectural figure or element. Mashrabiya (The traditional Arab oriel window that works as an environmental architectural element) has entered into fashion field through one of the new approaches of the heritage restoration movement. This approach has presented unique fashion shows and unparalleled jewellery designs, while made Mashrabiya a popular name in non-architectural surroundings. While the environmental functions of Mashrabiya are used in many contemporary projects without acknowledging its original name “Mashrabiya”. Moreover, other projects dealt with it using a new name like ‘geometric panels’, fashion has maintained the authenticity of the name and its orientalism. This article tries to show that Mashrabiya is one of the architectural element which gives inspiration to the fashion world. The article also presents examples of fashion and jewellery design inspired from the Mashrabiya element.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

L

U

X

U

R

Y

L

A

B

E

L

S HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

Chanel’s designs stressed simplicity and comfort and revolutionized the fashion industry.

By the late 1920s the Chanel industries were reportedly worth millions and employed more than 2,000 people, not only in her couture house but also in a perfume laboratory, a textile mill, and a jewelry workshop.

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

C

O

C

O

C

Coco Chanel, byname of Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel, (born August 19, 1883, Saumur, France—died January 10, 1971, Paris), French fashion designer who ruled Parisian haute couture for almost six decades. Her elegantly casual designs inspired women of fashion to abandon the complicated, uncomfortable clothes—such as petticoats and corsets—that were prevalent in 19th-century dress. Among her now-classic innovations were the Chanel suit, the quilted purse, costume jewelry, and the “little black dress.”

Chanel was born into poverty in the French countryside; her mother died, and her father abandoned her to an orphanage. After a brief stint as a shopgirl, Chanel worked for a few years as a café singer. She later became associated with a few wealthy men and in 1913, with financial assistance from one of them, Arthur (“Boy”) Capel, opened a

H

A

N

E

L

tiny millinery shop in Deauville, France, where she also sold simple sportswear, such as jersey sweaters. Within five years her original use of jersey fabric to create a “poor girl” look had attracted the attention of influential wealthy women seeking relief from the prevalent corseted styles. Faithful to her maxim that “luxury must be comfortable, otherwise it is not luxury,”

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

The financial basis of this empire was Chanel No. 5, the phenomenally successful perfume she introduced in 1921 with the help of Ernst Beaux, one of the most-talented perfume creators in France. It has been said that the perfume got its name from the series of scents that Beaux created for Chanel to sample—she chose the fifth, a combination of jasmine and several other floral scents that was more complex and mysterious than the single-scented perfumes then on the market. That Chanel was the first major fashion designer to introduce a perfume and that she replaced the typical perfume packaging with a simple and sleek bottle also added to the scent’s success. She partnered with businessmen Théophile Bader of the Galeries Lafayette department store and Pierre Wertheimer of the Bourjois cosmetics company, who both agreed to help her produce more of her fragrance and to market it in exchange for a share of the profits. After signing a contract wherein she received only 10 percent of the royalties, Chanel enacted a series of lawsuits in the ensuing decades to regain control of her signature fragrance. Although she was never able to renegotiate the terms of her contract to increase her royalties, Chanel nonetheless made a considerable profit from the perfume.

Chanel closed her couture house in 1939 with the outbreak of World War II. Her associations with a German diplomat during the Nazi occupation tainted her reputation, and she did not return to fashion until 1954. That year she introduced her highly copied suit design: a collarless, braidtrimmed cardigan jacket with a graceful skirt. She also introduced bell-bottomed pants and other innovations while always retaining a clean classic look.

Volume’31

After her death in 1971, Chanel’s couture house was led by a series of designers, with Karl Lagerfeld’s tenure (1983–2019) being the longest and most influential. Chanel’s shrewd understanding of women’s fashion needs, her enterprising ambition, and the romantic aspects of her life.

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

FENDI cultivates the most elevated craftsmanship, creating furs with its unique savoirfaire. This high attention to handcrafting the most extraordinary furs is a pursuit that has endured for over 90 years, producing a legacy of unprecedented invention and creativity in the art of fur.

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

F

E

N

The house of FENDI was established

by Adele and Edoardo Fendi in Rome in 1925.

The opening of the first boutique, a handbag shop and fur workshop, in via del Plebiscito, followed in 1926, gaining immediate success.

Between the end of the 40s throughout the 50s, Paola, Anna, Franca, Carla and Alda, the five daughters of Edoardo and Adele, begin working for the family business, bringing new energy and ideas.

In 1965 they start the collaboration with a young German designer, the late Karl Lagerfeld. In his hands, a fashion revolution takes place: the fur is changed, moulded, redesigned and reinterpreted. At this time he designs the iconic “double F” logo that stands for “Fun Furs”.

In 1992, Silvia Venturini Fendi, third generation of the Fendi family, joins the company and seconds Karl Lagerfeld in the Artistic Direction. In

D

I

1994 she is given the responsibility of Accessories and then of the Menswear lines.

In September 2020, Kim Jones joins the FENDI Family as Artistic Director of Haute Couture, Ready-to-Wear and Fur Collections for Women.

Analyzin’ miss clairol, fendi’d down mascara on, assistant manager in paragon - Raekwon

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

The FENDI boutique concept has evolved as the House too has progressed. As it prepares to celebrate 90 years in business, the network of stores is changing to accentuate and celebrate the heritage and contemporaneity of the Rome-based brand. Each of these prestigious boutiques on the world’s most beautiful streets contains a wall of baguette bags with some 40,000 bronze spikes. A spectacular installation to showcase the first it-bag in the world, which was created by Silvia Venturini Fendi in 1997 and remains as iconic today.

FENDI cultivates the most elevated craftsmanship, creating furs with its unique savoir-faire. This high attention to handcrafting the most extraordinary furs is a pursuit that has endured for over 90 years, producing a legacy of unprecedented invention and creativity in the art of fur.

Since 1925, fearless experimentation with precious fur has driven the creation of FENDI’s collections, combined with the incomparable technical prowess, extraordinary quality of materials and the Maison’s unparalleled creativity.

In the hands of the FENDI artisans and with the use of new techniques, fur becomes light, soft and versatile: the material of a new realm of fashion experimentation.

Savoir-faire and limitless creativity combined with the research for high-quality materials and details are the secret behind the FENDI Icons, the Baguette and Peekaboo bags.

Created by Silvia Venturini Fendi respectively in 1997 and 2008, these creations have not only passed the test of time but have become a symbol of the Maison itself.

Volume’31

Creating history became second nature to Fendi as they breathtakingly presented the spring/summer 08 collection during a show staged on top of The Great Wall of China, starring 88 models and an 88-meter long runway. It is noted as the only fashion show to be visible from the moon.

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

S a p e u r s The one I’m presenting here is an interesting case in subcultures history, because it shows clearly the playground where the worship of High Fashion crashes into the midst of extreme poverty.

To be part of any subculture, together with the need of a collective identity there must be a readable dress-code. As it was for the most iconic cultures, such as punk rockers, skinheads, hip hoppers, ravers, beatniks etcetera, clothing plays a fundamental role in the recognition of such tribes. The one I’m presenting here is an interesting case in subcultures history, because it shows clearly the playground where the worship of High Fashion crashes into the midst of extreme poverty.

We are talking about the Sapeurs, a subculture from Brazzaville and Kinshasa, respectively capitals of the Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo. The group name refers to “SAPE”, which stands for “Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Elégantes” (Society of Ambiance-makers and Elegant People) and consists of Congolese men who love dressing up and gather together to show off their suits on the behalf of (mostly) european Haute Couture, despite of unsustainable living conditions.

Although the phenomenon gained momentum after the end of the WWII, the Society seems to have been active since even before the Roaring Twenties (the north area of Congo River came under French sovereignty in 1880) when the

JANUARY’2021

-

T h e

HP MAGAZINE

D a n dy

L i o n s Congolese soldiers started imitating the French and Belgian colonialists’ style.

Here it comes the first question. Why the oppressed would have loved to dress up as their oppressors? As typical behaviour of western culture after the Industrial Revolutions, clothing would have been functional as a material display of accumulated wealth, namely we can assume that one of the reasons why Congolese men started wearing up western couture goods leads to an explicit association with power, luxury and innovation that they perceived when “visiting” Europe (trickle down theories).

Nevertheless Sapeurs not only continue nourishing their interest towards western fashion, but also they seems to achieve a kind of shamanic aura among the cities’ inhabitants, who can’t really understand nor estimate the mind-boggling amount of money necessary to satisfy this as paradoxical as much shocking cult. Instead, when looking at them walking on the street, they would shout out “The God of Clothes, The God of SAPE!” Effectively, they dress in Kenzo, Giorgio Armani, Paul Smith tailored suits, have strong passion for silk ties and invest thousand dollars in suede shoes. For istance, a pair of Weston’s lace-ups, which are mandatory, can cost up 1500$ and they are considered useful for sapeurs “dignity and self-esteem”. Obviously, imitations are not allowed.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

D r a g “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag” — Ru Paul If there’s an art-form that’s more misunderstood than most others, it’s probably drag.

Drag is an art-form that’s sometimes compared to clowning by performance analysts, but is so much more.

Like clowns, drag queens dress in exaggerated costumes and makeup to perform a show.

Makeup is often drawn to accentuate features that will make an act funnier or make the performer more beautiful.

Drag is where glamour meets comedy However unlike with clowning, drag isn’t being dragged down by horror films and changing audience tastes.

While incredible shows like Cirque du Soleil are helping clowning stay alive, the global heartbeat of that ancient art is barely beating compared to its historical popularity.

A different heartbeat is taking its place, and this heart is fierce and fabulous.

No Rules A big misconception of drag is that it’s only performed by men, a misconception that goes against the golden rule..

There are no rules in drag.

Drag often attracts those that feel marginalised and misunderstood by family and society.

Hyper-creative people, these artists feel that they can’t create or perform within the realm of what’s appreciated in the

JANUARY’2021

-

T h e

HP MAGAZINE

New

O n e s towns and cities where they’ve grown up.

But we now live in a world where technology allows people to be seen wherever they are.

Now more than ever, people are adorning drag and taking to social media to show the world what they can do.

From costume making and makeup talent, to performing arts skills; drag performers have a lot to show.

Both men and women can perform however they like. The only barrier to fame is talent and memorability. Drag Queens Drag Queens tend to be performers who dress and perform in an exaggeratedly female persona.

While appearing female, most of these performers don’t want to actually be female; they don’t even try to fool you into thinking they’re biologically female.

As a drag queen they’re able to perform their act, show their skills and be their true self.

Arguably the most famous drag queen in history, RuPaul has said,

“I do not impersonate females!

How many women do you know who wear seven-inch heels, fourfoot wigs, and skintight dresses? — I don’t dress like a woman; I dress like a drag queen”.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

A r t

Art Nouveau, ornamental style of art that flourished between about 1890 and 1910 throughout Europe and the United States. Art Nouveau is characterized by its use of a long, sinuous, organic line and was employed most often in architecture, interior design, jewelry and glass design, posters, and illustration. It was a deliberate attempt to create a new style, free of the imitative historicism that dominated much of 19th-century art and design. About this time the term Art Nouveau was coined, in Belgium by the periodical L’Art Moderne to describe the work of the artist group Les Vingt and in Paris by S. Bing, who named his gallery L’Art Nouveau. The style was called Jugendstil in Germany, Sezessionstil in Austria, Stile Floreale (or Stile Liberty) in Italy, and Modernismo (or Modernista) in Spain.

W MAGAZINE’S MARCH 2012 ‘THE NIGHT IS YOUNG’ EDITORIAL

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

N o u v e a u

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

In England the style’s immediate precursors were the Aestheticism of the illustrator Aubrey Beardsley, who depended heavily on the expressive quality of organic line, and the Arts and Crafts movement of William Morris, who established the importance of a vital style in the applied arts. On the European continent, Art Nouveau was influenced by experiments with expressive line by the painters Paul Gauguin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The movement was also partly inspired by a vogue for the linear patterns of Japanese prints (ukiyo-e).

The distinguishing ornamental characteristic of Art Nouveau is its undulating asymmetrical line, often taking the form of flower stalks and buds, vine tendrils, insect wings, and other delicate and sinuous natural objects; the line may be elegant and graceful or infused with a powerfully rhythmic and whiplike force. In the graphic arts the line subordinates all other pictorial elements—form, texture, space, and colour—to its own decorative effect. In architecture and the other plastic arts, the whole of the three-dimensional form becomes engulfed in the organic, linear rhythm, creating a fusion between structure and ornament. Architecture particularly shows this synthesis of ornament and structure; a liberal combination of materials—ironwork, glass, ceramic, and brickwork—was employed, for example, in the creation of unified interiors in which columns and beams became thick vines with spreading tendrils and windows became both openings for light and air and membranous outgrowths of the organic whole. This approach was directly opposed to the traditional architectural values of reason and clarity of structure.

There were a great number of artists and designers who worked in the Art Nouveau style. Some of the more prominent were the Scottish architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who specialized

in a predominantly geometric line and particularly influenced the Austrian Sezessionstil; the Belgian architects Henry van de Velde and Victor Horta, whose extremely sinuous and delicate structures influenced the French architect Hector Guimard, another important figure; the American glassmaker Louis Comfort Tiffany; the French furniture and ironwork designer Louis Majorelle; the Czechoslovakian graphic designer-artist Alphonse Mucha; the French glass and jewelry designer René Lalique; the American architect Louis Henry Sullivan, who used plantlike Art Nouveau ironwork to decorate his traditionally structured buildings; and the Spanish architect and sculptor Antonio Gaudí, perhaps the most original artist of the movement, who went beyond dependence on line to transform buildings into curving, bulbous, brightly coloured, organic constructions.

After 1910 Art Nouveau appeared old-fashioned and limited and was generally abandoned as a distinct decorative style. In the 1960s, however, the style was rehabilitated, in part, by major exhibitions organized at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1959) and at the Musée National d’Art Moderne (1960), as well as by a large-scale retrospective on Beardsley held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 1966. The exhibitions elevated the status of the movement, which had often been viewed by critics as a passing trend, to the level of other major Modern art movements of the late 19th century.

Currents of the movement were then revitalized in Pop and Op art. In the popular domain, the flowery organic lines of Art Nouveau were revived as a new psychedelic style in fashion and in the typography used on rock and pop album covers and in commercial advertising.

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021

HP MAGAZINE

Volume’31

JANUARY’2021