Yes, that’s really womenswear that you see. Eva & Bernard’s AW10/11 “Easy Tailoring” collection (via coûte). It’s no secret that I want every scrap of this collection. But I’d probably have to fight Michaela for it, which would probably be a losing proposition.
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(image via @saulpims via Vonelle)
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is probably one of the best adages that one should remember when navigating adulthood. In the past almost three months during which you haven’t heard from me (or Michaela) I’ve managed to find and transition into an awesome new job and had my heart stomped on by an engineer boot-wearing, criminally long-legged, mixed signal-sending dude who I used to think was really awesome. And in the world outside, probably none of this amounts to a hill of frijoles, but on the inside over here I’ve realized that new (and pretty demanding) employment as an immigration paralegal combined with the vagaries of trying to develop something with a really handsome, but deeply damaged working musician is a recipe for disaster that gets in the way of fashion, music, art appreciation, writing, quality food, homemaking, and all the other things that get me through the workweek (and the night). This, of course, also means knitting, which is kind of counterintuitive because all of the above combined to create a situation in which a lot of the time that I wasn’t working my pulchritudinous backside off (really, I’ve somehow lost a dress size) was still spent doing stuff with Michaela, or alone, which usually means knitting. Instead, there were lots of tears and sci-fi and too many trips to Financier and Sephora.
So I’ve pulled back a little over the past few days, and am regrouping, finding myself back here, finding myself knitting my first hat EVER (with four ends of Jaggerspun Zephyr laceweight, natch), and thinking about morphing the aggressive black metal Setesdal project that I hadn’t yet started into a dolman-sleeve sweaterdress featuring a mixed colorwork portrait of Isabella Blow. How’s that for a change of direction?
But if you asked me one really fucking awesome thing that’s happened recently, I’d have to say the Saturday that Michaela and I spent with our friend Nicholas wherein we had an extended visit to Rick Owens and Atelier and I fell further in love with criminally unaffordable menswear knits and leather. (And, alas, had some pretty moony moments thinking about wrapping up the aforementioned long-legged so-and-so in said leather.) I’d also have to say that night I went to see Recoil and stood about 25 feet away from Alan Wilder and was lamely and profoundly moved by the experience. Or this (we love these bitches). Or the night I fixed the toilet flusher with a twistie. Or any of the evenings during which Michaela perfected the clafoutis. Who knew that amateur plumbing and a really ugly cherry custard thing from Limousin could define a summer? Because it kind of did.
So, yeah. I guess I’m back. Which feels kind of quietly awesome.
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Ignore the mandals, it’s all about the knits…except that one black rag with the asymmetrical zipper that’s too heavy for the fiber that’s trying to support it. Burberry, fuck yeah. See the show at Coûte: Pt 1, Pt 2.
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Styled by Dazed’s fashion director Robbie Spencer and photographed by Richard Burbridge, this editorial is a virtual keyboard mash of button-pushing in terms of themes, styling and all-out Weimar weirdness. Fashionisto (view the whole ball of wax there) summed it up simply as “disturbing,” but I’m not sure that it is, given that Spencer’s savvy styling is a direct reference to German artist Otto Dix, who is a longtime fave of the ladies of Yarneteria.
The lead editorial photo features JW Anderson’s clever mesh-covered aran, one of a suite of smart sweaters in the Irish designer’s AW10 collection, which delivers punk militaria and unexpected textures from a distinctly Celtic perspective. View the haunting collection presentation at the link above.
The stylistic decision to use Úna Burke’s lushly fetishistic leather body cast is another surprise. Burke’s own explanation of her collection gets to the heart of the matter:
This is a conceptual collection of wearable art pieces, depicting a series of eight human gestures associated with the cause, the physical and psychological effect and the healing stages of human trauma. Sculptural forms are created around the shape of the contorted female body. A number of pieces are reminiscent of prosthetics and medical braces. This signifies the potential for healing within the boundaries of something which inhibits the body.
The call and response of the Dazed editorial with Otto Dix’s Der Krieg (1924) and later portraits of grotesquely disfigured veterans in Weimar slums and society is palpable. Dix’s etchings, aquatints and paintings offer an unflinching view at the abject horror of WWI and the underbelly of Berlin nightlife before the Third Reich. Paar im Café (Café Couple, 1921) is one of my favorites that shows the juxtoposition of WWI’s primitive medical legacy with the artistic fervor and social pageantry of the Weimar Republic. This watercolor as well as all of Der Krieg and many portraits are on exhibit at the Neue Galerie through August 30, and we recommend that you visit, providing geographical feasibility.
And of course, we can’t close this without a musical reference. Here’s Ultravox’s “Vienna,” which features all of the above imagery, plus Midge Ure:
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It’s a little atypical to look at editorials and realise that a shoot has captured the vision that you have for your own line, but that’s a little (a lot?) of what happened when I saw this editorial styled by John Tan and shot by Ryan Michael Kelly for Sportwear International. That it features Red’s Brad Bowers is doubly neat, because he’s the corporate fantasy model for this year’s designs. The hair. Seriously. See the whole ball of wax at Fashionisto.
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This has absolutely nothing to do with knitting. As if we need any excuse to post barely-safe-for-work photos of Jonathan Kroppmann. (Read more about the Lipstick Portraits project and see even more of Mr. Kroppmann at Fashionisto.) If young Mr. Kroppmann looks familiar, it’s probably because you also gawked at Juicy Couture’s Dirty English campaign sometime during 2008. I always feel like it’s pretty base to have “favorite” models, but next to Tony Ward, this kid is it. However, it would be nice if someone would let him wear some clothes occasionally.
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This week on Dazed Digital, there’s a brief look at Caseley-Hayford’s AW10 collection, which includes the ultimate accessory: a single fair-isle sleeve. Caseley-Hayford’s philosophy may best state the reason for this strangely evil item…
All men possess elements of anarchy within their character. Anarchy is not about the total absence of rules, but rather the significance of autonomy. The Casely-Hayford ethos represents a unique expression of freedom created when conformity threatens identity, or convention restricts spontaneity; we fuse this expression of the free spirit with the very particular gestures of English sartorialism. The House aims to distil a multitude of ideas into a simple pure entity: innovation through tradition.
Yeah, we can get behind this, even though it’s a little awkward with the set-in sleeve cap. But it’s an extra long fingerless mitt, a grown’n’sexy version of the always tragic emo armsock, and for that matter, a grown’n’sexy version of the Brian Molko fishnet armsock we loved to love back in the day. Would we hot-rod one (or two) and put it (them) on the right boy for editorial purposes? Yeah, probably. The practicality of this item without some modification, however, is debatable. Yet it’s still awesome. Would we chart some diabolical fair isle and inflict it on the masses? You bet your ass.
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Yes, you heard right. Black metal amigurumi from Karabouts (via Sknitter). I’m thinking he looks a little like Abbath Doom Occulta. The tags on this post rule. \m/
]]>While searching for an affordable copy of Richard Rutt’s A History of Hand Knitting (which, along with a few other out of print titles, is the current authority on, well, the history of hand knitting) Michaela happened upon an intensely interesting blog called A Fisherman Knits. Authored by Aaron Lewis (who actually is a fisherman, amongst other things), this blog is a general overview of the gansey as a garment and a socio-archaeological artifact. (I think I just coined a word.) Knitting sheaths? He explains them. He’ll also sell you one on Etsy. Curved needles as levers? He goes after that too. In some ways, his exhaustive discussion manages to take the fun out of knitting, and occasionally becomes overly precious in its adherence to traditional craft tools, however, Lewis is such an unapologetic geek about perfect construction through the pursuit of the perfect tool that each post is an absolutely fascinating read. He also loves a good gansey—for himself, for friends, for history. If you want a fluffy discussion about the spirituality of social knitting, he’s not your man. We’re OK with this.
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As we’ve mentioned previously, in the midst of looking at pictures of clothes, going to rock shows, having full-time day jobs, and managing various personal and professional relationships, we’re still managing to move in a cogent direction on our own patterns for AW10. (However, if the truth is told, Michaela is taking a little break with some classic cross-stitch, and we’re both doing some sewing for ourselves.) Per usual, you’ll have to wait until fall for those patterns because we’re slow as molasses in January, and won’t finish samples until the eleventh hour before it’s time to shoot.
If you were at our enviable home, you’d also know that right now Michaela is a little obsessed with the concept of authenticity (see Lionel Trilling) in relation to the utter fucked-upness that is Generation X/Y. I’m spending a lot of time with the history of handknitting, Viking handcrafts, the resurgence of craft, and the rise of black metal, which rolled together is part of an academic project that dovetails nicely with Yarneteria. Needless to say, there are a host of deeply nerdy conversations happening in multiple sectors of our lives, however, there seems to be a common thread that weaves together—or knits, as it were—well with where our design inspiration and storyboard is going for this fall.
In the patterns we published for AW09, Our Man was, by and large, played by a cast of our rock’n’roll friends. Designs were pretty traditional and ran close to commission pieces or were direct transcriptions of one-offs made for the “models” themselves. Contrary to the belief of a few yarn retailers and a lot of self-described “crafters,” all the designs were actual garments or accessories made for actual dudes.
So who is Our Man for the upcoming season? Well, this time around he’s an archetype. The idea that we’ve been kicking around is that he’s someone young, strong and adept, who should be able to inherit the world, but finds himself instead in wilderness struggling with an existence that is both bigger and more important than he feels ready for, since at the end of the day, he’s just a man. He’s a little pre-Round Table Arthur, a little Will Stanton, a lot boy-Nausicaa, a little Beowulf, a little Leif Ericson and a little Orlando. The world he inhabits is simultaneously ancient and post-apocalyptic with pristine wilderness and urban decay. He’s the uncrowned prince and the Stalker, a would-be conqueror, or a sacrifice. He’s still trying to figure that out. That’s a lot of weight to put on inspiration for a collection, but we’re pretty OK with it. Here are a few images (including the swords at Hafrsfjord) that have kept us on our toes this year, invoking inspiration and appropriate feeling.
Gary Card for AnOther Man
Thomas Lohr for Contributing Editor
Claddagh Colleen / Albert Kahn
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
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