Opening of the Fondation Louis Vuitton

Last Monday, October 27th 2014, the Fondation Louis devoted to contemporary art opened its doors in Paris' Bois de Boulogne, the famous park on the west side of Paris, located next to the Jardin d'Acclimatation.

 

My Instagram of Fondation Louis Vuitton for the occasion of the 

LOUIS VUITTON Spring 2015 presentation in September

An immense vessel in glass, wood and metal, it is the brainchild of Frank Gehry, the American architect to whom we owe the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and Prague’s Dancing House. A daringly architectural cloud, it has been intriguing visitors to the Bois de Boulogne and lovers of contemporary art for several months, long before it opened to the public today. The Fondation Louis Vuitton was conceived by Bernard Arnault, President of the LVMH group and Christian Dior SA, to promote contemporary art by housing both his own collection and two temporary exhibitions annually. It’s a major project, reflected in the dimensions of the grandiose dream it contains. Building it required six years of work, 13500m2 of glass panels, but especially some great feats of technical innovation.  

'We wanted to offer Paris an extraordinary space for art and culture and pull out all the stops when it comes to boldness and emotion by entrusting to Frank Gehry the task of creating a building that would be emblematic of the 21 ^st century,” explains Bernard Arnault.

In addition to the permanent collection, which gathers together works by the greatest names in 20^th and 21^st-century art, visitors will discover an exhibition devoted to the building itself. It offers a daydream promenade, courtesy of Janet Cardiff and George B. Miller. It boasts a light installation by Olafur Eliasson, who has taken over the pool area surrounds. There’s also a musical sculpture created by Cerith Wyn Evans, which seems to transpose the building’s characteristics into sound. And that’s just for starters. So many works celebrating creativity and daring in all their forms and which Dior's creative director Raf Simons, a great lover of contemporary creation, came to admire at its glittering inauguration event.

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Photo Credit / Source: Fondation Louis Vuitton

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Instagram by @andreajankeofficial

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'LOUIS VUITTON Spring/Summer 2015 Presentation
at Fondation Louis Vuitton'

As a brand, Louis Vuitton is about travel, and Nicolas Ghesquière is shouldering the responsibility for that as much as Frank Gehry did in the shape of his building. Ghesquière made the smart decision not to compete with the architecture (who could?). Instead, he led his audience below stairs into a darkened ship’s engine-room. The lights went off, the walls lit and became video screens. Huge projections of the faces of girls and boys of many ethnicities spoke in unison in words synthetized from 20 voices. Right here and now, they announced, Louis Vuitton was about to “explore any part of the universe without moving.”

My Instagram of the digital art installation at
LOUIS VUITTON Spring 2015 fashion show

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BARBARA CASASOLA Spring/Summer 2015

From sunset to sunrise in one fashion swoop – that was the idea Central Saint Martins-trained Barbara Casasola had in mind for her spring/summer 2015 collection. It played out through warm tones: oranges and reds and then bronze glitter for stretchy micro plisse on svelte-fitting dresses and midi skirts (worn nicely with high necks on top). Sunray pleats fanned out into maxi skirts, torso-hugging knits above them, and there came a continuation of Casasola’s strong and gently oversized tailoring – here sleeveless. Edited and controlled aptly describe this designer’s aesthetic – it doesn’t shout, preferring instead to play quietly in the background. But it was only this last time last year that the Brazilian designer made her on-schedule debut and just back in January that she became the youngest guest designer to show at Pitti, so she’s definitely doing something right, shouting about it or not.

Barbara Casasola looked homeward to her native Brazil this season, seizing on the work of artist Lygia Pape, as well as Oscar Niemeyer's architecture in Brasília, for inspiration. More generally, too, Casasola was summoning a certain Brazilian kind of beachside chic, riffing on swimwear and aiming for a laid-back attitude. The ease of this collection marked a real growth for Casasola, whose clothes can sometimes feel rigorous; this time out, she interpreted her favorite stovepipe dress silhouette in a relaxed way, emphasizing stretchy fabrics and seamless patterning. The best of these came in sunset colors and looked a bit like dress-length maillots.

Casasola also did well with her tailoring, in particular the double-breasted jackets slashed in the back and nonchalantly wrap-belted. But the real highlight here were the metallic pieces, an homage to Pape's luminous thread installations. The material Casasola used was lightweight but densely ribbed, and so-cool tank dresses in olive and silver fit like a second skin. To close the show, the designer sent out metallic singlets worn with matching floor-length plissé skirts a proposition for evening that looked really fresh. 

Discover Barbara Casasola's biography & runway show during this post! LoL, Andrea 

BIOGRAPHY

LONDON-BASED BARBARA CASASOLA COMMENCED HER STUDIES WITH A FOUNDATION COURSE IN FASHION DESIGN AT CENTRAL SAINT MARTINS, LONDON, AND SUBSEQUENTLY ATTENDED ISTITUTO MARANGONI, MILAN, WHERE SHE GRADUATED FIRST IN HER CLASS. ON GRADUATION, SHE WAS HIRED BY ROBERTO CAVALLI IN FLORENCE AS ASSISTANT DESIGNER FOR WOMEN’S WEAR, A POSITION SHE HELD FOR NEARLY THREE YEARS UNTIL SHE MOVED TO PARIS TO CONSULT FOR A NUMBER OF FRENCH FASHION HOUSES. CASASOLA MADE HER CATWALK DEBUT IN SEPTEMBER 2013 DURING LONDON FASHION WEEK AT WHITE CUBE. IN JANUARY 2014, BARBARA WAS AWARDED “GUEST WOMEN’S WEAR DESIGNER” AT PITTI UOMO. CASASOLA'S PRINCIPAL INFLUENCE IS THE UNIVERSAL VISUAL LANGUAGE OF HER NATIVE BRAZIL. PARED-BACK AND SENSUAL THIS UNEXPECTED WORLD INFORMS HER FRESH TAKE ON THE MODERN, INTERNATIONAL, WOMAN.

VOGUE UK, February 2014

"In just two seasons Brazilian born designer Barbara Casasola has cemented herself as a noted named on the London Fashion Week Schedule. Between her debut and second showing, she was invited to be guest designer at Pitti in January and can already list Havery Nichols, Matches and JOSEPH among her stockists ... What she does is sophisticated and elegant, restrained and demure."

 

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories 

Photo Credit / Source: The House of Barbara Casasola

 Photos by Yannis Vlamos / Indigitalimages

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'VERSACE Spring/Summer 2015' 

Riffing or rather, rapping on the Versace house codes, Donatella was in a playful, upbeat mood. She’d had the Medusa logo redrawn by hand and printed on a silk shirt a reinterpretation of early nineties Versace cult collectibles for a second generation. Then she took the Greek key pattern, abstracted it, enlarged it, drenched it in Swarovski sparkle, and pulled off a dozen and more feats of cutting it into party dresses.

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The New VALENTINO Store Concept

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In each of the new VALENTINO Boutiques, Paris, Milano, Sao Paolo and Beverly Hills, the design is based on a concept developed by Creative Directors Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli, in cooperation with world renowned architect David Chipperfield. As Salone del Mobile kicked off in Milan yesterday VALENTINO marked the occasion with an album dedicated to the new store concept in all its luxury and intimacy.

 VALENTINO Avenue Montaigne Boutique, Paris

 VALENTINO Via Monte Napoleone Boutique, Milano

 VALENTINO Sao Paolo Boutique, Brazil

 VALENTINO Rodeo Drive Boutique, Beverly Hills

So VALENTINO ...

Keep it soft, simple and sophisticated this Spring/Summer with a selection of nude lace, silk and chiffon looks. The color will compliment a sunkissed palette and the fabric is so light it will float around the body as it moves.

Selections by ANDREA JANKE Finest Accessories 

Photo Credit/Source: The House of VALENTINO
Store Concept by David Chipperfield Architects

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'My Milano Diary': Transparent Elegance by VALENTINO'

"During my stay last month in Milano, I met so wonderful people like the American designer Dennis Basso, who exhibited for the 1st time at MIFUR International Fur And Leather Exhibition, with its amazing fur collection. Than I met the Russian fur designer Igor Gulyaev who created the capsule collection for Guy Laroche, the Italian fur designer Fabio Gavazzio (my absolutely favourite in fur!), and, I had a wonderful invitation to the LA PERLA Lingerie showroom, together with so many more amazing adventures ...!"

LoL, Andrea

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