Atonement Swimsuit

The designer Jacqueline Durran on designing the swimsuit for Keira Knightly in Atonement: It was even tougher to design

" a period-appropriate (read: modest) swimsuit that wouldn't appear ''stuffy and old-fashioned to the modern eye,'' says Durran. She found inspiration in French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue's ''decadent, rich, and lush'' shots of 1920s and '30s south-of-France bathing beauties. But unlike the stodgy wool swimsuits from the era, Knightley's was made of a far more practical stretchy synthetic. And the white rubber cap? ''You'd have to be as beautiful as Keira to look that great in it. Lots of people can pull off swimsuits, but pulling off that hat is amazing.''.."
 from the Costumer's Guide to Movie Costumes

There are no notes on the internet besides the above quote about the swimsuit itself or how it was made. The actual pattern and subsequent suit had to be draped and drafted based on the above photos. Several things became clear looking at the source materials, the back is one piece with no centre seam. The front consists of two identical pieces to form the bodice with a front bottom piece, the seams at the front form the holes. Below are my notes on the pattern pieces.

                                         A) Hat                      B)Bathing-Cap

A) "A great white straw hat is trimmed with leafy sprays of foliage that end in yellow flowers under the brim"

B) " It's an amusing idea- this of having a tight little black bathing-cap embroidered with fishes and then covered with a net of green silk cord, so that the fish have every appearance of being caught in a decorative net.."

-Erte's Fashion Designs  218 Illustrations from "Harper's Bazar" 1918-1932: Dover Publications (1981)

I adore Erte's whimsical designs. He was also a costume designer but designed haute couture illustrations for Harper's Bazar. The above images where also inspirations for future accessories. 

Below photos of the finished swimsuit. 
Modelled by Chloe Cornell 
Photography: John Cornell 
Location: Deer Isle, Stonington, MI
August 2014

Jacques-Henri Lartigue- ,Bibi avec une ombrelle sur la plage à Cannes, 1927

I was really inspired by Jacques-Henri Lartigue's beautiful images from Cannes in the 20s. An inspiration for the Atonement film as mentioned above. Here are some more of his images,

Jacques-Henri Lartigue photos at Photography Board 

"Inner Perspective"- In Depth

One summer a bunch of fellow students from various disciplines got together and created the "Dreams" exhibition at the Shoreditch Town Hall basement. A maze of small rooms, nooks and crannies with unexpected architectural Victorian details, ancient stoves and other relics of a complicated past. The rooms are dark and mysterious. My impression of this space is broadly coloured by my first visit during an Edgar Allan Poe exhibition which, as you can imagine, was rather haunted.

Our collective starting point was 'dreams' and any number of definitions could apply. And with so many different creative types coming together the results were broad and varied.

My idea sprang from the site, dark and enclosed. I wanted to juxtapose this atmosphere with a bright and open film, with shots of the outdoors and travel. Though I wanted these scenes to be disjointed and dreamlike with no real characters, only a variety of images looped and confused, like real dreams.

The character of the dreamer came next, the physical manifestation of the dreamer's portrayal of herself is honest and without filters. She is trapped in the room of her mind where the audience can come in and view her character stuck in this endless loop of dreams. Her reaction's are very visceral, almost childlike in the clear emotive responses, which are just as disjointed as the dream itself. I ended up playing this character, who else would do this for a week on the half hour for free? I also reacted to the audience, weaving around them and reacting to their intrusion into the room of my mind in order to bring them into the dream world.

The set was minimal, a single wooden chair with plants and dirt under the chair, an echo of the dream manifesting in her 'mind' space. There was a light under the chair to bring focus and gravitas to its placement and to illuminate the vegetation. This vegetation, both real and fake, also showed up along the edging of the door, the exit to the real world. My costume was a dress created from various cream and white fabrics pieced together and pleated paper, which slowly disintegrates, on the bodice. The colour palette of the film and the flower in my hair links to the vegetation in the room and connects both to the film which provides a contrast to the stark dark atmosphere of the basement. A comment on the reality vs. the dream world.

The film itself was made up of a very bright nature/ playful images vs the city, shown through a journey in the tube/arcade. This echoing my readings of Walter Benjamin's ideas of the wandering pedestrian. The approach to the chair in the beginning of the film echoes the girl already sitting in the same chair in the room. Real life events are echoed in the dream world but skewed. Another image is my 'dream' self disappearing from the screen and the real girl looks wildly around the room, logic has no place in this dream world. The childlike aspects are repeated with the swings and slides which are welcomed with joy and playfulness in contrast to the packed tube which is reacted to with fear. I tried to bridge the gap between the 'dream' world and the 'dreamer' with direct reactions and even using the projected image as a 'set'. Like when the train arrived I joined the queue on the platform as we waited for the train.

With this approach to the set as well as the interaction with the audience I hoped to bring them into my dream wold and to have them become a participant rather than a passive viewer, something they naturally resisted and thus seemed to prefer to watch the film. This project later led to my work on Martin Crimp. See here.

A video of the project here.

Tuesday Toolbox

Paintbrush: " But where is the Aura? 

Camera: " What do you mean, Aura? My gaze is not indifferent!"

photograph sketch based on above sculpture

Aura: "the authenticity of a thing is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced” (221).

 “we define the aura of the later as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch” (222-3) from The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin: Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

Photo:http://www.pinterest.com/pin/31243791136764638/

source:http://modernism.research.yale.edu/wiki/index.php/The_Work_of_Art_in_the_Age_of_Mechanical_Reproduction

Artists that Inspire: Suzanne Jongmans

I have always been interested in portraiture. In the past, painting gave you the time to study your sitter and to capture their essence, their soul, to show a side of them revealed only within your work. Sometimes this was to the sitters discretion, to show their wealth, fidelity, bravery. Others, like the Mona Lisa or the Girl with a Pearl Earring, we may never know their names but they live on through the painters lens. In photography portraiture is a different game, you must catch the perfect moment, balancing the technical aspects; lens focus, aperture, light balance with the perfect instant moment of poise taking many pictures before you find your shot that conveys all you wanted to say of the model. It may be surprising or a carefully studied set up. Both show a long history of study, or light, perspective, proportion, and colour theory. These artistic principals have been collected through history one artist influencing another, creating a new artistic vision. Vermeer was influenced by Carvaggio and Suzanne Jongmans references the workmanship of the past and its contrast to the consumer culture we find ourselves in today. She says:

“By using this material I make a reference to consumerism and the rapid circulation of materials, which contrasts to the craftsmanship of these earlier times,” wrote Jongmans in an e-mail. “Referring to both vulnerability and transience, I am investigating the texture and feel of both the present and the past.”

I enjoy the myriad of contradictions I find in her pieces. Such as the throw away material, almost Pop Art-like in its use of everyday objects in unexpected ways to give a new meaning. Or the instant mental connection to historical portraits re visioned with a new method, photography, and new materials suspending them in time between the past and present. The painting of Velázquez and Rogier van der Weyden are images that came to mind as I looked at Jongmans pieces, they hold the same likeness and attitude.  But most of all I like the stillness and serenity of her subjects. Jongmans says,

“The serenity which radiates from these works is a real inspiration to me,” she said. “Especially in these times we live in, in which many impressions can overwhelm us."



for more of Suzanne's work: http://www.suzannejongmans.nl/work.html
source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/arts-post/post/flemish-art-back-to-the-future--and-viral/2012/06/21/gJQAunA8sV_blog.html

Reviving the Lens

“I’m an eye. A mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it. I free myself for today and forever from human immobility. I’m in constant movement. I approach and pull away from objects. I creep under them. I move alongside a running horse’s mouth. I fall and rise with the falling and rising of bodies. This is I, the machine, maneuvering in the chaotic movements, recording one movement after another in the most complex combinations. “

“Freed from the boundaries of time and space, I co-ordinate and all points of the universe, wherever I want them to be. My way leads towards the creation of a fresh perception of the world. Thus I explain in a new way the world unknown to you”

-Dziga Vertov, 1923 p.10 Berger

on the film camera

We are now very used to whipping out our phones or cameras to take a photo or shoot a film. There is little effort involved and we are quite at home with recording our daily lives almost to the point of becoming the spectator rather than the lead in our own lives. Of course filming and photography were not always so simple. At the beginning of the last century it was new, laborious, expensive and time consuming. It was an event. 

Dziga Vertov's "The Man with the Movie Camera" 1929

Like the art movements of Cubism and Surrealism, the movie camera changed the focus of an image, forcing the viewer to look at a larger number of stimuli that quickly move the spectator through the narrative as opposed to painting or sculpture, where the meaning can be pondered at a leisurely pace. This forces the fragmentation of the subject rather than the alienation of the subject. Filmmaking, which started as a reflective approach to narrative, soon gave way to a highly subjective, fragmented use in media.

We are now so used to these mediums that we take it for granted. At the same time we still yearn for the effects of the past, though now it is in a handy app. The artists below have found ways to appreciate and continue to pay homage to the old methods of photography. 

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David Lo, a street photographer, gives a tutorial on how to digitise a vintage camera. With this new configuration, using a digital camera on the back an old camera a new hybrid is created. The vintage camera used must have bellows or an adjustable lens to work in concert with the apparatus of the digital lens. The experience of shooting with this modified camera, the weight, the focusing, light leakage all lead to an overall different experience than what you would get when using a retro process on your phone. While some might gasp in horror at defacing an old camera, I enjoy the idea of giving it another life and using it once again for the purpose for which it was made. You can do this or leave it on a shelf gathering dust. And while some rarer cameras I would leave as is, for a retro/art/photography enthusiast this is a great way to give an old camera a new lease on life and to appreciate the process of taking a photo while still keeping the instant nature and plethora of images that come with the digital age. 

see the full tutorial at: http://petapixel.com/2013/03/27/modding-a-vintage-camera-for-digital-use/

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These wondrous art pieces above were created by Guangzhou Art Academy student Hu Shaoming over a period of four months for the exhibition Reconnecting Time. He dissembled two cameras and rebuilt them with a zipper to show the "magic" of each device so we can clearly see how the "great industrial discoveries of humanity" work.

Again, some people may be horrified that he destroyed a piece of history. But again, you cannot really get film to make it work, and most people just collect these cameras for display. So instead of letting them sit there static, Hu Shaoming has created a work of art that exposes the mystery and lets us appreciate the delicate inner workings of the camera, a land breaking invention that allowed us to perfectly record our lives and freed painters from being merely realistic recorders of history.

Instead with the advent of photography and film this anchor of reality was no longer needed in the world and resulted into what we now know as modern art.

the snow began to fall

Six Years Later by Joseph Brodsky

So long had life together been that now
the second of January fell again
on Tuesday, making her astonished brow
lift like a windshield wiper in the rain,
    so that her misty sadness cleared, and showed
    a cloudless distance waiting up the road.

So long had life together been that once
the snow began to fall, it seemed unending;
that, lest the flakes should make her eyelids wince,
I'd shield them with my hand, and they, pretending
    not to believe that cherishing of eyes,
    would beat against my palm like butterflies.

So alien had all novelty become
that sleep's entanglements would put to shame
whatever depths the analysts might plumb;
that when my lips blew out the candle flame,
    her lips, fluttering from my shoulder, sought
    to join my own, without another thought.

So long had life together been that all
that tattered brood of papered roses went,
and a whole birch grove grew upon the wall,
and we had money, by some accident,
    and tonguelike on the sea, for thirty days,
    the sunset threatened Turkey with its blaze.

So long had life together been without
books, chairs, utensils—only that ancient bed—
that the triangle, before it came about,
had been a perpendicular, the head
    of some acquaintance hovering above
    two points which had been coalesced by love.

So long had life together been that she
and I, with our joint shadows, had composed
a double door, a door which, even if we
were lost in work or sleep, was always closed:
    somehow its halves were split and we went right
    through them into the future, into night.

[1968]

Anno Domini from NYTimes Books 

"Tree Snow" http://www.nadavkander.com/

"Tall Windows" http://www.hammershoi.co.uk/

Electric Feathers moodbook photographer Matt Wilson

from "Landlock" by Eamon MacMahon http://www.eamonmacmahon.com/

Snow has been falling recently, rather out of season too. I am reminded of dark winter days and cannot wait for spring to come. Though these words and images remind me of the beauty that comes with a blanket of white.

-Chloe