Holly Fulton as Recommended by Victoria Beckham

If something is highly regarded by Mrs Beckham, is it worth a look, well I thought so, as the Telegraph stated:

"Mrs Beckham’s favourite collection was the Art Deco, Empire State Building-inspired collection by the Royal College of Art graduate, Holly Fulton. Crystals, beading and plastic graphics created dazzling architectural motifs on her leather, silk and PVC designs, in black and white, aquamarine and yellow, with matching neckpieces"

  

So I visited her website to see what all the fuss was about, at first glance you see bright colours, geometric lines, sturdy structures and great attention to detail. She uses bright decorative surfaces as her main focus and she points out: " I am constantly endeavouring to create a challenging yet beautiful surface which pushes the boundaries of modern fashion."

I found it very interesting to see how she works up her designs, she draws each up extensively and works through each with different references with "constant re-interpretation." She uses different types of materials to re-represent her work from crystallized elements to electrical cables, which again brings different elements and ideas to the design.

Her main influences are Art Deco and Bauhaus with there strong forms and cubist fashion is another major theme she enjoys. Obviously from her designs there is a lot of surface decoration which is beautiful yet time consuming.

I am loving this designer right now, if you want to see her full catwalk show at the London Fashion week visit: http://www.hollyfulton.com/

Cool Haus

I don't even know how I came across this but I adore it!

Cool Haus make ice cream sandwiches, designed and made by two architects; Natasha Case and Freya Estreller.

Cool Haus is the first project under Natasha and Freya’s company that explores the connections between food and architecture, the purchased and revamped an old truck that they found on craigslist, then launched Cool Haus at the Coachella festival.



The Cool Haus service works like this:










Plus an edible wrapper, with Art Mortimers mural that appears on the side of The Brig





Here is the outcome... dependent on your preferences.

I love this idea and the logo, it is so appropriate to the company and the target audience. Despite this being such a huge success in the states, I don't think it is warm enough to really work here, unless it was inside a shopping centre like Millie's Cookies.

I have looked into a few descriptions of the company and they seem to be all for natural ingredients and minimizing waste, e.g edible wrapping. This idea is so original and very contemporary, it would be interesting to see more food explored through the eyes of two architects e.g. pizzas.. like the leaning tower of pisa. Maybe it wouldn't work the same though?

Guy Portelli

I watched this guy appear on dragons den, he seemed quite quiet but had an amazing collection of work.

"Guy Portelli from Tonbridge was given the money for a 25% share in Pop Icons, a series of models depicting musicians such as John Lennon and Bob Marley."

He appeared on series 6 of Dragons Den in 2008 and I watched a show the other day where the Dragons caught up with entrepeneurs, he was doing fabulously well, so I decided to do a bit of research into him.

Some of his work is absolutely beautiful and gives me the urge to go out and buy a lot of crafty stuff to start making sculptures and I'm sure thats what art is all about; as well as apreciating it of course!!

  "Excess"

Amy Winehouse straddling a broken bottle of champagne. I like the idea behind this more that the sculpture itself, it is all about Amy's excess lifestyle and however beautiful it may appear on the outside, on the inside things are falling apart. This was the opening sculpture at his exhibition.

"Imagine"

John Lennon inspired by Lennon's own self portraits. Simplistic, yet you know who it is straight away.

 

"Grace Jones"

Uses influences such as futurism and pop art, specifically Andy Warhol. I think this style captures Grace Jones in a very masculine way, yet the smooth sculpting technique allows you to also see that this is a women.

"What You Want"

Spice Girls were a formed pop group, packaged specifically for the teenage market this piece is all about fun and the girls erupt into a sculpture using sweets prom a pick and mix bag. This piece is so fun, I'm not sure though that you would know it was the spice girls, but it is a good piece of influential art.

"Hey Joe"

Taking ideaology from the 1960s and flower power, this sculpture is Henrix, both poet and politican "rising out of the ashes" My favourite of the pop art collection, I am a big fan of this mosaic style combined with aluminum and bronze, it is very cutting. I really would like this on my wall!

See more from the Collection: www.portelli-popicon.co.uk

 

"Dream Catcher"

A memorial sculpture for Becky Earland. Hillview school, Tonbridge 

I absolutely adore this piece, it is so intricate and pretty, I especially like the fact the people at the bottom spell out Becky's name.

The Complete Roberta Breitmore at the Whitworth.

By far one of the most complicated exhibitions I have ever seen, even after I left I was still wondering about it.. is this maybe a good thing?

Lynn Hershman investigates a simulated person who interacts with real life in real time.  

Roberta is constructed through drawings, clothing and wigs and then four years later she is exorcised.

Roberta Breitmore was for FOUR YEARS a private performance of a simulated person.

It is so bizarre, Roberta was given childhood data before she was allowed into the world and her first action was to place an ad in a local newspaper for a roommate.

People who answered became part of the performance, "As she became part of their reality, they became part of her fiction."

The artist : Lynn Hershman, was often accused of being Roberta, although she insisted she was her "own women" Roberta represented a large part of Lynn. Lynn states: "For years my daughter denied she was related to me. People assumed I was schizophenic."

It was really interesting to see all the paper work for example; physciatrists notes etc and art work of this fictious persona. It also included clothes and Roberta's wig.

To fully understand this surreal exhibition more information can be found here:

www.lynnhershman.com

David Beckham's Affair with Ellen

Who says photoshop doesn't have it uses?

I reckon they make a good couple.

Well done Ellen!

Alix Malka

Parisian fashion photographer - amazing.

I don't really need to say much apart from, I am fascinated by this style of underwater photography and thought maybe these photographs are so intriguing because they are in water and because of the style and design of the dresses???

I thought wrong, these non underwater photos are equally as interesting.

I thought of these photos americas next top model style after reading normoyle: http://normoyle.blogspot.com/2009/08/rosenthal.html

eTeam - Second Life Dumpster

eTeam is a creative duo from Easton, PA and Ilmenau, Germany, but they live and work in Queens, New York and Mannheim.

I don’t particularly find this type of installation art that interesting, but the theories behind some of their work is, they focus their attentions onto land use issues and “socio-spatial interventions.”

They buy plots of land and then compose structures made out of useable things people throw out, old televisions, tennis rackets, chairs etc. These structures although visually interesting are not my cup of tea, but after reading more about them I found out that 2 years ago they decided to expand this idea; by buying a 4096sqm plot of land on SecondLife: a 3D visual world. They then created code that would be used to add “trash” to their site. When the avatars on SecondLife delete rubbish it all is dumped into a folder and like most computer applications if this trash is not deleted the avatars performance could be compromised, so eTeam developed a public dumpster for the duration of one year using a decay script.

Looking at space restrictions and the record of activities has been logged at: www.meineigenheim.org/dumpster_log/doku.php

The most interesting aspect to this part of their work is that from time to time random trash heaps appear from the Second Life into the First life, reminding us that “objects and lives in worlds that copy each other are often just searching for lost originals.”

Carolyn Roper wins World Body Painting Title.. Again.

This was the winning design by Carolyn Roper. The theme was: "Spirituality beyond the visible eye." The artists got awarded points for originality, their uses of special effects, their painting techniques, colours and how they realised their final outcome.

Carolyn is the first artist is 12 years to win twice in two different categories. In 2007 the themes were: "The year 2525" and "Chaos and Control"

I personally prefer these two from 2007, as the colours and imagery used is more realistic, but you can certainly notice the difference between 2007 and 20o9, 2009 was more based around special effects.

Roper has also done special body painting for a unique way to promote their brand/company. For example Biffy Clyro used Ropers design for an album cover: Puzzled.

I think sometimes we forgot that we can do things manually rather than using a computer to simulate an effect. This is shown through the Biffy Clyro cd Cover and although you could touch up these images with photoshop, they have a real wow factor. I also presume in the flesh they look even better and so would be great for pr events.

Pretty Green Oasis.

Pretty may not be the first word to come to mind when you think of Liam Gallagher.

But even so this is the name of Liam Gallaghers new fashion line.

“I’m not gonna be putting anything out unless I’d wear it...” - L. Gallagher. He isn't into all that skinny stuff and outspoken as ever declares he "wants to get rid of all that shit" as well as pointy shoes! I'm sure many would say the same about his new range, so I'm sure there is no love lost there.

The range is all special edition and most looks like it has just come straight out of Liam’s wardrobe but does look wearable. The price may cause some concern, £245 for an imitation Liam Gallagher Parka which could very well have been designed by Frank Gallagher, or Liam. It may “captures Liam's classic mod style” but the price is still very steep. I think by saying the range is special edition that is maybe a way of making a bit more money, but what I do know is that in Manchester there will be people sporting the liam "pretty green" look.

Available online: http://new.prettygreen.com/