Whilst the Oxford Street front windows of Selfridges are packed full of Kusama polka dots, the side of the store has been made over with over-size props of makeup tools to mark the launch of the brand new Beauty Workshop. Each display showcases the different beauty services the workshop offers via a mixture of scaled-up card sculptures of lipsticks, make-up brushes, scissors and eyelash curlers......... and even a hair dryer (see above). The Selfridges 3D creative team collaborated with East End set design collective Studio XAG to construct these impressive paper pieces. Head over to their blog to see the rosta of their recent work including Meadham Kirchoff windows at Top Shop and ADIDAS Originals vs. Opening Ceremony.
Last month Fiona Leahy Design were involved in the worldwide LVMH Kusama take over, to produce and design the W Magazine’s dinner and celebration at the Whitney Museum. Inspired by Kusama’s use of mirror, reflectivity and love of red and specifically an early portrait of the artist surrounded by dahlias, the team designed this cosmic dinner..............including a neon strip which underlit runners containing thousands of dahlias in shades of red orange and pink to be like botanical ‘go faster’ stripes stretching down each table. The London crew took a few of their collaborators with them to the Big Apple including The Broken Hearts DJs and Jellymongers Bompas and Parr who created a wobbling sculptural jelly installation inspired by Kusama’s organic forms.......... needless to say I am a little bit "jelly" to have missed out on this party! Looks absolutely incredible! Follow Fiona on Twitter or Facebook for what is to unfold at the London LV store for Vogue's Fashion Night's Out with Francesca Burns and The Broken Hearts on Sept 6th.
Visit the Whitney Museum site to see more of the exhibition "Fireflys On The Water" which runs till Oct 28th.
All photos courtesy of the wonderful Belathée
From the Tokyo streetstyle on display at The V&A museum to another sensational Japanese fashion story to take over London in the form of Yayoi Kusama at Selfridges. Here are photos of the new window scheme and special interior of the concept store to launch the Louis Vuitton collaboration collection of polka-dot goodies. Its amazing to see the full circle of this line come about from the initial meeting between Yayoi Kusama and Marc Jacobs in the documentary about his life working for LVMH and taking a show from Paris to Tokyo. Now we can finally get our hands on the outcome of that coming together of creative minds in an epic setting of spotty squash set design and displays at the department store. Check out the equally epic website to find out more information and details of events ...........
The V&A have just acquired nine outfits of Tokyo's "Lolita" street style for their permanent collection which is very exciting for me as this was the subculture that I discovered for my Harajuku dissertation in 2001. I saw the first wave of kawaii Victoriana emerging and now its officially recognised and documented for future V&A visitors. The collection is currently on display until January with a Friday Late event tomorrow named "Loli-Pop" for all you cuties to enjoy an evening of fancy dress and sweet stuffs............. see here for more details. See a post on my dissertation here.
My latest visit to the Andy Hillman studio coincided with his profile just being published in a "Vision Makers" feature in the new Japanese Vogue showing an insight into the North London creative space where the magic happens............ e.g those big fluffy monsters in the current Mulberry campaign......... see behind-the-scenes snaps of Lindsey Wixon et all over on the Mulberry blog.
