Sun Feb 5th: Brett Lloyd in Paris for Fall 2012 Menswear - Part 2

To conclude Brett Lloyd's coverage from his time in Paris for the recent menswear shows .......... here are some shots from the down-time with friends at events and around town. To follow more of the same in a mix of his personal work and commissions, head over to his TUMBLR. To see personal work go here............... and to see his portfolio of editorial and campaigns go here.

Thanks Brett for the insight into your travels.............. according to Kim Jones interview with Simon Chilvers on the inspiration for this season's collection = its all about travel "The biggest general influence from the archive is the travel aspect. All of these clothes are for the man who travels the world, be it on a private jet or a yacht! Vuitton is really well set up for super-technical, super-luxury outerwear, and this is something we've really played to this season." ............ so perfect timing to get a pair of the lizard boots!

(Images top to bottom: 1 & 2:Traditional Parisian lunch, 3: A sighting of Karl Lagerfeld in Colette whilst downstairs having lunch, 4: A painting in Christian Louboutin's office from a visit to take his portrait, 5: With Marine Fourie and Charles Couthensais, 6: Charles outside The Moulin Rouge, 7: Charles with Jean-Sebastien Pougnand, 8: The tiniest gold fish bowl at his friend's apartment, 9: With Jonjo Jury and Matthew Stone, 10: A model at Jefferson Hack's TOD's collaboration presentation, 11: Yasmina Dexter, 12: At the TOD's after party dinner with Matthew, Yasmina....... Grace Jones and Chaka Khan)

Sun Feb 5th: Brett Lloyd in Paris for Fall 2012 Menswear - Louis Vuitton - the aftermath

An insight into Brett's coverage of the show aftermath .................. Kim at the press call with Marc Jacobs, being interviewed by Suzy Menkes, personal guest and friend Michael Costiff, with Yves Carcelle (chief executive of Louis Vuitton) ......... and last but not least, the M .......... Moët

Sun Feb 5th: Brett Lloyd in Paris for Fall 2012 Menswear - Louis Vuitton - backstage

Just a few of Brett's shots backstage at the Louis Vuitton show - designer Kim Jones working on looks with stylist Alister Mackie , a final moment as a model walks on stage, watching front of house on the monitor, group portrait of the whole atelier team....... their lunch, LV catering style ........... and birthday cake for casting director Shelley Durkan.

Sun Feb 5th: Brett Lloyd in Paris for Fall 2012 Menswear - Louis Vuitton - hair tests

To kickstart the coverage from Brett's role as official behind-the-scenes documentary photographer for the Louis Vuitton Fall 2012 Menswear show .......... here are snaps (and snaps of snaps) from the hair tests with Guido Palau, Alister Mackie and Kim.

Sun Feb 5th: Brett Lloyd in Paris for Fall 2012 Menswear

For the next few posts I will be showing and sharing a selection of images from Brett Lloyd's time in Paris at menswear week where he was documenting Kim Jones (British menswear designer of the year) second collection for Louis Vuitton .

For this first contribution to my blog from the photographer, here is a little introductory visual clue to the chap himself ......... trying out the key accessory of the season and wearing his new boots from the collection gifted by Kim............ of which more is to follow...........

To follow Brett, find his site here, SHOWstudio journal, Tumblr, Tumblr 2, Twitter

Sat 4th Feb: Pomp De Franc

I am plotting and planning with a few different collaborators across fields of creative exploits this season ......... one of which is Pomp De Franc. Katie Franklin first made me a cosmic Batternberg for The W Project, then magnificent monochrome cupcakes for my Lazy Oaf launch, followed by blue foil versions for House of Organza. Here is a tower of rainbow for her most recent commission from Holly Shackleton, editor of i-D Magazine. Tune in later in the month to find out what we have dreamt up for my AW12 presentation on Mon 20th ............

Fri 3rd Feb: Red Bull Catwalk Studios - Report by Emily Beard

Charli XCX in studio as part of Red Bull Catwalk Studio, which sees designers paired with musicians to collaborate on a soundtrack for their shows at London Fashion Week. The track will be inspired by the themes and inspirations behind Fred's AW12 collection.

Charli will be performing the track created live at the London Fashion Week show at Somerset House on the 20th February. The track will also be released on the same day as a free download at www.redbull.co.uk/catwalkstudio

(photos taken whilst recording, with a visit from MTV News who will be compiling interviews on the project)

Thurs 2nd Feb: Original post removed

Weds 1st Feb: LCF MA - Roisin McAtamney

Last evening was the opening for the static exhibition of the combined MA courses at LCF (MA FASHION ARTEFACT, MA COSTUME DESIGN FOR PERFORMANCE, MA DIGITAL FASHION,MA FASHION & ENVIRONMENT, MA FASHION CURATION, MA FASHION DESIGN TECHNOLOGY,MA FASHION MEDIA PRODUCTION, MA FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY, MA FOOTWEAR,PG CERT FASHION: CREATIVE PATTERN CUTTING FOR THE INDUSTRY). Here is the multi-colour knitwear of Roisin McAtamney from the digital fashion strand who incorporated custom made Microsoft Tags within the pattern which are a version of a scannable barcode. Each garment in her collection has it's own unique code and when scanned with a Microsoft Tag Reader App, a fashion video of the piece will appear and play on a smart phone. COSMIC! This is the future!

Showtime, Victoria House Basement, Victoria House

Mon 30th Jan: NYC Galleries - Beverly Fishman at Galerie Richard

Beverly Fishman's multi-hued paintings and sculptures have a signature scientific and pharmaceutical slant. Traditional blown-glass pill forms allude to medicinal and recreational drug themes, whilst the vinyl spectrum line horizontal pictures pan out the actual feelings from of mind altering substances. They illustrate this with woven fields of neural imagery, sound waves and other technological data across the polished stainless steel panels. Whatever the original inspiration, I would like all these intricate colour and patterned pieces in my home!!!! These pills would look beautiful on a shelf inamongst antique venetian swirl glass vases............ if I had some of those too ............

December 10, 2011-January 28, 2012

Sun Jan 29th: NYC Galleries - Campaign' at C24

Although I did enjoy the Damien Hirst colourful spots at the Gagosian ......... it transpired that it was a draw to discover a whole road of other fantastic exhibitions which I'm so pleased I stumbled upon and got to see. Here at C24 Gallery the current show 'Campaign' curated by Amy Smith-Stewart, asked 27 international artists to explore how the female body is represented in marketing - addressing concepts such as status, power, dominance and beauty.

"What perpetuates this hegemonic depiction of women and how do we reveal what is really underneath the super-perfect veneer"

I was tempted in from the various alluring colours combined across free standing sculptures and works on the wall............ including this cloud of fluro yarn ......... which is of course by the fantastic Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir a.k.a. Shoplifter. This particular piece was set up for a site specific performance on the opening night with legs poking out from the top which you can see documented over on the site. Another work using limbs appearing from unexpected surfaces is the above image by Mika Rottenberg in a brilliant series of images deploying complex and strategic anatomical set design.

This show addressing subject matter focused on femininity in contemporary culture, is akin to the direction of The W Project taking part in London on National Women's Day. The second stint of this enterprise has gathered even more names to the list of exhibitors, so keep an eye on updates as they unfold on their Tumblr prior to the opening at KKOutlet on March 8th.

'Campaign' at C24 Gallery, 514 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

(top to bottom: Adam Helms , K8 Hardy, Kate Gilmore , Mika Rottenberg, Shoplifterm, Katie Cercone, Elif Uras , Fay Ray )

Sat 28th Jan: NYC Galleries - Damien Hirst at Gagosian

On my last day in NYC last week I had the freakish and fantastic stroke of fate when I saw a very old friend having breakfast in the same hotel as me. Richard Toon and I were partners in crime on the fashion & textiles course at Brighton Uni and haven't seen much of each other since. Rich moved to Stockholm to work for H&M, fell in love, started a family and now head's up design at GANT. One of Rich's great fascinations is dots and spots - which has literally inspired his life with one of his daughters being named "Dot". He told me about the great Gagosian show Damien Hirst's 'The Complete Spot Paintings 1986-2011' happening in the city so that afternoon I headed West to check out the polka dot patterns..........

This retrospective is a simultaneous exhibition happening in across eleven Gagosian Gallery locations across the world. The works on show are all of Hirst's spot paintings, from the first spot created in 1986 up until the most recent pieces from 2011. The paintings range in size from a single half spot measuring 1.5 inches up to a painting depicting 25, 781 images, with no single colour ever repeated. The entire back catalogue has been pooled from private individuals and public institutions lending the pieces which make up the 300+ accumulated paintings. I had no idea that such a simple idea could be explored in so many different dimensions and scales. It all makes sense to me now! Some are on circular canvases, arranged in spiralling lines which give you a real disorientating experience as the spots flicker infront of you in a strange "magic eye" optical trick. I can't believe that they found enough colours from the household paint used to guarantee that no hue was repeated - astonishing! I'm sure lots of my readership know someone who has taken part in painting these works over the years at Damien's studio, so its great to have this opportunity to see them all brought together to appreciate the epic scale of the long running series...........

"I was always a colourist, Ive always had a phenomenal love of colour... I mean, I just move colour around on its own. So that's where the spot paintings came from - to create that structure to do those colours, and do nothing. I suddenly got what I wanted. It was just a way of pinning down the joy of colour." Damien Hirst

From pinning down colour to purchasing a little DH dot pin to add to my ever-growing collection.............see above!

The exhibition opened worldwide on January 12th so I recommend taking a visit to your nearest one.........