This week, I'm completely infatuated with the eclectic, macabre vision of young Irish designer Jonathan Anderson. From his fall/winter 07 collection:
A contemporary look at Russian surrealism, J.W. Anderson's autumn/winter 2008 menswear and jewellery collection, The Rattle Bag, delves into the intricate mind of Grigori Rasputin and his relationship with the Romanov family in the early 20th Century. . . a felt coat reminiscent of combat-wear of World War I is enveloped in spinal cords as an image of the hopelessness and barbarism present in a time of war and revolution. Surprising shapes and structures suggest a sense of the deformed human body, and the aesthetic way in which anatomical abnormality was portrayed in the late 19th century. Finally, jewellery representing the images of shellfish and a felt jacket covered in crabs epitomise an idea of 'the walking skeleton' as a symbol of existential vulnerability and functions as a metaphor for the demise of the Tsar regime. The gold-based jewellery incorporates real insects captured in resin balls, an element which characterised J.W. Anderson's spring/summer 2008 collection.
The jewelry's delicious; the clothes are a bit odd even for couture. But I have to be shamelessly indulgent toward anyone who cites Rasputin, Seamus Heaney, and Evelyn Waugh as his inspirations for encasing dead insects in giant balls of resin, draping them on Pre-Raphaelite models, and framing them with blather about the Russian aristocracy. Mmmmmmmmm!
J.W. Anderson "Death of a Naturalist" made-to-order resin insect rings
£95 via Loulas Boutique
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I hope to heck I didn't first see them here, but in any event - more biophile ornament: fungus earrings.
This is haute couture I can actually like.
I finally went to look at your own gallery, and I do like your watercolours - I particularly like your Fly Away Home painting.
I am primarily a glass artist/painter (traditional kiln fired metal/earth pigments, mostly on hand made transparent coloured glass, foiled and soldered or leaded, often with inclusions of found formed glass, agates and other stones, and sometimes with non-glass appendages), but I have also spent a lot of time making decorated animal skulls, feathered objects, leather sculpture and masks, so I've found many of your posts here delightfully in agreement with, and supportice of, my own work and tastes. Thank you!
That would be 'supportive' in that last sentence, of course.