Hyper-realistic water-colours exhibited in public places in “over” version. Their themes? Provocative and controversial portraits of human conditions – and as the artist Gottfried Helnwein. These works often show kids who are nothing to do with the carefree and imaginative children often highlighted in urban advertising placards and displays.

Helnwein is a painter, photographer, performer and set designer and in all his works his inimitable touch stands out. To put it mildly his photographic installations are quite sensational both for their power and strong communicative impact as well as the enormous display sizes and dimensions onto which they are erected.
Making these images as large as advertising billboards certainly renders Helnwein artistic quest highly noticeable.
Look out for, among his other creations, “The Golden Age of Grotesque”, a Marilyn Manson multi-media project.

Have a look to the other pictures on Flickr

A traveller, an explorer, a man with the desire to live life out in a metropolitan jungle made up of emotions and feelings. Real ones.

This is the kind of image the designer Ennio Capasa has in mind for his new summer 2010 collection for Costume National Homme. A man who has no problem connecting with the deepest and truest parts of his being, a man who dons high-level clothes tailored for the 21st century made from the lightest and most crinkly of fabrics – lengthy jackets with floral embroidery Indochina and Sahara style – a perfect composition of classic and explorer garb.
 

Trousers come in two versions: classic and wide at the top and narrow from the knee downwards while shirts are ultra-light made from linen gauze and raw cotton.
Colours: off white, opaque and shiny grey, all shades of fern green with clashing red and turqouise stripes.

Accessories and shoes in line with the explorer theme: military-like canvas bags, Malay buckles, chamois and hide waterproof shoes and boots.
Check out the entire collection on the costumenational.com site.

Embryos that look as though they’re porcelain, soft shiny hides resembling the most sought-after silk, surreal cuts, contrasts and light effects reminiscent of the brushstroke work in certain Caravaggio paintings.

Nature, in all its power and glory and capacity for surprise emerges in the work of the photographer Tim Flach.

His works are imbued with a desire to communicate something of profound resonance conveying a sense of wonder, emotional truth and almost a feeling of the unreal.

Tim Flach provides his spectators with the space to interpret images in their own way.

And his book Equus gives us strong new sensations linked to the world of horses.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cave opened the last parade for Costume National Homme and certainly did not pass unobserved. His eccentricity is underscored by the outrageously asymmetrical way he styles his hair – long on one side and short on the other. Those who know him say he has a strong temperament. He’s also really young, just eighteen.

Jethro Cave works as a model and is now seen as rock music’s new muse. But be wary of just limiting him to that: he is the son of “dark” musician Nick Cave who together with his band helped set the scene for the post-punk era of the 1980s and beyond.

The artist Daniel Peddle who’s also CN Homme’s casting director, picked Cave for the catwalk and has had him portrayed in a number of grotesque images. How did it all start? With a series of photographs taken backstage.

So we asked Daniel a few questions on these works and on Jethro.

Who is Jethro Cave and what struck you about him??

Jethro Cave is a model and also Nick Cave’s son. We cast him in Costume’s Men Show F/W09 and he actually opened the show. This is a coveted position as it sets the tone for the entire event. He has that perfect mix of coolness, style and elegance that Ennio loves with a healthy dose of rock and roll edge.

What canons of beauty does he interpret and why did you choose him for latest Costume show and for your work?

Backstage I was snapping pictures and he was goofing around and every time I asked him to pose for me he would make these really hideous faces! I thought well those are useless shots. But then later when I was back in NYC I looked again and suddenly found them quite funny. It was interesting to see a model be ugly and his twisted figure was striking with its sharp-shouldered Costume jacket. He looked like a monster dressed up for a cocktail party. Because of his expressive contorted face, I was able to be especially aggressive with the paint. I love how his eyebrow and yellow eye acts like some sort of vortex.

Nick Cave has been called a cursed artist. How much does a fractious attitude more typical of the 1980s count today in the world of fashion and how does Jethro embody it in his role as “the son of Nick Cave?”

The cursed artist will never go out of style! In this recently ended era of commercialized slick art produced like a commodity it is easy to lose sight of the fact that real art requires sacrifice, pain and sometimes misery. It is not always neat and tidy. I think we will see a resurgence of art and fashion that reminds us of the treacherous path artists must travel. Jethro looks like he’s on that path, perhaps one his father cleared ahead of him… but still it is riddled with briars and spooks.

Does it make sense these days to be thought of as a cursed artist? And what about being seen as a cursed model (like Kate Moss)?

Being an artist is both a blessing and a burden. You are responsible to your sensitivity. You can not escape seeing the world through that lens. I think Kate Moss is not really cursed like an artist is, she just chooses to live a riskier life that we sometimes associate with artists.

Is it preferable to models that are prissy and composed or exuberant models that make an impression media-wise and win the viewer’s attention?

Models already represent a huge “edit”, a carefully dissected slice of the general populace. For each show we cast, we see probably 1000 models and even more are proposed that we don’t see. Then we pick around 20 for the show. If you can’t make an impression you don’t stand a chance!

Daniel Peddle Casting
The Secret Gallery, Inc.
206 West 23rd Street
Fifth Floor
New York, NY 10011
646 688 4077 Office

www.danielpeddleart.com
www.danielpeddlecasting.com

Mod-esign is the official name of a special university lecture to be given by Costume National’s stylist Ennio Capasa and the designer Fabio Novembre. This Mod-esign event is part of the “Contemporary Fashion Moves” course held by the fashion and costume journalist Gianluca Lo Vetro at the Rimini Centre of Bologna University’s Faculty of Letters and Philosophy.
During the lecture, scheduled for next June 12th, Capasa and Novembre will examine the increasingly profound contaminations that exist between fashion and design in the context of a phenomenon which could be called “Mod-Design”.
 
Particular attention will be placed on the influence and role played by the web now that Costume National is at the forefront of web communication and interactionwith its Costume National and C’n’C blogs.
 
The event will be filmed and uploaded to the university’s website as well as to www.cnc-costumenational.com and of course You Tube.

 
Bi-colored dresses in washed silk with V neck; woven leather flats and tlip flops in soft nappa with buckling anckle belt closure.
Man: Urban jackets with technical details, patent leather sneakers with polished affect and neon tones.
 
 
CoSTUME NATIONAL SToRE

 
 
Urban ice trench coats and voile dresses with safari necklines. White jersey cocktail dresses and elegant soft leaher clutches with metail detail.

store.costumenational.com