19/06/2023
👑 BRITISH VOGUE + Mattel: Six young designers dress up Barbie for her 60th birthday 🎉
Solid avant-garde, challenge and Barbie!
I found something interesting: perhaps the material is not very new, but it nevertheless attracted my attention as a person who is curious about any collaborations that claim to be “piece of art”.
In 2019 British Vogue published an article : in honor of the 60th anniversary of Barbie, the editors invited six promising young designers to try their hand at dressing up the legendary doll to their taste. I note that not many were awarded such an honor (just look at the lists of fashion-dolls), so the event was supposed to be very exclusive and hype.
Spoiler: what happened is, of course, to be judged by experts and heads of fashion media blogs, but for an average person who has at least a little taste and rationalism, the picture is quite difficult to perceive 🤔😩🙃
Art is still in great debt, so to speak! And if we take a critical look at the work, we will see echoes of the style of anyone: Anna Sui, early Gauthier, Basquiat, Andrey Bartenev, Westwood - and nothing innovative. 🤷🏻♀️
But the guys tried and we'll see what they did.
👻 Matty Bovan
A mix of boho style, eclecticism, and the use of hand craft techniques, Matty Bovan's doll is dressed in an intricate, intricately constructed outfit. The work uses golden Japanese yarn, various fabrics, textures, while the main goal of the outfit is to bring it as close as possible to what the designer usually shows on the podium.
Bovan himself is now a well-known personality, all fashion publications strongly recommend following him and his work, prophesying success of unprecedented proportions to him.
In 2021, he received the International Woolmark Prize and also took home the Karl Lagerfeld Innovation Award, becoming the second designer to win two major prizes. In 2015, he pompously graduated from Central Saint Martins (Mag. words, and chose to return to his native York to work on his own concept and brand.
Matty calls Vivienne Westwood his ideal and muse, which is generally visible from his work with the naked eye.
🍀 Mowalola
Barbie by Mowalola wears a miniature copy of an outfit from the Mowalola Spring/Summer 2020 collection, with slicked back hair and makeup created by Daniel Sullstrom (using a special miniature brush). “This doll is my superheroine! She is strong, charming and ready to have a good time. I will gladly follow her!”
Mowalola Ogunlesi is a Nigerian fashion icon and young designer who is called the mystery of the fashion industry and is expected to do great things. She has already shocked with her bold aggressive images, has collected a bunch of titles and continues to “create”.
I believe that I achieved success on the now very popular topic of "modern reading of art in fashion, protest and aggressive primitive presentation of material."
🦩Richard Malone
“Barbie is a businesswoman, and many of the women I work with are, but they don't dress like men in suits; fashion is part of their personality. I wanted to show that Barbie can wear a runway look but still live her daily life and be the boss she really is."
Well, short and to the point!
Richard Malone is an Irish designer based between Wexford, Ireland and London. He graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2014 and his entire graduate collection was acquired by Brown Thomas Dublin.
Malone is unwaveringly committed to the principles of sustainability and strongly opposed to the concept of mass production, often releasing collections in strictly limited quantities.
His clothing became a collector's item, and in 2017 Malone took part in the first fashion show in over 60 years at the Museum of Modern Art in New York called "Is Fashion Modern?". After the exhibition, Malone became one of the youngest artists in history to add to the museum's permanent collection.
🦜 Art School
Eden Lowet and Tom Barratt's "Non-Binary Barbie" is a perfect example of their take on the impersonal glamorous fashion figure. "The art school is dedicated to creating truly tolerant clothing that will accompany someone throughout his life and as he develops, just like in his own person."
Art School is a fashion collective founded by Eden Lowet and Tom Barratt, who are also life partners, not just colleagues. Working with friends of all ages and gender identities, they create decadent luxury clothing that reflects and highlights the gender-queer, non-binary body.
IMHO, it’s very freaky and too aggressive: it’s not punk, and it’s not kitsch or even avant-garde ... It’s more about a social message through the fashion industry, and not about art in fashion. ..
🍄 Charles Jeffrey Loverboy
This signature Barbie is more of a museum piece than a OOAK doll or fashion collectible. At the designer's choice, she is dressed in a replica of the final look from his spring-summer 2018 collection, based on the history of fashion suit through the ages. "It took a whole week to make - but it looks like a real dress!" Charles exclaims. "I'm really proud of her."
Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY is a fashion house founded by Glasgow-based designer, illustrator, stylist and radical creative Charles Jeffrey. Described by Sarah Mauer of American Vogue as "a champion of all things human, creative and fun in British fashion", Geoffrey has transformed the LOVERBOY label from a young, outsider brand into a growing business with a retail chain of the world's most visited haute couture stores.
LOVERBOY's visual identity is infused with Jeffrey's autobiographical primary research. The collections are based on his personal style codes, as well as those of his friends and collaborators. The result is a powerful clash of subcultural and traditional, Scottish and pagan references, interpreted through an illustrative DIY approach to design.
"Geoffrey speaks to young London the way Alexander McQueen spoke to his generation."
And here is a reference to the one whose work Jeffrey was inspired by, IMHO, but Alexander is one of a kind, whatever one may say....
🌟 Supriya Lele
As a child, fascinated by Barbies (“I was an only child, so I had about 40 of them”), Lele began designing, creating individual wardrobes for her dolls. The circle is complete, and now she is making full collections in human size, and the outfit from the Fall/Winter 2019 line looks like a real dress was reduced to Barbie sizes - the neon mini outfit is cut so perfectly that even the pockets are fully functional! “I felt like a child again,” the designer chuckles.
Supriya Lele is the designer of the famous label of the same name from London. Her work is very deeply rooted in her own cross-cultural perspective, drawing on her Indian heritage and British cultural identity. Her outfits are very feminine, thin and delicate.
Lele completed her MA in Fashion (Women's Wear) from the Royal College of Art in July 2016. Upon graduation, she was selected to showcase her work at Fashion East, making her debut at London Fashion Week 2017 with a presentation at the Tate Modern. After three seasons with Fashion East, Lele has received full NEWGEN sponsorship from the British Fashion Council. In 2020, Lela was awarded a share of the LVMH prize fund, which for the first time was shared between all 8 finalists.
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