Here at the London office of Starworks Group, we have a lovely new menswear client by the name of A. Sauvage… a wonderfully modern interpretation of our sartorial behavior.

Taking the ’suit’ and all of it’s formal and traditional connotations, uprooting them and planting them back in the ground upside down, A. Sauvage offers their future customers an opportunity to mix it up or down. The collection, which is available in the UK in late July, offers a hearty interchangeable colour palette, finest tailoring and luxurious combinations of cord pants, cotton shirting and a fancy array of ties and pocket squares. Rather good for a first season.

Launching a pre-emptive strike across the next few months before Matches and Harrods receive the goods, Sauvage himself has photographed, documented, and curated a timeless series of beautiful images. The first of many within a project entitled, This Is Not A Suit. Chapter 1 can be found here and is entitled ‘Natives’. The images were released today and will be added to, from here on in… we hope you like. Stay tuned on twitter for regular updates.

The series reflects the photographer’s recent trip to LA, specifically Venice Beach and the characters he met there, each intertwining within his own life and the journey of the A. Sauvage brand.

In the images, a surfer, a baller, a skater, a stranger, all wear pieces from the forthcoming collection. And as you can see, for once they wear the suit; the suit does not wear them…after all, These Are Not Suits.

‘Handy Paul’

Harry Perry

Ron Beals

Nico

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SHOWstudio.com have done it again, this time with a neatly curated show centring around the opposing yet often balanced themes of Black and White.

The exhibition features artwork by Cecil Beaton, Simon Foxton, Amanda Harlech, Michael Howells, Nick Knight, Irving Penn, and Peter Saville as well as iconic artefacts from Chanel and Visionaire.

Cleverly (of course) mixing the real time show with online broadcast performances will be fashion/art stalwarts Judy Blame, Edward Griffiths and Gareth Pugh concepting and creating all from the LiveStudio in Bruton place. Objects made during the LiveStudio will then be displayed in the Shop.

In the words of SHOWstudio.com (and who could possibly say it better?), ‘Blackwhite is conceptually limitless, structured only around the most celebrated aesthetic relationship in fashion: black and white.
While the stark palette will tie the pieces together, the diverse range
of mediums and objects visually makes way for new associations
and investigations into the aesthetics of black and white.

The show includes Irving Penn’s famed portrait of Lisa Fonssagrives,
Harlequin Dress (1950), and photographs by Cecil Beaton and
Nick Knight that have never been exhibited, the show is anchored
by the elegant simplicity of black and white fashion portraiture.

Against the clarity of these carefully composed photographs, bespoke sculptures by Amanda Harlech and Peter Saville mingle among iconic fashion artefacts like Michael Howell’s ‘drained’ Union Jack, sections of floor from the infinity cove of Studio 4 at Park Royal Studios West London, Chanel Haute Couture headpieces made by Kamo for Karl Lagerfeld’s internationally acclaimed S/S 2009 show, and two of Visionaire’s earliest issues, Black and White.

Artists featured are Cecil Beaton, Judy Blame, CHANEL, Simon Foxton, Edward Griffiths, Amanda Harlech, Michael Howells, Nick Knight, Irving Penn, Gareth Pugh, Peter Saville, Visionaire.

A celebration of the new show on Friday night enticed a select group of our favourite people from the ever mingling worlds of fashion and art, including Peter Saville, Nick Knight, Fred Butler, Ed Griffiths, Philippe Garner and Kit Lee.

BlackWhite Show

The show will be open for the next six weeks, and can be found whilst sampling the delights of Mayfair and Bond Street, just duck down Bruton Street, and into Bruton Place, or click here for more info.

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Here in London we’ve been working with a canny group of young men, who work under the moniker Guardians Of The Standard, an audacious undertaking, that now counts premium denim and apparel menswear brand Natural Selection, and super graphic t-shirt line REILLY, as under it’s creative direction.

To top it off, the boys have started their own blog – http://www.guardiansofthestandard.com/ a quite ingenious journal of their favourite sites, reviews, places and all round brand flavour.

Next up is an eagerly anticipated website for REILLY, which we hear has a very special interactive element, featuring REILLY’s own specially created characters.

Can’t wait….

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So…

As you may have heard, a volcano erupted last week, or at least we only just began to get to grips with it. And a few days on, I felt we owed this wonder of nature / act of god / natural disaster a little post.

It’s actually insane the effect of this hell-ish mountain on our little island (I work in the London office).

Whilst thankfully casualties have been avoided, a great many people have been affected, and each day we hear of more people who’s holiday’s/jobs/relationships/working practices and day to day lives have been impacted.

Today many schools have returned from easter break minus teachers and students, over 150,000 people are trapped (well sort of trapped) outside our borders unable to get a plane, a ticket on eurostar, and the ferries of my youth, which previously shipped an ever decreasing percentage of tourists from Dover to Calais, are taking two calls a SECOND from the world and his son, all trying to get home.

I’ve watched on face book, as friends, colleagues and clients cross border after border, and take SEVEN trains to get home from work trips that usually take 3 hours, much to my amusement. Even Amie was up at 7 AM on Saturday booking eurostar tickets for a group of editors coming home from Milan. She wasn’t even out of her house.

We’re now seeing collections undelivered, shoots cancelled, meetings postponed and a faint sense of unease at losing control of something we were never really in control of, nature.

I personally (not needing to come back, and not needing to leave anytime soon) have reveled in the beauty of a clear blue sky, not scarred by countless jet streams, an audible silence with no booming planes over head, and breathe a little relief, that for once, for just a few days, we seemed to have taken a step backwards rather than needlessly plunging forward.

A suitably halcyon English warm (actually hot) spring weekend ensured that the thoughts all of my friends this weekend turned to what life would be like with a little less fast pace, and a little more calm. I know it wasn’t and isn’t like that for many people experiencing this most unusual of events. But it has been a great reminder of the need to raise your head every now and again and look at the sky.

And then come back to work, switch on your computer and write a blog post about it!

PS – Sorry, no pics of the clear blue sky. I’m sure you can imagine it though.

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Yesterday saw a new addition to the already bustling enclave of Bruton Street/Place, finally open up it’s doors to the public.

SHOWstudio, the [up until now online only] platform for the legendary and visionary photographer, Nick Knight and his host of globally recognized collaborators, had recently moved premises to a converted barn nestled in the heart of London posho’s home, Mayfair, a historic building itself, as one of the oldest barns in the center of London, formerly a barn, a brothel, the studios and galleries of Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud — and most recently Maison Martin Margiela.

1-9 Bruton Place now houses the new purpose-designed live studio as well as the retail space. The SHOWstudio SHOP enables the public to experience the outstanding creativity and originality expected from SHOWstudio.com, first hand.

Starworks London welcomed press to meet Nick and the guys, including Alex Fury (Fashion Director of the site), and the awesome Lindsay Thompson (of Art + Commerce) who is firmly ensconced within the SHOWstudio fraternity.

Some early birds were lucky enough to meet some of the collaborators and imaginators whose work already resides within the light, bright, gleaming gallery/store/work space/studio, including set designers Michael Howells and Shona Heath, and even milliner Stephen Jones popped in, to peruse the wares and congratulate Nick.

Without a doubt, the favorite piece in the store is the £75,000 taxidermy tiger, a recent acquisition from a german zoo! Nick used this in a SS10 shoot for an Alexander McQueen / Puma advertisement. Reactions were mixed. “I want to hug it”, “It looks like it’s going to eat you”, and the clever quip “That thing needs glow sticks”.

SHOWstudio.com, the groundbreaking website which has pushed the boundaries of online fashion communication since its launch in 2000 was founded on the idea of showing the process behind the creation of fashion imagery – now the SHOWstudio SHOP offers the public the unique chance to purchase part of this process, and indeed part of fashion’s history. The new retail space, situated in the heart of Mayfair, is based on two completely new retail concepts – part live studio, part gallery.

For the first time, the SHOWstudio SHOP offers for sale some of the spectacular props that have graced iconic photographic shoots and catwalk shows, selected from historical and contemporary fashion imagery and created by set designers and fashion stylists including Simon Costin, Katy England, Simon Foxton, Shona Heath, Jane How, Michael Howells and Gideon Ponte.

Simultaneously, SHOWstudio will continue its commitment to live online creation, inviting some of the world’s greatest designers to create unique pieces in front of webcams in a new purpose-designed live studio space. After seeing the articles being created real-time, SHOWstudio’s audience will be able to purchase the final items from the SHOWstudio retail space and through the website itself.

This innovative venture will continue SHOWstudio’s commitment to collaborate with a wealth of high-profile creatives, which to date has included such luminaries as Alexander McQueen, Björk, Comme des Garçons, John Galliano and Gareth Pugh. Carefully chosen and curated by Nick Knight and the SHOWstudio team, the pieces within the SHOWstudio SHOP will available online as well as from the Bruton Place shop.

The SHOWstudio SHOP is now open to the public and online (of course) at http://shop.showstudio.com/

NB the site works wonderfully and is a must for fashion geeks, offering detailed blogs on collaborators, a link to SHOWstudio itself, and a brilliant function which gives the provenance and related image of each piece sold with in the store.

– George MacPherson (SW London)

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