Under the cloud
Thailand's most updated English news website, newspaper english, breaking news : The Nation
Pop artist Pom Jitpratuk takes on Thai society’s restrictions and norms in the exhibition “Ballad of the Black Cloud” February 1 through 28 at the Koi Gallery.
He paints fantasy towns shadowed with heavy black clouds, a reflection of the inhabitants’ suppressed personalities, released only in dreams.
Get the details at www.KoiArtGalleryBangkok.com.
Li Bingbing and bamboo
Chinese actress Li Bingbing, the goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme, has sponsored a limited edition of Gucci wristwatches called the Li Bingbing Bamboo.
Launched in the historical Unesco-heritage city of Lijiang in China’s Yunnan province, the watch has a bamboo bezel and a stainless-steel-and-bamboo bangle that incorporates Gucci’s Horsebit motif. The dial is an ivory shade to underscore the overall creamy hue and bears Roman indexes. The case back is engraved, “Gucci and Li Bingbing for Responsible Life”.
Paired with the timepiece is a beaded bracelet from Gucci Jewellery’s Bamboo collection. It’s crafted from contrasting bamboo and milky white beads made from the tagua nut, a “sustainable material” also known as “vegetable ivory”.
The adjustable-drawstring bracelet is embellished with a sterling silver bead and two dangling silver charms engraved with the Gucci and Li Bingbing’s Responsible Life logos.
Geniuses at work
Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs teamed up with French conceptual artist Daniel Buren for an extraordinary show at Paris Fashion Week last October. Models in bold checks rendered in bright acid, pale grey or stark black and white streamed down escalators into the Louvre.
Next month advertising campaigns for the spring-summer line extends the pair’s reach to magazines and billboards around the world. Shot in a New York studio by Steven Meisel, the images show 12 up-and-coming models wearing similar outfits and carrying identical handbags.
Jacobs says Buren’s “Les Deux Plateaux”, shown in Paris – a series of striped columns of three different heights – inspired the proportions for his clothes. “I felt that the idea of pairing the girls as ‘twins’ heightened the message of repetition and the repetition of pattern, which is key this season. Sometimes, they are perfectly matched twins and other times they’re mismatched, wearing different lengths – mini or midi, or midi and maxi – reflecting the different column heights.”
Buren will also design window displays for selected Vuitton stores to be unveiled with the ready-to-wear collection in March.
