We schlepped around the planet and back this week, Dear Reader; launch to launch, lunch to lunch. Now it’s Voxbullet Friday; time for your quikstix trinity of our fave bits. Ready?
LAUDABLE
The Voxfrockers are thrilled to the gills! In a cosily darkened cinema at ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image) we heard the rumors proved true. David Bowie Is, the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition curated by Geoffrey Marsh and Victoria Broackes of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, is coming to Australia next year. Costumes, clips, scribbled notes, photographs, paintings and backtracks by this extraordinary iconoclast of music, fashion, film and popular culture, will be installed at ACMI from July 15 to November 1, 2015. And, if you think our excitement is a tad premature, note that in cities already blessed with David Bowie Is (an open-ended title, says Ms. Broackes, to encourage viewers’ own answers), allocated tickets sold out and queues snaked for hours and multiple city blocks. Tickets are already on sale so best get a wiggle on: www.acmi.net.au/bowie
Pictured below, album cover for Aladdin Sane, 1973, Photograph by Brian Duffy (Copyright Duffy Archive and The David Bowie Archive) and main picture, top; bodysuit design by Kansai Yamamoto, 1973 for the Aladdin Sane tour. Photograph by Masayoshi Sukita (Copyright Sukita and The David Bowie Archive).
LICKABLE
This week we met affable artists Stephen Ormandy and Louise Olsen – the ridiculously good looking and relentlessly cheerful partners behind iconic Aussie brand Dinosaur Designs at the opening of their trillionth new store. This one is a chic little jewel in Melbourne’s The Strand, a fingerling arcade jutting off the vast, glossy, throbbing new Emporium complex.
Mr. Ormandy and Ms. Olsen made the trip south to show us Mist, a new line of homewares and jewellery mostly in their signature Flintstoned resin forms. The collection includes bowls and platters, plates and vases, cuffs and neck pieces, even tables if you like, in that thick, softchunk stuff that swirls light into a watery palette of clouds, flowers, seafoam or sunsetting sky. Or whatever. (Voxfrock has always battled the urge to lick or suck some Dinasaur Designs like a lolly or ice. Or, is that just us?)
Mr. Ormandy explained over lunch at Melbourne’s supercool Supernormal restaurant (home of the mini lobster burger; need we elaborate?) that Dinosaur Designs’ New York store is ticking along nicely thank you very much, and the launch of a London flagship is mere days away. He has also found a minute here and there in his exhaustive schedule to prepare for an exhibition of his paintings and sculptures later this year. Look closer here at the marvellous Dinosaur dynasty of design.
LIKEABLE
We found a marvellous little fashion label conceived and made right here in Melbourne. Or, rather, Airdrie Makim of Temps Perdu (French for lost time) found us. After a recent report by Voxintern Terry Carruthers on the proliferation of big box retailers (Topshop, Zara, H&M, Uniqlo et. al.) and the hurricanes of media coverage whipped up in their wake, Miss Makim contacted us to point out that there are local manufacturers doing rather well too, and equally worthy of their own hurricanes.
We agreed. “We have chosen to remain in Melbourne for all the designing and making of our fashion line, and yes, it makes it a little more challenging to produce a collection at an accessible price point,” Miss Makin says. “But I think you will agree when you take a browse through our lookbook, we are certainly managing to do so!”
We agreed again. Miss Makim and business partner Claire Djuve favored a meltingly cool and airy aesthetic for their current Primary Shapes collection based on triangles, rectangles and circles of fabric manipulated to embrace the body. Stockists include LUPA, Milly Sleeping, Berserk, Subject to Change, and their online store at www.tempsperdu.com.au
BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!
Voxfrock is doubly thrilled to announce the winner of our Girl fragrance giveaway (pictured) is Twitterer Blingg @ImABaddKidd who screamed (metaphorically, natch): Oh.My.GOODNESS.I.Need.That!!!!! My most anticipated fragrance of the year!!!!! Congratulations Mr. Blingg. We admire your restrained style.
Girl, for those resident under rocks this week, is the recently released perfume for both girls and boys (that makes it unisex we guess) by Comme Des Garcons, developed in collaboration with no less than Mr. Happy, Pharrell Williams.
Girl pings neroli, lavender and white pepper on its top notes; iris, styrax and violet in the middle riff, and finishes with a decidedly woody slipstream of vetiver, patchouli, cedarwood and sandalwood. Voxfrock imagines that young men particularly, blessed as they are with so few non-gagworthy scent options, will embrace Girl with some relief.
Compiled by Terry Carruthers intern@voxfrock.com.au with Janice Breen Burns jbb@voxfrock.com.au
Next week, don’t miss the longform feature by Voxfrock and legendary photographer Monty Coles on Melbourne’s doyenne of style, Christine Barro, plus our Voxbullet mixed news reports.
