CONTENTS
 

     

 

Impressum

Vol.23  Issue JANUARY 2023

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Copyright © 2022/23, fashionfreak. All rights reserved.

 

27.12.2022 Tags : #fashion #style #trend #model #apparel #designer #katebarton #marcuscooper #pyperamericasmith
Text:Kate Barton/Photos:Marcus Cooper

Kate Barton

Collection S/S 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 Fashionfreak ! The Fashion People Site

Kate Barton Collection S/S 2023

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Barton

 

 

Kate Barton

 

 

Kate Barton

 

 

 

 

 

Spring/Summer 2023 Collection
Kate’s approach to her Spring/Summer 2023 Collection was experimental rather than referential. Building on the singular aesthetic she affirmed with her introductory collection, she delved into developmental fabric with innovative and sustainable manipulation methods to give her experiential creations perpetuity – expanding on her exploration of shape and form.

Animated by experimentation and development, Kate was gripped by engineering new fabrics and novel amalgamations. In fusing unconventional fabric combinations, she transforms material into a completely new structure, and combined with her ever-evolving, minimal waste draping techniques, her authentic sculptural silhouettes exhibit textural contrast with a lightweight feel.

Kate Barton aspires to transcend the industry’s typical personality, or theme-driven preoccupations, with her singular processes: her use of geometric cutting and fabric manipulation techniques, draping without the use of seams or darts, succeed at transforming rectangular pieces of fabric into garments that swathe effortlessly on the body with a multi-dimensional perspective, her fabric-first approach is a sustainable solution that creates maximum volume without excess and layering fabrics. These minimal waste techniques give opportunity to create endless possibilities, adding inspiration to hasten her innovative thinking.

The liquescent and multi-dimensional materials, assimilated with innovative manipulation methods, achieve classicism with an unconventional, modernized point of view. Magnified by her visual choices: stylist (Tom Eerebout), photographer (Marcus Cooper), and model (Pyper America Smith), Kate sets the tone for a univocally modern take on evening wear.

Bio
Kate Barton is an American fashion designer based in New York City. She graduated from The Savannah College of Art and Design with immediate multiple accolades and awards including Mittelmoda at Milan Fashion Week, CFDA Top Fashion Future Graduate, Red Dot Award...

With a focus on technology, shape-engineering and avant-garde draping methods, Kate’s innovative techniques entice the exploration of shape and form to give purpose and authenticity to each garment. Ingenious cutting methods and unconventional material combinations exceed the limit of what expected eveningwear looks like, and feels like, to wear. The sculptural, elegant creations hold serendipitous sustainable advances.

Kate stands for local made-to-order and custom production, curating the finest materials and fabrics to create each product, and advocates for causes that will lead to positive change. She aspires to build a brand that gives back to organizations in need, fiercely advocates for awareness and really makes a change within her community.

Her introductory collection raised awareness for Cystic Fibrosis, in honor of her best friend Claire, who passed away at just twenty-four from the disease. In collaboration with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, she launched the “Rose Bag”, with proceeds from every purchase helping them get one step closer to a cure.

 

 

 

 

 

Kate Barton

 

 

Kate Barton

 

 

Kate Barton

 

 

 

 

 

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27.12.2022 Tags : #helmutnewton #helmutnewtonbrands #jitrois #jeanclaudejitrois #fashion #style #trend #model #apparel #designer
Text:Matthias Harder/Jitrois

HELMUT NEWTON STIFTUNG

HELMUT NEWTON.BRANDS

 

 

 

 

 

Jitrois is incredibly honoured that the Helmut Newton's Foundation has chosen to present our historical collaboration with Helmut their new exhibition "Helmut Newton. Brands" in Berlin.

The first three rooms of the exhibition display images of different designers. One of them is dedicated to the collaboration between Helmut and the french leather couturier, Jean-Claude Jitrois.

New exhibition HELMUT NEWTON.BRANDS opened at the HELMUT NEWTON FOUNDATION in Berlin. With over 200 photographs, including many unknown motifs from Newton’s collaborations with internationally renowned brands such as Swarovski, Saint Laurent, Wolford, Blumarine, Redwall, and Lavazza.

When it came to composition and style, the photographer did not differentiate between magazine editorials and direct brand commissions, which were often arranged through advertising agencies. Newton referred to himself ironically as A Gun for Hire – a term that also served as the title of the 2005 posthumous exhibition of his commercial photography, shown first at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco and then at the Helmut Newton Foundation in Berlin. Included in the exhibition at that time was Newton’s extravagant, award-winning black-and-white ad campaign for Villeroy & Boch from 1985. Newton showed the brand’s sinks and toilet bowls being delivered to a prestigious villa – carried by young women – with constellations of figures more reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s detective novels than everyday life. His aesthetic rendering of both luxurious and everyday products and the remarkable shift in conventional contexts of use are captivating. Only a few photographs from the earlier exhibition on Newton’s commercial photography will be on view in Helmut Newton. Brands – such as the magnificent black-and-white series for Absolut Vodka with Kristen McMenamy, produced in Sweden in 2000.

Helmut Newton.Brands picks up where A Gun for Hire left off, showcasing photographs Newton shot mainly in the 1980s and ’90s for high-paying advertising agencies and corporate clients, mostly in and around Monaco. In the three front exhibition rooms, we encounter fashion images produced for the luxury industry, such as Newton’s interpretations of Yves Saint Laurent’s latest fashion designs, from haute couture to prêt-à-porter. Newton’s productions from season to season are as diverse and individual as the women’s clothing he depicted. The visual compositions sometimes transcend reality, transporting us to distant emotional and exotic spheres.

Newton’s commissioned works for Wolford, which were published in 1993 and 1994 as calendars for exclusive customers. Newton’s photographs were used on everything from pantyhose packaging to XXL formats on billboards, public buses, and building facades. Such shifts in size and context, of course, radically alter the effect of the photographs, even while the subjects remain the same: when presented in the public space, the women modeling pantyhose and tight-fitting bodysuits transform into giants. Newton shot the Wolford campaign in both black-and-white and color with several models in Monaco, mainly near the sea. His images of designer creations for the American luxury department store chain Neiman Marcus are also on display in the first three exhibition rooms. They include examples from Newton’s many years of close collaboration with Anna Molinari and her label Blumarine, featuring models such as Monica Bellucci, Carla Bruni, and Carré Otis, realized in Nice and Monaco in 1993 and 1994.

What all these advertising campaigns have in common: Newton only integrated a few images from his commercial photography series into his exhibitions and books during his lifetime. Now for the first time, Helmut Newton. Brands offers the possibility to experience these photo series in their entirety in a single exhibition.

Over the years, Newton became a veritable marketing expert for a wide variety of products. Advertising photographs are a natural part of our product- and brand-oriented consumer world; they are omnipresent and a vital component of any corporate strategy. To be effective, the images must be surprising and, above all, seductive, convincing us to purchase the visualized product. The photographer repeatedly fulfilled these requirements with great success, blending timeless elegance and provocative exaggeration. Early examples of commercial photography from the Weimar Republic, for example, by El Lissitzky, Jan Tschichold, Sasha Stone, or Albert Renger-Patzsch, are also icons of the Neues Sehen (New Vision) movement, which treated photography as a medium of artistic expression, and are therefore considered fine art. This contextual shift also applies to some of Newton’s timeless advertising campaigns, even though he always insisted on being called a photographer rather than an artist – a self-description that experts have contested over the years.

On view in the main room of the Helmut Newton Foundation are further little-known motifs: photographs Newton produced for the tobacco companies Philip Morris and Dannemann, for the Turin-based coffee roaster Lavazza, the Italian vintner Ca’ del Bosco, and the Austrian DIY store Bauwelt. Likewise shot in the 1980s and ’90s, each motif is highly individual, oriented to the brand and its offerings while reflecting Newton’s signature style. These images were also initially distributed in the form of exclusive, sometimes limited and numbered wall calendars, quickly becoming prized collector’s items traded at high prices. A selection of these calendars has been displayed in the permanent exhibition Helmut Newton’s Private Property for years, presented in box frames. However, only one motif is shown at a time and is changed periodically. Interestingly, the calendars were produced in a variety of formats, with spiral binding or tear-off pages and occasionally with the same motif over two months. Otherwise, they followed a classic format with twelve alternating motifs from January to December. Yet other advertisers produced calendars featuring preexisting Newton motifs that were not explicitly advertising images. The photographer seemed to have been quite open to this means of distributing his images, although each use and its duration were contractually regulated between the respective advertising agency and Newton’s agent.

In the rear exhibition rooms, we can discover further collaborations, such as with the fashion jewelry manufacturer Swarovski, Volkswagen, the luxury emporium Asprey, and Chanel. In the mid-1970s, Newton even directed two television commercials for the famous perfume Chanel No 5, starring Catherine Deneuve. Display cases show various Polaroids, analogue contact sheets from advertising shoots, lookbooks from fashion clients, and magazine ads, pointing to the diverse uses of Newton’s advertising photography. The juxtaposition of the individual photographs hanging on the exhibition walls and the same motif in its advertising context is quite illuminating. We can see both the enlarged print and the image in its original format in the magazine or brochure, accompanied by typography or other graphic design elements. Newton’s photographs were generally not superimposed with text but only supplemented by the client’s logo – the image’s message was meaningful enough.

Newton started collaborating with fashion brands outside of magazine editorials early on. For example, from 1962 to 1970, he worked with Nino-Moden in Nordhorn, West Germany’s largest textile company at the time, and shot the catalogue for London-based Biba in 1968. That same year, he accepted a commission from the French car manufacturer Citroën for a brochure advertising the legendary DS series. This and more can be found in the display cases on view in the exhibition. Until shortly before his death, Newton continued to produce editorials for different magazines but also advertising campaigns, such as for Alberta Ferretti in Monte Carlo in 2003. That same year, he produced an unpublished black-and-white campaign for tablets against erectile dysfunction called Levitra®, a Viagra-like medication by the pharmaceutical company Bayer. However, the campaign was stopped before publication under threat of a lawsuit. To the very end, Newton remained curious about the almost infinite possibilities of visualizing a wide variety of products. In doing so, he flaunted the boundaries of both morality and genre: nudes became advertising motifs for the Spanish brandy Osborne Veterano, for the Volkswagen Beetle, and for Montblanc’s Meisterstück fountain pen. A seemingly lifeless woman lying on the floor in a garage advertised a Prada bag strategically placed in the picture’s foreground – a particularly striking example of “radical chic.” A self-portrait of Helmut Newton, with a camera on the table and his wife June at his side, presents the luxury wristwatch manufacturer Rolex. In all instances, everyone is highly convincing in their role.

For decades, Newton staged everyday and luxury products, becoming a link between producers and consumers through his photographs and their publication. Advertising is also about communication, conveyed through the product’s image, and Newton always added an unexpected plot. At the same time, his visual narratives were universally understandable, so magazine publishers could easily include them in their different country editions, whether as editorial or advertising. These successful productions were often prepared with the help of Polaroid images. Newton used them to ascertain the effect of his visual compositions and discuss them with the designers, advertising agents, or clients during the shoot. Hundreds of examples in the foundation’s archive and a small selection in the exhibition display cases bear witness to this.

These famous and lesser-known series are all featured for the first time in this retrospective of Helmut Newton’s advertising photography. The often underestimated yet influential area of applied photography deals with the visualization of products for commercial purposes. In Newton’s case, these products included women’s pantyhose, evening gowns, ground coffee, television sets, saw blades, silverware, red wine, cars, wristwatches, costume jewelry, cigars, and potency pills. Sometimes Newton made the objects the center of attention, placing them literally on a pedestal, while in other images, they are relegated to the sidelines. An advertising image that does not explicitly show the advertised product but only conveys its purported effect, for instance, in the case of perfume, is referred to as “mood photography.” It creates a specific atmosphere intended to spark an emotional connection between the product and the reader of the magazine where the advertising image is printed. Newton mastered the entire spectrum of stylistic and thematic possibilities like no other. Not only did he influence the taste of the times; his images shaped the zeitgeist for decades, sometimes redefining it entirely. Newton’s usual starting point was a female model performing a daring act and breaking with the prevailing norms. His commercial photography thus transformed fictitious narratives into possible realities. Entrusted with a virtual carte blanche by many of his clients, he pushed the boundaries of what was morally permissible or blurred the lines between truth and lies. In advertising, he was not restricted by narrow editorial policies, as with American Vogue, for example, but was able to work much more freely and radically in his compositions.

One of the Helmut Newton Foundation’s central tasks is researching visual motifs in its in-house archive by reviewing older publications, contact sheets with Newton’s handwritten markings, and work prints and bringing them into new contexts through thematic exhibitions. Commercial advertising photography represents one of the most important aspects of Newton’s work. The presentation of numerous previously unknown photographs makes the current exhibition Helmut Newton. Brands essential for a comprehensive and systematic analysis of his oeuvre.

Duration : 03.December 2022 - 14 May 2023 Detailed information : https://helmut-newton-foundation.org/

 

 

 

 

 

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