Vogue Nippon March 2008.

Purple Fashion Magazine.

I apologize for my blogging absence. It was due to exams at school and the many orders from my spring/summer collection I had to sew. I’m still working on the second part, however at least I finished the first semester of my last year of University. That means now I can fully concentrate on sewing. And blogging. So, I got myself updated on New York fashion week (more on that later) and also on the last issues of fashion mags. Oh, how I’ve missed enjoying amazing fashion photography! I’m sure you did too (don’t worry, I’ll post some amazing editorials for you to enjoy). For example, these are two photographs that I find completely and utterly amazing. The top one is from Vogue Nippon March 2008 issue and the second is the cover of the latest Purple Fashion Magazine issue.

Only now I realize that they both involve nudity, but I think they strongly transmit a feeling, and that is not one of shame but rather of self-acceptance/appreciation/love and passion. Fashion is not only about the clothes, but mostly about humanity, beauty in general and these photographs are incredibly beautiful, both visually and ideologically. Besides, the Balenciaga gladiator sandals are every fashionista’s dream, no? [image credit: scans from tfs]

Dior Couture Spring/Summer 2004. [credit: tfs]

I always like reading interesting life facts about artist, designers, writers on Wikipedia. It happens often that I find out things I didn’t know. For instance, did you know that Christian Dior had and art gallery selling Picasso’s work, before being a fashion designer? Or that he once made sketches for different couture houses? Or that rumor has it that he died of a heart attack after a strenuous sexual encounter with two young men? Well, I didn’t. Once again, thank God for the internet!

Find out more by clicking to read the full post. So you don’t have to search by yourself [*wink].  

Russian L’Officiel magazine.

My painting for the composition exam entitled “Transparencies and Opacity in a Week”.

It may be this romantic fashion spread from L’Officiel Russia magazine (how amazingly amazing is the styling and all those clothes?) or the up-and-coming spring/summer season, but I started to like pastel colors. So much that I even used pastel colors and colored grays in my exam paintings st school: cotton candy colors, baby blue, girlie pink and purple, but mostly I love creme colors and buttery yellows. Pastel colors are the new black! Susie over at Style Bubble seems to agree (click here to read her post on pastels and enjoy the Tim Walker editorial in Vogue Italia Jan 2008). While she even wears them pastels, I stick to expressing my love through paintings. I created these two art works this week, as I’m in my last year of studying painting at the Art University in Timisoara, Romania in Ms. Dana Acea’s class.

My painting for the study of color exam entitled “The Atelier”.

My “Plastic Bags Installation” semester paintings.

During the semester, we had to paint this “plastic bags” installation, in a very expressionist way. See how I painted the plastic bags only in warm colors? This is my unconscious craving for spring and sun, I tell ya! Click to read the full post and enjoy some details from the “Transparencies and Opacity in a Week” painting.  

Usually I have most of my meals in front of my laptop, browsing through the fashion spot, daily blogs, enjoying the latest couture collections and latest editorials as much (or maybe more) than the food I eat. Just kidding! Anyway, when I saw this fashion spread for Air France Madame with the back of paintings on the background I thought of the spring/summer Dolce&Gabbana ads: the action happens also in a painting atelier/workspace. However something seemed off: the sets are way too clean and perfectly put together for a usual painting workspace. Usually, in most ateliers, there’s a mess. Color everywhere, canvases, brushes, furniture and so on! So, I thought that next day I’ll photograph the space where we work-paint-create at school (The Art University in Timisoara, Romania), just so you see the difference between fashion and reality (”Oh, there’s a difference between fashion and reality? You don’t say!”).

There’s not much space here, is there? Also, I wore some of my clothes from my latest collection (spring/summer 2008) today at school: the gray shirt-dress and the pink plaid cropped jacket. Fortunately, I didn’t stain them with oil colors!

We are currently having exams at our atelier/paining classes. Imagine my astonishment when I heard the them/subject for your last exam at the study of color: “Room 204; Our Workspace - Interior“. I mean, I just thought of “the painters workspace” and then we get to interpret it any way we want for the exam: that’s pretty awesome, no?

This is the picture of the atelier (top) from which I started my composition (bottom). Color-wise, I chose to go with the warm-cold and complementary contrasts (orange-blue; purple-yellow). This painting is not finished, as we have another day of exam tomorrow.

Oh, and we have to clean up the atelier once we finish our exams for this semester. That is way harder than painting, trust me!

Similar ideas in photography in these fashion editorials and ads. Can prints only be photographed with a lying girl on the floor, drowning in printed fabrics? And that Lanvin dress: everybody loved the spring ads (bottom), but why aren’t editors inspired to try and photograph it differently? Maybe Lanvin doesn’t allow it. There is so much amount of fabric used for that dress, that one can really work with it in so many other ways, right? Did you notice any other similarities idea-vise? [image credit: scans from tfs]

Speaking of similarities, I used old horns in that photo shoot I did a while ago (”A Journey In Time“), it seems the new spring 2008 accessories look great hanging on horns. Also, a couple of years ago when I was taking drawing lessons preparing for the University, I studied that horse skull. It was great to see it being used in the new Jil Sander summer ads, as it’s very artsy and usually used in studying painting and drawing. See more of my drawings here.