Thursday, 19 December 2013
Wednesday, 18 December 2013
Nicholas Hoare reviews "Bespoke" by James Sherwood & "Harris Tweed" by L...
Nicholas Hoare reviews
BESPOKE
THE MEN'S STYLE OF
SAVILE ROW
Harris Tweed: From Land to Street ... by Lara Platman
BESPOKE
THE MEN'S STYLE OF SAVILE ROW
by JAMES SHERWOOD
Those of us who share an affection for London tailoring will
derive an immense amount of pleasure from Bespoke.
James Sherwood - not to be confused with the owner of The
Orient Express, who shares both his name and his city - has written an elegant
history of Savile Row, centred on 26 firms, no less - Anderson & Sheppard,
Gieves & Hawkes and Henry Poole among them.
With a chapter devoted to each; rich infusions of gossip and
anecdote; and celebrity snapshots galore, this highly elegant tome is very well
suited to its subject.
Fashion at its finest: classic in cut, timeless in taste,
and every piece a one-off.
Sunday, 15 December 2013
O'Mast - 67 minutes of Neapolitan Tailoring Tradition
O'MAST from Kid Dandy on Vimeo.
Gianluca Migliarotti discusses his film "O'Mast" from Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò on Vimeo.
Gianluca Migliarotti discusses his film "O'Mast" from Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò on Vimeo.
O'Mast - 67 minutes of Neapolitan Tailoring Tradition
IWONA ADAMCZYK (December 27, 2011) / http://www.i-italy.org/18910/omast-67-minutes-neapolitan-tailoring-tradition
The film was presented at NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò
as part of the series AdDRESSING Style organized by Grazia d’Annunzio, special
projects editor, Vogue Italia, and Eugenia Paulicelli, Professor of Italian and
comparative literature and the member of faculty of the Certificate Program in
Women’s Studies at CUNY Graduate Center. After a brief introduction by the Casa
Italiana’s director Stefano Albertini, the sizable audience was presented with
the screening of the brilliant documentary.
What is the first thing that comes to your mind when Naples
is mentioned?
Whether it is a story that someone told you, or one of your
own experiences, it is likely to be a story in which the clever Neapolitan
outsmarts the naïve tourist. It is this stereotypical image Naples has
difficulties abolishing. Thanks to the efforts of citizens like Gianluca
Milgiarotti the city will be seen in a completely different light and its bad
reputation will soon be forgotten.
Naples native, Gianluca Migliarotti, attended NYU Film School
and The Lee Strasberg TheaterInstitute in New York. After returning to Italy he
founded Kid Dandy Productions, a boutique company producing short films,
documentaries and commercials based in Milan. His latest creation is O’Mast, a
67-minute documentary on the Neapolitan tailoring tradition.
On November 30th, the film was presented at NYU’s Casa
Italiana Zerilli Marimò as part of the series ADDRESSING Style organized by
Grazia d’Annunzio, special projects editor, Vogue Italia, and Eugenia
Paulicelli, Professor of Italian and comparative literature and the member of
faculty of the Certificate Program in Women’s Studies at Cuny Graduate Center.
After a brief introduction by the Casa Italiana’s director Stefano Albertini,
the sizable audience was presented with the screening of the brilliant
documentary.
Migliarotti not only demonstrated his superb directing
skills, but also offered the viewers an “insider” view of the sartorial craft
and did so with the utmost skill of keeping the audience attentive, engaged and
craving for more. While familiarizing the viewers with the life and work of
some of the best Neapolitan tailors, (among others the film features interviews
with renown tailors such as Mariano Rubinacci and Claudio Attolini) Migliarotti
sneaks in breathtaking views of his beloved Naples, juxtaposing shots of
architectural motifs and seaside panoramas with close-ups of luxurious fabrics,
buttons, and meticulous stitching. This surprisingly harmonious compilation
provides not only a cinematographic delight to the eye, but together with the
music creates a solid backdrop for the film and introduces viewers to another
side of Naples, the one that Migliarotti wants so desperately to reveal.
The screening of the film was followed by a panel discussion
between Eugenia Paulicelli, Stefano Albertini and Gianluca Migliarotti. Ms.
Paulicelli praised the film: “There is an urgent message in this film, it’s
communicated through beauty not through horror. There’s a sense of community,
working together.” Milgiarotti replied: “Kids in Naples are not educated. They
look for heroes in the wrong things, in films like Gomorrah. And I hope they
will find their heroes instead in these men.” She asked Migliarotti if his
presentation of Naples as a beautiful and vibrant city was intentional and he
stated: “ To me it was more about the colors, I wanted to emphasize the colors
of the city and the colors of the fabrics. Anywhere one lives inspires the way
one dresses, therefore [the Neapolitan dress code] is different than the dress
code of Milan.” The young film director then answered numerous questions from
the audience.
I couldn’t resist asking a few questions of my own. Here is
my brief conversation with Gianluca:
I.A.: What prompted you to do a documentary on this particular
subject?
G.M.: Passion and respect. Passion for the bespoke and
respect for the craftsmen.
Love for my hometown too is one of the possible reasons. I
wanted to show another side of Naples and its culture, a side that not many
know, only Neapolitans.
I.A.: Is this film in anyway a protest of globalization?
G.M.: Globalization is a generic word. This [the film] wants
to be a shout of light to what a local culture can be. Globalization can be
very positive when it respects the traditions and the local culture of a place.
Globalization can be sharing and not imposing.
I.A.: Why did you decide to show only the "best"
parts of Napoli and not the Napoli known to the world?
G.M.: As I said, and as you said those are pictures that
everyone knows already. I don't want to hide anything, I just want to show
another side, full of beauty and positivity. How could people still live in
Naples if it was as bad as they say? There must be something positive.
I.A.: Did you want
the architectural motifs of the city to be seen as a parallel to the shots of
fabric and close-up shots of the tailored details? (both by the way
photographed and presented with STYLE and GRACE)
G.M.: Thank you! Yes, I did it on purpose. I think the
elegance of the forms and colors of the architecture influenced quite a bit the
so-called Neapolitan style. The structure and the fabric are the architecture
of the suit, like the skin and bones are for the body. It's just on another
level, that I wouldn’t call superficial but just "external."
I.A.: Did you
consider making a series of films on artisan crafts? Why or why not?
G.M.: I have to say that I don't like series and I make my
films on what really catches my interest. But I have to admit that so far I've
done a few documentaries on craftsmen, like a barber and a silversmith who
became designer thanks to Gio Ponti.It seems that we are also going to shoot
another documentary on a great tailor from Florence soon.
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
Cesare Attolini’s sartorial excellence in La Grande Bellezza
Cesare Attolini’s suits in La Grande Bellezza
by HIGH-TONED on May 24, 2013 • http://www.high-toned.fr/en/2013/05/cesare-attolinis-suits-in-la-grande-bellezza/
Film director, Paolo Sorrentino’s “La Grande Bellezza (The
Great Beauty)”, a nostalgic, melancholic ode to the eternal city of Rome, is in
the official selection at the 66th Cannes film festival. Neapolitan tailoring
firm, Cesare Attolini labels the timeless elegance of Jep Gambardella, the
leading protagonist played by the great Italian actor Toni Servillo.
Clothes were selected by the Neapolitan actor himself and by
the costume-designer Daniela Ciancio. On Wednesday, Paolo Sorrentino and Toni
Servillo of “La Grande Bellezza” walked up the red carpet in beautiful Cesare
Attolini tuxedos.
A history of passion and Know-how culture
«In the world nothing great has ever been accomplished
without passion», as unparalleled German idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel sentenced, during one of his academic lessons. Before that of
tailoring that has written the history of contemporary elegant menswear,
Attolini is the name of a family, a big family. Inextricably united, over three
generations, by a profound passion, because truly simple and visceral. The
tireless engine is fueled with dedication and enthusiasm, taste and know-how
culture, uniqueness and unrepeatability, creativity and handcraft knowledge.
Attolini managed to face without any trouble the journey along a pathway
lacking easy shortcuts towards absolute genuineness and quality. These are the
meaningful values that have accompanied the Attolini family for the past eighty
years, leading it to be the protagonist of renowned Neapolitan haute couture on
the world stage of sophistication.
THE ORIGINS • Vincenzo
It is in 1930 that he designs, cuts and sews a jacket from the line that
had never been seen before and with unusual finishes. A garment that would have
been considered alternative even during the Sixties, to then be permanently consecrated as a
paradigm of elegance in the Nineties. Disarmingly simple but able to delete,
all of a sudden, all the rigours of male elegance, making the English garments
look like something from the Jurassic. All pads off, on the shoulders too, and
inner lining off. Only the essential stays, making the jacket soft and light
like a shirt. So deconstructed that it can be folded six, eight, ten times. No
tailor had ever dared so much in the previous fifty years. It is a revolution.
It is the invention of the Neapolitan style and of the garment that, unconsciously,
everyone in the world today simply calls “the jacket”. But that which the young
Vincenzo brings to life is not only an opportunity for a new practicality, a
relieving lightness, but it is the image of a fully performing man. His
scissors capable of almost miraculous cuts allow, with those draped chests and
sleeves that border lined shabbiness, with the unusual pocket shape and the
very bold “boat style” pocket, the transition from a man who dresses with
sophistication for etiquette reasons, to one that, while dressing, does no more
than express himself. He is finally free of indulging in all freedom his taste
as well as his spontaneous motion. Needless to say, many noticed it. The most
prestigious men of the time come, day after day, like pilgrims, to the tailor
of Via Vetriera in Naples, just one hundred steps away from the point in Via
Filangieri where the refined Cesare Attolini atelier stands today. Their aim,
needless to say, is to redesign their own style in the name of softness and
curvedness of master Vincenzo’s jackets. If Totò, De Sica, Mastroianni and
Clark Gable, from the Fifties onwards, are its main ambassadors in the world of
International stardom - King Vittorio Emanuele III and the famous Duke of
Windsor are the two most extreme cases of how even the aristocratic conventions
had to bend to the temptation of a new and captivating fashion. It is not a
legend that the impeccable Duke, always dressed with clothes sewn by English
tailors only, fell in love, walking through the magical Piazzetta of Capri,
with a creation by Vincenzo Attolini. This occurred just at the point of
stopping the passer-by who wore it and ask of whose fatherhood it belonged. It
is also not a legend that tells of the endless debates between the prince of
tailors and that of comedy, the great Totò, on the themes of painting and
opera. «My father and Totò were great friends! - Cesare Attolini recalls – they
debated a lot and shared numerous artistic interests. Totò often came to Via
Vetriera to visit my father. He liked to watch him at work. Those moments had a
unique, unrepeatable taste».
«In 1930, my father Vincenzo dared to question the British
model, accomplishing a true revolution. We make good use of his teachings daily
and work constantly to make the jacket more and more suitable for the
contemporary lifestyle. Our secret can be summarised in a simple formula: we
always work seriously, without looking for easy shortcuts that can reward you
in the short term but that inevitably turn you down in the long run».
«The sense of proportion is our leit-motif. We love to
express ourselves giving up questionable extravagance. In our work, the
essential guide is first of all quality fabrics and cut. As one can see, our
secret is indeed that of succeeding with simplicity and ease in the very difficult
link between tradition and modernity. The result of such synthesis is indeed
that balance and harmony one can perceive every time a garment labelled Cesare
Attolini is worn».
«Elegance is a concept which is incomprehensible in many
ways. We want our garments to help people express their natural way of being.
Their value is to make the wearer always feel at ease. We have always dipped
elegance and sophistication into contemporary living, because it is our belief
that wearing a suit labelled Cesare Attolini should always be a unique and
distinctive experience built on style and pleasure».
Monday, 9 December 2013
Sherlock: Series 3 Launch Trailer - BBC One/ BBC1 on 1 January 2014.
Sherlock series three: new trailer released / http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/dec/09/sherlock-new-trailer
After two years, Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock is back
from the dead – but, as this brand new footage shows, he faces questions from
his friends
"I don't care how you faked it. I wanna know why."
Forget the teaser: a full trailer for Sherlock, which will
air on BBC1 on 1 January 2014, has been released, showing new footage from the
show's third series. A terrorist attack on London appears imminent and of
course there's only one man who can prevent it. Here, we see Benedict
Cumberbatch's Sherlock returning to life after two years of being presumed
dead. But how will his loved ones take the news?
Are you looking forward to the new series of Sherlock? And
just how did he fake it? Leave your thoughts below.
Sherlock Season 3: We try to answer 10 questions about
the hit BBC show
By Chris Pyke 25 Nov 2013 / http://www.walesonline.co.uk/whats-on/film-tv/sherlock-season-3-try-answer-6339048
Following the trailer for Sherlock Season 3, we try to
answer 10 questions we have about the show – from how Sherlock survived to how
Watson will react...
After the latest trailer for Sherlock Season 3 was shown on
BBC at the weekend anticipation is building for the next installment. So, we
have decided to try and collate what we know about the new season and what we
think might happen.
We know Sherlock will survive the fall, otherwise there
could not be a season 3 – finally we get
to find out how. Plus we have two new characters that will feature in Sherlock
season 3 – Mary Motsan and Charles Augustus Magnussen.
After the Doctor Who 50th anniversary episode a trailer was
shown for Sherlock Series 3 that showed John Watson seemingly seeing Sherlock
Holmes for the first time and then fans of the famous sleuth receiving tweets
that he was alive, with the signature theme music and messages appearing on
screen, such as #sherlocklives, #SherlockIsNotDead and #SherlockHolmesAlive.
So, as we wait, somewhat impatiently, here is what we know,
and think we know, about Sherlock season 3...
1. How did he survive the fall?
There has been plenty of speculation as to how Sherlock
tricked everyone, including his best friend John Watson, into believing he was
dead. Now at last we will get to find out.
Benedict Cumberbatch did tease in an online interview on
Reddit: "Haven't you seen winged suits on YouTube?? I told you I was into
skydiving. How many more clues do you need people?". Meanwhile, other
online speculation has ranged from Watson been gassed by the toxin from the The
Hounds of Baskerville episode to him landing in a rubbish truck. But what role
did the cyclist play?
OUR VERDICT: We're scratching our heads but reckon the
cyclist and rubbish truck were involved.
2. How will Watson react to Sherlock being alive?
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Watson faints
and then is overjoyed to see his friend but Sherlock writer Mark Gatiss said,
in an interview with the Radio Times: "I always found it a little unlikely
that Dr Watson's only reaction was to faint... as opposed to possibly a stream
of terrible swear words."
OUR VERDICT: We expect a very fast five stages of grief:
denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. The anger stage may
involve Sherlock receiving a punch.
3. Will Irene Adler reappear?
Although Irene Adler only actually appeared in one story
from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (A Scandal in Bohemia), and so far only appeared in
one episode of Sherlock (A Scandal in Belgravia) there is speculation she may
make a return to the show.
Lara Pulver, who portrayed Adler in season two of the show,
told the Radio Times in April that "As far as I know, I’m not going to be
a part of series three". But in September she sparked rumours of her
return in another interview with the magazine when she said: “I don’t think I
said you wouldn’t be seeing me. I said there are other key characters they’re
introducing."
Saturday, 7 December 2013
Alexandrine Tinne, Dutch explorer in Africa and the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara.
Alexandrine Petronella Francina Tinne (alternative
spellings: Pieternella, Françoise, Tinné) (17 October 1835 – 1 August 1869) was
a Dutch explorer in Africa and the first European woman to attempt to cross the
Sahara. She was born at The Hague, Netherlands.
Alexandrine was the daughter of Philip Frederik Tinne, a
Dutch merchant who settled in England during the Napoleonic wars and later
returned to his native land, and of Baroness Henriette van Capellen. Henriette,
daughter of a famous Dutch Vice-Admiral, Theodorus Frederik van Capellen, was
Philip's second wife, and Alexandrine was born when he was sixty-three. Young
Alexandrine was tutored at home, and showed a proficiency at piano. When her
wealthy father died when she was ten years old, it left her the richest heiress
in the Netherlands.
She and her mother traveled extensively in Norway, Italy and
the Middle East, and visited Egypt. Alexine (as she preferred to be called) and
Henriëtte were the first western women to navigate up the White Nile and pass
the magical 4 degree latitude, arriving at Gondokoro on 30 September 1862.
Falling ill at that point Alexine was not able to proceed and forced to return
to Khartoum. Vague plans about joining in the search for the source of the Nile
were not to be fulfilled. On her second journey to the Gazelle-river Alexine
Tinne, as well, became the first western woman to reach the borders of the
lands of the Azande in the summer of 1863. On her last journey to the
Touareg-countries, moreover, she was the first western woman to enter the
Sahara, reaching the area between Murzuq and Ghat in July 1869, whereafter she
was killed on 1 August 1869. Alexine Tinne became the first female photographer
in the Netherlands who achieved in producing some 40 large sized photographs of
locations at The Hague and of the interiors of her house at the Lange Voorhout
32.
For the first extensive journey in Central Africa Alexine
Tinne left Europe in the summer of 1861 for the White Nile regions. Staying at
the famous Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo, and accompanied by her mother and her
aunt, she set out on 9 January 1862. After a short stay at Khartoum the party
ascended the White Nile to Gondokoro, where they were forced to return reaching
Khartoum on 20 November. Directly after their return Theodor von Heuglin and
Hermann Steudner met with the Tinne's and the four of them planned to travel to
the Gazelle-river Bahr-el-Ghazal, a tributary of the White Nile, in order to
reach the countries of the 'Niam-Niam'(Azande). Heuglin and Steudner left
Khartoum on 25 January, ahead of the expedition. The Tinne's followed on 5
February. Heuglin also had a geographical exploration in mind, intending to
explore the uncharted region beyond the river and to ascertain how far westward
the Nile basin extended; also to investigate the reports of a vast lake in
Central Africa eastwards of those already known, most likely the lake-like
expanses of the middle Congo.
Ascending the Bahr-el-Ghazal, the limit of navigation was
reached on 10 March. From Meshra-er-Rek a journey was made overland, across the
Bahr Jur and south-west by the Bahr Kosango, to Jebel Kosango, on the borders
of the Niam-Niam country. During the journey all the travelers suffered
severely from fever. Steudner died in April and Madame Tinne, Alexandrine's
mother, in July, followed by two Dutch maids. After many fatigues and dangers
the remainder of the party reached Khartoum at the end of March 1864,
whereafter Miss Tinné's aunt, who had stayed in Khartoum, died. After having
buried her aunt and one of her maids, Alexine Tinne, devastated by the deaths,
returned Berber and Suakin to Cairo, taking with her the corpses of the other
maid and her mother. John Tinne, her half-brother from Liverpool, visited
Alexine in January/February 1865, with the intention of talking her into
joining him back home. Alexine was not to be persuaded, and John left with the
two corpses and a large part of her ethnographic collection. Her mother's
corpse later was buried at the Oud Eik en Duinen cemetery in The Hague.
Alexine's ethnographic collection was donated by John to the Public Museum (now
the Liverpool World Museum).
The geographical and scientific results of the expedition
were highly important, as will be seen in Heuglin's Die Tinnésche Expedition im
westlichen Nilgebiet (1863–1864 (Gotha, 1865), and Reise in das Gebiet des
Weissen Nils Leipzig, 1869). A description, by T Kotschy and J Peyritsch, of
some of the plants discovered by the expedition was published at Vienna in 1867
under the title of Plantae Tinneanae, and introduced 24 new species to science,
including 19 species in the mint family.
At Cairo Miss Tinne lived in Oriental style during the next
four years, visiting Algeria, Tunisia and other parts of the Mediterranean. An
attempt to reach the Touaregs in 1868 from Algiers failed.
In January 1869 she again made an attempt to fulfill her
ardent desire to meet the Touaregs. She started from Tripoli with a caravan,
intending to proceed to Lake Chad, and thence by Wadai, Darfur and Kordofan to
the upper Nile. In Murzuq she met the German explorer Gustav Nachtigal, with
whom she intended to cross the desert. As Nachtigal wanted to go to the Tibesti
Mountains first, she set out for the South on her own. Her caravan advanced
slowly. Due to her diseases (attacks of gout, inflammation of her eyes)she was
not able to maintain order in her group.
In the early morning of 1 August on the route from Murzuk to
Ghat she was murdered together with two Dutch sailors in her party, allegedly
by Tuareg in league with her escort. According to the statements, given at the
trial in Tripoli in December 1869/January 1870, two blows of a sword (one in
her neck, one on one of her hands) made her collapse. They left her to bleed to
death. Her body was never found.
There are several theories as to the motive, none of them
proven. One is that her guides believed that her iron water tanks were filled
with gold. It is also possible that her death came as a result of an internal
political conflict between local Tuareg chiefs. Another explorer, Erwin von
Bary, who visited the same area in the 1870s, met participants of the assault
and learned that it had been a blow against the "great old man" of
the Northern Tuareg, Ikhenukhen, who was to be removed from his powerful
position, and the means was to be the killing of the Christians—just to prove
that Ikhenukhen was too weak to protect travelers any more. In the context of
the internal strife between the Northern Tuareg that lasted until the Ottoman
occupation of the Fezzan Province (Southern Libya) this version is the most
probable explanation of the otherwise unmotivated massacre.
It was said that her collections of ethnographic specimens
in the museum at Liverpool, England were destroyed in 1941, during a bombing
raid on the harbor of Liverpool in World War II, and the church built in her
memory in The Hague was similarly destroyed. Recent research revealed however
that around 75% (over 100 objects) of her ethnographic collection survived this
Blizkrieg. Besides their value as an irreplaceable document of her two
Sudan-journeys in 1862-1864, her collection, together with the contemporary one
of Heuglin at Stuttgart (the Linden Museum), represent rare specimens of an
early date belonging to material cultures in regions of Sudan. A small marker
near Juba in Sudan commemorating the great Nile explorers of the 19th century
bears her name, as well as a window plaque in Tangiers. Many of her remaining
papers, including most of her letters from Africa, are stored at the National
Archive in The Hague. Her photographs are at the National Archive and the Haags
Gemeentearchief (Municipal Archive of The Hague).
Alexandrine Tinne in Afrika from Captain Video on Vimeo.
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