Paris Womenswear S/S 11 Gareth Pugh « Anthony Vaccarello @ Paris Womenswear S/S 11

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For his latest show Gareth Pugh took over Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy, a gargantuan sports stadium on the outskirts of Paris and coincidentally the stage for Maison Martin Margiela's Spring 2007 collection. That collection was intended as a parody of the razzle-dazzle high-octane fashion show that commandeer such venues for their cast-of-thousands spectaculars, and its easy to see Pugh's latest offering as a counterpart to that ground-breaking Margiela show. For S/S 2011, Pugh choose to erect not a catwalk, but an enormous video screen, projecting a film of his latest collection to captive audience and simultaneously live across the Internet. Pugh, in his owns words, called film not a secondary medium but 'a modern alternative' to live catwalk events: certainly borne out by his brave and ambitious staging.

Enough about the medium - what was the message? Pugh teamed once more with Ruth Hogben, the filmmaker who created his first foray into fashion film for A/W 2009, but their offering - and the collection - was very much separate. Naturally enough - this was Pugh in spring mode, after all. Hence the shot of Pugh's opening outfit bathed the cavernous space in white to showcase angular tailoring reminiscent of cyborgs or Storm Troopers.

When Hogben was quizzed about her film, she simply said 'I wanted it to look modern' - and it certainly did that, projecting us into Pugh's futuristic vision of fetishistic mirrored crinolines and giant inflatable coats in mind-boggling graphic prints. That print was the part that felt the most new, echoed in the film by kaleidoscopic mirroring and intricate patterns fragmenting model Kristen McMenamy into parts of a giant op-art puzzle. And please note, that monochrome grid was not only splashed across those giant show-stopping Pugh puffer-coats, but slipstream chiffons and a neat all-in one (it probably won't wrap over the face and obscure all features in the shops, but we can always dream). The mirrored crinolines were also suitable spectacular, created from aluminium-coated nylon that retained its lightness with a slick, metallic shine.

The most beautiful moments in the film, however, were some of the most abstract: chiffon billowing like smoke, abstract mirrored surfaces glistening darkly, or the viewer being immersed in living pattern, the black and white graphics wrapping the entire screen and plunging the viewer headfirst into Pugh's world. And maybe that's why Pugh's forays into film always feel so fulfilling and successful: because it is a world he's imagining, and is dragging his audience into. Few designers would have the complexity, depth of vision and imagination to render that so successfully through moving image.

by Alexander Fury, on 29 September 2010


Director: Ruth Hogben
Performance: Kristen McMenamy, Jonathan Baker at D1 Models
Director of Photography: Simon Chaudoir
Styling: Katie Shillingford
Hair: Martin Cullen
Make-up: Alex Box
Nails: Marian Newman sponsored by Minx
Production : Gainsbury and Whiting
Executive Production : Sam Gainsbury and Anna Whiting
Production Management : Kat Davey
Set Design: Simon Costin
Casting: AM Casting
Styling Assistance: Beatriz de Cossio Dominguez, Neil Kalonji
Hair Assistance: Neil Hopkins, Mark Francome-Painter, Soichi, Jaimie Tanner
Make-up Assistance: Suzy Rycroft, Poppy France
Nail Assistance: Adam Slee
Music Direction: Matthew Stone
Phantom Operator: Martin Goodward
Camera Assistance: Nelson Oliver
Gaffer: Gary Varney
Electricians: Steve Davis, Martin Duncan, Lee Wilson
Runners: Harry Flinder, Sandra Leko, Julia Monsell
Location: Park Royal Studios
Special thanks to Panalux, Park Royal Studios, Pirate



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Music Direction: Matthew Stone



Matthew Stone is an artist and shaman. These two interconnected roles are defined by his activities as photographer, sculptor, performance artist, curator, writer, Optimist and cultural provocateur. Stone’s work and thinking goes far beyond the remit of his art, and his power of existence is recreating the role of the artist in the 21st century. Recognising this, The Sunday Times recently placed him at number one in the arts section of their “Power players under 30” list.



After Graduating from Camberwell Art School in 2004, with a first-class degree in Painting, Stone spearheaded South London’s !WOWOW! art collective, organizing guerrilla art exhibitions and throwing London’s most notorious and decadent squat parties. Dazed and Confused magazine featured the collective, claiming the children of !WOWOW! “would live on in legend for years to come.” and i-D Magazine described Matthew, saying “He gave birth to a happening, and all of a sudden, in his wake, London was exciting again.” In 2008 — !WOWOW! took over Tate Britain — attracting a record 4,000 people, who came to witness one of his performances.



Stone’s whole being is geared toward a life lived as art. His personalised definition of Optimism as a method for avant-garde thought and art practice, inverts the nihilistic cultural dialogues of the late twentieth century to create a necessary space for vibrant new ways of being.



Saatchi Online said that Stone’s work “definitely points to the art of tomorrow, I think, an immaterial quality equal parts idealist belief and cynicism, working as an alternative, very palpable reality running along the rest of society.” Esteemed curator and ex-head of the Royal Academy; Norman Rosenthal said simply “he has invented a new ‘ism’—Optimism.”



Stone has provided the soundtrack to each of close friend, designer Gareth Pugh’s fashion shows and films, and was a resident DJ at London’s legendary nightclub Boombox.



Though perhaps most known for his painfully beautiful photographic nudes, most exciting is Stone’s recent move into video. He has begun to direct his own video-based artworks as well as a rapturous, celebrated and daring directorial debut in the form of a music video for cult heroes These New Puritans. Following the video’s release, NME instantly placed Matthew at number 14 in their list of the “50 Most Fearless People In Music”.



Churning bodies dissect rhythmic windows that open onto varied states of concentrated being. A collage of limbs and interconnected consciousness, involving and depicting transcendental states, meditations and ecstatic dance, spin into contemporary motion. The body is shown and used to free the viewer from their own. Stone’s work revolves specifically around creative interactions and community, based on the idea that individual autonomy can be successfully combined with the power of collectivity.



Recent exhibitions and performances have taken place at the Baltic, the Royal Academy, the ICA and Tate Britain.



Biography written by Karley Sciortino

http://matthewstone.co.uk/music/

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Matthew-Stone/106490816085203?

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