Takashi Nishiyama, a 23-year-old designer inspired by computer games and monsters, is the winner of this year’s ITS competition: a seal of approval bestowed by judges including Viktor & Rolf and John Galliano. Nishiyma’s collection features voluminous layers of dark fur, drowning the models in monster silhouettes; it is simultaneously fantasy and nightmare. Continue reading “Takashi Nishiyama talks to Filep Motwary”
Walter Pfeiffer has been making pictures since the early 1970s. His photographs and short films evoke both the glamour and the grit of hedonistic youth. His influence is seen in the work of photographers like Juergen Teller and Wolfgang Tillmans, who have achieved the kind of recognition he has never enjoyed. He has published six books with Ringier and Hatje Cantz: odes to homoeroticism, drama and imperfect beauty, measured out in off-kilter crops and that omnipresent flash. Here, he chats with Dapper Dan from his home in Zurich. Continue reading “Walter Pfeiffer talks to Filep Motwary”
Rei Kawakubo is, without a doubt, the high priestess of the avant-garde, and Comme des Garçons is the cult she has created. Not only does she possess a religious following and a body of work that spans four decades of uncompromising radicalism, but her cryptic silences, black-clad persona and commanding bob make even her most absurd style declarations – men in skirts being a favorite – sound serious rather than ridiculous.Since Kawakubo arrived in Paris in 1981 with monochrome designs that radically challenged common perceptions of beauty and completely rewrote the staid relationship between clothing and body, nothing has ever been the same again. Hiroshima chic was the not entirely complimentary descriptor bestowed on those early, allblack, hole-y, asymmetric efforts. In hindsight, though, it is apt; Kawakubo’s debut was akin to a creative atomic bomb. And she accomplished all of it without sacrificing commerce on the altar of creativity. Forty years on, she is still the president and owner of her own independent, profitable company. Notoriously a woman of few words, Kawakubo knows how to deliver a resonant sentence. She never draws, preferring words to brief her team. Her latest men’s collection, which features tutus and skeletons, bears the jolly riddle of a title Skull of Life. Continue reading “Rei Kawakubo talks to Angelo Flaccavento”
The legendary, and legendarily private, Yohji Yamamoto has recently surprised his fans by publishing a biography. It was co-written by a longtime Yamamoto collaborator, Ai Mitsuda; spanning memoir, fiction and philosophy, it is both more abstract and more deeply personal than a traditional biography.
This March, meanwhile, the V&A in London will pay homage to Yamamoto with a full-blown retrospective. It is, of course, no traditional exhibition, but a series of site-specific installations that lead visitors around the V&A and raise questions about process and permanence. With Yamamoto, the journey is, as ever, the destination. Continue reading “Yohji Yamamoto talks to Filep Motwary”
In Dapper Dan’s third issue, Angelo Flaccavento studies the cult of Rei Kawakubo; legendary designer Yohji Yamamoto pulls a bomb from his heart; Berlin-based artist Christopher Kline guides us through the stations of a snakebraid; Thomas Eberwein and Jerome Rigaud discuss the creative potentials of technology; photographers Charlotte Ballesteros and Hubert Marot explore the paradox of beauty; Epic artist Jannis Kounellis declares art a sacrifice; Filep Motwary discovers talent in the work of new designer Takashi Nishiyama; Walter Pfeiffer is having a nice day; Shumon Basar shares an excerpt from his novel-in-progress and Jeff Clarke talks about his polka-dot guitar.
Coming out late March 2011, Dapper Dan 03 will be available worldwide at selected newsstands, bookstores and fashion boutiques.
Featuring, among others, interviews by Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, Umit Benan and Walter Pfeiffer, Dapper Dan’s third issue will hit the newsstands across Europe by the end of March, with the rest of the world to follow.
