JULIA DEVILLE

This Melbourne based, Kiwi designer creates hauntingly delicate taxidermy jewellery using small animals from mice to birds. Her mission is to express the fleeting nature of life, and to preserve something after it has deceased, in turn letting each animal to live on to create new beauty. It might sound creepy to wear the immortalisation of little kittens and deer's with jewels in their eyes, or mice and birds as broaches, but her pieces are original and beautiful. For the faint hearted the wing broaches are an easy starting point, the vivid colours, and fragility of feathers will make you feel you have a life fluttering at your breast, without the reminder of its origin. In fact, she is an animal rights activist, using only animals which have died of natural causes, and really sees her work as honouring lost life. As a gold and silversmith technician, her work is of fine quality, exhibitions in both London and Paris confirm this. But is her combination of these more traditional elements with materials that were living jet and taxidermy which give her work its special edge. DeVille is fascinated with the Victorian aesthetic to communicate mortality in the Memento Mori period of the fifteenth-eighteenth centuries, their mourning jewellery and methods to sentimentalise death with adornment. She sees her work as a reminder of our own mortality, and as a celebration of even the shortest life.

POLLY MORGAN: an accidental artist

Polly Morgan in her studio, Photography by Pal Hansen

British artist Polly Morgan, one-time Shoreditch barmaid and English literature graduate, lives and works from her in East London studio in Bethnal Green. A one-day taxidermy course on a whim was the starting point to a fully-fledged artistic career stuffing dead animals.

This is not your normal taxidermy. A lovebird looking in a mirror; a magpie with a jewel in its beak; chicks standing on a miniature coffin; a cage held aloft by vultures; and pheasant chicks suspended from balloons. It is still life art, with the animal as subject. Morgan explains that by seeing the animals out of context it encourages the viewer to look at them as if for the first time. That as we get older and jaded, because we’ve seen it all before, she aims to create a sense of magic. For Morgan, animals are like paints would be for a painter or clay for a sculptor. She wonders whether it will become more of a conventional medium. Or, on the other hand, whether she and her taxidermy are a trendy fad. But what is clear is that her work has become more experimental and she is further exploring the possibilities of the animals. Her work is becoming bigger in scale and more abstract and sculptural. She is growing confidence in her accidental profession.

She was first persuaded to show some pieces at a friend’s bar opening in 2004. Then again cajoled, she sowed at a friend's stand at the Zoo Art Fair. Her work – a rat curled in a champagne glass – was sold before the fair even opened. With some luck perhaps, this early work caught the attention of Baksy, and in 2005 he commissioned her to produce work for his annual exhibition Santa’s Ghetto. She then went on to exhibit at similarly high-profile shows, such as Jay Jopling’s White Cube. And she has collected some influential and supportive friends, Dinos Chapman and Noble & Webster, and equally influential fans, Kate Moss and Courtney Love.

Her prices now range from around £300 for a quail chick's head on a wire, to £85,000 for the large-scale Departures (the cage held aloft by vultures), which she sold to a German collector last year.

The thirty-year-old had her first solo exhibition, Psychopomps at the Haunch of Venison at the end of last year. However, she is currently showing a selection of her exquisite and dark pieces at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, in exhibition Contemporary Eye alongside such company as Damien Hirst, the Chapman Brother and Jeff Koons.

AWARE: Art Fashion Identity

This third season of contemporary art at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington Gardens, examines how artists and designers explore the nature of clothing as more than just a protective, functional garment. It explores clothing as a method of communication, as a marker of identity, nationality, status and aspiration, and it touches on social and political issues such as globalisation, the environment, displacement and conflict.

The exhibition includes work by 30 leading international artists and designers, and runs in four sections. ‘Story-telling’ acknowledges the role of clothing in the representation of personal and cultural history. ‘Building’ covers the concept of clothing as a form of protection, referencing the portable nature of modern life. ‘Belonging and Confronting’ examines ideas of nationality, displacement, political and social confrontation and tensions created as new cultures and traditions fuse. The final section ‘Performance’ highlights the roles that we play in our daily life.

There is a great variety, with some exhibits successfully achieving a strong and thought-provoking message. For example Palestinian artist Sharif Waked confronts the difficulties faced by his people and the complexities of the political situation in the Middle East with his short film Chic Point (2003). He plays on the glamour of a catwalk, but each and every piece reveals flesh; cut-out tee-shirts, cropped suits to reveal the midriff, shirts un-buttoned back and front, ‘I heart New York’ with the heart cut out and shirts that can fold up like a blind. Baring flesh as a fashion statement is contrasted with images of Palestinian men being subjected to body searches. The sense of identity and dignity, and the way in which the removal of clothing can lead to the loss identity and dignity is a strong message. Film footage of Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece at Carnegie Recital Hall, New York in 1965, works with a similar theme, although with a rather different purpose. She sits motionless and expressionless, inviting the public to cut strips from her clothing. Scraps of fabric fall to the floor, and her body is revealed. It is closely in tune with the second-wave feminist movement that began in the 1960s, exploring women’s emancipation from the constraints on their identity represented by clothing.

Dai Rees’s Carapace: Triptych, the Butcher’s Window (2003) is also a successful piece. It features three leather garments hanging from meat hooks, based on 1950s dress patterns which are reassembled to look like carcasses. They invoke sides of beef painted by Rembrandt and Soutine, but they are also are surrealist objects, and are reminiscent of Francis Bacon. And Hussein Chalayan’s commission, Son of Sonzai Suru (2010), inspired by the 300 year old Japanese tradition of Bunraku puppet theatre, is also strong. A beautiful dress is surrounded by black ghostly figures. It is intended to make the viewer think about the way our ideals of beauty can be controlled by contemporary puppet-masters who control the media, and how our perception of the value of fashion is managed by its presentation. Another seminal piece is Yohji Yamamoto’s Femme Collection, Autumn/Winter 1991–92, a wooden framework moulded into the form of a dress. It clearly articulates Yamamoto’s desire to regain respect for clothing and promote women’s independence. It suggests a human skeleton, an architectural structure and armour. It recalls the constraining corsets that women used to wear but its robust appearance asserts the strength of the person that might wear it.

However, despite some wonderful individual pieces, the exhibition is not a success in total. There are too many fillers and many of the pieces didn’t deserve or need their accompanying text and interpretation. For example Susie MacMurray’s Widow (2009) is a beautiful dress, which when you look closer is made of pins and leather. This is an obvious contrast of beauty and aggression; the perhaps pretentious text assumes the viewers stupidity. And the encouraging name of the exhibition is little addressed. Helen Storey’s dissolvable dress, made of an experimental enzyme, is slowly lowered from a scaffold into water over the course of the exhibition, and disappears. Perhaps it is an anti-fashion statement, commenting on the transient nature of fashion. But what does this really tell us of relevance to identity?

But the topic, Fashion, Art, Identity, is a highly worthy one. The links between identity and fashion are of great human interest. And it is generally recognised that art and fashion are naturally moving together in many ways since the shift in both disciplines over these last decades, so it’s of importance to see an exhibition dedicated to it. Much of this exhibition is insightful and though provoking. Even with its problems it makes us think about the relationship between fashion and the dilemmas of modern society.

Susie MacMurray 'Widow' (2009)

Yohji Yamamoto Femme Collection, A/W 1991-92

Hussein Chalayan 'Son of Sonzai Suru' (2010)Yoko Ono 'Cut Piece'

Aware: Art Fashion Identity. Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Starts 2 December 2010 until 30 January 2011

Contact: 0844 209 0051 or www.royalacademy.org.uk

Gullivers Travels

A series inspired by Gullivers Travels

Photographer Ian Harding

Styling Ella Pearce Heath

Hair and Make-Up Joella Butler

Model Amy

Some Pretty Things

Both shoes by Rob Goodwin of London

Who the hell does Daphne Guinness think she is?

The Honourable Daphne Guinness appears in many guises: heiress and socialite; film producer; designer and perfumer; model; philanthropist; and fashion icon with an enviable collection of couture. Her blonde and black skunk-like hair is to be seen at every party, premier and couture show that counts. But what does this madcap, glamorous, British-eccentric actually do?

‘Ideas’ is her answer: ‘collaborating with people’ and ‘being the midwife to their brilliance’. But in order to do ‘collaborations’ and ‘ideas’ it must help to be as well connected as she is. Guinness counts photographers David LaChapelle and Steven Klein as friends. She was close to Isabella Blow and Alexander McQueen, and used to move in the same circle as Andy Warhol. She was brought up holidaying every summer at a Catalan artist colony, where the likes of Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Richard Hamilton were regular guests. This bohemian world of creativity, Dali’s lobster pool, or Studio 54, has coloured her fashion choices and given her a unique (if slightly experimental) persona.
Her most successful collaborations have included a silver glove designed with Shaun Leane (fulfilling her obsession with armour). A range of 5 white shirts with Dover Street Market and a perfume, ‘Daphne’, in collaboration with Comme des Garçons (the company's president, Adrian Joffe, too is an old friend). To have, what she modestly calls ‘a bit’ of money (her divorce settlement from Spyros Niarchos was reported, although never confirmed, to be in the region of £20 million), must only help further.
But it would be unfair to say all she did was connections and money. Her more recent projects have seen her move from the ‘midwife’ to the director. The short film she produced in 2006, ‘Cashback’, with the fashion photographer Sean Ellis, received an Academy Award nomination. ‘Mnemosyne’ a short film to accompany her perfume beautifully explored the visuals of scent. ‘The Phenomenology of Body’, 2008 project for which she was director and producer, was a well received film exploring changing aesthetics and the politics of fashion. On a revolving turn-table a Grecian goddess, Joan of Arc, Marie Antoinette, a Fifties housewife, a suffragette and the Burka conveyed the ever-shifting use of fashion in the constriction and liberation of women.
The vast collection of couture she amassed during her marriage to Niarchos is now serving to help her help others. In 2008 she auctioned 1,000 of her designer pieces, raising a little over £100,000 for Womankind, a charity that deals with the political and domestic abuse of women worldwide. She was a model in Naomi Campbell's Fashion For Relief show, raising funds for mothers in Haiti in 2010. She will exhibit 80 to 100 pieces, including Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Azzedine Alaia and Comme des Garçons at F.I.T.'s museum in September 2011. Guinness likes to share her success.

With a penchant for neck-ruffles, hats and veils Daphne Guinness is a woman of many talents. Her eclectic and far reaching interests, literature, classical music and art, have come together to create a wholly unique fashion icon and patron.

Chainmail Champions: Heavy Metals Steal the Spotlight

February 1966. A scene of scandal and sensation erupts. In an overnight triumph, Paco Rabanne revolutionised the norms of fashion design. ‘Twelve experimental dresses which could be produced in contemporary materials’ saw a cast of all black models dance to Pierre Boulez’s avant garde masterpiece Marteau sans Maître, and hailed the arrival of a pioneering modernist.

Luxury design was created outside the realms of luxury fabric, as Rabanne rapidly advanced the use of new materials and technology. Heavy rigid steel sheets soon moved into flexible forms of chainmail. Scissors were replaced with pliers. Knitting, an essential technique in chainmail, with the word itself derived from the French word ‘maille’ for knitting, was done with needles the size of broomsticks. Or a blowlamp was used in place of any needle at all. His designs were worn by the style leaders of the day, think Jane Fonda, Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn. His costumes for the 1966 film Who are you, Polly Magoo and for the 1968 film Barbarella confirmed chainmail as a groundbreaking trend.

A long time has passed since his revolutionary actions of the late sixties, and now it’s time for a new generation to reclaim metals. Take note: with Donatella Versace donating chainmail to Christopher Kane in 2007, and Vogue Italia’s November 2009 feature, Fashion Gone Strong by Emma Summerton, chainmail is making a return to stardom.

From Cavalli’s AW09 flowing, sheer dresses adorned with chainmail panels to Versace SS10, where pastels, geometric prints and super-fitted minis met slinky chainmail. From Marios Schwab’s chainmail tanks, collared tees, cuffs and collars to Christopher Kane’s chainmail bibs, bodices, breastplates and dripping accessories at Versus. Industrial materials proved they could be as sexy as the sheerest of organza or the shortest of thigh-skimming minis.

Gareth Pugh has taken the trend a step further for AW10, with draped fine chains, rich in movement and medieval character coating his hard edged collection. Worn as Pugh would have it, chainmail is a trend for the daring. But for the less fashion-brave there are chainmail accessories aplenty and so options are endless. Pair with lace, chiffon or a simple cashmere jumper to epitomise effortless cool; or accessorise black ripped skinnys and peep-toe biker boots to make a grunge statement. The multi-faceted influences of chainmail – military history, medieval knights, romanticism and gothic subculture – are overt enough for you to wear them minimally. Isabel Marant’s slim chainmail scarf or a piece of chainmail jewellery by Danni Jo, Eddie Borgo or Lara Bohinc are all resolutely wearable. A piece by the Vogue-hailed ‘New Crusader’ and current NEWGEN winner Fannie Schiavoni will make the most of the simplest white tee. On a high-street budget, chainmail belts are available at Topshop.

If a trend is worthy of Lady Gaga, Susie Lau (AKA Style Bubble), and self-assured rocker Noush Skaugen, it is surely one worth taking note of. But Fannie Schiavoni is resolute that chainmail is not just for fashion royalty, saying her pieces can be worn ‘by someone that has a strong sense of personal style, but she's not a show-off. She buys one strong piece of clothing or accessory each season and pairs with her otherwise subtle wardrobe’. And with most pieces made from stainless steel, brass, or platinum plated brass, with relief, I can promise you won’t have to carry the weight of a medieval Knight. Elle’s Avril Mair says ‘unconventional decoration is key for spring/summer 2010’, and chainmail is the zenith of this. Nothing will feel quite as empowering.

New Horizons

LISTEN TO: Pierre Boulez Marteau sans Maître (The Hammer without a Master) Paco Rabanne’s 1966 soundtrack and a landmark in musical modernism.

READ: Morte D'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table by Sir Thomas Malory, Oxford University Press, £8.99. Lose yourself in the Arthurian legends of chivalry, the Holy Grail, Lancelot and Guinevere.

SEE: The Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the Norman conquest of England, where soldiers strip the vanquished of their prized chainmail. The original is in Normandy, but if your budget doesn’t extend to France, a replica is on show at the Museum of Reading, Berkshire.

VISIT: The National Army Museum. The museum offers group talks, examining one thousand years of armour and weapons from the Museum’s extensive handling collection.

WEAR: Fannie Schiavoni’s shoulder piece, the epitome of the chainmail trend. £230 at Kabiri, Browns Focus and 127 Brick Lane

WATCH: Jane Fonda in Barbarella and soak up Paco Rabanne’s innovative costume design

Steven Meisel - The Godfather of Fashion

State Of Emergency

Vogue Italia September 2006

Photographer: Steven Meisel

Model: Hilary Rhoda

Of all the flawless, lustrous images in the sphere of fashion editorial, something about Steven Meisel has lifted him from the realms of ‘fashion photographer’ to a position as the ‘Godfather of Fashion’. Over the past three decades, Meisel has made the careers of numerous ‘supers’ with his gift for polishing a rough diamond; he has defined eras of fashion; created advertising campaigns for every desirable luxury brand; and shot every cover of Italian Vogue since 1988. His work has long been the best example of perfect hyper-reality.

State of Emergency, Vogue Italia September 2006, is one of his most controversial fashion spreads to date. In true Meisel style, he offered a contentious new perspective to contemporary debates on terrorism, horrors of torture and excessive use of force.

My favourite of the series depicts model Hilary Rhoda, smoky-eyed and glamorously-dishevelled, in a shocking red dress, pinned to the floor by a perfectly polished toe-capped brogue-clad foot. Look a little closer, though, and you notice, this is no normal glossy image of a sensual brunette, draped with her back arched in luxury clothes. She, (although you would never know from her beautifully pained expression and the eerily staged stillness of the image), is being arrested by two perfectly clad policemen. Ones baton is jammed at her breastbone, his riot shield provocatively pinned between her legs revealing the inner thigh. The other looks over her, arms astride her shoulders, in a deeply unsettling move. The street, with its perfectly controlled blast of sunlight sweeping across looks like cardboard; an empty movie set facade.

Meisel is never one to shy away from a difficult topic. His work is often violent, uncomfortable and sexual. The series transforms this violence and subjugation into highly sexualised images, hidden behind the protection of fashion editorial. But, as a piece of social satire he successfully highlighted the issue of excessive force. And that’s all in a day’s work if you’re Steven Meisel.

Cutting Edges

Some behind the scenes documentation from a hair magazine shoot. The delightful and super-talented Craig, our hair-stylist for the day, wanted to work with textures inside confined structures - taking a little bit of inspiration from Viktor and Rolf SS10. Whilst I wanted to play with 'Double Denim' by adding some 80s colour and some grungy attitude. Denim is trapped in an 'All American' 'Ralph Lauren' typecast, but there are so many more ways to wear it.

The final images for the magazine.

Photography Ian Harding

Styling Ella Pearce Heath

Stylists Assistant Liv Tickle

Hair Craig Chapman

Make-Up Joella Butler

Models Gia and Christina @ Zone

Recommendation-Beauty is in the Ordinary: Van Gogh and His Letters

Last week I found myself with an hour to spare before my next appointment. A café for a non-coffee drinker held little appeal, but my current, slightly emotional (please note drastic under-exaggeration) state did not lend itself to sitting conspicuously alone. Stood unprotected against the pouring rain with an increasing pile of cigarettes butts accumulating at my inappropriately Stella McCartney-clad feet, I was craving a sanctuary. Through the suited purposeful legs I looked up and saw a poster for the Van Gogh exhibition currently showing at the Royal Academy of Arts.

If asked to make a trip especially, and to spend twelve pounds which really should have been going towards a new umbrella (but probably would have in reality gone towards a lace bodysuit which ‘I couldn’t live without’), I would have said No. Van Gogh’s landscapes, peasants and hay stacks, potato peeling, sowing and reaping have always seemed too far removed from ‘real’ life in London. In his portraits I have always recognised the startling use of colour and the resulting emotional impact. But still, probably thanks to a love of German Expressionism, it was never on the same level a Max Beckmann, Otto Dix or George Grosz could produce. But, with the Academy conveniently located just two minutes away, and my chicly-starched blazer balanced on a rain-damage knife edge, with reluctance I joined the queue. Five minutes later, where signs all around declared a two hour wait, I was in.

The collection is the largest of Van Gogh’s work to be shown in London for 40 years. It comprises 65 canvases, 30 drawings and 40 original letters, mostly written to his brother Theo. The aim of the exhibition was to bring together, in as many cases as possible, the relevant letter, sketch and final painting, whereby Van Gogh’s voice almost talks you through the works. These letters, which really make the exhibition, reveal a deeply personal insight into his intimate, swirling thoughts. You are privy to surging highs and lows of emotions, which are expressed in colour and movement.

His subject matters may be humble, but he treats and reveres them as the most precious things on earth. Van Gogh shows us that the beauty in life is in the ordinary and it’s everywhere. Before, I only saw potatoes.

I walked out of the exhibition with a new optimism. If you don’t see this exhibition you might miss something that can change how you look at the world and the people in it.

The Real Van Gogh: The Artist and His Letters, is now showing at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly, http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/. To book exhibition tickets telephone 0844 209 1919 or tickets are available at the Royal Academy Ticket Office on the day of your visit. Entry £12