080 BARCELONA FASHION

Carole Touati (lelook.eu)

Haute Couture shows came to an definite end last week in Paris but Barcelona was eagerly preparing for their 7th Edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion, showing collections for Autumn Winter 2011. The primarily Spanish designers and guests invited to attend were also joined this season by a select group of international press, guest judges and designers. As well as LesFlaneurs.com, this included the lovely Sonny (MykroMag), Kristina (Stylist) and Dominiqe (i:D Magazine) – pictured below – just to name a few.

Having arrived in the Catalan capital a couple of days early we were able to really take in all the extensive cultural sights, smells and tastes of the city – and by this, I am obviously referring to sun, sand and shopping! On the very first morning I stumbled upon a very cute vintage shop in ‘El Born’ called ‘LA LENTEJUELA’ (pictured below), which means ‘sequin’ in English. The clothes were all very reasonably priced and of course, I wanted everything. Unfortunately, due to a suitcase already overflowing with last-minute friperie purchases from Paris (CHINE-MACHINE, Paris 75018), I had to settle for a merely few floral silk shirts and a fine-knit Missoni-esque cardigan: Spring is coming soon after all…isn’t it…?

After satisfying our initial impulsive retail urges, it was inevitably onto conquering hunger and thirst. We were kindly introduced to an incredible quaint café (BAR PASAJES – C/ Sant Pere Més Alt, 31-33 – pictured above), carefully hidden away through an inconspicuous stone opening, down a dark narrow passageway, just off a tiny peaceful side street – you get the idea: without knowing it was there you would most probably have just walked on by. Thankfully, we were in the capable hands of a knowledgeable local flâneur, who assisted us every step of the way: from locating the establishment itself, to ordering several rounds of honest but delicious tapas accompanied by numerous glasses of traditional Spanish Vermouth. Combine this incredible food with an effortless atmosphere and good company; it’s easy to see why when stepping back out into the sunlight we all appeared more than satisfied with our afternoon’s accomplishments.

Sunday took much the same course, enjoying the clean sea air while promenading alongside the port, casually absorbing the city’s beautiful architecture and naturally, sampling as much of the incredible local cuisine as our stomachs could handle.

Monday: Showtime. Over the next 3 days we were presented with a mixture of menswear and womenswear, some designers thriving off that vibrant Spanish eccentricity that they are so famous for, while others opting for darker more subtle shapes and colour pallets.

Anyway, here is a run-down of our favourite designers and looks. Enjoy.

BRAIN AND BEAST

CARDONA BONACHE

Strong flashes of colour paired with more subdued natural tones. A favourite combination was the use of orange leather with soft sienna-brown knitwear.

CARDONA BONACHE

JUSTICIA RUANO

KARLOTALASPALAS

This menswear collection stood out against the other collections for its sensitivity both regarding colour and layering. The colour palette derives from the rusting of metals and contains some wonderful earthy tones ranging from deep oranges and browns to pale turquoises.

KARLOTALASPALAS

The bags were definitely a favourite.

KARLOTALASPALAS

MIQUEL SUAY

JUUN J AW11

A guest international designer, who had already debuted his AW11 menswear collection the previous week in Paris, put on another fantastic show in Barcelona. His impressive body of work and innovative tailoring received immense celebration throughout despite the unfamiliar surroundings and fresh audience.

JUUN J AW11

KRIZIA ROBUSTELLA

This designer was the winner of best Menswear and Womenswear for this edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion.

KRIZIA ROBUSTELLA

She describes her collection as “Sports Deluxe” and fully embraces the eccentric Spanish style. The show itself was fresh, fun and upbeat, and her collection displayed originality and a strong identity. It also culminated with hundreds of personalized condoms being launched from the balconies above into the laps of the unsuspecting audience, surely a finale to win over any jury…Hmmm.

KRIZIA ROBUSTELLA

TXELL MIRAS

For more photos from 080 Barcelona Fashion Week visit our facebook page here.

By Michael Stephens

Favourite Five… Indie Surf tracks

It’s The Drums. Oh no, hang on. It’s The Vaccines.

With the current wave (ahem) of 60’s surf inspired indie bands coming out of the US and now the UK seemingly never ending, it appears to be the  hipster guitar sound du jour. So here’s five of the best/most important/biggest tunes of this fledgling genre. A genre that will surely wipe out within the next year…I’ll stop with the puns now.

1. THE DRUMS – Let’s Go Surfing

The song that started it all.

2. SURFER BLOOD – Floating Vibes

The band that followed.

3. BEST COAST – Boyfriend

Girls just do it better it seems. (And check out the remix by similarly summer inspired Ghostwaves.)

4. JENNY AND JOHNNY – Big Wave

Rilo Keilly side-project snake this particular new wave.

5. THE VACCINES – Wreckin’ Bar (Ra Ra Ra)

Don’t believe the hype.

Special Mention – THE SUNDAE KUPS

Stumbled across this band playing out the back of a van in the tiny kids area at Latitude festival this summer. Hardly anyone watching but it was without doubt the funniest gig I have ever seen. In a good way. Very funny guys.  Check out the myspace here.

Review: Gainsbourg (vie heroïque)

Any biopic on a singer whose most famous works include a song in which lyrics about going and coming between loins meld with recordings of orgasms, and a track with his 13-year-old daughter entitled ‘Lemon Incest’ is going to have a fair share of sex and music. And Gainsbourg (vie héroïque) is full of it. But to say that was the total scope of this film would be to sell it short. Very short. And to think that this film simply details the most well known events the career of Serge Gainsbourg would be wrong. Very wrong.

First-time filmmaker Joann Sfar has used his background as a graphic novelist and illustrator to create an inventive, fantastical representation of French chanson’s black sheep, partly from fact, partly from his own ideas of who and what the man born Lucien Ginsburg symbolises. For the jewish born director, Gainsbourg is a lover of some of 20^th century French culture’s greatest female icons, a smoker of coronary baiting proportions, and a naturally gifted artist able to turn his hand to anything. Yet he is constantly battling insecurities about his Jewish appearance and feelings of being an outsider.

Sfar’s comic book mind has imagined Serge’s self-persecution complex about his jewishness and the more reckless side of his personality as being manifest in a seven-foot puppet-like caricature that appears during his weaker moments. This character brings to mind Pan from Pan’s Labyrinth not only because the same special effects created both creatures but because they are also both played by actor Doug Jones.

Sfar’s imaginative approach compares favourably to the two biggest films about french icons of recent years. Coco Avant Chanel was criticised in France for being a straightforward telling of the story of a woman who wasn’t the slightest bit straightforward. While La Vie en Rose although not following a linear structure seemed only to be made as such to set up the rather unimaginative final scene. Sfar has given Gainsbourg a linear structure but rather than forming it around the events that shaped the musician’s life, the film focuses on how the personality of the agent provocateur evolves (or not) to present the director’s subjective portrait of what Serge Gainsbourg is. As such, the spectator is thrown straight into the heart of the various phases of the singer’s life when his passions are burning on full flame,  or about to become dying embers, rather than being shown how the these different periods began and finished. This means the film flows at a thrilling pace and never lets up, just like Serge himself. From the very start to the very end he remains the same. The man is shown as being formed from the boy: his love of the female form exists right from the very first scene of the film when, as a youngster, he asks a little girl to kiss him; but as a Jewish boy growing up in Nazi-occupied Paris he also first becomes aware of French anti-Semitism. Sfar has said that this is a film about a French hero, and unlike American heroes, French ones never learn. So Serge never grows up, and on a couple of emotive occasions in his adult life, the young Ginsburg is cut into the place of the elder Gainsbourg. The man forever remains the boy.

Most of all, Vie héroïque makes 60’s Paris look not just chic, but damn cool, mightily sexily, full of beautiful women, and a hell of a lot of fun to be Serge Gainsbourg at his height. The style is most definitely there. The film is oozing with it. But it is intelligently used as the foundations with which to present the substance of a character that is deserving of such a creative depiction.

8.5/10
Gainsbourg is released in UK cinemas 30 July.