Miu Miu - Alchemical Magic & Pentagonal Sunglasses

There's been a sharp uptick in the use of, reference to and presence of magic in my life so I thought I'd pass on Miu Miu's 'The Woman Dress' Video. 

I'm too jaded to ignore that it's less about 'The Woman Dress' than about flogging the handmade Pentagon sunglasses. However the all female narrative, use of magic and alchemical transformation, Kubrickesque Eyes's Wide Shut reversed music and speech references are signature Miuccia Prada who I have said before, knows a lot more about how the world ticks than most other designers except for Karl Lagerfeld and the late Alexander McQueen.

The Future's Bright

I'm quite pleased with this shot because getting the scrolling message on it correct involved two MTR underground rides to Tsim Tsa Tsui in Kowloon, a bit of shouting because the machine to programme the watch wasn't there, some more shouting because the watch model didn't programme like they advertised, some TLC to the shop assistant who needed to know I was putting on the rage a bit so that they did something like upgrade the watch to the one that does program at no cost and then the Star Ferry across the harbour to central. It's such a beautiful thing to do and I can't tell you how magic it is to do a little bit of history as a commute/trip. I'm so lucky.

Anyway, she still looked nervous after my cheesy grin pulling, so I'll go back and lay some more love on her next time I change the message. It's an O.D.M watch and the aficionados will recognise that the orange strap doesn't come in black face but that's what needed to be sorted out as part of the scrolling message thing. It's not as stupidly expensive as the IWC which I'm waaay more open to given the fab service at the Schaffenhausen boutique but anyway it's still a pure fashion accessory because I don't need it really. My mobile phone as does yours, tells the time if we're honest.

This lovely young lady was a good sport because it's the orange watch that get's the puff cheeked, double cat claws acion. I hope I hear from you because your T Shirt Idea is something I've been kicking around for a while in my head. Wanna do a small fashion thing together?

Aunty Viv would have been proud of what I told the staff who tried to prevent me taking this photograph. I think they should read her biography here, definitely (no exceptions)  watch this and then we can talk about that belt you should give me the most awesome discount on OK? I only want the accessories because let's face it. To really get away with Vivienne Westwood it's about affording it. Clothing for heroes? (Check) Budget? (Not yet)

Truly a privilege to live in the same century. (Absolutely no chance of working with them though given that superstar is holding their hands. Anybody know any Triads? (OK that's a pretty funny Hong Kong advertising gag but nobody EVER comments on my puns so I gotta highlight them now)

Must dash because the owner of the luggage store I mentioned here is opening his shop tonight and I'm going to be very rude and try and get a sweet deal on the Camel Leather number that is going to push me into living in a bus shelter as the best looking vagabond on the planet. The Bothos website is here if you want to know what style of leather bag turns me on but the drop down always in beta thing fucking cracks me up because it's just spot on and I think they don't know how 2.0 it is although I will ask.

With Heart

I've reached a conclusion on Prada but haven't drafted it yet. It will be completed shortly.

Aunty Viv

I had the good fortune to stay for a few days in Milan this week judging global creative and more importantly getting a chance to meet people that I may one day need to call upon for help. I stayed at the nhow hotel which is as pretentious as it's name (I heard a few Milanese pronouncing it with the 'h' which just cracked me up). The hotel was tres chic but as I pointed out to the production people on the flight back to London, the pillows weren't up to standard, which is more important than any smoked glass shower action like the Park Hotel in New Delhi I talked about here.

In the post industrial reception I noticed the art they were displaying reminded me heavily of Russell's jump posts so I thought I'd share them with you here. They look more like they could be sinking than floating...and on smack too for that matter.

Or is she floating in water?


To me it almost looks like the point on a parabolic curve when motion is static, or the point during a trampoline jump when up turns to down.

We didn't get much of a chance to look around Milan but I did sneak out and stock up on some quality Salami & Cheese at the supermarket but not on any cake action.

Mmm they're waiting for me in the fridge at home.

The cake shop was closed at night but the view from the window looked fab. There is something very civilised about shops with cakes in the windows. Like a scene from The Unconsoled, in one of those hard to determine middle European cities that Kazuo Ishiguro depicts so well.

We were however spoiled with a little trip to a brilliant traditional Milanese trattoria that even now I can remember all the courses because the food was so simple and fab. It's called Bagutta and is a favourite haunt for the artistic community in Milan. Not the tossers in fashion or advertising but proper creatives. The ones who paint and write for love not money. They produce a book each year which as we left the restaurant I noticed one year was titled 'Basso Profondo" which is something that Tom Doctoroff talks about in his rather excellent book "Billions - Marketing to the new Chinese Consumer". More on that later.

And the next day we were even treated to my first game of football since I watched Frankfurt Eintracht play in 1992. As you might know from this post, I'm a footy expert every four years but nothing could prepare me for the feel of the San Siro stadium with Inter Milan playing CSKA Moscow. I thought I'd take a quick video at ground level only to hear someone berating me to get out of the way in Italian.

The Moscow fans who chanted louder than the home team were on the right of this shot and the hard core Milan fans were in the far corner on the left. They let off a couple of flares after they went down 2 goals in the first 15 minutes as it was starting to look like Moscow were going to win but in the end the score was a very exciting 4-2 to Milan. The lady on my left poking her tongue out at the Camera is Roberta who organised all the events and was very friendly and charming while showing us the best Milan has to offer. (Outside of a Prada shop of course)

So Milan? Lovely people, lots of cheek kisses and genuine warmth with great conversation (Thanks Pietro) and a top quality slice of one of the great civilisations to emerge and conquer the British Isles although quite why anyone would want to swap temperate Italy with chilly Blighty is quite beyond me, and just before I end you might want to check out a great blog from one of my former University lecturers who has started blogging bits and pieces worth checking out. Don't concern yourselves with his spelling, as Robert De Niet who I talked about over here, is heavily dyslexic. But his style and taste are invariably impeccable. As indeed were the Vivienne Westwood sofas gracing the nhow hotel reception in honour of Aunty Viv's retrospective that is on in Milan right now.

Regine Debatty - We Make Money Not Art

Regine Debatty

Regine Debatty stepped onstage looking breezily stylish and was soon taking us down the path of biotechnology and art related projects. I've been meaning to check out her blog, We make money not art for some time now but within a few seconds of her presentation I'd resolved to add her RSS feed to my daily intake. Regina conveyed the importance of understanding what biotechnology really means and its impact on the human race. Examples given such as the victim less leather jacket grown from a combination of mice and human cells really got me thinking about what we define as norms and how science can make the mundane and inhumane (killing animals for their skin) appear to be more digestible than artificially growing biological organs such as skin. Regine asked us if this was the future of farming and its a good question for us to consider. Up next, Regina highlighted the potential for growing human hair from a deceased person as a way of drawing comfort from those we were close too and if that seems disjointed, as was later brought up, why would we not draw a parallel with the business of renting pets.

I thought that Regine made the point that scientists are now much more creative than the artists when it comes to biotechnology related disciplines although I'd like to double check this point as it seemed to me that the art collectives can't wait to get their hands on the laboratory test tubes and petri dishes. Other topics covered were the potential for biotechnology created armies, replacement kidney supermarkets which are already a reality and being harvested from prisoners in China for wealthy people. Coincidentally the day before the conference, China's leading kidney transplant expert in Shanghai accused of organ harvesting from the outlawed Falun Gong, committed suicide by jumping out of a hospital window. On the subject of mass harvesting take a look at this to see how mechanization of biological processes is already taking place.

Regine also covered the idea of rapid prototyping, which is a concept I'd come across before in a Poptech podcast by Neil Gershenfeld of MIT about the Fablab which uses incredible technology in ways which can dramatically change the lives of people through concepts like making perfect stuff out of imperfect stuff.

Other topics covered were Spimes, which will challenge our definition of what an object really is once it can be tracked before development and after manufacture. One amusing anecdote that Regine related was a tale of a friend whose luggage was on the wrong plane and that it was the passenger who had to disembark and follow the luggage on the wrong plane even though or possibly because it had radio frequency identification (RFID) tagging which is a technology that will intervene in our lives and is already making headway in Prada's 40 million Dollar flagship store in Manhatten. RFID is a technology that like barcodes is going to become ubiquitous due to the falling cost of technology. If you can imagine what the falling cost of processors and storage has done for computing than take some time out to imagine a world where everything ever made and those that use them can be tracked.