As I mentioned in the Curator's Corner on Saturday, I was flabbergasted to see this brand had slipped through my curating radar. All of the packaging design for Laqa & Co., a line that features nail polish in pen form, is created by up and coming artists. And each one gets part of the profit from every item sold. As I noted in a comment at Lovely Package, we've seen makeup companies collaborate with artists for a limited-edition collection (or in the case of Shu Uemura, even start their own award for burgeoning artists), but not for permanent lines. What's even cooler about the products is that you can actually buy the art to hang on your wall. Genius!
Laqa & Co. introduced their nail polish pens a few years ago, but has recently come out with lip pencils. We'll start with those.
Bossyboots by Liam Brazier:
Fairyblood by Hazel Nicholls:
Lambchop (no artist was given for this one):
Ring of Fire by Field:
Wolfman by Mark Mawson:
But the items I'm most excited about are the nail polish pens, since the website provided big pics of the designs that appears on each (although some only showed a partial image of the them – for those I included a smaller size of the full image.) Here they are in alphabetical order.
Bells and Whistles by Pomme Chan:
Birthday Suit by Amy Ross:
BMX Bandit by FOE:
Fancypants by Cindy Rodrigiez:
I Want a Pony by Hazel Nicholls:
This is one of the ones that got cut off – as you can see, the full image is actually a nesting doll!
Nookie by James Roper:
Pimpin' by Katie Kirk:
Squid Ink by Carol Del Angel:
Those Meddling Kids by Soo Lee:
Toff by Tatiana Plakhova:
Topcoat by Martin Sati:
I loved this print because of the skulls, but adored it even more after seeing the entire image (sad subject matter aside – it's supposed to represent Bambi's mother):
WTF by Géraldine Georges:
Here's the full image:
You can read a little blurb about each of the artists at the Laqa website. There are also a few nail polish pens that aren't at the website currently – I do hope they're not discontinued!
Blurple by Nazario Graziano:
Tigerblood by Paul Price:
Ahem, I think these would make a very nice gift for a certain curator. ;) Because, you see, I clearly need ALL of them. I dare say these are the ultimate, literal embodiment of the museum's mission – to look at cosmetics design and packaging as art.
What do you think? Do you have a favorite?
(all images from laqaandco.com and b-glowing.com)
When I was researching Lisa Kohno for her work with Shu Uemura, I stumbled across the 2010 winner of the Shu Uemura Artist Award, Japanese photographer Jiro Konami. He had the honor of creating an Asia-exclusive, duty-free shop only cleansing oil, along with shooting the ads for the 2011 Tokyo Lash Bar collection. Naturally I had to get my hands on the precious oil and one popped up on Ebay.
The box features green bird silhouettes and seagulls against a clear blue sky.
As you open the box, the birds on each flap get gradually smaller. It's a nice touch that reminds me of nesting dolls.
The bottle has the same design. As with Kohno's green-haired girl, the green birds on the box are transparent on the bottle, turning green from the oil itself.
Now let's look at the artist's work. His website has his CV, but I was unable to find any sort of definitive artist's statement. I did manage to find a brief description at Shu's blog. "A rising star in Japan’s photography scene, Konami, 24, graduated from Tokyo Polytechnic University's department of photography in 2009. Konami creates infinite emotion in his images of quiet moments and fragility. His lens captures light, color, and structure to evoke sensitivity, while his urban flair composes poetry from everyday life." I can definitely see the "urban flair", as evidenced by these city scenes:
And "quiet moments and fragility", I think, is captured in these portraits:
Additionally, here is the original picture of the seagulls. I like that on the box and bottle of the oil all of the seagulls, except for the largest one, appear as silhouettes.
(images from jirokonami.com)
I'm curious to know who selected this picture – the company or Konami himself. Since the cleansing oil was meant to be sold only in duty-free shops for travelers, birds in flight is a fitting theme. It also happens to right on trend, as birds are having quite a moment design-wise. Or at least, they were – in the past 2 years or so bird motifs had become so ubiquitous in interior design and stationery that they were mocked in a skit by the hilarious IFC show Portlandia (one the few TV shows I watch and where I got the title of this post). Birds are still going strong though: the ones from this 2012 letterpress calendar in particular are reminiscent of those that appear on the cleansing oil.
(image from etsy.com)
Overall I'm that not into birds design-wise, but I think on this bottle they work for 2 reasons. One is that they represent travel, which is appropriate for a duty-free exclusive item, and the second is that the birds were taken from an up-and-coming photographer. Okay, plus I love to collect the limited-edition Shu cleansing oils!
What do you think? Are you tired of the bird trend or do you think in this case they were used wisely? And what do you think of Konami's work outside of this cleansing oil?
As I mentioned in a previous post, the first winner of the Shu Uemura art award was Lisa Kohno, who had the honor of designing the Florescent collection for the company. She also created the illustrations for two Asia-exclusive cleansing oils sold in duty-free shops, one of which I was able to get my hands on through E-bay. Sadly, it was not packaged well and the box was totally crushed by the time it arrived, and very greasy as the oil had leaked from the bottle. I'm a little upset that this is not in museum condition. Nevertheless the bottle and box have some very cute and whimsical pictures.
The box features a smiling, green-haired girl amidst pink bows morphing into butterflies. We've seen the conflation of butterflies and bows before – remember Alexis Mabille's Butterflies Fever palette for Lancôme last spring? I like that her makeup (yellow eye shadow, pink lips and cheeks) echoes the yellow fruits and pink butterflies.
One the bottle, the girl's profile is cleverly cut out so that the oil becomes her green hair, and a sprinkling of hearts is added to the mix.
Seems these girls and floating fruit are motifs for Kohno, as this work Eternal Flower (2010) can attest:
Bows are big for her too, as in The Afterlife Was Sparkling, (2010):
(images from bambinart.jp)
I tried to find out the inspiration for her work, but the only English translation I was able to find didn't make a whole lot of sense. From the Bambinart Gallery, which showcased the Eternal Flower exhibition: "Lisa Kohno draws her utopia in her works. Drawing helps her being herself and finding place where she gets peaceful mind in her works. Women appear in her works seem her self-portraits, but actually, they represent transcendent existence with eternity which Kohno adores. The theme for the exhibition is 'eternal flower'. She draws flowers blooming beautifully and eternally, and amorous figures with immortal life as if they are flower personified. These flowers and figures with eternity have beauty, but also come across awe and the image of coldness. That's because being immortal means that they don't belong to this world since every creatures have mortal life. The amorous aura of works indicates that acquiring eternal life is abstinentia even if it's for our hope or peace of mind." Uh, okay. Based on that, my take is that the girls aren't of this earth; they are otherworldly creatures in a utopia filled with flowers and fruits that are forever at their peak. And that's certainly a wonderful, worthy idea to represent.
Ah, another beauty from Dior. This time, instead of going back into the archives (Tailleur Bar and Mitzah palettes) or mixing old and new (Lady Dior palette) the company collaborated with German abstact artist Anselm Reyle to create a fresh, contemporary twist on classic Dior style. The collaboration is also a nod to Dior's original aspiration of owning an art gallery.
The collection was unveiled with much fanfare at Art Basel Miami back in November, where Dior had a pop-up shop showcasing the goods. Before I get to the palette, let's take a look at how elaborate the launch was and the other items in the collection.
Here's the pop-up store:
(image from fashionstylexxx.com)
They even pimped out a food truck in Reyle's print created especially for the collection:
(images from jesuswassize0.com)
The highlights of the collection were most certainly the bags. Decked out in variations of Reyle's custom print, they formed an electric array of totes, satchels and clutches.
My favorite item from the collection (besides the palette, of course) was this pair of wedges. Wouldn't these be fun for summer?
The palette wasn't the only beauty item, however: there is also a range of nail polishes.
(images from alapeach.com)
Finally, the palette. Here is the front of the booklet that came with it:
The interior of the booklet in an eye-popping florescent green:
The velvet interior of the box, complete with satin purple ribbon:
The palette itself:
With flash:
Reyle's tilted twist on Dior's classic cannage pattern:
This description from the Tate summarizes Reyle's style: "Reyle 'samples' familiar motifs from art history – particularly Modernist painting and Abstract Expressionism – and brings them up to date; as he puts it, 'taking a stereotype in order to breathe new life into it'. Reyle's paintings echo various (and sometimes contrary) abstract painting styles of the past: gestural smears, hard-edge stripes or poured and dripped paint, bringing to mind the work of artists such as Karl Otto Götz, Kenneth Noland, Jackson Pollock and Barnett Newman…In his sculptural works, Reyle takes objects like wagon wheels, haycarts or 1970s ceramic vases and lamps and imbues them with new life – giving them shiny surfaces, startling neon shades or coloured lighting."
I suspect Dior approached Reyle because he's known for his use of neon – a 2012 trend the fashion house was complicit in setting – and also to make their classic, ladylike bags and other accessories fresh and edgy ("breathe new life into it"). It's worth pointing out that Reyle doesn't just use bright colors in paintings; many of his found-object work utilizes neon lights, as in Arise (2010):
And an untitled work from the same year:
(images from gagosian.com)
In an interview with Dazed Digital, Reyle discusses how he infused the collection with his signature style. "I tilted the Cannage which may be considered as a kind of intervention and deconstruction of the well-known and most classical signature of Dior. In my art, I also often take found things as a starting point that are further developed, modified and brought into a new context. Similar to this, the camouflage pattern is a motif which I already used for my material paintings instead of the typical support of a white canvas. For me it’s interesting to see how it has been adapted by the pop world from its military background and how it then loses the original meaning. It remains a kind of empty phrase. Usually the camouflage hides something, but here it’s the opposite – it is very visible because of the signal neon colours…I am interested in combinations that seem to be dissonant at first sight." Indeed, between the tilted cannage pattern and the drippy, almost psychedelic camouflage pattern, the palette does reflect the artist's interest in making radical changes to traditional motifs. To my eye, the pattern is a continuation of paintings like this:
(image from gagosian.com)
Additionally, it's no surprise that purple and dark grey were chosen for the palette, as they are prominently featured in the artist's work (not to mention that they make for a great eye shadow combination that works well on most women):
Monochrome Age, 2010:
Mystic Silver, 2011:
And this untitled work from 2010 actually uses both colors together:
(images from gagosian.com)
Overall, I think Dior was spot-on in choosing this artist and I think Reyle, in turn, did a fabulous job of reinterpreting and modernizing Dior's accessories while still making them accessible and wearable. What do you think?
Do the designs on this cleansing oil look familiar? They should, as they're similar to the ones that appeared on Shu's Florescent collection from fall 2010. I remember being confused as to why the palettes for that collection said "Lisa" in the bottom right corner. Well, I finally figured it out while I was browsing Shu on E-bay last week: artist Lisa Kohno was the first winner of the Shu Uemura Art Award (established by the company to discover up-and-coming artists and offer them a chance to share their work with the public by collaborating with Shu) and designed the Florescent line. Why this wasn't made apparent at the U.S. Shu website is beyond me, since the whole point of the award is to get exposure for the artist – why not include that information for the U.S. market?
In any case, Ms. Kohno also designed beautiful bottles for cleansing oils. One is the Advanced formula, available only at duty-free shops in Asia. According to beauty-free.co.uk, the design "aims to express a fantasy dream world that she describes as 'a utopia in the sky', featuring butterflies and fairy flowers guiding travellers to a destination of wonders. The imaginative motifs of flying hearts and butterfly flowers create a beautiful scene on the golden oil, which gives a happy energy to the bottle." It's so cute and would be such a great addition to the Museum's collection, but I haven't been able to get my hands on it.
The other is the green Premium oil – although this was created exclusively for Korean Airlines, several were available on E-bay so I have this beauty on its way to me.
Stay tuned for a post on this one. 🙂
(images from moodiereport.com and ebay.com)
For the fourth year in a row, Shu collaborated with an artist for their holiday collection. This year it was filmmaker Wong Kar Wai. Here's the scoop, from Shu's blog: "shu uemura celebrates the festive holiday collection rich in emotions and atmosphere inspired by the short film “MASK” directed by Wong Kar Wai and its special beautiful packaging decoration…Wong Kar Wai is a living legend of Asian cinema and known as a 'master of colors', just like Mr. Shu Uemura. And he has specialized in capturing the mystique of women, possessing a unique perspective on femininity, portraying women’s intoxicating sensuality and the richness of their emotions. Two artistic spirits come together for this Christmas time of this year, Wong Kar Wai and shu uemura create a fantasy world of holiday collection 2011'rouge et bleu' inspired by the short film."
Here's the film:
I'm not really sure I get this – to me it reads as a glorified ad for Shu with no real story. In a nutshell, the highlights of the collection consist of blue and red colors in keeping with the "rouge et bleu" hues from the film. Hence the red and blue polishes:
(images from shuuemura-usa.com)
There are also two palettes – Burning in Water and Drowning in Flames – which for some reason the U.S. market didn't get. Phooey. I would have gotten both.
(images from shuuemura.co.uk)
Instead I picked up one of the lipsticks (Rouge Luster) and the cleansing oil.
Cleansing oil:
While I wasn't thrilled with the film itself, I really liked that specific close-up images from the movie appeared on the corresponding products. The cleansing oil (meant for the face) features the face of Mask actress Sandrine Pinna while the lipsticks focus on images of her lips, and the nail polishes show her nails.
What do you think of the collection? I think it pales in comparison to past holiday collections like Mika, Aya Takano or Tsumori Chisato, but it was a good effort.
I REALLY wanted to write something intelligent and meaningful and inspired about the recent MAC/Cindy Shermancollaboration. But since nothing is coming to my feeble brain (or, rather, I feel totally overwhelmed by the task), I will leave you with the promo images instead, plus a link to MoMA's bio of her.
(images from maccosmetics.com)
Please leave your insights in the comments section!
I was digging through the Museum archives today for some more things for the Fall exhibition (coming soon, once I can get around to it!) and thought I'd feature these pretty cleansing oils from Shu's 2006 fall collection. The company teamed up with New York-based artist John Tremblay, who created designs for each bottle based on their particular qualities, meant to interact with the contents of the bottle. "Shu Uemura brand manager Tina Tinio said, 'This year’s collection is more sophisticated and subtle; to be able to appreciate the design, you have to see how it interacts with the oil.'" While that statement makes it seem like Tremblay came up with these designs specifically for Shu, but in my opinion, they're essentially the same as his previous work.
We'll start with the Premium and Fresh oils:
The bubbles in the green oil and ovals in the pink oil are very similar to two works by Tremblay, Tourist Trap from 2006:
(image from artnet.com)
And Infinity Trial, 2003:
(image from art49.com)
According to this Malaysian news article, for the Premium oil, "The blue ovals representing oxygen found in the water and sky, ascending from the bottom to the top of the green oil bottle, signifying the buoyancy of life and the power of nature while the silver colour used signifies the energy of light reflecting off a shiny surface", while the Fresh oil bottle "features pink and metallic silver concentric ovals inspired by the shape of an air pocket in the bottle when the bottle is tilted on its side. The various sizes and layers of the ovals enable you to play with the bottle to fit the air pockets inside the ovals and to view the ovals on the other side of the bottle through the empty oval, as if gazing into future from a window." Interesting concept but I'm not sold. I guess the only thought Tremblay had to put into these particular designs was determining which of his earlier work would be most suitable for each oil.
Here are the Enriched and Regular oils:
The wavy oval on the Enriched bottle is similar to this work (unfortunately the image came from of a catalogue and there was no name or date on the page where it appeared):
(image from ecal.ch)
The Star article says that the Enriched oil "has seductive flow motion emblems in pink and yellow inspired by the flow of oil", and the Classic "features the design of olive and yellow ovals in varying sizes, inspired by the psychedelic 60s. The overlapping ovals expanding from one side to the other create geometric exchange constantly morphing when viewed through the transparent golden oil."
While the designs are rip-offs, somewhat, of Tremblay's earlier work, the way the company spun it such that they seemed to be created just for the qualities of the oils is pretty ingenious. If nothing else, some of the proceeds went to RxArt, a charity devoted to arts healing. And, of course, Shu made me recognize an interesting artist that I probably never would have discovered otherwise.
Remember how sad I was that the U.S. wasn't offering these Juicy Tubes by Yayoi Kusama? Well, good news: they became available at Nordstrom! I got 5 out of the 6, as one was sold out. I plan on getting the remaining one at Lancôme's website soon. 🙂
Rose Blossom and Happy Honey:
Swing Pink and Pop Art Hazelnut:
Crazy Raspberry:
All together now:
I'm not going to rehash Kusama's art since I discussed it in my previous post, but if you happen to be in Rome you can check out her exhibit at the Gagosian gallery. :)
From time to time I like to take a little break from posting on current collections to delve into Museum storage and dig up some treasures from seasons past. So today I'm looking at the beautiful cleansing oil collection designed by Japanese artist Ai Yamaguchi for Shu in the spring of 2004.
This one was procured from the now closed Shu boutique in New York City. I had decided after they had sold out everywhere that I wanted to collect all of the bottles. I explained to the salesperson my dilemma and she gave me this empty bottle for free. How awesome is that?
Some details:
I love the turtle!
And the snails:
Then we have the Normal cleansing oil.
Details:
Finally, we have the Fresh cleansing oil, which I stupidly actually USED and the bottle isn't in as great condition as it should be, since it sat on my bathroom sink and was exposed to steam. Of course, this was back in 2004 before I had the idea for the Museum and hadn't yet thought to keep collectibles in mint condition.
She looks so pensive. What is going through her head?
Sadly, I am missing the green Premium oil seen in the upper left of this stock photo. I believe it was an Asian exclusive and I wasn't aware of it. I've been scouring E-bay for years with no luck. 🙁
Anyway, let's take a quick peek at Yamaguchi's work. These bottles are definitely a good representation of her style.
A Shell and Then I Am, 2003:
(image from oneartworld.com)
This print, Hanasu Koto Wa Kono Yama Hodo, 2008:
(image from arrestedmotion.com)
There's also this stunning mural at the (also now-closed) San Francisco Shu boutique, completed in 2009.
After reading more about her work I realized that the girls pictured on the bottles did not look pensive, as I originally thought, but were meant to express "worry, sadness and confusion." According to Icon Magazine, Yamaguchi "creates a fictitious world based on the lives of courtesans working in brothels during Japan’s Edo period (1600-1868 AD). Yamaguchi has created nine imaginary characters – girls aged between nine and ten sold into prostitution by their impoverished parents. She depicts them while off duty…Stylistically, Yamaguchi’s work is inspired by the Ukiyo-e ('pictures of the floating world') woodblock prints of the Edo period – which often glamorised the working lives of prostitutes – but is also influenced by contemporary Japanese Anime illustration." Sheesh. I thought the girls were just carefree schoolgirls frolicking half-naked in a bucolic paradise surrounded by pretty butterflies and turtles and flowers. Then I read that the poor things are actually child prostitutes! That kind of puts a damper on things, no? The book Warriors of Art: A Guide to Contemporary Japanese Artists claims, "rather than reflect on the misfortune of the group of nine girls or on the debauchery of their surroundings, Yamaguchi concentrates on the simple daily details of their lives as they relax and play against a backdrop of changing seasons." Still, while I love the artwork itself, I'm less enamored of the underlying theme.
Yamaguchi went on to create another series of cleansing oils for Shu in 2005…but that's another post. 😉
