Still so far behind on artist collabs so bear with me as I try to catch up. Last spring Estée Lauder teamed up with Tokyo-born, New York City-based street artist Lady Aiko for a small collection consisting of two lipsticks and two Micro Essences.
As skincare falls outside the Museum's purview and the Micro Essence is not cheap ($120 a pop) I did not purchase them, but I'm sort of wishing I had even though the designs are the same as on the lipsticks. I feel they can be seen a little better on the bottles than the lipsticks.
Lady Aiko (Aiko Nakagawa) was born and raised in the bustling Shinjuku area of Tokyo. She was always creating – whether drawings or collages – and also enjoyed painting with an artist who lived in the neighborhood. "[There] was a painter lady who lived on the corner and my mother supported her as an art tutor. So when I was five years old I used to go to her studio and paint with her a lot. That was my favorite thing to do when I was young," she says.
The artist at age 5.
Upon moving to New York City in 1997, she began working for the legendary Takashi Murakami. Aiko knew very little English, and while the Internet existed people weren't connecting online the way they do now. It was Murakami's signature happy flower posted on a flyer that helped get her start. "I found an advertisement in a Japanese supermarket in the East Village. I came to New York alone and I didn’t know anyone, so it was hard to connect with people and it was very expensive to make a phone call to Japan. I was just starting to learn English and I was looking for artist community. So I went into the supermarket and I found an advertisement that said 'Assistant Wanted.' I saw that cute character that Murakami does, and I thought it was something I can try and maybe I can make some friends. So I knocked on the door and said hello. His studio was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and this was 1998, way before Williamsburg became what Williamsburg is today. I remember it was quite a scary area at that time. The studio itself was very small. It was really intimate before he became a super well known fine artist. I was helping him for about a year and a half, painting and taking care of the studio as he was getting ready for his first solo show, Super Flat, in SoHo. I also documented the production and made a documentary film about the show. It was a small production at this point, but I really liked it because it was the first time I got to see a Japanese artist working in New York City, and it was really inspiring."
Aiko left Murakami's studio after a year and a half and earned an MFA in Media Studies at The New School. Over the next few years she worked as the founding member of an art collective known as FAILE, where the roots of her signature motifs such as butterflies and flowers began to take hold. In 2006 Aiko established herself as Lady Aiko. The first stencil work she intended for street art was an image of a bunny holding a spray paint can, which she had thought of in 2005 during her time with FAILE. "I remember when I was in London, Banksy said he liked it and I should keep doing it, even though no one got it at the time. So I started stenciling the bunny along with some images of sexy girls, and other romantic images. I have been stenciling that image everywhere from Toyko to Shanghai, Instanbul, Berlin, Rome, Amsterdam, Scandinavia and of course throughout the States…Bunny knows all my missions and we have been spreading little smiles to huge wows in every local neighborhood." The bunny has since become possibly Lady Aiko's most recognizable work, gracing everything from Banksy's bathroom door (her very first painted Bunny) to the sides of buildings like this one in Copenhagen.
I also really like the bunny as a Dunny, which was released in 2010. I picked it up because it worked well as a prop and it's adorable. I especially appreciate the "Girls Can Play" slogan on the back.
As Lady Aiko acclimated to New York's urban environment and expanded her artistic skills, she gradually found street art more appealing than working in a studio. "There was another girl who was working at Murakami’s studio, and her boyfriend Cer was a graffiti writer, so he introduced me to graffiti while I was working at the studio…When he came to studio and picked her up, he showed me his sketch books and photographs. That was something new and shocking in a good way. I discovered that there was this group of people that were getting together and going to an underground tunnel, or to somewhere abandoned, just to make some art and have a good time. I was a curious young girl, and I thought that’s something more interesting than sitting in a studio all day and making tedious and detailed artwork for a Japanese artist…I wanted to join them and work on crazy art on the street," she recalls.
The democratic nature of street art and relative anonymity it afforded while still being able to connect with others were also attractive to Lady Aiko. "For me, street art was a way to make friends since I didn't have YouTube or Facebook, Instagram. So it's like leaving my hashtag and my art mark on the street…I didn’t know anyone when I moved to New York, I didn’t even speak English, so street art became my language. I met a lot of artists through painting on the street, and we taught each other and grew together. When I started, painting on the street was illegal. I didn’t want to show who I was, at the risk of being arrested, so no one knew I was a woman. No one knew I was Japanese. They only knew me through my painting. I wanted to be a mysterious monster and let the work speak for itself…I think street art is art for everyone. It’s not for the fancy people, it’s for everyone and everyone can see it."
Unlike most other street artists, Lady Aiko utilizes a stencil technique. While stencils appear fairly simple to make at first glance, the amount of work and time involved in hand-cutting the hundreds of stencils necessary to create a large-scale work is no easy feat. Aiko elaborates on the painstaking process: "You have to spend a lot of time before [you] start painting. I normally cut stencil all by my hand it's like my first stage of the production. For this wall [in Eugene, Oregon], I spent two days cutting stencil and sometimes like I spent like months and months just cutting stencil for a big size wall. And after you cut the stencil I need to carry all the pieces of paper to the site. I need an assistant when I do a large scale mural because the size of [the] stencil is also enormous…there really aren’t a lot of stencil artists out there anymore. Nowadays they do a lot of machine cuts, but I do it all by hand." Whew!
But Lady Aiko actually enjoys the process as well as the physical rigor involved in painting on such a large scale. "I think street art is also like an athletic game for me. Like climbing up the ladder, up and down, and up and down, and carrying buckets of paints. It's like, you know, an athletic game."
Stylistically Lady Aiko's work differs from that of Yoon Hyup, the Korean-born street artist/muralist who collaborated on Bobbi Brown's spring 2019 collection, but thematically they are similar in that both pay homage to their cultural heritage, fusing traditional influences from their respective native countries with a modern city's energy. For Lady Aiko, distance from Japan helped her learn about and respect Japanese art and history all the more. "The more I stay away from Japan, the more I appreciate my country, culture, traditions. I’ve started to study more about Japanese heritage, because I discovered it’s interesting and super unique, and I am from there. Especially the art, fashion and culture in the Edo period, which was all invented and created by working class people in old Tokyo, we used to call Edo City. We used to have such great art forms and techniques such as Kabuki, tattoo, calligraphy, kimono textiles, wood block prints. These were amazing skillful art forms invented in 17th century. Hokusai and Utumaro were the original ukiyoe print masters, and I love and respect them as great artists. Printing was not just happening in the Warhol times, it was happening all the way back in my country 200 years ago. I thought 'holy shit! I didn’t realized that my great grandfathers were doing such dope stuff.' I also discovered that old Japanese people used to do graffiti. The Japanese word for graffiti is RakuGaki. Raku means drop and Gaki means draw, so they used to make a drawing or a print, and they used to drop it on the street anonymously so that people would pick it up. It could be more for a political purpose and message, but it sounds like street art and sounds fun. We also used to have beautiful sticker culture, in that same time around the 17th century. It’s called Senjafuda (Thousand Shrine Tags), it’s a piece of tiny paper with a small wood block print. They drew their own symbol, name, crew etc. and they used to carry glue in a small pot and a brush, and when we would go to a temple or shrine once we finished praying we would put their stickers on the ceiling so that our soul will remain in the temple to be protected. That was part of their ritual in the samurai time, but I feel I have that similar kind of ritual when I put my sticker on the street where I have visited and spent some time. Before I left Japan, I was young and ignorant, and I thought it was just normal thing. I couldn’t think that deep. I knew, but I didn’t feel Senjafuda as such a special art form and I wouldn’t search out the origin of RakuGaki. Since then I have spent about 15 years living outside of Japan and working on street art, and I discovered all those beautiful Japanese traditions, but some are disappearing and being forgotten, so now I enjoy talking about it and reflecting it into my art very much." One of the many examples of how Lady Aiko incorporates elements of traditional Japanese art was her mural for her mural for the Japan Society's exhibition "Edo Pop: the Graphic Impact of Japanese Prints" in 2013, which was inspired by Japanese wood block prints (ukiyo-e). A modern stenciled version of Hokusai's TheGreat Wave functions as a backdrop for a mix of cheerful pop art style flowers and butterflies, as well as a woman with a shunga (Japanese erotic art produced from about 1600-1900) inspired tattoo on her back.
Speaking about the wall she painted for Eugene, Oregon's 20 x 21 mural project, Lady Aiko further explains some of her iconography. "She's a Maiko, it’s an apprentice of geisha, and she's a trainer to be a dancer. And I chose this motif because it's very young energy around her and really festive…My wall is really tall and skinny so I had a little time to think about the execution. I chose this way to express day and night, like flip the girl, and it’s like a playing card. I like the butterfly. It’s an image of transformation and I feel like not only women, but for everyone, like we have the moment of transformation and I really like to keep painting the image of a butterfly in different countries."
The playing card motif has become Lady Aiko's literal signature. The mural she completed for Opening Ceremony in Seattle shows it particularly well.
Her style is also inspired by vintage pin-ups, comic books (I'm getting Lichtenstein vibes) and tattoo imagery, which really shine in these gorgeous Coney Art Walls she painted in 2015 and 2017, respectively. Plus, MERMAIDS! I love that she worked in an homage to the famous Coney Island Mermaid Parade.
Lady Aiko generally maintains an upbeat outlook in her work, trying to spread positivity and beauty. "I love to create images related to romantic momentos, lovers and kisses. My subjects are pretty much always about romantic stories, lovers and sexy girls in everyday life. My name, Aiko — which is the most common Japanese girl’s name — means love. Love has been my theme throughout my entire life, even from early childhood…I enjoy making something that gives us a good feeling, and creating something beautiful that I can share with everyone. Something that is full of love."
Occasionally Lady Aiko's representations of love delve into decidedly erotic territory, such as the murals for a 2019 show entitled "Beyond the Streets". Creating a red-light district of sorts, Lady Aiko combined shunga with the seediness of '70s era Times Square. But while the images could be interpreted as degrading depictions of sex workers, they were intended as an unabashed celebration of women's sexuality and pleasure. "People used to draw really sexy stuff in my country, so I'm making this whole section sexual and pornographic. But also it's more about women. You see [in the work] more sexual energy from women than men. My red-light district is more about how women want to have good time. We also want to enjoy some sexuality…Guys can paint sexy ladies that they want to fuck but the female figure is ours; it’s also for us to enjoy. It’s nothing against boys; I’m just celebrating female energy."
The painting on the right is a re-imagined version of another Hokusai work, a shunga print from 1814 entitled The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife.
Between the fairly explicit portrayal of women's sexuality in "Beyond the Streets" and her other equally eye-catching, thoughtful work, Lady Aiko has proven herself a critical player in a new generation of street artists who are changing the way graffiti is perceived in the art world. In the eyes of academics, galleries and museums, for many years street art was snobbishly viewed as nothing more than vandalism (in fact, Aiko was arrested early in her career), but now it's being curated by the likes of gallery owner and art dealer Jeffrey Deitch. Over the past 20 years or so, Deitch and others have set up specific (legal) spaces for street artists to compete for a chance to show their work. One such space is Manhattan's Bowery Wall, which Lady Aiko had the honor of being the first woman to paint. After completing Miami's Wynwood Walls in 2009, Lady Aiko set her sights on the coveted Bowery, but felt she "had to let the boys do it first". Finally in 2012 she was awarded the opportunity. "Wynwood Walls was one of the first big walls that was painted by a woman and that got good attention, and people started to know about me and my serious stencil murals. People started to realize that female artists also can paint a big wall."
Lady Aiko recognized the importance of women contributing to the Bowery Wall, inviting others to participate in the process. "It made me think, it must be my time? For years, that wall had always gone to guys. I waited to paint it for three years. I got the call, and I called my girlfriends as I wanted to make it a 'female only' wall! I called five of my good girlfriends, from the girl whose does my nails to Martha Cooper (the legendary photographer). There were loads of people watching and I think they really appreciated the fact that there were all these girls working away, it bought a new vibe to the mural scene. We did the wall, I felt honored." The feeling of camaraderie with fellow women made a lasting impression on Lady Aiko's process. "I was really tired of having it be dudes vs. girls. I think I got traumatized. Now when I do my own big wall I always call my girlfriends first. They care more about mementos and enjoying the process, instead of it being 'my idea is this' or 'my idea is that.' I enjoy the work and enjoy the time together."
Despite this and the emphasis on femininity in her work, Lady Aiko never saw her own identity as a woman as the main aspect of her art, bristling at being asked to join women-only exhibitions and referred to primarily as a female/woman street artist. This is sadly common among women who work in a male-dominated profession. In 2017 Lady Aiko made it clear she would no longer be entertaining questions about being a woman in street art or participating in women-only exhibitions. From her Instagram: "Hello to people who are trying to reach me but unfortunately I'm not interested in answering your topic #femaleartist and #femalething movement anymore. I have been puking since hundred of people started asking me all of sudden to participate #femaleartexhibition and interview about #femalestreetartist. Yes I was only a girl in the early #streetart #graffiti era and everyone else had dicks, sure I love #pussypower because I own it, but Im not pushing and selling myself professionally as #womanartist. I am individual #artist since I was little child, when dick or vagina didn't matter. Personally I had depressing childhood in Tokyo that all girls in my class ignored me for semester, just because I was cute eccentric, good at playing ball games with boys, riding cool black bike not the pinky one, chilling with live crocodile not Barbie doll, stupid reasons. Group of girls were scary trauma to me. Making art was and still is great escape from such everyday's dark clouds. I deeply support women who are having very difficult situation in our society, I've seen they are really fucked up but I am not fighting against opposite sex. I feel everyone else like you should stop talk about gender issue like cool fashion. There must be more unique theme to research and present. Hope you like my answer, peace out" My takeaway from this statement is that while Lady Aiko broke significant gender barriers in street art, she doesn't want being a woman to define her work; her point was about the art world needing to focus on content and style more than identity politics.
Getting back to the Estée collab, I still have no idea how it came about or the level of creative control Lady Aiko was given. The interview posted by the artist on Instagram didn't offer much information, other than how she appreciates skincare that will protect her from the different weather conditions she encounters while painting outdoors in various locales.
The official Estée Lauder video for the collaboration, although pretty, didn't have any real insight either.
I would have liked to see imagery specific to Estée Lauder or makeup more generally. Lady Aiko's collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2013, for example, represents her style but also acknowledges the Louis Vuitton brand and seemed to be designed to work well as a repeating pattern on a scarf.
For Estée Lauder, however, it seems Lady Aiko just added a few of her signature motifs on the Micro Essence bottles and lipsticks, rather than modifying her usual designs to clearly indicate it was a beauty collaboration. I'm a little disappointed – I would have loved to have seen the Maiko figure applying lipstick or just lipsticks in Lady Aiko's vintage tattoo style – but who knows what the story is. Perhaps Estée preferred to keep it simple.
In any case, I really like Lady Aiko's playful yet provocative aesthetic. There are so many different elements involved and many of them speak to me, especially the references to traditional Japanese art, the curvy retro pin-up girls, and the old-school tattoo illustrations. You wouldn't think that images of a geisha and a 1950s American tattoo-inspired rose would mesh well, but Lady Aiko's unique vision harmoniously brings these disparate forms together. I also admire the painstaking labor behind the stencils and her fearlessness at tackling the equally arduous process of getting them onto the walls.
What did you think of this collection and Lady Aiko's work? I so wish I could have seen those Coney Island walls in person and have my photo taken with the mermaids. Stay tuned for a piece on Estée's next artist collaboration with Åsa Eckström!
I was compiling trivia focused on the topic of makeup-fashion collabs to put on Instagram a little while ago, and as with artist collabs, I quickly saw just how few were with Black designers. Even worse is that I realized the Museum was missing one of the two official collabs with Black designers there have been (which, again, like artist collabs is unacceptable and needs to change.) Estée Lauder teamed up with Nigerian-born, London-based designer Duro Olowu in the summer 2019, which coincided with the tremendous grief I was experiencing as a result of my dad's stroke earlier that year and the loss of my parents' home that August. Needless to say the collection slipped by my radar. Fortunately I was able to track down 2 of the 4 pieces and I hope I find the rest eventually.
The collection consisted of two palettes (one for more casual daytime wear and the other for evening), and two lipsticks in neutral and red shades. Two makeup looks were modeled by Anok Yai, a Cairo-born model of Sudanese descent. She became the face of Estée Lauder in 2018 and is, in her own words, "obsessed with makeup".
The packaging borrows prints from Olowu's fall 2016 and 2017 collections. Anok also modeled a dress made by Olowu for the collab.
According to Essence, Olowu had always been a fan of Estée Lauder and was thrilled when they approached him to collaborate. Originally he was responsible only for the packaging, but that quickly shifted to choosing the makeup shades as well. Olowu wanted to create something for everyone. "If you’re a man, you really can’t quite imagine what it takes to decide on the right shade for your skin, especially in this world we live in with women of different ages, ethnicities and skin shades. I really thought long and hard about that and tried to bring that into the mix. It was a really great learning experience for me," he says. Olowu infused the collection with his signature ability to harmonize seemingly disparate themes. "My aesthetic is about mixing things that wouldn't normally be mixed together," he told British Vogue. "The idea is that the woman who wears this makeup looks like herself, but also who she wants to be. She's worldly, cosmopolitan and international. The collection is representative of all types of beauty – it's a global approach. That's what we wanted to create."
So who is Duro Olowu? Born in Lagos to a Jamaican mother and Nigerian father who had met and lived in England previously, Olowu was used to spending the summers there to see his mother's family and visiting Geneva for his father's business trips. Olowu attended school in England as a teenager and earned a law degree from the University of Kent at Canterbury before making the switch to fashion design. With this background, it's no wonder a he arrived at his trademark cosmopolitan aesthetic. The designer explains: "I would spend my time browsing in the Kings Road, Kensington Market and Hyper Hyper and going to clubs like the Wag, the Mud Club and warehouse parties. I managed to do very creative things in an important period of style and music in London, and I wanted to experience all the aspects of that time. From New Romantics to Leigh Bowery, punk and reggae, all mixed in. I read up on fashion from Vionnet and Saint Laurent to Fiorucci and knew all about that…I was particularly inspired by certain designers when I was young. Yves Saint Laurent, Stephen Burrows, Azzedine Alaïa, Madame Grès, and Walter Albini and Issey Miyake. My mother wore Rive Gauche when I was growing up, often mixing it with pieces of traditional Nigerian clothing and other pieces picked up on holidays abroad. I felt that these designers bought so many very different elements of culture and style into the realm of their work. The beauty of women was very inspiring to me, as were my parents, who loved clothes."
In 2004 Olowu launched his own label with a single dress that mixed pieces of vintage couture fabrics and new ones with his own prints on a loose-fitting, Empire-waisted silhouette. The "Duro dress," as it came to be known, was an instant hit among both fashionistas and critics and put Olowu on the international fashion map. Soon the designer was dressing the likes of powerful women such as Michelle Obama. "I'm just amazed by how women can do so much regardless of natural or imposed obstacles, and I feel that it's my duty to make sure they look good and feel comfortable doing it…whether I'm initially inspired by Eileen Gray, Miriam Makeba, Pauline Black, or Amrita Sher-Gil, I always end up designing for women of all ages and ethnicities, women whose way of life and work I respect. Then I hope that the clothes I've come to, with them as inspiration, would be of interest to them…I want to make women feel confident in an effortless way," he says.
Says fashion writer Chioma Nnadi, Olowu's art history knowledge is "astonishing", and it informs his designs along with his personal background. "My prints are inspired by my Nigerian, Jamaican, and British backgrounds, as well as my love of art. Over the years, I have developed a curatorial and enthusiastic knowledge of historic and contemporary fabrics and textiles from all over the world. The mixing and draping of printed fabrics and textiles is something I have been exposed to all my life in the places I have lived or on my travels. It has been a signature of my womenswear collections from the very beginning and remains an integral part of my work. Fabrics always tell a story, and, when mixed well, exude the kind of joie de vivre and allure I am constantly inspired by…The color palettes of my prints are often by inspired art and artists, including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Henri Matisse, Alma Thomas, Robert Rauschenberg, Alice Neel, Chris Ofili, Édouard Vuillard, El Anatsui, Lee Krasner and Toyin Ojih Odutola." I can absolutely see these influences in his color schemes, but what's even more impressive is how Olowu imbues his collections with the spirits of his current muses without directly referencing them and creates a whole new aesthetic in the process. For example, for his spring 2020 collection he was inspired by photographer Beth Lesser's images of Jamaican dancehalls in the '80s as well as sketches by Picasso's lover Francoise Gilot. As Nnadi points out, the former can be seen in the wide leg pants and some of the dresses' ruffled hems, while Gilot's are embodied by the drapey, flowing silhouettes and softer floral prints. I'm blown away by how Olowu combines and reinterprets the vibes of these two totally different bodies of work while also adding his own style to the mix.
While his clothing is wonderful, it's Olowu's curatorial experience I find most extraordinary. In 2008 Olowu married Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, which further intensified his appreciation of art across all mediums. He curated his first exhibition in 2012 at New York's Salon 94 Freemans, followed by two more in 2014 and 2016. All were so well-received by the public and critics alike that the exhibition catalogs had to be reprinted after repeatedly selling out. Olowu's most recent exhibition, Seeing Chicago, at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) is one of the most innovative and unique curatorial endeavors I have ever laid eyes on. Comprised of 367 (!) works from all different eras ranging from painting and photography to crafts and books, the pieces are arranged salon-style to enhance the dialogue between them. Olowu's love for Chicago grew out of his long-term partnership with the boutique Ikram. "I first came here because I've been working with Ikram, a fantastic store, for about 16 years…I was just amazed at the unique nature of the Chicago mindset. They're not followers; they do their own thing, and they're very proud of what is within their city, without showing off. And in that way I felt that sometimes you overlook actually what is there and how amazing it is." From there he gathered objects he felt best represented the diversity and character of the city. "I wanted to show old school, curious collecting from the '60s, '70s, and '80s, along with community and philanthropic collecting, in a forward-thinking way," Olowu tells CR Fashion Book. "It was intuitive how it came together—the variety of having Matisse, Louise Bourgeois, and Glenn Ligon in the same space with Rashid Johnson, Martin Puryear, and Lorna Simpson. I did not purposefully seek any of the art—the artwork itself called me." I love the idea of art or objects "calling" – it happens to me when organizing the Museum's exhibitions, although sometimes I'm driven by certain words or phrases that just keep sticking in my head.
Instead of arranging artwork into neat categories, Olowu takes an unexpected and refreshing approach that still makes sense thematically. Explains MCA (soon to be Guggenheim) curator Naomi Beckwith, "I don't think we realize that when we go to museums, oftentimes the work that we see in one specific gallery or in one show is usually like for like. That is to say that all the works in African sculpture are in the African galleries. All the works by French painters of the late 19th century are in another gallery by themselves. All the pottery from Asia is either in the Asian gallery or in the decorative arts gallery. We began to separate things out in ways that feel logical, but what it doesn't often allow is for things across cultures to speak to each other, or things across time periods to live with each other. Duro kind of ignored those basic art historical claims and just asked us to realize the affinities that art may have, across the country, across the world, across time."
The colors of the walls and pedestals reflect the color palette used by Amanda Williams in her iconic Color(ed) Theory series, in which she painted structures slated for demolition in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood and named each to represent an aspect of Black consumer culture. By using these colors for the exhibition decor, Olowu connects the objects both to each other and to Chicago's history.
"Both as a fashion designer and as a curator, [Duro is] interested in bringing cultures and cultural objects together in an exchange and in a conversation that allows things to speak to each other in an equal plain, without hierarchy, without a sense that one thing is superior to another, or better than another, or that one culture, one geography, one place or one history should supersede another," continues Beckwith. "And really the question for his practice is, how do we allow all this to live together, in a kind of egalitarian beauty? And you'll see that happening in the exhibition." This is a far less elitist approach to curation that we typically don't see in major art museums. Underscoring this more democratic methodology was the display of outsider art alongside canonical names like Kerry James Marshall and Jean Arp. "He’s not making big distinctions between self-taught and academically trained artists. He’s looking at furniture as much as sculpture, at craft as much as painting. We're at a moment in art history when we're seeing deep dissatisfaction with the standard narratives," notes Beckwith.
The last room presents a group of mannequins observing the art, meant as stand-ins of fellow museum visitors. While they're dressed in Olowu's designs, they're intended to emphasize his community-minded approach towards art and curation. "They are looking at the art, and at you…there is a relationship between the eye and the heart, outside of genres and contexts. One of the joys of art is that it can bring people together—through diversity and unification, all divisions are gone," he says.
In short, Duro Olowu was meant to be a curator, more so than a fashion designer, and I hope he pursues curation full-time. I love his clothes, but I find his exhibitions even more inspiring. My spirits are also buoyed up by the fact that his shows have been generally well-received without him having any formal curatorial training. I would dearly love to have him curate an exhibition for the Museum, although since he doesn't consider fashion to be art, he probably wouldn't consider makeup worthy of curation either. Plus, his style may be very difficult to translate to cosmetics. As Jessica Baran points out in Art Forum, Olowu's aesthetic can veer into commercial territory. "[At] its worst the display method mirrored the style of luxe domestic decor and retail store design (in fact, Olowu’s first curatorial endeavors were seen as extensions of his London boutique, which is organized similarly). Full of surface seductions 'Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago' masked with its immersive pleasure its myriad contradictions, many of which are mirrored by fashion itself: a global industry blinkered by its own excesses, situated somewhere between haute merch and popular necessity, expressive art and practical consumability." You know I despise any museums in which makeup is presented as something to buy rather than appreciate – it's something I've been even more mindful of since I interviewed an exhibition designer so many years ago – but I think I could channel Olowu's vision and put together a broadly focused show in his style that celebrates the diversity of makeup and its history without it seeming like retail. The ideas are flying fast and furious now so I better go so I can jot them down. 😉
What do you think of the Estée Lauder collection and Olowu's fashion/curation?
Poor neglected Museum! I don't really have any excuse for not posting anything in over a week other than the usual holiday craziness, a big work meeting and coming down with a cold a couple days ago, all of which made me too tired to even think about blogging. But I'm determined to continue sharing holiday prettiness, so in keeping with that goal today I'm bringing you one of the compacts from Estée Lauder's holiday collection. The Wish Upon a Star compact, along with 16 others, were created by jewelry designer Monica Rich Kosann.
Kosann started her career as a black and white portrait photographer. Her love of early photography, as well as the trinkets displayed in 1900s photos, spurred her to start her own jewelry line. In an interview with Estée Lauder, she explains, "I have always been influenced and inspired by the photographers of the early 1900s…they were the first photographers who weren’t just documenting, they were photographing to make beautiful pictures. All of a sudden people were looking at photography as art. And at the same time, the accessories of the women in these pictures were very timeless and personal. The powder compacts, cigarette cases, lockets. They were all pieces of art, and they were personal and special." The collaboration with Estée Lauder was a natural fit, given Kosann's commitment to telling stories through jewelry, and in this case, compacts. "I’m a storyteller, bottom line. I always loved charm bracelets and pendants, everything that tells a woman’s story. I had more fun doing the Estée Lauder collection than I can even begin to tell you. I had so much fun with the storytelling with these compacts that women covet. You’ve got collectors who adore this stuff, so I wanted to stay true to my brand. Everything has a meaning, everything tells a story. I wanted women to buy these pieces and be able, just like with my jewelry, to tell their stories."
In terms of design, all 17 pieces in the Estée Lauder collection are true to Kosann's aesthetic. I'm not going to present them all since it would be way too long, but I'll share a few examples. Compare the Wish Upon a Star compact (there was also a pendant with the same star) to Kosann's lockets.
While I love the star compact, I was also intrigued by Kosann's animal designs, some of which appeared on the compacts. Given that Estée has a long history of animal-themed compacts, the fact that Kosann has an entire category devoted to animals at her website also made her an excellent choice to collaborate with the brand. If they weren't so pricey and if there weren't so many other amazing items this holiday season, I would have snatched up these seahorse and octopus compacts, because, you know, I'm really a mermaid and those are my companions. I like that Kosann assigns her own meaning to each animal – elephants stand for luck, while fish symbolize perseverance. According to her website, "The seahorse, a mild-mannered creature, has become symbolic of patience. They are happy to roam the seas endlessly at a gentle speed, knowing they will achieve their goals."
The animal designs also allowed Kosann to show a more playful side of her work. "This is an expression that I always used to say to [my daughters]—'you have to kiss a lot of frogs till you get your prince.' I made this frog sitting on a pillow, with a little crown, and it’s a lip gloss. I wanted it to be fun for women." There were 2 frog designs for the Estée collection and the one Kosann is referring to (with the pillow) is actually a solid perfume compact – I think she got confused with the charm bracelet, which contains a lip gloss. Either way, the inclusion of a lip product in a compact is a concept Kosann lobbied for. "I pushed [Estée Lauder] to do lipstick…Traditionally they have always done powder and perfume, and I thought that if you can wear this and it has lipstick in it — how fun is that?”
Overall, I liked this collection and thought Kosann was a great choice to collaborate with Estée. While some of pieces were a little too traditional for my taste, most of them were fairly modern-looking, and naturally I loved the sea creatures. ;) I also think I liked the star compact even more than the one I bought in 2014.
Thoughts?
Estée Lauder has stepped up its gift-with-purchase game tremendously lately. I'm an unrepentant sample tramp but I don't even want the beauty items in these GWPs – I only want the bags! Throughout the spring the company has released four bags adorned with Harper's Bazaar covers from the late '20s and early '30s.
How the collaboration with the publication came about I don't know, but at least the images are straightforward reproductions of the covers. The other set of GWP bags that Estée has come up with this spring, however, are much trickier to decipher. Apparently these illustrations are taken from their spring 1969 campaign.
While the bags were available at department stores in the U.S., Debenham's in the UK also offered them and provided this description: "Taking inspiration from Estée Lauder's brand heritage, this iconic-print bag has been inspired by Estée Lauder's 1969 luxury makeup collection and book 'a taste for Apricot'." Obviously I went searching for this "Taste of Apricot" and couldn't find anything beyond a copyright record, a newspaper ad and an ad in New York Magazine, none of which had any of the same illustrations from the bags. And these aren't new illustrations by a contemporary artist inspired by the 1969 collection either – I gathered these were actually from the 1969 campaign, since Estée advertised these as being from their archives. Too bad they refuse to let anyone see the original drawings! I would have emailed them as I did to get further information on their traveling compact museum, but I have no hope of them providing an answer, seeing as how I just received a rather useless reply this past week (a mere month after I had contacted them originally):
"Thank you for your interest in Estée Lauder. I suggest that you visit our corporate website www.elcompanies.com where there is information about all of our brands, and you can also click on 'Site Map' and select a topic that would be informative or of interest to you. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your question, and sincerely hope I was able to be of assistance. You are valued as our consumer and we hope you will continue to use and enjoy our products with confidence and satisfaction."
LOL. So, yeah, not going to waste my time trying to get answers from Estée on these bags.
Anyway, what do you think of these? Do these "iconic" prints make you more likely to buy something in order to get the GWP?
Or at least, it did. In June 2014 the Northpark Neiman Marcus in Dallas opened an in-store Estée Lauder shop, and to celebrate the occasion, showcased nearly 60 of the company's limited-edition compacts. I'm not too keen on the idea of having a compact exhibition in a retail setting, as it's simply an attempt to get people to buy things rather than appreciating the pieces on display and the history of the company. I also didn't think too much of the cases and clear cylindrical mounts, which came across like those you'd find in a run-of-the-mill jewelry store. *cough tacky cough cough*
Having said that, at least these items got out of storage for a bit – most of them had probably never been seen by the public since they were originally released. (In 2001 Estée had an exhibition of their solid perfume compacts at another Neiman Marcus in Florida, but not their powder ones.) Also, this lucky lifestyle blogger who attended the event got exclusive access to ads and photos from the Estée Lauder archive, so go check them out.
I had high hopes for these items to keep traveling, so after not finding any additional information I emailed Estée Lauder regarding the current whereabouts of this alleged museum. I received no response, which is pretty obnoxious. If customer service reps don't know about it they could try to find out from the higher-ups, or if the company is no longer maintaining this little project they could have at least replied with that. I mean, someone there must know what happened to it! I guess I'll just have to keep my eyes peeled to see if it ever pops up in other stores at some point.
Have you spotted this museum near you? What do you think of the displays' aesthetics?
This is the third and final installment of my unofficial series on zodiac/calendar themed beauty items. Today I'm sharing Estée Lauder's epic collaboration with Art Deco artist Erté (1892-1990). Erté completed a series of illustrations for the 12 zodiac signs, and in 2004 Estée rendered them in enamel to appear on their Lucidity powder compacts. Why they added clear rhinestones on the sides is beyond me, as I feel the illustrations are beautiful enough to stand on their own. Another thing I'm not clear on is when Erté illustrated these. I know the serigraphs were produced in 1982, but I don't know if that means Erté actually created them that year as well or if they existed as paintings prior to that.
Anyway, let's have a look. Here are the compacts and the artist's original illustration below. Capricorn:
Erté was born Romain de Tirtoff in St. Petersburg and moved to Paris at the age of 20. Adopting the French pronunciation of his initials as his artist's name, he initially worked as a costume designer for the opera and theater. Erté was a talented illustrator in his own right, but it was his work for Harper's Bazaar that catapulted him to fame among fashion and theater insiders. His cover art for the publication, 240 covers in all between 1915 and 1937, had an immediate and long-lasting (albeit cyclical) impact on the fashion industry. He was somewhat ignored by the art world until the late 1960s when they was a resurgence of interest in his work. That faded again until his death in 1990, then resurfaced full-force in 2004 when a gallery in London held the most comprehensive exhibition of his work since 1967. Consisting of 75 of Erté's best pieces, the show included his famous alphabet series, which had never been exhibited in its entirety (the artist had began working on it in 1927 and did not complete it until 1967). The series was to be sold as one piece, with an asking price of £2 million. The 2004 exhibition and ensuing craze for Erté's work also explains why Estée Lauder chose to release their Erté compacts then. Erté's work is still quite popular today, as a recent exhibition at the Met and upcoming exhibition at the Hermitage demonstrate.
The Financial Times has an excellent summary of Erté's life and influence, which you can check out here. There's also this informative article from the New York Times and some general articles on Art Deco design (Erté is known as the father of this style)1. Right now though I want to show you some of Erté's other work, as it's truly dazzling. The man loved taking on series – in addition to the alphabet, he covered everything from card decks to the 4 seasons to the 7 deadly sins.
Here is one illustration from the Alphabet. I think it's pretty obvious why I chose the letter G to highlight. #mermaidsrule
Number 3:
He also illustrated each birthstone – here's Sapphire. Both the Numerals series and the Precious Stones were originally produced as lithographs in 1968 and 1969, respectively.
And another mermaid for good measure. I think this is my favorite Erté mermaid. Between the shell and coral headdress, multiple fins and the fact that she's astride a seahorse and wielding a pearl-strung coral branch as a spear, she is possibly the fiercest yet chicest mermaid I've come across. All hail warrior glam mermaid! She represents water from Erté's The Four Elements series.
Erté explains his work in a 1986 interview: "It is different from everyone's…Art Deco is considered as the style of the 20th century. I was always by myself. I was influenced only in my childhood, by the on Greek vases and by a book on Persian and Indian miniatures, because of the colors. At the age of 6 or 7, I found a book in my father's library of these miniatures, and every night after dinner, I wanted to look at it." These miniatures in turn influenced his process. He never used pencil or pen; instead, he painted with gouache using a tiny brush, sometimes with a single hair. Equally impressive was his work ethic. He worked right up until a few weeks before his death at the age of 97. In one interview from 2 years before, when he was 95, he stated, "If I don't keep working, I would be bored to death."
Getting back to Estée Lauder, I seriously love these compacts. From what I can tell in photos, the illustrations transferred nicely to a compact format (except I'm not crazy about the rhinestones…while I love me some bling I don't think they added anything to the design.) Like Elgin's zodiac compacts, I feel a compulsive urge to collect them all! I also think "warrior glam" could be the latest fashion trend. Let's try to make it a thing, shall we?
What are your thoughts on Erté's work and the Estée collab?
1There has been so much written about Erté I couldn't possibly fit it all into this post. For further reading and eye candy check out the huge selection as Amazon.
Today's post highlights two recent collections that once again show the enormous range in makeup packaging design. As I did last time, I'll start with the cute.
Both Adrienne at The Sunday Girl and Karen at Makeup and Beauty Blog reviewed these Clinique travel bags that are currently being sold exclusively at duty-free stores, so that means I will not be getting my greedy little paws on them (which sucks as I really need two of them for the fall exhibition.) Each bag is not only adorably illustrated with motifs of a given city – New York, Paris, Hong Kong, and London – but are also filled with the best-selling products from each city. That's a pretty genius concept and one that also yields a truly useful makeup set. I so rarely buy sets or even palettes because I know I won't use everything in them, but when a company offers its top-selling products in a variety of colorways in amazingly cute packaging, it's a home run. I'd use every product in these bags (well, maybe not the Chubby Sticks as I have…issues with their name) and of course the bags are purchase-worthy on their own given the illustrations.
I doubt Clinique hired an outside artist to create the illustrations, but whoever made them did a fantastic job. I could also see these working on stationery – wouldn't they make great wrapping paper?
Now on to some creepy (to me, anyway) packaging. Chic Profile posted this Estée Lauder gift with purchase for edgy store Opening Ceremony. You know I love quirky, weird fashion and makeup and I actually enjoy browsing Opening Ceremony on occasion, but this was decidedly off-putting to me. Not to mention the fact that you'd have to spend $500 to get the gift. Then again, given Opening Ceremony's inventory that wouldn't be difficult to do.
Something about those disembodied hands grasping each other into infinity just creeps me out. Sort of reminds me of a more fashion-forward version of a horror movie where zombie hands rise up from graves grabbing at the living. A rather ugly shade of orange is used for the flesh of the arms, making them look burned, while the nails are blue, further heightening the dead hand effect. I love blue nail polish but here I think it looks corpse-like given the overall design. I mean I realize the blue is the same shade as the background, but they should have chosen a different color scheme. I still don't like the pattern in black and white, but it's not as bad. It's also worth pointing out that the disembodied hand is par for the course for Opening Ceremony, so it's not completely out of left field. It was even the star motif for their fall 2014 collection, inspired by Belgian folklore. I guess I just don't like it in any context. I especially don't like it in these colors, and I don't think it's a suitable print for a makeup tie-in.
Thoughts on these pieces from Clinique and Estée? Are they as disparate as they seem to me?
I'm still on the fence as to whether to purchase any pieces from the collaboration between Estée Lauder and fashion designer André Courrèges, but in the meantime I thought I'd at least take a look at the collection, as the packaging represents a significant departure from the usual. I also don't know why Estée Lauder chose to release this collection now (I'm not aware of any Courrèges milestone) but the press release explains some of the intent behind the collection.
"Cosmonauts, satellites, missiles to the moon. Unprecedented advancement and achievement underwrote the inaugural period of intergalactic exploration that came to be known as the Space Age of the early-1960s. When a culture of futurism subsequently consumed the era, there were two names firmly in the vanguard: Estée Lauder and André Courrèges. She, a beauty industry innovator whose 'every woman can be beautiful' mantra was ahead of its time; he, a fashion force whose avant-garde aesthetic broke all the style rules by injecting an air of playfulness, movement, and egalitarianism into every one of his haute couture collections. Visionaries both, their brands have now joined together to pioneer a new interpretation of color. Introducing Courrèges Estée Lauder Collection: a limited edition collection of zero-gravity shades that draws on a shared point of view on color, beauty and the resolution to never stop moving forward.
Courrèges Estée Lauder Collection is a 13-piece limited edition line that marries the floating-on-air feeling of an embellished Courrèges mini dress, and the punched-up precision of Estée Lauder’s progressive product design, seen through the Courrèges lens. The formulations were designed to be surprising in their lightness, in their sensorial delivery, their translucency, reflectivity, and in their pop-y palette. They are an invitation to have fun with color, texture and special effects while defying the confines of nostalgia by creating a look that is wholly of today."
André Courrèges (b. 1923), along with Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin, defined the concept of "space age" couture. Inspired by the notion of space exploration, in the early '60s Courrèges put himself on the fashion map with a collection of futuristic garments featuring streamlined yet avant-garde silhouettes. Using a lunar palette primarily consisting of white and silver with touches of bold pink, orange and green, Courrèges was said to "build" his pieces rather than merely design them. His vision demonstrated a new way of thinking about fit, execution and materials. (This is the nutshell description of his work – for more eloquent, thorough analyses, check out the articles at Fashion Lifestyle Magazine, House of Retro and Fashion Bank.)
The packaging for the Estée Lauder Courrèges collection is immediately eye-catching, but upon closer inspection you can see just how thoroughly it also captures Courrèges' aesthetic. Take, for example, the silver ball used to house a lip and cheek product.
The collection would not have been complete without a highlighter of some kind. In addition to extensive use of silver and plastic, Courrèges utilized a variety of other materials to ensure that his clothes had an other-worldly, highly reflective sheen. "I want to let the light into my clothes," he explained.
Overall I'm impressed with the collection. Again, I don't know whether it's museum-worthy, but I do think it was well-designed and a great change of pace for Estée Lauder.
What do you think of both the collection and Courrèges's fashion?
I realized that all the posts I had lined up for this week were about older beauty products, so I figured I'd throw in just one new item. This beautiful Glittering Stars powder compact from Estée Lauder will be one of the items in the holiday exhibition. 🙂
For $55 you get a lot of luxury. It comes in a gold box (which I failed to take a picture of, oops) and a blue velvet case with accompanying pouch.
The pattern is a scattering of stars in varying sizes. I like that only some have rhinestones in the center. Even with Swarovski crystals, which many consider to be fancier than generic rhinestones, a design can get really tacky really quick. Estée Lauder kept the bling to a minimum, letting the star pattern and gold case take the spotlight but still maintaining just the right amount of sparkle. Along those lines, Estée Lauder was wise to keep the color scheme and star shapes simple as well. The monochromatic gold case and clear rhinestones instead of multicolored ones, along with the vaguely retro outlines of the stars, prevent the pattern from being something you'd see on a pair of children's pajamas.
A shiny gilded puff is the perfect complement to the rest of the compact.
And so you know it's a true collector's piece, the company's name and compact release date are inscribed on the side.
I've always been interested in collecting Estée Lauder compacts but my money seems to end up elsewhere. This one, however, was too perfect for the holiday exhibition theme for me to pass up. ;) Plus, like the compact that resulted from Bobbi Brown's collaboration with jewelry designer Lulu Frost last year, this one is a nice mix of modern elegance and vintage-esque luxury.
Are you as enthralled with this compact as I am?
AERIN Cosmetics is the new kid on the high-end makeup block. Launched last fall by the granddaughter of Estée Lauder, the line features "a unique floral infusion in each product
that adds a special touch of luxury to the entire AERIN experience." For spring, Aerin took her love of flowers to new heights with the Floral Illuminating Powder. Encased in a square compact that resembles finely woven gold thread, the palette contains a trio of wavy-edged petals with touches of green and yellow billowing out from the flower's center.
Maybe I'm just under the influence of the vaguely Indian patterned dress Aerin is wearing in the promo image for her spring collection, but something about the petals in the palette reminds me a little of Indian textiles – specifically, the ones made for the Western market starting around the 17th century.
I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough to go into even a brief history of Indian textiles*, but I did manage to pull together some images that I thought somewhat resembled the floral design on the palette.
The colors and shapes of the flowers on this Kashmir shawl are pretty close. This one comes from the world-renowned TAPI collection (Textiles & Art of the People of India).
The way the petals overlap slightly and fan out from the rest of the flower look like this gorgeous red palampore (bed cover) from the 18th century. This one comes from the V & A Museum.
Lastly, the overall pattern on this piece, with its slightly drooping flowers budding from delicate branches, is also close to the one on the outer case of the AERIN Garden Dusk palette.
I may be reaching in these comparisons, especially since the "World of Aerin" mentions no Indian inspiration at all, but to my eye the palette's design approximates exported Indian textiles. In any case, it's at least pretty and will make an excellent addition to the spring exhibition – a very strong start from AERIN.
(image from pinterest.com)
(image from metropolismag.com)
(image from klcc.org) 
(images from ladyaiko.com)
(image from about-street-art.com) 
(images from northcountrypublicradio.org and beyondthestreets.com)
