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Geoffrey B. Small

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  • cremaster
    Senior Member
    • Jan 2010
    • 136

    Thank you so much Faust and Oskar.
    If the images are anything to go by it must have been THE show of the week.
    To call it a show though does not seem to do it justice - a combination of art/ philosophy/ design/ theatre/ literature ( the Steinbeck reference is perfect). I just wish I could of been there.

    Comment

    • beardown
      rekoner
      • Feb 2009
      • 1418

      I kind of wondered why there wasn't a discussion of this show in the seasonal thread but it's nice to find that people are giving it proper attention. I just happened to stumble onto Faust's review on SZmag and got really excited about it. I wondered how this concept would be received but it looks like the work was just as powerful as the message and I always love to see someone inspired by something enough to let it influence the work.

      I also like the slimmer arms in some of the jackets...you can't just recreate this look without updating it with personal touches and that's what looks like happened here. I even like the powder as a touch of personality to the overall presentation. It does conjure up this idea of the working men and women who toiled and fought to keep themselves going when the American dream was still alive and there was optimism amidst the tough economic mess.

      That's one element of everything that has deteriorated...the hope of better times ahead doesn't feel very prevalent. I imagine it's easier to scrape by if you have faith in your fellow countrymen and leaders. I have almost no faith in any of it and overall am pretty convinced things will turn even more sout before they improve: more war, more lies, more hypocrisy from those elected to lead, more corruption, more excuses, propaganda and fear.

      So it's nice to be moved for a change where the impression isn't just simply aesthetic. Obviously want there but it brings to life this idea that a presentation can be much more than the simple catwalk and techno music.

      I'm not familiar with whether or not he does footwear...the sneakers were definitely breaking character but I really liked the shoes. I think that period is defined by the footwear, the hats, the rich textures...very well done.

      Hope to catch some video of the whole thing eventually.
      Originally posted by mizzar
      Sorry for being kind of a dick to you.

      Comment

      • Faust
        kitsch killer
        • Sep 2006
        • 37852

        I think most people are just plain uncomfortable discussing politics with relation to fashion. Politics usually don't enter the fashion narrative.
        Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

        StyleZeitgeist Magazine

        Comment

        • beardown
          rekoner
          • Feb 2009
          • 1418

          I can understand that. Especially with something like OWS or the economy, which has divided so many people. I'm in a similar situation as an artist...one part of me feels it's mandatory to point out the absurdity and inequality of everything in America and the other half realizes that I depend on corporations for some of my commissions.

          I was quoted in an online article last week saying something that I wholly believe in terms of government and business and I ended up scrambling to get the editor to change it because a company that I sometimes work with was mentioned in the article.

          And with something like high-end fashion, you risk offending many of your customers when you take a specific stance. The wealthy in America are really the only people buying anything high-end. Especially something like clothing at a time when a lot of people are having problems just paying utility bills and buying food.

          So I can understand why discussions like this are taboo in an industry driven by wealth and luxury. In the creative fields if you piss off the wrong person...literally just one person, it can affect your whole career. So a lot of people are forced to keep their personal beliefs to themselves in fear of offending potential customers and/or the wrong people.

          In the case of this presentation the best part was that it doesn't appear to be forced or insincere. It wasn't grandstanding...wasn't too much or too little in my opinion. That makes the message and the work more legitimate in my eyes.
          Originally posted by mizzar
          Sorry for being kind of a dick to you.

          Comment

          • zamb
            Senior Member
            • Nov 2006
            • 5834

            itv was a powerful show, by a man of deep convictions

            and I perfectly understand your position, but sometimes one has to be honest with themselves and then world, but hopefully we have the wisdom and tact to show that it is in carrying about mankind that we express certain perspectives


            As for the footwear, i think its for a specific clientele but he does footwear
            I cannot comment on the shoes because i don't own any, but the sneakers made from recycled leather are really good. I own a pair, simple but interesting, and very comfortable. i have been wearing mine everyday since I have been back in the US because they are the most comfortable shoes I now own..........
            “You know,” he says, with a resilient smile, “it is a hard world for poets.”
            .................................................. .......................


            Zam Barrett Spring 2017 Now in stock

            Comment

            • snafu
              Senior Member
              • Apr 2008
              • 2135

              Really beautiful collection. Can't fault it, enough showmanship for the runway but still every garment stands individually and is wearable. Both womens and mens.
              .

              Comment

              • Faust
                kitsch killer
                • Sep 2006
                • 37852

                Beardown, I was not even aiming that deep, though what you say is true. I simply meant that the fashion world exists in an apolitical bubble. It simply is in another universe. And people seem to want it that way, because fashion is escapism, the way much of the entertainment industry is. When the Beastie Boys voiced their disapproval of bombing (Bosnia, was it?) at a music awards ceremony (wast that MTV?), people told them to shut the fuck up and be happy. Why? Because it's an unwritten social contract that society provides the pop stars with incredible privileges in return for being good, entertaining boys and girls. That's the contract. Same with fashion.
                Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months - Oscar Wilde

                StyleZeitgeist Magazine

                Comment

                • beardown
                  rekoner
                  • Feb 2009
                  • 1418

                  Ah....I can understand that, too. Though at times I probably give fashion more credit as 'art' than I should. I tend to assume that a collection represents bits and pieces of the designer with something to say but I know that's generally untrue, especially when one enters the world of 'high fashion' where sales are the name of the game at the end of the day.

                  I see your point...nobody who is walking down the street in a pair of $4,000 boots carrying a $12,000 handbag wants to be reminded that there are starving people in the world and that there people on the other side of town who can't afford to pay their heating bill. Kind of takes the fun out of the self-indulgence that fashion can be such a big part of.
                  Originally posted by mizzar
                  Sorry for being kind of a dick to you.

                  Comment

                  • marco-von
                    Senior Member
                    • Feb 2009
                    • 133

                    Geoffrey B. Small: Occupy Paris - Short film episode #1 (Alan C. Grazioso) from Geoffrey B. Small on Vimeo.





                    "Eclectic non-fiction filmmaker, Alan C. Grazioso, has traveled the world for the last twenty years making films about children, water scarcity, climate change, fair trade farming and women's issues. Now, he turns to avant-garde fashion designer Geoffrey B. Small to explore how an artist and activist is contributing in his unique and sometimes controversial way to the global Occupy movement from a runway in Paris. Through a series of upcoming, randomly-releasing short films, Grazioso sets on a mission to discover how the designer continues evolving his art and his activism, and simultaneously influence both a changing fashion industry and the world that it reaches."

                    Comment

                    • Geoffrey B. Small
                      Senior Member
                      • Nov 2007
                      • 618

                      Dear SZ'ers,

                      I'm finally checking back in here after a long haul of work, commitments, and SS production deliveries. For now, I want to briefly make sure to thank all of the people who have commented on our last Paris collection dedicated to the people of the Occupy Movement and others like it around the world.

                      Thanks also to Faust for a wonderful article on the SZ magazine site, and also to the people at Stealthprojekt for shifting their party date in Paris during fashion week, and all the other blogs, journalists and people who have since covered the show inspite of its clearly not-for-mainstream-fashion-coverage aspect. I will try to post some up soon. And finally, thanks again to our loyal clientele and retail partners, who together have given the new collection a record season of bookings.

                      A few quick points on a couple of the aesthetic decisions that people above did raise…

                      First, about the dust effect on the clothes in the show:

                      It was not a permanent fabric treatment and the clothes will not be delivered to the stores with it. I had a strong vision in my mind that the visual effect would be critical to convey the right message for the show and the collection. And in hindsight, it was the correct decision. But it was not baby powder or talcum powder. Does anybody think we of all people would be giving money to someone like Johnson & Johnson as part of a statement to support the 99%? Ha!

                      First, as a product, baby or talcum powder would not be good at all. The color is too white, due to its extreme bleached and highly chemically treated processing, and it is perfumed and scented, with an additional element of oil mixed into it. To use this would ruin the clothes permanently and would have reflected the big show lights so much the result would have looked fake and created enormous challenges for our lighting and photo people. So what was it? Well, I felt strongly that we needed to find an equally aesthetic, economic and environmentally correct solution, and while we were heavily working every day just to develop and construct the prototypes for the collection, the back of my mind was scrounging for any idea that might provide a solution that would look right and not ruin the clothes (the investment we put into our prototypes is enormous).

                      In Italy we are blessed with great pizza. Real pizza. In fact, I cannot eat pizza outside the country any more. And in Cavarzere, our local pizzeria is called 'Paioa' a family run, no-frills operation that is one the busiest establishments in the area, and we are loyal customers, (especially prior to Paris collection presentations when we are working 24/7 developing the collections). An idea flashed in my mind, an inquiry was made, and thanks to their superb collaboration, a full 5-gallon bag of pure 100% organic recyclable real brick wood-fired oven ashes from a full night's production of pizzas from the Italian Veneto region was able to be transported up to Paris along with the collection to be used as the final element in the styling of a historic show. Organic, bio-degradable, recycled, and amazingly- just the right color, texture and applicability. To my delight backstage, we were able to just grab handfuls and throw it on the models and it would go on just perfect and looked beautiful in a second. And it wiped right off the clothes afterwards. No oil, no scent. Ecologically and ethically just fine. Dry as ashes and so superfine in texture that it worked like a mist over the outfits. Just what the project needed. So that's what we used, and the credit goes to our friends at the Ristorante e Pizzeria Paioa in Cavarzere, and of course to Mother Nature too…





                      And ahhh secondly, about those sneakers...

                      Regarding the use of trainers in the show (see image above, lower right): the sneaker design is not out of period with the collection. The original sneakers by US rubber (Keds 1916), Converse (All-Star 1917) and B.F. Goodrich (PF Flyers 1933-1937) were all initiated in the late teens and up until the 30's of the 20th century. So, by the time for example, of the middle of the Great Depression in America, they were prevalent. As our collection spanned a period of working people's dress from the post civil-war period up until the early 1940's in the US and Europe, I felt the shoe was quite appropriate. I also liked it with the particular outfits we were styling when we were putting together the show, and felt that it also gave a contemporary look which could be easily worn today, which for me was great...



                      photo of a pair of the LUZ06 recycled vintage suede leather trainers we built recently with
                      Giuseppe Rebesco for Minority Rev in Japan. Same model as used in the show, it's basic idea
                      and design dates back to 1916-1917.



                      Thanks for reading, hope to be able to put more up soon.

                      Best wishes,

                      Geoffrey

                      Comment

                      • Geoffrey B. Small
                        Senior Member
                        • Nov 2007
                        • 618

                        Correction:

                        ...may have just received a request from one of our dealers to have their pieces shipped with the pieces covered in ashes. It's a very special retailer, and I gotta say, I love 'em for the courage and the purity of the request. It's always a pleasure to work with the best...

                        Geoffrey


                        .

                        Comment

                        • blacktulip
                          Senior Member
                          • Nov 2011
                          • 168

                          Thank you for these updates, and for your continual passion, creativity, and awe-inspiring dedication to precisely appropriate materials and processes.
                          "Silicon is a gas"

                          Comment

                          • Geoffrey B. Small
                            Senior Member
                            • Nov 2007
                            • 618

                            Ode to Vidal Sassoon

                            Thanks very much blacktulip for your kind post.

                            Now today, I would like to shed a little light on a great design mind who passed away from Leukemia on Wednesday. He didn't do clothes. He did hair. And in my mind, and oh-so-many others in his field, he did hair like nobody else ever did before him. And as a designer, I think he should be well noted as one of the true and big design greats of all time. So I am posting on him here on SZ.

                            Vidal Sassoon undeniably revolutionized the art and the business of hair design. As evidenced in the iconic photo below of him working on Mary Quant's head, his mastery of hands-on working technique performed live in front of others to see, experience, and learn from, became the basic fundamental approach to modern hair design promotion and education around the world. Can you imagine the average 'superstar' fashion designer of today ever even attempting to do the same thing? 99.9 percent of them wouldn't know even the first thing to do if you sat them down in front of a sewing machine or a cutting table. But Sassoon could take a person and transform them with his head and his hands, and talk to you about it as he was doing it, all at the same time. That's a real superstar, no backers, no pr agents, no factories or big companies to hide the fact that you are in fact a total fake. This guy was the real thing...





                            I never met him personally, but I met a ton of his trainees and his competitors, all of whom never had a single bad word to say about him. And the few times I saw him in action, either on TV or on film, he was unforgettable.

                            He coined the phrase "If you don't good, we don't look good." That alone was a stroke of genius, and it became the slogan for the company's advertising that lasts until today. I remember him doing some avant-garde makeovers on the Phil Donahue or Oprah Winfrey show (sorry, I can't remember which) in the '80s and battling with a pile of typical fat midwestern idiots in the TV studio audience who were shouting "but, I would never wear that! Who would ever want to look like that?" And without missing a beat, Sassoon kindly, respectfully and beautifully answered, "well madame, let me tell you something...twenty years ago, that's exactly what people told me when we invented the very same haircut you are wearing right now on your head." And bam, in a second he had that conservative backwater American audience around his fingertips, and probably another 10 million in front their TV sets watching the show, too.

                            His point was classic fashion and artistic leadership. You think it's weird or you think it's normal... it's all about the timing, stupid. But if you're gonna be cool, it's way better to be first.

                            When I was about 20, and just starting out after having won my first big international design prizes, one of my first clients was the international avant-garde hairdresser John Dellaria from Boston. Dellaria had a ton of great people working with him, had built a chain of 20 hair salons around Boston and was winning international-level acclaim for his insane, radical cuts at the time that he was presenting at top hair shows around the world. I had been asked by him to design just as radical clothes and uniforms for himself and his staff at a new 4-story mega-salon he was opening in the then super-hip, up-and-coming downtown district of NYC known as "Soho." To give you an idea of the era, it was 1980, and store rents were going from $3 a square foot to $45 a square foot within that one single year. Yohji Yamamoto had not even shown his first collection in Paris yet, and the hottest designer on Broadway South of Houston Street was Kansai Yammamoto, not Yohji Yamamoto, and a rockin' Canadian outfit from Montreal called Parachute. During one work meeting, I humbly asked John Dellaria if he had anyone in his field whom he liked, and he replied "sure, hands down, Vidal Sassoon...not just for his creativity, but for his education. He has the best education and training system in the business"

                            In fact, over the years, I would hear this time and time again from hair professionals- nobody had focused and mastered training and education for an entire generation of professionals in a fashion metier like Vidal Sassoon. So while many may look at and admire the empire and hype around the name, I will always admire the vision of a great master who not only changed the artistic direction of his medium, but also knew the importance of teaching and passing the craft of both the art and business of his metier to others, and how both he, his company, and his medium flourished as a result of it. It was not by accident in my opinion that throughout my entire life and experience, the average local-level hairdresser makes a far better living than the average local-level fashion designer or tailor in most towns.

                            In light of the utterly useless job that fashion design schools worldwide have contributed to the general, and almost total, devastation of our craft and art today, Vidal Sassoon's kind of teaching is a level of education and training so painfully needed in our own metier, I cannot even begin to explain in one single and brief post.

                            RIP Vidal Sassoon. A true working "professor emeritus" of the highest order, if there ever was one.





                            Find out more about Vidal Sassoon...

                            * here in this coverage by the Telegraph UK:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/cele...me-in-L.A.html

                            * a short bbc clip here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18015514

                            * New York Times obit written by Bruce Weber: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/fa...t-84.html?_r=1

                            * And unknown to many, Vidal Sassoon was also a tough anti-fascist activist:
                            . . http://www.leftfootforward.org/2012/...oon-1928-2012/

                            Thank you for reading.

                            Best wishes, Geoffrey


                            PS. Coming up next: Koos Faber wears GBS, New Works May 2012

                            .
                            Last edited by Geoffrey B. Small; 09-11-2014, 09:35 AM.

                            Comment

                            • Pumpfish
                              Senior Member
                              • Sep 2010
                              • 513

                              Amen to that GBS. Courage and integrity all the way. His taking on Mosley's Blackshirts was inspirational.

                              And this set the tone for his professional life.

                              And what a life.
                              spinning glue back into horses. . .

                              Comment

                              • Geoffrey B. Small
                                Senior Member
                                • Nov 2007
                                • 618

                                New Works: May 2012, Koos Faber wears GBS

                                .

                                New Works: May 2012
                                exclusively on StyleZeitgeist



                                Koos Faber wears Geoffrey B. Small




                                The EVJ01 Piacenza Super 210's suit


                                Pushing the limits of our extreme sartorial technologies, priced well into the five figures, and made only to special order, the new EVJ01 was developed last year for the special Aston Martin 2011 Concept Store project in Munich curated by Tina Vrba. The 4-piece bespoke ultra drape-cut suit concept comprises a jacket, waistcoat, special scarf, and trouser - and is designed to serve its owner and posterity for more than a lifetime. Cut with an exquisite ultra light superlux Zenith Super 210’s micron wool and vicuna cloth woven by Fratelli Piacenza (the oldest wool mill in the world) that costs over four hundred euros wholesale for a single meter of cloth, the pieces have over two thousand euros of investment just in the main fabric before we even begin to cut it. And once you do touch it, you'll know why. Add to it pure feather soft and light silk linings from Como, real horn buttons from Cinzia and Claudio Fontana, the best button makers in the world today, and our own hand dyeing and build-work with over 100 working hours in our Cavarzere, Venezia workroom apartments to make a single ensemble (including over a thousand invisible canvas hand-padding stitches in the jacket's ultra-soft lapel and collar), and you have the most comfortable, and most valuable, Paris collection-level designer suit in the world today. Just trying it on for even a single moment, is an unforgettable experience...























                                Additional notes, model: Koos Faber at the Espace Saint Martin in Paris. shirt: handmade limited edition LMS07 in organic
                                L.Parisotto super 120's double-twist cotton (at Persuade, Bilbao and Arts & Science, Aoyama). shoe: handmade LMZ09 derby
                                sport dress show by Giuseppe Rebesco for GBS. c. copyright MMXII, Geoffrey B. Small, all rights reserved.











                                Organic Eco-Design Redefined : Introducing EVJ03



                                This new "SuperSuit" represents the cutting edge of environmentally-sound clothing design. It was cut by hand using manual (no computer or CAD) paper patterns in a 100% organic chemically un-treated superfine, ultralight linen woven exclusively for us by the world's absolute master of linen and cotton weaving, Luigi Parisotto at Sarcedo, with Como silk and Bemberg viscose linings. The interior construction has no glue or fusing, instead its soft structure is achieved with natural canvas entirely hand padstitched almost a thousand times, in pure cotton thread, not polyester. The 20 buttonholes were all made by hand in pure silk Bozzolo Milano Reale threads and required 10 minutes to create each one, over 3 hours of expert work just on the buttonholes alone. The buttons were crafted in real mother-of-pearl shell for us in Padova, and the hand vegetable dyed process required over 10 hours of painstaking work to achieve its almost-black midnight eggplant patina. Just five EVJ03 suits are being produced for the world in 2012, and they are each designed to provide at least 2 decades of service for their owners. All ethically produced by human hands and minds with maximum dignity and more than fair wages, minimal consumption waste, carbon imprint and entirely bio-degradable…and not a single molecule of plastic or poly-anything is used in the entire piece. A total antithesis to H&M, Zara, and anything that smacks of "fast, cheap, unsustainable, or throwaway."























                                Additional notes, model: Koos Faber at the Espace Saint Martin in Paris. shirt: handmade limited edition EVS01 classic shirt in
                                organic L.Parisotto super 120's double-twist cotton (at Minority Rev Ginza & Fukuoka, Hostem London, Arts & Science Aoyama,
                                Johnbull private labo stores Japan). tie: handmade EVA03 hand dyed Como print silk (at Persuade, Bilbao and Hostem, London).
                                The EVJ03 is being made exclusively for Kamille in Paris, Persuade in Bilbao, Minority Rev in Ginza and Fukuoka, and Arts &
                                Science in Aoyoma. c. copyright MMXII, Geoffrey B. Small, all rights reserved.


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