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Photo & Design by Rita Zimmermann/Mykonos 2010

Louis XIII Rare Cask special edition#2

Louis XIII is one of the world’s most luxurious cognac brands. This year, the brand will be launching a special edition, “Rare Cask”. This is only the second time the brand has made such an offer in their 140-year running. The exclusive grand champagne has been aged up to a century in its casks. Not only will this drink taste delicious but the bottle is handcrafted with a 24k rose gold ring topped with a black crystal stopper. Bottles will be up for sale at exclusive spirit shops starting in September for grand total of $23,000 apiece.

Not only an essence of this perfect cognac but also design of the package with special care of the details make the Rare Cask as scarce as hen's teeth.

A ‘Rare Cask’ is described as a single, extremely rare barrel discovered among the hundreds of century-old tierçons that will one day go to make Louis XIII. No two tierçons are ever quite the same size, and this new Rare Cask is one of the smaller ones, sufficient for just 738 decanters. 

Sharing her encounter with the first Rare Cask, Rémy Martin Cellar Master Pierette Trichet said: “I will never forget the moment when I placed my chalk mark on the tierçon that was to become the Rare Cask 43,8. At that moment, I had no way of ever knowing whether I would ever find another such cask again. But somehow in my heart I was sure that I would... And in the autumn of 2009, though I could not yet be certain, I did have the feeling that I had found what I was searching for. As I tasted, I experienced that same sensation, that moment of revelation and emotion that I remembered so well. All the signs suggested that I had found another Rare Cask.”

 

Louis XIII is a blend of 1,200 eaux-de-vie originating from the finest grapes grown on the slopes of the Grande Champagne region of Cognac. Some of these eaux-de-vie are over 100 years old.

Like the first Rare Cask 43,8, this new expression is distinguished by a small but significant increase in alcohol, beyond the expected 40%, with the 42,6 alcohol content clearly indicated on the decanter. 

On the nose, notes of plums and dates mingle with flavours of gingerbread, prune stone and ginger, punctuated by a final touch of tobacco leaf. 

The liquid is housed in a decanter made of black crystal, a signature of the Rare Cask collection. The scarcity of black crystal is due to the difficulty of obtaining a perfectly opaque black, Rémy Cointreau explained. This delicate technique, involving 20 master craftsmen in more than 50 operations, requires an extremely precise distribution of the metallic oxides to create the brilliant black colour. 

The decanter – numbered 001 to 738 – owes its shape to the Louis XIII flask whose design was inspired by a metal flask found on the site of a 16th century battle. The neck of the decanter is dressed in rose gold (the first Rare Cask used palladium) decorated by quadrilobe motifs, and crowned by a black crystal stopper. 

The coffret itself is sealed with a gilded rose gold plaque, and opens to a display of light on the crystal details within. 

This second edition of Louis XIII Rare Cask has been bottled in a limited number of 738 Baccarat black crystal decanters, with an alcoholic strength of 42,6 degrees. 

However if you are just in Australia and wanna go to 

www.rare-cask.com you might be very disappoint while the red sign appears:

DUE TO REGULATIONS IN YOUR COUNTRY, YOU CAN NOT ACCESS THIS WEB SITE!

STRATHCONA STOCKINGS*artistic print

Its kind of funny story how i discover STRATHCONA stockings.Google searching for an inspirations for my next photo shoot i found and stopped for an nice hour or so on polymathpolymath.tumblr.com created as an inspiration board. Its unexpected journey through art, fashion and you have a feeling you step in somebody's dream ...

"Every print is original, designed, collaged, photographed or drawn in our studio or in our travels.To ensure the highest quality, our products are made in limited quantities, and each stocking is individually printed locally"explains founder and artist Ryley O'Byrne. Ryley graduated from Central of Saint Martins London school of art and Emily Carr Institute of Art & Design turned hosiery into her canvas, dutifully hand printing each trouser sock with her own photographs or collages from her LA studio.

Founder and art director Ryley O'Byrne

STRATHCONA CAMPAIGN 12'

Every pair of unique stockings have a matching name 

YOUTUBE JUNGLE STOCKINGS

PURPLE MARY JANE

VINTAGE BLUE BIRD SOCKS

You don't need to love colour, you don't need to change your style to get the pair of them. For those who love classic black and white with the million shades of grey I prepared couple sets inspiring by STRATHCONA STOCKINGS

Styled from www.netaporter.com & www.style.com

Which one will be your choice?

RIP-John Casablancas

   On Saturday 20th of July the founder of Elite Model Management, the man credited with launching the most important model careers in the fashion industry such as Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista died in Rio de Janeiro, (where he moved in 2000 with his wife Aline and kids) at the age of 70. John passed away on the day his great discovery-Giselle Bundchen was born, 20 th of July. He was a great person, mentor for those who had an opportunity to meet and work with him and "the father"of Star System, scouting organisation which John Casablancas created with his business partner Jeremie Roux in 2008 just after leaving Elite after 25 years and for who I have an honour to work and represent in Australia (www.starsystem.com). 

John Casablancas (1942-2013)

Jeremie Roux business partner in Star System 

John Casablancas born in Manhattan in 1942, founded the model agency in Paris in 1972, straight away challenging with than dominants-Ford and Wilhelmina."The American agencies(Ford, Willhelmina, Zoli, Stewart)controlled the business.The European agencies were just the "farms"where models were formed and than shipped to US, where they made all the money.(...)The look mostly dictated by Ford was Wasp, Scandinavian(Grace Kelly)(...)In Europe, the only place where models actually made meaningful amounts of money was Germany and(...)Italy.I knew I was an outsider, and as a strategy from day one I chose to put in opposition to the European free lifestyle charm and sensuality against the austere, puritanical, prim and proper approach of Eileen Ford.((...)I knew I need to be original and provocative because I had no prior connections within fahion industry, said John Casablancas in one of the latest interview for the models.com from 5th of April 13'.

 Linda Evangelista

 Stephanie Michelle Seymour 

 Claudia Schiffer

 Cindy Crawford

 Naomi Campbell

Ana Beatriz Barros

Giselle Bundchen 

"Models were just models"Casablancas told New York Magazine in 2005 of the period before he founded Elite.

"WHATEVER YOU DO DON'T LET ANYBODY TALK YOU INTO DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THE WAY YOU LOOK EVER"

- John Casablancas

JI YEO BEAUTY RECOVERY ROOM vs art is real

South Korea has the highest worldwide per capita rate of plastic surgery.From the Jezebel 1 out of 5 women in Seoul has undergone some kind of procedure.Eyelid surgery, to make the eyes "more Western," and getting your jawbone shaved or chiseled down for a less-square and more V-shaped look."When you are applying for university or applying for a job here, you put a picture of yourself on your resume or application," "It is sort of taken for granted that how you look will often go into the decision." She(American teacher in Seoul) says she's been told that if there are two otherwise equal candidates, the prettier person will get the job. Her students see this as normal — perhaps unsurprising when you consider the nation's status the country most obsessed with plastic surgery.A Tumblr called Korean Plastic Surgery features photographs of young South Koreans supposedly before and after plastic surgery. Some of the "after" images look as though they could be Photoshopped, but many are clearly the results of the scalpel. Eyes are larger. Noses are less wide, more streamlined, narrower. Havinga bridge in the nose seems very important. Square or prominent jaws are made delicate, V-shaped, smaller.There are a few things unsettling about the images, especially the ones in which the entire shape of the face is changed thanks to bone shaving. Somehow eyelids and nose cartilage still seem rather surface-level, whereas changing the shape of your skulljust feels extreme and intense. And what about the parents of these men and women? Are they sad when their offspring, whom they've created from their own genetic material, change the jaws and eyes and noses given to them by their mother, grandmother, great-grand-mother? Or maybe the parents have already had their bones shaved, or paid for the kids' surgery, or would if they could.

  Korean born photographer and artist JI YEO since moved to America noticed a stark difference in the approaches Eastern and Western cultures take toward plastic surgery.(http://www.huffingtonpost.com)

Her series, entitled "BEAUTY RECOVERY ROOM" shows the painful lengths women will go to achieve what they view as aesthetic perfection. In addition to the photographs below, YEO created a performance piece in which she stood in a nude unitard holding a sign that read: "I want to be perfect. Draw on me. Where should I get plastic surgery?"

BEAUTY RECOVERY ROOM  SERIES USES THE WOUNDED FACES AND BODIES OF WOMEN WHO HAVE RECENTLY UNDERGONE PLASTIC SURGERY TO SHOW THE PHYSICAL COST OF ADHERING TO SOCIAL PRESSURE IN KOREA. PLASTIC SURGERY HAS BECOME AN INTEGRAL PART OF KOREA’S CURRENT CULTURE, OFTEN REGARDED AS A INTEGRAL STEP IN THE IN SELF IMPROVEMENT PROCESS. GOING UNDER THE KNIFE, ENDURING BRUISES, SCARS, AND BEING UNDER GENERAL ANAESTHETIC SEVERAL TIMES ARE NO LONGER CONSIDERED RISKY OR EXTRAVAGANT. THEY HAVE ALL HAD MULTIPLE PROCEDURES AND HAVE PLANS FOR FUTURE AUGMENTATION. THE PHOTOS WERE TAKEN DIRECTLY AFTER THEIR OPERATION WHILE THEY WERE RESTING AND WAITING TO BE HEALED.

THE LATEST RAW DATA COMPILED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF AESTHETIC PLASTIC SURGERY IN 2010, CONFIRMS THAT SOUTH KOREA IS INDEED THE COUNTRY WITH THE WORLD’S HIGHEST PER CAPITA RATE OF COSMETIC PLASTIC SURGERY. IT IS A CULTURE WHERE MEN ARE JUDGED ON THEIR FINANCIAL BALANCE SHEET AND WOMEN BY THEIR BEAUTY. THE MALE-DOMINATED MEDIA ENDLESSLY REINFORCES ITS MODEL OF THE IDEAL WOMAN.  AS A RESULT OF THESE CULTURAL FORCES KOREA HAS BECOME A BEAUTY-ORIENTED SOCIETY WHERE PEOPLE ARE JUDGED MORE FOR THEIR APPEARANCE THAN THEIR CHARACTER. KOREAN WOMEN, OFTEN FALL INTO THE TRAP OF TRYING TO LIVE UP TO THE IDEAL PERSONIFIED IN THE MEDIA. THE COMBINATION OF THESE FACTORS HAS DRAMATICALLY INCREASED THE BURGEONING PLASTIC SURGERY INDUSTRY WHILE CREATING ANOTHER SET OF STANDARDS FOR WOMEN TO ADHERE TO. (http://jiyeo.com/thebeauty-statement)

After Nan Goldin or Steven Maisel fashion stories for Italian Vogue Ji Yeo photographed these woman during their recovery, she was meeting them at their houses, cooking them and helping with the constant killing pain."Whereas sexiness is highly emphasized in Los Angeles, in Korea, notions of childlike femininity and innocence... reign supreme," Yeo wrote in an email to the Huffington Post. "Most of the plastic surgeries performed in Korea aim to minimize Asian characteristics and make Korean women appear more like Caucasian women."(huffingtonpost).

Nan Goldin selfportrait

Steven Maisel for Vogue Italia

Rita Zimmermann 2008

As an artist I respect when the other artists tell us about things we don't want to see or listen.The stories behind the doors.Why You turn your head while looking at the pictures above are you scared?Indeed we should be scared of where it is all going to?Are we creating cyborgs for our own pleasure?Look at the movie attached down below is it one person or just a one plastic surgery doctor?

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Martin Scorsese for Dolce Gabbana

Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese directed a new TV commercial for Dolce&Gabbana.

There is already rumour that it can be the hottest commercial ever while Scarlett Johansson and Matthew McConaughey playing italian lovers driving beautiful vintage Alfa Romeo in New York City.

CHAPMAN BROTHERS X LOUIS VUITTON "garden in hell"

  There is something special in the new Louis Vuitton art collaboration. After Alexander McQueen era we can see more and more "difficult"art comes out from darkness.We are being tired of candy pop culture, plastic perfection, barbie pink-ish look.This is a perfect time and a place for an real art not only insight the gallery walls but outside them, this is a place and time for an artists like English duo and one of my favourite artists nowadays - Chapman Brothers .

 Jake and Dinos Chapman working together as a collaborative sibling duo since 1991,and already enrolled in the register of the most influential artists of the XXI st century shocking and arousing mixed emotions.Well known from the anatomical and pornographic grotesque with a series of mannequins of children, sometimes fused together, with genitalia in place of facial features as well from their sculpture Hell (2000) consisted of a large number of miniature figures of Nazis arranged in nine glass cases laid out in the shape of a swastika. 

Chapman Brothers was  worked with Kim Jones and Louis Vuitton on a capsule collection for Fall/Winter 2013 collection named "The Magic Mountain". This season sees the Vuitton traveller, always journeying both literally and metaphorically, venture to the magical mountains of the Himalayas, particularly to the Kingdom of Bhutan.The snow leopard pattern and motif reoccurs throughout the collection.The figure of the snow leopard (a design commissioned by Louis Vuitton to the Chapman Brothers) also appears on neckties and pocket squares and is given full expression in an intarsia knit sweater.

Kim Jones, new style director of LV about new collaboration: "“I sat down with Jake Chapman and we talked through the idea of a ‘garden in hell’,” says Jones. “This was the phrase Diana Vreeland famously used to describe her apartment. It was something we both responded to, that and all of the unusual animals to be found in the Himalayas.”"

"The designs commissioned to the Chapman Brothers appear in silk and cashmere prints and jacquards in red and navy respectively. These anthropomorphic animals and creatures also feature on accessories, charms and motifs throughout. They appear almost like the Chapman’s own spin on the Buddhist idea of ‘wrathful deities’, fearsome talismanic protectors from evil and a bridge between the natural and supernatural world this season. They are a linking narrative thread throughout, building to the tour de force ‘Garden in Hell’ evening wear finale at the end of the show. Here traditional tailoring shapes and materials of the fifties contribute a literal, masculine heavyweight feel as a counterpoint to the extreme opulence of the ‘Garden in Hell’ motif."(http://stylerumor.com)

Photos courtesy of Matthieu Dortomb / Louis Vuitton

Hair : Guido Palau For Redken

Makeup : Peter Philips

http://www.jakeanddinoschapman.com

www.louisvuitton.com.