Nr°44_IMAGE OF THE DAY

Last weekend I was in London with my daughter Maui and I absolutely wanted to visit The Beauty Project at London’s trendiest megastore Selfridges.

The Beauty Project is a mind-provoking and multi layered exploration of the definition of beauty and what it means in today's society.

 The first thing you notice is a total takeover of the store's famous window displays. Statements are made about ‘letting your hair grow’, thoughts on science versus nature, ‘ eat yourself beautiful food, an open window fragrance lab and questions about what is beauty (and what not)

Un-retouched images of unknown faces will appear all over London in a new campaign shot by Norbert Schoerner, whilst debates in the store's ‘Salon’ focus upon challenging topics such as The History of Beauty and Ugliness and the relationship between beauty and youth.

The point of The Beauty Project is to define many versions of beauty: mature ladies, colored girls, pink hair or all over tattoos. The idea is that when we have a wider range of ideals to look at, so women can feel better about the way they look and do not need to be disappointed not looking like the lipstick advert girls in a magazine.

Fun workshops are be inn organized like a face gym (a workout for the face that uses collagen-boosting finger moves), skin analysis, a Dove self-esteem workshop for mothers and daughters, hair straightening demonstrations and yoga. 

There is also a GREAT Fragrance Lab (London only) which I visited off course, but I tell you more about this in the next post.

Founder Harry Selfridge was the first to introduce a fully-fledged beauty fragrance and make up department at the centre of its London store back in 1910. With the The Beauty Project Selfridges sets again the trend tone, after the very remarked ’Silence room of last year’, by putting topics around beauty issues close to their heart on the agenda.

Business need to run to, so the big brands join in as well: Chanel customizes nails, Nars offers one-to-one blush consultations and Mac gives advice on the perfect shades as Tom Ford offers manicures with private cosmetics consultations. For the guys, a pop-up barber shop provides traditional shaves.

But hurry! The Beauty Project only runs until June 12 at all Selfridges stores, but the one in London has the most allure and events.

http://www.selfridges.com/en/StaticPage/the-beauty-project-hello-beautiful

Join the #beautyproject. I did.

Kinfolk magazine on generation grey_a life inspiration story

We are a society that focuses on eternal youth. Stay young, look even younger and getting older is in a way not a desired option.

But times are changing. People all over the world are getting older, but also healthier, fitter and very active. Forget all the stereotypes about people over 60. Flat Agers (that’s how they are called) of the future aren’t defined by their age, they’re moved by their interests, passions and ambitions, just like everyone else. It’s great to see how more and more media are picking up this trend, and show older people as they are, beautiful, active and with loads of personality and (some times) wisdom.

One of my favorite magazines, Kinfolk explored in Nr°10 how the older folks in our lives can teach us how to live more fully and how to embrace each new candle on our cake with style and grace. As some anonymous old chap once said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” While many magazines pressure readers to hang on to youth, Kinfolk investigates how our lives are enriched by the people, meals and traditions of things past: beautiful pictures of older woman, realizing they’re turning into their mother. Even more tasty images of birthday cakes when you turn 70, 80 or even 100. Who said life after 60 will be boring, dull and grey. Think again and enjoy this issue, you still can order online. And remember, everything in this issue gets better, or tastier, with age.

Check also ‘The Gentlewoman’, another magazine that puts the 72 years young Vivienne Westwood on the cover. Graceful, elegant but with very naughty twinkles in her eyes.

But the best in class is our own Belgian fashion design duo behind Bernhard Willhelm features 65 + models for his AW14 Look book. This catalog features a charismatic set of mature models showing off Willhelm’s luxe sports aesthetic which combines very loose, or very tight, high-tech fabrics with boldly printed motifs. Bernhard Willhelm ‘s designs are known for their singularity. Instead of following trends, the designer duo often creates new ones by breaking with all manner of established conventions. 

Well, to be honest, they didn’t. They are completely trendsetting. Willhelm didn’t offer any backstory regarding his casting choice but he doesn’t really need to: the models perfectly capture his kooky fashion game.

Great work guys!

I’ll be spotting more proof of this refreshing, exciting evolution in society. Embrace and get to know them!

Cover Photograph Kinfolk by Neil Bedford

http://www.kinfolk.com

Bernard Willhelm: photography: Bruno Staub

http://blog.mykita.com/2013/10/new-mykita-bw-hubert/

Suzusan handmade scarves: historic tradition mixed with modern design

Image by Designboom

Image by Designboom 

Image by Designboom

When I last was in Lille (France), I dropped by at one of my favorite 'Lille' stores 'Serie Noire'. A great selection of brands, always balancing on the edge with labels like Rick Owens, Balmain, Acne Studios Dior Homme, Haider Ackermann, Goti, Kris Van Assche and Aurélie Bidermann to name a few.

Not really looking to shop, but always open for new discoveries, I found some amazing scarfs, 'love at first sight' type. You know what I mean…

The scarfs are from Suzusan, a label by the Japanese designer Hiroyuki Murase. His family, the Murase have been hand-adorning refined fabrics using traditional and complex techniques for over 100 years. SHIBORI is a Japanese textile finishing technique which, even though it can look back on a tradition spanning centuries at the island state, is virtually unknown in the Western world. As the oldest son of the Murase family, after his studies in design, Hiroyuki wanted to combine his families amazing craft with his ideas on texture, fabrics in design and fashion.

Hiroyuki started to create the first scarves from his family hand-made fabrics in Japan in 2007 and besides the fact that the scarfs are fabulous ( incredibly soft because of the cashmere wool, tactile, light-weighted with stunning contrast colors), production is done by fair trade principles. By keeping this tradition, the label strengthens the families craftwork as a profession and contributes to end the decades-long decline of this textile art in Japan. 

I bought one, off course. Due to the handmade, exclusive Japanese technique, they don't come cheap (400 euro). They're worth it. believe me.

http://www.serie-noire.fr/ConceptStore/

www.suzusan.com

©ALL photos by Kate Stockman_THE SQUID STORIES except mentioned differently.

Looking for local farmers_a life inspiration story

  We all want to know where our food comes from nowadays. We find this normal after all the food scandals (horse meat, Ikea balls, dioxin chickens and water meat) we had over the past months and years. Are these green asparagus from Europe? Are these beans flown in from Kenia? This information influences what we buy and what not. More and more we like our food to be regional. Preferably from a farmer that doesn't use pesticides on our veggies and knows when you harvest what, in the right season I mean.

But it's not enough. We become even more critical and demanding concerning what we put in our body. We want to know the farmer who grows our lettuce and talk with the guy who brings up the animals who's meat we eat. Just like the old days, like my grandma used to do: walking to the farmer for some daily eggs and some fresh milk. We want transparency, information and honesty. Great!

That's why I liked this station on the last Dutch Design Week so much. It's a 'taste station', build to be an information booth for events and fairs, but not in the 'boring' way we know so well.

This was an interactive booth, with a conveyor built, presenting all kind of fresh biologically grown products, straight from some Dutch farmers. The idea was to take a small plate that passed by, pick up a corresponding phone and listen to the information given about this product. How and where it was grown, the richness of their soil and terroir, how it was harvested and transported. Sound & image information on who was each farmer, what did he like about his job, his way of working and why he started with farming. Lovely stories about young guys, following in their fathers footsteps or others just choosing 100% for a food producing job in the outdoors. Beautiful, nearly poetic films on real passion for the work, shown on flat screens while you tasted, smelled or looked at a passing by white asparagus. Interactive and entertaining experiences, as they should be. The station is an initiative of the Dutch agriculture organization ZLTO, to promote honest, healthy food, produced with care and love. Well done guys! 

Another sign on what's going on in the farmers’ market community is the fact that it adopts slowly digital technologies to reach their increasingly connected consumer. The taste station was an analog interactive way of connection but lately we see all kind of apps popping up on farmers markets and other local agricultural businesses. The Californian Farm Market Finder or the Farmstand app (Discover the best locally grown food from over 8,700 farmers’ markets around the world.) are using a smartphone’s GPS to find farm markets, cider mills, farmers’ markets and pick-your-own orchards closest to your place. Check out this video:

The guys behind Foodtree jumped on the local food movement by launching the food tree app to allow farmers to broadcast their daily harvest, along with details on where to buy their food locally. "We see that consumers and food producers share a common desire to understand one another better,” says Foodtree founder Derek Shanahan. “The farmers’ market is one of the few remaining spots for people to meet the person responsible for what they're eating; a powerful relationship for both parties." Users can follow other photo streams including their favorite farmers markets and other users sharing beautiful photos of food. These appear under the "news" feed menu, separate from your own photos. The app works in both Canada & North American cities. 

What about Europe? Hard to find yet, but the initiatives start to pop up. Know what fruit of vegetables you eat best in what season? Download this app from the Dutch company 'Milieu Centraal' and avoid pushed products in the wrong time of year.

One of my students wrote his trendwatching thesis on organic local food and suggested to start a Belgian community of food loving people, helping each other sharing tips to find the best organic markets, shops and farmers. I told him to start developing it. I hope he will. 

Later!

Kate

©ALL photos by Kate Stockman_THE SQUID STORIES

Nr°42_IMAGE OF THE DAY

Check out this music video for singer-songwriter Boggie revealing real-time digital retouching, in reaction to the the ever-present standard norm to digital manipulation of models, actresses and other entertainers for television and magazine covers.

Music directors Nagy and Lőrincz show in this music video, in real-time, Boggie's computerized cosmetic transformation. See her make-up free, natural face transform/mutate into her ‘public face’, the visualization of an aesthetically acceptable and pleasing person in showbizz nowadays. Beauty with a lot of irony!

boggieofficial.com
facebook.com/BoggieOfficial

Tom Tom Records 2013
tomtom.hu

Director: Nándor Lőrincz, Bálint Nagy 
Director of photography: Bálint Nagy, Dániel Szőke

Production manager: Zoltán Pálmai
Focus puller: Attila Kovács "Cica"
Smink/make-up artist: Ricsi Fazekas
Make-up assistant: Eszter Galambos
Hairdresser: Bálint Almássy

Post production: Studiolamb studiolamb.hu

Chief VFX artist: Balázs Sánta
VFX artists: András Bodor, Ákos Kiss, Marcell Andristyák, Kálmán Dulity
Supervisor: Zoltán Várfoki "Zoulu"

Legendary 24 h bagels_a life inspiration story

After our Roa walk we arrived in Bricklane, an area in London near Clerkenwell and Shoreditch. Bricklane is not a fancy hipster spot but a typical British brick road packed with Indian deli's, nightshops and unusual small but fun shops and bars. Always adventurous to step into some to check ot what's cooking. 

Passing by an old bakery with damph windows and older ladies serving a kind of meat dish on a bagel, a long row of (mostly) men queuing in & out store, we couldn't resist checking it out.

It seemed to be the famous Beigel Bake store! 

This legendary hotspot is a 24-hour bakery serving mainly bagels (spelled beigels on the facade)baked in  traditional Jewish style with fillings such as hot salt beef with mustard, chopped herring, and cream cheese and salmon. Beigel Bake is the oldest and best bagel shop in London, and produces 7,000 bagels every day!!

You can also order pastries and sweets such as Danish rolls, apple strudel, Eccles cakes and cheesecake, as well as white, rye and black bread. Beigel Bake is the oldest bagel shop in London and produces 7,000 bagels over night, every night. 

Open 24 hours a day with a melting pot of people, queuing like only the English can, for the most famous bagel of all: the one filled with brilliant moist salt beef, carved as you wait from a slab kept warm in the front window. The bagels are boiled before being baked here since 1977. A bagel is 25p and filled bagels with delicious kosher fillings range up to about £1.50. The Brick Lane's location makes this thé favorite snack stop (overnight but also during the day!)for clubbers, trendy kids, Jewish old-timers, back packers, imbibers and taxi drivers. 

Next time in Bricklane, give it a try and start queuing!

Beigel Bake

159 Brick Lane

London

E1 6SB

Open 24hrs daily

©ALL photos by Kate Stockman_THE SQUID STORIES

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/52/561462/restaurant/Shoreditch/Beigel-Bake-London