Matthew Coupe is Jacob’s brother, Jacob is a model and Matthew studies photography. I discovered Matthew by chance on Tumblr where he has a page on his ongoing project: Oh! You Pretty Things – An ongoing affair

“This long-term project revolves around the sporadic day-to-day lifestyle and ever-changing world of the fashion industry’s young male models. A highly glamorised and often easily labeled world. My aim throughout this project it to shed some light on the realities of the industry, get past the superficial and show the young models in an everyday light, give their character and individuality a chance to be seen.”

He’s also been collaborating with designer JW Anderson since last season, trying to explore the fashion image and all that comes with and around it with the eye of documentary photography : “It was interesting to see how apparent time itself is at these events, so much of it spent in nervous anticipation and detailed preparations, all for examination, scrutiny, sigh, and finally, relief…”

I like his stuff and hope to see more of it soon, he’s already caught the attention of Models.com so I’m sure we’ll see his work there or somewhere else soon, we’ll be sure to keep you posted!

R.S.

Say Hello to Mirian Morello, a rising star, a doll of a girl. She’s tiny but don’t get too fresh with her ’cause Mirian is a little chic vampire (she takes her name from ”The Hunger”), she travels, has a Facebook page and writes on the Frankie Morello blog, she’s a beautiful and busy girl, and like many beautiful things she is unique (and hand-made by the artist Andrew Yang). She’s one of  The Koulkitas a very couture group of dolls who could give the most flamboyant fashionistas a serious run for their money (Gaga watch out ’cause if they learn to sing and play the piano, or even just do decent playback you’re out of business)…

The name Koulkitas originates from the Greek word for doll, koukla. Each doll is cut from a pattern, sewn into muslin, and meticulously stuffed and attached by hand. The faces are all hand painted, and the dresses are created using luxurious fabrics and couture sewing methods. Every doll has its own unique name and story… Yang has created 25 exclusive, ‘limited edition’ dolls for the Frankie Morello Meets Art event, (24/30 September 2010, Frankie Morello flagship store) some of which will be wearing the most significant pieces from the Fall/Winter 2010 2011 womens and the mens collection.  More on Yang and the dolls on Flamboyant, soon…

R.S.

Noi Flamboyants siamo sempre stati dei grandi fan di Acne (e la cosa è più che reciproca…) ma questa volta mi sento di dire che hanno superato loro stessi! In collaborazione con Luis Venegas, il creatore di Candy Magazine, ‘the first fashion magazine ever completely dedicated to celebrating transvestitism, transexuality, cross dressing and androgyny in all its manifestations’, il brand ha creato una mini-collezione composta da tre camicie (disponibili in denim o in crepe di seta) ispirate alle dive di Dynasty: il modello ‘Alexis’ (con maxi-fiocco al collo), il modello ‘Krystle’ (con maniche sbuffanti) ed il modello ‘Sammy Jo’ (con ruches su collo e polsini)…

Questo è ciò che Louis ha comunicato riguardo al progetto: “Talking about the specific pieces we’ve created together, I knew from the very beginning that I wanted to play with the idea of adding feminine details to a classic denim shirt. I didn’t want the shirts to become “unisex”, in fact I wanted exactly the opposite. I wanted pieces that create a bit of gender confusion… instead of the unisex statement “For men and women”, I tried to make people feel like “Is this for men or for women?”… well, is for all the many types of men and women worldwide on 21st Century. Or even simpler, the idea was creating something like tranny shirts for everybody. Something relevant and open-mined.”

Cosa dire, se non che sono dei geni e che le vorrei tutte? (anche se il rischio è che su di me l’effetto, più che Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, potrebbe essere zia Assunta Cacace…)

be seeing you

F.L.M.B.

pics: Jolijn Snijders c/o Candy Magazine

Following what is now turning into a tradition of bugging people we like and admire and asking them to answer our silly questions, I’ve befriended the fab Christopher Lee Sauvè of ”Save Anna” fame and asked him to answer our Flamboyant Questionnaire, here’s what he had to say:

Christopher Lee Sauvé 02 09 : 18.36
Sure thing! Love these questions haha here you go!

DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN 5 WORDS

1) Obsessive
2) Visual
3) Loving
4) Critical
5) Energetic

YOU WIN 80 FANTA-MEGA MILLIONS OF EURO AT THE LOTTERY. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU DO?

Start a cool concept school/store for kids who can’t afford college to do art/design/fashion… Purchase a giant yacht and take all my friends and family on a trip around the world!

WHICH SONG DO YOU SING IN THE SHOWER?

Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana

WHAT DO YOU READ ON THE LOO?

New York Magazine

THE BEST AND THE WORST THING IN FASHION?

The best is creativity, the worst is Ed Hardy!

ART OR BUSINESS?

Warhol said business is art, but I think he was lying. Business is business and artists create art. I like to do both, I guess I am a designer.

FISH OR MEAT?

Spam.

YOUR GOOD INTENTIONS?

To provide cool clothes for people who love pop culture at affordable prices.

AND THE BAD ONES?

I have no bad intentions, I am Canadian!

THE BOOK, THE MOVIE AND THE SONG THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE

Nina Simone biography, “I Put A Spell On You”, Madonna “Truth or Dare” documentary, “Nothing Compares To You” Sinead O’Connor.

YOUR ALL-TIME ICONS?

Keith Haring, Klaus Nomi, Warhol, Lagerfeld, Grace Jones, and Anna Wintour!

IF I SAY ‘FLAMBOYANT’, WHAT COMES INTO YOUR MIND?

When Jack Tripper on Three’s Company played a gay man.

You can buy his fabulous tshirts/bags/etc (you can even customize a pair of All-Stars or some American Apparel underwear with his killer graphics) on his Online Shop or see his great graphics and stuff on Tumblr… Enjoy!

R.S.

Mendoza is a cool little Mod shop in Brick Lane, where I found and bought a pair of lovely Chelsea Boots, in black suede, the grey ones pictured here are actually even better but I know what kind of life my shoes lead and grey suede just wouldn’t be able to survive it for long… Besides cool footwear, the shop carries great jackets and pants, and all sort of delicious things for the perfect Mod gentleman, the little striped college jackets are perfect and not very expensive, if only London wasn’t such a shopper’s paradise and we weren’t so damn poor!

R.S.

p.s.: hey I totally forgot about this post and left it as a draft for like… forever… but isn’t it great for a Back To School September thing?

Christopher Sauvè, the Iconosclast Genius that brought us the ‘Save Anna’ t-shirt (which has personally brought me quite a few hours of joy..) is now back with, among other things, the Che Anna project… here’s its manifesto:

Per quanto io tenti in tutti i modi di scappare dalla Moda, lei mi segue tenacemente, e riesce a trovarmi sempre e comunque… anche nel Sud Tirolo, dove ho passato una paradisiaca settimana tra castelli medievali, chiese super kitsch in stile ‘barocco bavarese’ e bagni di fieno… oltre alle centinaia di negozi specializzati nell’abbigliamento tradizionale del luogo, che personalmente amo alla follia (per un attimo mi sono convinto che avrei potuto affrontare TUTTO il prossimo inverno in giacca di lana cotta e lederhosen…), cosa ci è comparso durante un’escursione se non la Fabbrica del Loden?

Il nome ‘loden’ deriva dal tedesco arcaico e vuol dire all’incirca ‘balla di lana’, poi, per traslato, è diventato anche il termine per identificare non solo il tessuto, ma anche il tipico cappotto verde scuro con i bottoni di pelle intrecciata o di corno che molto probabilmente ognuno di noi è stato obbligato ad indossare durante l’infanzia…

Grazie ad un processo di infeltrimento della lana grezza, ed in seguito alla sua cardatura (che ne rende la parte esterna lucida e ’scivolosa’) il loden è il primo tessuto impermeabile della storia, tanto da meritarsi l’appellativo di ‘Gore-Tex del Medio Evo’… in origine il tessuto era ‘povero’, utilizzato dai contadini per ripararsi dal freddo e dalle intemperie, ma divenne di moda quando la fabbrica Mössmer nel 1882 confezionò un mantello bianco per l’imperatore Francesco Giuseppe. Così il loden, con l’aggiunta di un po’ di lana merinos, passò dallo status di materiale ‘vile’ a quello ben più ‘altolocato’ di tessuto per abiti da caccia e montagna per la nobiltà austroungarica.

Forse tutto ciò interesserà a pochi, ma pazienza: sento sempre più forte l’esigenza e il dovere di combattere con ogni mezzo l’imbarbarimento di cui siamo vittime (compiacenti…) e, mai come in vacanza, il nostro popolo da innumerevoli dimostrazioni di inciviltà…

be seeing you

F.L.M.B.

pics: Andrea Boschetti

post tosatura

loden giganti nel museo

'filo' modi di dire

Nel 2009 la stilista/musicista/ex ‘it-girl’ Pam Hogg è stata inserita nella ‘Scottish Hall of Fame’. All’evento si è presentata con una chaperon d’eccezione, Siouxsie Sioux, ed entrambe indossavano le deliranti tutine su cui la designer si sta concentrando ultimamente… che dire?

Le AMIAMO!

be seeing you

F.L.M.B.

da sinistra: Andreas Kronthaler (marito), Dora Swire (mamma), Dame Vivienne Westwood, Cora Corre (nipote)

(from www.daylimail.co.uk – 09/06/2006)

Fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood went to Buckingham Palace today without her knickers once again and wearing a pair of silver horns.

The style icon caused a stir in 1992 when she collected her OBE from the Queen minus her underwear and twirled round in the courtyard to reveal all.

This time, after she was made a Dame by the Prince of Wales, she shyly disclosed she was knicker-less again, adding: “Don’t ask. It’s the same answer. I don’t wear them with dresses. When I’m wearing trousers I might – my husband’s silk boxers.”

She insisted she would not be spinning around in the Palace to demonstrate this.

“It’s a different dress – that’s why I span around (then). I forgot.”

Today, she said her outfit – a black cap perched on the back of her vibrant orange hair and a black dress with campaign badges and the tiny horns on her head – showed her as an urban guerilla and a Che Guevara figure.

The tiny horns attached to her head were not the sign of the devil, she insisted.

“It’s a fantastic dress with a sort of net stole. My clothes reflect my political feeling.

“I’m supposed to be a bit like a Che Guevara – an urban guerilla, with my cap, this kind of jungle net and a badge for my Active Resistance to Propaganda campaign.

“The horns – we need a new renaissance. We don’t have culture. It’s a pagan symbol. They’re attached by a wire round the back of my head. It’s only the Christian religion that says they’re anything to do with the Devil. They can be a fertility symbol and be about good things.”

Dame Vivienne wore thin lines of bright blue eyeliner over her eyelids and in place of her eyebrows.

Her shoes were black mules decorated with lines of studded metal holes.

She said Charles did not inquire about her undergarments.

“No, of course not,” she remarked. But she did disclose that the Queen apparently found the 1992 incident quite funny.

“I met a man who worked with the Queen and he said she was rather amused by it.”

She added that the Prince said he hoped her award would help her career.

Dame Vivienne said she was delighted with accolade. “It’s so beautiful,” she said holding the scarlet ribboned honour. “It’s such a lovely colour.”

She was joined by her husband Andreas Kronthaler, her elderly mother Dora Swire, and her eight-year-old granddaughter Cora Corre, who is also Malcolm McLaren’s grandchild.

Cora wore a green netted top and blue cap. Dame Vivienne said: “Her outfit is based on mine. She’s a little guerilla.”

be seeing you

F.L.M.B

Alexander Wang debuts his Fall 2010 Inspiration video, worldwide, through a select number of sites on Wednesday, August 11th at noon, Eastern Standard Time. This is the first time Wang explored film as the medium to express the inspiration and emotion behind the collection. Shot in a deserted building that once stood as a hotel in NYC, the creative team built an abstract atmosphere of fantasy distorting the elements of wind, home, movement and stillness.

Director: Craig McDean
Art Director: Fabien Baron
Stylist: Karl Templer
Model: Abbey Lee / Next
Casting: Anita Bitton / The Establishment
Hair: Orlando Pita
Make-up: Mark Carasquillo
Song: Infinity by The XX (remixed by Flufftronix)

R.S.