ON the second week of international fashion shows, international fashion show parties and resulting international fashion show mornings after, it's ironically reassuring that we can always rely on John Galliano to inject an element of disquiet into the proceedings to put us firmly back on the edge of our seats. Following a frantic dash through notoriously bad Paris traffic to the Église Saint-Sauveur in out-of-town Issy Les Moulineaux, the fashion pack were just settling into their seats yesterday as a model in combat trousers and flip-flops, bare-chested with a scarf and cap obscuring his face, took to the catwalk. It was the opening to the most provocative show we've seen yet; models wore neon camouflage prints, loose or padded jackets and combat-style vests with pockets and straps strung over bare chests. Exposed skin was daubed with army-style camouflage paint; faces were obscured with netting, helmets, foliage, traditional Middle-Eastern headdresses and fake beards. And Galliano wasn't the only designer offering up a challenge. Yohji Yamamoto's military-style tailoring was printed with an eagle motif to represent freedom, while at Number (N)ine, a relaxed, street-urchin style silhouette was tempered with oversized crucifixes and Rosaries. Rebel Jean Paul Gaultier was relatively tame in comparison, showing sexy spacemen in metallic silver jackets and his trademark skirts. Today sees the turn of Junya Watanbe, Kris Van Assche, Comme des Garcons and Louis Vuitton on the runways - visit VOGUE.COM tomorrow to see all the latest looks. (june 29 2007, AM)
Colleges focused on high technology need a little fashion sense, Gov. Spitzer said yesterday.
Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology, a SUNY school with two-year and four-year programs, produces innovators who rapidly adapt to the ever-changing fashion world, Spitzer said at the first Higher Education Commission meeting.
People in the technology sector, likewise, work in a fast-changing environment that demands creative thinking, he said.
"If we can develop [the FIT] model for other sectors, that is something we certainly want to build," he said at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. "We need to teach innovation.
"Where will the next iPhone be created, by whom, and where will the skills needed to create it be taught?" Spitzer asked.
About half of the 418,000 students in the State University of New York system go to community colleges.
Donald J. Pliner of Florida has pledged to establish an office and warehouse distribution operation in Miami-Dade County.
The company designs women's and men's shoes, handbags, leatherwear and accessories. It already has two retail locations in the county.
The Beacon Council, Miami-Dade's official economic development partnership, said Donald J. Pliner will hire up to 30 full-time employees and occupy more than 55,000 square feet of office and warehouse space in northwest Miami-Dade County within the next three years.
Donald J. Pliner employs more than 150 workers nationwide and has close to 700 customers.
But the company has a significant tie to Miami-Dade: Owner Donald J. Pliner and his wife, Lisa, are county residents. They are involved in local philanthropic efforts including the Miami City Ballet and the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts.
Frank R. Nero, Beacon Council president and chief executive officer, said Donald J. Pliner's decision to relocate some of its operations to Miami-Dade underscores the county's strength as a distribution hub and highlights the continued emergence of the fashion industry in the county.
Donald J. Pliner CEO Roxanne Ehrenberg said Miami-Dade offered the company everything it needed from a location-distribution infrastructure, access to key markets and a highly skilled workforce.
"By consolidating our operations from other areas into this one centralized and efficient distribution facility, we hope to more than double our sales in the coming years," she added.
The Beacon Council said it helped Donald J. Pliner with state and local incentives, research and marketing analysis, business contacts and referrals and employee relocation.
The agency said the company first met with Beacon Council representatives during a business development trip to New York City.
Funcom (Nachrichten) is proud to announce the introduction of a additional business model for Anarchy Online, exactly six years after the launch of the world's first sci-fi MMO. Set to launch this summer, Funcom now introduces a point-based system where players can purchase selected virtual items, as well as new content and services. The new approach comes as an addition to Anarchy Online's existing business models, and it is a current Funcom focus to only introduce items which do not affect gameplay balance.
The first virtual items to kick off the program will be the introduction of jetbikes and hover boards, giving players the chance to cruise around Rubi-Ka in an all new fashion. In addition Funcom will offer previously released scout-mechs, luxury apartments, Leet pets and various sets of social clothing. By using points the players can also get access to previous and upcoming expansion and booster packs, as well as new services like changing in-game names or moving to another server.
“Funcom has long been a pioneer on new MMO business models, and with the introduction of virtual item sales we are once again moving our game in an exciting new direction,“ said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. “Selling virtual items and smaller content upgrades is now a prevalent MMO business model in Asia. This has yet to be fully explored in the west, but we believe that the time is now right to test a limited version of such a model. At the same time we remain committed to the overall evolution of the game, making sure that Anarchy Online will be a success for many years to come.“
“Celebrating six years is a fantastic milestone for Anarchy Online, and we are genuinely honored to still entertain so many people,“ said Craig Morrison, Producer and Director on Anarchy Online. “As we now introduce a new addition to Anarchy Online we have ensured that our paying customers get certain privileges. At the same time we also want to show our commitment to taking the overall gameplay experience forward. I am therefore glad to announce that we are developing a new graphics engine for the game, replacing our entire server farm, as well as developing exciting booster packs which include new playfields and more.“
The Funcom points can at first be purchased in 10 and 20 USD / EUR packages. As an example of the price a new jetbike starts as low as 3 dollars, while a complete set of bikes can be bought for about 10 dollars. Players who are paying subscribers of Anarchy Online will get a set of monthly points included in the subscription price, and longer pricing plans like 6 and 12 months gives extra points. As an added incentive Funcom will send points to the player account upon receipt of subscription dues.
For more information about the game please visit www.anarchy-online.com.
ABOUT FUNCOM - Funcom is an independent developer and publisher of online games for PC, consoles and mobile platforms. Funcom has provided outstanding entertainment since 1993 and continues to expand its track-record of more than twenty released games. Recent titles include 'The Longest Journey', 'Anarchy Online' and 'Dreamfall: The Longest Journey'. For corporate information please visit www.funcom.com. For information about Funcom games visit www.anarchy-online.com, www.dreamfall.com, www.ageofconan.com or www.darkdaysarecoming.com. Funcom is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker FUNCOM.
You just never know where genius may lurk. Chances are, however, that the next Matthew Barney or Damien Hirst is likely to turn up in Los Angeles. Good weather, affordable workspace, a thriving creative community and a palpable sense of promise make L.A. a favorite destination.
``That's kind of why I'm here,'' says Michael Govan, who left the Dia Art Foundation in New York last year to become director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma). ``That openness.''
During a recent visit, I found a rapidly expanding, sociable art scene whose variety and informality make a striking contrast with the competitive, fashion-driven and market- dominated art world of New York.
From gallery enclaves in Chinatown and the mid-Wilshire district to Santa Monica and Culver City (L.A.'s most Chelsea- like neighborhood), prices -- and expectations -- generally run lower than in New York, with work by both emerging and mid- career artists selling for well under $10,000.
In L.A., galleries form a kind of cultural underground, operating in the shadow of an entertainment industry that is just beginning to pay them notice.
Mainstream museums, on the other hand, are actively engaged in promoting local talent, introducing new work by young artists before it ever appears in a gallery. At the moment, both UCLA's Hammer Museum and L.A.'s Museum of Contemporary Art are presenting exhibitions devoted to Los Angeles-based artists.
Broad's Museum
And when the new, Renzo Piano-designed Broad Contemporary Art Museum opens late this year on the Lacma campus, it will transform a dowdy public institution into a world-class destination.
Los Angeles has long been an incubator for artists, thanks to a concentration of top-flight schools boasting tenured faculties with enough clout to help forge new careers. They include such widely regarded figures as John Baldessari, Mike Kelley, Barbara Kruger and Cathy Opie.
According to Russell Ferguson, who chairs UCLA's Department of Art, graduating students used to go straight to New York. Now the majority stick around.
``It's not just that more artists are staying,'' Kruger says. ``It's also that more artists are moving here from New York.''
Open-house exhibitions by master's degree candidates regularly attract collectors with open wallets and dealers interested in developing new markets. Only two years after graduating from UCLA, 32-year-old Elliott Hundley recently made his New York solo debut at Andrea Rosen's blue-chip gallery in Chelsea. But his first public appearance was in a project show at the Hammer.
It can work the other way, too.
Common Themes
Ari Wiseman, assistant director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, chose the figurative sculpture and drawings of 35-year-old Matthew Monahan to exhibit this summer in the museum's MoCA Focus series, a three-year-old program devoted to emerging local artists. (Alexandra Grant and Florian Maier- Aichen are the others on view.)
Ironically, Monahan has no gallery in L.A. Wiseman discovered him at Anton Kern Gallery in New York.
``Matthew didn't come through L.A. schools,'' Wiseman says. ``He moved here for personal reasons. It's only been in the last year that collectors started circling around him.''
Yet it is the art schools that make it possible for artist communities to form in such a sprawling metropolis.
``There are definitely cohorts of people who go through the MFA programs here and stay together,'' Ferguson says. ``Even those who leave for other places stay in touch.''
Three Generations
``Eden's Edge: Fifteen L.A. Artists'' at the Hammer establishes a lineage of influence among three generations of local artists, drawing out common sensibilities and thematic associations that seem to have grown directly from the surrounding environment and culture.
Works on display date from the past 10 years and range from the amorphous ceramic blobs of Ken Price to ``paintings'' by Mark Bradford made from scraped and sanded billboards, and an almost slapstick, 24-hour video tour of L.A. by two young female collaborators, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn.
Organized by chief curator Gary Garrels (a recent transplant from New York's Museum of Modern Art), what the show identifies as typically L.A. art involves a particular attention to labor-intensive detail, a florid sensuality, dreamlike imagery that borders on the hallucinogenic or surreal, and an emphasis on collage.
Fresh and Exciting
In the galleries, new art runs from sophisticated to slipshod, but it is often energetic, rather than East Coast entropic, and is presented with a refreshing lack of pretense.
``You have a gallery in L.A. because you want to experiment,'' says Tara Sandroni, a partner in Sandroni.Rey in Culver City, an area of former motion-picture studio warehouses that has seen an explosion of new galleries -- at least 25 opened in the past couple of years.
``It's about the quality of the work and a point of view that's fresh and exciting,'' Sandroni adds. ``That's why we got into this business, and I hope we don't have to change.''
Daniel Hug, a dealer who lives above his small Chinatown shop, seems to operate it more as a showcase for the new rather than a showroom for the salable. ``It's less that I recognize good art than I recognize really bad art,'' he says. ``So what I show is the result of a process of elimination.''
``Eden's Edge: Fifteen L.A. Artists'' is on view through Sept. 2 at the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., at Westwood Boulevard. Information: +1-310-443-7000 or http://www.hammer.ucla.edu .
The ``MoCA Focus'' series continues through Aug. 13 with Alexandra Grant, through Sept. 30 with Florian Maier-Atchen and through Oct. 28 with Matthew Monahan, all at the Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 S. Grand Ave. Information: +1-213-626-6222 or http://www.moca.org .
(Linda Yablonsky is an art critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)
To contact the writer of this story: Linda Yablonsky at fabyab@earthlink.net .
At 9 p.m. last night, Bank Street was humming with black Mercedeses, all idling for the air conditioning. "It's gotta be cold when my client comes out," said one driver. A bright red motorcycle with Diplomat plates screeched to a halt and an olive-skinned man bounded off into the most literarily significant inn since the Tabard. As prescribed by the Post's Mandy Stadtmiller, we had made reservations through Jon Kelly, Graydon Carter's assistant.
At the front bar is a mixture of beautiful young women and somewhat less beautiful and less young men who are accompanying them. "Rich, Rich," one man who looked like a dumpy George Lucas called to his friend at the bar, "Sauvignon blanc!"
Few people were alone—except at the very end of the bar, a very tall and forlorn-looking Mark Warner, the former Virginia governor and momentary presidential contender, sat drinking a glass of white wine. A man at the bar, surrounded by skinny and cute girls, laughed and said, "Ha, it's just like the five-year-itch!"
At the tables, a bit after 9 p.m., the shining lights of Manhattan's social mantle began to stand out. In one corner by the window, Anne McNally (of Vanity Fair fashion fame) sat with New Yorker writer Michael Specter and beautiful model-actress-painter Anh Duong. McNally clutched a white alligator print Prada bag; Specter sported his trademark weirdly-folding spectacles. The waiter was pushing the "famous macaroni and cheese."
Across from the McNally fourtop, Spike Carter, Graydon's kid, and a couple of his teenaged-looking friends sported the ruddiness of white kids who had been drinking. One of the girls in that party wore an oversize gray Batman t-shirt, another an Adidas jumpsuit. Spike himself sported a scruffy beard and was by far the least well-dressed man in the room.
There is a coveted horseshoe-shaped banquette, located, oddly enough, near the bathroom in the front room. This is where Graydon usually sits when he's there. Last night that space was occupied by Graydon's dear friend Ron Perelman. Next to him sat Penny Marshall and a couple of young girls. Ron and Graydon are as close as Penny Marshall and Ron's ex Ellen Barkin; those two were in a 1985 off-Broadway production of Eden Court.
By 11:30, the crowd had thinned considerably. The average weight dropped as the literary types went to bed and the model types came to "dinner." Outside the black town cars gave way to white limos. Through the slatted blinds of a neighboring townhouse, a leery resident peered out at the scene with suspicion. Her crow-footed eyes glittered with hostility. The diplomat jumped on his motorcycle and sped away down Bank Street.