MoneKnows

Month: May 2013

  • PUNK-Chaos to Couture

    PUNK-Chaos to Couture

    In 1982, I was a teen in New York, attending Stuyvesant High School and as preppy as preppy can be. I was a pink button-down oxford Ralph Lauren shirt with khaki pants wearing Bass shoes prepster.

    Then I heard the Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and everything changed. Punk music was cool, but to me punk clothes and style were cooler!

    Was I true punk ?  Nah… I was never going to drop out of school especially since I wanted to go to Brown or MIT when I graduated. But, I got an unconstructed olive green blazer, ripped out the shoulder pads and covered the lapels in safety pins. Wearing it made me feel like a superhero. I wore it everyday for almost a year. I had learned the transformative powers of fashion.

    Starting this month, the stunning exhibition PUNK-Chaos to Couture at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art explores the influence of punk style on high fashion.

    Focusing on the relationship between the punk concept of ‘do-it-yourself’ and the couture concept
    of ‘made-to-measure,’the exhibition will be organized around the materials, techniques, and embellishments associated with the anti-establishment style.Presented as an immersive multimedia, multisensory experience, the clothes will be animated with period music videos and soundscaping audio techniques.

    In this video, curator Andrew Bolton walks us through the galleries:

    If you have the chance, make sure you see it before it closes August 14th.

  • House Vision 2013 Tokyo Exhibition

    House Vision 2013 Tokyo Exhibition

    Back in March for almost three full weeks, the House Vision 2013 Tokyo Exhibition , a groundbreaking collection of seminars, installations and an expo, organized by Kenya Hara and Tsuchiya Sadao took place. House Vision seeks to introduce the current Japanese urban lifestyle and discuss how traditional Japanese design elements can be pulled into its future.

    About HOUSE VISION from HOUSE VISION on Vimeo.

    In the U.S. our connection to our homes and urban lifestyle is based on the “melting pot”, we take in influences from everywhere.  However, in Japan, the relationship between home design and  preservation of traditional Japanese culture is strongly connected.

    A few things about this exhibition were very interesting to me. First, is the idea of  how “housing literacy” needs to be taught to the now maturing Japanese urban dwellers with emphasis on the “proper lifestyle” that is more a fit with their mature identity and thus will bring in happiness to their lives. This “identity” anticipates children moving out of the home and parents giving up having too much stuff. The mature Japanese urban dweller should be able to live in a smaller space that includes multipurpose appliances in a traditional Japanese living space design format.

    This is totally different from the latest trend in the U.S. of generations families living together, as demonstrated by Lennar’s very successful NextGen homes. In a Nextgen home, a complete suite that includes a separate kitchen and living space can be added to the home.

    In a way, our homes can be said to be ‘curated” by us; after all, we fill our homes with items that we hope represents our aesthetics and beliefs. Is it right to have all that stripped from you at a certain age because it is the “proper” way to live  is a question that comes up when listening to the House Vision discussions.