DressSpace

Thriller is now the most popular mask as the movie and the album are released.
The zombie look of the king of pop in the mythical video Thriller under the direction of John Landis comes back to fashion among teenagers around the world for this Halloween.
Michael Jackson is present in all the cinemas around the world with the movie “This is It”.
His friend and film director Ortega: “These 120 hours of filming were meant for internal use. Now they are his artistic legacy”. In the movie there is a dedication to his three children and a sorrowful hymn to our planet “that floats above a cloud of dust”.
The preparation of a tour that would have seen him born again and instead turned into a tomb.

In that tomb ended up the emotions that He aroused. We all loved him passionately especially Rocco who as a child (he was born in 1979) was attempting the moonwalk. What about you, who hated him?

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Landlords are letting their empty high street shops at very low rents.
Halloween at the time of the economic downturn: temporary shops multiply.
New York: 715 are the new “pop up shops” that exists in between September and November.
The phenomenon starts to involve the big chains as well.

Ricky’s in New York is one of the big names that opened a Halloween temporary shop.
Spirit Halloween is a chain that has opened 725 temporary shops in September and they will close just after the “witch party”.
Temporary emporiums are opening for a few weeks only or even a just few days, taking advantage of the arising commercial opportunities.
It’s a way to brighten up the sales, chase the consumers who are everywhere on the run.
The phenomenon once sporadic has become impressive.
Precariousness increases in the work place as in the shopping windows.

How far from our culture is the macabre cult of the Halloween Carnival.
Massimo Gaggi on the Corriere Della Sera pages recounts how the crisis increases the desire for escape and a celebration full of ghost and “living dead” seams particularly suited to the American economic circumstations (in New York).
Do you think that here (in Italy) it could become something more than wearing Bernard Madoff or Michal Jackson’s mask?

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First half of V Century – Bologna Museum

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The chlamys pinned over the right shoulder, typical

military cloak of classic times, was largely used during the

V century especially by dignitaries.

The lozenge shaped embroidered panel ( tablion ) is a

symbol of eminence.

The robe worn underneath is fully covered by the chlamys

except for a sleeve.

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The semi rigid felt hat (from the piedmontese and Lombard lobia: name of the covered gallery of modest houses) also owes its success to the deputy Cristiano Lobbia (1826-1878) who was wearing it.
Cristiano Lobbia was born in Asiago, was a famous patriot, he joined the 1848 insurrections against the Austro-Hungarians.
He graduated in engineering, took part in the “Thousands” undertaking where he distinguish himself for his qualities.
He was elected deputy and he was reargued for his rightfulness and his bellicose spirit.
His most famous battle, the “Tobacco monopoly scandal”, revealed a system of bribes of which he had the actual proof. He was attacked by an unidentified man who attacked him with stick and stabbed him three times. They said he made it all up and he was accused of simulation of offence.
Lobbia entered the Parliament with the bowler that he was wearing the evening of the aggression which was showing a hollow in the middle due to the strike of the stick.
A Florentine hatter started producing a hat in the Lobbia’s style giving origin to the famous headdress.
He was fully acquitted and rehabilitated but all these sorrows led his to die a few months later at the early age of fifty-two.

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Naomi Klein’s prophetic bestseller while the world is in flames, from Genoa to New York
In summer 2001, the thick volume written by the Canadian journalist Naomi Klein (No logo. Global economy and new contestation) became a bestseller also in Italy. It had been published in the United States the year before and was instantly labeled as “the Bible of the anti-globalization movement” with millions of copies sold all over the world.
And now, with a recession that is even worse than the one in 1929, turbo-capitalism seems (stress on the word “seems”) to be on the wane and no-one in the world today that would never dare proclaim (with the usual insolent attitude) that the free market is perfectly capable of self-regulating itself, a book such as No Logo proves to be somewhat predictive.
One of the major merits of the author is that she has succeeded in bringing to light the multinationals’ modus operandi (still the same today) in the many Third-world countries, with their continued economic exploitation of, and disrespect for the most elementary human rights, perpetrated out of the consumer’s sight.
[…] many common citizens had decided to take part in the manifestations against the Western economic policies after reading No Logo, with the same spirit that had been moving them towards bio and Equo solidal purchases and refraining from buying their children footballs sewn with the sweat of children, maybe Indonesian.

A few key words to keep in mind: crucial consumption, sustainable development, pacifism, environmentalism.
These people, unlike others who came to Genoa dressed up in their uniforms and ready for street fighting, had no idea what they might find.
Only two months later, the whole world stopped to watch another live coverage of the events on September 11, 2009. In regard to terror, or better, terrorism, Naomi Klein was soon accused of connivance with the Twin Towers attackers.
In the meantime, all those crusades against luxury, which had broken out during the crisis in Greece and elsewhere, seem to have placated. Another turbulent autumn seems to be approaching and we are asking ourselves when will contesters wear the global teen uniform described by Naomi Klein in her book “No Logo”.

LA STAMPA

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At the beginning it was the drawing.
And the drawing was close to genius.
And the drawing was genius.
Apart from metaphors, it has to be said, the fundamentally creative role of the drawing will never be fully acknowledged.
In the Anglophobic Koine’ of business and technology the word drawing has nowadays been replaced by “design”.
But, today as in the time of Raffaello, “Design” speaks to the world in Italian.

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Heat and power. It is a challenge.
Red is the first color of the rainbow that babies learn to recognize, the first to which all peoples gave a name.
The color of passion, anger, and rage.
In the human body it is connected to the heart and circulation.

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(London 1778-Caen 1840)
“ The book of fashion” written from 1821 and partially appeared in 1835, remains practically unknown to the public for over one hundred years.
It will be published in 1932 in New York by Eleanor Parker.
Insisting on colour harmony and the relation that links fashion and architecture, he defines two principles that make men’s wear look smart:
-draping – definitely to be preferred to tight-fitting clothes;
-the right proportions – between the upper and the lower part.
He supplies the dandy with all the tools that will allow them to dominate with elegance.

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In the Tarantino movie Inglorious Basterds she is the face of vengeance.
Watch out for the moment in which Melanie Laurent puts on her make up with the notes of David Bowie‘s Cat People (Putting out fire) in the background, before setting up her destructive act, just before she lowers the hat-veil on her eyes.
What a beauty those two apache-like red marks on the cheeks.
Two signs to repeat each morning before setting our feet out in the world.
For urban female warriors.
For contemporary squaw.
To shade on the checks just before going out.
It would be a perfect commercial.

La Stampa

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Wool, silk and knitwear marvels, ties derive a great deal of their value from their fabrics.
The creation of special effects of warp and weft is an all Italian art, an expert combination of technique, experience and aesthetics which only the greatest fresco painters of our tradition would be able to match.

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