venice bitch
this text includes a lot of links in case you are interested in any of this, for you to read further or do research or just ignore them :)
the first few days at venice biennale everyone was talking about the babies in the japanese pavilion and pussy riot (my queens here), by the end of the week, the chatter was about patti smith at chanel, patti smith for the vatican (someone explain to me exactly how the hans ulrich obrist and ben vickers connection happened with the catholics here), bjoerks surprise (ish) day rave in an incredible bottega outfit, amazing gossip debating if the spermbank semen of the danish pavilion installation actually made it through customs, and if it’s socially acceptable to end up at harry’s every single night (I say yes). the doors handled by italian rule followers this week were unnecessarily strict, to the point where you had to embarrassingly name drop who invited you, which absolutely no-one wants sink down to but what are you gonna do. my personal highlights included seeing anish kapoor at lisson gallery, the peggy guggenheim collection (I haven’t been in years and seeing this calder headboard was incredible, I feel like if anyone of you has a crafty person in their life you should recreate), and the incredible new fondazione dries van noten, just when you finished with one room there was another with an even more insane ceiling and gorgeous comme des garçons piece:
I had kind of forgotten that venice is a walking and boating city only, so the footwear I packed was a little wrong, and I mostly ended up in loro piana loafers, the row kitten heel ballerinas (this sounds so wrong but trust me they are cute), the row flat ballerinas (they are the best, I wear them all the time, but you need little socks in there as the leather transfers colours onto skin, or at least they do in my case), and my most worn bag was my phoebe gig bag.
this was us at a cocktail by bottega veneta and hauser & wirth, the building was insane and I texted my editor in chief a million pictures from products. I am a fan so far of what louise trotter is doing, I think she is fabulous and bottega RTW especially up close is insane. my only wish is that there are more heels again, especially on the runway I would like to see the garments styled in a more elegant, less heavy way.
aren’t these fab?
meet me by the bean! I am a huge huge anish kapoor fan, and he was in the building when we were touring the exhibit! I got too shy to ask for a picture, which I now regret. other notable street walk ins: the tellers, throughout all different parts of the city, each time a different sweater and not always pink!! we walked past raf simons and held eye contact for way too long, and saw dries himself several times, he looks fresh (is he getting anything done or just happy?). the two things I missed were marina abramovich exhibit, even with press tickets the wait was two hours when we tried… so someone tell me how it was! and then everyone said that prada was supposedly fantastic.
venice is mainly huge networking, if you’re in art you need to be seen there this time of the year, and if you’re a luxury brand that wants to signal that you are attached to AND supporting culture and art, you must be part of the mix. I’m sure most of you know that chanel is one of the only brands that doesn’t have it’s own art foundation (think of LV foundation, bourse of pinault, foundation alaia, fondazione prada, now dries, here is a longer text I found about how and why, if you’re interested!), they take a very different approach in supporting arts and culture, much more discreet, maybe a bit more long term nurturing thinking, and with a lot less branding than their competitors, they don’t dress their artists in chanel for example, fashion and arts is almost separate in the house. you can read about it here, sorry the link brings you to the german site but I am sure you can figure it out lol. yana, who runs the program, just got a feature in elle, that kind of explains her job.
anyhow, it was a fabulous week with a lot of visuals to digest and I feel so lucky that I get to experience these things. I will hopefully be in basel in june :)
and one of my favourite up and coming design and architecture magazines, Neptune papers, just launched their issue and one of the fab covers was shot at the donald judd foundation (one of my absolute favourite artists!!!) and it’s very brendahashtag coded, and you can order it here! it’s thick and will look great in your living room.
thank you for reading, have a wonderful sunday xx
I am leaving you with an absolute fail of a caption:
LMAO
🖤