MIFF- Won't You Be My Neighbor? and McQueen

My last two films for this year's MIFF were appropriately both documentaries. I started my afternoon at Hoyts Melbourne Central with Morgan Neville's film Won't You Be My Neighbor? about the children's television host Fred Rogers. I grew up watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS, so this film was like reliving my childhood. It mixed archival footage with interviews of family, friends and crew members. It was amazing to see how trailblazing the show was, from teaching children about kindness and empathy to addressing serious topics such as death, divorce and war. During the Civil Rights movement Mister Rogers made a point to share a wading pool with Officer Clemmons, played by Francois Clemmons who was African American. In addition, through national tragedies such as Bobby Kennedy's assassination and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, Mister Rogers was there to help children make sense of it all. It was an emotional film to watch, but a great tribute to Fred Rogers and the important role he played in educating children for over 30 years.

My other film for the afternoon was Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui's documentary McQueen about the British fashion designer Lee Alexander McQueen. Using his personal archives, fashion show footage, and interviews with family, friends and those who worked with him, the film told the story of how McQueen went from an apprenticeship on Savile Row to being one of the great fashion designers and couturiers of the 1990s and early 2000s. The film was broken up into different sections based around key collections for his McQueen label and Givenchy. It gave you a glimpse of his life as became more popular, and how he kept pushing the envelope with his often controversial runway shows. After the screening Dr Hannah McCann, a lecturer in gender studies from the University of Melbourne, read a short essay about the film and McQueen himself.

MIFF- Yellow Is Forbidden and Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist

Tonight I attended two MIFF films that were both fashion documentaries. First I went to the Kino Cinema to see Yellow Is Forbidden about Chinese designer Guo Pei. New Zealand filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly was at the screening and spoke about flying to China to get her to agree to do the documentary. Best known in the West for her yellow dress worn by Rihanna at the 2015 Met Gala, the film focused on the lead up to Guo's first Paris fashion show Legend, which was inspired by cathedrals and featured recently at the NGV Triennial. While in Paris she also applied and was accepted into the prestigious Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Referring to herself as the world's slowest fashion designer, her runway shows are filled with the most intricate and amazing creations that are often so heavy they are difficult for the models to walk in. I really enjoyed the film and learning more about how Guo Pei runs her fashion business in order to fund her true passion, haute couture designs.

Next I met up with Megan at Hoyts Melbourne Central for Westwood: Punk, Icon, Activist about the life and career of British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood. Director Lorna Tucker wove together archival footage alongside present day interviews with family and the main players in Westwood's fashion business over the years. She had to fight for her independence from ex-partner Malcolm McLaren, as well as have her talents taken seriously by the British fashion establishment. Currently she co-designs her fashion line with husband Andreas Kronthaler, and has turned her focus in recent years to combating climate change. At the start of the film Westwood was reluctant to speak about past events she considered "boring" and by the end, the film raised more questions than answers on aspects of Westwood's life.

NGV Triennial

The NGV Triennial is an international exhibition of over 100 contemporary artists and designers from 32 countries that opened in mid-December 2017. It showcases works in different media across cultures, scales, geographies and perspectives throughout all four levels of the NGV International.

Ebony and I went this morning to check out the exhibition before it got too crowded. These were my main highlights out of the many different pieces we saw. On the ground floor was the large sculpture installation Eternity-Buddha in Nirvana.... by Chinese artist Xu Zhen, which combined replicas of Buddhist and Greco-Roman, Renaissance and Neoclassical sculptures.

American artist Pae White's (Untitled) installation used paint and acrylic cord in different colors to create three-dimensional shapes that ran across the room and from the floor to the ceiling. As you moved around the space you got a different perspective on each piece. The room was slightly disorienting and I worried that I might accidentally bump into one of the pieces.

Another cool and interactive room was the immersive digital installation Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement by the Japanese art collective teamLab. As people moved around the room sensors created a continuum of digital particles on the floor. Therefore, the faster you moved, the stronger the vortex or flow became.

One of the most popular pieces in the exhibition is Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's Flower obsession. Created as a little apartment, each attendee is given a red flower sticker to place anywhere in the various rooms as you walk through. Over time, all the surfaces will become covered in red flowers.

Upstairs on Level 1 is one of the most creative fashion collections I've had the pleasure of seeing in person. Chinese fashion designer Guo Pei's spring-summer 2017 couture collection Legend was inspired by the Cathedral of Saint Gall in Switzerland. The pieces are ornate and beautiful, and you can also watch footage of the fashion show to see how the garments move.

One of the most confronting works in the Triennial is Australian artist Ron Mueck's Mass, which is located on Level 2 within the historical collection galleries. The piece is comprised of 100 large-scale sculptures of human skulls that are mainly piled up in one half of the room. It reminds you of the Paris catacombs as well as genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda and other places.

The NGV Triennial is free and runs until 15 April 2018. Definitely make an effort to check it out if you are in Melbourne.

The House Of Dior: Seventy Years Of Haute Couture

The latest fashion exhibition at the NGV is The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture. It features over 140 garments that have been produced by Dior's seven different designers between 1947 to 2017 and tells the history of this formidable fashion house through the theming of designs to demonstrate the evolution of the House of Dior.

There are so many beautiful gowns that are a part of this exhibition. The layout of the rooms allows you to get close up views of most of the pieces so you can see the detailed construction techniques that have gone in to creating them. It was interesting to see the fashion shows that many of these garments featured in, although some of the John Galliano shows were really cringeworthy due to the cultural appropriation in some of those collections.

Here is a sample of some of my favorite pieces that were on display.

The House of Dior: Seventy Years of Haute Couture is on at the NGV until 7 November 2017.

Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Artists

The latest international fashion exhibition at the NGV is Viktor&Rolf: Fashion Artists. It features the avant-garde creations of the famous Dutch designers, showcasing over 40 pieces from their haute couture and ready-to-wear collections, as well as videos of their runway shows over the years. In addition, the exhibition contains 21 handmade porcelain dolls that are dressed in a miniature key piece to represent each of their major collections since 2008.

Viktor&Rolf are known for the sculptural elements of their designs, with pieces from some of their key collections such as Cutting Edge Couture, The Fashion Show, Wearable Art and Performance of Sculptures on display in the exhibition.

For Viktor&Rolf the theater of the fashion shows can be just as important as the clothes themselves. Two examples of this were one of their first shows, Russian Doll, where model Maggie Rizer was on a rotating platform as they kept adding layers of clothing one on top of another until she was wearing all nine outfits at once. Another key show was Flowerbomb, where the first part of the collection was all in black, and then the stage rotated to reveal another group of models all in pink (this show also went along with the launch of the Flowerbomb perfume, which is one of my favorites).

The exhibition is an amazing opportunity to get to see the construction of these complex designs up close. It runs until 26 February 2017 at the NGV.

200 Years of Australian Fashion

This is the final weekend for the 200 Years of Australian Fashion exhibition at NGV Australia. It contains over 120 pieces from more than 90 designers that span two centuries of fashion in Australia. The exhibition was staged across four large rooms, with each one themed around a different era.

The late 1800s to early 1900s dresses were classic Victorian era designs with cinched in waists and large bustles and trains.

The 1950s salon was filled with some really beautiful dresses, and included a revolving platform in the middle surrounded by hanging mirrors.

The 1960s and 1970s styles on display ranged from mod A-line dresses to flowers and kaftans, with the emergence of Australiana elements in designs by Jenny Kee and Linda Jackson in the late 1970s and early 1980s. There was one room set up like a large 1980s fashion runway, with videos of different fashion shows from that era playing on the walls.

The last part of the exhibition featured works from contemporary Australian designers and demonstrated more of a minimalist design aesthetic. The final piece on display was a four meter tall dress by Dion Lee specifically commissioned for the exhibition, which was quite impressive to see in person.

Calgary

Our last day in Canada was spent exploring downtown Calgary. First we went to the Calgary Tower for its 360 degree panoramic views of the city. As we walked around the observation deck you could see Calgary, the surrounding prairies and even the Canadian Rockies out in the distance.

Near the Tower is Stephen Avenue Walk, which is a pedestrian mall during the day lined with shops, restaurants and entertainment venues. If you have the time you can do some shopping and then grab something to eat from a wide range of restaurants along the walk. 

We ended up spending the majority of our day at the wonderful Glenbow museum, which has a variety of art and history exhibitions across three levels of its building. My favorite exhibition was Kaleidoscopic Animalia, which was designed and curated by fashion designer and Glenbow Artist-in-Residence Paul Hardy. He combined original fashion designs with animal inspired artifacts and artworks from the museum's collection to create thematic department store style windows. It was a very unique way to put things together, and the exhibition had a playful and humorous undercurrent in many of the displays. It is on until 5 September 2016.

There were also two exhibitions focused on Canada's First Peoples with Native Cultures from the Four Directions, and Niitsitapiisini: Our Way of Life which focused on the history, traditions and values of the Blackfoot people from their own perspective.

On the walk back to the hotel to pick up our rental car I took one of my favorite shots from the trip - reflections of the sky and surrounding skyscrapers on two glass skyscrapers downtown. This trip has shown you can find beauty both in nature and urban environments.

We drove to the airport mid-afternoon to make sure we would beat the traffic and check in on time for our early evening flight to San Francisco. In what was a first for me, we actually went through United States customs in Canada. Unfortunately the international terminal is currently under construction, so it was very cramped with a lot of areas blocked off. We did manage to grab a table to eat a late lunch/early dinner at The Pub before boarding our flight home. On the way back to Marin we encountered some of the thickest fog I've ever seen driving through San Francisco and across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Oscar de la Renta: The Retrospective

It is the last few days of the Oscar de la Renta: The Retrospective exhibition at the de Young museum in San Francisco so I was lucky to be able to go see it today with Lynne. Originally from the Dominican Republic, de la Renta came to New York City in the 1960s where he began designing for Elizabeth Arden before starting his own label a few years later.

The exhibition features more than 130 ensembles from de la Renta's career, although it mainly seemed to focus on the 2000s. He is best known for his amazing ball gowns which were worn not only by First Ladies but also Hollywood celebrities during awards season. Each room of the exhibition is based around a different theme, and as is the case with most fashion exhibitions, it is a great opportunity to see the craftsmanship of his designs up close.

There is a video room where you can see two short films about de la Renta, which give you insight into his personality and the things he was passionate about. The exhibition closes on 30 May so if you are in the City be sure to get down there this weekend to check it out.