Julian Roberts Productions (Nothing Nothing etc)

[cerfas]

...

OK, you get the idea...the rest can be seen at their website:
http://www.blowpr.co.uk/JULIANandSOPHIEsite/school/tunnel/index.htm

 

[Tism]

Wasn't this label up for sale recently to the highest bidder?

 

[fashionyork]

cerfas, thanks so much for the topic and for sharing all this pictures and info. I never heard of this label before. I really like their cut, I loved the shirts with the faces printed on it ! fabulous!

 

[cerfas]

A/W 2003
Bedtime Activists: London fashion week demonstration

 

[cerfas]

 

[cerfas]

 

[fashionyork]

cerfas, thanks so much for the topic and for sharing all this pictures and info. I never heard of this label before. I really like their cut, I loved the shirts with the faces printed on it ! fabulous!

 

[cerfas]

look book

 

[cerfas]

 

[cerfas]

S/S 2004
"a collection designed, cut, and sewn in a single day at London Fashion Week, in front of an audience of photographers"

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Where else is there left to go when you RUN OUT OF FASHION .....
or rather the motivation to revisit it, or when you are faced with the challenge of inventing something that has not first been reviewed & authenticated by Vogue or The Face ...................?[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Just think about the task facing fashion designers, and the project in hand ..... at the moment EVERYONE EVERYWHERE is obediently designing for spring-summer-autumn-winter-2004, because that's what they're supposed to be doing, because the rules clearly state that 2004 follows 2003 in orderly sequence.[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]
'2004' is going to be THE big theme of next year, and it's going to be the closest thing we've ever had to 'RIGHT NOW''.
[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]But you just KNOW how it's all going to unfold:
Designing for 2004 is going to be all about designing in the manner & style of past decades, in tribute form, cos that's become the tried & tested way to get a new idea accepted these days... by wrapping it up in nostalgia to soften the blow of recognition.[/font][font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]
The theme and references of '2004' are going to be littered with imitations and lookalike tributes to past styles, shapes, structures, phrases and moods, because the language of Style has come to define anything 'NEW' as being characterised by it's arrangement, as if all the GREAT AND IMPORTANT things have been done, and now we are just left celebrating their rearrangement.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]That is just where we are.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]The Designer is now positioned where the press want them to be: Everything you create is achieved within the space given to you by the media, and everything that is made which falls outside that focused space is completely invisible to all but the designer......or rather in press terms, it simply does not exist at all, and nor should it.
2004 is the given space, and should 2004 be declared another revival, then anything else is just going to seem too radical, audacious and strange.
[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]The system of delivery works something like this:
2004 will probably look something-like-1993-or-some-other-style, will arrive in the shops in January 2004, but will first be previewed by Press&Buyers in September 2003, who will probably tire of it by Christmas..... but doesn't this system of delivery seem incredibly PREDICTABLE AND SLOW ?
Why are we only allowed access to 2004, when desire for new things and THE SPEED OF FASHION surely justifies forward access to maybe 2005 , 6 or 7 ??!
The reason simply is......... NOBODY HAS DESIGNED IT YET..
Isn't it strange, there are thousands of creative people designing clothes all over the world, but nobody seems to be designing beyond 2004.
It's as if we are not allowed.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]It's 2003, and we are only now able to purchase for the first time, the sci-fi-video-mobile handsets that are like the ones they had on Star Trek 25years ago.
New Technology, Old idea: Another previously unattainable idea has blazed onto the market at a snails speed.
Another technological milestone has finally been passed.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]But technology is not the future, it is the easily influenced kid-brother of imagination, and right now it is imagination that should be driving forward technique, showing everybody the new ways of making and designing.
We always have the past shapes for as long as we wish to remember them, but the future requires an act of sheer imagination.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Fashion isn't just the latest version of deja-vu called 2004, it's the NEW WAYS OF MAKING which cast their influence way beyond it.
With this much technology , and the ability to stylistically move backwards and forwards in time, surely we ought to be venturing somewhere beyond 2005 by now........
At least just for one season.[/font]

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]JULIAN AND SOPHIE, July 2003.[/font]

 

[cerfas]

everything above from www.julianand.com
Julian now has his own label, Parc deS EXpositions
Images from A/W 05 from www.fuk.co.uk

 

[cerfas]

....

 

[cerfas]

That's correct, Tism. I actually put information about that in this thread.
You're welcome, fashionyork!

 

[droogist]

Thank you for posting this, cerfas. I got a bit frustrated looking at this thread; their concepts are quite compelling, but the clothes just never seems to live up to their promise. I think the eloquence of their texts really set you up for something exciting...and then you see the garments they've made out of all those passionate convictions, and you're like, "oh..." One of those things that just works better on paper, perhaps...

 

[Estella*]

that's a lot to absorb...i'll be back later. thanks cerfas!

 

[mishahoi]

i love it all! i remember reading all about their "collection in a day", their patternmaking class (which, after reading it a second time, makes sense now!) and selling their label on ebay (augh! what an opportunity to snatch up!) but i still find it fascinating even now. i would love to see the stuff in person. i think the clothes are quite eloquent

 

[cerfas]

You're welcome , droogist, anna_k. The written portions really are the best part...it's so impossibly hard to strike a working balance between concept and product. It seems he started out too much with an idea and tried hard to make the clothes fit to the idea, rather than examining the possibly poetry of the actual clothes. I think Parc des Expositions gets it a little better, the clothing is more sculpture than wearable which is a bit silly, but oh well it still is interesting to look at on the hanger.

 

[travolta]

thanks cerfas for posting. in the past couple days i've been slipping in the reread this and look at the website..i sent the link to a bunch of friends, and some industrial design friends to see how they perceieved the patterns. i didn't want to write until i had everything clarified in my head..but oh well..
for the reasons it fails it succeeds in my opinion. they spoke about how ideas so often never see the light of day..and what is the definition of success? is it the concept being executed? or is the the process--the means to the end. in the real world, it should translate..it has to, but i think its very clever on their part to add all this stuff on a website. they understand that they were not successful..but they know the idea is good enough to not die..so they presented an opportunity to pass on the torch. to me this is more interesting than if the clothes suceeded. clothing is rarely intellectualized..if i were to see those designs and they were perfectly executed i would not for the life of me know what went on behind its conception. but it think clothing should be analyzed, because after all, it is a design like anything else...shouldn't it be critiqued? shouldn't it be innovative? a gillet razor is scrutinized over w/ such intensity its liteally nasa technology...we wear clothes on our bodies..why shouldn't we think about clothing in new ways besides the old techniques. clothing could be so much more..and it is essentially a tube stuck on top of a body. people are dynamic, moving...there are so many possibilites for these two things to mesh. anyways i think there concepts worked..cause its out there and some of the people i sent the website to are going to try out the patterns themselves and try ot figure out how to make what they are trying to do succesful...

 

[cerfas]

You're welcome, travolta. Great comments . Very intelligent. I like your idea of it as them "passing on the torch"--putting the ideas out there so that others can try for themselves. And you're right, they seemed very much aware that it wasn't totally successful. Determined in their decision to end the label.
Related to people trying out the pattern making techniques for themselves, they also post on their website results from the class they taught at RCA:

Vanessa Rolf

Eliza Wheeler

Yujin Jung


Also, the meticulous and thorough documentation adds to the feeling that they wanted people to understand all the ideas behind the project...not to just let it die.

 

[travolta]

thanks cerfas. this reminds me of a st. martins project where the first years were to draw up several outfits (not flats..just croquis) and the professors chose a handful of those submitted and distributed them to the class asking them to construct a garment based on the drawings. because the drawings were not technical..each person had to figure out the best way to interpret it..i wasn't sure what i thought of the project then..but i think its quite clever. it really shows you about a persons skill level, thought process...

also the first page you posted some of the finished garments, and they become lamps, essentially. its beautiful..but not too gimmicky, because if the clothing is like as my friend commented "bookmarks" of the process..then the clothing lit up like that exposes this. the level of opacity informs the viewer of the density of layers...give them something to gage of how much fabric was used in that particular place on the body. it also removes the clothing from the context of the body..which might have been its "downfall" and shows it like a piece of fabric..some manipulated material..and it becomes something to scrutinize..like an x-ray of the garment. there are many people who make clothing and as they said..its a personal thing..and they don't necessarily share their processes..it think the idea of an idea failing..posting it and then having a sort of after life..works. if there wasn't such a fluidity or accessibility to information it would probably be a failure..but in terms of reaching people..i guess they are showing people through their own way of thinking..concepts..how to critque their own work..what it could be. its very inspiring