When National Symbols Are Lacking

We'll grab onto anything

I've always said that if there is no concerted effort at keeping national symbols alive and well, something else will come along and take up the space.

This is just what happened with the Canadian Summer Olympics team uniform, under the direction of the Hudson's Bay Company Suzanne Timmins.

One of the designers, Tu Ly, apparently designed the "award winning" uniform for the Canadian team at the 2006 Winter Olympics. I tried finding Tu Ly's other works online, including his supposed knitwear for Saks Fifth Avenue, but came up with nothing. Same thing for his co-designer Vivienne Lu.

Tu Ly's 2006 work was commissioned by Roots Canada, and I get the feeling that he was under strict directions by Roots to follow their austere "everyman" designs and probably didn't have too much creative leeway.

Well, now that he does, here's what he, and his design team, has come up with.

Here are some of the design elements of the Canadian Olympics team uniform:

Font: Bamboo
Font direction: Up to down to mimicking Chinese script
Main background color: China Red
Style: Hip-hop camouflage
Inspiration behind the designs:
- Chinese tattoos
- Chinese astrology elements: Fire, Wood, Water, Earth Metal
- Chinese lucky number eight
- "Organic" maple leaf

I thought Olympics, as friendly as they are, are about giving strength to your own team, with dynamic home-grown symbols and designs.

What the designers have come up with is not Team Canada, but a subversive act to make Canadians into pseudo-Chinese.

At a CBC interview, critic Stig Larsson, a designer and owner of sports store Level Six and himself a national athlete, was concerned that designs makes the clothing too prominent, diminishing the athletes. I agree with him, and upon viewing his company's products, it is a real surprise that he wasn't part of (if not leading) the Olympics design team.

One last thing, 80% of the clothing were made in China, which given the direction of the design should come as no surprise.


Left: Chinese tattoo prints with "organic" maple leaf
Right: The number 8 as an emblem

Left: The Village-wear print with China red background
Middle: Close-up of print with mixture of Chinese and Canadian symbols
Right: "Organic" maple leaf, looking like a marijuana leaf


Left: The five Chinese astrological signs
Right: Bamboo font text from top to bottom (instead of left to right)

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The Unwearable Genius of John Galliano

Fashion as Inspiration

John Galliano is the enfant terrible of the fashion industry. And whatever deviations he takes, he will always be forgiven (at least by me) for his talent, and, I really believe, his deep desire to create beautiful clothes.

For some reason, he seems to be stuck on tarnishing the very women for whom he creates his clothes. His models have strange doll-like make-up at times, some he adorns (!) with moustache-like paint, others walk in heavy fur winter boots while modelling silk floral spring clothes.

Another strange obsession of his is are wispy, dusty veils. These grey head-gear look like they're made of cobwebs from dusty interiors. They look like death at the doorstep.

His obsession with death (and with distorted, doll-like women) almost has a romantic feel to it, of the decadent, violent type.

I can hardly go into what makes Galliano deface (literally) his designs. That is why his work will only remain an inspiration and perhaps this is as lofty a compliment as I can make.


Galliano's Genius
[Click image to see larger version]

Everything from the great Valentino, on the other hand, is always for the wearing.

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Slowly Seeping into our Landscape

Moratorium on exotic representations

It is unusual that I don't post images for two straight weeks, and the previous post was too serious to put up images which corroborate with the erroneous "Moorish Revival" as proposed by the writers at Space Toronto.

I understand and appreciate fully the creative desire at times to represent "exoticism." And this is just what I did with my gouache print design which I did a couple of years ago entitled "Desert Jewels." I'm pretty sure it is the turquoise domes of the Iraqi landscapes which inspired me to do this.

But, this type of occasional representation is a far cry from the stories of design and fashion changes that our Muslim residents are planning for our cities.

Print design "Desert Jewels"

With sadness, I have to conclude that exoticism has to be out for now. And we are far better off going back to our original landscape to reinforce it back into our psyche.

Fortunately, I did just that last year, with my Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace series.


Print design
"Trillium/Queen Anne's Lace"

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The Global Runway Part 2

Wrinkles, Straps and Short Hemlines

Vera Wang is the most famous wedding dress designer out there.

And once again, the informal wins the day in her Spring 2006 Wedding collection.

Compared to Amsale's serious formality, Wang seems to revert back to the dishevelled, rebel adolescent.

Surprisingly, her best cut wedding dresses are the short ones. But she is just following a certain juvenile tendency exhibited by many top designers these days.

Of course, designers don’t come out of the blue, they have to cater to their clientele. Yet, I can’t help but believe that people will follow the choices designers make, rather than dictate how these designers should design.

Designing is a big responsibility. Which requires a strong mind, and an even stronger principle.

Some Vera Wang examples:

Straps and lace;Wrinkles and uneven hemlines. Radical statements.

And her best designs also come incomplete - in length!

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The Global Runway Part 1

Formality and Culture

One of the most formal events of anyone's life is one's wedding. So, it seems hardly surprising that (Ethiopian) American fashion designer Amsale chose to design wedding dresses.

Amsale's Christian, formalized background, I would argue, led her to pursue one of the most formal clothings of all.

At her wedding, a girl is finally a woman. She leaves her parents' home to start her own. And will soon have her own children with whom she must interact as a fully matured adult.

Although, in Christian households, there is a hierarchy of adults, the woman is still the head of the internal runnings of the household, and the behavior and upbringing of the children. She cannot afford to regress into the child she was at her parents’ home.

That is the ideal, in any case.

So, the wedding dress expresses this ideal. It shows a formal and aesthetic acceptance of the woman's adulthood and womanhood at a most important turning point in her life.

Amsale captures this beautifully.

Almost all of her designs are exquisitely formal. Her choice of the stiffer satin rather than the formless silk, her clinching of the waist, her emphasis on clean, straight lines, and above all a mature femininity of beautiful lacework, show her innate understanding of this unique moment in a woman’s life.

I’m not surprised that Amsale has so far stuck with designing bridal wear, rather than branching out into other clothing lines

Until she has mastered her trade to the level of the formal designer greats like Valentino, she is better off keeping out of the limelight which might force her to compromise her style for the running market.

At least, that would be my advice to her.



Amsale's ivory-toned wedding gowns

(click on image to see larger version)

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Vogue Cover Illustrations

The Legacy of Aubrey Beardsley

Aubrey Beardsley lived a short life of twenty five years. His drawings, many used to illustrated books and posters, had a sense of foreboding about them, often with androgynous figures with cruel expressions. Kenneth Clark, the art critic and writer says that Beardsley knew about Evil.

His many illustrated books included: Oscar Wilde’s play “Salomé”, an art an literary magazine called “The Yellow Book” of which he was the art editor, and Alexander Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock”.




Close to his death (due to tuberculosis) he converted to Catholicism and died at the very end of the nineteenth century.




These Condé Nast Publications for Vogue Magazine covers reminded me of Beardsley’s illustrations. Most of them are from the turn of the twentieth century (1912-15). Beardsley’s beautiful (but disturbing) illustrations have found their true place. Decorating the women he tried so much to put in a favorable light.

Beardsley Illustrations: From top
The Black cape; Cover design for Smithers catalogue of rare books; Isolde; La Dame aux camelias; The peacock skirt.

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