Maison Martin Margiela… untitled and unrated…

José Amorim
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26
Reading Time: 3 minutes

margiela_exhibitition momaMartin Margiela is a belgium fashion designer and represented with Rei Kawakubo the important leaders of desconstruction. Today he became a mystery, specially after the Diesel company had bought the brand. An article in New York Times dated October 1, 2008, gave many in the fashion world their first glimpse of Margiela’s face, as well as breaking the news that he allegedly offered to hand the reins of his company over to Raf Simons, who appears to have declined the offer. In October, 2009, Margiela majority stakeholder Renzo Rosso finally made public: “Martin has not been there for a long time. He is here but not here. We have a new fresh design team on board. We are focusing on young, realistic energy for the future; this is really Margiela for the year 2015.” A press release announced in December last year, that Margiela “has left the business. No replacement creative director will be appointed. Maison Martin Margiela will continue trading but the company declined to comment on the reasons for Margiela’s exit. Can Martin Margiela survive to Martin Margiela ? Not sure… We all know that only a few brands survived in such situation. Wait and see. For the moment L’Oréal, who also possess the Fragrance License for Martin Margiela portraitDiesel, has launched this year the first Fragrance under Martin Margiela. They wanted to capitalize on the discrete, almost mysterious and enigmatic personality of the creator. By the way, it is very rare to see Martin Margiela’s face because he refuses photos and celebrity. Here is one of the rare pictures of him. Infortunately the fragrance is not a masterpiece. The name of the fragrance is “untitled”. Easy but still let’s say it is coherent with the brand. And martin margiela untitledthe white colour too. But that’s it basically. It is a product not so interesting. A would compare it to Yohji Yamamoto fragrances. This brand was previously developped by Procter & Gamble, another giant in the fragrance business. We can say that these huge groups do not have the right people to develop such brands. These are too intellectual and need a big marketing and creative work to bring them at a level of interest and desire that is shared with customers. I can easily say that untitled of Martin Margiela will not last for ever although it is a beautiful brand and a beautiful name. The scent is either too intellectual or too minimalistic. Ok, I know that “less is more” but there are limits… here the video of the perfumer who explains the fragrance approach.

The funny thing on this video is the man at the beginning that ONLY get out fragrance brands that only belong to competion… is there a hidden message ?
LA

Marina Abramović: The body as medium

Arsene Wargas
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9
Reading Time: < 1
marina Abramovic
marina Abramovic

Marina Abramović is a serbian artist based in new york. She has been very active since she started her career in the 70’s. All her work is based on the relationship between Art and Performance. When the limits of the body reach the possibilities of the mind.
Exploring the physical and mental limits of her being, she has withstood pain, exhaustion and danger in the quest for emotional and spiritual transformation. She is an incredible artist, not so known in Europe but one the main references today. She is what we call a multifacetted artist. She always blend performances, sounds, video, sculpture… She presented her work in all the greatest places for the Art in the world. This year Marina Abramovic will be in a major retrospective at the MoMA in NY. It is until the 31st of May 2010.

LA

Ulysse Nardin, a beautiful high tech masterpiece

Arsene Wargas
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1
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Ulysse Nardin logo
The luxury brand Ulysse Nardin, presented last month at Baselworld its new mobile creation. Do you know this brand ?

Founder, watchmaker Ulysse Nardin, was an accomplished watchmaker who studied horology under his father, Leonard-

Ulysse Nardin
Ulysse Nardin

Frederic Nardin, Frederic William Dubois and Louis Jean Richard-dit-Bressel, in Switzerland. Before the advent of quartz timepieces, merchant and military ships relied on highly accurate mechanical timepieces known as marine chronometers. The best known of these was the M,GR.F model by Ulysse Nardin. Similar of this model, were used by Hamilton to supply the US Navy and by Seiko for the Japanese navy. Of the 4,504 certificates for marine chronometers issued 4,324 were issued to Ulysse Nardin (Lucien F Trueb, Watchtime).

Rolf Schnyder
Rolf Schnyder

In 1983 Ulysse Nardin was acquired by businessman Rolf Schnyder who, in conjunction with watchmaker Dr. Ludwig Oechslin, relaunched the brand with other investors. Schnyder, Oechslin and the staff of Ulysse Nardin, design and create complication timepieces using modern materials and manufacturing techniques. The base movement used on all version of complication watches is the ETA.

Today Ulysse Nardin proposes the best and exceptional mobile phones in the world in terms of luxury and added-value. Each mobile phone has a watch automatic mecanism that allows us to charge the phone battery just by the movement of the mobile phone inside a pocket or in a bag.
Here some images of the latest Chairman model, 1,843 units available all around the world.
With the new Chairman line, the brand hopes to connect to the world of Timepieces. Of course not everybody will be able to buy a Ulysse Nardin watch in the future but it is a good example of state of art.

Source: Wikipedia
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Victorinox watch… from Pocket knives to a Travel watch!

Sebastien Eich
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2
Reading Time: 2 minutes

victorinox logoWho does not know the famous Swiss Army Knife ? For more than 125 years, men always had this incredible pocket tool as a loyal companion during travelling, hiking, camping, hunting, fishing… well as soon as adventure knocks the door. Even if lots of people knows about the Swiss Army knife, only a few knows the name of Victorinox. The small swiss company founded at the end of the 19th century became one the most beautiful success story Switzerland created. Today different product categories exist at Victorinox : Fashion, Luggage, Fragrances, Knives of course and Watches. In order to unite heritage from the past and true innovation, Victorinox created a Travel watch, the ideal companion for short or/and long adventures around the world.

Victorinox Travel Alarm 1884What happens if a Master Horloger and a Master Cutler meet ? Well, we have a brillant, original and clever Masterpiece. The engineers succeeded to implement the principle of the retractable blade to the design of a stylish travel alarm. Victorinox produced it as a very limited edition, as only 1884 units were produced in the world.  To know more about this beautiful creation, follow up this link.

Here are some pictures, revealing all the beautiful details. What I like the most ? The sound of it when it closes or opens… it sounds like a Swiss Army Knife!

Travel Alarm 1884 detailsVictorinox Travel Alarm detail
source: VSA Official Blog

For more details, check the Official Victorinox Swiss Army Blog here.

LA

Tokujin Yoshioka and the invisible chair for Kartell

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The well known designer, Tokujin Yoshioka just created an astonishing polycarbon chair called the “invisible chair”.
Thanks to a very high-end technology on polycarbonates, he succeeded to create the most thick polycarbon object in the entire furniture industry. This year only a happy few will be able to see it at Milanos Design fair and may be next year we will be able to order one… Can I be already on the waiting list ? Thx
LA

Fergie runs for Avon… Outspoken Eau de Parfum

José Amorim
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49
Reading Time: < 1

fergie outspokenFergie, the famous female singer from the multi-planetary music band The Black Eyed Peas, just signed a multi-million contract with Avon. The celebrity girl will launch her new and first fragrance called Outspoken!
“Strong and outrageously bold, Outspoken is for the woman who needs no introduction; she is fearless, true to herself and her beliefs.” On the Advertising we will see Fergie with a Megaphone… is she the female version of 50’c ? The interesting point in this subject is that finally AVON get back on the race for Celebrities fragrances. In deed Avon started many years ago with local celebrities around the world. With the modern market segmentation and the tremendous success (short term) of Glow by Jennifer Lopez, many other Fragrance Groups started the development of Celebrity brands. Especially groups like Estee Lauder and Coty Beauty. With this new license, Avon seems in a good shape and the challenge will be to sell Outspoken by Fergie all around the world. Normally Avon launches in more than 150 different countries simultaneously which represent a huge launch.
After the big 1 million dollar hit of Beyonce, can Fergie do better ?

fergie Outspoken

Sharp reveals its new 3D screen

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sharp 3D LCD screenSharp Electronics has unveiled Friday its newest product which is a touch-sensitive liquid crystal display (LCD) that shows 3D images without the need for viewers to wear special glasses. In a conference with the media, Sharp said the new LCD can support three-dimensional images at a distance of 30 cm (or 12 inch) from the screen without requiring a person to wear special glasses for 3D images. The company said the 3D screen is using a technology called parallax which can display image dimensions simultaneously to each eye while retaining picture quality, thus giving the illusion that viewers are looking at three-dimension images. According to Sharp, the 3D touchscreen can be used in several consumer gadgets including gaming consoles, mobile phones, digital photo frames, and digital cameras.

The interesting thing will be to have the 3D DVD players, DVD, Game consoles and perhaps even laptops… The 3D mania is here to stay…
sharp

LA

Scarlett Joahnsson is a “Mango”

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Super star Scarlett Johansson accepted to be the muse and model for the new Mango campaign for spring-summer 2010.
The campaign concept is called Summer Light and the spanish brand has choosen the italian photographer Mario Sorrenti. He became very well known thanks to all nudes printed in Vogue and Harper’s Bazar. He works for all best brands in the fashion world. He photographed Kate Moss a thousand of times and this is the 4th collaboration between him and Scarlett Johansson.
Summer Light evoques the intense yet subtle summer light that reveals all things. Between innocence and desire, this campaign signs another brilliant advertising celebrity strategy that Mango has. It all started with Claudia Schieffer and now it pursuits with Scarlett J. We can easily imaging that all these wonderful women accept with few conditions because the result is always astonishing. They look 10 years younger… Look at it…!

LA

Hublot goes for Soccer in 2010 and 2014

Sebastien Eich
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2
Reading Time: < 1

hublot_fifaThe famous swiss brand Hublot became the official Timekeeper for the next 2 soccer worldcups in South Africa and in Brazil. This is a very important deal because the Hublot logo will be placed in referees time boards. Of course the swiss brand will develop a special edition Timepiece range for each of the 2 events. What we also know is that Diego Maradona will be one of the ambassadors.

Hublot chief executive Jean-Claude Biver said: “We already have an in-depth understanding of the footballing world, as Hublot was the first luxury brand to become involved in this field.

The Brand also hopes that this more “democratic” communication channel will also bring new customers and new markets for them. Wait and see…

LA

Jennifer Aniston… LolaVie

José Amorim
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0
Reading Time: < 1

American Actress Jennifer Aniston is launching this month her first fragrance. The 41 years old ex-Brad Pitt fiancee signed a contract with Fallic Group for the creation and Distribution of her first perfume. Fallic Group has already other celebrities brands in their portfolio like Eva Longoria.

Jen declared that she worked more than one year on this project. The name of the fragrance is LolaVie. The reason why this name ? I am still searching for one !!! Any thoughts ?
Here is the first draft of what the advertising will be.
Lolavie Jennifer Aniston

LA

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