"Tell me more, tell me more like does he have a car"

October 26, 2018 Stefano Casarola

Directly from the film “GREASE” - Prada Flaming Sandal

PUMA X XO

November 11, 2017 Stefano Casarola

The collection PUMA X XO, which is the result of the collaboration between Puma and R&B singer Abel Tesfaye, known as The Weeknd, includes boxer jackets, modernized kimonos, high-top boots and mid-cut sneaker boots. There will be more releases during the winter season. The first one regards Parallel, a sneaker-boot inspired by the military world, with a contemporary, clean and minimal style. The shoes are equipped with a premium nabuck leather upper, a rubber midsole with Ignite cushioning technology, and a zipper back in the heel.

AFROPUNK

October 7, 2017 Stefano Casarola

Afropunk is a musical festival expressing Black pride and culture. Music sounds, many different styles, colors and beauty compose an explosive mix. The first Afropunk festival takes place in Brooklyn, New York, in 2005. Today, in addition to Commodore Barry Park at Fort Green, there are four new locations: Paris, London, Atlanta and Johannesburg. The name of the festival derives from the title of James Spooner's 2003 documentary, a story about punk minorities in the african-american world, of a black community fond of “white music”. The documentary is also the inspiration of the theme of each edition of the Festival: the rejection of any kind of discrimination in the name of art and music.

There are emerging designers coming from the African world and inspired by their origins.

THEBE MAGUGU is a contemporary South African fashion brand primarily operating within the field of women’s ready to wear. The collections mixes forward-thinking design with motifs from Africa's storied past.

All photos taken from www.facebook.com/pg/thebemagugu

I.AM.ISIGO is a fashion label based between Nigeria, Ghana and France that seeks to create a striking awareness of how African culture can be fused with an audacious yet minimal design aesthetic.

All photos taken from iamisigoonline.com

Carmen Miranda: icon of tropicalism

June 24, 2017 Stefano Casarola

Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, better known as Carme Miranda, was born in Portugal, February 9, 1909. She was a Brazilian samba singer, a dancer, and a Broadway actress, popular from the 1930s to the 1950s and nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell". As a young woman, after moving to Brazil with her family, Miranda worked in a boutique of Rio de Janeiro, designing hats and often singing on the job. Before long she was discovered and got a singing job on a local radio station. That attempt proved successful and she went on singing on radio and in clubs. In1930, she had already become the most important interpreter of the increasingly popular samba genre. In 1940, she made her first Hollywood film. It was during this time that Miranda developed the costume with the distinctive fruit hat from the traditional headdress seen on black women fruit sellers. She became famous for this signature fruit hat outfit she wore in her American films, especially in The Gang’s All Here from 1943. Miranda made a total of fourteen Hollywood films between 1940 and 1953 and by 1945 was said to be the highest-paid woman in the US. Icon of the Fifties, the artist died aged 46 in 1955. Her costumes have been collected by her sister and are exhibited in the Carmen Miranda Museum in Rio de Janeiro.

Being tall only 1.52 cm, she was also encouraged to wear platforms, once famous, especially crafted for her by designers like Salvatore Ferragamo.

From styleandfashion.blogosfere.it. Salvatore Ferragamo sandal.

Miranda exotic and extravagant costumes became her trademark. She created a sort " Miranda brand" that has always influenced fashion, from 70s till today. For this spring summer, Charlotte Olympia, has created a collection called “Let’s go Banana” totally inspired by the tropicalism of the “chica chica boom chic” Carmen Miranda.

By Charlotte Olympia. From charlotteolympia.com

By Charlotte Olympia. From matchesfashion.com

PRIMAVERA SOUND 2017

June 10, 2017 Stefano Casarola

Primavera Sound is one of Europe's biggest music festivals. It is held in Barcelona, at Parc Del Forum, and attracts lot of people coming from everywhere in Europe and not only. This thanks to his varied line-up which can satisfy different musical tastes, from rock to underground to house and techno. This year have played Arcade Fire, The XX, Aphex Twin, veteran rockers like The Slayer, the inimitabile Grace Jones whose concerts are always a big fantastic show, Bon Iver, Metronomy, and rappers like Run the Jewels. There were two huge stages for the biggest acts, four mid-sized stages where we have listened to Angel Olsen, Wild Beasts, Sleaford Mods and Black Angel, an area specialized in electronic music, and some other smaller stages providing a platform to more underground and indie names like Gold Class. There was even an indoor auditorium just outside the main festival grounds where we have enjoyed the evocative sounds of the Magnetic Fields. During this edition there have been also three unxpected concerts revealed only some minutes before their beginning: Arcade Fire on Thursday, Mogwai on Friday and Haim on Saturday.

Among the 55000 persons coming and watching the shows, the outfit were quite comfortable: long fluent dresses, mini dresses, cropped top with shorts, cropped pants. All weared with texan boots, ankle boots and sneakers. The main trend seen is probably that of the “athleisure”, a good mix between sport and fashion.

The Vegetable Orchestra

May 27, 2017 Stefano Casarola

The Vegetable Orchestra is really something totally new which has impressed me. It performs on instruments made of fresh vegetables. The utilization of various ever refined vegetable instruments creates a musically and aesthetically unique sound universe. The Vegetable Orchestra was founded in 1998. Based in Vienna, it plays concerts in all over the world. There are no musical boundaries for the Vegetable Orchestra, it can fuse the most diverse music styles: contemporary music, beat-oriented House tracks, experimental Electronic, Free Jazz, Noise, Dub. The musical aim of the ensemble expands consistently,

The ensemble is a mix of people with different artistic backgrounds: musicians, visual artists, architects, designers, media artists, writers. A concert of the Vegetable Orchestra appeals to all the senses. And at the end of the concert the audience is offered fresh vegetable soup...really amazing!

All the photos taken from: vegetableorchestra.com

PATTI SMITH

May 13, 2017 Stefano Casarola

In Parma, has recently started the exhibition “Higher Learning”, a collection of 120 black and white images taken by the poetess of rock Patti Smith with her inseparable Polaroid. Fragments of life immortalized by the artist during her travels around the world. The title of the exhibition is the same of a song from Patti’s latest album “Land”, and refers to the knowledge that comes from the study, but also from experience and from life. “Higher Learning” is a kind of reflection on the act of creating a piece of art and on the passing of time. The photos portray beds, statues, artistic instruments, gravestones, which have belonged to persons who have contributed with their work to the development of the culture.

Columns ofGabriele D'Annunzio's garden - Brescia

At “Palazzo del Governatore”, togheter with “Higher Learning” , there is another exbition of photographic works entitled The NY Scene, dedicated to the New York art scenery during the Seventies andEighties, with works by Nan Goldin, Robert Mappletorphe and Andy Warhol.

PATTI SMITH ICON OF STYLE

Patti Smith has many ties with the fashion world. She has a long-term collaboration with the Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester (Smith had even walked down her Parisian catwalk for the AW’06 collection), and she has also been a source of inspiration for brands like Balmain, Yohji Yamamoto and Saint Laurent. She approaches clothes with the same punk attitude she has been approaching her writing and music. Choosing a personal androgynous style, she started to dress like no other woman of the time. She was really one of the first female musicians to wear skinny jeans, tight white t-shirt, leather jackets, boyfriend jackets, combat style boots and oversized white shirts. With her hats and uncombed hair she adopted a look that is now the uniform of so many women rockers. She managed to be unequivocally sexy embodying an androgynous aesthetic, trasforming her clothes in an extension of herself, a perfect reflection of the artist herself.