Only 5 days left before the launch of the FoA webshop and so the preparations are well underway! Last week my kitchen transformed into a photostudio in order to shoot our vintage clothing collection. Together with the best team of people the photos turned out great. Many thanks photographer Bobby Regensburg and our two lovely models Lou-Lou and Marije!
First of August is going to take new directions. I’m really proud to tell you that in less than two weeks, on the first of October, FoA will launch her very own webshop and besides that, FoA will open in the conceptstore of the Amsterdam Fashion Institute! For three months, the concept of the BY AMFI statement store is fully inspired by First of August, entitled ‘BY AMFI meets FoA’. Let me give you a short preview on the concept, written by Pawel, one of the AMFI-students:
‘A blog, even one with such a strong visual identity as FoA, never remains the same, evolving together with the society that it reflects. Updated daily, a blog is a format or a container serving to store moments that have already passed. In that sense a blog is a 3-dimensional construct: the hight and width of the screen + time. BY AMFI as a retail space is also a 3D being: the hight, the width and the depth. In order to combine the two worlds into one experience, we give the blog depth and our store the dimension of time.’
The preparations are already in full swing and as the design of the store becomes concrete, I’m getting more and more excited! On October first we will celebrate the opening and the launch of the webshop in the AMFI store. There’s also a special after-party Backstage in Chicago Social Club in Amsterdam. So save the date and make sure to come and celebrate with us!
Ofcourse FoA as a blog will keep you updated about our activities and inspirations!
Posted in FoA.Moments
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Tagged amsterdam, Amsterdam Fashion Institute, By Amfi, Chicago Social Club, design, first of august, Opening By AMFI meets First of August, Sociology, style, trend, vintage
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This month’s Chateau is of Pieter Ary, independent designer and owner of handbag labels ‘Pieter Ary’ and ‘Ary’. Again, I had the great opportunity to visit one of those exclusive hidden places of the city. Pieter is living in a former bank building alongside the canals in the heart of Amsterdam. While busy sorting a large pile of ties by color, Pieter kindly welcomed me in his home and gave me a ‘guided tour’ through his spacious apartment. His handbag collection, as stated on his website, is a mix of influences and styles, such as past mixed with present, precious with sophisticated and western world with that of other cultures. If I have to describe his interior style, this is exactly how I would put it. All different rooms feature a characteristic atmosphere. There is a clear contrast in style visible between the front and back of the apartment. The loft at the backside is a great open space where several exclusive and large interior pieces fill up the room, whereas the front rooms are classic, with one room still having 17th-century ceiling paintings. Everything tidy and in place, I was surprised when he opened up different drawers and boxes and dozens of vintage bags, scarfs and belts came out. Pieter revealed himself as a true vintage collector with a passion for beautiful items.
‘I get inspired by random moments and objects in my surroundings. The fusion of these different elements is the foundation of my creativity.’ Pieter Ary
© FoA. Images by Karlijn
‘The real question for politicians, audiences and artists remains: why does art matter, even if it cannot repare its public subsidy; if it represents an investment on which there is no direct quantifiable return; if it cannot guarantee support from audiences; if it cannot demonstrate immediate social relevance; if it cannot even say in which direction it should be moving to deliver true innovation?’ (Tusa, 2007)
One of my favorite sociological subjects is about the way culture and the arts are moving in time and society. According to Lewis-Williams, arts can’t be understood outside it’s social context. Even so, an object, whether industrial or craft, can be moved by or in a societal dynamics to surpass the intention of the creator. Aesthetic preferences and patterns of cultural participation operate social distinctions amongst people. As sociologists like Bourdieux and Simmel propose, aesthetic, together with manners, style, fashion and behaviour all contribute to processes of social differentiation. Accordingly, art serves different social purposes.
The material products of culture – furniture and cultivated plants, works of art and machinery, tools and books –are products of our own desires and emotions, the result of ideas that utilise the available possibilities of objects. By cultivating objects, that is by increasing their value beyond the performance of their natural constitution, we cultivate ourselves. Nowadays, aesthetics has changed meaning from its modern restricted version, purely concerned with the fine arts, to become a very much postmodern phenomenon. Earlier, aesthetics was lurking in the museums. Now, aesthetics is omnipresent in all aspects of life and can be defined as living emotions, feelings and shared passions. In today’s postmodern society, everyone is inspired and nourished by the massive offer of art made available by reproduction and the media and therefore free in all choices of turning each day into a work of art.
Image: dizzy-dreamer.tumblr.com
‘Fashion is not random change. The desire for novelty and distinction, on the one hand, affects demand in the direction of contrast. The resisting force of habit, on the other, directs change to take more the form of slow development, of variations along a given line of choice. Nonetheless, fashion is able to sidestep and circumvent limits, always inventing new solutions, to satisfy the desire for novelty. Fashion is essentially the love of variety, of changing modes and creating new ones.’ (Foley, 1893)
Images: vanessajackman.blogspot.com, styleclicker.net, hear-the-horses.tumblr.com, on-thestreets.tumblr.com, thelocals.dk
