Miley Cyrus and a Gucci Flower perfume plus other style news of the week – Style
Let flowers sing
It's convenient when the campaign face for a fragrance called “Flora Gorgeous Orchid” has a hit called “Flowers.” Coincidence? Inspiration? Happy coincidence? Miley Cyrus has been a testimonial for Gucci Perfumebut the single was only released last year. So what could be more appropriate than having the singer perform at the launch last week at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles? Not only did she sing an acoustic version of “Flowers”, but she also adapted the lyrics a little. At the point “Started to cry, but then remembered”, she added a quick “I am the face of Gucci!” Does that mean crying and then crumbling such expensive make-up? Impossible! She quickly changed “Paint my nails cherry red” to “Ancora red” in reference to the new house color of Gucci designer Sabato de Sarno.
Guests such as Kendall Jenner, Salma Hayek and Dree Hemingway cheered with excitement. Cyrus then sprayed the new perfume – sweet gourmand vanilla meets airy marine notes – into the crowd. The bar for perfectly fitting fragrance ambassadors is now miles higher. Fortunately, the party took place before the publication of the figures for the second quarter. Sales at Gucci have fallen again by 20 percent, which is due to a general luxury slump that is affecting many (but not all) brands, but also to the relaunch under de Sarno's creative leadership, which is not yet running quite smoothly (gucci.comavailable from July 29th).
Leatherlust
The handbag brand PB0110 was founded a few years ago by Philipp Bree, scion of the Bree bag dynasty, to create a place for very high-quality and minimalist leather bags. He has succeeded in doing this excellently, and the Label with particularly sophisticated models. The latest collaboration is also an extraordinary eye-catcher, but for once the focus is not just on portable storage space, but on the pure joy of leather upholstery. A worthwhile object for this is the famous D4 folding chair by Marcel Breuer, still one of the flagship Bauhaus pieces of furniture today. Created in 1926-1927, its reduced interplay of tubular steel and upholstery is still very appealing.
Philipp Bree was also impressed by the simple aesthetics when he saw the chair at the current license holder Tecta in Lauenförde, Lower Saxony. This enthusiasm for the almost 100-year-old piece of seating gave rise to the idea of a joint tribute – which finally took shape together with the Munich designer Ayzit Bostan. She designed a bag made of the finest leather, which not only harmonized with the classic chair in terms of its dimensions, but also with its simple, functional appearance – and of course with the fine bag-maker's leather that was used for both objects. To round off the ensemble, Bostan also designed a new stool, entirely in Breuer's design language, on which the bag fits perfectly. The particularly fine leather that was used for all three pieces (in different thicknesses, of course) comes from a small tannery on Lake Constance and promises to develop a particularly beautiful patina over the years, made for the next 110 years, so to speak. The three collector's items will be available from September at Tecta and selected PB 0110 dealers, the chair will cost 2500 euros.
Great moments
For a trained painter, this is actually not a surprising title: “Out in the open” is the name of the exhibition Arthur Elgort in the Berlin Gallery Camera Work – a term that defined the open-air technique of the 19th century, when artists were fed up with painting in studios with stale air. Even Elgort, who studied painting techniques at Hunter College and only later came to fashion photography, quickly found the prescribed paths of his genre too narrow. The New York native literally brought a breath of fresh air into the artificial studio atmosphere of the shoots, he took the models outside, into the fresh air, encouraging them to move more and pose in unposed ways. The resulting snapshot aesthetic was revolutionary back in the early 1970s. Elgort, born in 1940, became one of the greats in his field. He photographed Stella Tennant in tweed and rubber boots jumping into a pool, Kate Moss with her dog in the play of light and shadow on a Parisian avenue, or “Naomi Campbell Jumping in the Air” (camerawork.de, on view from July 30th in the virtualgallery).