Dear Shaded Viewers and Diane,
A great deal of attention, looking towards
the spring to come, has been paid here in London to the finest art of
millinery. Whole aisles at Somerset house have been appointed to this so very
British craft, but if the notion of it now reminds you of royalties in ribbons
and lavender hues, you'll soon be welcome and pleased to update your
assumptions. A personal favourite is the work of Maiko Takeda, whose fresh MA
graduate collection has already be worn by no less than Bjork on tour, and we
all know what that means. Inspired by Robert Wilson's 1976 production of Philip
Glass' opera "Einstein on the Beach" that Maiko saw at the Barbican a
couple of years ago, her headpieces envelop the wearer in a soft, pellucid
cloud of refracted starlight, misty and permeable, vaporous yet resplendent.
Titled "Atmospheric Reentry", Maiko's collection is a carefully constructed
play of shifting transparencies: clear acrylic discs and filmy, colour-gradient
spikes, that when not worn roll up harmlessly in her hands like precious and
tamed, luminous jellyfishes.
Later,
Silvia
