France – The Stimuleye Blog

all eyes on hyères

antoine — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 23:21:52 +0000

Last Hyères before it turns 30.

For its 29th edition, Villa Noailles director and Fashion + Photography founder Jean-Pierre Blanc invited the American duo of Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, Kenzo designers and Opening Ceremony founders, to preside the Fashion Jury.

Amidst hundred’s of applicants from 55 different countries, here are the 10 finalists they picked.

Official lookbook by The Stimuleye.

Hyères 2014 - ALL EYES ON HYERES - by The Stimuleye.

All 10 designers were selected on the basis of a dossier and a full outfit, first by art director Maida Gregory-Boina, Maria Luisa buyer Robin Schulié and The Stimuleye colleague Filep Motwary, then by the jury presidents and their guests: Jay Massacret (V Man), Eric Wilson (InStyle), Carol Song (Opening Ceremony) and actress Chloé Sevigny.

Louis-Gabriel Nouchi, France.

Roshi Porkar, Austria.

Agnese Narnicka, Latvia.

Yulia Yefimtchuk, Ukraine.

Kenta Matsushige, Japan.

Anne Kluytenaar, The Netherlands.

Liselore Frowijn, The Netherlands.


Coralie Marabelle, France.

Pablo Henrard, Belgium.

Marit Ilison, Estonia.

Next week, the photography jury and selection will be announced.

Photography by The Stimuleye
Background by Mathilde Nivet
Make-up by Yannis Siskos
Hair by Fred Teglia

THE OPPOSITE OF GLOSSY

antoine — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:00:14 +0000

“Nobody wants to invade Marseille” claims Rudy Ricciotti,
architect of the MuCEM.

And yet everyone is flocking there since the Museum of Civilisations
of Europe & of the Mediterranean, dubbed MuCEM, opened its doors just weeks ago, the first national museum to open in the Phocean city, a project 11 years in the making.

Having shot & directed the introductory ad campaign for this new institution, The Stimuleye introduces you to the man who designed it, a man as famous for the fights he picks as the building he designs.
Exclusive photos by René Habermacher.


Portrait of architect Rudy Ricciotti by René Habermacher.

One side is the Fort Saint-Jean, linked to the city by a pedestrian steel bridge. A fort not unlike the Bastille – a bastion to defend Marseille against itself – the Fort Saint-Jean had been closed to the public for centuries.

On the other, also connected by a massive steel bridge, is Ricciotti’s creation, facing the Mediterranean Sea.
Refusing “architectural bling,” Ricciotti chose to have the new building dematerialize itself to complement the Fort Saint-Jean.

No reflections – leave it to the sea.


The concrete filigree lace of the MuCEM, a second skin like a screen that allows views, light and air
to pervade the space. Photography by René Habermacher.

TV spot for the MuCEM's launch, directed by Antoine Asseraf with SayWho and Agence White.


The MuCEM's a porous monolithic body planted on pier J4 in the Mediterranean sea, connected to the Fort Saint-Jean
with a 115m long slender pathway made of massive cast iron. Photography by René Habermacher.

Antoine Asseraf: Can you elaborate on your theory of world being split between two sides, matte and shiny ?

Rudy Ricciotti: Shiny is conceptual distance, reason, power and self-assurance.
Matte is frontal narration, intuition, defeat and regret.
Pick your side… I did.

AA: Mediterranean is a concept going beyond “local” but stopping short of “global” — how do you situate yourself, and the building, within that notion ?

RR: The South is a travel certificate, not a birth certificate.
The inhabitants of Munich are more mediterranean than those of Grenoble.
The Valais region in the south of Switzerland more latin than the Vaucluse in the south of France, etc.
The MuCEM is mediterranean through anxiety and existential difficulty.

AA: What is your relationship to monumental architecture ?

RR: You are talking to me, you fucked my wife ?


Top left: "Notre-Dame de la Garde" looming over Marseille and the the seven-level, 40 000 square meter
structure of the MuCEM. Photography by René Habermacher.


As massive the volume of the MuCEM may seem at first, it is the use of negative space that gives the building
the air of the metaphysical. Photography by René Habermacher

AA: What is the last thing which stimulated you ?

RR: A fish soup made by my partner…
Read my last pamphlet to smile:
« L’Architecture est un sport de combat » [Architecture is a combat sport], edited by Textuel.

MuCEM

With SayWho & Agence White

HYÈRES is TOMORROW: RAF SIMONS

rene — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 11:30:11 +0000

“I do think the main thing when you start with what you want to do, is to find an audience.

And to find an audience, the main thing is to start up a dialogue with them and to find out what they want.”

Raf Simons speaks with The Stimuleye on Hyères. Contestants get ready for the next edition, register before 26th of November, and send your entry before the 5th of December!


Mister Raf Simons likes it sharp but prefers his pictures in blur. Sequence by Antoine Asseraf

RAF SIMONS: With my exhibition at the villa, I wanted to show the form of extremity that can be the start of something and still be successful.

To me it’s really important for the generation who enters into this context to realise what kind of platform this is. I think it’s enormous. The amount of press that is there and the staging of the garments on a super high level.

We selected 10 contestants out of 50 (of initially 800 entries), together with Christopher Kane, Michel Gaubert, Maida Boina and Jean Pierre Blanc.

It was not easy. We had for each entry one single silhouette, which is complicated to judge with the dossier that is “flat” and has yet to be developed.

I did see there were people who were working on their collection, from the moment they were chosen to the moment it went on stage, and there were people who did not. That showed also in the final result: the ones who had been working on, got better.

It was quite a discussion within the jury. We were not unanimous about the winner. There were mainly two, but there was clearly already a third person [Emilie Meldem] that all members of the jury found interesting to mention, so we had to decide to vote, which is also the honest way I think. when you start discussing like “yeah maybe less people like that and more like the the other, but let’s still make the winner the one that less people like”- I think that is not correct.

Hyères Alive - Award Ceremonies

“Refined sensibility” – I think the winner [Léa Peckre] stood out for that at the end.

The second price [Céline Meteil] won for its purity. In relation to lots of other things the jury members thought that one was attracting because of the purity and of its honesty: to take one thing and kind of concentrate on that. One material, one process, one kind of shape. But it worked. It had something quite controlled at the same time something not too forced, not trying to be too special. Because we had quite some people who tried to be really special and it also went wrong.

2012 Contest guidelines & registration

Hyères We Go Again

antoine — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:56:46 +0000

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets. Every year, the Villa Noailles art center in Hyères, France offers fashion designers and photographers the opportunity to step into the spotlight…

Photo by 2010 photo winner Yann Gross, look by 2011 fashion winner Léa Peckre.

Design duo Viktor & Rolf ? Stills photographer and Ricard award finalist Erwan Frotin ? Mugler men’s designer Romain Kremer ? Fashion photographer Sølve Sundsbø ? ANDAM 2011 prize winner Anthony Vaccarello ? Lacoste designer Felipe Oliveira Baptista ? All these people have one thing in common – their work was all launched into the spotlight through the Hyères fashion and photography festival, which is now going into its 27th edition.

As a contestant, you must register by November 26th and send your application package by December 5, 2011. Your work will then be reviewed by a jury of fashion, art and photography professionals (including in the past Azzedine Alaia, Nan Goldin, Riccardo Tisci, Peter Knap, Karl Lagerfeld, Viviane Sassen, Dries Van Noten, Tim Walker, Christian Lacroix…).

If you make it past the first rounds of selection, you’ll be given production help for your collection, flown to the Hyères, given the chance to meet and talk with the 2012 juries, and have the famous Hyères team produce a gallery show of your pictures or a fashion show of your collection, in or around the unique setting of the avant-garde Villa Noailles, once vacation home to the likes of Dali and Cocteau…

And of course, the best part: my little finger tells me this year there will be even more prizes…

In case that wasn’t enough, here’s everything you need to know about Hyères in 2 minutes 6 seconds.

Villa Noailles
2012 Contest guidelines & registration
Registration deadline: November 26th, 2011
Submission deadline: December 5th, 2011

5 FACES OF LUDIVINE

antoine — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 09:17:33 +0000

Ludivine.
Both Femme-enfant and enfant terrible of French cinéma, Ludivine Sagnier has been popping up on screens for well over a decade now.

However, we’ll forgive you if you haven’t noticed it, because Ludivine is a chameleon, blending in with her characters, making you forget she’s Ludivine.

She has “the mystery of lightness”. We didn’t say it, Christophe Honoré did.

As she appears in his upcoming film, THE BELOVED as well as Lee Tamahori’s DEVIL’S DOUBLE, we were commissioned to do an interview and video portrait we did for Vogue Italia, out on August 1st 2011. Here is an exclusive teaser out-take, where Ludivine plays for us the imagined role of TERMINATRICE, in a Versace dress.

TERMINATRICE. Music OUTLANDS by Daft Punk.

Set to Daft Punk’s TRON soundtrack, TERMINATRICE is one of the 5 teasers René and I directed for the video portrait of Ludivine. Set in the new and newly-starred Jean-François Piège gastronomic restaurant (designed by India Mahdavi and M/M) and adjoining Thoumieux hotel, Ludivine offered to us one very full day of her very full schedule between 2 trips to Cannes…

The last thing that stimulated her ? Meeting Robert de Niro.
More on August 1st.

DREAM. Music ANTIPHONIE by Discodeine. Dress, Valentino. Launched on Un Nouveau Ideal.

ALIEN. Music GLASS JAR by Gang Gang Dance. Trench, Burberry. Launched on Fashion Copious.

CRISE. Music SECRETLY by Skung Anansie. Dress, Fendi. Launched on Jules Fashion.

IT GIRL. Music YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN by Cults. Top, Giambatista Valli. Launched on Hiromi's Journal inTime.

DIRECTED by Antoine Asseraf & René Habermacher

STYLED by Lydia Lobe Elessa
Assisted by Edwina Ramade

HAIR by Karin Bigler @ D and V
MAKE-UP by Yacine Diallo @ Artlist

PRODUCTION The Stimuleye
Production Assistant – Lynsey Peisinger

FILMED AT Hotel Thoumieux, Paris

THANK YOU
Jean-François Piège
Lisa Kajita
First Floor

PIXIFOLY

antoine — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 09:33:56 +0000

For many years now I’ve had this image permanently burned into my retina, visions of a kids’ television show centering around a giant TV screen-cum-arena showing video games in which people would “dive”. But it seemed so ancient that I couldn’t really identify its source…

With the recent obsession with Tron, and the upcoming opening of the Gaîté Lyrique digital center in Paris (more on that later), this visual memory of mine has resurfaced…

The source: Pixifoly, a segment on TF1 channel’s “Vitamine” children’s show, which ran between 1983 and 1984.

For better context, imagine that Starcade, the first video-game related TV show premiered in the USA in 1981,
TRON was released in 1982, and the NES didn’t go west until 1986…
I was 4 years old when I saw PIXIFOLY, and yet it got stuck in my head.

The basic premise of PIXIFOLY was “TRON, for kids, in front of a live audience, every week.”
Every wednesday afternoon, an audience composed entirely of children would gather on the set with the show’s hosts, facing a giant screen set into the ground.
One of the hosts would step onto the screen and be immersed into a videogame world full of adventure.

Each episode used a different videogame, a real game made for the consoles of the times – Commodore 64, Spectrum ZX, Atari, etc. – and showed the hosts “playing” with it using a giant pogo joystick. But because at the times videogames were a bit of a marginal subject, especially for the number one public channel in France, videogaming was not the core of the show, just a cutting-edge way of mise-en-scène for a kids adventure show:

Not only were the credits one of the first 3D (“images de synthèse”) sequences at the time, but most of the show relied on the revolutionary Paintbox graphics postproduction system to mix live footage of the hosts with game footage. Space invaders, scuba diving, kung fu fighting, Aztec adventures — the video game was but a starting point on which the producers built their storylines, adding extra characters, costumes and props into the mix. The favorite trick would be to have the characters “fly” on top of flight simulator backdrop.

In a way, the video game was a cheap, ready-made set for the PIXIFOLY adventures.

Watching some of the excerpts, I couldn’t help but think that some of the more “creative” episodes were almost hallucinogenic, but also wondering what it must have been like to be one of the kids in the audience. Video games felt intimidating (I remember urging my cousins to play the NES for my entertainment, terrified at the idea of playing myself) so I imagine it wasn’t a problem for the kids to watch the hosts “play” for them.
The show’s most exciting parts, however, were the moments when characters would enter or emerge from the screen — moments which were never experienced live but fabricated afterwards with keying and blue screen techniques.

How disappointing it must have been.
Today, we are accustomed to special effects, to the televised experienced being superior to the live experience.
We expect things we experience to be re-cut, re-mastered, enhanced.
We don’t even need to pull back the curtain to know there is a Wizard of Oz manipulating the scene.

But in1983, as jaw-dropping as it was to see PIXIFOLY on TV, as a live event it was probably a first step on the road to disenchantment.