FIRST OF ITS KIND/ LAST OF ITS KIND

A Fashion House Brings Out the Spray Paint Again

A jacket and trousers from Alexander McQueen nod to the brand’s explosive runway finale decades earlier.

Article by Lindsay Talbot

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Alexander Mcqueen_1A double-breasted jacket and cigarette trousers from the brand’s fall 2022 men’s wear collection. Alexander McQueen jacket and pants, alexandermcqueen.com. Still life by Chase Middleton. Set design by Leilin Lopez-Toledo.

In September 1998, the British fashion designer Alexander McQueen presented his spring 1999 women’s wear collection, a rumination on the relationship between man and machine, in a former London bus depot. The Paralympic athlete and double amputee Aimee Mullins appeared in the show wearing a pair of intricately hand-carved ash legs designed by McQueen, who also paraded his signature bumsters and cutaway coats through the dimly lit warehouse. For the finale, the model Shalom Harlow walked out in a papery muslin dress with a billowing underskirt of white tulle and a belted chest harness — and then stood on a revolving wooden turntable, like a music box figurine, between two ominous-looking mechanical robots shipped in from an Italian car factory. They engaged with her in an eerie, menacing dance, and then began shooting paint at her, covering her dress with black-and-neon yellow graffiti. Harlow, who trained as a ballet dancer in her youth, flailed her arms as she spun around. “And when they were finished,” she later recalled, “they sort of receded and I walked, almost staggered, up to the audience and splayed myself in front of them with complete abandon and surrender.” The performance — like “High Moon” (1991), the Rebecca Horn installation that inspired it, of two rotating guns shooting red liquid at each other — was provocative and operatic, exactly the kind of spectacle that made McQueen’s shows so exhilarating to watch. 

For the brand’s fall 2022 men’s wear collection, the creative director Sarah Burton nodded to this moment with an ivory double-breasted jacket with peak lapels and pleated cigarette trousers covered in a similar poppy yellow-and-black spray-painted motif. The print was created by photographing a person in motion, capturing a blurred outline that was then engineered to wrap around the body of the suit before being printed on viscose cady fabric. The finished design looks almost like the result of a bomb blast — a fitting revival of an explosive coup de théâtre.

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A Blazing, Bejewelled Comet Re-Enters Chanel’s Orbit

Coco Chanel’s first — and only — high jewellery collection informs the house’s latest bijouterie.

Article by Lindsay Talbot

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CHANEL HIGH JEWELLERY_1Chanel High Jewelry Pluie de Comètes open ring in 18-karat white gold and diamonds, POA. Still life by Fujio Emura.

In November 1932, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel presented her first and only high jewellery collection, Bijoux de Diamants, in her 18th-century townhouse at 29 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. Among the roughly 50 pieces, which were inspired by the celestial floor mosaics at Aubazine Abbey (she’d lived at the Cistercian monastery’s orphanage as a child), were bracelets that coiled around the wrist like comet tails, a brooch shaped like a shimmering crescent and necklaces with diamonds arrayed to evoke the Big Dipper. “I wanted to cover women with constellations. With stars! Stars of all sizes,” said Chanel, whose bijouterie, like her pioneering clothing designs, was defined by an elegant yet restrained simplicity: Diamonds were cut and faceted using traditional techniques, and each stone’s setting was rendered to appear completely invisible.

Now, 90 years later, the fashion house revisits the couturier’s iconic debut collection with its 1932 High Jewellry line. With interstellar symbols such as the sun and the moon, the 77 pieces celebrate lightness, transformation and the vast beauty of the cosmos. Nearly half the creations feature iterations of the comet seen in Chanel’s archival necklace, among them the bedazzling new Pluie de Comètes open ring. Set in 18-karat white gold and with a radiant trio of five-pointed diamond stars, it encircles the finger like the cascade of a blazing meteor — a fitting reinterpretation of her truly out-of-this-world original.

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Bottega Veneta Ties the Knot Again

A new clutch highlights the brand’s signature woven leather.

Article by Lindsay Talbot

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Bottega Veneta Woven BagThe Bottega Veneta Knot clutch, a new interpretation of a classic bag, made from calf leather and featuring brass-toned hardware. $3,800, bottegaveneta.com. Photography by Chase Middleton.

Since its founding in 1966, Bottega Veneta has been producing leather goods in the small northern Italian city of Vicenza, where artisans make handcrafted bags and other accessories using a centuries-old technique called intrecciato, weaving strips of leather into a tightly crosshatched pattern. Refined yet durable, the interlocking motif came to signify discreet luxury. In 2001, when the German designer Tomas Maier arrived as the brand’s creative director, the fashion industry was at the height of It bag mania and the accompanying obsession with monograms, flashy hardware and other embellishments. But Maier was determined to protect Bottega’s bags from trends. Shortly after his appointment, he came across a rounded box clutch circa 1978 in the archives and decided to make it his own, swapping out its rectangular clasp for one shaped like a nautical rope and naming the curvy pochette Knot. Since spring 2002, most seasons have included iterations of the clutch, which has been reimagined in an array of materials, colours and sizes.

Last November, Matthieu Blazy, who had been overseeing ready-to-wear at Bottega since 2020, took over as artistic director. For his fall 2022 debut, the 38-year-old designer — a French and Belgian national who previously worked at Calvin Klein, Celine and Maison Margiela — took inspiration from Umberto Boccioni’s 1913 Futurist sculpture “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space.” “Bottega Veneta is, in essence, pragmatic,” Blazy said in the show notes. “Because it specialises in bags, it is about movement … there is fundamentally an idea of craft in motion.” Not surprisingly, intrecciato showed up in many of Blazy’s creations, including over-the-knee boots, miniskirts, bucket totes, chunky belts and driving loafers — and, notably, his reinterpretation of that now-iconic clutch. Blazy’s foulard Knot is composed of interwoven strips of paper-thin calf leather, with a slightly softer silhouette than the original and a twisted, brass-toned clasp. The hypertextured bag, which comes in onyx and bone, is unmistakably Bottega — synonymous, said Blazy, with “style over fashion in its timelessness.”

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The World’s Most Famous Pilot’s Watch, 70 Years On

Reimagined in a slimmer silhouette and contemporary colour palette, the Brietling Navitimer is poised to capture a new generation.

Article by Victoria Pearson

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01_breitling-s-new-navitimer-b01-chronograph-43_rgb-1The 2022 edition Navitimer B01 Chronograph 43 in Ice Blue, Mint Green, Copper, Black and stainless steel Silver, $12,290 each, breitling.com

In the early 1940s, as World War II raged across Europe, the Swiss manufacturer Breitling played an integral role in supplying aeroplane cockpit instruments to the Allied forces. It was during this time that the brand developed the Chronomat, an aviation-inspired wristwatch that featured a revolutionary new slide rule, a function that allowed pilots to make all the necessary flight calculations while airborne. 

Not only was the Chronomat an instant success, it became the official timepiece of the international Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA). This partnership prompted the birth of the now iconic Breitling Navitimer (the name is an amalgam of “navigation” and “timer”). Embraced by airline captains and aircraft enthusiasts, the Navitimer went on to make its outer space debut in 1962 on the wrist of the American astronaut Scott Carpenter. It was also worn by celebrities of the time including Miles Davis, Serge Gainsbourg and the Formula 1 champions Jim Clark and Graham Hill. 

In early 2022, some 70 years after the release of Breitling’s slide rule calculator, the company unveiled a collection of redesigned Navitimers that seamlessly merge the most recognisable aspects of the original with modern refinements and colours. The circular slide rule, notched bezel, trio of chronograph counters and 12 o’clock placement of the AOPA wing insignia are enough to inspire nostalgia, while the alternating brushed and polished metal elements give the timepieces an understated lustre. A slimmer silhouette houses 70 hours of power reserve, while a choice of sizes (46, 43 or 41 millimetres), colours (including blue, green and copper) and case materials (stainless steel or 18-karat red gold) allows devotees to select a Navitimer journey and aesthetic that is all their own.

This is an extract from an article that appears in print in our tenth edition, Page 104 of T Australia with the headline: “First of its Kind/Last of its Kind”

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A Pair of Diamond-Encrusted Leopards From David Webb’s Menagerie

The gold and platinum cage earrings — also set with emeralds and black enamel — were inspired by the jewellery designer’s 1960s-era sketches.

Article by Lindsay Talbot

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PANTHER EARRINGSFrom left: This archival David Webb sketch from the 1960s of an emerald and diamond leopard brooch served as one of the references for the jewellery house’s new cat-inspired earrings. David Webb’s new Caged Leopard chandelier earrings, made of cabochon emeralds, brilliant-cut diamonds, black enamel, 18-karat yellow gold and platinum. Price on request, davidwebb.com. Still life by Jong Hyup Son. Set design by Haidee Findlay-Levin.

Born in 1925 in North Carolina, the jewellery designer David Webb grew up idolising his grandfather, an engraver, and at 14 began apprenticing under his uncle, who was a jewellery maker. Three years later, Webb left the South to make a name for himself in Manhattan, where the brand was officially established in 1948 with a shop on West 46th Street. By the late ’50s, Webb, who collected children’s books on wild beasts and made weekly pilgrimages to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to study Scythian and ancient Egyptian gold artefacts, had become best known for his enamelled animal pieces. Banishing barnyard and household creatures from his jewels, the designer, who died in 1975 at the age of 50, favoured a far more exotic and mythical menagerie of big cats, zebras, frogs and more. His creations — from compacts shaped like tortoises to carved coral bracelets inspired by the Hindu makara sea dragon — were coveted by the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Diana Vreeland and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and were, as one society reporter wrote, “as essential as the food and drink at La Grenouille to the fashion society clan.”

Paramount to Webb’s creative process was the act of sketching. Thanks to these drawings — nearly 40,000 of which are now part of the brand’s archives — Webb’s legacy lives on, having inspired many of the house’s designs over the past five decades. The latest reimagined pieces are a pair of whimsical chandelier earrings featuring two diamond-encrusted leopards peering out from behind gilded bars. Set with cabochon emeralds, brilliant-cut diamonds, black enamel, 18-karat gold and platinum, these jewels pay homage to two of Webb’s illustrations from the ’60s, one of a leopard brooch with emerald eyes and diamonds for spots, the other a tiger ring, the cat housed inside a small cage of gold that sits atop the finger. (The latter was finally made by the house in 2018.) Commissioned by a longtime collector of David Webb, these majestic felines are just as bold today as they were when the designer’s pencil first touched paper.

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Cartier’s Iconic Timepiece, Reimagined for a New Generation

The all-black Tank Must watch, a style first launched in 1977, receives a sleek and understated 21st century update.

Article by Jordan Turner

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Cartier Tank Must FeatureCartier Tank Must 2022 edition watch, from $4,200, cartier.com.au. Still life courtesy Jordan Turner.

In the early 20th century, as technology steamed ahead without respite, the jeweller and watchmaker Louis Cartier proposed a new design that played to the strengths of the eponymous house founded by his grandfather: line, shape, proportion and detail. It was the Tank wristwatch, which debuted in 1919, reinventing at a stroke the traditional round watch.

Cartier's 1977’s Tank Must.
Cartier's 1977’s Tank Must. Photography courtesy Cartier, N Welsh/Collection Cartier.
Cartier’s Place Vendôme flagship
Cartier’s Place Vendôme flagship circa 1973. Photography courtesy Cartier.

There was much to admire, from the unique squarecase to the elegant Roman numerals, the cabochon-cut sapphire crown and Cartier’s trademark rail-track minute dial. Since that time, the Tank has been made rectangular as the Tank Cintrée (1921) and diamond-shaped as the Tank Asymétrique (1936). It has been endowed with a water-resistant case and a folding buckle (1989’s Tank Américaine) and with an integrated bracelet and bevelled case sides (1996’s Tank Française), all the while remaining true to the spirit of Louis’ original.

In 2022, the design has shapeshifted once again, becoming the all-black Tank Must, a style first launched in 1977. Hour markers are absent, but the signature sapphire-set winding crown remains.This edition ties the design flair of the ’70s with the iconic elements of the early Tank for an understated accessory that’s at once modern and timeless.

Tank fan Andy Warhol
Tank fan Andy Warhol, photographed at his studio by Arnold Newman in 1973. Photography by Arnold Newman Properties/Getty Images. Used With Permission from The Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts.

Truman Capote once chided a journalist, ordering his interviewer to take off their inferior watch and wear Capote’s own. “I beg you, keep it, I have at least seven at home,” he said. It was a Tank, of course. In doing so, he confirmed what everyone already knew: the Tank is the mark of a creative and those who appreciate pure design and perennial style.

Cartier Tank Must
Cartier Tank Must 2022 edition watch, from $4,200, cartier.com.au. Still life courtesy Jordan Turner.
This is an extract from an article that appears in print in our eighth edition, Page 112 of T Australia with the headline: “First of Its Kind/Last of Its Kind”

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