With: Bridge Markland, Lina Berg, Anne Tismer and Caine Panik

Costume by Timon Imfeld

Video by Lukas Ishar

Hosted by Armen Avanessian and the Berliner Volksbühne, March 15 2019.

Welcome to an Evening Dedicated to Authenticity

What does a Michael Jackson impersonator, a drag king, a conceptual clothing company, an improv actor, a smell artist and a robot have in common with socks crafted in a DIY Off-White workshop? Well that’s for us to know and you to find out.

Collaborators: London College of Fashion, Sissel Tolaas, MJLIL, Jésus la Vidange, BLESS, Georgian Badal, Guillaume Sorge, Maxime Robert, Esteban Perroy.

Photographs by Ayka Lux

Thank you to Vittoria Mattarese, Manon Klein and Alice Guidicenti.

Welcome to an Evening Dedicated to Masculinities

Simone de Beauvoir once said that ‘one is not born a woman, but rather becomes one,’ and many would argue that the same could be said about being a man. Today, it seems more apt to talk about ‘masculinities’ in the plural, to underscore the many ways in which one can be a man, or become one.

Collaborators: London College of Fashion, Pauline Simon, Sissel Tolaas, Topper Harley, Moullinex Feat. Ghetto.

Photographs by Ayka Lux

Thank you to Vittoria Mattarese, Manon Klein and Alice Guidicenti.

Welcome to an Evening Dedicated to Failure

In a society that venerates success, few things are as alarming as the prospect of failure. To fail is to expose yourself to the judgment of others, and to judge yourself according to those same standards. It is also an opportunity to learn how to remain humble. In the fashion industry, failure is common. Recently experts have argued that fashion as a system has failed altogether, since creativity often has to make way for profit. But fashion can also fail in small ways: the story is full of trends that failed to take off and dresses suddenly splitting at the side. During one evening, failure will be celebrated. As Samuel Beckett wrote in Worstward Ho: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

The Chorus of Complaints

Taking inspiration from a community arts project initiated in 2005 by Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, this Chorus of Complaints was all about what’s wrong with the fashion industry. The carolled objections are just some of those voiced by industry insiders in interviews given for Vestoj’s issue ‘On Failure.’

Lyrics: Anja Aronowsky Cronberg
Music: Jerome Violent
Choir: La Chorale Sauvage et Clandestine de Paris

The Makeup Malfunctions

When makeup goes awry on the famous, the paparazzi are quick to take note. Has your fake tan melted? Or your contouring gone to hell? Or perhaps your face powder is playing havoc on your chin? Well, here is your chance to feel like a beleaguered Hollywood star for an evening. Take your pick: are you a Kylie, an Angelina or a Nicki Minaj?

Thanks to MAC Cosmetics

Collaborators: London College of Fashion, Etienne Blanchot, Corneliu Dragomirescu, Romain Sanderre, Sissel Tolaas, and La Chorale Sauvage et Clandestine de Paris.

Photographs by Ayka Lux

Thank you to Vittoria Mattarese, Manon Klein and Alice Guidicenti.

Power Dressing examines how clothes emphasise certain roles in power structures, and what happens to our expectations of those roles when these signifiers are altered. With this in mind, we looked at the official and unofficial uniforms that the Palais de Tokyo staff wear, with particular emphasis on the guards’ uniforms. These uniforms specifically appear to both camouflage their wearers (by visitors largely ignoring their presence) but also to give the guards power to tell visitors what to do or not to do around the artworks. Through painting an exact replica of the guards’ uniform on an actor’s naked body, we investigated the exercise of power on the guard that the imposition of the uniform represents. The trompe l’oeil uniform aims to explore the both hidden and exposed status of guards at a major art institution, and how this in turn comments on their socioeconomic status. The uniform is a symbol of power (i.e. the guard’s power) but it’s also a reciprocal exercise of power over him. It puts us as museum visitors in our place but also holds him in his. He is a museum guard.

In collaboration with David Myron

Makeup by Anne Verhague, using M.A.C Cosmetics

Actor Noël Sorrente

Power Dressing was performed as part of Do Disturb at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, April 2015.

The Vestoj Storytelling Salon in New York brought together six people who have shaped the New York fashion scene over the past five decades.

Throughout the day each told a story directly affiliated with their life, all connected through their common narrative based on material memories, and woven around or linked to a garment. Taking care to avoid barriers between storyteller and audience, the response of the listeners influenced and informed the ebb and flow of the stories themselves, effectively turning the listeners into co-creators of each story as it was experienced.

The Vestoj Storytelling Salon in New York provided an opportunity to reflect on how grander social and cultural narratives impact on the lives of individuals and how objects of desire can be read as a map to our past, here momentarily resurrected as textile memento moris.

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The Vestoj Storytelling Salon was produced by the Fondation Galeries Lafayette and MoMA PS1, and hosted at MoMA PS1 in New York, March 2015.

With Pat Cleveland, Patricia Field, Glenn O’Brien, Candy Pratts Price, Mary McFadden and Dapper Dan of Harlem

Set design by David Myron

Illustrations by Nina Twin

The ever-increasing speed of change in fashion is not new, nor is it exceptional; all it does is reflect the world around us. How busy we all are! We hurry through our days, and fill them to the brim with things to do. Ours is a world gone mad with motion where busyness has become a byword for success, a sort of existential reassurance.

The act of dressing today is another moment that we rush through, lest we be accused of losing time on superficial frivolities. We live in an unceremonious age, and the seemingly ritualistic, time-consuming and profoundly symbolic activity that dressing once was has had to give way for a moment that is intimate, private and invisible to the public.

In the Vestoj Salon on Slowness, the symbolic weight of clothes, of dressing and undressing, is explored through an emblematic return to the Ancien Régime. In the erstwhile apartment of the once celebrated collector Charles de Besteigui, an elaborate ceremony unfolds on stage. A small group of performers have formed a tableaux vivant on a stage that juxtaposes ersatz Ancien Régime décor with the architect Estelle Vincent’s contemporary response. Here each element fulfills their role in making the protocol of dressing and getting dressed an act of the highest symbolic importance.

The politics of time have always been a significant device for separation. Today the ones who lead are, as a general rule, those who understand speed, but once, not that long ago, the very opposite held true. After all, to be slow is far from remaining static; instead, slowness is a temporal notion that prioritises the journey over the destination. In our time of ceaseless busyness and constant fear of falling behind, slowness has turned into a subversive act, an exercise in cultural disobedience. Quiet dissenters can be found everywhere, if only you look hard enough. In a world where the cult of speed sometimes feels overwhelming, could it be that in the cracks of the system, a slower, more reflective pace is gaining traction?

Produced by Fondation Galeries Lafayette and hosted by Ekimetrics in Paris, January 2015

With Scarlett Rouge, Lola Peploe and Nick Haughton

Set design by David Myron

Costume by Natasha Palazzo

Film by Alexis Jakubowicz

All photographs by Vanni Bassetti

Discarded garments reflect our history, becoming tangible material memories of times past, love lost or found, disappointments endured or victories won. These lost objects of desire could be read as a map to our past, momentarily resurrected and brought back to life once more. Textile memento moris are tactile, ever-present reminders of a culture in perpetual flux and of our transience, yet at the same time they provide a comforting aide memoire, reassuring us that, to paraphrase Victor Hugo, history is merely an echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future in the past.

These were some of the thoughts that led to the first part in the Vestoj Storytelling Salon which took place in Paris in April 2014. Throughout the duration of one day six individual stories were told, all linked through their common narrative based on material memories. Each story was created in collaboration with the storyteller, directly affiliated with the life of the narrator and woven around or linked to a garment or object. An account of the intersection of our clothing and our past, stories like these are, we think, what ensure that the past is always carried with us into the future.

Each storyteller was a ‘fashion professional’ and someone who had dedicated their life to the intimate study of dress. Their stories were told to small groups of listeners at regular intervals throughout the day. Taking care to avoid barriers between storytellers and audience, the response of the listeners influenced and informed the ebb and flow of the stories themselves, making them open to change. In this way the listener became in effect a co-creator of each story as it was being experienced.

To emphasise the importance of intimacy and traditional storytelling, each listener was asked not to use their phones, record or take photographs. Instead, illustrator Bénédicte Muller moved from room to room with the audience, making life drawings as the stories unfolded throughout the day. Apart from the record that word of mouth provides, these illustrations became the only documentation of the event.

Set designer and magical practitioner Simon Costin tells the audience about British folklore and the talismanic objects he keeps in his hat.

Michèle Lamy, the wife and partner of Rick Owens musing on the first dress Owens ever made for her, and the shift from colleagues to lovers that this dress signified.

The designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac making the audience laugh while painting the walls and talking about the cloak he made for Pope John Paul II in 1997.

Frances Corner, Head of College at London College of Fashion, telling the story about her wedding dress, and what it said (and still says) about her as a woman, wife and scholar.

The model Ingmari Lamy talking about the first shoot she did with photographer Bob Richardson in 1968 – and the unrequited love story that followed.

Former Creative Director at Yohji Yamamoto, Irene Silvagni telling the story about how a coat, designed and given to her by Yamamoto, reawakened memories of a childhood spent in hiding during the Second World War.

The Vestoj Storytelling Salon was hosted and produced by the Fondation Galeries Lafayette, and performed in Paris, April 2014.

With Simon Costin, Michèle Lamy, Frances Corner, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, Ingmari Lamy, Irene Silvagni and Reuben Feels…

Set design by David Myron

All illustrations by Bénédicte Muller

Following his mea culpa interview on PBS’ Charlie Rose, Little John Galliano spoke to Vestoj about bad memories and good ones, the constant rewriting of the past and whether there is in fact such a thing as a ‘free will’.

Produced by Wanderlust and performed at Cité de la Mode and Silencio in Paris, as well as London College of Fashion in London, 2013.

With Ruth Vega Fernandez and Raphaël Bouvet

Puppet by Etienne Bideau-Rey

Set design by David Myron

Film by Alexandre Senequier

All photographs by Vanni Bassetti

The Vestoj Salon On Fashion and Shame was an intervention where performers interacted with guests by acting out some of the most archetypal scenarios associated with fashion and social embarrassment.

On the surface, appearing like any other fashionable magazine launch, upon closer inspection this evening was anything but. Hostesses greeted guests with lipstick stains on their teeth, a guest had her skirt tucked in her underwear and another had the price tag on her trousers still attached. An immaculately turned out man reeked of sweat and a woman was constantly tripping in her too high heels. Making our guests question the event itself and pushing them to deal with this type of social discomfort, this evening was an exercise in mixing the high with the low, good taste with bad, and in the process questioning the validity of the values themselves.

Produced by Vestoj and Palais de Tokyo in Paris, June 2012.

In collaboration with Clémence Poésy and Ava Hervier

With Antoine Bibiloni, Pierre Antoine Chevalier, Caroline Arrouas, Sophie Mourousi, Jacinthe Cappello, Ophelie Legris, Raouf Rais, Lucas Bonnifait, Pierre Deniel, Sarah Stern, Morgane Poucet, Christine Armanger, Alexis Gilot, Elisa Benslimane, Celia Kirche and Floriane Pautasso

Installation by Nini Gollong

Scent by Sissel Tolaas

Music by Pit Spector

All photographs by Linus Ricard