Celine is without a doubt my favourite show from Paris this season. Watching long limbed, Nitrogen fixated*, girls strutting up and down the catwalk in beautiful clothes provides just the same aesthetic effect on me as a Gerhard Richter. It works a similar sort of, albeit transitory, magic. 

The palate used by Philo throughout this capsule collection is astonishing. Amongst a monochrome landscape of clever cuts, shocks of acidic and muted colours clashed sublimely, and delivered by blocks and lines created an abstracted geometry that proved tactile by an engagement with materials including furs and leathers. As one colour met another, and one surface nuzzled into another, the shift in materials reminded me of Bassets Liquorice Allsorts – the black iquorice kisses the yellow diced coconut. Very tasty stuff indeed.

Footnote: As you may know Philo is married to Max Wigram, the gallerist, so contemporary art and inspiration must be in abundance in that home, and I don’t know about you but I am itching to get in there and take an inventory of their art collection.

*Nitrogen fixation occurs naturally in the air by means of lightning

Quotation, Lucinda Chambers sums up the Celine autumn/winter 2012/13 show.

The Protagonist is now in its third year. Our current Protagonist is Bob & Roberta Smith, he is an artist who paints signs and writes. The blog genuinely documents his daily activities, from being in the studio to waiting at the bus stop. It’s going to be a visual experience rather than a literary one, with Bob & Roberta sharing his vision with us through photography and video. Personally I am really enjoying his videos, especially this one, Looking Leytonstone. You can find a Q&A I did with him here.

‘Woman’s destiny is to be wanton, like the bitch, the she-wolf; she must belong to all who claim her.’ Marquis de Sade

“I feel that people don’t really do what they want to do. And I think it’s much more important that you do what you want to even if it’s wrong. We all get so chicken that we’re afraid of our jobs, we’re afraid of our wives, we’re afraid of our children, we’re afraid to go out in the street. I really think it’s because we’re too worried about the way we would appear. Fear is the basis for everything terrible. Fear is what causes all the horror in the world. No man achieves anything through fear. Fear isn’t constructive. So the only thing that can save people in a spiritual or religious or in any way is to say I’m not afraid anymore. The minute they say they are not afraid they cannot commit a wrong act. There will be no such thing as a wrong act.”