The MovieStar incorporated the street aesthetic in its advertisiment:

New materials are coming….

In 2007, as I was travelling in the contryside of Brazil I came to know a poor community that works with banana trees’ fiber and I was very curious to understand all the process to make it. 

After the banana tree gives its fruits, the tree is cutted and the trunk is thrown away. People from small communities make a fiber from its trunk, and after that, they make very rustic bags and accessories. They cut it very thin, put it to dry and change its fiber into threads:

They generally make bags, and also some sort of knitting hats, all very rustic. It comes to be an extra way of making money, specially for older women, and they can work at their homes, as the bananas trees are in their garden. Some examples from other communities:

The idea was really good, because they work with something that goes to garbage: they are recycling. The point is they had the raw material, but they don’t have the right product to the market.

I first met one community in the state of Minas Gerais, that is in the centre area of Brazil. After that, I start a research and I found out another community around the city of Rio de Janeiro, near to where I live.

For the other hand, as I ‘m always in touch with several designer – I’ve been producing a market with new designers for the last 13 years -so I have the idea to put the bag designer in touch with the community, to interchange experiences and materials. 

Ana Gotti is one of them: her brand is from 2004, and she made the accessories for one fashion show that I produced. I knew she was doing a collection like baguette bags with straw and she-goat leather.

I introduced her this new material, and she was pretty interested on it! So, we went to the community, and they start the work! She gave a special treatment to the fiber, a sort of ink and resin to protect the material. 

Have a look on that  and the final product was great! I love the one with Swarovisky’s button. From this year on, Ana is selling her nice and exclusive banana tree’s fiber baguetti’s bags:

Katarina:

Rita:

Tarsila:

She has just been showing this work at the SIMM Fair at Madrid on the 17th of july (last week) where she presented a fashion show with her clothes and bags.

There are plenty possibilities for this material, and the brazilian design brand Estofados Jardim has just launched this year this chair with banana tree’s fiber:

Flower camouflage

Nice blouse!

Skate boy with grandfather’s hat

Rock’n'roll and cowboys’s boot?

Upside town T-shirt

Cartoon’s belt

Giupsy’s style

Angels Le Fou, artist

She also paints sneakers:

That’s for sure will be a big trend!

BAGS are the coolest accessory, for anyone!

Men’s Maxi Bags:

After 10 hours by train, I made two dreams come true: to visit Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum and to see “The Surreal Things”, the first exhibition about Surrealism and Design.

I arrived at Bilbao very early in the mourning on a saturday: that’s was nice in a way, ’cause there were nobody at the streets, so I could take some nice pictures, it’s was cinematographic.

Every museum of the world seem to desire one Louise Borgeouis’ spider: there is one small one at th Mac from Sao Paulo; another big one at Tate Modern London, one at a museum in Tokyo – a friend just told me – and this one in Bilbao. Anywhere else? It’s really increndible the shadows effects that is makes, and depending from the angle, it seem that a giant spider is attacking the Guggenheim.

The constrasts of the titanium, the flowers and the mountain…

That’s it is not just a museum: it’s an archictecture experience. The museum’s archicteture nowadays causes in us – simple human being – the same effects that the catholical churches did in medieval times!

 I felt like in trance when I first came in: I have not words to describe!

The intelligence of Frank O. Gehry, the archictecture that conceived the project, is a mark of new era of doing buildings. He is simply brilliant. Super-human. How could he created that? There is not a regular column, a normal space or exposition room, even the glasses are not conected into the other, they have a space between then, like the box that covers the lift.

They don’t allow us to take pictures, so everything was done very quickly, sorry for my focus!

Some of the collection:

The room dedicated to Richard Serra:

Juan Munoz retrospective:

The Surreal Things: I spent 5 hours in the museum, most of all the time studying and doing notes about it. I need more time to write it down; so, after finishing my classes, I’ll prepare my coverture about this unique exibition, and I’ll post it at RodadaModa.com.

I just made this picture – that one was really impossible to photograph! It is a reproduction in miniature of the Gallery ART OF THE CENTURY, from Peggy Guggenheim, that she made in New York. Look at the interesting way of exposing the pictures. I’ll explain in details later on!

I’ll finish with flowers: real…

and artificial – these ones by Jeff Koons

Opened since the 3rd of july, the Gary Baseman’s Exihibition ” Knowledge comes with gas release” – actually, it has a weird name!

It was specially created to be showed in the Iguapop Gallery, that reunites some the trendiest artist of the moment, as Miss Van, Catalina Estrada, Tim Biskup, Victor Castillo, and some others…

Gary plays with the child and the adults universe: what seems at first to be a drawing for kids in fact is full of sexual and perverse contents. The Los Angeles Time calls him “Pervarsive Artist”, what he loves!

To go and to come back several times!

CONVERSE All Star celebrates this year 100 years!

A big LED was by the main entrance of the stand:

At the end of the stand, there was an small exhibition, with some sneakers inside glasses boxes, and unfortunately the light was no good for pictures!

                                                                 SPORT AND STREET WEAR

Friday the 4th of july: we were supposed to go to the B&B with the class, finally! Actually, we should have been there the whole three days because there’s so much to see, and now we have to hush… The other days, I was concentrated in the stands itself, and photographing them to the website Roda da Moda, and I barely could look at the people!

For me, the most incredible stands and clothes were here: almost 3 floors full of street wear.

Graffitis ans Toy Art are the strongest trends – and that will be for quite a long time, I believe!

Let’s go to the pictures: Graffiti’s walls 

TOKIDOKI:

Look at these funny surreal photos!

This magazine LEGALIZE LA defends the rights of the illegal immigrants in Los Angeles. Very laudable attitude! And very original way of calling the attention- the guys were great…

Our famous brazillian brand: half of the foot’s people of any cities by summer time have a pair of one! Isnt’ it true?

This 15 years’ australian brand called MOOKS – mooks.com – made this brilliant street campaign created by the artist Andy Uprock, and brought to us a demonstration of what they do in the streets of Sidney:

Men’s Toilet with stickers:

The best stand of all B&B: SNEAKERS EXPOSITION, ART EXIBITION, DJ’S, GRAFFITI COMPETITION, SNEAKERS CUSTOMIZATION AND HIP-HOP PERFORMANCE:

An exposition of amazing sneakers:

Some guys customizing white sneakers:

A College’s Bus’ with a DJ inside… Look at the bus’s details:

The Exposition ” Inspiration and Perspiration”: Reebok invited 8 artists of all over the world to create a new sneaker: that’s some of the pieces that were exposed (you can see more in the video in www.rodadamoda.com):

A graffiti demonstration:

July the 3rd: one day before it start, everything is almost ready! I couldn’t not wait, so I went there to have a look, actually, my hotel was really close to it.

By the map, I could see that it is a really big fair, with lots of pavillions…

The 4th, the first day: after class, under a 40 degrees and extremely hot sun, I just run into the Plaza espana to do my credentials by the RODA DA MODA, the site I work with.

So, I started in FASHION NOW, one huge pavillion. I was really impressed with the size of the stands, and their decorations.

Toy Art and Street Art is really spread out all over!

A big screen… videos make all difference!

AVENIDA – the open air street

So many thing to see: here, you can decide where to go: AVENIDA, FASHION NOW, LUNA PARK, DENIM BASE, SPORT AND STREET WEAR or THE SOURCE…

From Avenida, on the left: FASHION NOW:

On the Right: DENIM BASE Pavillion, the one that has the jeans brands…

The one of Replay was one of the most impressive: high as a 3 floor’s building, and with a bar inside.

And that’s what the Denim Base pavillion was basically: huge stands serving drinks for their VIP’s guests. They really associate their brands with having fun, that was much more than simply showing clothes or making good selling, they want to get closer to their client. And we can forget: we are in summer time!

The building is great! Look at the detais of the roof!

I really LOVED this bar, with the symbol of the pavillion, the rinoceront…

…and the DJ over a jeepie!

Colcci was also there…

…showing Gisele Bunchen Fashion shows, in a very big stand, like almost all of the denim’s brands.

Some of the stands didnt‘ allowed to take photos! And I was with Press credential! So stupid!

That’s when I do it, just for revenge… Why is it forbidden? It’ just a photo, anyway.

LUNA PARK

On the following day, I just came back to B&B and Luna Park, a open-air place with the restaurants and some stands, like Wrangler and WGSN, which was doing a seminar about the trends of winter 2009 and summer 2010. I rushed, and I took some more pictures…

…a kid’s place, a new one…

But I have to come back to school for my classes!