WATERWORLD: Jean Paul Gaultier, who has dressed bottles of Piper-Heidsieck Champagne in snug red corsets, is now turning his subversive sensibility to mineral water. Word has it the couturier has been tapped to design a limited edition bottle for Evian.
PARIS, DENMARK: Copenhagen may witness celebrity scenes to rival Paris and New York during the Danish capital’s fashion week, which starts on Wednesday. Paris Hilton, who’s once again in the news since presidential candidate John McCain used her image in his latest ad, is in town shooting a campaign for her bags and accessories line and is expected to attend several runway shows. On Friday, meanwhile, Denmark native Helena Christensen will host Swedish designer brand Odd Molly’s runway show. The model is the face of the bohemian label’s spring collections, and is set to shoot the campaign with photographer Yelena Yemchuk later this week.
MUSEUM AS LOCKER ROOM: As sportswear brands gear up to showcase their latest wares in action at the Beijing Olympic Games later this week, London’s Victoria & Albert museum is looking at the way sport and fashion have intertwined in recent years.
Fashion V Sport, which opens today, charts sport’s role in fabric innovation, displaying Comme des Garçons’ collaboration with Speedo on the LAZR swimsuit as a recent example. It also looks at sport as a uniform that allows the wearer to both blend in and stand out from a crowd and how sports paraphernalia often inspires obsessive collecting, displaying a clutch of rare Nike and Adidas sneakers in a glass case. Indeed, the show exhibits plenty of luxurious pieces alongside the practical, such as a blue sequined Chanel wet suit-style jacket from the house’s spring 1991 collection, a gleaming Paul Smith bicycle and a Chanel fishing rod displayed in its own quilted leather case. “It goes beyond what people want as a fishing rod, but it’s a fully functional piece, you can go fishing with it,” assured Ligaya Salazar, the exhibition’s curator. “We wanted to look at where fashion meets function, and some fashion designers have almost embraced sports design,” she added, pointing out a draped Yohji Yamamoto Y3 jersey dress as a sports piece that stands alone as a fashion item. “Looking at the folds and cuts, it’s something quite amazing.”
And to give visitors a complete sporting experience, artist Sissel Tolaas has — using chemicals — re-created the scent of human bodies, which is then piped through the exhibition space. The museum said it hopes the scent will “reinject the human body into the exhibition space.” The exhibition runs through Jan. 4.
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