Much has been written about the incredible Saul Bass and his redesign of the Bell System logo in 1969.

His task was to transform the company’s image from:

Ad for Bell Telephone long distance service in 1955 via CreativePro.com

PHOTO > Mike F via Flickr

to that of a contemporary, cutting-edge telecommunications company.

Someone else has pointed out that his logo for the Bell System is the equivalent of an extra symbol for the Helvetica typeface,

and I think they make a strong argument. Nothing said “contemporary” and “Corporate America” better in 1969 than Helvetica.

Bass’ logo achieved a remarkable 93 percent recognition rate in the United States during its fairly brief lifetime. As a pictogram, it was perhaps without equal in the U.S.A.

PHOTO > Bravo Six Niner Delta via Flickr

PHOTO > weatherpatternvia Flickr

°

°

°

Loads have been written about the logo, so I won’t dwell on it.

Instead, I’d like to point you in the direction of an amazing (to me, anyway) film that Bass produced as communication tool to present his redesign. This was not for public consumption; it was to convince Bell execs to get with the times, because the times, they were a’changing.

The film comes from the Bell Archives and, at 27:00, may seem a bit lengthy, but if you’re at all interested in the era (Vietnam and integration, expos and lunar launches) or the history of graphic design and one of its high priests, I think you’ll find the time extraordinarily well spent.

Here are a few teaser screenshots to whet your appetite:

PHOTO > The Looniverse

Bass logo: rotary dial numbercard

The Bell Telephone System undertook the largest corporate identity program in the United States of America. The project consisted of the redesign of: 135,000 Bell System fleet vehicles; 22,000 buildings; 1,250,000 phone booths; and 170,000,000 telephone directories. The company then had 1,060,000 employees and 80,000,000 customers. It took five years to implement this program — from 1969-1972 — without the aid of computers.

SOURCE > Bell System Memorial

P.S. designKULTUR would be remiss in not mentioning its disdain for Bass’ follow-up to the Bell Bell – the AT&T uniblob or “Death Star.”

The ’80s were an unfortunate exercise in design, and this logo stunk upon its debut in 1984 and still stinks today. “Death Star,” indeed:

AT&T Tech Channel | Saul Bass Pitches the New Bell Systems Logo

★ Bell System Memorial | Bell Logo History

1930 | Siemens prototype “Crouching Dog”

1941 | Ralph Lysell prototype

1941 | Early plastic prototype of the Ericofon designed by the engineers Blomberg and Lysell

1940s | Early wooden prototypes of the Ericofon by Ralph Lysell

The well-worn blue wooden prototype taken to management for final approval

1953 | Ericofon “Cobra”

1956 | Ericksson Ericofon

1956 | Ericksson Ericofon

1961 | Slimmed down for the American market (232 mm down to 213.5 and with a curvier neck)

1960s | The Ericofon to match your office daisies

1970s | Prototypes for the Model 700 series: note the thumb grip near the base on the second prototype PHOTOS > via ericofon.com (great website — thanks!)

1976 | Ericsson 100th anniversary Model 700

For a complete listing of the many faces of the Ericofon, click here

1957 | Ericofon advertisement via the world’s biggest Ericofon otaku: ericofon.com

Marketing the Ericofon to Americans IMAGE via Wires In The Walls

Marketing the Ericofon to Canadians IMAGE via Connor Molloy, Flickr

PDF | ERICSSON REVIEW 1956 – THE ERICOFON – THE NEW TELEPHONE SET via ericofon.com

PDF ERICOFON 1966 CATALOGUE via telephonetribute.com

Back in the day when things were cool and I was a little tyke, my mom would take me to the local Safeway.

It was new and cool in a designKULTUR sort of way, with enormous wavy glulam beams overhead which made it seem like a of cathedral to me, a young boy just beginning to be aware of the world of design.

Safeway Canada erected a lot of these early-era supermarkets in Vancouver’s Lower Mainland in the late ’50s/early ’60s. Few remain and I was lucky to find this image of one. I like this comment: “Thanks for posting this because I like to be reminded when supermarkets didn’t cover 30 acres yet somehow had all the food you might need.” Right on.

As a kid, I would steal a candy or two from the open bins, but the real thrill waited until we got to the checkout counter. For Safeway, in all its zest to be “modern,” had installed the amazing, iconic, and still (more than half a century later) extremely beautiful, Ericofons (nicknamed the “Cobra”) next to its cash registers.

The cashier would pick up the curvaceous neck of the phone, turn it on its side, dial a number or two and say something like: “Car service, checkout 5!”

Sexy and thrilling: Oh, those Swedes!

Back home we had the standard Western Electric 500, the Model T of telephone design in North America at the time:

Hard to imagine it was “designed” at all (and in 1949 at that; the Ericofon was already under development by then).

Henry Dreyfuss, the 500′s designer (and/or the Bell Telephone Company) wasn’t future-forward in their thinking at all: the 500 looks like something that could have been designed a decade or two earlier.

Those phones from Sweden at Safeway, though, were the future — something designKULTUR is slightly obsessed about. So this is my homage to the Ericofon — the mid-century modern telephone.

As designKULTUR is primarily a visual blog, I’ll leave my writing at that and let the links below lead you into the history of the “fon.”

And if, like me, you really dig the design, consider buying a reissue: they still define refined elegance and good taste.

Ericsson Evolution

The Scandiphone by Wild and Wolf

The ScandiPhone is based on the unique upright phone that was introduced in Europe in the mid 1950s. Smaller and lighter than anything available at the time, it’s unusual one-piece design was a fine example of form and function in harmony. The push button version was introduced in 1967.

Redial Button, ringer volume on/off switch, tone/pulse switch.

Simply plugs into a standard US phone socket.

US$60

Ericofon Telephone

L.M. Ericsson Telephone Company, company design (Swedish, established 1876), Hugo Blomberg (Swedish, born 1897), Ralph Lysell (Swedish, born 1907) and Has Gösta Thames (Swedish, born 1916)

1949-54. ABS plastic, rubber, and nylon housing, .1 (white): 8 1/2 x 3 7/8 x 4 3/8″ (21.6 x 9.8 x 11.1 cm) .2 (yellow): 9 1/8 x 3 7/8 x 4 3/8″ (23.2 x 9.8 x 11.1 cm). Manufactured by L.M. Ericsson, Stockholm. Given anonymously

2265.2001.1-2

Not the Safeway cashier

The Ericofon, back home in Sweden, ’70s

★ Wikipedia | Ericofon

BURNING QUESTION > Who is that woman with the sexy voice who does the voice-overs for these things? She’s so perfect!

ABOVE > The blue stamp issued 13 June 1964 was drawn and engraved by Jacques Combet, who was inspired by a postcard taken from a photograph made by German photographer, Hans Freytag (below) – issue of 19.65 million copies – withdrawn on 20 March 1965

On 8 February 1965 the same stamp appeared with a face value of Fr40 (the-then international postcard rate) in sepia-red, green, and brown – issue of 64 million copies – withdrawn on 27 April 1968

P.S. designKULTUR approves of La Poste’s corporate redo!

FROM >

TO >

Société Lausannoise de la Timbrologie | Ronchamp, the Spirit of Concrete

★ Wikitimbres | Fiche/T01-000-1434: Ronchamp

We lived in Surrey, England, for a spell. At the time I wasn’t attuned to life in Little Britain and found myself mostly in a negative mood. I did, however, substantially increase by vocabulary whilst eating take-away from Tesco (a cut above the rest) and reading the broadsheets (a definite improvement upon Canadian newspapers).

It was whilst reading one such newspaper that came across this image:

It was Le Corbusier — my hero — photographed by someone I’d strangely, given my preoccupation with LC, never heard of before: Lucien Hervé.

The photograph announced the opening of a show of Hervé’s photographs (including a lot of the master’s works) at the Michael Hoppen Gallery. So a pilgrimage was in order.  

I’d always wanted to go down to the King’s Road and visit Chelsea anyway to see if any remnants of “swinging London” were left over from the sixties. No remains were found. But we did uncover the amazing Hervé on a side street off the King’s Road.

The show at Michael Hoppen opened my eyes to a new way of seeing Le Corbusier and his work.

And I ended up spending mucho £££ (VAT thankfully refunded at the airport upon our getaway) to have a piece of Le Corbusier photographed by his chosen photographer.

This is the piece I chose from amongst the dozens on show:

I chose this one — “Maquette of Ronchamp, 1951″ — because I thought it special: if I recall correctly, it was the only photograph of a Le Corbusier maquette. That alone intrigued me in a room full of photographs of completed architectural works.

I was also drawn to the photographer’s perspective: how interesting that Hervé should focus on the chapel’s roof. After all, the building is all about that soaring, seemingly free-floating roof.

I liked it, paid for it, picked it up after the show came down, lived with it in Surrey for a spell, took it on the plane home to Vancouver, and it’s been hanging over me as I sleep ever since. It was one of the smartest investments I’ve ever made.

P.S.  The invites to the shows at the Michael Hoppen Gallery are superb. (Note to the Gallery: thanks for sending them my way!)

Still Available!

The gallery still has a few Hervé prints of Ronchamp. If you’re interested, check out this PDF:

Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp, France, 1950 © FLC-ADAGP

Le Corbusier and Lucien Hervé both chose pseudonyms for their professional careers (LC’s real name was Charles-Édouard Jeanneret and Hervé’s birth name was Lásló Elkan).

The two forged a decades-long partnership — LC designing and building his works of wonder whilst Hervé documented it all.

Lucien Hervé died on 26 June 2007 in his 97th year. He was born in Hungary— like so many of the 20th century’s great photographers (see box below) — on 7 August 1910 and arrived in Paris in 1929.

During his first decade in France, Hervé was attracted to the city’s fashion, art, and music worlds. He didn’t begin his photography career until 1938 when he began shooting photos for Marianne magazine. That was after his famous first photo, his self-portrait-in-a-mirror:

Hervé’s  famous self-portrait taken in front of his hotel room mirror on the rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière — his first photograph

Hervé was active in the French Communist Party and worked as a photojournalist during the Second World War. He was captured and sent to the Hohenstein prisoner of war camp, from which he escaped in 1940. He then joined the Resistance and changed his name.

His career took a decisive turn in 1949 when he met the Reverend Father Marie-Alain Couturier who introduced him to Matisse and advised him to go to Marseilles to experience Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, then nearing completion.

TOP > Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, 1949; 6 x 6 negative BELOW > Unité d’Habitation, 1952; cropped 6 x 6 negative.

Hervé was astounded by what he saw and took more than 600 photos of the housing-of-the-future project. He sent a selection of his images to the architect who responded: “You have an architect’s soul and you know how to look at architecture.” Their relationship lasted until Corbusier’s death by drowning in 1965.

Lucien Hervé was one of the world’s greatest architectural photographers. Other than his oeuvre documenting LC’s life, he photographed the works of Alvar Aalto, Marcel Breuer, Kenzo Tange, Richard Neutra, Oscar Niemeyer, and Jean Prouvé, among others. He is, I think, the Julius Schulman of France.

He is known especially for his images of Corbusier’s planned city, Chandigarh, and Niemeyer’s City of the Future, Brasília.

And I am extremely fortunate to have a piece of him in my home …

LC + LH in Chandigargh

3 August 1956

Cap Martin

R . . .

My Dear Hervé,

Received your program. I hope to read your . . . made here . . . a real creative work.

It’s really beautiful. Very beautiful to have seen, then chosen the link and the time (or theme?), then to have realised it.

. . .

My warmest congratulations on it. It’s not about photism, it’s the photo of the highest value or worth.

Franco does it again!

This time, Mr. Di Capua takes us to Ronchamp, France for a visit to what is arguably Le Corbusier’s masterpiece, the Chapel of Notre-Dame-du-Haut.

As a child I fell in love with the mysteries of this building. During my first visit to Europe in my 20s I made an architectural pilgrimage throughout France in search of Le Corbusier’s genius. In one of those I’ll-always-regret moments, I missed getting off the train in at Ronchamp. I don’t know what I was thinking (I think it was really early in the morning). Thanks, Franco, for taking me there!

If you’re not aware of Franco’s eye for detail, check out the links below. It’s all really good stuff.

Design Stories Social Network | Franco Di Capua’s Page

PHOTOS > Christine Estima

PHOTO > Beautiful Reality

PHOTO > Meaghan Beames

PHOTO > 26.media

\

PHOTO > Kaydi

PHOTO > Ivvonka Frankova

PHOTO > David J. Phillips

WWJMD?

How provocative. Hmm … let’s see. Perhaps she would light a cigarette and ponder the “this massive mess we’re in” and then go paint a picture of it all. That’s my guess to the question visual artist Cecilia Berkovic poses.

These posters, wheatpasted along Toronto’s Queen Street West and Parkdale in October 2011, are a response to British artist (and Turner Prize winner) Jeremy Deller’s What Would Neil Young Do? poster from 2006:

designKULTUR thinks this one is better. After all, Joni is the heavier thinker of the two (and, as Janet J noted, “Joni Mitchell never lies”). Berkovic’s poster is so much more developed conceptually. It’s beautifully conceived and elegant. Furthermore, designKULTUR really would prefer a serifless world — Berkovic has the better grip on typography.

Berkovic’s visual art explores aspects of consumer culture, leisure, queer identity and feminism. Her projects include other poster projects, publishing, several photo-based series, and art installations.

In 2001 she participated in a residency program at the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation in Germany (wow!). She is currently based in Toronto.

• Many thanks to the photographers who captured the moment!

STILL SMOKIN’ > Joni + Jane, October 2011: Icons of any era

tumblr | David J. Phillips

tumblr | 26.media

Camera+ | Meaghan Beames

yfrog | Kaydi

twitpic | Ivonka Frankova 

The Guardian | The collaborator: Artist Jeremy Deller doesn’t sell much work, and was embarrassed by the Turner prize

Katherine Mulherin Contemporary Art Projects | Cecilia Berkovic

Circuit Gallery | Untitled 7, from the Double Page Spread series

“Donyale Luna dans une robe Paco Rabanne” (aluminum plate studded chest dress, 1966). Luna (what an appropriate name for the Space Age) was the first black model of consequence. Hers is a tragic and intriguing story and I’ll be writing more about her in another post.

Paco Rabanne:  Haut et Robe, 1969.

Rabanne kicked off the Space Age look in 1964. In this photo, Patti Boyd and Celia Hammond wear felt hats designed in 1965 by milliner Edward Mann and photographed by John French. Like Giorgio Armani 45 years later, Mann was inspired by la luna.

Another John French photo from the Space Age: Edward Mann’s “Space Hats.” © V&A Images.

Although not truly Space-Agey, Yves Saint Laurent’s iconic Mondrian dress from 1965 still looks striking. YSL looked to the past to arrive at his vision of the future. The dress made the cover of Paris Vogue in September (photo by David Bailey) and was picked up by LIFE magazine.

More LIFE magazine from 3 September 1965 with astronaut Charles Conrad and the Space Race on that week’s cover:

Also from LIFE, Dior’s ostrich feather hoods, 1965: Space-Age hair for gorgeous girls. These three “chicks,” in particular, are strikingly beautiful.

A “biker” look from Pierre Cardin’s Space Age era, which began in 1965.

Kоллекция П. Кардена «Космическая эра»

(Collection P. Cardin “Space Age”)

Emilio Pucci for Braniff Airlines. Braniff literally took the Space Age to new heights with its mid-sixties uniforms. Have a look at Come Spy With Me for more about this trend-setting airline’s visual identity program from the ’60s.

Below: Braniff’s SpaceHostess at the unveiling of the Concorde, 1969. Too much!

Stanley Kubrick passed over Braniff and chose Pan Am to represent the future of space travel in his 1968 opus, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Kubrick was prescient on a lot of matters, but not the future of aviation: Pan Am went belly up in 1991, a full decade before the “real” 2001. (But then again, Braniff went bankrupt in ’82).

The film’s costumes were designed, surprisingly, by Sir Hardy Amies, best known for his role as dress designer for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (who, to the best of my knowledge, has never looked Space-Agey).

In the 1960s, Pan Am established a waiting list for future flights to the moon, issuing free ‘First Moon Flights Club’ membership cards to those who requested them.

A fictional Pan Am ‘Space Clipper,’ a commercial spaceplane called the Orion III, had a prominent role in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey and was featured in the movie’s poster. Plastic models of the 2001 Pan Am Space Clipper were sold by both the Aurora Company and Airfix at the time of the film’s release in 1968.

- Wikipedia, Pan American World Airlines

Michelangelo Antonioni’s first English-language film, Blowup (1966) was produced at the height of the Space Age fashion rage and includes scenes of David Hemming’s character, a mod London photographer, shooting high fashion in his studio.

It’s a toss-up whether 2001 or Blowup is the more obtuse film, yet both are certainly creatures of their era and both films presented Space Age couture to the masses.

Costumes (in the style of Mary Quant and Rudi Gernreich) for Blowup were designed by the late Jocelyn Rickards, costume designer for New Wave films.

On television, John Bates’s fashions for The Avengers‘ Emma Peel (the incomparably sexy Diana Rigg) also played on the Space Age theme. Bates also played an important (perhaps central) role in introducing the miniskirt. The Telegraph  (London) wrote: “Bates was probably the most influential designer of the 1960s.” Ah … Swinging London in the ’60s!

Diana Rigg: The Emmapeeler (!)

DIANA RIGG and the EMMAPEELER

Here’s that Avenger girl, Diana Rigg, in the grooviest jumpsuit on your TV screen. Called the “Emmapeeler” — after the character she plays — it comes in eight colors and is made of a stretch fabric called Crimplene. T.B. Jones Ltd. of London is the manufacturer.

Emmapeeler? Crimplene?  

Fashion + Furniture: Eero Saarinen’s iconic Space Age »Tulip« Chairs and Tin Foil Girl.

Pierre Cardin: “An Important ‘Satellite’ Cape,” ca. 1965. Auctioned at Christie’s Resurrection: Avant-Garde Fashion  auction in London, 2008 for ₤5,000.

Lot Notes:

This cape is the epitome of ‘Space Age’ couture, coming straight from Cape Canaveral to the catwalk in new, shiny plastic.

Pierre Cardin’s ‘Cosmos’ Tunic and Sweater, 1967 next to Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian dress. V&A Museum.

More mid-sixties’ grooviness from Pierre Cardin.

Trendsetter Audrey Hepburn in a “bobby” hat designed by Courrèges. Below: Same picture appropriated for the cover of a Russian magazine, 2008. Photo by Canada’s Douglas Kirkland.

Pierre Cardin sunglasses, 1960s.

André Courrèges, undated. Photo by William Klein.

Courrèges go-go boots.

André Courrèges’ cutout go-go boots which first appeared in 1964 along with the introduction of his first Space Age black and white fashion collection. The boots were made famous by French chanteuse Françoise Hardy.

- Glynis Ward, “Go-Go Boots: A Foot-First Jump into the Wacky World of Mod Footwear,”coololdstuff.com

Three co-creators of a new vision for a new age: designer (and co-founder of the Mattachine Society, a pre-Stonewall gaylib organization), Rudi Gernreich, his muse, Californian Peggy Moffitt, and her photographer-husband, William Claxton.

The trio would become famous with the publication of this photo in 1964:

An iconic image from the Space Age (and two demure versions): Rudi Gernreich’s shocking, revolutionary topless bathing suit (he dubbed it the “monokini”) from 1964, modeled by Peggy and gorgeously photographed by her late husband, William Claxton.

He was trying to take away the prurience, the whole perverse side of sex.- Peggy Moffitt

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s curatorial take on the monokini:

Though swimwear always extends the possibility of a view to the body, the monokini caused quite a stir when it debuted in 1964.

Gernreich’s paradox is that the bottom of the topless suit is very conservative, with ample coverage and made in the same wool material that had been used for Victorian bathing apparel. As a gesture akin to Conceptual Art, this suit merges an avant-garde sensibility with a nod to tradition.

Side note: Gernreich was giving a hands-up to gender equality and the Women’s Liberation Movement with this design — during the Space Age, North American women did not have the right to go about their business “au naturel.”

Although plenty of monokinis were sold in the spring and summer of ’64, few were actually worn.

The Topfreedom or GoTopless movement began at the dawn of the Digital Age when women began to agitate for their basic human right to go top-free. They began winning court cases  — the District of Columbia in 1986, New York State in 1992, Ontario (Go Gwen!) in 1996, and Maine in 1998 — which would have impressed Rudi, I’m sure. (Of course, the far more sophisticated Northern Europeans were always way ahead of the curve on this issue of equality.)

Gwen Jacobs’s: Ontario’s Topfreedom champion

But back in ’64, the look was so shockingly new it inspired the following guide to the gauntlet of going topless:

According to Everything Bikini:

Throughout the country, statesmen and church officials pronounced the swimsuit immoral and tasteless.

Because the monokini was so obviously inappropriate for swimming or tanning, many people assumed it was meant to be more of a gag than a serious swimsuit design.

However, despite the reaction of fashion critics and church officials, shoppers purchased the monokini in record numbers that summer. By the end of the season, Gernreich had sold 3000 swimsuits at $24 a pop (a tidy profit for such a miniscule amount of fabric). Still, despite the number of swimsuits purchased, very few monokinis were ever worn in public.

Above: Rudi! Rudi and his Muse (“Collaborator,” according to Moffitt). Below: More Ms. Moffitt!

Spring/Summer 1972: Rudi revisits his icon and recasts it as a white matte jersey jumpsuit with the monokini “set-in” black wool-knit with a red band on the sleeve. (Moffitt called it The Red Band of Courage.)

Spring/Summer 1972: one-piece red and black wool-knit trompe l’oeil swimsuit.

Spring/Summer 1972: black-and-white matte jersey trompe l’oeil jumpsuit (we love jumpsuits! Emma Peel should have worn this one) with wool-knit inserts.

Resort 1965: with Lydia Fields and Leon Bing. Sun visors by Layne Nielson.

Resort 1965: wool-knit tank swimsuit with vinyl hip boots and sun visor. Boots by Capezio, as were all the boots and shoes used with Rudi’s designs.

Keeping the Faith I: In the Digital Age, ajumma (아줌마 — Korean for “women who look old enough to get married”) and other affluent Asian women adopted the megavisor in an effort to stay as Snow White as possible, thus distinguishing themselves from their sisters who work in the fields and get tanned.

Swinging London, 1965: swimsuit, lavender wool-knit top with red vinyl dots, and lavender bikini with detachable red vinyl garters and off-white fishnet stockings.

Resort 1968: from a wool-knit group with transparent vinyl inserts. This dress appeared with Rudi on the cover of TIME on 1 December 1967 (click the cover to read the story):

Fall 1965: reversible wool houndstooth cape in shades of beige and brown.

Resort 1965: mirrored earrings by Layne Nielson. Photograph by Peter James Samerjan.

Somebody had to break the rules

The first woman to wear a geometric haircut broke the rules.

Columbus broke the rules.

Florence Nightingale broke the rules.

And Dash broke the rules to make a breakthrough detergent.

Unisex, 1970: The final conclusion to fashion-forward thinking. Photographs by Patricia Faure.

My collage of Patricia Faure’s photographs of Rudi’s 1970 Unisex collection.

Unisex 1970: forecasting the future, Rudi predicted that “clothing will not be identified as either male or female … women and men will wear skirts interchangeably … the aesthetics of fashion are going to involve the body itself.”

Renée Holt and Tom Broome are the models here in photographs by Patricia Faure. Quote from The Rudy Gernreich Book.

Resort 1967: red, white, and navy silk “kite” dress worn with red vinyl decals.

Stills from William Claxton’s “Basic Black” featuring Rudi’s “Total Look.” The fashions in this short film won Rudi his second Coty Award and the film itself won many other awards.

Rudi’s hands at work in Los Angeles in 1966.

The Big Book of Rudi (and Peggy and William). Click to enjoy 357 pages of the future as it was in the past!

1968: »Rudi and the Snow Queen«

The Dream

Shortly before Rudi’s death, he called me and said, “I had a dream last night that I was in a graveyard, and I saw my own tombstone. I went up to it, and it said, ‘He was always ten years ahead of his time.’ It was hard for me, but I laughed. Rudi said, “I told you that because you’re the only person who I knew would laugh.”

He was wrong of course. He was always thirty years ahead of his time.

Pas de Deux

Without Rudi I would have been a gifted and innovative model. Without me he would have been an avant-garde designer of genius. We made each other better. We were each other’s catalyst. We didn’t invent each other — we played aesthetic Ping-Pong together. One of us would say, or notice, or do something and the other would lob it back across the net. It was fun, it was invigorating, it was a true collaboration, and yes, it was love.

- Peggy Moffitt, The Rudi Gernreich Book

An aside, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Though Gernreich died in 1985, Moffitt is the holder of the trademark on his name and designs, and has since then worked to further popularize his works.

In 1999 she allowed his designs to be put on display in an art exhibition. The same year, Moffitt also worked with Marylou Luther and William Claxton to release a comprehensive book chronicling Gernreich’s designs.

This resurgence in interest of both Gernreich and Moffitt led to a contract with Japanese fashion label Comme des Garçons’ designer Rei Kawakubo to re-create a number of Gernreich’s designs and make them available to the retail market.

Together the duo went through the Gernreich archives and selected key pieces to be re-released under the Comme des Garçons label. In 2003 the “*moffitt” line was finally released as a series of t-shirts (some depicting Moffitt’s image), as well as a range of trousers.

WASH ‘N’ WEAR

In another life: If he hadn’t become a hairdresser, he says he would have been an architect.

I think he studied 1920s’ hairstyles (think Louise Brooks, below) and the Bauhaus —especially the women of the movement — and resurrected their garçonne look for the newly emancipated women of the 1960s.

Oskar Schlemmer, Bauhaustreppe (1932)

Whatever the origins of his inspiration, beginning in 1963 with his “5-Point” haircut, Vidal Sassoon changed the way the world viewed hair styling.

Before Sassoon: Women went for a weekly visit to the salon. Their stylists would cut,set, brush and tease their hair into some sort of confection, dose it with highly flammable hairspray, and hope and pray that their ‘do would last a week until the cycle repeated itself. I call it hair torture.

After Sassoon: Sassoon’s “revolutionary” 5-Pointer (below). No more teasing and backcombing. No more hairspray. Sassoon loved to say, “Shake it!” to his clients. They would, and every strand would fall back into place, perfectly. Hair as architecture: Now that’s Space Age!

Sassoon and then-model Grace Coddington (now Creative Director at Anna Wintour’s American Vogue).

It’s obvious that Grace, who initially popularized the look, lost her faith in it all. I find it amazing that her hair was once capable of looking so slick. Her hair “style” today makes  her the Anti-Sassoon.

Mary Quant (still popular in Japan!) was an early proponent of Sassooning.

Keeping the Faith II: Sassoon and Mary — still sporting her Vidaldo — on the set of Vidal Sassoon: The Movie, discussing Peggy Moffitt’s ability to inhabit the clothes she modelled, 2010

I made the name the “Peggy Moffitt” up in honour of Ms. Moffitt. I love the asymmetrical look but wonder how practical it was when trying to cross the High Street.

Keeping the Faith III: Peggy Moffitt and her 5-point, 2010

Mod Mob
A gaggle of models requested the Five Point, but only one would come to own it in print: mod fashion icon Peggy Moffitt.

‘Peggy had this marvelous way about directing her own feelings to make hair or clothes look so special,’ Sassoon remembers. The muse of Austrian-born and L.A.-based fashion designer Rudi Gernreich (the man behind the monokini), Moffitt will always be tied to the short, graphic style — which, for the record, she still sports today in her seventies.

- style.com

Check out the story of story about Sassoon cutting Kwan’s very long locks: Sorry I Kept You Waiting, Madam. Recommended!

Ahh … the ever-lovely Nancy Kwan. She cut off her tresses and instantly looked so sophisticated, thanks to Sassoon.

Actress Nancy Kwan’s haircut proved a major turning point in Sassoon’s career. She walked into his salon with 4 feet of hair and left with this short, geometric ‘bob’ which she showcased in the film The Wild Affair.

As he cut her hair, Sassoon was so sure that he was onto something great, he called up top photographer Terence Donovan and took Kwan straight over to his studio to shoot pictures of the style.

Those pictures went straight into British Vogue and were then picked up by Vogues all over the world making Sassoon a household name. The ‘Nancy Kwan’ hairstyle soon became internationally recognised and sought after, creating a worldwide trend.

- The Telegraph

Video: Vidal Sassoon shares the secrets of his success

Although rather hagiographic in tone, this film is a must-see if you’re interested in the fashion-forward looks of the Space Age era. I came away impressed, not only by Mr. Sassoon’s rags-to-riches story, but by how he has taken control of, directed and owned his own life based on a vision his mother had when he was a boy. I was also duly impressed by how he easily he can flex 80-plus-year-old body!

Great writing and direction by Craig Teper and a cast that includes Mary Quant, a couple of his wives, salon associates, Grace Coddington, and other seminal figures from the swinging ’60s when all the talent in Britain converged in London and created something the world had never seen before: a youthquake.

My homage to the film: mashed up images from the DVD case and a yellow wedge for Nancy. I’m with Marie Claire — the film is “A Must-See.”

The one thing Vidal Sassoon: The Movie doesn’t delve into enough to satisfy my curiosity is the story of P&G’s “debranding” of Sassoon products (still popular in Japan; never popular in most of the Middle East) after Sassoon sold his company and it was then resold to the soap giant. For details about that chapter of his life, see this story.

• World Premiere: Tribeca Film Festival, 23 April 2010
• UK Cinema Release Date: 20 May 2011
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Director/Writer: Craig Teper
• Cast: Vidal Sassoon, Beverly Adams [Sassoon], Ronnie Sassoon, Mary Quant, Grace Coddington

PHOTOS > Cardin by Renée Falcke; Courrèges; Rabanne

André Courrèges

In another post I wrote about how the dress below (from Armani Privé) inspired visions of the future in me.

Moreover, this particular dress got me thinking back to the days when fashion seemed much more revolutionary.

This post is my homage to the great designers of the ’60s who, inspired by the era’s headstrong rush into the future, created a new aesthetic in women’s fashion.

Giorgio Armani said that his Privé haute couture line (shown at le Palais de Chaillot in Paris on 25 January 2010) was inspired by visions of la luna. In the mid-sixties, the moon also inspired a host of fashion designers. The Space Age had begun and the Mission to the Moon was in high gear. It was a time of revolutionary thinking and the fashions above display that new spirit.

The fashions below, likewise, reflect and enhance the Space Age sensibility for a new era.

“Jelly Fish” courtesy of Peter & Francesca, Flickr

PHOTO >  de Moraes Barros

Armani Privé, Spring 2010

°

°

°

Paco Rabanne: Medal dress made of hammered metal, 2001

°

°

°

Photos: © Hussein Chalayan, Collection “Airborne” for autumn / winter 2007/08

Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

HAL: Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

DAVE: What’s the problem?

HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.

Stills from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick, 1968. © MGM/Photofest.

Knoll | Saarinen Collection Brochure PDF

★ Pattern Vault | The Mondrian!

PHOTO > Alan Katowitz

COURTESY > Doug Sprenger | JoniMitchell.com

SOURCE > jonimitchell.com

20th-Century Heroes: The crew of the first Greenpeace direct action (to stop nuclear testing at Amchitka Island in Alaska) gets ready to depart Vancouver on 15 September 1971

Clockwise from top left: Bob Hunter, Patrick Moore, Bob Cummings, Ben Metcalfe, Dave Birmingham, John Cormack, Bill Darnell, Terry Simmons, Jim Bohlen, Lyle Thurston and Richard Fineberg

The photos above were taken by the 12th member, Robert Kezier 

Greenpeace Canada | Greenpeace, at 40, and Democracy

Greenpeace International | Amchitka: the 1970s rock concert that launched Greenpeace

jonimitchell.com| Chronology of Appearances: 1970.10.16  PNE Coliseum – Vancouver, BC

rexweyler.com| Rex Weyler

metro | Growing Up Greenpeace

The Province | Gallery: Greenpeace from the Beginning

designboom | Alvar Aalto Biography

Design Museum | Alvar Aalto

Designer Ronen Kadushin’s Flataalto flower holder is an open design (thanks!) cover version of Alvar Aalto’s ageless mouth-blown glass Savoy vase from 1936.

The Flataalto flower holder is ready for laser cutting. The curves are all arcs, with no hidden lines or layers. Ronen recommends using 1.5 mm stainless steel or 1.5 – 2 mm “mild” steel for your vase.    

Once it’s assembled, simply place your favourite receptacle in the Flataalto’s base and away you go! My choice for the secondary vase? A tiny clear Savoy with tulips:

The Flataalto by Ronen Kadushin

Material: 1.5 mm stainless steel
L:  24 cm
W: 17 cm
H: 18 cm

Brilliant!

★ Flexible Stream Open Design Source | Ronen Kadushin: Flataalto Flower Holder

★ coroflot Portfolio | Jan Ctvrtnik

Sketches of the Savoy Vase, 1936
Entry for Karhula Iittala Glass Competition
Alvar Aalto

Vase designs for Karhula-Iittala Glass Design Competition, 1936
Alvar Aalto

Savoy Vase, 1937
Alvar Aalto
Manufactured by Iittala

★ Jan Michl | Alvar Aalto’s Savoy Vase (1936)

Eikonographia | Aalto Vase, by Herzog & de Meuron