If 1960s fashion is your bag (baby), make sure to stop by London's V&A museum this year to check out their major exhibit celebrating the work of designer Mary Quant. Dame Mary pioneered and popularized the mini skirt, which came to symbolize the youthful, on-the-go attitudes in the early 60s. Revolutionary in hindsight, Dame Mary has described her process, and I think this can apply to artists working any media, as a focussed labor of love on the projects: "It was a wonderfully exciting time and despite the frenetic, hard work we had enormous fun. We didn’t necessarily realise that what we were creating was pioneering, we were simply too busy relishing all the opportunities and embracing the results before rushing on to the next challenge! Friends have been extremely generous in loaning, and in many cases, donating garments and accessories to the V&A which they have lovingly cherished for many years, so it will be fascinating to see what else will emerge! I am enormously grateful to have been involved with so many talented people whose contribution to that ground-breaking, revolutionary and memorable era will also be recognised.” Hear that, social media-era artists? The trick is to create, create, create, and make the work the focus. And I'm so pleased to see Dame Mary getting this special exhibit. From the V&A press release: "Today, the V&A announces that it has been given unprecedented access to Dame Mary Quant’s Archive to curate the first international retrospective on the revolutionary fashion designer in nearly 50 years. Opening in April 2019, the exhibition will focus on the years between 1955 and 1975, when Quant revolutionised the high street with her subversive and playful designs for a younger generation, from hot pants, miniskirts and trousers for women to accessories, tights and make-up. The exhibition will bring together over 200 objects, the majority of which have never been on public display. It will reveal the real stories behind the myths to explore how Quant democratised fashion and empowered women through her determination, ingenuity and unique personal style, which she exported around the world. The exhibition will be drawn from the V&A’s extensive fashion holdings, which includes the largest collection of Mary Quant garments in the world, as well as the designer’s personal archive and important international loans. Jenny Lister, curator of Mary Quant at the V&A, said: “Mary Quant liberated fashion in the late 1950s and early 60s. Known for establishing high street fashion, inventing hot pants and popularising the miniskirt, she freed women from rules and regulations, and from dressing like their mothers. This long-overdue exhibition will show how Mary made high fashion affordable for working women, and how her youthful, revolutionary clothes, inspired by London, made British streetstyle the global influence it remains today.” The exhibition runs from 6 April 2019 – 8 March 2020. Don't miss it! More info at V&A and Mary Quant. Images below: Dame Mary in the 1960s (at work and with Vidal Sassoon). In other news, I have a new book out (over 700 pages!) about one of America's legendary cartoonists. Check it out! Enjoy!
Let's get this weekend party rocking with a bit of motorcycle action and R.L. Burnside! I recently shared some video clips of my old blues band with friends and it was so fun to have that era of music reawaken for me in vivid picture and sound. Well, the clips were pretty lo-fi actually, but seeing the footage sure brought that time in my life back into detail! I started playing guitar when I was a little kid and gravitated towards the Blues. I followed John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, among many others, and I was fortunate to see a lot of my heroes play live. There was a huge ripple through the Blues community in the early 1990s, when Fat Possum Records began to record northern Mississippi players like Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside. R.L. became my main guy at that point. I just found his music fantastically hypnotic, driving, and playful at the same time. He started touring up north with his grandson Cedric on drums and Kenny Brown on second guitar. For a few years there, I always made a point to get to his shows early so I could hang out with them as much as possible. R.L. was always generous and happy to connect, and I had great conversations with Cedric about whether he should go to school or keep gigging with his granddad. Cedric Burnside has since grown up and has become a celebrated and gifted Bluesman himself! So happy for him! R.L. passed away in 2005, but his legacy lives on! I was looking at footage of their old gigs last night and came across this clip on Youtube; a fun hybrid of my love for R.L. and appreciation for classic British films. As you'll hear, R.L. and Fat Possum did some experimenting with loops in the late 1990s and they produced some cool tracks like It's Bad You Know (Come on In/1998). Listen for the haunting harp tone- I would have enjoyed playing that part! I'm not sure why the video editor thought to connect these two worlds, but I enjoy it a lot. Included in the film footage are clips from The Leather Boys (1964) by Sidney Furie (The Ipcress File), Hell Drivers (1957) by Cy Endfield starring Sean Connery, Patrick McGoohan, William Hartnell, and David Maccallum, and Girl on a Motorcycle (Naked Under Leather/1968) starring Marianne Faithful and Alain Delon by the wonderful cinematographer who worked with Powell and Presburger, Jack Cardiff. Push play and start your own Spy Vibe dance party! Explore the Burnsides: Too Bad Jim, Mr. Wizard, Benton County Relic. Image: my fave R.L. photo with his dog, Jim. I used to have a great signed copy of this hanging in my room. In other news, I have a new book out (over 700 pages!) about one of America's great cartoonists. Check it out! Enjoy!
For Spy Vibers who grew up in the States reading comic books, it's especially fun to see how other countries approached sequential art- especially when it comes to classic 1960s tie-in projects. TV 21 and other UK titles featured beautifully painted pages and the British comics overall tended to use more of what Americans might call an illustrative style. IDW has been publishing a 3-volume set of books to collect the UK Star Trek comics, and I bring it up today because Bud's Art Books just announced a sale that includes Vol. 1 in the series at a discount price. From the press release: "In 1969, six months before the Star Trek TV series premiered in England, British comics readers were introduced to the characters in an original comic book series. The stories were serialized, generally 2 to 3 pages at a time, in 257 weekly magazines spanning five years and 37 storylines. Handsome painted artwork in the style of Frank Bellamy. 17 complete adventures. These extremely rare comics have never been published in the United States. Star Trek fans will quickly note that the comics were not written with strict adherence to Star Trek's core concepts. The Enterprise frequently traveled outside our galaxy, and the crew committed many violations of the never-mentioned Prime Directive along the way. Spock shouted most of his lines and often urged Kirk (or "Kurt," as his name was misspelled in early issues) to shoot first and ask questions later. But it's precisely that "offness" that makes them so eminently readable and deserving of a proper reprinting. They're unique in the annals of Star Trek and fans have gone without them for far too long." More details at Bud's Art Books. You can read a review at 13th Dimension. Related post: Star Trek 50th. In other news, I have a new book out (over 700 pages!) about one of America's great cartoonists. Check it out! Enjoy!
