ACADEMIC style FEAST

Jana Wieland's graduate collection (Hetzendorf, photo: J. Hammerschmid)

... I was talking to some people the other day and we found out that since Vienna's annual "festival for fashion and photography" was moved to a later date in autumn, the city's fashion folk had much less occasions to meet and mingle than they usually would at this time of the year. I mean, at least if you calculate that the people attending a show with avant-garde fashion by student designers are not 100 percent identical with the luxury aficionados that invade the countless openings of new luxury flagship stores in the city centre.

Anna-Sophie Berger from Angewandte (photo: Shoji Fuji)

Anyhow, so we were all really really happy and full of energy when we went to the traditional fashion show of Modeklasse at Angewandte last week, and the same thing goes for the BA Fashion show by students of the bachelor course for fashion design located in Hetzendorf. 

First up was the show of Angewandte's fashion department, one of the highlights on Vienna's fashion calendar for sure. The air was thick and damp and heavy, but that didn't prevent us from digging the work of Bernhard Willhelm's students. There is quite a lot of Willhelmy stuff around, and a surprisingly great number of collections made me think "that's a little Margiela-ish" or "isn't that one of Miuccia's whims?" (wasn't that a little different some years ago? probably not, and I'm just imagining things - I HAVE been very busy at work lately, so that would be pretty understandable). 

Taro Ohmae from Angewandte (photo: Shoji Fuji)

There was quite some colourful stuff, quirky shoes, some valid criticism of the fashion system, and there was the graduate collection of Taro Ohmae who does BEAU-TI-FUL things together with Tanja Bradaric - as you, dear readers, should be well aware of... Keep it coming, dear fellows (does anybody know when the Willhelm era will come to its end, by the way? was this his last season at Angewandte already? I guess there's one more year to come...?).

Regarding the fashion show of BA Fashion students at Hetzendorf in collaboration with the University of Fine Arts in Linz (phew! always such an effort to get *that* right...), that was quite another thing. I mean, basically it should be just another chapter of the same story, which is or should be about about creativity and being young and a newcomer. 

But sadly, there is one great difference: the City of Vienna, which used to finance this very fashion course, decided (that was two years ago) that money spent on such a bachelor degree was money spent not wisely enough. 

Isolde Mayer, a Hetzendorf graduate (photo: Jürgen Hammerschmid)

Huh? Yeah, you understood that correctly. First they started it, and then, after three or so years, they said - that's enough, we'll pay for another three years, and then that's that. Quite the contrary of political farsightedness, I'd say. Urgh.

Alina Saavedra Santis, a Hetzendorf graduate (photo: J. Hammerschmid)

The fashion show was marvellous, you'll find images on most Austrian fashion blogs (the same thing is true for Angewandte's show), there were really original ideas in some of the collections and also on how to present fashion (and shoes - with torches, lighting them, as in Isolde Mayer's case, for example; or sitting on a chair pretending to try them on as you would in a shop). 

Lena Marie Fuhrmann, a Hetzendorf graduate (photo: J. Hammerschmid)

24 collections of Hetzendorf graduates being presented at the same time, quite a challenge, and all in all pretty impressive, right? And let me express my hope that some high-ranking person from Vienna's town office was there and will be able to take the right decision for this bachelor course. I will keep you posted, you can take that as a promise ...

... quelques mots en français pour terminer : je viens de vous parler du festival de la mode et de la photographie qui n'a pas encore eu lieu à Vienne cette année, et des grandes attentes que le people a pu avoir à l'égard des défilés des deux universités de mode existant à Vienne. 

En ce qui concerne la fameuse "Modeklasse" de l'Université des Arts Appliqués, les traces de la direction artistique de Bernhard Willhelm ont depuis longtemps pu devenir manifestes - il y avait décidément, çà et là et ailleurs, une influence willhelmoise très, on va dire, bigarée.

Et pour parler de la licence ("bachelor") de mode, cours d'études dirigé par la designer autrichienne Ute Ploier à l'Université de Linz mais situé à Hetzendorf : cela aura été l'avant-dernière fois, tragiquement, qu'on a vu les travaux de ces jeunes gens apparemment très doués défiler car la ville de Vienne, soutien économique principal de ce cours universitaire, a décidé, il y a deux ans, qu'elle allait arrêter ce flux d'argent. Ce qui, trois ans seulement après qu'on avait démarré ce même cours, a surpris par l'absence totale de clairvoyance de la part des responsables politiques. C'est presque surprenant que l'on puisse encore être surpris par une série d'actions dépourvues de sens en politique, mais là, ç'a été fait. On verra bien l'an prochain si la décision a vraiment été prise une fois pour toutes ... 

ACADEMIA, not macadamia

from Ute Ploiers fall 2005 collection "Pioneers"

... yes, darlings, that's right, ACADEMIA and not MACADAMIA is on our menu today as I finally received confirmation concerning the soon-to-be fashion professor at Hetzendorf Institute's bachelor course in fashion design upon inquiry for my article in today's edition of the newspaper. Ahum. According to what I heard, after initial hearings the competition was reduced to a final selection of three, and after weeks of to and fro, UTE PLOIER has now finally been confirmed as the institute's next creative director. CONGRATULATIONS, I say, and after collecting previous teaching experience in Basel, Ute is definitely going to do an excellent job. What's more, she is based in Vienna and will therefore be able to provide sensible guidance for her students starting next fall. The final decision does however raise another question, and that's whether Andreas Bergbaur, who had also applied for the job (among others) and who is a very prominent member of Vienna's fashion scene (being one of the founding members of Unit F - fashion office, the local equivalent of, say, the British Fashion Council), has nevertheless made up his mind and is prepared to come back to Vienna or whether he'll stay in Milan at Jil Sander where he currently holds an important position. And, should he come back to Vienna, there may be other interesting jobs within the scope of CREATIVE INDUSTRIES SUPPORT for him, I guess, and even, right, why not..., yep, any ideas ? ...


... après de longues négotiations et beaucoup de suspense concernant le choix d'un successeur de Johannes et Wally / fabrics interseason à la tête de l'institut d'études supérieures en création de mode à Vienne/Hetzendorf (techniquement, c'est associé à l'Université des Beaux Arts de Linz, économiquement c'est la ville de Vienne - c'est une construction assez compliquée, donc tout à fait typique pour l'Autriche...), il paraîtrait, non, on vient d'avoir la confirmation finale que UTE PLOIER a été désignée comme futur prof et directeur créatif de l'institut. FELICITATIONS, ma chère (cela s'entend qu'on a entendu des voix pas très favorables avant de sa nomination, mais vous savez aussi bien que moi que l'envie n'est pas un très joli moteur pour quoi que ce soit...). Et puis, maintenant que l'on sait que c'est Ute et qu'elle va sûrement faire un boulot excellent à Hetzendorf (elle a déjà fait des expériences dans l'enseignementa l'Universié de Bâle en Suisse), reste à voir un petit détail : que fera donc Andreas Bergbaur, qui a déjà, pendant de longues années, enseigné à l'Université des Arts Décoratifs à Vienne avant de rejoindre Jil Sander à Milan (où il était emmené par Raf Simons), et qui a été l'un des membres fondateurs de la tout-puissante institution UNIT F, équivalent de l'ANDAM en France ? Car une fois qu'il a signalé d'être disponible pour une position importante à Vienne, je me demande s'il restera désormais en Italie ou si, par contre, il y aura peut-être AUTRE CHOSE, une autre position qui pourrait le tenter en Autriche, car là aussi, si j'y repense, la direction créative de Hetzendorf n'est plus ce qu'il y a de plus TOP DE LA GAMME depuis tout récemment, mais là, naturellement, c'est juste moi qui suis en train de me poser des questions - et l'on verra si c'est à juste titre ou non ...

FASHION professors

... just in: since the fashion duo __fabrics interseason will not renew their contract as fashion professors at Vienna's Hetzendorf institute, autumn 2011 will see a new creative director of the fashion bachelor course. This Friday, April 1, public hearings will take place, and the candidates are as follows:

10 am - Helga Schania (Wendy & Jim)
10.45 am - Ute Ploier
11.30 am - Edwina Hörl
12.15 pm - Anna Aichinger
13.00 pm - Andreas Bergbaur


This is of course a very attractive list of highly qualified candidates, with more or less teaching experience to date. Most remarkable, I find, is the (re)appearance of Mr Bergbaur on the Vienna fashion parquet, since he currently works at Jil Sander marketing and used to work at the University of Applied Arts as Raf Simons' assistant ...

SO MANY FABRICS

... this is a double post about _fabrics interseasons, or Wally Salner's and Johannes Schweiger's multi-faceted work...


... as professors of the BA in fashion design at the uni Linz on the one hand, on the occasion of a presentation of their students' work tomorrow evening in Haus Wittgenstein with an ensuing exhibition (June 12 - 14) ...


... and because of a special one-off sample sale they'll host in their studio this weekend: Haymerlegasse 6/3, 1160 is the place to be on Sat June 12, noon - 9 pm and on Sun June 13, noon - 7 pm. Carry cash, please, as "nur Bares ist Wahres" is the _fabrics motto ...

Angewandte vs Hetzendorf

d'ailleurs j'aime beaucoup la robe-canapé... c'est très Salvador Dalí...

... vous allez me pardonner ! Il ne s'agit pas, bien entendu, de nourrir ou de provoquer des inimitiés entre les deux écoles de mode les plus réputées de la ville. Just un peu de retouche et de photoshop. C'est tout.