World Food Books' programme is largely produced on Kulin Nation land. We acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the first and continuing custodians of this land, and pay respect to their Elders past, present, and emerging.
World Food Books is an arts and special interests bookshop in Naarm / Melbourne. Founded in 2010, World Food Books is devoted to the presentation of a rotating, hand-selection of international art, design, literary and counterculture publications with an emphasis on the anti-traditional, the experimental, the avant-garde, the heretic, the marginal.
Presenting new titles alongside rare and out-of-print books, catalogues and journals spanning the fields of modern and contemporary art, design, photography, illustration, film, literature, poetry, cultural theory, philosophy, sexuality, popular and underground culture in its many radical forms, World Food Books wishes to encourage adventurous, thoughtful and open-minded reading, looking, writing, and exchange of publishing and ideas, both current and historical.
As well as our bookshop, located in Melbourne's historical Nicholas Building, all of our inventory is available internationally via our online mail-order service.
World Food Books semi-regularly co-ordinates "Occasions", a programme of exhibits and events at the bookshop and in partnership with other hosts (such as museums and art galleries) that develop out of the activities, relationships and content of the bookshop itself.
World Food Books
The Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street
Room 5, Level 6
Melbourne 3000
Australia
SHOP HOURS:
CLOSED FOR SUMMER
RE—OPENING JAN 16
WEB-SHOP OPEN 24/7
ORDERS SHIP FROM JAN 6
World Food Books
Postal Address:
PO Box 435
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia
Art
Theory / Essay
Architecture / Interior
Graphic Design / Typography
Photography
Fashion
Eros
LGBTQ+
Fiction / Poetry
Weird / Speculative / Science Fiction / Horror
Transgressive / Visceral / Abject
Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle
Film / Video
Painting
Sculpture / Installation
Performance / Dance / Theater
Drawing
Sound / Music
Curatorial
Group Shows / Collections
Periodicals
Out-of-print / Rare
Posters / Ephemera / Discs
Signed Books
World Food Books Gift Voucher
World Food Book Bag
Australian Art
Australian Photography
Japanese Photography
Conceptual Art
Minimal Art
Dada
'Pataphysics / Oulipo
Fluxus
Concrete Poetry
Pop Art
Surrealism
Arte Povera
Arte Informale / Haute Pâte / Tachism
Nouveau Réalisme / Zero / Kinetic
Situationism / Lettrism
Collage / Mail Art / Xerox Art
Art Brut / Folk / Visionary / Fantastic
Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées
Furniture
Italian Radical Design / Postmodernism
Textiles
Ceramics / Glass
Counterculture
Protest / Revolt
Anarchism
Socialism / Communism / Capitalism
Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language
Feminism
Fetishism / BDSM
Drugs / Psychedelia
Crime / Violence
Animal Rights / Veganism
Occult / Esoterica
Ecology / Earth / Alternative Living
Whole Earth / Crafts
All prices in AUD (Australian dollars)
Pick-Ups
Please note: The bookshop is closed until February 1, 2024.
Pick-up orders can be collected in our bookshop during opening hours after this date. Please collect any Pick-up orders within 3 weeks of ordering as we have limited storage space. Orders will be released back into stock if not collected within this time. No refunds can be made for pick-ups left un-collected.
Return Policy
All sales are final. We do accept returns (for refund, exchange) for items received in error. All our orders are packed with special care using heavy-duty padding and cardboard book-mailers or bubble mailers (for smaller books), using reinforcement where required. We cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels.
Insurance
Should you wish to insure your package, please email us directly after placing your order and we can organise this at a small extra expense. Although all standard/express tracked packages are very safe and dependable, we cannot take responsibility for any lost, stolen or damaged parcels. We recommend insurance on valuable orders.
Interested in selling your old books, catalogues, journals, magazines, comics, fanzines, ephemera? We are always looking for interesting, unusual and out-of-print books to buy. We only buy books in our fields of interest and specialty, and that we feel we can resell.
We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels. We offer cash, store credit, and can take stock on consignment. All
about 25% of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Sell your books any day of the week. You can drop them off and return later. If you have a lot of books, we can visit your Sydney home.
We buy books that we feel we can resell. We offer about 25 % of the price we expect to get when we sell them, or 30% in store credit. We base these prices on desirability, market value, in-print prices, condition and our current stock levels.
Philadelphia Wireman
03 August - 01 September, 2018
World Food Books is proud to announce our next Occasion, the first presentation of sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman in Australia.
The Philadelphia Wireman sculptures were found abandoned in an alley off Philadelphia’s South Street on trash night in 1982. Their discovery in a rapidly-changing neighbourhood undergoing extensive renovation, compounded with the failure of all attempts to locate the artist, suggests that the works may have been discarded after the maker’s death. Dubbed the "Philadelphia Wireman" during the first exhibition of this work, in 1985, the maker’s name, age, ethnicity, and even gender remain uncertain. The entire collection totals approximately 1200 pieces, all intricately bound together with tightly-wound heavy-gauge wire (along with a few small, abstract marker drawings, reminiscent both of Mark Tobey and J.B. Murry). The dense construction of the work, despite a modest range of scale and materials, is singularly obsessive and disciplined in design: a wire armature or exoskeleton firmly binds a bricolage of found objects including plastic, glass, food packaging, umbrella parts, tape, rubber, batteries, pens, leather, reflectors, nuts and bolts, nails, foil, coins, toys, watches, eyeglasses, tools, and jewellery.
Heavy with associations—anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and socio-cultural responses to wrapped detritus—the totemic sculptures by Philadelphia Wireman have been discussed in the context of work created to fulfil the shamanistic needs of alternative religions in American culture. Curators, collectors, and critics have variously compared certain pieces to sculpture from Classical antiquity, Native American medicine bundles, African-American memory jugs, and African fetish objects. Reflecting the artist’s prolific and incredibly focused scavenging impulse, and despite—or perhaps enhanced by—their anonymity, these enigmatic objects function as urban artefacts and arbiters of power, though their origin and purpose is unknown. Philadelphia Wireman, whatever their identity, possessed an astonishing ability to isolate and communicate the concepts of power and energy through the selection and transformation of ordinary materials. Over the course of the past two decades, this collection has come to be regarded as an important discovery in the field of self-taught art and vernacular art.
Presented in collaboration with Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, Philadelphia, and Robert Heald, Wellington.
Susan Te Kahurangi King
02 February - 10 March, 2018
Susan Te Kahurangi King (24 February 1951 - ) has been a confident and prolific artist since she was a young child, drawing with readily available materials - pencils, ballpoint pens and felt-tip markers, on whatever paper is at hand. Between the ages of four and six Susan slowly ceased verbal communication. Her grandparents William and Myrtle Murphy had developed a special bond with Susan so they took on caring responsibilities for extended periods. Myrtle began informally archiving her work, carefully collecting and storing the drawings and compiling scrapbooks. No drawing was insignificant; every scrap of paper was kept. The King family are now the custodians of a vast collection containing over 7000 individual works, from tiny scraps of paper through to 5 meter long rolls.
The scrapbooks and diaries reveal Myrtle to be a woman of great patience and compassion, seeking to understand a child who was not always behaving as expected. She encouraged Susan to be observant, to explore her environment and absorb all the sights and sounds. Myrtle would show Susan’s drawings to friends and people in her community that she had dealings with, such as shopkeepers and postal workers, but this was not simply a case of a grandmother’s bias. She recognised that Susan had developed a sophisticated and unique visual language and sincerely believed that her art deserved serious attention.
This was an unorthodox attitude for the time. To provide some context, Jean Dubuffet coined the term Art Brut in 1945 to describe work created by self-taught artists – specifically residents of psychiatric institutions and those he considered to be visionaries or eccentrics. In 1972 Roger Cardinal extended this concept by adopting the term Outsider Art to describe work made by non-academically trained artists operating outside of mainstream art networks through choice or circumstance. Susan was born in Te Aroha, New Zealand in 1951, far from the artistic hubs of Paris and London that Dubuffet and Cardinal operated in. That Myrtle fêted Susan as a self-taught artist who deserved to be taken seriously shows how progressive her attitudes were.
Susan’s parents Doug and Dawn were also progressive. Over the years they had consulted numerous health practitioners about Susan’s condition, as the medical establishment could not provide an explanation as to why she had lapsed into silence. Dawn educated herself in the field of homeopathy and went on to treat all twelve of her children using these principles – basing prescriptions on her observations of their physical, mental and emotional state.
Doug was a linguist with an interest in philosophy who devoted what little spare time he had to studying Maori language and culture. To some extent their willingness to explore the fringes of the mainstream made them outsiders too but it was their commitment to living with integrity and their respect for individuality that ensured Susan’s creativity was always encouraged.
Even though Susan’s family supported her artistic pursuits, some staff in schools and hospitals saw it as an impediment to her assimilation into the community and discouraged it in a variety of ways. Her family was not always aware of this and therefore did not fully understand why Susan stopped drawing in the early 1990s. However, rather than dwell on the challenges that Susan faced in pursuit of her artistic practice, they prefer to highlight her achievements. In 2008 Susan began drawing again in earnest, after an almost 20 year interruption, and her work is now shown in galleries around the world.
Susan grew up without television and has been heavily influenced by the comics she read as a child. She is absolutely fearless in the appropriation of recognizable characters, such as Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse, in her work. She twists their limbs, contorts their faces, compresses them together, blends them into complex patterned backgrounds - always imbuing them with an incredible energy. Although Susan often used pop culture characters in her work they are not naive or childlike. These are drawings by a brilliant self-taught artist who has been creating exceptional work for decades without an audience in mind.
Mladen Stilinović
"Various Works 1986 - 1999"
02 February 16 - September 10, 2016
Various works 1986 - 1999, from two houses, from the collections of John Nixon, Sue Cramer, Kerrie Poliness, Peter Haffenden and Phoebe Haffenden.
Including: Geometry of Cakes (various shelves), 1993; Poor People’s Law (black and white plate), 1993; White Absence (glasses, ruler, set square, silver spoon, silver ladel with skin photograph and wooden cubes), 1990-1996; Exploitation of the Dead (grey and red star painting, wooden painting, black spoon with red table, red plate), 1984-1990; Money and Zeros (zero tie, paintings made for friends in Australia (Sue, John, Kerrie), numbers painting), 1991-1992; Words - Slogans (various t-shirts) - “they talk about the death of art...help! someone is trying to kill me”, “my sweet little lamb”, “work is a disease - Karl Marx”; Various artist books, catalogues, monographs, videos; Poster from exhibition Insulting Anarchy; "Circular" Croatian - Australian edition; Artist book by Vlado Martek (Dostoyevsky); more.
Thanks to Mladen Stilinović and Branka Stipančić.
Jonathan Walker
Always Will Need To Wear Winter Shirt Blue + Ochre Small Check Pattern
21 August - 21 September, 2015
Untitled
I am not a great reader of poetry but I always return to the work of Melbourne poet, Vincent Buckley (1925- 1988). Perhaps I find his most tantalising piece to be not a finished poem but a fragment left on a scrap of paper discovered on his desk after the poet’s death.
The poetry gathers like oil
In the word-core, and spreads
It has its music meet,
Its music is in movement.
This fragment is more the shell left behind from a volatile thought than a finished poem. I find the last two lines honest but awkward whereas the first two lines work like an arrow. Most likely he could not find a resolution so it was left. Still, in its present form, it remains an eloquent testimony to the ultimate failure of a medium to express mobile thought and sensation, in Buckley’s case, through verbal language. It’s an important matter because this is something all artists have to deal with regardless of the medium.
I have never written a poem, however, I am forever copying fragments from books on paper scraps in a vain effort to fix certain notions in my head. At first, they function as bookmarks that are sometimes returned to when I open the book. But before long, as they accumulate, they fall out littering the table interspersed with A4 photocopies, bills, books and medications.
To return to Buckley’s fragment, the first two lines very much evoke how I paint nowadays. As you age, detail diminishes and patches of light become more luminous and float. I feel the most honest way of dealing with this is by smearing the oil paint on the canvas with the fingers and working close-up, blind. Only if the patches coalesce into an approaching image can the work gain a life.
-
Jonathan Walker was born in Melbourne, Australia and brought up on a dairy farm in Gippsland. In the 1970’s he studied painting at RMIT and won the Harold Wright Scholarship to the British Museum, London. During the 1980’s he exhibited at Pinacotheca Gallery, Richmond and had work shown at the NGV and Heidi City Art Gallery. Over the same period he designed the cover for the “Epigenesi” LP by Giancarlo Toniutti, Italy and conducted a mail exchange work with Achim Wollscheid, Germany. The work with artists through the post resulted in an article published in the bicentenary issue of Art and Australia 1988. He showed in artist run spaces such as WestSpace in the 90’s and 2000’s, and until 2012, taught painting at Victoria University, which is where we (Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford) as organisers of the exhibition, among many others, had the privilege of being his student.
Walker’s knowledge was imparted to students through the careful selection of music, literature, and artists found in books that he himself had ordered for the library. Walker’s strategy was the generosity of sharing his vast knowledge with references specific to each student and their context.
Walker’s paintings share a similar focus and intimacy.
This exhibition presents a small selection of recent paintings alongside a publication that includes Walker’s writing. Observational and analytical, Walker’s work is a type of material notation — the time of day, colour and how it is blended, the both specific and fleeting location of a reflection on lino or the question of whether a chair leg should be included in a painting.
Please join us on Friday August 21 between 6-8pm to celebrate the opening of the exhibition.
Curated by Colleen Ahern and Lisa Radford.
B. Wurtz
Curated by Nic Tammens
March 26 - April 4, 2015
B.Wurtz works from a basement studio in his home on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
This local fact is attested to by the plastic shopping bags and newsprint circulars that appear in his work. As formal objects, they don’t make loud claims about their origins but nonetheless transmit street addresses and places of business from the bottom of this long thin island. Like plenty of artists, Wurtz is affected by what is local and what is consumed. His work is underpinned by this ethic. It often speaks from a neighborhood or reads like the contents of a hamper:
“BLACK PLUMS $1.29 lb.”
“Food Bazaar”
“USDA Whole Pork Shoulder Picnic 99c lb.”
“RITE AID Pharmacy, with us it’s personal.”
“H. Brickman & Sons.”
“Sweet Yams 59c lb."
Most of the work in this exhibition was made while the artist was in residence at Dieu Donne, a workshop dedicated to paper craft in Midtown. Here Wurtz fabricated assemblages with paper and objects that are relatively lightweight, with the intention that they would be easily transportable to Australia. This consideration isn’t absolute in Wurtz’s work, but was prescriptive for making the current exhibition light and cheap. Packed in two boxes, these works were sent from a USPS post office on the Lower East Side and delivered to North Melbourne by Australia Post.
Wurtz appears courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.
Thanks to Rob Halverson, Joshua Petherick, Sari de Mallory, Matt Hinkley, Helen Johnson, Fayen d'Evie, Ask Kilmartin, Lisa Radon, Ellena Savage, Yale Union, and "Elizabeth".
John Nixon
"Archive"
December 15 - January 20, 2014
The presentation of John Nixon's archive offered a rare showcase of this extensive collection of the artist's own publications, catalogues, posters, ephemera, editions and more, from the mid 1980s onwards, alongside a selection of his artworks.
Organized by John Nixon, Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley.
"Habitat"
at Minerva, Sydney (organised by Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley)
November 15 - December 20, 2014
Lupo Borgonovo, Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley,
Lewis Fidock, HR Giger, Piero Gilardi, Veit Laurent Kurz,
Cinzia Ruggeri, Michael E. Smith, Lucie Stahl, Daniel Weil, Wols
Press Release:
“...It contained seven objects. The slender fluted bone, surely formed for flight, surely from the wing of some large bird. Three archaic circuitboards, faced with mazes of gold. A smooth white sphere of baked clay. An age-blackened fragment of lace. A fingerlength segment of what she assumed was bone from a human wrist, grayish white, inset smoothly with the silicon shaft of a small instrument that must once have ridden flush with the surface of the skin - but the thing’s face was seared and blackened.”
William Gibson, “Count Zero”, 1986
"Autumn Projects Archive"
Curated by Liza Vasiliou
March 6 - March 15, 2014
World Food Books, in conjunction with the Virgin Australia Melbourne Fashion Festival 2014, presented the Autumn Projects archive, consisting of a selection of early examples in Australian fashion with a particular interest in collecting designers and labels from the period beginning in the 1980’s, who significantly influenced the discourse of Australian Fashion.
Curated by Liza Vasiliou, the exhibition provided a unique opportunity to view pieces by designers Anthea Crawford, Barbara Vandenberg, Geoff Liddell and labels CR Australia, Covers, Jag along with early experimental collage pieces by Prue Acton and Sally Browne’s ‘Fragments’ collection, suspended throughout the functioning World Food Books shop in Melbourne.
H.B. Peace
presented by CENTRE FOR STYLE
November 14, 2013
"Hey Blinky, you say chic, I say same"
Anon 2013
H.B. Peace is a clothing collaboration between great friends Blake Barns and Hugh Egan Westland. Their pieces explore the divergences between 'character’ and ‘personality’ in garments....etc
Special Thanks to Joshua Petherick and Matt Hinkley of WFB and Gillian Mears
and a Very Special Thank you to Audrey Thomas Hayes for her shoe collaboration.
Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley
"Aesthetic Suicide"
May 10 - June 8, 2013
The first of our occasional exhibitions in the World Food Books office/shop space in Melbourne, "Aesthetic Suicide" presented a body of new and older works together by artists Janet Burchill & Jennifer McCamley, including videos, prints, a wall work, and publications.
During shop open hours videos played every hour, on the hour.
2019, English
Softcover (elastic band bound in bag), 176 loose-leaf pages, 20 x 14.5 cm
Ed. of 250,
Published by
Warehouse / Amsterdam
Onomatopee / Eindhoven
$23.00 - Out of stock
Published in a hand-numbered edition of 250 copies, A Magazine Reader is the result of a workshop in which a fashion magazine is dissected, critically analyzed from various perspectives and put together again in an alternative form. The material from the magazine is used to create a new zine that gives insight into the cultural power and forms of value production that's at the core of fashion media.
A Magazine Reader 03 dissects Harper's Bazaar UK October 2019 and is a collaboration between Warehouse, Zuzana Kostelanská and Onomatopee.
Warehouse is an Amsterdam-based collective existing of Elisa van Joolen, Femke de Vries and Hanka van der Voet aiming to provide a platform for critical fashion practitioners through organizing exhibitions, reading groups, workshops, performances and book presentations among other things, in order to create an engaging environment that facilitates critical dialogue and the creation of an alternative fashion discourse that goes beyond seeing fashion as a commodity.
2019, English
Softcover (elastic band bound in bag), 176 loose-leaf pages, 20 x 14.5 cm
Ed. of 150,
Published by
Warehouse / Amsterdam
$23.00 - Out of stock
Published in a hand-numbered edition of 150 copies, A Magazine Reader is the result of a workshop in which a fashion magazine is dissected, critically analyzed from various perspectives and put together again in an alternative form. The material from the magazine is used to create a new zine that gives insight into the cultural power and forms of value production that's at the core of fashion media.
A Magazine Reader 02 dissects British Vogue November 2018
A Magazine Reader is a Warehouse production initiated by Hanka van der Voet and Femke de Vries as part of their individual researches into fashion media and language in fashion (Press&Fold magazine and Garment Grammar).
Hanka van der Voet is Head of the MA Fashion Strategy at ArtEZ in Arnhem, and works as an independent researcher, writer and curator. Her current research is focused on the editorial practices of niche/independent/alternative fashion magazines. She is the founder of Press & Fold magazine and one of the founders of Warehouse. www.pressandfoldmagazine.com
The content is developed by MA Fashion Strategy students of ArtEZ Gen#28; Emma Disbergen, Laura Lisa Fernandes Januario, Eva Kühn, Boris Kollar, Kartijn Krijger, Nicole Dekkers, Andrea Chehade, Denise Bernts, Bobbine Berden, Mariane Cortez Meirelles. With guest lectures by Elisa van Joolen and Chet Bugter.
This is a Warehouse production For ArtEZ Fashion Masters, MA Fashion Strategy
Designed by Corine van der Wal In collaboration with risowiso & WALTER books
1969, German
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 200 pages, 20.5 x 20.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Büchergilde Gutenberg / Frankfurt
$200.00 - Out of stock
Scarce first hardcover edition of the cult "London Scene" photo-book from 1969. Beautifully documented through hundreds of black and white photographs, this German book captured the atmosphere, fashion, politics and day-to-day life of London's counterculture (from OZ to Yoko Ono to The UFO Club) in the radically changing climate of 1960s Britain. "The adventure of a new generation: long hair, short skirts, pearl necklaces and large-flowered shirts are not everything. The phenomenon of hippie subculture eludes scholarly generalizations" - from publisher's blurb. Includes quotes throughout from British alternative press, politicians, literary figures and pop stars alike (Lennon, John Peel, Churchill, Oscar Wilde, etc.), plus German introductory texts by the authors, and a glossary of terms, hippie slang, and clubs in London.
Very Good copy in Very Good dust jacket.
2008, English
Softcover, 110 pages, 21 x 27.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Purple Institute / Paris
Association Belle Haleine / Paris
$50.00 - Out of stock
THE PURPLE JOURNAL ("Stories, Essays, Reports, Portraits, Chronicles, Photographs") Number 12, Fall-Winter 2007-2008.
A scarce copy of this early edition of The Purple Journal, featuring Daidō Moriyama, Bless, Henry Roy, Antek Walczak, Jean-Michel Wicker, Nakako Hayashi, Elein Fleiss, Manon de Boer, Laetitia Benat, Jason Orton, Cosmic Wonder, Yannick Haenel, Sonia Rykiel, Nick Tosches, Frederico Nicolao, Amit Berlowitz, Muriel Vega, Maison Martin Margiela, Jil Sander, Marc Giannesini, Daniel Franco, Raphael Nadjari, Yuriika Suzuki, Stephen Sprott, Raf Simons, Chikashi Suzuki, Arnold Barkus, Alex Antitch, Katarina Radovic, Beth Yahp, and much more.
In 1992 Olivier Zahm and his partner Elein Fleiss printed the first issue of Purple Prose, a Parisian literary art zine that over the years has evolved into Purple Fashion Magazine. Soon after the birth of Purple Prose, Zahm and Fleiss created spin-off publications like les cahiers purple, Purple Sexe, Purple Fiction, and of course, Purple Fashion. Zahm aimed at fusing together his two worlds, fashion and art, in creating Purple Fashion.
Condition: Very Good (light wear, otherwise clean and tightly
2007, English
Softcover, 128 pages, 17 x 24 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Textfield / Los Angeles
$25.00 $15.00 - Out of stock
Fifth issue of Los Angeles-based conceptual design and arts magazine Textfield, edited and published in Los Angeles by designer Jonathan Maghen. This issue features an interview with Hyphen Press’s Robin Kinross by Stuart Bailey, an interview with Cosmic Wonder’s Yukinori Maeda by Nakako Hayashi, "As-Found" by Thomas Eberwein and Marc Kremers, Portraiture by Angelo Plessas, Wallscapes by BLESS, Binna Choi on the work of designer Manuel Raeder, interview with Rafaël Rozendaal with Jim Jarmusch, Swift Typography, AA Compendium by Andreas Angelidakis, poems supposedly written by the former Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic, fashion shoots, and much more.
Very Good copy, some light cover/edge wear/bumps.
1971, English
Softcover (newsprint, staple-bound), 80 pages, 27 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by
Rosy Cheeks Publishers
Inc. / San Francisco
Rosy Cheeks Publishers Inc. / San Francisco
$35.00 - Out of stock
Rags Magazine was a counter-culture fashion magazine founded by Rolling Stone photographer Baron Wolman, based out of San Francisco, and associated with the underground press movement. A rotating staff included Mary Peacock and Daphne Davis as editors, and Barbara Kruger as an art director. Printed on newsprint, Rags covered counter-culture fashion in a way no other fashion magazine was doing at the time, focusing on street-style instead of big name fashion brands or trends, and emphasizing photography and art in relation to fashion. With writing that was often politically radical, the publication captured the countercultural spirit of the early 1970s underground. Despite only running for one year, it remains an influential magazine whose innovative form and content were ahead of their time.
The February 1971 issue includes "A Special Report: Boutiques & Hip Capitalism" by Jon Carroll profiling a huge array of independent American fashion boutiques around America, an article on Miss Penny Arcade with photographs by Peter Hujar, a photographic section by Jim Marshall, a Rags "Valentine's Day Portfolio" (including artwork by Ron Nagle!), an article on Frederick Mellinger (inventor of the push-up bra and well-known retailer of women's lingerie in America), a report on MacFadden-Bartell Publishing (home of True Story, the first of the confessions magazines genre), the fantastic regular Rags street fashion report, letters, columns on drugs, records, media, and all matter of things around fashion.
Good copy with wear/small chipping/marks to cover, clean throughout. Light edge tanning.
2019, English
Softcover, 400 pages, 27.8 x 20.8 cm
Published by
Surpllus / Melbourne
$50.00 - In stock -
Fashion has always been expanded. Fashion practitioners have always produced things other than clothes. Fashion subsumes the fields, disciplines, movements and cultures around it, in a relentless quest for the new. In D&K LOOK BOOK 2019, the traditional fashion ‘lookbook’ is expanded from a slight and selective compendium of a collection to an extensive monograph about fashion practice. This experimental fashion publication, subsumed in the format of a glossy fashion magazine, questions the ubiquity and mass consumption of fashion images. Critical fashion practice appropriates the conventions of fashion publishing to communicate alternative narratives of fashion systems and industry practice as evident in the practice of D&K. This is explored through an obsessive and excessive documentation of the project ‘D&K All or Nothing’ (2017), with imagery by Agnieszka Chabros, Kate Meakin, Layla Cluer, Warwick Baker, Marc Morel and Christine Scott-Young. Newly commissioned texts by fashion scholars and practitioners including Clemens Thornquist, Femke de Vries, José Teunissen, Matthew Linde, Michael Beverland, Nella Themelios and Ricarda Bigolin explore such themes as the performance of fashion, branding, product languages and strategies for critical fashion practice.
Designed by Brad Haylock
2019, English
Softcover (w. silk organza dust jacket), 400 pages, 27.8 x 20.8 cm
Published by
Surpllus / Melbourne
$70.00 - Out of stock
Fashion has always been expanded. Fashion practitioners have always produced things other than clothes. Fashion subsumes the fields, disciplines, movements and cultures around it, in a relentless quest for the new. In D&K LOOK BOOK 2019, the traditional fashion ‘lookbook’ is expanded from a slight and selective compendium of a collection to an extensive monograph about fashion practice. This experimental fashion publication, subsumed in the format of a glossy fashion magazine, questions the ubiquity and mass consumption of fashion images. Critical fashion practice appropriates the conventions of fashion publishing to communicate alternative narratives of fashion systems and industry practice as evident in the practice of D&K. This is explored through an obsessive and excessive documentation of the project ‘D&K All or Nothing’ (2017), with imagery by Agnieszka Chabros, Kate Meakin, Layla Cluer, Warwick Baker, Marc Morel and Christine Scott-Young. Newly commissioned texts by fashion scholars and practitioners including Clemens Thornquist, Femke de Vries, José Teunissen, Matthew Linde, Michael Beverland, Nella Themelios and Ricarda Bigolin explore such themes as the performance of fashion, branding, product languages and strategies for critical fashion practice.
Designed by Brad Haylock
First Edition, wrapped in a special edition silk organza cover, and found aluminium charm by D&K - Ricarda Bigolin and Chantal Kirby.
2019, English
Softcover, 70 pages, 27.1 x 20.7 cm
Published by
Mode and Mode / Melbourne
$14.00 - In stock -
Mode and Mode seven presents an anthology of text works and biographical listings of key D&K (Ricarda Bigolin and Nella Themelios) projects from 2012 to present as a companion publication to D&K LOOK BOOK 2019. D&K produced writing—including ficto-critical prose, cut-and-paste collage, poetry, and screenwriting—to reconstitute components of fashion, such as garments, retail atmosphere and packaging ephemera. Their interrogation of fashion language in (and as) branding represents a body of experimental text works by a critical fashion practice that highlights the plasticity of words in fashion, which are always both meaningless and meaningful.
Published in an edition of 500 copies.
Mode and Mode is a periodical that addresses printed matter in fashion practice. Each issue explores experimental publishing in fashion with an interview around a print-based project — one that has critical effects to fashion as a discourse. In doing so, we reflect on the role of print and its potency to disrupt, propel and remake fashion narratives.
Editor: Laura Gardner
Designer: Karina Soraya
1990, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 129 pages, 22.5 x 29 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Harry N. Abrams / New York
$50.00 - Out of stock
First hardcover edition of "Snoopy Around The World...", published in New York in 1990. The always incredible fashion photo album of Snoopy and his beagle sister Belle travelling world in original one-of-a-kind designer outfits created by the world's most progressive and famous fashion designers of the time, asking each of them to create an for Snoopy and his beagle sister Belle. There is even a cameo by Woodstock in Krizia! Designers include Givenchy, Chloé, Issey Miyake, Karl Lagerfeld, Sonia Rykiel, Martine Sitbon, Balenciaga, Missoni, Krizia, L.L. Bean, Marimekko, Jag, Popy Moreni, Pierre Balmain, Guy Laroche, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi, Hermes, Dirk Bikkembergs, Cacharel, Bill Blass, Kenzo, Giorgio Armani, Vivienne Westwood, Diane von Fürstenberg, and so many more. Lavishly photographed throughout with endless fold out full-colour spreads!
From the blurb:
"Snoopy Around the World, which features commentaries by Peanuts's creator Charles Schulz, photographs by renowned fashion photographer Alberto Rizzo, and biographies of the designers, is sure to delight the millions of people who avidly follow the daily adventures of the world's most popular beagle. The book accompanies a major exhibition that began its own world tour by opening at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris to international acclaim. For no matter where their journey takes them, Snoopy and Belle always travel in high style - they really know how to put on the dog!"
Very Good copy.
2013, English
Hardcover, 224 pages, 310 x 240 mm
Published by
Walther König / Köln
$100.00 - In stock -
All-in-One represents a first attempt at offering an overview of Thomas Bayrle's multifaceted practice, from his first kinetic machines to the recent engine installations.
Amply illustrated, the catalogue highlights not only the serigraphies and super-images Bayrle is perhaps best known for, but also his sculptures, his early work as a graphic designer and publisher (included is an illustrated bibliography of all of Bayrle's artist books), his videos, as well as samples from his own texts (excerpts from his San Francisco Diary of 1981, reprinted here for the first time) and from his dabblings in concrete poetry.
Holding together this expansive approach are the concerns that have always animated his work: consumerism and consumer society, political propaganda, weaves and patterns, movement, sexuality, and religion.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels, 9 February – 12 May 2013.
2007 / 2008, English
2 x posters (81 x 60 ea) in silkscreened Cosmic Wonder paper bag
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Cosmic Wonder Press / Tokyo
Nieves / Zurich
$35.00 - Out of stock
Cosmic Wonder Free Press 1 & 2 offset printed posters, issued upon publication in 2007 and 2008 and also as promotion at Cosmic Wonder's flagship stores in Tokyo and Osaka. As new, folded (as-issued), preserved in silkscreened Cosmic Wonder paper bag (some creasing and chipping to base of bag).
COSMIC WONDER Light Source Starting this year, COSMIC WONDER Light Source is on exhibit for Paris Fashion Week and at the same time it has become the sole fashion project of COSMIC WONDER. The collection is introduced to encourage people to wear these clothes in their daily life, so that they may delight in discovering anew the spirit within them.
Yukinori Maeda After studying architecture, Maeda started his creative activities as COSMIC WONDER. In recent years, he has been actively creating and exhibiting his personal artistic works in parallel with his achievements as COSMIC WONDER. For 2007, Maeda has confirmed his participation in the coming traveling exhibition starting in Poland. Also confirmed is an exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and here he will attempt to president two separate creative endeavors as COSMIC WONDER and artist Yukinori Maeda, in one exhibition.
Out of print, As new copy.
2007, English
Softcover, 48 Pages b/w, gold & silver ill.), 19.5 x 25.5 cm,
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Nieves / Zurich
Cosmic Wonder Press / Tokyo
$60.00 - Out of stock
With aim to further reflect and pursue the expanding expression onto each particular direction, in 2007, Cosmic Wonder is anouncing three projects with distinct processes: Cosmic Wonder, Cosmic Wonder Light Source and Yukinori Maeda.
The new unconventional periodical publication Cosmic Wonder Free Press was produced to lay out the three projects with visuals. It is the first in a series of special collaborations between Cosmic Wonder and Nieves. Cosmic Wonder Free Press will be published with free pace and free format as its title suggests.
COSMIC WONDER Since its debut Paris collection in 2000 at the Centre Pompidou, Paris Fashion Week has been the principal forum for presenting the works of COSMIC WONDER. From now on, however, COSMIC WONDER is ever widening its focus to further its exploration of installation and performance in venues around the world. Their projects later this year include an art book, ''Hidden Path of Light COSMIC WONDER," published by Nieves, and in October, a new installation and performance to be exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art,Tokyo.
COSMIC WONDER Light Source Starting this year, COSMIC WONDER Light Source is on exhibit for Paris Fashion Week and at the same time it has become the sole fashion project of COSMIC WONDER. The collection is introduced to encourage people to wear these clothes in their daily life, so that they may delight in discovering anew the spirit within them.
Yukinori Maeda After studying architecture, Maeda started his creative activities as COSMIC WONDER. In recent years, he has been actively creating and exhibiting his personal artistic works in parallel with his achievements as COSMIC WONDER. For 2007, Maeda has confirmed his participation in the coming traveling exhibition starting in Poland. Also confirmed is an exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, and here he will attempt to president two separate creative endeavors as COSMIC WONDER and artist Yukinori Maeda, in one exhibition.
Out of print, As new copy.
2019, English
Softcover, 184 pages, 23 x 31 cm
Published by
Roma / Amsterdam
$50.00 - Out of stock
Out of Print.
Bill 2 is the second issue of an annual magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Julie Peeters. Twelve contributors present new or previously unpublished work. The images in the magazine are printed without any accompanying text: Bill prioritizes visual reading without distraction. Contributors to the second issue are: Gintaras Didziapetris, Jason Dodge, Archiv Hans Hollein, Inge Ketelers, Tadashi Kurahashi by Tadanori Yokoo - Tadanori Yokoo by Tadashi Kurahashi, Jochen Lempert, Raimundas Malasauskas, Bart Julius Peters / T L P S, Reto Schmid, Megan Francis Sullivan, Linda van Deursen, Ann Woo, and Jiajia Zhang.
1988, Japanese
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 76 pages, 26.5 x 31 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd. / Tokyo
$360.00 - Out of stock
Signed copy (by Issey Miyake) of the wonderful first Japanese printing of this famous Irving Penn photography book, published by Libro Port Publishing Co. Ltd., Tokyo in 1988. It is the hardcover version with original illustrated dust-jacket.
Published to coincide with the exhibition "Issey Miyake A UN," organized by Miyake Design Studio in association with the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 1988, this heavily photographic book features stunning full-page photos by Irving Penn of Issey Miyake's 1987 line throughout the entire book. Foreword by Isamu Noguchi, and accompanying essay by Jay Cocks. Type design by Kiyoshi Kanai. Project coordinated by Midori Kitamura and June Kanai, who also modeled the clothes. Wonderful, iconic imagery of Issey Miyake's late 1980's works.
Dedication, signed and dated (1988) by Issey Miyake in bold black marker on title page!
Very Good copy - tight, clean, protected by original dust-jacket under plastic wrap, very light shelf wear / tanning to cover.
1990, English
Hardcover, 48 pages, 26.5 x 31 cm
1st edition of 3000 copies, signed / out of print title / used*,
Published by
Miyake Design Studio / Tokyo
$530.00 - Out of stock
Signed copy (by Issey Miyake) of the very scarce, collectable "Issey Miyake by Irving Penn" (1990), printed only once in a limited edition of 3,000 copies and published by the Miyake Design Studio in Tokyo, 1990.
Signed and dated (Dec. 1990) by Issey Miyake on the title page in grey lead, this beautiful volume is made up entirely of legendary photographer Irving Penn's elegant images of the great Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake's 1990 collection, in full-colour on gloss stock. One of the greatest collaborative partnerships in fashion image history.
‘through his eyes penn-san reinterprets the clothes, gives them new breath, and presents them to me from a new vantage point — one that I may not have been aware of, but had been subconsciously trying to capture. Without penn-san’s guidance, I probably could not have continued to find new themes with which to challenge myself, nor could I have arrived at new solutions.’ – Issey Miyake (from Irving Penn: A Career in Photography, the Art Institute of Chicago, 1997)
credits:
Clothing Design by lssey Miyake
Photographs by Irving Penn
Book Design by lkko Tanaka
Face by Tyen
Hair by John Sahag
Modeled by Yuki Fujii
Printed and bound by Nissha Printing Company, Kyoto, Japan
Published by Miyake Design Studio, Tokyo, Japan
Published in a limited edition of 3,000 copies
1984, English / French / German
Hardcover, 304 pages, 24 x 30.5 cm
Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
The Graphis Press / Zürich
$45.00 - Out of stock
The great "GRAPHIS PACKAGING 4", published in 1984 by the legendary Graphis Press, Zürich. This hardcover volume, edited by Swiss graphic designer Walter Herdeg, presents the best packaging design in the world, circa 1984, covering : Foods, Beverages, Tobacco Products, Cosmetics, Toiletries, Textiles, Clothing and Accessories, Household Cleaning Products, Miscellaneous Stationery, Carrier Bags, Wrapping Paper, Industrial Packaging, Shipping Containers, Paints, Hardware, Sports, Pastimes, Education, Pharmaceutical Products, Professional Samples, Promotional Packaging, and much more! Profusely illustrated across 304 pages, with 918 b/w and colour examples, and, as per usual for Graphis publications, handsomely designed and heavily researched, with all texts in English, German and French. Introduction by Ralph Caplan.
Designers and artists represented in this volume include : Saul Bass, Walter Ballmer, Ivan Chermayeff, Seymour Chwast, Paul Davis, Louise Fili, Morton Goldsholl, Kenneth Grange, Stig Lindberg, George Lois, Paul Rand, Alex Steinweiss, and many others.
Very Good copy in Very Good dust jacket. Preserved under mylar wrap. Perfect copy.
2019, English
Softcover, 24 pages, 13 x 19 cm
Ed. of 150,
Published by
Innen Books / Zürich
$14.00 - Out of stock
"a few pictures …" is a new publication by French fashion designer agnès b., published in 2019 by Innen Books, Zürich. Alongside selected images from agnès’ photographic archive is a text by Jonas Mekas.
First Edition of 150 copies.
agnès b. (born Agnès Andrée Marguerite Troublé, 1941 in Versailles) is a French fashion designer. She is known for her self-named brand, which includes fashion and film interests.
2019, English
Softcover (staple-bound), 24 pages, 13 x 19 cm
Ed. of 500,
Published by
Innen Books / Zürich
$14.00 $5.00 - In stock -
Bernhard Willhelm's "Willhelmtown" was published on the occasion of Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA April 12 — 14, 2019, in an edition of 500 copies.
Bernhard Willhelm (born 12 November 1972 in Ulm) is a German fashion designer. Willhelm studied fashion design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, during which he assisted Walter van Beirendonck, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Dirk Bikkembergs. In 1998, he established his namesake fashion house, together with Jutta Kraus. They debuted their first womenswear collection in 1999 and their first menswear collection was introduced in 2000. Wilhellm's clothing has been described as being typified by craftsmanship, eclecticism, and irony. His inspirations range from South German folklore, historical costume to sport and traditional Japanese dress as well as questions of diversity, the human condition, facets of culture and perceptions of reality.
2016, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 288 pages, 15.2 x 24.1 cm
Published by
University of Chicago Press / Chicago
$89.00 - Out of stock
Douglas Crimp is the rare art critic whose work profoundly influenced a generation of artists. He is best known for his work with the "Pictures Generation" the very name of which Crimp coined to define the work of artists like Robert Longo and Cindy Sherman who appropriated images from mass culture to carry out a subversive critique. But while his influence is widely recognized, we know little about Crimp's own formative experiences before "Pictures."Before Pictures tells the story of Crimp's life as a young gay man and art critic in New York City during the late 1960s through the turbulent 1970s. Crimp participated in all of what made the city so stimulating in that vibrant decade. The details of his professional and personal life are interwoven with this the particularly rich history of New York City at that time, producing a vivid portrait of both the critic and his adopted city. The book begins with his escape from his hometown in Idaho, and we quickly find Crimp writing criticism for ArtNews while working at the Guggenheim where, as a young curatorial assistant, he was one of the few to see Daniel Buren's Peinture-Sculpture before it was removed amid cries of institutional censorship. We also travel to the Chelsea Hotel (where Crimp helped the down-on-his-luck couturier Charles James organize his papers) through to his days as a cinephile and balletomane to the founding of the art journal October, where he remained a central figure for many years. As he was developing his reputation as a critic, he was also partaking of the New York night life, from drugs and late nights alongside the Warhol crowd at the Max's Kansas City to discos, roller-skating, and casual sex with famous (and not-so-famous) men. As AIDS began to ravage the closely linked art and gay communities, Crimp eventually turned his attention to activism dedicated to rethinking AIDS. Part biography and part cultural history, Before Pictures is a courageous account of an exceptional period in both Crimp's life and the life of New York City. At the same time, it offers a deeply personal and engaging point of entry into important issues in contemporary art.
Includes the work of Cindy Sherman, Jack Goldstein, Daniel Buren, Charles James, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Agnes Martin, Dan Flavin, Peter Hujar, Eva Hesse, Bernardo Bertolucci, Walker Evans, Joseph Cornell, Alfred Hitchcock, Jack Tworkov, Robert Ryman, Jane Freilicher, Robert Smithson, Michael Snow, Stanley Kubrick, Cristobal Balenciaga, Christian Dior, Brice Marden, Ellsworth Kelly, Guilio Romano, Andrea Mantegna, Merce Cunningham, Joan Jonas, Yvonne Rainer, John Baldessari, Dan Graham, Vito Acconci, Alvin Baltrop, Divine, Gordon Matta-Clark, Edgar Degas, Louise Lawler, and so many others.
2006, English / Japanese
Softcover, 40 Pages 21 x 29.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Here and There / Japan
Nieves / Zurich
$45.00 - Out of stock
Yukinori Maeda, Takashi Homma, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Anne Daems, Susan Cianciolo, Els Beusen, Elein Fleiss, Yoshimi, Yayako Uchida, Takako Minekawa, Yurie Nagashima, Bless, Kazunari Hattori
Here and There comes back, after two years of absence from the independent magazine scene, with Unexpected Travelling Issue, a sixth issue which counts already familiar but also new illustrious collaborations.
In Nakako’s own words, the vision behind the Unexpected Travelling Issue was: "One day, someone told me her ideal garden is what looks like no one is taking care of, and have so many different pretty flowers in springtime. The other day my friend told me she has an ideal image of bringing up kids even though in reality she has to deal with daily life living in crowded Tokyo. I am into those stories, and new issue must be something related to this 'ideal' world. in each people's minds. Maybe you can talk about ideal books making"
With the sixth issue, Here and There consolidates its long-standing partnership with Nieves, which from now on will be publishing and distributing the magazine internationally.
As Elein Fleiss once said, Here and There is the magazine of one person. The fact that Nakako's name is credited as the author on the cover is not an egocentric statement but reveals the spirit in which she makes it. Some people make films, others write books or make artworks, and Nakako makes a magazine. It is her personal work and in that sense she makes it in her own way, unlike most magazines on the planet. It also means she is free from capitalistic rules, from imposed trends, from the industry of fashion. Instead, she is free to follow her desire and to link the magazine with her personal life.
Nakako Hayashi was born in 1966. She became a freelance editor from 2001, after working for Hanatsubaki, the culture magazine published by Shiseido. She has been writing fashion and art articles for Ryu-ko-tsu-shin and other magazines. Her books include Baby Generation and Paris Collection Individuals (both by Little More)
Art Director Kazunari Hattori.
2007, English / Japanese
Softcover, 64 Pages, 21 x 29.7 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / as new
Published by
Nieves / Zurich
Here and There / Japan
$45.00 - Out of stock
Susan Cianciolo, Pascale Gatzen, Mark Borthwick, Kenneth Andrew Mroczek, Ruthie Doyle, Julian Gatto, Yukinori Maeda, Takashi Homma, Anne Daems, Mike Mills, Kim Gordon, Elein Fleiss, Kenshu Shintsubo, Jeff Burch, Kasane Nagawa and Benjamin Sommerhalder
Here and There Vol.7 is dedicated to the cities of Paris and Tokyo, looking at them through the eyes of its wide contributors’ family spread around the world. We are taken into a whirlwind of overlapping stories and emotions, through the words and images of Takashi Homma, Elein Fleiss, Susan Cianciolo, Julian Gatto, Kim Gordon, Mike Mills, Benjamin Sommerhalder and most importantly Nakako Hayashi, the mind behind it all.
This issue is also filled with a few extra special interviews to Pascale Gatzen, Susan Cianciolo, Yukinori Maeda and texts by Jeff Burch, all adding up to 64 truly inspirational pages.
Art Director Kazunari Hattori.
1978, English
Softcover, 24 x 21.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Harmony Books / New York
$300.00 - Out of stock
Very scarce copy of the only printing of American photographer Joseph Szabo's 1978 cult photo-book "Almost Grown". A masterpiece of intimate photographs capturing a time of innocence and blossoming sexuality, of tenderness and raucousness. Almost Grown celebrates in photographs and poetry the joys and uncertainties of that paradoxical time when we are no longer children and yet are not quite adults. "... an unusual collaboration between teacher and teenager, a funny and romantic look at teenagers looking at themselves. Theirs is a world rarely witnessed by parents. Here is what kids do together - at the beach or the drive-in, during and after school - what they themselves describe as "doing nothing" because it is neither work nor play. In ninety photographs and twenty-five poems written by teenagers in Alan Ziegler's writing workshops, Almost Grown dramatizes and clarifies adolescence, making it familiar, sensual, and charged with the shock of recognition." - Joseph Szabo
Foreword by Cornell Capa. Poetry collected by Alan Ziegler. Designed by Bea Feitler
Joseph Szabo is a teacher, photographer and author. He taught photography and art at Malverne High School on Long Island for 27 years and for over 20 years at the International Center of Photography in Manhattan. His 1978 book, “Almost Grown,” featured many of his students and was acclaimed as one of the “Best Books of the Year” by the American Library Association. In the book’s forward, legendary photojournalist and Founder of the International Center of Photography Cornell Capa, wrote that “…in Szabo’s hands, the camera is magically there, the light is always available, the moment is perceived, seen, and caught.”
Throughout the 80s and 90s, “Almost Grown” attained cult classic status in the fashion world, prompting Vogue editor Grace Coddington to notice that “all the young fashion photographers were looking at Joe’s photographs as their bible.”
First edition. Very Good copy, with light edge wear and previous owner's name to first blank.
2004, English / German
Hardcover (w. dust-jacket), 200 pages, 24 x 32 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by
Sternberg Press / Berlin
$120.00 - Out of stock
The fantastic long out-of-print first major monograph on influential German fashion designer, Bernhard Willhelm! First and only printing by Sternberg Press, from 2004.
Edited by Vanessa Joan Müller and Nicolaus Schafhausen for Ursula Blickle Stiftung
Text by Ingeborg Harms, foreword by Nicolaus Schafhausen
This book provides an exemplary look at the work of Bernhard Willhelm (*1972), the German fashion designer whose sartorial skills have been hailed by both the fashion industry and the art world. Willhelm, who studied in Antwerp and is now working in Paris, draws inspiration from contemporary fashion culture as well as from his country’s traditional clothing style, the German folklore costumes which he reiterates and deconstructs in his work. This deliberate and unconventional approach to an otherwise conservative Heimat reservoir distinguishes him from other stars in the international fashion industry. The texts discuss Willhelm’s innovative take on his native turf, as well as the impact of contemporary photography and pop culture on designers and artists alike. Fully conceived by the designer, this book documents Willhelm’s most important projects and collections.
“Many designs are characterized by childlike motifs and are regressive in a pronouncedly friendly way. They take a stand against an adult world shaped by obligatory dress codes that put the selection of what is to be worn under social control and separate ‘correct’ clothing from false. ... [His] designs therefore cause consternation also because they create a gently ironic parallel world to those low-life products which presumably are too familiar and banal even for fashion victims to be appropriated and recoded as fashion.” Nicolaus Schafhausen
Co-produced by the Ursula Blickle Stiftung.
Good copy with Very Good dust jacket, light library markings to front endpapers.