GAYLETTER

The artist Brian Kenny, a friend and contributor to our publication, has found function for his reimagined vision of late icon and inspiration Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag featured in GAYLETTER Issue 7 as a homage to Baker. The story asked that several visual artist from different backgrounds pay homage to Baker by presenting their take on the rainbow flag. Kenny’s submission took form in a new rendition of the flag — blending together a rainbow gradient to create his own interpretation. Kenny explained: “We are starting to move beyond separate sexual labels into a more fluid notion of sexuality and gender, where our own unique expressions or identities fall somewhere on a spectrum between gay and straight, male and female, and can change over time.”

As a reminder of this year’s celebration to the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, World Pride will be held in New York City this year, which means we gotta start early looking for those rainbow looks. For the occasion he’s created a t-shirt that utilizes his “Spectrum” design. Start getting together your short shorts, glitter, and sunscreen for what’s going to be a memorable Pride extravaganza and pair it with this t-shirt.

Get your SPECTRUM t-shirt here. …

Here’s the freshly released Slava Mogutin x Helmut Lang collection — Slava, our friend and collaborator (remember the Katya Zamolodchikova feature from Issue 6?), paired up with artist and South African creative director Jan Wandrag to create a new edition in the Helmut Lang ‘Logo Hack’ collaboration. The series features a variety of artists that bring their own taste to the classic Helmut Lang staples. Known for their reimagined uniform and workwear, Helmut Lang keeps it’s classical construction with tinges of new embellishments brought to you by Mogutin and Wandrag themselves.

This wouldn’t be Slava’s first time working with Helmut Lang, the collaboration is derived from a decade old project under the same title, “Helmut Go-Go” where then studio manager of Helmut Lang, Joakim Andreasson, gave Slava the opportunity to photograph his personal archive. Slava’s known for his hypersexual photography so you should already know he fashioned cheeky go-go boys and rough trade in the rich archive that ended up being too raunchy for the fashion industry. The original Helmut Go-Go images can almost exclusively be found in his most recent book from 2017 entitled ‘Bros and Brosephines,’ which you should definitely add to your collection.

The other imagery accompanying the Helmut Lang archive in ‘Bros and Brosephines’ caught the eye of current creative director Thomas Cawson who enacted the ‘Logo Hack’ collaboration. The designs also made direct reference to Mogutin’s 2008 book titles ‘Stock Boyz’ which balanced the line between the hypermasculine financial sphere and the feminine trials of sexuality. …

Viktor and Rolf are a power duo that have designed an intricate body of work together that successfully bridges the worlds of haute couture fashion and conceptual art. They met at the Arnhem Academy of Arts and Design and began working together directly after graduation. You’ll crack open this grandesque book to find stunning handiwork and elegant silhouettes combined with concept driven overtones that won’t be lost to the craft.

Their work together defines fashion as art, “contrasting romance and rebellion, exuberance and control, classicism and conceptualism”. In an interview with exhibition curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot, the designers consulted that they themselves don’t consider their work fashion or art exclusively but simply make what comes to mind. Initially V&R’s work was accepted into the sphere of art rather than fashion but with growing fame their company slowly formed into a recognizable fashion house.

Tony Ellwood of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne put it best in the foreword, “Art plays an intrinsic role in the personal and creative lives of Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, who together create some of the most provocative haute couture of the twenty-first century. It was the art world that first embraced Viktor & Rolf’s designs early in their career and now, as they celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary, their work is more than ever at home in the contemporary museum.”

It became clear to me as I sifted through the pages of the archive that the work inside was masterful in taste and execution; the designs bring together costume and couture with the exhibition value of contemporary sculpture. …