It was only when he died that the Polaroids of architect, designer, and photographer Carlo Mollino came to light in his Turin villa. Innumerable pictures of unidentified women caught up in lascivious poses. 

Carlo Mollino began his career in 1930, as an architect designing a house at Forte dei Marmi and receiving the G. Pistono Architecture award. In the 30s and 40s, Mollino worked at his father's office and took part in many architectural competitions e.g. the Farmers Association Building in Cuneo, the Fascist House in Voghera, and, after World War II, the Partisan's Monument, built in collaboration with the sculptor Umberto Mastroianni. The Monument to the Partisan has been placed in Turin's Generale Cemetery.

Carlo Mollino was a ski enthusiast; he wrote the book "Trattato sul Discesismo" where he explained in many illustrations his personal skiing techniques. He designed several mountain houses such as the Casa del Sole in Cervinia, the Slittovia of Lago Nero in Sauze d'Oulx, in Piedmont and the Aosta Valley. All of Mollino's art is shown in this work: a large, modern terrace protruding from the main volume contrasts with the building's traditional materials. One of the buildings, situated on the ski runs and only accessible by ski during the winter, has been restored and now contains temporary exhibitions.

Mollino directed the team of architects responsible for the design of the INA-Casa district in Turin in the first half of the sixties. He has created the two buildings that made him famous in the last years of his life (between 1965 and 1973): the Camera di Commercio building, and the Teatro Regio Torino (Regio Theater), both in Turin. He completed the Fiat Directional Center projects in Candiolo, the AEM building in Turin, and the Mediterranean Club in Sestriere before his death.

The work of Carlo Mollino reminds of the futuristic forms of the French fashion designer Andre Courreges who has been active in the last years of Mollino's architectural career. In theory, Courreges could have been inspired also by Mollino's work.

He was once credited as saying, "Everything is permissible as long as it is fantastic."

CARLO MOLLINO'S PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN POLAROIDS HAVE BEEN REVEALED

All we have had for years is the Drake Equation to help us understand the question but no indication of a response. Now a group of scientists at Nottingham University think they have come up with a new calculation — or rather, an estimate — based on "cosmic evolution" that indicates there are likely to be at least 36 active intelligent civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy. 

The Milky Way, home to our Solar System, is predicted to have between 100 and 400 bn stars in our galaxy, and around one exoplanet per star. 

The new paper published today in The Astrophysical Journal examines the likely number of Communicating Extra-Terrestrial Intelligent (CETI) civilizations in the Milky Way. It assumes that intelligent life happens on other planets much as it appears on our own planet. It does make a lot of assumptions.

One key assumption is that intelligent life takes about five billion years to form on other planets, as it does on Earth. That is, for sure, a brilliant assumption. Another is that a technological civilization will last for at least 100 years — as has been the case with ours up to now. It took 4.5 billion years of evolution, after all, before a technological civilization appeared on Earth, and was able to interact. 

The number of civilizations is heavily dependent on how long they actively send out signals of their existence into space — such as satellite radio and TV transmissions. 

The researchers call it the "Astrobiological Copernican Limit," the calculation — which says there could be 36 active communicating intelligent civilizations in our home galaxy on 4.5 billion-year-old (or more) Earth-like planets around Sun-like stars. It does take into account: 

How common these metal-rich stars are (like the Sun). 

Probability of Earth-like planets hosting stars in their habitable zones. 

"The classic method of estimating the number of intelligent civilizations is focused on making guesses of life-related principles, but opinions on these matters differ very considerably," says Tom Westby, assistant professor at the University of Nottingham's Faculty of Engineering and lead author on the paper. "Our new study uses new data to simplify these assumptions, giving us a solid estimate of the number of civilizations in our galaxy." 

The estimate of at least 36 civilizations is based on a somewhat positive view on how, where and why life comes into being, and there's also a large bar on errors. It might be that there are many, many more alien civilizations. This may be that none exist, too. 

However, the authors note that 17,000 light-years is the average distance to one of these 36 civilizations, so detection and communication is currently impossible. 

The thorny question of how long intelligent societies continue to thrive is still on the table. 

"Searching for extraterrestrial intelligent civilizations not only reveals how life itself forms but also gives us clues as to how long our own civilization will last," said Christopher Conselice, Professor of Astrophysics at Nottingham University, who led the research. "If we find that intelligent life can exist then this would reveal that our civilization could exist well beyond a couple of hundred years. Alternatively, if we find that our galaxy has no active civilizations it is a bad sign for our own long-term existence."

Looks like some of the fashion designers, such as Rick Owens or Andre Couregges, could have already been in contact with intelligent lives beyond our planet. You never know!

It is the oldest and biggest cosmic question of everything: is there anyone out there?

36 INTELLIGENT ALIEN CIVILIZATIONS OF OUR GALAXY

Think of The Shining and what comes to mind are the cornflower blue clothes of the spectral twins hiding in the Overlook Hotel's hollow corridors; think of A Clockwork Orange and you imagine Malcolm McDowell and his droogs walking through brutalist London street in white boiler suits, jockstraps and bowler hats; think of Barry Lyndon and the opulent taffeta gowns and feathered caps, or the meticulously recreated military uniforms.

Stanley Kubrick is celebrated for his ability to reinvent himself endlessly, turning his hand to every genre from dystopian horror to war epic to political satire and each time delivering a masterpiece — often overlooked by the razor-sharp eye for costuming that enabled him to paint those vivid windows into other worlds.

We are interested in exploring the process, the development of how things have been done, to focus on the people with whom Kubrick collaborated, not just the film as a final product. Kubrick's relationships with the individuals who brought his vision for costumes to life have been discussed in unprecedented detail: in particular, his rich working relationship with costume designer Milena Canonero, who worked as costume designer on Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, working with the same unmatched versatility as the filmmaker himself.

Many people say Kubrick was involved with every step of the way and he was, but he always worked with the best people and he was able to give them plenty of space. There would be enormous amounts of research, but then someone like Milena could give it a twist of her own.

The unlikely relationship between Kubrick and the legendary Savile Row tailor Hardy Amies, who worked as a costume designer on 2001: A Space Odyssey, has been explored. The mod-inspired outfits worn by the crew of the film's Pan Am spaceship may carry echoes of André Courreges and Pierre Cardin's 60s space-age visions, but Amies was specifically hired for his rigorous and highly traditional training: to create something that would still feel futuristic for many decades. With 2001 Kubrick was in search of something that felt beyond time. 

Maybe it also speaks of the masculine world of film geekery that up to now, Kubrick's relationship with fashion have been largely overlooked. After all, the vision of Kubrick was precise to the point of obsessive. This symmetrical obsession applied to every aspect of his productions, all micro-managed within one inch of their lives: whether it was the iconic 127 takes catching the terrified screams of Shelley Duvall while swinging a bat at Jack Nicholson in The Shining, or the meticulous work he undertook while planning for his never-completed epic on Napoleon's history. It also extended to his costumes: while working with Hardy Amies, he is said to be delighted to learn more about and fine-tuning even the tiniest details from the fabric swatches that accompanied the initial sketches to the final button placement. 

And even though Napoleon biopic never came to fruition, the research behind it provided the backbone for his perhaps most extraordinary achievement in the costume world: Barry Lyndon of 1975. Based on William Makepeace Thackeray's obscure novella, the production brought Europe to life in unparalleled detail of the 18th century, with Marisa Berenson — herself once a fashion model — as the mannequin-like star in feathered hats and ruffled gowns. The exquisite dresses and frock coats made Milena Canonero win her first Oscar for costume design. 

The whole archive of Kubrick is in London. The collection includes hundreds of boxes packed with pages ripped from art magazines, books on art history, everything that concerns the 18th century. It's not just about the dress, or cutting a coat, he was really going into the detail: for example, how they would shave. Going through those boxes you can really see what he was interested in and it's not just about what they've been wearing, but how it's connected to society's hierarchies. 

It's really about the love and the attention he was putting into everything. Each aspect was regarded very carefully but also the people with whom he has chosen to work. It's not just like a costume designer doing something for a movie: they designed whole eras, in a way that felt so authentic.

He might be one of the world’s most celebrated filmmakers, but his understanding of fashion’s storytelling potential is only now being fully explored.

STANLEY KUBRICK: FASHION TO BUILD THE ENTIRE MOVIE WORLDS

NASA was dependent on Russia and its sturdy Soyuz capsules for almost ten years now, due to a lack of funds, to send their astronauts into orbit. That's ancient history now, thanks to a new Elon Musk's aeronautics start-up. The young South African made a fortune in 2002 by selling shares of the company he'd founded in 1999: PayPal. Since then, the entrepreneur has joined the frenzied space race, squaring off to historic behemoths like Boeing or Lockheed Martin. His company, Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), won their first NASA contract to supply the International Space Station in 2006. Fourteen years later, Elon Musk launched his first Falcon-9 rocket on Saturday 30 May 2020, thereby becoming the first private entrepreneur in space history to fly into orbit. 

SpaceX designed all the equipment for its first big outing, from engines to space suits, which was unveiled on Twitter on Wednesday, May 27. This spacesuit with gray trim, in a futuristic white, seems to address less to a practical concern and more to the aesthetic constituent, combining reality and fiction. When space ships go private, we know there's a search for profit-making these astronauts a true showcase of desirable new products: no more heavy space suits, astronauts now look like Daft Punk-styled Stormtroopers. 

If we seem strangely familiar with these lightweight, immaculate white suits, it's no wonder: their creator is of the Hollywood costume designers, José Fernandez, known for his costumes for Batman vs Superman (2016) and The Fantastic Four (2005). Whilst Hollywood still seems to be inspired by the astronauts' actual space suits, this vision of things seemed outdated in the Tesla founder's undoubtedly somewhat megalomaniac's eyes. According to the New York Times, he wanted the suit to look like a "space tuxedo" to which he confided, "Anyone looks better in a tux, no matter what size or shape they are." 

How would the spacesuits designed by either Andre Couregges or Rick Owens could look like? What do you think? Do not hesitate to share your dreams with us.

For the launch of his Falcon-9 rocket, Elon Musk equipped his two astronauts with ultra-modern spacesuits that resembled the uniform of a Marvel super-hero.

ELON MUSK'S SPACEX ASTRONAUT SUIT: DRESSED BY HOLLYWOOD

In May 2018, I realized that I left my bag full of Hasselblad movie cameras and lenses on a train from Venice to Rome, that was an unfortunate incident. I still had the digital camera I was using for personal travel, and I said to myself, "Why not trying using a digital camera for my project of ambient portrait and street photography?" To be honest, I felt a little carried away with the technology that is so user friendly and convenient. 

I bought another Hasselblad and more lenses after my return from Italy, before going to Appleby Fair to document the travelers and gypsies, however, it turned out that I shot thousands of color images with my digital and just about a dozen or so with the B&W film. 

Armed with a short wide-angle zoom lens and a quick 8 frames per second option, it allowed me to capture the people's spontaneous moments in their surroundings. I enjoy paying attention to the layers, space, composition, and spontaneity, as well as adding a mood to depict emotion and stories. 

For the past ten years, Irish travelers have been the main topics in my project so my relationship with them has become very close.  I had to earn their trust at first, and respect them. Travelers have shunned from the public for decades because of discrimination and media labeling. I would be giving them photos for their time, in exchange. Images are very valuable to them as the old ones have been lost or damaged as they move from one location to another. 

There are so many things happening in traveling communities - suicide rates are higher and mortality rates are lower than among settled people due to health problems, poverty and discrimination. I feel there is more to learn about them; the have a fear of losing their culture and identity as the Irish Government seeks to make them fit into modern society. A small number of travelers prefer to settle in government-provided housing, but the majority like their nomadic culture and keep camping and traveling where they can. 

This causes a lot of problems as some stopping sites are overcrowded, so the travelers often make illegal encampments on the side of the roads, the council has to get the police involved, this is a long-standing issue, yet to reach a solution to satisfy all parties.

PS. Can you imagine if designers such as Andre Courreges or Thierry Mugler got inspired by the Irish travelers' style? That kind of collection undoubtedly could be coherent with the nowadays' 2000s tendencies in fashion.

Since 2009, Joseph-Philippe Bevillard has been documenting Irish Travellers using a B&W medium format film camera.

IRISH TRAVELLERS BY JOSEPH PHILIPPE BEVILLARD

Mark Seliger is a Portrait master. The Texan photographer captured iconic photographs during his thirty-year career from his first pictures for Rolling Stones, then for GQ and Vanity Fair, to his personal collection. Mark Seliger made black and white portraits his signature between his series of political figures such as Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela and Malala or of celebrities including Billy Porter, Kim Kardashian and Leonardo Di Caprio. Mark Seliger's talent will also benefit the music world, with the most influential artists of their time. Below is a throwback to 10 iconic musicians' portraits. 

Born in Amarillo, Texas, in 1959, before moving to New York City in the 1980s, Seliger graduated from the Houston High School for Performing & Visual Arts and East Texas State University. He was the Chief Photographer of Rolling Stone magazine by 1992, traveling the globe and shooting for the publication more than 150 covers. 

Seliger has worked for Condé Nast since 2002 where he would regularly collaborate with Vanity Fair and GQ as well as Elle, Harper's Bazaar and Italian Vogue shooting campaigns for major fashion houses such as Chanel, Saint Laurent or Courreges. Think of Apple, Dom Perignon, Levi Strauss, Amazon, Ralph Lauren, Ray-Ban and Rolex - the photographer has also been responsible for several unforgettable promotional campaigns. 

As for his striking portraits of celebrities, he says, "This is about trust. If you communicate well and report your intentions to them, they will respect you."

"Since the mid-1990s I have been working with the Stones and I probably photographed Keith Richards the most. He's a real gentleman, very wise and very intelligent. He's the best subject you're going to ever get: funny, sharp and engaged."

"The challenge of course is to do something unique because he's always depicted with a cigarette. He once said photographers wanted to kill him because we always ask him to smoke."

Kurt Cobain: "The blueness of his eyes had something very beautiful in it"

"During the Nevermind tour, I first photographed Nirvana in Australia, and it had been very unruly. Kurt arrived in a t-shirt that said "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" and I was quite distressed by what Rolling Stone would have thought. We did run the image as a cover, though, which meant he was very relaxed and cooperative with me the next time I met with Kurt."

"This shot was taken in Michigan, at Kalamazoo. My sister sent me the heads of those vintage dolls, and I bought some rose bushes; we built this little altar and let it deteriorate for a couple of days."

"I'm not entirely sure where my inspiration came from but I think it was from watching Nirvana's videos and listening to their lyrics, the sadness of Kurt's voice and the concern for life, death and decline."

"For doing the picture, Kurt was very spontaneous and there was something very beautiful about the blueness of his eyes and his dead stare. And, two months later, we got the tragic news he'd died. Since that, I have not looked at those photos for a long time."

“It’s really enjoyable because it takes the onus off of photographing just portraiture and actually building a story.”

10 ICONIC PORTRAITS OF MUSICIANS SHOT BY MARK SELIGER

The expression "all you need to make a film is a girl and a gun" is credited to Jean-Luc Godard, and contradicts his insistence that "c'est Griffith qui a dit ça, ce n'est pas moi" ("it was Griffith who said that, not me"). 

Godard seems to have first attributed this phrase to Griffith in 1964, announcing his upcoming film "Bande à part" in media. 

"What do moviegoers want?" asked Griffith. "A girl and a gun." It is to satisfy their wishes that I've made, and that Columbia will be distributing, "Bande à part", a sure-fire story that will sell many tickets."

Commentators who picked up on Godard's phrase retained the attribution, but Pauline Kael's piece "Godard among the Gangsters" in "The New Republic" in 1966 left Griffith out of the competition: "Jean-Luc Godard intended to give the public what they wanted. His next movie was about a girl and a gun".

In 1965, Claude Lelouch made "Une fille et des fusils" ("a girl and some rifles"), a Godard's "Bande à part" homage-cum-pastiche featuring girls and guns, and a close up of a newspaper with an advert for "Bande à part".

Godard himself followed "Bande à part" with other girls and guns featuring films, e.g. "Pierrot le fou" (1965), "Made in USA" (1966) "And La Chinoise" (1967), "Alphaville" (1965).

The tastes of the public shift but what draws them most is what our master D.W. Griffith did. So, more than forty years ago, Griffith defined: "A girl and a gun," that is, eroticism and aggression. 

From the outset René Clair featured girls and guns in his movies. The best combination of "girl and a gun" in Clair's oeuvre is a film he envisaged but did not direct, Augusto Genina's "Prix de beauté" (1930) in which the girl is Louise Brooks. 

When Griffith spoke of "a girl and a gun," he defined what it was that attracted the screen's vulgar attention. 

"As for the public, it plays its usual role of imposing its sentimental routine on those whom it considers to be suppliers of pleasure, and not entirely wrong. The public are demanding a girl and a gun," Griffith said. "That's sufficient to ensure it gets them."

Designers Thierry Mugler and Andre Courreges have made references to the Nouvelle Vague's A Girl and a Gun in their 1970s collections.

"Girls with guns" is a genre of film which first appeared in the early 1960s.

Last year, in a lavish display at the Grand Palais in Paris, Chanel presented their cruise collection with a set that transformed the cavernous space into a train platform, with the railways acting as the frontiers of the catwalk. There was Claudia Schiffer, and Keira Knightley too, applauding the candy-bright jackets that many fashion critics thought was a genius stroke from the new creative director (or in Chanel's vernacular, artistic director of the fashion follections) Virginie Viard. It had been a scene, as they say. 

There are really special things this year. Chanel made the decision in March to cancel their cruise show, which would have taken place in Capri – the perfect setting for a holiday collection, one might imagine. For a company that has in the past set their clothing collections against such backdrops as a rocket ship, a store, an airport, a circus, a man-made beach and a library, canceling it entirely is a first, and one that the brand hopes not to repeat. 

"It's a shame for everyone," says Chanel's global fashion president, Bruno Pavlovsky just days before the house's cruise collection will be presented as a series of online content entitled Balade en Méditerranée. Instead of a decadent set on the sun-drenched Italian island, the brand showed a range of silhouettes and videos on their web platforms on Monday, instead. 

"We'd been working on the collection and show for the past six months, we were so excited to go to Capri. One of the things about Capri that would have been so incredible is its natural beauty; the lights, the color, the Mediterranean's unique beauty, particularly at this time of year."

"The brands must decide what they plan to do. Any label can do whatever they want. But I think Paris has a good mutual interest in promoting the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Style [which is organizing Fashion Weeks]. Brands can decide not to participate but that will make life more difficult at the end of the day."

We are hoping to see Courreges and Mugler's online shows as soon as possible. We will keep you posted.

Pavlovsky: Our mindset is to be careful, we don’t want to go too fast. It’s not about celebrating so much but about getting back to something much easier, more normal, by September.

Following its monograph based on David Hockney, Taschen has now put together a comprehensive account of Kubrick's works. 

The book consists of a series of archival materials, such as set designs, drawings, correspondences, letters, screenplays, outlines, notes and even schedules for shoots. Taschen chose to compile all documentation chronologically in order of Kubrick's life, beginning with the opening sequence of Killer's Kiss and finishing with the last frames of Eyes Wide Shut. In addition to documents such as large stills and the aforementioned papers, the book also includes an array of essays by Kubrickian historians, old articles about the director and "a collection of [his] best interviews." Taschen defines the hardback as "a visual, archival and scholarly journey through 20th-century film masterpieces and the meticulous mind of the filmmaker behind them." 

Six days after showing a final cut of Eyes Wide Shut for his family and the actors on March 7, 1999, at the age of 70 Kubrick died in his sleep, suffering a heart attack. His funeral at his home estate at Childwickbury Manor was held five days later, with only close friends and relatives attending, numbering around 100 guests. The media had been kept outside the entrance gate a mile away. Alexander Walker who attended the funeral described it as a "family farewell, almost like an English picnic," with cellists, clarinetists and singers from many of his favorite classical compositions. There was the recitation of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer of mourning. His Jewish background was mentioned in several of his obituaries. Terry Semel, Jan Harlan, Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise were amongst those who gave eulogies. Kubrick was buried on the estate next to his favorite tree. His wife Christiane included one of Oscar Wilde's favorite quotations in her book dedicated to Kubrick: "The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young."

Designer Andre Courreges has been making references to Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) epic science fiction film in his futuristic collections of the 1970s.

First published in 2005, Stanley Kubrick‘s expansive legacy was chronicled in a thick hardcover TASCHEN book — it’s been added to the publication’s Bibliotecha Universalis.

THE STANLEY KUBRICK ARCHIVES NEW TASCHEN'S BOOK

On 22 May, the digital catwalk show was live-streamed via an IGTV video, as Hanifa's founder Anifa Mvuemba showcased the looks of her ready-to-wear Pink Label Congo clothing line in the form of 3D renders draped on "ghost" models. 

While many would assume that the virtual catwalk was a result of the current Covid-19 quarantine conditions, Mvuemba said that during the sampling process of the brand she has been using virtual figures in her work for quite a while as mockups. 

"I wanted all of this to be part of our marketing campaign," she explained. 

"When the Covid-19 stay home orders unexpectedly occurred I was already working on these creations and saw it a chance to innovate and inspire given the constraints." 

"During those times, the 3D designs kept me sane and intrigued," the designer added. 

While Mvuemba did not disclose the exact method of development, she compares the framework of working with a 3D model to work with a human model. 

"I'm always wilful about the model's shapes and curves," she said. "Same as our garments, our 3D models are inspired by women because we are designing for women." 

Mvuemba also mentioned that she was initially afraid to go through her virtual fashion show in the light of the pandemic. 

"News came out about how bad things were and I started to feel very depressed about how everything is going on," she said. 

"I began to feel like maybe making and posting a new collection online would be disrespectful when people were facing very challenging realities." 

Despite her doubts, Mvuemba agreed to go ahead with the virtual display – in which more than 10,000 spectators tuned in – to make her work more open by giving everyone "a front-row seat" 

"We understand that some people may never experience a week of fashion or a showcase of Hanifa, so we wanted to make a show for our audience on a daily basis," she said. "It was then that Instagram was the obvious alternative." 

Soon after the show, Twitter and other social media platforms shared clips of the virtual garments, so they went viral, hailed as "groundbreaking." 

Mvuemb's capsule collection was inspired by her hometown in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and more specifically the "majestic women" who live there. 

She incorporated the country's elements into the detailing, stitching, and color of the garments. 

"The red symbolizes suffering, the blue symbolizes peace, and the yellow stands for hope, both Congo flag colors," she said. 

The ribbed Kinshasa Backless Mini Dress – named after the capital of the country – features a tritone palette taken from the Congolese flag, designed to "mirror the strength of the Congolese people's past." 

"The A-Line silhouette personifies releasing past pain and our backless design invites future peace and hope," the product description reads. "The exaggerated sleeves lie for an added layer of tension over your fingertips." 

Other important pieces included a wide-leg denim jumpsuit, a white stretch-satin skirt designed to highlight "the strength in the hips of a woman," and the floor-length silk Mái gown printed with a Congo River image closed the show.

"I expect women to gage meaning from every collection," Mvuemba said. "Hanifa is about more than just clothing. We are creating women who aspire to be limitless." 

"When each piece was created, I have been reminded of the stories my mom told me about the women she knew back in Congo," she said. "Women who suffered a great loss but still, gathered every ounce of strength to show up every day." 

"My hope is that these garments are going to inspire all women to stand tall in their power and use their history, beautiful or painful, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, to reshape their future." 

Mvuemba often refers to her research on the colonial inequalities in Central Africa, and to raise the consciousness of the corruption, bribery and forced labor of illicit coltan mining in the DRC – a mineral used as a condenser in electronics such as mobile phones and laptops. 

She hopes that her job will be "part of the solution".

In collaboration with Responsible Sourcing Network, Hanifa released their Collette t-shirt, which will see 20 percent of the proceeds donated to organizations that combat illicit coltan mining. 

Coronavirus has affected many fashion brands, unable to host any physical shows in which to showcase their collections. Big fashion houses like Celine, Courreges, Mugler, Rick Owens are among those.

Invisible models wore 3D-rendered garments in a virtual display that has been kept on Instagram Live by Congolese company Hanifa to showcase their new fashion line. 

HANIFA'S 3D COLLECTION GOES LIVE ON INSTAGRAM

Alessandro Michele, artistic director of Gucci, has announced that the Italian brand will ignore the "stale" deadlines of the fashion calendar, holding shows only twice a year instead to reduce waste. 

He explains Gucci will abandon the traditional fashion rota of staging five shows a year under the cruise, pre-fall, spring-summer and fall-winter seasonal labels. Instead, on its own terms, the fashion brand will be presenting shows regularly only twice a year. 

"Two appointments per year is more than enough to allow time for creative thinking and to give this system more time," Michele said on Monday 25 May at a virtual press conference broadcast from his Rome studio. 

The decision, he says, comes in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic which led him to rethink the sense of his actions and to change a lot of things in the way he worked. 

"Our history is littered with crises that did nothing to teach us," Michele announced. "With economic collapses and social devastations which have been tackled by imposing the same recipes they originated from." 

"This present, therefore, encourages us to have additional responsibilities. This situation has somehow amplified such transformative urgency that can no longer be delayed. I will abandon the worn-out seasonal ritual." 

The Italian brand has no plans to arrange a show in September – when Milan Fashion Week would usually showcase their new collection. 

"It's an audacious but necessary foundational act that aims to build a new creative universe," he says. "A universe that becomes necessary in the subtraction of events and oxygenates by the multiplication of words." 

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, the news of Gucci comes at a time when fashion weeks across the globe are starting to move into digital formats.

Saint Laurent have recently announced they are going to stick to a similar schedule. Waiting for the official statements from big brands such as Rick Owens, Mugler, Courreges, Victoria Beckham. Will keep you updated.

GUCCI ABANDONS THE RITUAL OF TRADITIONAL FASHION SCHEDULE

The fashion industry's "enfant terrible," Jean Paul Gaultier's career began with a film: "Paris Frills" by Jacques Becker. He has been taking constant inspiration from the silver screen ever since, paying tribute to the cinema in his designs as well as working with costume designers.

Gaultier grew up fascinated by the bourgeoning popular culture that he witnessed through the small screen lens. When the young designer saw the French film Falbalas (or Paris Frills) broadcasted on television, he was instantly agitated by the moods of Parisian fashion depicted therein. 

Epicurean love story by the British film director, Peter Greenaway, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover (1989), is a phantasmagoric and visually lush movie that proved to be a perfect vehicle for the costume designs of Jean Paul Gaultier. According to Helen Mirren, who was starring in the film, Greenaway and Gaultier shared a similar sensibility, each sharing an original, fearless to be controversial and personal, an intensely visual approach.

Pedro Almodóvar might say the same. The Truth or Dare documentary, which followed Madonna on her Blond Ambition tour, inspired Almodóvar to offer Gaultier to create costumes for his Kika movie. This was the first of many collaborations between the director and the designer, both of whom have been named as the awful children of their industries. 

The French directors Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet recognized a kindred spirit in Jean Paul Gaultier after watching Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover. As the designer shared his appreciation for their first feature, Delicatessen, Caro and Jeunet invited him to create the costumes for the second feature film of the duo Le cité des enfants perdus. 

Luc Besson's 1997 hit The Fifth Element is the most well-known film featuring Jean Paul Gaultier's costumes. A spectacular, action-packed full-of-adventures movie stars Bruce Willis — who appears as the avatar of the designer, wearing a cut-out orange top with bleached blond hair — and Milla Jovovich as the fifth element that is going to save the universe. 

Gaultier was drawn to the highly visual way Besson's characters were expressed. In Besson's movie, you can always read Gaultier's thought: "before saying a single word, you must be able to read the personality of the character just from their look." 

Jean Paul Gaultier continues to design film costumes and, most recently, revisited his work with Almodóvar in Bad Education (2004) and The Skin I Live In (2011).

French designers Andre Courreges and Thierry Mugler have also been involved in costume design not only once throughout their careers.

Falbalas, the film that inspired Gaultier to embark on his fashion odyssey.

Some of the forward-thinking fashions of this year are the indestructible jackets, elastic-band dresses and inflatable trousers. We roundup five designs here that could be programmed to change the way we're dressed.

The ballooning latex trousers of menswear designer Harikrishnan are inflated by seven-millimeter-wide valves hidden in the ankles. Each pair consists of 30 latex strips that either form colorful lines, or block hues. The super-wide trousers with slim-fitting tops designed by Hirkrishan have been featured at the London College of Fashion graduate show. 

Elastic rubber bands are used in this collection as yarn for the dress that has been created by a Japanese designer Rie Sakamoto to showcase the overlooked qualities of the item. Including a dress and a sweater, the Rubber Band collection makes the most of its stretchy consistency as it can, morphing into different body shapes and sizes. 

This jacket is made of Dyneema, a plastic known as the toughest fiber ever made, which makes the clothes almost indestructible. Experimental clothing brand Vollebak supplemented the strong material with robust buttons made of the "hardest nut in the world." 

Flowing Water and Standing Time by Ying Gao

Autonomous dresses from the designer Ying Gao named Flowing Water and Standing Time respond to their environment. Gao fitted the color and light sensors of ethereal fabrics and tiny cameras connected to a PI computer that gathered information about their surroundings, activating a series of silicone-interlaced actuators and magnets to cause the fabrics to move as if they were alive. 

Carbon-negative jacket by Charlotte McCurdy

New York designer Charlotte McCurdy developed this algae-derived, water-resistant plastic jacket made from biopolymers. McCurdy defines the raincoat as "carbon-negative," because algae throughout their lifetime remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Сontemporary designers are getting involved in hi-tech technologies in the same way Andre Courreges or Thierry Mugler would go back in the day. We live in a fascinating time, fashion will change its direction completely, this is just a matter of a few years.

The newest hi-tech technologies are spreading over fashion industry.

Step up to the second floor of the French capital's Galeries Lafayette Champs-Elysées and you'll soon come upon a beautiful Mediterranean paradise atmosphere where summer reigns all year long. This is Oursin, a restaurant opened by fashion designer Simon Porte Jacquemus, and hospitality company Caviar Kaspia. Conceived as a Mediterranean paradise in the heart of Paris, the restaurant was planned to the very last detail by Jacquemus in collaboration with the artistic director Clara Coret of Galeries Lafayette Champs-Élysée. From the interior design and decoration of Jacquemus, to the seafood-rich menu of Chef Erica Archambault, to the tailor-made tableware of Athenian ceramist Daphne Leon, the restaurant is imbued with the eternally summery charm of the South of France. 

The Mediterranean countryside, South of France, is a constant source of inspiration for Jacquemus. Oursin, with its intimate atmosphere, is featuring whitewashed walls playfully punctured by sculpted alcoves decorated with an eclectic array of vibrant Picasso-esque vases, bowls and other decorative items hand-picked by Jacquemus on the flea markets or pried from his own personal collection. The space transports guests to a cozy courtyard that could have been a property of some artist and gourmand located in the South of France.

The sculpted, whitewashed interior of Oursin certainly evokes Southern European vernacular architecture. Nevertheless, it also draws influence from the French architect Jacques Couelle, whose sculptural, grotto-like house in Provence Jacquemus has lived in, and Valentine Schlegel, a multidisciplinary artist native to South France whose work blends organic abstraction with modernist simplicity. A vine tree that rises to the ceiling in the center of the room and the abundance of sunlight streaming through wide windows reminiscent of Cezanne's Aix-en-Provence workshop, further impresses the feeling of the Mediterranean summer as do the carved wooden rattan chairs and the sand-colored serpentine banquet benches. 

The artisanal bona fides of the restaurant are not only limited to the handmade furniture and pottery that fill the alcoves around the dining area, they are also embodied in the decorative plates that greet guests when they sit down. Each of the 45 plates hand-sculpted and hand-painted by the Athenian ceramist Daphne Leon is unique, uncannily featuring a specific Mediterranean dish, from crab claws, scallops and sea urchins, from which the restaurant takes its name, to asparagus, aubergines and peaches, the latter delightfully served pitted and sliced. 

Leon's vibrantly colored and glazed ceramic dishes are the result of a spontaneous process, playfully tiptoeing between naturalism and expressionism. While colors and glazes have been extensively checked in advance, she has sculpted "all in the moment that's really exciting because you don't really know what the outcome would be until you open the kiln," Leon says. "I didn't want them to look true or flawless," she says, as her intention was to add to the dining experience a funny note. 

Inspired by Greek and Byzantine ceramics, Leon's designs for Oursin, which also include all the serving plates, share the elegance of the Picasso-esque ceramics that Jacquemus filled the alcoves of the restaurant with, also serve as a prelude to the Mediterranean menu of Chef Erica Archambault. Dishes such as fried artichokes, lobster salad dusted with caviar and grilled octopus, and linguine with clams and Sicilian salsa are accompanied by refreshing desserts such as white peaches cooked in verbena syrup, and fresh figs with honey ice cream which in their slice-of-summer perfection delightfully conclude Oursin's Mediterranean-steeped dining experience.

What kind of restaurants could Andre Courreges or Thierry Mugler be running and what type of kitchen those could be serving considering that the first French designer has been raised in the posh area of Nouvelle-Aquitaine department while the second couturier was born in Strasbourg,  in northeastern France.

Simon Porte Jacquemus, a French designer, has opened a Champs-Elysées restaurant serving Mediterranean kitchen.

OURSIN: JACQUEMUS BRINGS MEDITERRANEAN SUMMER TO THE HEART OF PARIS

Fashion features director Alexander Fury is an ardent vintage fashion collector. He loaned items from his vast (3,000-piece plus) collection for Jazzelle Zanaughtti's shooting of the Candy magazine, remixed and remodeled to give them a new contemporary significance. So a Vivienne Westwood corset butts against an Azzedine Alaïa denim skirt, a 2005 Prada feathered hat is paired with a sequinned shift from Stephen Sprouse in 1983. Below is the accompanying clarification of Fury's unhealthy obsession with fashion, alongside photographs of some of this tranche of outstanding archival pieces never seen before. 

"I first started collecting clothes in the north of England when I was a strange, fashion-obsessed 13-year-old boy. So I started buying Vogue: I had some strange idea that Vogue cost as much as a designer's dress, until I saw one on holiday in a shop – we didn't even get real fashion magazines where I grew up – and remembered that I could not afford one. And the same year, I bought my first piece of Vivienne Westwood jeans, and then some printed t-shirts they did. I loved them and kept until they fell apart. I still have bits that I purchased around then – and parts that I have seen or recall. Some of my most treasured possessions are from a collection of John Galliano of the mid-90s, when he was sending out things like ballet slippers and torn-off coat sleeves as invites, only a few hundred of them ever made, each one special in its own way. As I grew up I recall seeing them in magazines, thinking like they were the secret to a better future. It's sort of a place that's gone now, but you can have the remains. In the 90s, I always felt like those fashion shows were dreams, and the clothes were actual fantasy keepsakes."

"I feel my range has been expanding a little in recent years, from particular designers to items that best encapsulate a specific moment in time. I'm currently looking for one of the Tom Ford Gucci thongs, nestled in the coccyx with the double-G design. I'm not that much interested in artists like Helmut Lang, even though I know how great their work has been and remains. I like something sentimental in clothes. I don't really have any feelings when I see minimalist garments."

It would be interesting to know if Alexander Fury has any of those insane pieces from the 70s Andre Courreges or Thierry Mugler's collections in his possession. We are going to find out!

Alexander Fury goes through his 3,000-piece fashion archive in a piece originally published in Candy magazine.

ALEXANDER FURY'S COLLECTION OF ICONIC FASHION PIECES

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