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Life
and
Culture
Fashion,
Life
and
Culture
Fashion,
Life
and
Culture
kid’s wear Vol.46
“Creatives are pioneers of a new life balance. They are life-makers and meaning generators, neverpurehedonists.Theychangethe wayinwhichpeoplework,cooperate, live, love and develop.”
Photo: Achim Lippoth
kid’s wear Vol. 46 Spring / Summer 2018 kid’s wear Vol. 46 Spring / Summer 2018
SELECTION Spring/Summer 2018
Marcelo Burlon Kids of Milan
Achim LIPPOTH
Photographer: Achim Lippoth Styling: Simona Valentini Styling Assistant: Susanna Roderi Hair & Make-up: Nicole Gnauck / LIGAWEST mit Produkten von Davines Production Manager: Dennis Oellig Production Assistant: Cornelius MĂźcke 1st Assistant: Max Kopp
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“Take your pleasure seriously!” KID’S
WEAR,
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46
Toy Story with cultural-historical claims – and contemporary relevance: the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein shows Play Parade. An Eames Exhibition for nt brain research has re peat Rece Kids. edly con firm ed
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At the same time, the warnings are getting louder that children have lost over twelve hours of play per week over the past two decades; to school time, and elsewhere. The American Academy of Pediatrics, a respected body of paediatricians in the US, clearly warns that this could have drastic consequences. Play deprivation is an attack on the foundations of child development. It’s game-over for a healthy upbringing. Thank goodness we have advanced thinkers such as Gerald Hüther, a brain researcher from Germany, and Christoph Quarch, a philosopher, remaining stoic and writing books that are as committed as they are well-founded, such as Rettet das Spiel! (Save the Art of Playing!). And thank goodness, again, for exhibitions like Play Parade. An Eames Exhibition for Kids. The show by the curator Janna Lipsky, on from September 9, 2017, to February 11,
2018, in Weil am Rhein, also steers the focus towards play – albeit in a very different way – and the seriousness behind it. In this sense, Play Parade, the first exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum specially designed for children and families, shows what you can do with dedicated play. For your whole life, if possible. The exhibition gives a comprehensive insight into the toy designs of Charles and Ray Eames, the legendary American designers who wrote design history from the 1940s to the 1970s. Exhibits include groundbreaking items like THE TOY, a modular system of rods and colourful bits you can use to make planes, tents, stalls and a thousand other things. And well-known games like House of Cards, to build oversized card houses with. Eames’ concept of seeing toys as concrete pioneers of creativity and great ideas becomes
tangible, and you can even discover and immerse yourself in it in an elaborate room installation. Besides, it’s not just for kids. Eames’ toys were always intended for adults, too. At least for those who, like the creators themselves, have enough enthusiasm for the fascination of play for a lifetime.
As well as the toy designs, you can watch the early, thrilling short films by Ray and Charles Eames, such as Tops and Parade, featuring dancing roundabouts, puppets and toy trucks smartly parading in front of painted scenes. The second theme of the Charles and Ray Eames’ world of play includes objects from the couple’s private toy collection, which have
PLAY PARADE. AN EAMES EXHIBITION FOR KIDS Curator: Janna Lipsky
always served to inspire their own developments. The exhibits show a piece of cultural history in the world of playing. If you want, you can even put the timelessness of the individual concepts to the test. The original objects are in glass showcases, of course, but you can play with
reconstructions and updated versions. Our verdict: if you have time for a playdate, visit the exhibition in Weil am Rhein. With or without children. And maybe on the way you could read Gerald Hüther and Christoph Quarch’s Save the Art of Playing!. As Charles Eames said, “Take your pleasure seriously!”
Vitra Design Museum Gallery Charles-Eames-Straße 2 79576 Weil am Rhein Germany September 9, 2017, – February 11, 2018 10 am – 6 pm every day
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One of the micro conditions is the impressionable current personal living and working context. John Cleese, one of the creative masterminds behind Monty Python, is an eagle-eyed observer and analyst of the phenomenon of creativity. He not only looks at the micro-environment conditions of space K I D’S W E A R
nothing is wrong
nothi ng is wr on g”
While I am creative, nothing is wrong
and time, which are usually regarded as central in creativity research, but two other interesting factors: openness and humour. Cleese refers to research by Donald W. MacKinnon, who in the 1970s at the Department of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley found that people work in two mental modes: open and closed. In closed mode we have, according to
MacKinnon and Cleese, the feeling of having a lot to do, of having to keep going; it’s a slightly anxious mode in which we are quite impatient, even tense, have little humour, act purposefully; a mode in which we can be very stressed. But in open mode, we are relaxed, less purpose-oriented, more contemplative, more humorous. We do not feel under pressure to get something done as quickly as possible. We can play around with ideas. Essay
Vol. 46
While
Creativity is not possible in closed mode, a mode we are in all too often according to MacKinnon – and Cleese agrees. Cleese, the theoretically educated creativity practitioner, calls the conditions which make it more likely for us to enter the “open mode”: – A space that guarantees privacy and separation from the everyday (“play is only possible when we are separate from everyday life”). This space can – depending on the individual and the situation – be the car, the forest, the garden, the bathtub or a ladies’ powder-room. – Enough time for new ideas to emerge, grow and explode (“giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original”). Cleese points out that “the most creative persons/ professionals play with a problem much longer before they try to resolve it ... at least 90 minutes.” – Openness for anything and everything to happen. Everything is OK (for the time being); you can think and says the worst, most deviant, most illogical things. “While I am creative, nothing is wrong.” – Humour, which Cleese attributes an evolutionary meaning to; “it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.” Humour makes us playful and is an essential part of the playful and the creativity we need to solve problems, “no matter how serious they may be.” These are “adjusting screws” that adults can turn to make creativity more possible.
sweater Molo
p. 171
t-shirt Where is Marlo
jeans Goganga
 209
jacket WOOLRICH, trousers WOOLRICH
choker Alan Crocetti shirt Dolce & Gabbana
Photo: Paolo Barbi
leather jacket MSGM Kids
dress Carbon Soldier
blouse MinimĂš
dress Monnalisa Couture
t-shirt Loud Apparel
sweatshirt Little Remix