http://www.byronesque.com/editorial/the-contemporary-wardrobe-part-oneby-roger-burton

FINALLY IT IS BACK! THE INFAMOUS SALE/FUNDRAISER!!!!

FRIDAY 27th JANUARY – SUNDAY 29th JANUARY 2012 12-6PM

PREVIEW: THURSDAY 26th JANUARY 6-9PM

As part of a Fund Raiser for the Horse Hospital Gallery, we have a whole plethora of Original Underground Posters, Vintage Photos & Postcards, Collectable Toys, Antiquities, Objets d’art, Curios, Furniture, Books, Magazines, Stickers, Videos, DVDs, CDs, LPs etc etc on sale for your delight.

+ The legendary Contemporary Wardrobe Collection Sale, and this season its bigger and better than ever! On sale is a Massive selection of men’s and women’s Vintage & Modern clothing, ranging from the 1940s to 2012, including many unique items used in feature films, pop videos, and TV commercials. There will be bargains galore, so don’t miss out!

Clothing includes: Hats, coats, suits, dresses, shirts, blouses, trousers, skirts, jeans, shoes, jewellery, accessories and much, much more!

About The Contemporary Wardrobe Collection

Contemporary Wardrobe was originally set up in 1978, by costume designer & stylist Roger K. Burton as a hire company to supply street fashion to the film & TV industry. Now some 30 years later, the collection exceeds 15000 garments and includes definitive items from British and American youth cults as well as classic fashions from seminal boutiques such as Mr Freedom, Biba and Seditionaries, couture houses such as Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, and Givenchy. Over the years the collection has been used in many feature films such as Quadrophenia, Sid & Nancy, Absolute Beginners and Hackers, and has been worn by literally hundreds of pop icons from David Bowie, Annie Lennox, George Harrison through to PJ Harvey, and MIA.

The classic and cult value of this collection makes it a great source for many of today’s eclectic and individualist street styles, as recognised by its use in current Feature Films, Music Videos, Fashion Magazines and Museums worldwide.

To our knowledge we are, the sole, largest and most important collection of street fashion and culture in Europe.

Preview: Tuesday 8th November 7:30pm
Exhibition: Wednesday 9th November – Friday 2nd December
Monday – Saturday 12 – 6pm

This display of extraordinary garments, offers a mere glimpse into an exclusive world that was a fundamental part of the myth making, which architected our perception of the decadence and sheer opulence of an era populated by beautiful, lip glossed
amazons, flamboyant aristocrats, strung out dandies and St Tropez, golden tan socialites.

The time, care and consideration that Michael Hochong put towards the creation of his incredible wardrobe was a very public declaration and commitment to a lifestyle oversaturated in glamour and fantasy. Every beautiful thing… is a celebration of that resplendent spirit.

Michael was born in 1936 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Being of French Hawaiian and Chinese descent, he was educated in New York, and settled in London at the outset of the 60s. He began to circulate in the new swinging London scene, and became renowned as an exuberant and stylish dresser. He had a flair for fashion, design and entertaining and worked in that area for a number of years before opening ‘Michael’s’, an exclusive restaurant in Knightsbridge with his brother Chino in 1969.

The success of his restaurant enabled him to embrace a life of flamboyant excess. He developed a taste for extravagant costumes and became even more conspicuously dashing and colourful. Rarely seen in the same outfit twice, he lived for elegance and
style and making ‘an entrance’ was essential. His sophisticated charm and androgynous, exotic good looks would grant him access to the private playgrounds of the rich and famous, and was regularly seen socializing at the epicenter of high society. He also shared many years of self imposed luxury with the great love of his life John Koon, famed creator of the Chinese take-away and owner of a grand house in Tangiers, a replica of ‘Tara’, Scarlet O’Hara’s spiritual home in ‘Gone with the Wind’.

During the 60s his close friend and celebrated film couturier Germinal Rangel, designed an entire wardrobe of lavish clothes for him, and throughout the 70s Savile Row tailor Fitzgerald Blackman, moonlighting under the label of ‘Fitz’ created many of his most ostentatious costumes. Fitz utilized everything from Crepe de chine to organza, appliqué, panne velvet and rhinestone  encrusted lamé, to construct entire ensembles that would rival Aladdin Sane or Liberace.

Most of Michael’s costumes which appear in the exhibition, date from the 60s and 70s and reflect his background, and although one can detect distinct fashion influences of the time, such as Pop Art, Glam Rock, Glitter and Kitsch, it is his own eccentric take on high fashion that makes the costumes so original and exciting; embracing everything from Orientalism to Surrealism, Voodoo, Bespoke tailoring, Haute Couture and Carnival. He was also incredibly proud of his ancestry and would often incorporate
ancient oriental robes and exquisite kimonos in his exceptional attire. The clothes themselves are an astounding materialization of Michael’s deep love and obsession with dressing for pleasure.

In February 2011 Michael sadly passed away, leaving this impeccably preserved collection: a compelling, feathered, sparkling testament to the romance and beauty of his life.

Curated by Roger K. Burton

For further information visit thehorsehospital.com
For enquiries please contact Tai Shani: tai@thehorsehospital.com

The 3rd Fashion in Film Festival is proud to present Birds of Paradise, an intoxicating exploration of costume as a form of cinematic spectacle throughout European and American cinema. There will be exclusive screenings of rare and unseen films, plus two special commissions as part of the season: an installation for Somerset House by the award-winning Jason Bruges Studio and a London-wide Kinoscope Parlour, an installation of six peephole machines designed by Mark Garside after Thomas A. Edison’s kinetoscopes.

From the exquisitely opulent films of the silent era, to the sybaritic, lavishly stylised underground films of the1940s – 1970s, costume has, for a long time, played a significant role in cinema as a vital medium for showcasing such basic properties of film as movement, change, light and colour. The festival programme explores episodes in film history which most distinctly foreground costume, adornment and styling as vehicles of sensuous pleasure and enchantment.

Experimental films by Kenneth Anger, Jack Smith, Ron Rice, José Rodríguez-Soltero, Steven Arnold and James Bidgood constitute one such episode. Their decadent, highly stylised visions full of lyrical fascination with jewellery, textures, layers, glittering fabrics and make-up unlock the splendour and excess of earlier periods of popular cinema, especially ‘spectacle’ and Orientalist films of the 1920s; early dance, trick and féerie films of the 1890s and 1900s; and Hollywood exotica of the 1940s. In their dreamlike, magical and sometimes phantasmagorical tableaux, costume and artifice do not so much serve to build a character; instead, they hypnotise, surprise or dramatically metamorphose – they become a subject of wonder, a type of special effect.
Stressing the purely visual aspects of cinema, the programme suggests one way of closing the cleavage (or at least temporarily suspending the opposition) between experimental film and mainstream commercial cinema. This is very much in the spirit of such progressive journals as the pre-war French Cinéa – Ciné pour tous and the post-war American Film Culture, and of course, the very attitude of the underground filmmakers featured.
The Horse Hospital showcases the link between underground film and its direct and indirect inspirations from mainstream Hollywood cinema. Highlights include a screening of James Bidgood’s stunning oeuvre Pink Narcissus (1971) and Robert Siodmak’s trashy exotica Cobra Woman (1944) starring Jack Smith’s idol Maria Montez.

COME AS YOUR OWN MADNESS FILM CLUB NIGHT
WEDNESDAY 1 DECEMBER 7PM
TOTAL RUNNING TIME OF FILMS C.170MIN (WITH A SHORT BREAK IN BETWEEN).
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/98525
TICKETS £10, CONCESSIONS £8

You absolutely must come dressed as your own madness if you wish to be admitted to the Fashion in Film Festival’s opening ceremony, a special film club night co-hosted exclusively for your pleasure by the brilliant Ken Hollings and a pair of London legends Princess Julia and Felicity Hayward. The evening will kick off with a mystery double bill screening featuring one of cinema’s greatest mavericks, plus a fiendish mix of lavish costumes and masks, dark rituals and a profusion of sequins and sparkles.

Post-screening, Princess Julia and Felicity Hayward will DJ into the night. Make sure to dress up to the nines for this unmissable event, the stranger the better… unless your madness is called normality.
Ken Hollings is a writer whose work draws freely upon trash culture, weird science and strange connections. Princess Julia is a music writer and DJ of Kinky Gerlinky fame. Felicity Hayward is a freelance artist, photographer and events organiser.

JAMES BIDGOOD DOUBLE BILL
THURSDAY 2 DECEMBER 6:45PM
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/98527
SINGLE TICKET, £7 (CONC. £5)
WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES BY RYAN POWELL, LECTURER IN FILM STUDIES AT KING’S COLLEGE LONDON.
PINK NARCISSUS
USA 1971. Dir James Bidgood.
With Bobby Kendall, Don Brooks.
Costume and set design James Bidgood. c.71 min.

With experience in still photography and stage costume design, but no training in film whatsoever, Bidgood shot Pink Narcissus on the cheap in the confines of his bedroom, using Bolex cameras with 8mm Kodachrome and eventually 16mm Ektachrome stock.

It took over seven years to make and the result is an epic and bold work. A series of homoerotic fantasies, the film’s singular aesthetic is at once highly camp and deliberately trashy, yet moving and stunningly beautiful. Its charming ‘naivety’ evokes early film pioneers such as Méliès or de Chomón and like them Bidgood was heavily invested in fabricating his own elaborate sets and costumes, as well as his own universe of solutions and tricks. Sadly, the film was not edited by the artist himself who had, by the early 1970s, lost creative control of his mesmerising footage.

8.15PM THE ZIEGFELD GIRL
USA 1941. Dir Robert Z. Leonard.
With Hedy Lamarr, Lana Turner, Judy Garland, James Stewart.
Costumes Adrian, sets Cedric Gibbons and Merrill Pye, choreography Busby Berkeley. c.133 min.

Perpetuating the Ziegfeld Follies mythology, this is Leonard’s second foray into the subject (after the Academy Award-winning The Great Ziegfeld,1936). The star-studded musical follows the utterly predictable career transformations of three budding Ziegfeld girls as they are ‘processed’ by the showbiz genius. Hoping to out-Ziegfeld the man himself with its special effects, candy-floss sartorial frivolities and celestial cast, the film embraces a glamour that is quintessentially Ziegfeldian with girls parading in outlandish costumes dripping with sequins courtesy of MGM’s star designer Adrian. The number ‘You Stepped Out of a Dream’ recycles from the 1936 film the colossal tiered cake staircase and uses clouds of mist for an added dreamlike effect. The opulence of the Ziegfeld Follies’ costumes and sets has been a life-long inspiration for Bidgood who has enthusiastically referred to them ever since the days he designed costumes for Club 82 in New York.

MARIA MONTEZ LATE NIGHT TRIBUTE
FRIDAY 3 DECEMBER 9.15PM
BUY TICKETS HERE: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/98529
SINGLE TICKET, £7 (CONC. £5)
COBRA WOMAN
USA 1944. Dir Robert Siodmak.
With Maria Montez, John Hall, Sabu.
Costumes Vera West, sets Russel A. Gausman, Ira Webb. c.117 min.

A star of Universal’s Technicolor escape films in the 1940s, the Dominican-born siren Maria Montez became the centrepiece of Jack Smith’s Hollywood idolatry two decades later. The star who founded her own fan club and who reportedly once exclaimed ‘When I see myself on the screen, I am so beautiful, I jump for joy’ was a blueprint for the (admittedly more knowing and parodic) campness and narcissism of Jack Smith’s stars. (Smith famously singled Montez out in his essay ‘The Perfect Filmic Appositeness of Maria Montez’.) With reference to Montez, Smith stated that bad acting can in fact expose a much more priceless slice of life, an approach echoed in Andy Warhol’s cinema. In Cobra Woman Montez is cast in a dual role as Tollea of the South Seas and her evil sister Naja, priestess of the Cobra People on a forbidden island. The film showcases her feminine charms in Vera West’s sensuously soft, pastel gowns and more gaudy outfits. West was a former fashion designer trained by Lucile and became the doyenne of costume design for horror and monster movies in the ’30s and ’40s.

Plus a DJ set by turntable goddesses the Broken Hearts who will follow the screening with ‘Stranded in the Jungle’, a selection of wildly primeval tracks featuring voodoo magic, jungle drums and swinging from the tree tops. Cannibals, savages and feral wildcats all welcome.

As part of a Fund Raiser for the Horse Hospital Gallery, we have a whole plethora of Original Underground Posters, Vintage Photos & Postcards, Collectable Toys, Antiquities, Objets d’art, Curios, Furniture, Books, Magazines, Stickers, Videos, DVDs, CDs, LPs etc etc on sale for your delight.

+ The legendary Contemporary Wardrobe Collection Sale, and this season its bigger and better than ever! On sale is a Massive selection of men’s and women’s Vintage & Modern clothing, ranging from the 1940s to 2010, including many unique items used in feature films, pop videos, and TV commercials. There will be bargains galore, so don’t miss out!

Clothing includes: Hats, coats, suits, dresses, shirts, blouses, trousers, skirts, jeans, shoes, jewellery, accessories and much, much more!

For further details, ring 020 7713 7370
The Horse Hospital – Colonnade – Bloomsbury – London WC1N 1HX
Located just 1 minute from Russell Square tube, on the Piccadilly line
About The Contemporary Wardrobe Collection

Contemporary Wardrobe was originally set up in 1978, by costume designer & stylist Roger K. Burton as a hire company to supply street fashion to the film & TV industry. Now some 25 years later, the collection exceeds 15000 garments and includes definitive items from British and American youth cults as well as classic fashions from seminal boutiques such as Mr Freedom, Biba and Seditionaries, couture houses such as Yves Saint Laurent, Dior, and Givenchy. Over the years the collection has been used in many feature films such as Quadrophenia, Sid & Nancy, Absolute Beginners and Hackers, and has been worn by literally hundreds of pop icons from David Bowie, Annie Lennox, George Harrison through to PJ Harvey, Richard Ashcroft, and Atomic Kitten.

The classic and cult value of this collection makes it a great source for many of today’s eclectic and individualist street styles, as recognised by its use in current Feature Films, Music Videos, Fashion Magazines and Museums worldwide.

To our knowledge we are, the sole, largest and most important collection of street fashion and culture in Europe.

Vive le Punk

A fascinating and previously unseen documentary of The Chamber of Pop Culture’s very first exhibition in 1993. The documentary features Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren talking in depth about their designs and is a valuable insight into how they broke all the rules of convention and inspired a generation. To the best of our knowledge this is the only time that they have been filmed together discussing their legacy.

For all enquiries please contact Roger Burton on roger@contemporarywardrobe.com
You can read the ID article about the film HERE

Vive le Punk
Screenings £5:
Sat 3rd May Doors 7:30pm
Fri 9th May, Wed 14th May, Tue 20th May and Tue 27th May, Doors 6:30pm
Thursday 22nd May 7:30pm
£5:
Paul Gorman (author, The Look) will be in conversation with Roger K. Burton about the development of The Contemporary Wardrobe Collection over the last 30 years and his contribution to image creation and his involvement in a multiplicity of projects, from PX to World’s End to Nostalgia Of Mud to Quadrophenia to the Horse Hospital, via ads, videos, fashion, art and film. The talk will be accompanied by key images from the archive, inspirational artefacts and a specially styled fashion show.
Friday 23rd May 7:30pm
£5:
David Ellis’s Rapid Response Unit in conjunction with The Horse Hospital PRESENTS
Kitted out: But who gets to dress the assassins?
David Ellis Writer/Performer/Curator invites Max Decharne, Writer/Musician/Cultural historian and founder of ‘The Flaming Stars’ to rifle through a pre-selected rail of 50 items of clothing from the Contemporary Wardrobe Collection whilst extemporizing on the bespoke and brooding deviancy of Spivs, Zazou’s, Ted’s, Ton-up boys, B-Girls and Jet’s. (Both talks will be accompanied by
specifically chosen film extracts and vinyl)
Fashion In Film Festival
Monday 26th May Doors 7:30pm
£5/£4 members & concessions
Zoot Suit Riots
Dir Joseph Tovares – USA 2001 – Documentary – 60 min – DVD.
A documentary about Chicano wearing “Zoot suiters” whose baggy attire was condemned as unpatriotic, and those who wore it as ignorant of the war effort.
Thursday 29th May Doors 7:30pm
£7/£5 members & concessions
Blood and Black Lace (Sei donne per l’assassino)
Dir Mario Bava
Italy/Monaco/France/Germany – 1964 – 88 min With Mary Arden, Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok. Dubious secrets involving a group of nerve-wracked fashion models, and a certain red diary. Like the sumptuously baroque fashion salon, all the murder scenes are meticulously staged for a breathtakingly spectacular effect.
Saturday 31st May Doors 6:00pm
£7/£5 members & concessions
So what! Two tales of Juvenile Delinquency guest-curated by Roger K. Burton.
“The Boys” dir Sidney J. Furie – UK 1962 – 123 mins
“The Violent Years” dir William Morgan – USA 1956 – 56mins
Both ‘The Violent Years’ and ‘The Boys’ clearly illustrate the social stigma of post war youth, victimised because of the way they looked and their rebellious behaviour. However it was also a time when the public with a conscience began to re-evaluate both the teenagers voice and their dress codes. In both films as in real life, we see that it wasn’t just the kids or the parents who were on trail, but society’s morals and values as a whole.
All Power to the Imagination! 1968 and Its Legacies
All screenings:
Doors 7:30pm
£7/£5 members & concessions
Saturday April 26th
Flashing on the Sixties: A Tribal Document
Dir Lisa Law
USA – 1990 – 52 mins
Featuring Timothy Leary, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Allen Ginsberg and Taj Mahal among others.
This film is a look at the 60′s from the inside, people helping with free kitchens at Woodstock, racing in brightly painted school buses with Wavy Gravy, living on the Commune all set to a soundtrack of the time.
+
Hi Mom!
Dir Brian De Palma
USA – 1970 – 87 mins
De Niro plays variations on a Vietnam vet returning to NY as, variously, a ‘peep art’ porno movie-maker, an urban guerilla, and an insurance salesman. Shot by De Palma in visceral vérité, Anarchic and very appealing.
Friday May 16th
Manson
Dir Robert Hendrickson & Laurence Merrick
USA – 1972 – 83 mins
Oscar nominated documentary on Charles Manson and his “family”. Memorable song soundtrack by former Manson family members Brooks Poston and Paul Watkins: their well-crafted, mournful folk songs are a perfect backdrop for a tale of hippie ideals gone
horribly wrong.
+
The Hippie Revolt
Dir Edgar Beatty
USA – 1967 – 75 mins
A psychedelic celebration aimed at further alarming middle-class Americans about hippies, hooray!
Wednesday May 28th
The Whole World Is Watching: Weatherman ’69
Dir Raymon Pettibon
USA – 1989 – 122 mins
Starring Mike Watt, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Raymond Pettibon, Davo Claassen, Dave Markey, Janet Hausden, Joe Cole, Joey 8 Halsman, Mark Hecht, Rich Costigan, Abby Travis, Hank Vincent, and Master Nelson Tarpenny.
Originally realised as a trashy home video shot by Raymond Pettibon and enacted by a host of friends and musicians. The text written by Pettibon makes up more than 50 pages of dialogues, slogans, song lyrics and monolithic text blocks. The text is inspired by a radical splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society, Weatherman, who from 1969 to 1975 fought a proxy war for the rights of the nationally and internationally oppressed. Creating a cast of more than 20 half fictitious, half historic characters the text draws an image of the resistance group living in the underground. Sketches of historic events and encounters with pop celebrities like Jane Fonda and John Lennon appear along with a portrait of the daily lunacy of the subcultural existence and the longings of politicised middle-class kids.