Oscar De La Renta dies

One of the designers that epitomized american fashion (whichever way you look at it), Oscar De La Renta died on the 20th of October 2014 at 82. His illustrious and enduring career spanned nearly half a century. Trained by fellow Latin designers Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo (at Lanvin), before returning to the USA to launch his company. He had a stint in Balmain for whom he took the rains in the 90s to make heavenly couture. He dressed many women, making them look and feel better. He loved women, he loved designing for them, being with them, loving them. His Dominican roots were always a major part of his aesthetic and style without overwhelming it. But he was first and foremost an American fashion champion, always putting out one collection after another, making clothes the way he saw fit for his loved ladies to enjoy and cherish. Below is a small selection of his work. He will be missed.

Christy Turlington for Bill King, British Vogue, 1986

Sketch by Antonio Lopez for an ad

Balmain couture, Vogue US 1997 by Peter Lindbergh

Linda Evangelista by Arthur Elgort for Vogue US, 1991

Perry Ogden for Town & Country, 2013

Karlie Kloss, advertisment, Spring/Summer 2012

Kate Moss for Annie Leibovitz, Vogue US, 2009

Bridal advertisment, Spring1/ Summer 2011, Craig Mc Dean

January Jones by Kurt Iswarienko for Edit magazine, May 2013

Amber Valetta for Steven Meisel, Vogue US 2006

Karlie Kloss, advertisement, Autumn/Winter 2011, by Craig Mc Dean

Steven Meisel for Vogue US, December 2010

Grace Mahary, Imaan Hammam, and Cindy Bruna
by Craig McDean, Vogue US, January 2014

Harper's Bazaar, 2009

Christy Turlington, advertisment, 1994

Karlie Kloss for Annie Leibovitz, Vogue US, 2013

Fashion show, New York 2009, by Damon Winter/New York Times

Vienna Design Week: 1-11.10.2009

One of my all-time favourite cities is hosting its third Design Week! The aim of VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is to show and enable people to experience the many-faceted creative work in the fields of product, furniture and industrial design, but also aspects of experimental design. After two successful festivals in 2007 and 2008, this October an exquisite and colourful programme of events will be awaiting the visitors. Design is an important field in the production of culture: it shapes our material culture, our everyday life and our consumer world, it influences lifestyle and fashion and most fundamentally our aesthetic sense and judgement. This wide-ranging impact is a reason to celebrate design and also to examine it critically; VIENNA DESIGN WEEK has made both of these its mission.

In cooperation with many partners – from Vienna museums to production and retail companies to designers from all over the world – the whole of Vienna becomes a platform and show-case of design. VIENNA DESIGN WEEK doesn't have the character of a trade fair but instead offers a variety of venues and approaches specific to Vienna. The festival sets out to be "international but localised", with an abiding interest to cooperate with the flourishing design scenes of Central and Eastern Europe, and certainly beyond that. Bringing to Vienna an important international design show every October is another example of the long-due international exchange; VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is stimulating.

The festival aims to reveal creative and production processes and encourage experimental work on the spot. It also presents and promotes design that in the first instance withdraws from the scheme of utility value and functionality in order to create awareness and pose questions or also simply just to have fun. The exploration of materials, mood values and the interaction between people and objects lie at the centre of design practice and consequently are important points of reference within VIENNA DESIGN WEEK.

With exhibitions, venue-specific installations, theme specials, discussion events, a programme of films and, of course, enough opportunity to party and network, VIENNA DESIGN WEEK is not only an attraction for the international design scene but most explicitly also aims to interest and appeal to a wide public audience of Viennese and visitors to Vienna. This year VIENNA DESIGN WEEK energetically goes into the third round with the wish and the aim to take up a firm place on the international festival scene and at the same time become a fixed early-autumn cultural event in Vienna.

The programme is here.

The participating designers are here.

The week's calendar is here.


Photo/Concept: Wolfgang Zajc & Rudolf Zündel

Special Event:Design of Modern Greek Furniture

Today opens the 2nd International Furnidec Business exhibition in Thessaloniki. It hosts, just like last year, the 3rd Design Show, which has known Greek designers exhibiting their work. In a specially designed space for this, in Pavilion 14, this special show is a celebration of design furniture and home accessories, outside of the usual commercial styles and norms.


Avant guard designers and architects project a special concept in objects concerning furniture. The prerogative for participation is the original idea and construction based on innovation, functionality and high standards in strength, style and unexpected forms and shapes. Most of the participating designers had previously shown in BARTESERA in Athens last month.



For the very first time, a Pan-Hellenic competition for furniture design took place, under the Helexpo-Furnidec co-ordination, in collaboration with the Greek Secretariat for Industrial Design. Any individual or team represented by a professional in the field of design and also graduate of any design school was eligible. There are 7 equal awards that will be given on Sunday. All the participants exhibit their designs and models along with their more well know colleagues, in Pavilion 14, in the special area designated for them.

The design of the whole space was done by my colleague Ioanna Papadopoulou, and we both supervised the set up of the exhibition space for the company we work for, Tetragon. I will post photos after the event.

The show is from the 25th until the 28th of January at the Thessaloniki International Fair grounds.