After Nairobi, Juergen went home but we went on to Segera Ranch on the Laikipia Plateau – 50,000 acres, only twenty miles north of the equator. It was started in 2008 by Jochen Zeitz (owner of Puma) as an ‘ecosphere retreat’ – it is carbon neutral and is one of several of the Zeitz Foundation’s tourist-driven enterprises supporting community development and cultural stewardship, sustainable development, ecosystem management and conservation. I think it’s an amazing achievement in so short a time. Our plan is to provide more work for the people there, using their skills to make accessories.
There’s a new scheme in Segera that we were very impressed with. The idea is to provide people’s homes with solar panels. It’s obvious that the bush has really deteriorated and the plan to re-establish it depends on the people not chopping firewood. This saves them a lot of time – and, importantly, using solar for cooking instead of burning firewood prevents the serious respiratory illnesses which are endemic in the area. The solar panels also provide lighting – this is a real advantage because the children are able to do their homework in the evenings.
Segera provides schools for the children. All Kenyans have both English and African names given to them at birth. Their lessons are taught in English and all the signs you see are in English as well. Andreas and I were welcomed by one of the teachers, Millicent, who lives at the school, as do the other staff, because of the remote location and the difficulty of travelling. There are as many as sixty children in a class but they do their best. We were shocked that they don’t have reading books – so I shall send them some when we return to London.
JUNE 2011
THURS 9 JUNE SEMELE WALK
Zeus was the king of the gods. His jealous queen, Hera, tricked Semele, telling her to ask Zeus to come to her, not in human form but in his full splendour. Zeus granted this favour and Semele was consumed by his lightning fire and from her pregnant womb their son Dionysus (Bacchus) was born. The story of Semele was made into an opera by Handel, which premiered in London in 1744.
I love Handel; he is a great composer whose operas are wonderfully human, ironic and sexy – and great music is timeless. To open the Herrenhausen Festival, near Hanover, Handel’s work was magically transformed into Semele Walk, a musical-theatrical performance staged in the perfectly restored Baroque gallery where ancestors of Britain’s George I once held banquets – a wonderful setting for the catwalk that forms the stage.
The theme of the festival is ‘Worlds Unleashed’, which focuses on the danger we face from runaway climate change (once it hits +2 degrees). The key speaker at the opening was Lord Giddens, who is passionately convinced of the urgency needed to stop climate change. I agree with him and believe that the weight of public opinion must be brought to bear on business and government.
Semele Walk incorporated fashions from my spring/summer 2011 Gold Label collection, Get a Life, which is all about climate change and saving our planet, Gaia. We also specially designed key outfits for the performers and musicians which added to the Baroque grandeur of the story and reflected the famous gallery. Baroque is the tension between restraint and grand gesture. My clothes echo this – they have a dynamic rapport with the body which is body conscious and keeps you centred and moves with every breath.
MON 27 JUNE WE SEE THROUGH THE EYES OF THE ARTIST
We went to Florence for the exhibition of our African bags before going on to the menswear show in Milan. Andreas managed to squeeze in a visit to the Uffizi in Florence. When he returned, he talked of Titian and his painting the Venus of Urbino.
ANDREAS: This is the painting of all time; it says everything. There is nothing before it and nothing after it. The idea is that there is no idea – just this woman – it doesn’t mean anything. For the first time in painting, she’s not Diana, she’s not Eve, she’s not Judith; she’s not Venus (the title ‘Venus’ has been given to her later): she’s an image of life. This image of life, it had to be a woman – the woman gives birth; no, it couldn’t have been a man, a man can’t just cover his cock with his hand. We all know it; it’s mesmerising. Manet’s Olympia is very similar. Manet is more direct; Titian is more stylised. Its sfumato is the finest sfumato ever. It’s not lit, not diffused; not clear, not blurred; not real, not fake: it’s in perfect equilibrium. It’s a world you think you know, yet it’s invented …
VIVIENNE: Andreas, you said that the impact of Renaissance painting is full of colour but when you came to the room with the Titian, it was all one colour.
ANDREAS: I can never understand the colour: there is hardly any; it’s the way it’s put together, the weight of it. It’s not the real world, yet it seems to reflect it more than anything.
VIVIENNE: I think we all search for perfection and truth, as well as outlook on life. Sorry, I know generalisations don’t interest you.
ANDREAS: Well, Titian is known as ‘the painter of the poesie’.
VIVIENNE: What do you think of the dog?
ANDREAS: The important thing is that there is a dog! It’s the woman’s companion – a King Charles spaniel, a pet. It’s part of the subject matter. It would be a horrible painting without it. And the hairstyle! The way it comes down on her, into her neck. There is nothing like it. And she’s holding the violets. And the two servants, getting her clothes from the chest? The painting is talking. What will happen next, what is she up to?
Titian’s Venus of Urbino in the Uffizi – what do you think of the dog?
That’s what we mean by ‘the painter of the poesie’. Poetry tells a story – reduced to its essentials; you get the idea in one go. The detail helps – the universal in the particular. But of course it’s the way it’s done that makes it – that’s the mystery. Andreas is a visual person: he understands everything from what he sees. He has obviously entered the world that Titian has created and can look into it and also out of it. This illustrates my point in the AR Manifesto that each work of art is a window on the world, an artist’s view, throughout time, which we can concentrate into our own experience.
Let’s carry on talking about Titian and his Venus. What else do I get? Let’s try to pin down further the comparisons art gives us and which help us understand our world.
Most important: There once lived on this earth a man, Titian, who developed his gigantic talent to an extreme which still seems to go beyond the limits of human potential. Even so, such an event cannot just happen: the man must take advantage of the situation. Others must prepare the way. It has to be a development of skills made available by previous artists. This was the time of the Renaissance and men were inspired by the Greek genius to push themselves to the limit. And so much was opening up: the world itself. Innovation teems. The painting not only mirrors the world, it creates it.
I love what Andreas says: ‘The painting says everything – nothing before, nothing after.’ I think this applies to each real painting. There is no progress in art.
JULY 2011
THURS 14 JULY A WEEKEND IN PARIS
I am busy every day with something different. But the most special thing I just did was to travel to Paris with Andreas for a party held at the Grand Trianon. It was for the opening of an exhibition – The Eighteenth Century Back in Fashion – and to mark the end of Couture Fashion Week. The Trianon is a ‘small’ royal residence – one storey high – in the grounds of Versailles. On display were fifty designer dresses inspired by Versailles’ fashion of the eighteenth century; this has always been such an inspiration to us and quite a lot of our dresses were on display. I was thrilled by the poster which superimposed a dress – originally worn by Nadia Auermann – on to a portrait of Marie Antoinette. We all know Marie Antoinette loved fashion – though she went to the scaffold in a long cotton shift, she was permitted to wear a favourite pair of purple silk embroidered shoes under it: shoes of the Queen of France. Andreas was telling Tizer, our assistant, about the event and I surreptitiously took notes. The brackets = what I’m thinking or what I think Andreas is thinking.
There is Versaill
es and the sun going down – and had we been quarter of an hour earlier or later we wouldn’t have got the sun – the backlight of the last beams and the gold and Louis XIV on his horse, an enormous statue in front, and the dazzle on the blue slate roofs and the gilded metal and the windows shining gold. You realise that this was planned for exactly this time in summer, when they had all the important guests and parties? Le Roi Soleil: The Sun King (Propaganda); Louis in splendour rises and sets with the sun.
And then at the party, five or six hundred people – all the women in evening dress, everyone different – everyone went to such trouble (crazy). And an incredible mood. When the French are in a good mood! The champagne, so good! (Like it never happened before). And at 11am – standing on the terrace and sitting on the parterre overlooking the gardens where the King sat – the Fireworks! Not kilometres high (Rococo) but like a theatre show high in front of you. Gold and silver against a blue, what do you call such a blue? (Diffused but still bright) Midnight blue? And the Fireworks sizzling high or crossing each other from all directions. And the moon. And the end an absolute golden mess and a drizzle of golden rain.
Our dress worn by Nadja Auermann.
And now the disco tent! The sweets, one thing after another. And in every corner a different ice cream.
And the Trianon is pink, a bungalow (pink and yellow marble). French: so light – so big – and therefore so small, so arrogant, so cool! Once the most powerful man, the most powerful nation, in the world (Andreas was thinking of Louis XIV. But I imagine more Louis XV having his summer residence there). After this, everybody wants to be in this way: Showmanship!
Then, I visited the Musée d’Orsay to see the exhibition, Manet, the Man Who Invented Modernity. Manet is one of the greatest of the great painters. Nobody paints like him. Everything I say in AR about great art pays homage to Manet. I am going to look harder at Velázquez to try to see how Manet used his methods. Andreas says the French wouldn’t be French without Manet. They are so proud of him. Take him away and our idea of France wouldn’t be so complete.
Something else I had to do (secret) involved spending time with my friend Lawrence. He has just got a very important job in communications and, while we were talking, it occurred to me that the biggest problem in today’s world is the isolation of intellectuals. That’s where we need communication if we are ever going to make the world a better place. That is what AR is about. I am trying to engender communication between people who are intellectually inclined like myself.
AUGUST 2011
WEDS 24 AUG IMAGINARY FEARS
James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia theory and inventor of the electron capture detector (which made possible the detection of CFCs and other atmospheric nano-pollutants) has always been a strong and outspoken supporter of nuclear energy – and a person whose ideas I have the deepest respect for. In the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan and the consequent damage to some of the Japanese nuclear plants, I asked James if he had reconsidered his stance on nuclear – if his opinions had changed.
Talking about Gaia and climate change with James Lovelock.
In reply, he sent me an email outlining his reaction to the tragedy and, in particular, the reaction of the world’s press and the actions taken by many governments. In James’s own words:
‘The reactions of the media and of Green lobbies to the Japanese earthquake and tsunami are in my opinion obscene … Had Fukushima been a chemical plant and the accident allowed the escape of a small quantity of toxic gas, and if no one was hurt or killed, we would probably not have heard about it. But such is the fear of nuclear radiation and a fear endlessly stoked by the media, Green lobbies and ignorant politicians, that a local event such as Fukushima became a global scare. What is inexcusable about this tiny event in the Japanese tragedy is the way that the media have used it to sell their stories and the politicians cravenly used public fear to justify closing their perfectly safe power stations. This act immediately increases the flow of carbon dioxide to the air. Carbon dioxide is a substance that, unlike the minute quantities of radioactivity, will, if we do not see sense, kill most of us.’
Active Resistance has a mission to promote the green economy. To promote this I drew a family tree as a poster. It looks like Daphne with her two arms/limbs of a tree thrown up. First GAIA married SCIENCE. The limb on one side branches into a loving relationship, on the other side a destructive one. PROGRESS marries QUANTITY. He should have married QUALITY.
We can’t have nuclear: (1) it’s too late, (2) emotion against it is too strong and based on anecdotal testimony, and (3) we should promote green energy.
OCT 2011
TUES 4 OCT KYLE NASH-BAKER IN PARIS
We featured the composer and pianist Kyle Nash-Baker at our Gold Label Spring/Summer 2012 fashion show last week – and the feedback has been wonderful. He wrote a comment on our website in May and sent me a piece of his music to listen to – we were so impressed that we asked him to perform his work in Paris.
Kyle is just sixteen and originally taught himself by watching YouTube videos of pianists’ fingers (really!). He has a condition called synaesthesia, which means that he sees colours when he plays or listens to music. The music he played at the show consists of selected excerpts from a range of his own compositions – music that has been either totally or partially inspired by the visual aspect of his condition. It was Kyle’s desire to combine the audio and visual experiences of his music that first drew him to the Active Resistance Manifesto – particularly its ideas on the relationship between the artist and the world around him. These ideas inspired Kyle to write and develop much of the music he played in Paris.
THURS 13 OCT ABOUT OUR LIVES
After the Gold Label show in Paris I went to Sicily. Although this diary is about my ideas – mostly outside of fashion – I think it’s good to include every now and again bits of my private life to give a more rounded picture of what I’m doing. So here is an idea of my trip to Sicily in a postcard to Leonard Peltier. Our friends are what our lives are about and news of a friend’s death touched one of us whilst we were there.
Dear Leonard,
As you know I am always thinking of you. I just took a short holiday with Andreas and Ben. The towns are all untouched Baroque architecture and ruins going back to before the birth of ancient Greece and a large Greek amphitheatre (Syracuse was a Greek colony but larger than Athens) and a modern cathedral – a kind of enormous star-shaped cone built because of a ceramic plaque of a Madonna who cried real tears for three weeks in 1948.
Great to swim and then feel the sun on your skin. The weather is still sun and blue sky in the longest Indian summer. Some people are lucky! But this is not really our world anymore. We can’t keep doing this, living like this much longer because of climate change and my real luxury is to stay at home and read. But on the way to the airport we went up Etna and it was erupting. We got the best in our ¼ hour. Rarely so dramatic. Black lava hills. A big experience.
You must tell me exactly what happened re why they put you in the hole and then transferred you. It is very important. Do it now. I will tell you why next time I write. I got your letter and will reply.
DECEMBER 2011
WEDS 21 DEC IT’S THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS …
We’ve been very busy in these last days before the Christmas break: putting together the Gold Label collection and moving ahead with Cool Earth fundraising work. The campaign has really been gathering momentum since its launch at the end of November. As well as raising money, raising public awareness of the urgent need to save the rainforest is really important if we want to achieve our goals. Our friend, Daniel Lismore, hosted a party at Whisky Mist in London – I think we were all amazed at how much money was raised and how many people wrote us letters of support.
This morning I did a photo shoot and interview on climate change for the March issue of Harper’s Bazaar with models from the Storm agency – we are so grateful for all the help and on-going suppor
t Storm are giving us with our project. I was also really pleased to spend time with the models: Lily Donaldson, Poppy Delevingne, Jacquetta Wheeler, Sadie Frost, Paul Sculfor and Max Rogers. I knew Jacquetta and Sadie already; they all looked wonderful but I was impressed by how interested they are in our work and how willing they all are to help us.
Our ‘No Fun Being Extinct’ spread in Harper’s Bazaar with models from the Storm agency.
On Thursday, we’re off to a meeting at the prime minister’s office to talk about the rainforest and climate change.
2012
JANUARY 2012
WEDS 4 JAN WHAT WOULD I LIKE TO DO IN 2012?
What would I like to do in 2012 – apart from fashion? The first thing is we need to see everything from the main problem of climate change to find the right solutions to all we want to do.
CLIMATE CHANGE We have helped the Cool Earth campaign to gain momentum and plan to keep raising public awareness and fundraise. The faster we fundraise, the faster the plan to save the rainforest operates. People can see the practical results and then the more they will want to help. The big idea is that our demonstration of people power will encourage governments to join in with financial help. We want to save not only the rainforest but the planet.
Harper’s Bazaar and Storm Model Agency are planning a big fundraising event for February, to follow my interview and photos. We have also been approached about a possible TV documentary – for this it would be good to visit Peru and see for ourselves the impact our investments have had – and to find out how the people there earn their living and what is important to them culturally.
Get a Life Page 4