The Styrous® Viewfinder: Fort Mason

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February 1, 2018

Obiko ~ Craft of the Costume art-to-wear fashion show

This is the second part of an entry I wrote about a vinyl LP, the soundtrack to the film, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, with a score by Philip Glass (link to part one below). I used the intro to the film for this fashion show I produced for Sandra Sakata (link below) of the San Francisco art-to-wear boutique, Obiko.

Craft of the Costume - 1992

program cover

artwork by Jean Cacicedo

photo by Styrous®

The event was held on August 5, 1992, as a benefit for The San Francisco Craft & Folk Art Museum at Fort Mason also in San Francisco. It featured Obiko designers and was held in the Cowell Theater also at Fort Mason.

The show had been in production for several months. Usually I was only in charge of the production, choreogrphy, music, lighting and coordination of it all for the show but this time I was chosen to design the set for the production as well. My design was simple; sparse, etherial and airy with only spots of white fabric stratigically placed on the stage to be lit with various colors at various times during the show.

A week before the show, we were told a play was to be staged the day AFTER our show, however, the set was in the process of being built as it was a large set that would take time to construct. I figured, OK, I can work with whatever they had; so, I went to see the construction only to discover the play was set in the Midwest and took place in a farmhouse. Totally, unetherial, unsparse and unairy. I thought to myself, "𝕱µ©∑!"

But I solved the problem by having Obiko designer, Arial Bloom, open the show as a mid-west housewife sweeping her porch, falling asleep then dancer, Agusta Moore, visiting her in a dream. The costume Moore is wearing was designed by Kayla Kennington.

Agusta Moore

photo by Geoffrey Moore

The video below is the opening of the fashion show. The complete video of the show is in the archives of the Textile Arts Council of the M. H. de Young Museum located in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Craft of the Costume opening video
music by Philip Glass
costume by Kayla Kennington

The lighting was designed by Phillip Hofstetter (link below) and the video was shot by Don Bright.

Viewfinder links:

Part One: Philip Glass ~ Mishima
Obiko
Yukio Mishima
Philip Glass
Phillip Hofstetter
Styrous® & Fashion

YouTube links:

Mishima/Opening

Styrous® ~ Thursday, February 1, 2018

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December 5, 2017

San Francisco Panama–Pacific International Exposition ~ 1915

Panama–Pacific International Exposition poster

Yesterday, December 4, was the anniversary of the closing of the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition after an almost year-long run.

The Panama–Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) was a world's fair held in San Francisco, in the United States, between February 20 and December 4 in 1915. Its ostensible purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely seen in the city as an opportunity to showcase its recovery from the 1906 earthquake. There was a postcard printed showing new buildings in San Francisco, with earthquake ruins and bear in foreground, and two small images of buildings of the Exposition at bottom.

Panama–Pacific International Exposition postcard

The fair was constructed on a 635 acre (2.6 km²) site in San Francisco, along the northern shore, between the Presidio and Fort Mason, now known as the Marina District.

Panama–Pacific International Exposition

Marina District

aeroplane view -1915

The centerpiece was the Tower of Jewels, which rose to 435 feet and was covered with over 100,000 cut glass Novagems. The ³⁄₄ to 2 inch colored "gems" sparkled in sunlight throughout the day and were illuminated by over 50 powerful electrical searchlights at night.

Tower of Jewels_night

At the west end of the central court group was the Palace of Fine Arts which was designed by Bernard Maybeck, who took his inspiration from Roman and Ancient Greek architecture in designing what was essentially a fictional ruin from another time..

Palace of Fine Arts

Palace of Fine Arts drawing

It was one of ten palaces at the heart of the Exhibition. It is the only surviving structure. Constructed from temporary materials (primarily staff, a combination of plaster and burlap fiber), almost all the fair's various buildings and attractions were pulled down in late 1915. Intended to fall into pieces at the close of the fair (reportedly because the architect believed every great city needed ruins), the only surviving building on the Exposition grounds, Palace of Fine Arts, remained in place, slowly falling into disrepair (although the hall used to display painting and sculpture during the Fair was repurposed as a garage for jeeps during World War II). The Palace, including the colonnade with its signature weeping women and rotunda dome, was completely reconstructed in the 1960s and a seismic retrofit was completed in early 2009. The Exploratorium, an interactive science museum, occupied the northern 2/3 of the Palace from 1969 to 2013; the city-owned Palace of Fine Arts Theater, has occupied the southern 1/3 since 1970.

Palace of Fine Arts - 2003

photo by Styrous®

There are other buildings from the Exposition that still stand today, the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium at Civic Center Plaza (link below) and the Japanese Tea house, which was barged down the Bay to Belmont, California and currently operates as a restaurant.

The Legion of Honor Museum, in Lincoln Park, was the gift of Alma de Bretteville Spreckels, wife of the sugar magnate and thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder Adolph B. Spreckels. The building is a full-scale replica of the French Pavilion from the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition, which in turn was a three-quarter-scale version of the Palais de la Légion d'Honneur also known as the Hôtel de Salm in Paris by George Applegarth and H. Guillaume. At the close of the exposition, the French government granted Spreckels permission to construct a permanent replica of the French Pavilion, but World War I delayed the groundbreaking until 1921.

images from Wikipedia:

Fountain of Energy

India Block

Palace of Horticulture

Palace of Horticulture & the Tower of Jewels

Panama Canal

September 30, 2015

Junichi Arai ~ Really, a necktie?

photos by Styrous®

In 1988 and then again later in 1990, I produced a series of fashion shows that featured fabrics of the Japanese fabric designer, Junichi Arai, for the legendary art-to-wear boutique, Obiko. Owner/operator Sandra Sakata gave the designers she featured in her boutique many different Arai fabrics to design whatever garment the fabric inspired them to create. The fashion shows were benefits for The San Francisco Museum of Craft & Folk Art at Fort Mason in San Francisco, California. The museum closed in 2012.

There were scraps of fabric left over from one of the garments and the designer made a tie for me from one of the scraps. Arai’s fabrics were used only in women’s fashion so it’s possible I have the only male article of clothing made of his fabric. I believe there are titanium threads in my tie.

The fabrics Arai produced were astonishing. Arai had learned historical Japanese weaving techniques for obis and kimonos and in 1984 he founded the Nuno Corporation, a company and retailer wholly devoted to fabric – combining old practices with new technologies and materials in innovative and unexpected ways.

Arai was born in 1932 in the city of Kiryu, Japan, where production of silk weaving textiles has been a tradition for over 1,000 years. He is the sixth generation of a mill-owning family.

The Junichi Arai fabric tie is for sale on eBay

Styrous® ~ Wednesday, September 30, 2015

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February 3, 2014

Metamorphosis: Clothing & Identity ~ Fashion or Art?

Chador for Two Worlds
1984, Ina Kozel

January 29, 2014 - April 27, 2014
Metamorphosis: Clothing & Identity

January 29: Press Preview 1:30 pm
February 9: Member's Walkthrough 1-2pm and
Opening Reception 2-4 pm
rsvp@sjquiltmuseum.org

San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

520 South First Street
San Jose, CA 95113
408.971.0323 x20

www.sjquiltmuseum.org
Twitter: @SJQuiltMuseum
Facebook: San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles

Metamorphosis: Clothing & Identity is a retrospective of the San Francisco Bay Area Art-to-Wear movement and traces the evolution of the rich history and legacy of this genre from its inception in the 1960s to the current group of second generation designers that are creating their own one-of-a-kind, handmade, artful garments. The exhibition will also present a “metamorphosis” of clothes that transcends functional attire and becomes sculptural manifestations of symbolic ideas that challenge our notion of clothing and identity.

Comprised of approximately 60 pieces, Metamorphosis will chart the development of the San Francisco Bay Area Artwear movement starting from the original Levi’s “Denim Art Contest” of 1973 all the way through the works of contemporary designers. Included is an eclectic display of art-to-wear garments, as well as textiles, drawings, wall hangings, large-scale installations, and original ephemera from significant historical artwear exhibitions.

During the run of the exhibition there will be a continuous viewing of the video of a fashion show I produced for Sandra Sakata's Art-to-Wear boutique, Obiko, taped on April 30, 1989, at Fort Mason in San Francisco. Some of the designers in the Metamorphosis exhibition are featured in the video.

Originally denoting handmade textiles from traditional processes, artwear has come to encompass a wide breadth of techniques, including shibori, felting, crochet and knitting, hand painting, clamp resist dyeing, pleating, quilting, and sewing. The exhibition showcases work by influential founders of the Artwear movement, each with their own recognized technique and aesthetic. These artists include: Jean Cacicedo, Marian Clayden, Kaffe Fassett, Ellen Hauptli, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Ina Kozel, Janet Lipkin, K. Lee Manuel and Yvonne Porcella. Other artists included in the exhibit are: Isaac Amala & Liz Simpson, Michael Cepress, Angelina De Antonis, Ellen Hauptli, Laura Raboff, Carol Lee Shanks, Nancy Yodelman, and Wendeanne Ke`aka Stitt.

~

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