Moon-Age Daydreams

Friday, 3 February 2012

Moon Trips... Prangsta Costumiers

A treasure cave/ giant dress up box founded by Central Saint Martin's grad Melanie Wilson and run by a team of young, talented and eccentric Londoners. On entering one is overwhelmed by an array of decadent period frocks, embellished hats, lovingly customised vintage pieces n blingin' jewels. According to manager, Holly Jade, the Prangsta team 'try to purchase as little material as possible so we go to a lot of vintage markets and also get a lot of materials donated to us. We take apart old costumes and old fabrics and then restore them and make them into our own Prangsta designs'.

Mel, Prangsta's brainchild, began by squatting in what is now the shop premises. 12 years in the running and the business has expanded well beyond your standard 'stume house with a 1500 square foot studio in Deptford, dress making classes and a regular string of events for local artists and bohemians such as such as 'Prangsta Presents...Freaky Fancy Finery at The Prangsta Dinery' incorporating entertainment, performance, live music & catering.

The Prangsta team also do the festival circuit in the summer, creating one mobile boudoir/ fantastical oasis after the other at the likes of Bestival and Glastonbury.

I wants it....

the following photos curtesy of the metro online

304 New Cross Road

London

SE14 6AF

0208 694 9869

Click here to visit the website

Monday-Saturday 11am-7pm by appointment, so call ahead first

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Heinz Edelmann's Psychedelic Landscapes

Heinz Edelmann is best known for his work as creative director of The Beatles 'Yellow Submarine' (1968).

Heads the size of mountains, fantastic facial hair, dancing rainbows, ornamental lollipop trees, ballooning bell bottoms with snappy shoes, and deft liquid handling of watercolor are characteristics of his style.

The Beatles had appeared in animated form prior to 'Yellow Submarine' in a series of short cartoons for ABC tv. They were simple yet highly popular with their pre-teen fans although The Beatles were sick of being portrayed "like the bloody Flintstones".

By 1967 the animated Beatle needed to evolve as the real Beatle had morphed from a mop-topped mod to Sgnt Pepper. After 'Help' and 'A Hard Days Night' the Beatles were reluctant to embark on another feature length film however Al Brodax, the producer of Yellow Submarine, told them "that I could do the work and they could go off and see the Maharishi or whatever they wanted to do. Everybody would be happy if they just signed here."

Edelmann was a hardworking fellow who apparently was able to do his business on four hours of sleep every second night. Despite appearances Edelmann insisted that he had never taken LSD and that his knowledge of psychedelic experience was second hand!

Here's a still form the 'Yellow Submarine' minute sequence in which Edelmann explains visually how '33661440 and one minute' is a long time... This was apparently his solution to filling in film time when the production started to run out of money.....

mmm look at that detail...

more stills from 'Yellow Submarine'...

another fantastical Edelmann illustration...

This is a short animation by Heinz Edelmann- It was the introduction sequence for the 'Der phantastische Film' series on German television in the 60's and would be followed by the likes of 'The Fearless Vampire Killers' (one of my faves), 'The Time Machine' and Village of the Damned'.

Thanks to the Velvet Cave blog for showing me this one....

He also illistrated the first German edition of J. R. R Tolkien's 'The Lord of The Rings'... imagine if he had made a feature length Lord of the Rings animation!

Friday, 27 January 2012

Amazing shoes from recent graduate John Brunswick..

wowowow - Check these out... Incredible shoes by recent London College of Fashion graduate John Brunswick.

John set out to create 'something that combines the ideals from religious embellishment and the innovative design of the 50's'- looks like a pretty exquisite combo to me....

Thursday, 26 January 2012

Moon by Bou

Photo by Christina Bou

Sunday, 22 January 2012

Kembra Pfahler- The Extreme Decorator

Came across a great lil interview with Kembra Pfahler on Opening Ceremony's blog.

Kembra is an American performance artist and rockstar best known for sporting teased black wigs, black teeth, body paint and sewing up her vagina on stage as the painted lead singer of The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. Opening Ceremony conversed with her about 'extreme decorating', inspiration and her experiences growing up/ her time as an artist in New York, in her entirely red and black apartment.

Click here to read on...