The Ceramicist of Barcelona

I’d love to collect art, but I never feel I could justify the prices I’d have to pay to buy the things that most excite me. Which is why the only real ‘art objects’ I own are ceramics, which are a beautiful and affordable way to buy handmade works of craft and design. The time when I seem to be most receptive to this sort of thing is on holiday, and I’ve visited a number of art potters’ studios dotted over Britain.

Recently, though, I was in Barcelona, and stumbled across the shop and studio of Carmen Balada. In this tiny shop, she designs and makes a number of her pieces. Larger works are produced in a workshop outside the city.

The shop is a treasure trove, filled with designs and sketches for new works, half finished pieces, and completed objects on shelves, tables, the floor.

Ms Balada herself is charming. We had a fun chat about the new V&A Ceramic Galleries. She told me that she is an enormous fan of the Museum. One of the interesting areas she’s moved in to is the depiction of insects in her work, and not prettified up, either. They appear on pots, but I think are at their best on the white tiles she produces.

What is so appealing about Carmen’s work is her blending of European with Japanese traditions, and the tension between graphic and plastic within her work. I came away with two bowls and a tile. I’ll be returning for more.

The Viridi-Anne

So, for a while now, I’ve been in the market for a new jacket. Not just any jacket, you understand; no, the helpful shop assistant I talked to on Saturday had it right: ‘you’re after the SuperJacket’!

I want something I can wear to work or to the pub, with jeans and a T-shirt as easily as I can with a shirt and tie. Not too much to ask, you might think. It’s a tricky proposition, though. But I’ve found it. And it’s not quite what I’d expected. I was trying on various candidates in Cambridge, when one of the shop’s owners encouraged me to try on a severe black jacket. ‘It’s Japanese’, he said, as if this was an explanation.

It looked fabulous. And the more you looked, the more you noticed beautiful and subtle little tailoring details. None of which you can see in the photo above! Fortunately for me, I’ve been browsing around and have discovered that these are exactly the kind of details that even full-on fashion photography rarely captures. But to give you a couple of examples, beneath each lapel is a delicate pattern of white stitching, so fine that it’s almost invisible. The shoulders are cut in really tight, which makes the jacket look like it would be hard to move about in. But behind, there are pleats next to each arm which give the wearer incredible freedom of movement. Everything, down to the incredibly subtle dark grey and purple lining, is carefully thought out, deliberately minimal, and (crucial, this one) turns out to offer much more than the garment lets you see immediately. In other words, it aspires to seem less than it is, which is something I’ve never really encountered before in an item of clothing.

Well, to cut a long story (somewhat) shorter, I bought it, knowing that it was one of those purchases where if I walked away I’d be cursing myself for years after. And now, feeling intensely curious about the designer, I took a look at the website.

The look is an uncompromising one. Unfailing use of dark colours: ash, black, very dark purples and blues. Something of Picasso’s Blue Period. Something slightly medieval. And a flavour of Yohji Yamamoto. Fashion bloggers will immediately realise that I’m no expert, and it’s quite possible that what I’ve just said is total rubbish. But that’s what I see, so sue me. You’ll also notice that the jacket looks better on this guy than me. But there you go.

The label is owned and run by Tomoaki Okinawa, who set it up in 2001, and whose reputation is growing fast. Their flagship store is, inevitably, in the funky Harajuku district of Tokyo, and if bloggers are to be believed, you may find yourself being served by Okinawa himself – and how many other big-time fashion designers could you say that about?

With my love of all things medieval, I was thrilled to find out that The Viridi-Anne had done their latest fashion show inside one of the few important medieval buildings in Paris that I’ve not set foot within, the Tour Jean Sans Peur (for photos, see http://scoute.org/blog/?p=583). This remarkable building is essentially a personal fortress built within Paris in the early fifteenth-century by John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy. And he needed it. Because he’d recently been pretty fully implicated in the assasination of Louis of Orleans, the brother of the mad king Charles VI, a murder that took place not far up the road deeper in the Marais. Frommer’s Guide may call it an ‘unimposing little tower’, but hey, medieval history doesn’t get much more fascinating than this, and what an appropriate place for The Viridi-Anne to show off their own brand of medieval grunge chic?