iya dede and the big takeOVER

It's been awhile loves! So much has been cookin in the kitchen. We're still in collusion for the site launch of LakouNou collective so I just wanted to share some of the new work we're excited about as Marj and I branch out MissBruno to our first loves, film and music respectively. Check out my concert film of Iya Dede's show at the Brooklyn Museum in celebration of famed nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare's exhibit. Alterego AFIB was there to support fellow rawker on vocals. See the exhibition my people, my people! And be sure to check out the beautifully disruptive installation pieces Shonibare did for the Museum's permanent Period Room collections- I won't give it away but I had no idea he was kind of rocknroll.

Iya Dede is a rare bird whose flight has taken her on a journey from Rwanda where she was born and raised during the Tutsi/Hutu genocide before settling in Belgium. She has since graced the stage with the likes of Zap Mama and The Roots across Europe and the US. Now she's become one of Brooklyn's own with her American debut "Talking to God." Dede is a rarity because her music manages to reflect the gravitas of her past experiences with playful, nostaglic nuance and a punk spirit. Electropop, alternative, punk, soul, a little jazz- Iya Dede is part of a new generation of singer-songwriters who defy categorization as they summon warrior deities, water goddesses, and general badass-ness. But don't call her a "world" artist or eclectic...or compare her to Santigold. Don't. Like Shingai from the Noisettes, Sylvia from Kudu, Tamar Kali, Iya Dede is the new auteur of that Familiar..Saturation Density...Love Robot...yeah. Dede is that New New. It's the big takeover.


When I was editing down this piece I realized I wanted to capture some of the tone of those infamous American concert films of the 70's-Bootsy Collins, Chick Corea, Ziggy Stardust...But you know you start of with an idea and it snowballs to other things. Rwandan jazz singer Somi of New Africa Live co-curated this show with Brooklyn Museum and the traditional Rwandan dancers impromptu's performance in the middle of Dede's "In My Darkest Hour" created this indescribable moment. www.iyadede.com

Enjoy:

Next new artist: Rwandan electropop singer Iya Dede takes over Brooklyn, USA from shirleybruno on Vimeo.

Iya Dede will be playing Santos House Party and MTV Pre-VMA's show- both shows in September. I'm finishing up edits of a series of concert films by some rising stars just under the radar. Check for Sasha'mani and the Citi Billies, Manno Charlemagne at the Tap Tap Band...Watch this space for moressss.

les saignantes

My ode to Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Les Saignantes! I saw it this past summer but it came out a few years ago after being banned in Cameroon by their censors board. Part nollywood satire, part scathing commentary on Cameroonian politics, part badass africanas putting that menvengu to work.

And the lead actresses Adele Ado & Dorylia Calmel are BANANAS.







Images Courtesy of Bekolo Films
=Shirley.

gonna soak up the sun

The quest for green living continues here.

Source: Yahoo News

new style again

Pics from our little adventure last friday:


Photog: Richard Loussaint

=S

Henri Bendel madness

I know, I know, long time no write. Boooooooo.
But ok enough with sour sop and on to the massive news:

Henri Bendel will be hosting a MissBruno Trunk show on Dec 22nd & 23rd 10am-8pm.

All I can say is the So-called Scarf collection is on fiyah fiyah. We're doing pangi plaid, some edgier stuff...recycled never looked so slick. I'll post some of the new images demainsidieuveut.

Yeah, we're kinda a big dealy-o :)


See you then!

=Shirls

makeover!

First news of the day: we're liquidating pieces in a multi-designer sample sale so don't miss it happening on Oct. 19th-20th in Soho @ 80 Varick St., #4C. Apparently other brands in the sample sale will include Prada, Christian LaCroix, Chris Han, and Project Alabama so our pieces will be in good company :)

Also, check us out in Harriet's Alter Ego Style Klash happening at the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on Friday November 7th. It's an art/music/fashion fundraiser event and we're featuring a fashion show along with coup d'etat and Nassat.

But watch this space...The Farming of Us blog will be undergoing a serious makeover launch! We're moving in a new direction and we'll be adding new contributors, each one is a great artist in their own right. More on this soon...

Excitement!

Montreal International Haitian Film Festival

The annual MIHFF continues its film festival in Quebec City today. It's times like these, I wish I had wings.

grown folks tuesdays= slacker uprising!

Michael Moore's new flick Slacker Uprising. Free download released today. Grown folks, get it here.

"think outside the box, collapse the box, take a sharp knife to it."

In honor of last week's Sao Paulo vandals, the title of this post is a quote from infamous Bristol graf/stencil artist Banksy who recently tagged Katrina-made derelict buildings in New Orleans in August. Banksy refuses to sell photos of street graffiti or mount exhibitions of any of his screenprints in commercial galleries. All the while the "price" of his pieces keep rising to million$.

Here's a bit from the ever elusive Banksy.

In New Orleans:


On the wall of a sexual health clinic in Bristol:


On Brick Lane in Little Bangladesh, East End London:

Respeito o profano?

About a week ago, 30 graffiti artists stormed the Choque Cultural Gallery's street art exhibit in Sao Paulo. It was in protest against the marketing, institutionalization and domestication of street art by the galleries and media.

Some images of the graf artists in the act:




From street to canvas, right back to street.

Source: Animal New York

eye eye

During the whole drunkly Johnny Depp flick hoopla days, someone asked me: Were there actually pirates in the Caribbean? He may have been more than little surprised when I told him yeah, of course there were- in Haïti, Barbados, all over les Antilles. They were called buccaneers. And lots of free West Indian- born Africans crewed those ships.

But I think I just may prefer Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam's version of the tale:


A la M.I.A.'s clothing line, for the real pirates of the caribbean.

textiles + form

Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui and other contemporary African artists showing at The Poetics of Cloth: African Textiles/Recent Art exhibition at the Grey Art Gallery at NYU thru December 6.

Modern and classic 19th-century textiles and sculptures from Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar. It's one of the sister exhibits to the S & M show we mentioned last week.

fiber, crochet, concentric circles

Amazing fiber artist Xenobia Bailey is featured in S & M: Shrines and Masquerades in Cosmopolitan Times exhibit.

@ the NYU Steinhardt's 80 Washington Square East Gallery until Dec.

nairaland

Marj has been telling me about the stir-up these Naija boyz have caused on the interwebs. I've been so sick with food poisoning (ugh and more ugh) so never did I really have a chance to take a look until today.

....So it seems a likkle like Nkem Owoh does Li'Wayne (actually there's a apropos clip in the video taken from our beloved Osuofia in London). Silly and kinda funny...

Enjoy!


=S

annhagen en flanm

We're pretty ho-hum on fashion week. It tends to come and go for us unceremoniously. I guess it's because we're in love with design but not so much fashion. Our own inspiration behind our lines usually comes from far-flung sources- musik, films, folktales, geometry- far removed from the world of of fashion. But we like to eat up good design, new design, design in every genre, medium, art form. That's why this newcomer out of Copenhagen's Fashion Week nearly took my breath away. The play on textures, the scaling grays, the new silhouettes, and the sudden burst of color easily keeps it from getting severe or too cerebral-ly.







Annhagen, by Danish designer Dianna Ospund Bay who worked with Vivienne Westwood before launching her own line.

Honestly, holy moly.

style klash show

Coucou mes petites puces... A little update on our upcoming shows.

We'll be doing Harriet's Alter Ego Style Klash fashion/musik show at the bk masonic temple in fort greene in November. It's going to be a sneak peek at a new collection of ours. Looks like the band line up is serioussss. Watch this space for more on it.

=S

zanmi.

not exactly grown folks tuesday today but i just had to add this. we love this one. jah nesta from petionville video is en FLANM!



simple yet so visual. saying so much with so little.

ode to the design collective

The idea of working interdependently with other artists/designers is a passion of ours. Actually, it's essential in how we intend to grow as a sustainable business structure. Our own collective was the brainchild of four women designers: kizzy was doing reconstructed vintage & convertible dresses at the time, eileen worked with millinery and marj + i with missbruno. We would gather to work in Kizzy's sunroom/studio facing the garden: taking turns giving couture techniques lessons to each other while sipping on vermouth cocktails, humming along to Janet Kay and King Brit on pandora, bouncing new design idea stuff off one another...a modern day sewing circle? Soooo inspiring. And so we were quite saddened when we had to put our collective on hiatus earlier this year.

But the whole experience only made us hunger for more. The other girls are doing some great things in their work and luckily marj and i have continued meeting even more likeminded artists on similar paths so we can't help but stay inspired.

It's also encouraging to see that more and more of these kinds of concept collectives & co-ops are either sprouting up new or picking up steam. In san fran, stockholm, all over.

A small sampling in BK:

Love Brigade studio/showroom


5 in 1 studio/boutique in Willyburg:


And of course Harriet's Alter Ego fashion co-op in park slope (which looking at the trend, seems to have been well ahead of its time):


How does it work? Artists, designers share rent and/or studio space communally and man the boutique/showroom space alternatively. Like microcinema, indie music labels, and food or farming co-ops, the idea that artists can work inter-connectedly and financially support one another is spreading like wildfire. Although it wouldn't be the first time in history but with big takeover happening daily, me thinks it's nothing short of a small revolution. Simply put, more of us should find new ways to share resources with our peers....

so where's your collective?

grown folks tuesdays = michelange quay

New Yorkie Haitian Michelange Quay's 2007 film Mange Ceci Est Mon Corps or Eat, For This is My Body:


I'm drawn to Quay especially after seeing this FilmCatcher interview where he talks about his experience filming in Haiti and mentions the core meaning behind the lakou or yard which is an energy Marj and I have tried to create and design into our site, our proverbial lakou. Quay says, "People are very much outside in Haiti. So anywhere you go you're in somebody's space...somebody's house, somebody's yard. This is maybe like some African stuff, because even in Jamaica they have this concept of the yard. In Kreyol it's lakou. You're always in that space which is a sort of family or klan place of the people in that zone..."


And I'm drawn to the film because in it Quay doesn't seems to under- estimate the point of cinema. That is, to draw out the story with images and sound design more than any other tool at his disposal. Film is best when you bank on visual grammar. I'm also curious because of the play on some obvious extremes, namely white and black, innocent and corrupt. But also, I'm not keen on the idea that he seems to be making films specifically for the West. First grown folks thought that came to mind: is he satirizing or is it exoticism? ...We'll have to wait and see 'til I see it I guess...


= S

grown folks' tuesdays = beethova obas

Years ago, back when all our friends were swimming knee-deep in your more typically known Haitian musik Konpa, we were busy gushing over Beethova:



We first discovered him when we were just teenagers. This was back when Marj and I used to sing in a girl band with two other girlfriends of ours (a story we'll share on a rainy day). He's been around for quite some time, writing for songbirds like Emeline Michel and Jocelyne Beroard et al, touring packed francophone stadiums internationally. I filmed him once for an interview a few years back for a musikmentary I was working on. When I met him, gosh. I was immediately struck by his sense of history and really gentle disposition. He reminded me of our dad. He looks a bit like a younger version of him actually...if I squint my eyes! I'll post some conversations from that filming soon. Here's another jammie, Couleur Cafe:

WARNING. Yeahhhhh, this is grown folks musik :)




You can hear all the jazz, merengue, cuban, Haitian roots, & classical influences (well, he was named after Mr. Beethoven afterall). But don't be fooled by the lulling voice and those manicured chord progressions. His lyrics are anything but sweet and subtle. He's usually exposing harsh political ironies and contradictions, talking about our folk's resistance...It's all part of the bait.

Going to Harriet's Alter Ego Backyard Couture last Saturday made me think of when Marj and I went to see Beethova play in a similarly intimate set up. But this was at an Haïti Optimiste event @ the Bubble Lounge back in Dec last year:

An acoustic set, just his guitar and drummer, photog Marc Baptiste presenting, and the house packed of NYC's Haïti-erati. It was as though someone sprinkled pixie dust on the man. Bis, bis! everyone kept yelling. More, Please! Beethova ended up playing like every song he ever wrote maybe twice and three times over. Even roots singer Manze Dayila, who played earlier in the evening, spilled onto the stage to belt out a few lovely, raspy bars on his set. It was like the most impromtu of rock concerts. And on an acoustic set?! We were insatiable.

What lovely bait indeed...

=S

issey miyake + purty lines

So I'm writing a new short film script for our first costume drama featuring MissBruno to be shot this fall. And the infamous Issey Miyake's new stuff got my creative juices flowing a bit. The quasi-genius Japanese fashion designer recently released a new animation for his A-POC, or A Piece of Cloth collection of custom cut tubes of fabric.



I like how the oversimplified, almost hokey lines still show so much movement. It's like my favorite kind of fashion show. EVER. I really love when illustration underlines just how geometric our bodies really are. We're really all just made up of a bunch of squares, triangles and circles. That's it folks. And Marj pointed out to me how similar this video is too Bjork's Earth Intruders!

If you don't know Miyake, visit his Pleats Please collection. He reversed the order of how pleats are usually fused in fabric in order to deepen the razor-sharp shapes in them.

Speaking of geometry and lines, it also reminds me of some research we're doing for our next collection on my new best friend, the fractal:



What do you think? My inner voice is screaming a pre-Paris Hilton HOTTTTTT. But aside from being the purtiest shape in geometry class, what else does she do, eh? And what exactly does she has to do with our actual clothes? Well, I can't give it all away but i will say it does have to do with how we're cutting our new patterns, i mean literally. Maybe something never done before.

shhhh:)
=S

it's been awhile, chile! + new jammies

We've been buzee bees, sorry about neglecting you birdies. We're wheeling some deals with a few NYC boutiques and wurkin' on some new pieces. LOTS of new pieces. The inspiration is just flowing these days so stay very tuned.

Marj and I already shot Part I of the new campaign: My So-Called Dress, the debut is a day and a half away! We'll be shooting Part II on Wednesday with our photog Sven Lindahl.

In the meantime. Old obsessions renewed...



The illimitable Grace Jones has a new one! Corporate Cannibal is the first single off the upcoming album, Hurricane to be released October 27th, 2008. Her first studio album in almost 20 years.




Usually this kind of screaming-at-the-"Man"-from-rooftops thing in art can easily seem like impotent angst to me but it's Grace Jones so separate rules must apply. We dig the imagery in the video lots. And Gracie is simultaneously seductive & grotesque as a corporate cannibal, which is the point, yes?

So we found this interesting Guardian UK article about one of Grace's 1978 iconic image:



Apparently her former lover & co-imagemaker Jean Paul Goude revealed that the image was a doctored montage. The sinuous creature created in the image was actually several shots of Grace cut together to show her in both profile and full frontal simultaneously. The idea was supposed to play around with the illusion of reality and extremes of womanhood. Read more here.

No matta! Her real grace is still the intangible sort, of course.
=S

seizures, portals, and demigods. oh my.

Just after they tried to induce trance & seizure with hypnotic spirals in Run, the first video/single off The Odd Couple, Gnarls Barkley went ahead and dropped the next one, Going On. Shot in Jamaica with marching band in tow and spirits at the tippytips of their fingers, this time they offer space and time continuum passage through nothing short of a portal.

Sigh. Feels like home.

We imagine the delighted demigod rubbing his buddha belly right now (yep we're on to you cee-lo).

Carry on, carry on!

underground, coming up!!!

I'll tell you a funny story soon! It's an ode to electric blue stockings, Platypus shoes, and learning to Pirourette from encyclopedias.

chasing threads

Last summer we collected a few rolls of untouched and recycled fabric. Interesting colors, raw textures and patterns. Beautiful! Naturellement, we went to work and made our very first so-called samples. Eager to test our new creations we took our pieces...

and sold them for a nickel at the park slope fair in Brooklyn. Yes they love it and they want some more!!!! What a surreal experience to wrap people with your thoughts. Who knew that ideas could keep you warm? Satisfied and ready to make some more, we went to Jariel Fabrics in Soho to try to match the recycled fabrics of the pieces we sold. The results are in. Ralph Lauren English wool, extinct corded silks worth a billion dollars, 100% pink cashmeres, Turkish cotton and so much more. We knew we had something special but we didn’t know how special. As always leaving us with gems, Monsieur Jariel scolded us… Now you know, just make some more. Finding everything but the corded silk at his store I wondered…Can we go back in time? I mean back to 1970 when they stopped making corded silk fabric, and tell them that we still need them.