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Press Office - Press Releases
GIRL POWER: THREE FEMALE CREATIVE LEGENDS GUEST EDIT WALLPAPER*
September 8, 2008
Wallpaper*, the international design, fashion and lifestyle magazine, has secured a trio of legendary female creatives to guest edit the October issue, the biggest of the year at 428 pages.
The guest editors are celebrated French artist Louise Bourgeois; acclaimed architect Zaha Hadid; and Comme des Garçons founder and fashion designer Rei Kawakubo. Each has produced 20 editorial pages, as well as designing their own cover.
Louise Bourgeois has collaborated with fellow artists and friends Helmut Lang, Roni Horn and Peter Zumthor to produce a special edit of their work, visually linked by an underlying theme of the sea. The Louise Bourgeois section also includes a bound-in drawing of the artist by Tracey Emin.
Architect Zaha Hadid has worked with the art of cut paper for her section, inspired by the way she would show her early work. The pages are cut so that they can take the shape of Hadid's architectural piece, Lotus, which she is launching at the Venice Biennale. Hadid uses the same technique for her cover, which becomes three-dimensional and creates an interesting shape and form.
Fashion maverick Rei Kawakubo expresses the essence and values of Comme des Garçons over her 20 pages. She presents the work of various artists that match the spirit of the famously avant-garde Japanese label, reworking and mixing them.
Tony Chambers, Wallpaper* editor-in-chief, says: It was a tough challenge to match the enormous success of our first guest edited issue last year, but I think we have managed it. These three legendary figures have created a highly desirable and memorable edit.
In addition, Chinese actress and director Xu Jinglei, one of the world's most popular bloggers, is to be the online guest editor of www.wallpaper.com, taking charge of the website one day each week that the guest edited magazine is on sale. Xu Jinglei will be profiling the work of Chinese creatives.
Wallpaper* is holding a party at Paramount Club, Centre Point, to mark this special issue. The guest edited October issue of Wallpaper* is on sale from 11 September.
-ends-
Notes to editors
Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois is regarded as one of the most important artists working today. Born in 1911 in Paris, she studied under Léger, André Lhôte and Roger Bissière in the 1930s before moving to New York in 1938. Bourgeois has always been at the forefront of new developments in art, but has pursued a wholly personal path. She has explored her ideas in painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation and performance, using extraordinarily varied media, from wood and stone to latex and rubber. However, this breadth of materials is balanced by an almost obsessive continuity of subject matter, often deeply autobiographical in its references to Bourgeois' childhood. Her most famous works are possibly the spider structures, titled Maman, from the last dozen years.
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid is renowned for consistently pushing the boundaries of architecture and urban design. The London-based architect has completed a series of globally-acclaimed projects in the past decade, including the Bergisel Ski Jump, the Lois and Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, the BMW factory in Leipzig, Germany, and the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg. Current developing projects are in Rome, London, Glasgow, Marseille and Dubai, amongst others. In 2004 she became the first female architect to be award the Pritzker Prize. As well as architecture, her studio has developed a wide range of designs, including urban masterplans, bespoke furniture, product design and transportation concepts. Hadid's visionary aesthetic encompasses all fields of visual design, reflecting her simultaneous engagement in practice, teaching, and research.
Rei Kawakubo
Rei Kawakubo, the founder of Comme des Garçons, is one of the world's most influential fashion designers. She studied fine art and literature at Tokyo's prestigious Keio University and joined the advertising department of a textile company after graduation. She soon launched herself as a freelance stylist and then designer. In 1969 she introduced the Comme des Garçons label, adding a men's line in 1978. Three years later, she started showing the collections in Paris and opened a boutique in the city in 1982. In 2004 Comme launched an on-going wave of guerrilla store openings around the world and a permanent multi-brand outlet, Dover Street Market, in London's Mayfair.
No other designer's work is tagged 'architectural' as often as Kawakubo's and indeed she is an admirer of Le Corbusier and Tadao Ando but the description doesn't get close to describing the conceptual daring of her collections. She has revolutionised the use of fabrics in fashion, working with speciality weaver Hiroshi Matsuhita, and has been equally innovative in the marketing and presentation of the Comme des Garçons brand.
About Wallpaper
Since its launch in 1996, Wallpaper* has consistently been one of the most influential design magazines, as well as the most beautiful. It is a creator, not a follower, of trends. Few magazines can claim to have changed the world, but whether you are in the coolest bars and restaurants or the hippest hotels, the aesthetic that surrounds you was first championed by Wallpaper*. 2006 saw the magazine celebrate its ten-year anniversary and continue to influence a new generation of sophisticated design-followers looking for a refined individual style. The focus remains on continuing to search the globe for emerging trends and presenting the world's best new designers and their extraordinary creations in a luxurious format.
Now available in over 70 countries, Wallpaper* is the only magazine to have international appeal, unified by one passion - design.
For further information contact:
Victoria Higham, senior press officer, IPC Media, tel: +44 (0)20 3148 5401 / email victoria_higham@ipcmedia.com
