Chloé + House of Voltaire

House of Voltaire 2012_cChloé

Great news for all fashion and art lovers! CHLOÉ has teamed up with contemporary arts organisation Studio Voltaire for a limited-edition collection of ready-to-wear that is on sale at a new Mayfair pop-up shop (upstairs, 39 to 40 Albemarle St Mayfair, London W1S 4TE), House of Voltaire, from now until December 20, 2014. Founded in 1952 by Gaby Aghion, Chloé has always encouraged and supported emerging creatives and innovative female talents, offering them a nurturing environment in which to express their ideas.

510258807AH004_Chloe_And_HoClare Waight Keller, Chloe Creative Director and Joe Scotland, Studio Voltaire’s Director

Therefore it seemed all natural that Chloé’s creative director Clare Waight Keller recruited three female artistsCao Fei, Karen Kilimnik and Jenny Saville – to create bespoke pieces for this special fundraising initiative. Established in 1994, Studio Voltaire was designed to support and promote both emerging and established artists, providing them with spaces to create as well as display their work.

But you don’t have to make it to London, you can also shop those limited edition pieces exclusively online at NET-A-PORTER.COM.
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My favorite piece: Crystal-embellished crepe gown iconby Chloé + House of Voltaire

Chloé House of Volataire

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For the first time, NET-A-PORTERicon is offering customers around the world the chance to invest in a piece of contemporary art, whilst supporting a worthy cause,” explained the online shop’s buying manager, Ben Matthews. I couldn’t agree more… what a lovely collaboration!

LoL, Sandra

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Photos: Courtesy of Chloé and House of Voltaire, © David M. Benett/Getty Images for Chloe

Miss Dior Exhibition in Paris

Miss Dior Exhibition in Paris-Sandra Bauknecht

During the last two weeks, the Grand Palais hosted the flagship exhibition dedicated to the spirit of Miss Dior, the house’s famous and first fragrance. To celebrate the opening night, celebrities such as Natalie Portman, the face of Dior, Sophie Marceau, Karl Lagerfeld and many more came to see the exhibition themselves, followed by an amazing after party also hosted at the Grand Palais. I felt very honored to be invited to such an exclusive event.

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Arriving with Mary Ma, international model and Chinese fashion designer.

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Christian Dior himself, a creative and visionary genius, managed to unite couture and perfumes. During my visit to the exhibition, I enjoyed exploring the designer’s life and work plus his artistic influences.

Miss Dior-Dress

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Scetches Dior

To illustrate his passion for art, it also presented the works of fifteen contemporary women artists, who were inspired by the iconic scent Miss Dior. Below you can see my favorite artworks.

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ALYSON SHOTZ
” I love that idea of there being no surface, no inside or outside. Surface is structure, and vice versa. These shapes are created by assembling a large whole, piece by piece. The observer visually combines all the little parts and when he walks around the sculpture, his eyes and brain assemble these shapes in different ways.”

For New Yorker Alyson Shotz, the rose theme, a flower dear to Christian Dior, also inspired her sculpture Infinite Rose with its reflections of steel and dichroic film, which changes color and shape depending on the movement of light, and that of the observer.

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MARIA NEPOMUCENO
“I decided to bring the bottle of Miss Dior perfume, which for me is an object related to elegance and delicacy, to my own universe. I transformed the shape of the bottle into an object made of clay, from which tentacles and roots protrude, but also crevices with emerging organic elements.”

Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1976, Maria transcends the Miss Dior bottle to create an organic and sensual installation using different material. Spirals of nylon, rope, straw and woven pearls are rolled up in an endless process, like a living sculpture, moving matter that bonds everyday life, cosmology and genetics.

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JOANA VASCONCELOS
“I enjoyed being able to merge with the Miss Dior spirit, and its combination of extremes, that engage the world of couture and playfulness, architectural rigor and cotton candy lightness.”

My avid readers might recognize Joana Vasconcelos from her current solo exhibition at the Gucci Museo in Florence. For Dior, she has imagined a carbon fiber bow some 3 meters wide adorned with almost 1.665 perfume bottles and LED lights. This is probably the most impressive installation of the exhibition.

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NIKA ZUPANG
“Starting out with a vision of the idealized and somewhat conservative Dior woman, I wanted to shake up her image. I didn’t want to distort it, I just set out to highlight the strengths of her unique, singular character.”

Recognized the world over for her objects midway between fantasy and narration, the Slovenian designer explores femininity from every angle with a series of pieces and collaborations, highlighting sensuality and seduction. Here, she created a fairy-tale pavilion dedicated to women and their aspirations. This was one of my favorite artworks of the exhibition.

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KAREN KILIMNIK
“When seeing this piece, I would like visitors to the exhibition to want to take a look through the archives of Dior.”

Born in Philadelphia, Karen Kilimnik dramatizes today’s consumer society and the world of images through her paintings and lyrical installations, with a profound sense of romanticism. Inspired by the 18th century Drottingholm Theater in Sweden and the design sets for Alexei Ratmansky’s production of Psyche, but also fascinated by the Dior archives and first models, she has taken a new look at the follies and gloryfiers.

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CAROLE BENZAKEN
“In Miss Dior, I don’t see a woman, I see colors and landscapes. It is a relationship between skin and veins, heart and heartbeat, music, life.”

With Carole Benzaken, media – drawing, painting, photography, video -, intertwine and overlap each other. She designed a majestic but fragile opalescent glass sculpture spanning one meter, surrounded by seven back-lit vats decorated with wooded landscaped drawings, like the idea of a liquid and immaterial fragrance that takes up and appropriates space.

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POLLY APFELBAUM
” I decided to create a work that reflected Dior’s audacity and the brand’s tradition of allying the new with the classical.”

It was the houndstooth pattern that inspired the American artist’s large-scale installation, hand-woven in Mexico using the traditional weaving techniques of Oaxaca.

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LEE BUL
“Smell is the most closely related sense to memory. A sense that appeals to emotions more than a reason.”

An unmissable figure from the Asian artistic scene, she created a dozen monumental sculptures in crystal and aluminum. For this exhibition, she has taken a new look at the olfactive memory of Miss Dior, its light and modernity at the center of an installation designed as a manifesto, standing 5 meters high and weighing almost 500 kg.

I stepped inside this suspended cocoon for a private journey on self-reflection.

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CARLA MATTI
“I chose to interpret the theme of Dior’s beloved rose in my own poetical way.”

Under a venomous hybrid appearance, the works of Carla Matti are about nature and reality, the world and its virtual dimension. This young Italian artist scanned then recomposed and computer printed in 3-D the legendary Miss Dior rose which is transformed into a sculpted rose garden full of original flowers taken from a bend of five different floral varieties.

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At the after party: Having fun with the fabulous Montasar Dumas.

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It was such a fabulous event and I truly had a blast. If you like my look, here are all the details: Black strapless dress by Prada, pointed leather Mary-Jane pumpsicon by Saint Laurent, skirt belt, feather stole, handbag and pearl necklace, all by Dior.

Vanity Fair Cover

Thank you Vanity Fair for featuring me among the most amazing celebrities!

LoL, Sandra

Miss Dior Exhibition Ambiance

Photos: Courtesy of Dior, Vanity Fair and © Sandra Bauknecht