Back from holiday and ready to show you some of the most exciting things to have hit our consciousness

H&M has just confirmed its latest designer collaboration will be with French luxury fashion house Lanvin. Having teased us with 7 short videos on their YouTube channel this video final went live yesterday to rapturous applause from the fashion pack. Lanvin will be producing a range of both mens and womenswear for the high street store – Could this be the most hotly anticipated H&M collaboration yet? Only time will tell.

As you may have noticed, a beautiful piece of fashion advertising often finds its way in to our weekly blog. This film may have to jump to the top of the favourite list though!
Shot by none other than Martin Scorsese this new ad for Chanel fragrance Bleu de Chanel is . . . well, we’ll let you decide for yourself!

It was with great sadness this week that we heard of the death of photographer Corinne Day. Arguably one of the most influential photographers of the 90’s her images of a young Kate Moss are instantly recognizable.

The imperfect and voyeuristic feel of the images that Corinne produced were in stark contrast to the perfectly made up supermodels and photography of the time, paving the way for the documentary style photography that became synonymous with the late nineties and beyond.

Now that our Venice Beach office is up and running we thought we’d keep you updated with the coolest things that LA has to offer.

First up is a Laundromat with a difference. Fresh Pressed in Los Feliz, LA is a DIY screen printing shop where the machines are cleverly disguised as vintage Westinghouse dryers. You can roll through your own personal designs or simply adopt the skills of the graphic design staffers. Next time we’re there we’ll be dropping in to get a present for someone lovely- or maybe just ourselves!

Summer is coming to an end and what better way to enjoy the last few balmy evenings than watching a film in the open air. At the Hollywood Forever Cemetery you can do just that, sitting under the stars and amongst palm trees, oh- and graves! There are a few more weeks left to join in the fun. Last weeks Goodfellas screening came with an introduction from the real Henry Hill. Who will turn up this Saturday night? Head down there and find out for yourself. Cinespia

Kanye West may not have been the best behaved boy recently but it hasn’t stopped us from watching his latest music video, POWER, over and over- oh, and over again. The video was directed by Louis Vuitton Don and visual artist Marco Brambilla. The Sistine Chapel was used as a reference point for what Brambilla says is a ‘moment of transition’ for Kanye.

As ARCADE FIRE’s critical acclaim continues with stunning third album THE SUBURBS, this week has witnessed a truly jaw-dropping video for next single “We Used To Wait”

The interactive film by Chris Milk (director of promo’s for Green Day, U2, Kanye West, Gnarls Barkley & Johnny Cash) is built in HTML and using google satellite technology - described as a mash up of technologies by Google’s Creative Labs you are asked to enter the address of your childhood home and watch the story unfold before your eyes, instantly and seamlessly making it your story.

Thomas Gayno of GCL says “modern web technologies craft an experience personalised and unique for each viewer, as you virtually run through the streets where you grew up.”

We say: Poignant. Beautiful. Perfect.

Experience it for yourself

Talking of home, heart, beautiful and poignant.

As a way of expressing his deepest love and thanks to his wife, Rachel, for all her unerring support during his treatment for cancer, 35 year old Sydney man Kristian Anderson made the following video below for her birthday.

Soundtracked by Train’s “Marry Me”, the clip is intro’ed by New Zealand PM John Key – Rachel is a Kiwi – and features Hugh Jackman, who appeared in the video after Kristian asked radio station Triple M - Sydney’s premiere morning breakfast show - for help.

Also used to encourage donations for The Cancer Council who finance treatment for cancer patients and as a platform to urge Triple M’s listeners to seek medical advice as early as possible, the video is a touching and uplifting a message.You may need tissues!

And finally. . .

A huge congratulations to Dominic Hyman (Art Director for our wonderful Alice Tour) and his talented team, who won Best Art Direction for Movie/Mini at The Emmy’s for their amazing work on ‘The Pacific’.

We’ll see you same time, same place next week!

Hello, you… it’s FIVE33 here, back with another espresso shot of culture for all you vultures.

We think it might be a bit wrong to have fallen in love with a website, but the ‘I love my scarf’ website from Hermès is so good that some of us (mainly Flic) almost lost a serious chunk of their day wishing they were one of the featured girls! Vive la France

Continuing our love for European design classics, Italian beer Peroni has produced this stunning new short film ‘Senza Tempo’. Directed by the award winning Gabriele Muccino (The Pursuit of Happyness and Seven Pounds) it is so beautifully shot that it made us all want to jump on the next flight to Rome and sit at a street café watching the world go by.

There’s nothing we like more in the FIVE33 office than a mash-up, but it’s kind of rare that one comes along that catches our eyes or ears. That all changed this week with a couple of culture-clash masterstrokes.

Bringing two totally separate ideas together to create something new doesn’t always end well but we’re pleased to report that Lacoste’s celebration of Snoopy and his friends (who are collectively celebrating their 60^th birthday this year) doesn’t disappoint.

Sometimes simple really is the best option.

We’ll be putting our names down on the waiting list. When these are launched in October you can guarantee that they won’t be on the shelves for long.

Sticking with our mash-up theme . . .

Mixing the summery pop joy of The Jackson’s ‘Rockin’ Robin’ with the grinding existential angst of Nirvana should be filed under ‘don’t try this at home’, but somehow Go Home Productions have managed to pull it off with aplomb.

All together now… ‘hello, hello, hello, how low?’

And finally, we are not usually in the habit of posting funny animal videos, but this one is so joyously amusing, we just had to share. If you don’t laugh at this, check your pulse. Just 9 seconds long, but it gets funnier every time you watch it…

Even Deer need something for the weekend. Wherever you are, have a great one!

Hello Friday. Where have you been hiding away?

August seems to be a month for fashion celebrations (which is fine with us!) First up is a birthday salute to the British institution that is i-D magazine. Celebrating their 30th anniversary, the special birthday issue has been shot exclusively by Nick Knight (the man behind our beloved SHOWstudio)

Not happy with just one beautiful cover, Mr Knight has shot 3 which fit nicely into the issue’s ‘Then Now Next’ theme (we’ll let you decide who fits where!)

Also this month Kate Moss celebrates her 30^th British Vogue cover, shot by one of the most influential fashion photographers of our time Patrick Demarchelier. If this doesn’t prove that Kate has still got it nothing will!

August heralds the start of Fall/Winter collections hitting the stores so we were excited to see the new lookbook from Prada. A really nice mix of illustration by Alexander Reichert & Fausto Fantinuoli and photography shot by Phil Meech

As if that wasn’t enough to feast your eyes on this week we’ve also . . . fallen in love with zombies again. Mmmm, zombies.

The new video from poundingly awesome rock band The Cribs for their single Housewife shows just how cool zombies can be. Undead cool.

This was also the week we started drawing on our hands in an attempt to recreate this inspired advertising campaign from AT&T…

…and danced around with the lights off to Chromeo’s new song ‘Don’t turn the lights on’

(and marveled at the video directed by the ingenious Keith Schofield)

All told, it’s been quite a week. Right, we’re off to party like the Ewoks did when the Death Star blew up. Have a great weekend!

Well another week has come and gone.  Can it really almost be August?!

Though we’re far from wishing our summer away (we’re having far too much fun in the sun) the fashion world is looking to the fall/winter collections already.

We’ve come across some really exciting new interpretations of the ‘look book’ this week and thought you’d like to take a peep . . .

First up is some work by renowned photographer Stephen Shore. He started out photographing Andy Warhol back in the 60’s and this season Shore has collaborated with Urban Outfitters on their Fall Look Book. The images have made us all want to return to the preppy look – High School here we come!

From High Street to High Fashion, the new ‘Explore Burberry’ campaign for their F/W collection was shot by Mario Testino.

The print versions of the campaign are beautiful but it’s online where this campaign really comes alive: the ability to move around the models and have them move within the picture really does make this a stunning interactive look book. Give your mouse a treat and check it out.

Wrangler are also getting in on the act. This is the second time that they have created an interactive look book for their Blue Bell range. Unlike the Burberry’s look book this version allows the viewer to move the model at certain points within a film (we love the jump over the fence) .

It’s certainly much more fun than flicking through the pages of a printed look book! Dive in here.

Sticking with a retail theme, we’ve been playing this tune ‘All Summer’ pretty loudly in the office this week.

Not only is it a collaboration between 3 incredibly cool artists - Kid Cudi, Rostam of Vampire Weekend, and Best Coast - it has been created by kings of the casual sneaker -Converse

(We’ve also discovered the link to ‘create your own paper head’ - that’s our weekend sorted then!)

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We’ll leave you with a very cool mystery - the trailer for the new movie CATFISH. This is an independent documentary which has really caught our imagination with its intriguing ‘Don’t Let Anyone Tell You What It Is’. What do you think is really going on with this movie?

Watch the trailer here.

May the friday feeling be with you. Mwah.

To make up for our absence we’ve got some fascinating treasure for you this week…

We’ve been exploring the darker side of seduction and this new teaser trailer for the Reiss Fall/Winter collection is getting us hot under the collar.

Shot by Jamie Morgan, the campaign explores three key themes - elements, protection, sensuality – (Reiss says they wanted to go back to basics), but its the alluring black and white temptation that we love.

Sometimes you wait all year for a mind-blowing movie and then TWO come along at once. The inspirational genius of Pixar is back and in full effect with the joyous Toy Story 3 and Christopher Nolan has done it again with the head-trip action spectacular Inception. Seek these films out… they are both superb.

What better way to celebrate the release of  these two future classics than with this inspired trailer mash-up that enters the architecture of Buzz and Woody’s minds!

The digital magazine format of iPad continues to evolve with a forward thinking app that enables users to build their own custom publications tailored to their own tastes. Check out the future-ready page-turner that is Flipboar

Announced on September 7, the Mercury Music Prize always manages to raise a few eyebrows when the nominations are announced!

It’s a solid list (announced this week), with some of FIVE33’s favourite albums of the past few months getting much deserved recognition.

Dizzee Rascal, The XX, Foals, Mumford & Sons, Corinne Bailey Rae and Biffy Clyro have been constant audio candy on the office stereogram.

Us? We’re pitching for The XX or Dizzee - they have to be this year’s hotties!

The full list of nominees is below, but we must give a mention to the modfather Paul Weller…

Weller always sweeps up as The Brits Best Male whenever he releases an album, but not so the Mercury’s…unbelievably, this is his first ever nomination for Wake Up The Nation.

And the nominees are . . .

Biffy Clyro – ‘Only Revolutions’

Corinne Bailey Rae – ‘The Sea’

Dizzee Rascal – ‘Tongue ‘N’ Cheek’

Kit Downes Trio – ‘Golden’

Foals – ‘Total Life Forever’

I Am Kloot – ‘Sky At Night’

Laura Marling – ‘I Speak Because I Can’

Mumford And Sons – ‘Sigh No More’

Paul Weller – ‘Wake Up The Nation’

Villagers – ‘Becoming A Jackal’

Wild Beasts – ‘Two Dancers’

The XX – ‘XX’

All more than worthy of your ear-time.

And finally, as we are slap-bang in the middle of the geek-pageant that is Comic-Con, here’s a Batman movie you may not have seen before - but which is a stunning piece of fan-film making. It’s dark, violent (be warned) and making a lot of waves in the fan community. Something to tide the fanboys over until Christopher Nolan dusts off the sequel to the Dark Knight.

CITY OF SCARS

Uploaded by Batinthesun. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

Have a magnificent weekend… see you in seven.

Welcome, once again to the Friday Fix.

We’ve been out and about this week and as always were on the look out for inspiration.

First up are some pics of our favorites from the Paris Couture shows.

Created by the ever wonderful John Galliano it wasn’t just the giant flowers and billowing dresses that caught our eye.

The model’s ultra modern eye make-up really got us excited, we’re looking forward to a time when we can all wear make up like this!

Emily and Maria managed to get to fashion trade show Bread & Butter in Berlin this week.

We’re not quite sure how they managed to see everything and bring back so much inspiration after such a short trip (officially just 4 hours!) but they did!

Take a look…

SHAKIRA is often hard to ignore, but as we reach the pinnacle of what has been a genuine World Cup fever, the hip-quaking one has been dominating charts globally. Waka Waka - the official 2010 FIFA World Cup anthem - has become a worldwide no.1 hit n 17 countries, and that could swell with the exposure of her live performance at the closing ceremony. The video has been viewed over two million times a day since June 10, taking its total to over 80.7 million views on YouTube as of July 9, making it the most viewed music video of June. Waka Wakahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRpeEdMmmQ0

Stepping outta the spotlight and into the shadow… DJ SHADOW to be precise. Check out his newby DEF SURROUNDS US. His unique audio darkness provides a beacon of light for fans of pure production. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcESmqxS4kI
With whatever Shadow surrounds us, it always most def, Def.

And lastly, we end the week with some exciting news . . .

Next week sees the official opening of our new Venice Beach office in LA!

To say that we’ll miss Emily and Andrew is an understatement. Emily is our rock and the office will be a different place with out her – thank goodness for skype!

But it’s an exciting new era for FIVE33 and we can’t wait to bring you even more news and inspiration from both sides of the Atlantic.

See you back here next week.

FIVE33

This week we’ve been spaced out. Maybe because it’s so melonfarmin’ hot, maybe because we’ve been working on such an out-of-this-world new project, maybe just because space is… you know… cool. Anyways, we were glad to see that we’re not the only ones.

American photographer Hunter Freeman shows us that it’s not all fun and games being an astronaut in his latest series of photos. Here’s our personal favourite . . .

And it’s not just photographers. Paris fashion week was in on the act too!

New York based menswear designer Thom Browne had all his models in space suits at the start of his show. Each model then removed their suit to reveal Thom’s S/S 11 collection.

It wasn’t just spacemen that caught our eye in Paris. Skulls were also walking the runway… or should that be the plank? Swashbuckling their way down the catwalk, the models in the Comme Des Garcon Homme Plus show took the concept of ’skull and cross bones’ to the next level. Captain Jack would be proud!

We can’t mention Men’s fashion week in Paris without tipping a wink to the wonderful John Galliano. The theatrical aspects of his shows always brings a smile to our faces and his mens S/S 11 collection didn’t disappoint. Drawing more than a little inspiration from the Godfather of slapstick comedy Charlie Chaplin.

Back To The Future (ooh, that’s a good name for a film…someone should make that) and the wonder of EveryDay Looper. This simple audio-looping iPhone App is causing more that a bit of a stir on YouTube, and this video shows why! Delicious homebrew harmony.

The weekend doesn’t get airborne without a musical send-off, and here’s a couple of ear blasters we wanted to send your way.

First up is the appropriately named summer sexpot ‘Hot Hot Hot’ by Dee-Lux. The synthetics on this track are out of control:

And finally some pure joy to sooth your overheated head - for those who haven’t seen it yet, this is Janelle Monáe on Letterman… and it has been scientifically proven that it is impossible to watch this without smiling.

We Brit’s aren’t really used to 30 degrees of heat for more than one day a year we swooned when we saw this pool in Singapore. This truly is the ultimate infinity pool. At 55 storeys up we doubt there’s a better view of the city. We’re booking our tickets now!

Keep your eyes on the skies!

FIVE33

Blimey it’s hot. Are you hot? The sun is shining. Glastonbury has landed, and our Friday Fix is all set to fire some stars into your headspace.

First up is some beautiful underwater photography from Italian photographer Nadia Moro. Based in Milan, Nadia’s fashion and portrait photography is well worth a look.

This is just one of the pictures from her series called ‘behind the surface’. It reminds us of mermaids – perhaps this could be what mermaids of the 21^st century look like . . .

Next up is the exquisite new packaging for YSL’s fragrance Eau Énergisante.

Designed by German graphic designer Axel Peemoeller (who’s website we all love BTW)

It’s good to see such an established brand do something so totally fresh with their packaging. Liquid lovely.

And so to the sounds that we just can’t get loud enough this week…

All this sunshine is going to our heads, and that just whisks us away to Classic Summer Holiday Anthems, and here’s two songs vying for the title that have us hot under the (popped) collar…

Moldovian singer, songwriter, producer DAN BALAN’s CHICA BOMB sneaks up on you with its sensual groove and vocoded vocals… it screams ‘anthem’, if ever we heard one! Dan is no stranger to dominating the international charts all summer long. He was the behind the tour de force ‘DRAGOSTEA DIN TEII’ by Ozone which was THE cheesetastic holiday choon of 2004 - 14 weeks no.1 in Germany, 15 weeks in France… kind of says it all! It spawned the Numa Numa dance, the breakout lip-sync YouTube classic and was cooled-up when T.I. and Rihanna used it to form the basis of their 2008 global hit ‘LIVE YOUR LIFE’

Could Chica Bomb replicate that success?

YOLANDA BE COOL’s WE NO SPEAK AMERICANO is the other slice of irresistible dancefloor magic!

The terrace at SPACE will be bouncing to this for weeks, nay, months - the groove-a-licious brains behind the cool Latino vibe and pumping bass are in fact wonderful wizards from Oz - we dare you to not toe-tap & booty-wiggle. Banger!

Last but by no means least here’s something for all you secret geeks . . . (and yes, Barn, that means you!)

While doing some research on Milan Fashion Week we stumbled across these illustrations by Hong Kong based John Woo .

Mixing designer fashion with the ultimate in Sci-Fi royalty… what’s not to like?!

May the force be with you

FIVE33

]]> http://www.five33.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=627 http://www.five33.com/blog/?p=586 http://www.five33.com/blog/?p=586#comments Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:21:32 +0000 admin http://www.five33.com/blog/?p=586 Friday’s here again, all glittery and sparkly and giving us the eye, and here’s your regular fix of all the stuff that has set our spider-senses tingling this week. Marvellous.

The quintessential English Summer Season has begun, with the opening of the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. It’s a suitably eclectic mix of well-established artists such as David Hockney and Tracey Emin alongside work by some really exciting new talent. Unlike most shows, almost all of the work is for sale… and there were certainly a few pieces that caught our eye. Where did we put that Royal Academy discount card?

Talking of Great British institutions, the Grande Dame of fashion herself, Vivienne Westwood, is about to launch her collaboration with Lee Jeans. The 9-piece Vivienne Westwood Anglo mania + Lee collection takes it’s inspiration from the Westwood archives and includes references to her seminal Punk and Pirates collections of the 70’s and 80’s. We’ll be sure to check out both the men’s and women’s pieces when they hit the stores on 5^th July. Vivienne Westwood and Lee Jeans. Anarchy.

On a completely different note we were very impressed with this alterative use for sticky tape. Winners of the DMY Awards at the International Design Festival Berlin, For Use / Numen, created this beautiful space in Vienna. The installation took just 2 days to create, and 530 rolls of transparent self adhesive tape. The work is based on the concept of a dance that evolves from the movement between the pillars, with the performance taking place within the structure. The dancers are stretching the tape as they move resulting in a (tape) recording of their movements. Clever and beautiful – our favourite type of work.

Last but by no means least . . .

Music!

Our FIVE33 ‘Tune for the weekend’ is an entire album of tunes! BLOC PARTY front man KELE goes solo with debut album THE BOXER. Out next week, it’s a first-round KO to our ears, burning the floor and sending the woofers into meltdown here at FIVE33 towers. The sweet science that is Tenderoni is officially released this week. Ring the bell!

None of you could have failed to notice that the FIFA World Cup is well and truly here.

Somali-Canadian poet, rapper, singer/songwriter K’naan is scoring goals all over the international charts with one of the finer football and music moments. Searing optimism that uplifts the 2009 original. Coca-Cola’s Official World Cup song has many a version:

Internationally, K’naan collaborates with will i am and producer-de-jour David Guetta.

The Celebration Mix is a duet with Damian Marley.

The Arabic version features Lebanese superstar Nancy Arjam.

David Bisbal sings for the Latin American countries and is our personal favourite.

A Chinese version which brings K together with ‘God Of Songs’ Jacky Cheung and China’s very own Mariah Carey: Jane Zhang has already reached no.1 there while Def Jam Japan’s Ai represents.

French rapper/singer Féfé delivers France’s version of the anthem.  Wavin’ Flag even soundtracks EA Sports official video game 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa

Audio sunshine that has us flying the flag of every nation. Don’t laugh.

And finally, ending on a World Cup note. We just wanted to share some of our favourite pictures from the opening ceremony. Certain to bring the sunshine of South Africa to your screens (even if it’s a bit cloudy outside!)

Excelsior!

Team FIVE33

It’s been a busy week here at FIVE33 towers but we’ve managed to see a few things that have tickled our fancy . . . and our fancy is extremely ticklish. No… not there! Stop it! STOP IT!

That’s better.

Any of you who have spent some time in the office will know that chocolate is pretty high on our BFF list (brown gold, we call it), so imagine our delight when we saw this beautiful video. You’d be forgiven for thinking it came straight from a fashion house, but it’s actually an advert for Cadbury Flake!

It seems Flake can now add ‘coolest’ to a list of accolades that has so far been limited to ‘crumbliest’ and ‘flakiest’.

We were very excited to see that our favourite Parisian boutique Colette has joined forces with a number of superheroes to celebrate 75 years of DC Comics. Working with some of the world’s greatest designers of high-end fashion, they have created an exclusive collection of accessories and clothes for a bunch of DC’s best-known characters.

Click here to check out some superpowered style…

Batman designed by Balmain and Lanvin

The Green Lantern designed by Karl Lagerfeld

Wonder Woman designed by Sonia Rykiel and Maison Michel

Superman designed by Pierre Hardy and Julien David

The Flash designed by Repetto

Catwoman designed by Roger Vivier

Taking it to the streets, we point you in the direction of New York this week and a street artist that caught our eye some time ago.

Aakash Nihalani is a street artist with a difference. He uses tape to create isometric rectangles and squares on the New York landscape, altering perceptions of the space around us to startling effect. His neon lines are also very reminiscent of the neon graphic language we’ve been working on recently, for a certain hotly-anticipated film… hint hint. Perhaps the original 80’s film influenced Aakash in some way!

Aakash’s work has been brought back to the spotlight recently with this video – a true master at work.

If you missed our tweets this week, firstly, what were you thinking? And secondly, you missed out on the Victoriana sci-fi sonic disruption of Losers‘ Flush. The video features the artwork of the brilliantly twisted Dan Hillier.

Losers: Flush from Tom Werber on Vimeo.

And secondly we have Breakbot’s brand new funk hymn Baby I’m Yours, with a video composed of approximately 2000 watercolour images painted one after the other. Turn this one up and dance like no-one’s watching.

Breakbot - Baby I’m Yours (feat. Irfane) - HD from Ed Banger Records on Vimeo.

And with that, the weekend has landed!

Hasta luego

Team FIVE33