A Fashion Arab Spring: Designer Sasha Nassar's Collection SS14

Sasha Nassar's award-winning collection explores contemporary cultural conflicts in Islamic and Western societies by layering Muslim and Western motifs and by both veiling and revealing the female form with lacy, semi-transparent interpretations of the burqa.  

Limor Helfgott interviews Arab-Israeli designer Sasha Nassar who presented her first capsule collection at London and Paris fashion weeks for Spring Summer 2014. The young designer won this year’s International Womenswear Award at London Graduate Fashion Week. Photographs by Patrice Stable

A native of Jaffa, one of the oldest parts of Tel Aviv where Arabs and Jews live together, Sasha Nassar's collection was inspired by her own life living in a Western oriented Muslim-Jewish home. She feels deeply affected by the intolerance and superstition surrounding women's rights in the Islamic world. “The collection is about my life,” says Nassar. "I grew up in an Arab home and had a Western education. I am obsessed with what is currently happening in the Middle East and especially the revolutions of the Arab Spring."

The theme for her collection Le Printemps Arabe came from the idea of women in the Islamic world being hidden behind their burqas and not allowed to speak their minds. "I came up with the idea of creating a see-through burqa, without sleeves, in order to show women's lack of freedom,’’ Nassar explains. “I wanted the collection to be Western but keep the Islamic cultural origin with the prints."

Gauzy floral lace and geometric patterns in black and white are used with skill and delicate harmony by Nassar to create an original first collection which moves from the simple to the sensual, from exposure to concealment and combines both Muslim and Western elements.

Winning the best womenswear award launched Nassar’s career in Europe. The judges including Vogue Italia’s Sara Maino, co-founder of London Fashion Week and Wendy Dagworthy, head of fashion at The Royal College of Art, commended Nassar for exploring contemporary Islamic and Western societies by layering Muslim and occidental motifs and by both veiling and revealing the female form with lacy, semi-transparent interpretations of the burqa.  

One of the incidents that touched Nassar the most were the riots against women following the controversial movie Persepolis. The French-Iranian animation feature is based on an auto-biographical, graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. The story is told from the point of view of the author as a ten-year old girl, forced to wear a veil to school by those that called for a cultural revolution in Iran.

Nassar’s own journey as a designer started in Milan just four years ago. She had always dreamt of living in Italy so it was only natural to pursue her design studies at the Milan branch of the fashion school Istituto Marangoni. However, life in the Italian fashion capital was more difficult than she expected and after becoming ill she relocated to London where her brother lives and continued her studies at the school's British campus. But after the second year of her course in London, the designer’s doubts about her career choice returned. "I started thinking about what is going to happen to me after I graduate, I was afraid I was investing my time and effort for nothing." So she decided to take a year off and return to live in Israel.

Looking back, she says this 12 month break only did her good and made her miss the creativity of studying fashion. Wanting to resume her studies in London, she approached the British branch of Instituto Marangoni only to discover they could not take her back as the school had changed its academic status. Instead, the institute offered her a place for her last year at its Paris campus. Here she was again, alone in a city she had never visited before with a new language to learn and a new to class to fit into that had already spent two years together. Hard as it was at the beginning, Nassar says it was a good experience studying in three great fashion cities and taking something different from each one.

It was in Paris that her Arab Spring collection was born. "We received a general theme for the graduation project: Spring which immediately gave me the inspiration for my collection," explains Nassar. Despite her mentors at the Istituto Marangoni wanting her to change her designs, Nassar refused and stuck to her belief in the project and was ultimately rewarded by winning her highly-coveted award during London Graduate Fashion Week.

Nassar would like to create her own label, but is not planning to start now. "I don’t think it's right. I am still not ready, " she says modestly. "I want to work in a big fashion house in Europe so I can understand more about how the fashion world really works. I think that only after I gain this experience working on an international level can I start something of my own, perhaps something different."

Nassar is very connected to Jaffa where she grew up with her family. "They give me strength," she says. “Ultimately I want to come back home and work there. I would like to receive more experience in Europe and then be based in my home town, right there by the sea. That is my dream."

Sasha Nassar’s first capsule collection will be available later this year as Sasha Nassar by Muuse, the online design retailer that sponsored her shows in Paris and London.

Fashion designer Sasha Nassar was brought up in Jaffa, one of the oldest parts of Tel Aviv where Arabs and Jews live together. Her collection was inspired by her own life living in a Western oriented Muslim-Jewish home. Photograph by Jan Joseph Cohen

 "I came up with the idea of creating a see-though burqa, without sleeves, in order to show women's lack of freedom,’’ Nassar explains. 

Gauzy floral lace and geometric patterns in black and white are used with skill and delicate harmony by Nassar to create an original first collection which moves from the naive to the sensual, from exposure to concealment, combining both Muslim and Western elements.

It was in Paris that Sasha Nassar's Arab Spring collection was born. "We received a general theme for the graduation project: "Spring" which immediately gave me the inspiration for my collection," she explains.

Despite her mentors at the Istituto Marangoni wanting her to change her collection, Nassar refused and stuck to her belief in the project and was ultimately rewarded by winning the highly-coveted womenswear award during London Graduate Fashion Week.

Nassar's collection first shown at London Graduate Fashion Week took the audience and the high-profile judges on a unique journey from the inside of a burqa, seeing through the eyes of a Muslim woman and her role in cultural conflict.

Photo Essay: Norway ~ Architecture for a Dreamland

The reflective waters of Norway's Sognefjord is like a fairytale landscape of green mountains, clear lakes and picturesque villages. 

Travelling through Norway’s fjords and glaciers, Andreas Romagnoli captures this mysterious northern landscape and the country’s famous ancient churches and stark new architecture 

NORWAY'S landscape merges the grey-brown colors of winter with the green of spring and the ethereal blue of its lakes. The countryside’s scarce population make great stretches seem like uninhabited lands, where every journey represents a metaphorical journey within ourselves, exploring our fears and dreams.

But it is the architecture of Norway that captures the country’s response to changing cultural, climactic and economic conditions. International architectural influences are often apparent in Norwegian design but they are adapted to meet the local climate including the difficult winters and high winds. During the 20^th century, the architecture has been determined mostly by Norwegian social policy and its focus on innovation.

The history of Norway differs from other European countries in never adopting feudalism and maintaining its traditional ways of farming. Combined with the prevalent use of wood as a building material, this ensured the country has few examples of the elaborate baroque, renaissance or rococo styles built by the ruling classes in the rest of Europe.

Much of Norway’s vernacular architecture has been preserved on farms in open-air museums that show buildings from the Middle Ages to the 19th century such as the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo and Maihaugen in Lillehammer.

Today, Norway is also the only country in Northern Europe with intact wooden churches from the Middle Ages. While stone cathedrals were being built across Europe, Norway continued building in wood. From the period of the Vikings, Norwegians worked with wood for boats and buildings. This tradition culminated in the stave churches.

These wooden churches are an important part of Norwegian architectural heritage and the oldest is Urnes Stave church in Luster by the Sognefjord. A church has been on the site since 1130 and the current building dates to the 17th century. The builders were aware of international trends in architecture but used wood instead of stone to create the new forms. The interior of the church is richly decorated with animal motifs such as elks and doves as well as centaurs and dragons. This decoration has become known as the Urnes style and it is the only stave church on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Oslo's Opera House built in 2008 is representative of the contemporary Norwegian aesthetic where glass and brick has replaced wood. Designed by Snøhetta architects, the Opera House is the place where Norwegians come to enjoy both the performances inside and the vast marble rooftop where they can contemplate their city and harbour and view the cluster of cranes soaring above new buildings.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Grasses and hardy plants grow amid the lands surrounding a solitary wooden house in Eidfjord. 

Lighthouse on the coast at Krakenes.

Trollstigen or Troll's Road is a surreal landscape of undulating rocks and grasses.

Bergen's beautiful waterside promenade with it's traditional gabled buildings.

Bergen's imposing 19th century buildings are a mix of wood, stone and brick.

Alesund's apartments cluster around the water with boats moored virtually at the doorstep.

The famous Urnes Stavrchirchen from the 17th century and the oldest wooden church surviving in Europe today

Once a private church for a powerful family, the original builders were aware of international trends in architecture but used wood instead of stone.

This is the Stavrchirchen in Flam looking like a religious Ginger Bread house.

A masterclass in woodwork, the Norwegian traditonal churches go back to the Middle Ages. 

Two girls sitting on the vast marble rooftop of  the Oslo Opera House, contemplate the new construction going up around them.

The Oslo Opera House with it's marble roof terraces where Norwegians can stroll, skate and enjoy the harbour.

Snøhetta architects wanted the art, material, form, landscape and people to be united in the Opera House project. They worked with artists Jarunn Sannes, Kristian Blystad, and Kalle Grude to create the roof as a piece of public art. 

A girl plays on the Opera House's terraces. At 20,000 square meters, the marble roof is made from about 30,000 different stone pieces. 

Italian Street Artist Agostino Iacurci Paints a New Mural in Rome

Agostino Iacurci working on his giant new mural on the side of a building on the corner of Via Aquilonia and Via Teano in Rome. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Italian artist Agostino Iacurci worked on a colossal new mural in Rome as part of Wunderkammern Gallery’s Public and Confidential project, write Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento. He is photographed while painting from a cherry-picker to reach the upper echelons of his giant figures.

DARK stormy skies hover above us when we meet Iacurci working on his new mural in the eastern part of Rome in Prenestino. While the artist still looks like a teenager under his hard-hat, he first started graffiti painting in 1998 when he was twelve years old. 

Born in Foggia in southern Italy in1986, Iacurci has already worked across a diverse range of artistic mediums from murals to illustrating books and painting for gallery exhibitions. His wall murals are even found adding an element of colourful whimsy to Rome’s maximum security prison. 

Iacurci paints figures enlarged to an enormous scale to create his outdoor murals. His storybook characters adapt to the contours of a building’s surface whether it's an apartment building or prison yard. One of the most important influences on the young artist was the work of Italian painter Bruno Munari who also worked with a style that emphasised geometric shapes and bold colour. Iacurci says that another of his main influences is Otto Dix and that he aims to a create a certain serenity and a sense of the future with is massive figures.

Iacurci's work in Rome can be seen in the international context of his projects that now stretch from Moscow to Paris. And his paintings, drawings and etchings have been presented at exhibitions and festivals in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. Since 2008, the artist has made huge murals in public spaces for Roma Tre University, Fubon Art Foundation in Taipei, the Fine Art Academy of Rome, the University Campus of Besançon in France, the Saba School in Algeria and ~ together with the inmates ~ two massive works on the walls of the maximum security zone of Rebibbia prison.

Today, Iacurci's art and mural paintings are sought-after all over the world. His new piece in Rome of two bowler-hatted men is a monumental addition to the Eternal City and adds irony and colour to the urban landscape. The artist will have a solo exhibition at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome in early 2014. The show is part of the Public and Confidential series that began earlier this year. It examines how urban art and street artists interact with the public and the city. 

Visit Wunderkammern Gallery for further information on current and upcoming shows and events in Rome: wunderkammern.net

The completed mural at 28 metres tall and 18 metres wide

The artists ascends on a cherry-picker to continue painting his enormous bowler-hattted men. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

A view of Iacurci's new work in progress in Rome's Prenestino district. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

The young artist comes back down to ground to mix the colours for his new mural. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

An amusing mural in Via del Porto Fluviale in Rome ~ the painting cleverly incorporates the building's windows in the design.

Called Siamese,  this mural is in London's Camden and was a collaboration with Urban Outfitters earlier this year.

A mural painted for Le Mur in Paris this year.

An three by two metre art work made for an urban art exhibition in the Circo Massimo in Rome. 

Called Grafts,  this nine by two metre piece was made for the Venice Bienale in Campo Sant´Agnese.  Detail below. 

Murals made with the students of the Saba School in Algeria

Created for Arte Urbana in Lugano at Via Lavizzari, 5

Created during the LGZ festival and curated by Street Kit in Moscow, Russia

Murals made for Rebibbia prison's On the Wall project. Created in collaboration with a group of 15 inmates on the courtyard's walls, in the maximum security section.

Detail of the Rome prison's mural created by Agostino Iacurci

Mural in Via Lugaro in Turin, Italy

Illustration for the novel "La Finta Nonna" in "Fiabe Italiane" by Italo Calvino. Created for Fiabe dello stivale, International group show

Murals painted for the Univerisity Campus of Besançon in France

The Treehotel in Sweden Adds a New Tree House to its Forest

A Modernist mirrored cube that glints and reflects the sky and leaves designed by Tham & Videgård Architects

Tree houses capture the imagination and tap into the inchoate, distant memory of our hunter-gatherer past. Today, green architecture is the design zeitgeist of our age and living amid the treetops has never been more exciting, writes Jeanne-Marie Cilento

Close to the Arctic Circle and with a vista of the aurora borealis, a cluster of tree houses has become one of the most sought after retreats in Northern Sweden. Called the Treehotel, it is located near the lovely village of Harads in Swedish Lapland. Founders Britta and Karl Lindvall commissioned innovative Scandinavian architects to come up with a unique design for each house. In the middle of the forest, Lindvall has created a laboratory for contemporary architecture.

The sixth tree room of the planned twenty-four retreats is called the Five Leaf Clover and is designed by Finnish studio Rintala Eggertsson Architects. Sitting up high on century-old pine trees, it has wide-ranging views and is the largest at fifty-three square metres. Clad in weathered steel, the interior will be lined with plywood.

“At Treehotel we always strive to push limits with our environmental work, architecture and engineering," said Kent Lindvall. "Nothing like the Five Leaf Clover has ever been done before.” The building is attached to six pine trees and hovers six metres above the ground. Visitors climb a two-storey-high staircase to reach the tree house with its three bedrooms and large conference room.

The other tree houses finished in 2010 range from the twiggy Bird’s Nest that nestles in the treetops to a Modernist mirrored cube that glints and reflects the sky and leaves. In between are a surreal UFO tree house that looks like it’s just landed for a pitstop and a fairytale red cottage that has stepped from the pages of Little Red Riding Hood.

The reflective cube was designed by Tham & Videgård Architects with a pale, clean-lined interior and aerodynamic furniture. The Bird’s Nest, designed by Bertil Harström, is encased in branches and entered via a retractable stair case. Inside, it is also crisply Scandavian. There are no faux twig Man Friday tables and chairs, just a sleek, Swedish interior designed for the global traveller.

The Mirror Cube can accommodate two people and includes a living room, large bed, a small kitchenette, a bathroom and a roof terrace. One of the cleverest ideas is the use of infrared film laminated onto the glass panes and visible only to birds. It prevents them from flying into the tree house’s reflective walls.

The UFO tree house was also designed by Harström and looks like a flying saucer from the cult film Plan 9 From Outer Space. Inside, the curving interior has retro 1970s’ style cushions and sofas lit by round windows. The red cabin among the tree trunks is called the Blue Cone and was designed by Sandell Sandberg and constructed from birch shingle using traditional techniques.

The most utilitarian treehouse is Cyrén & Cyrén's cabin, suspended from a bridge. The cabin has a roof-top terrace to survey the trees and a comparatively spacious interior with specially designed built-in furniture and lamps. The Treehotel is 60 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle but is accessible to visitors as an hour's drive away is Luleå, the town with the largest airport in Northern Sweden. 

For more information visit the Treehotel website: http://www.treehotel.se

Architect Bertil Harström designed both the Bird's Nest tree house pictured above and the UFO below. 

The Blue Cone is actually a red tree house made from traditional birch shingles and designed by Sandell Sandberg.

Another view of the UFO tree house in the snow with it's round windows lit up in the twilight that bring light to the retro 1970's sofa and cushions in the picture below.

Cyrén & Cyrén architects designed the Cabin which is suspended high up among the trees and has a rooftop terrace

The Mirror Cube's walls reflect the trees around it so it becomes part of the forest. 

The interior of the Mirror Cube with it's sleek Scandinavian design and furniture ~ no rustic Man Friday aesthetic here.

The reflective glass walls of the Mirror Cube that are laminated with an infrared film that only birds can see to prevent them flying into the tree house.

The tree house that seems to float like a giant nest in the forest when it's ladder is pulled up. 

Artist's rendering of the Five Leaf Clover, the biggest tree house finished this year. The weathered steel building is designed by Finnish studio Rintala Eggertsson Architects and has three bedrooms and a living room.