untitled and unedited: Asian Invasion

The Orientation of fashion....with 6 you get egg roll! Remember that tired Doris Day movie, a yours ,mine and ours romp through homogenized southern california, where all is sweetness, success and light. The overall message was benign. That is the end when you distill the offerings of the Asian invasion in NYC fashion: Peter Som, Phillip Lim, Doo Ri, Andrew Gn,
NOT including Anna Sui or Vivienne Tam, those babes ROCK, but continuing the list of those who should be rolled, I can include Peter Som again for his role in the dumbing down of Bill Blass and finally, and last and also least....Kimorra LEE Simmons. She can play the Asian card when it suits and the black card for street cred. She's probably the most confused and successful of the pack. There is an Asian invasian in new york fashion. Peter Som is probably the most overrated and uninspired of the bunch. His collections these past 7 years or so(an eternity,not in a calvin klein compelling way, but in the long drawn out infomercial way) has been a point of interest simply because of it's mixed message. A collage of aesthetics are seemingly disconnected and untethered. A talent lurks under the surface, but never presents itself. He gets lost season after season caught in the bubbling quicksand of TRENDS. A lovely dress with a beauty in its simplicity paired with a tatty coat , a regrettable hand-knit sweater on top of all that and a waifs matted hair-do as a crown and presto : you have a truly forgettable look . Let's not forget that it was commented on in the NY Times that several of these LOOKS on the runway a couple of seasons ago were not complete without threads hanging and hems unfinished and uneven. These conceits I fear were not planned. That would be too clever and I don't think he's that quick. Despite this obvious genius, he's tapped as the new( new is the new OLD) face and designer of Bill Blass Collection. Someone over there, thought that his experience and the fact he'd once been an intern years ago made him uniquely qualified to pick up the reins of that whipped and heaving pony. That was baffling when you consider Blass as the last word in classic modern American luxury sport and couture . Those gifts were honed over a career that spanned 40 years. How could a 30-something tween with a career spanning all of less than 10 years take on that task and ALSO continue with his own collection. Only Confucius could wrap his brain around that one. A huge collection of the highest order complete with licensed divisions , multi seasons and pre-seasons to create and then add another collection on top and you get CONFUSION of the most mystifying sort. I do love the ad in Vogue with him ,TUXED,in a aged ballroom with a group of black kids dancing. He's seated at a grand piano with black super model Leeya Kabeede standing by in a signature evening dress that is confusingly an exact knock off of a dress by Oscar and Beene from about 18 years ago. Well, if it worked for them then why can't it work for Peter now....not much else is. In parting, I must commend him for his courage and ambition. Most would shy away from so daunting a task, but he has that Hari Kari inner resolve. If you go down, hopefully you get to eviscerate yourself before everyone else does.
Phillip Lim is another koi fish altogether. Before I go further, the references to these designers is not born of a racist attitude towards Asian people, I'd do a group piece on designers of color, mainly Black designers, but there are so few that have a presence or are allowed one....that's for another posting, or Latinos for that matter.....so therefore, it's an Asian moment this morning.
So getting back to Phillip Lim. He has garnered so much press and early success. Barneys Julie Gilhart goes into a swoon over him. He's smart to produce cute and timely clothes at very affordable prices. He has a flagship store in MUST-BE chelsea and now thanks to his deep pocketed partners , also asian, he's opening stores across japan and china. That is definitely where the money is. This town and this country is BROKE. What doesn't pluck my shamazen or send me leaping is that the clothes are just simple and cute and hopelessly young. His Gap ad is so insipid . He stands with all these skinny blonde models in clothes for 20 bucks that look like they were designed for girls 15 and younger. All very nice, but the smokey eyed gaze directly at the cameras lens suggests something greater and more important than tween wear for women suffering from arrested development. But that hooded lidded gaze is the money shot. Every one
is seduced by that, by him that it will sell. Seems everyone wants what they can't have and will never be. Well you can afford this and you can ape a Lolita look. Maybe he makes it possible to disprove that fact.....just take a coldly objective look into that mirror before you hand it over. No one wants to be pointed at . That's too tricky a gesture to decode.
Doo Ri , the silk jersey Queen, with the impressive credentials of having been the assistant to Geoffrey Beene up to the end of his life and career, has been a big fish in this standing pool of ny fashion. When she burst onto the scene , the editors figured she would display the brilliance of her departed boss. Just working for someone brilliant doesn't make you in turn brilliant. It's nice for the resume but the rest is up to you. Her collections were beautifully draped jersey...abstract and unique. The palette was grim, which was the first indication that all was not soaked up at Beene, but still everyone piled onto that too fragile cart and claimed her a visionary. Vogue threw money at her, the CFDA nominated her a few times and a career was hatched. It helped that mom and dad had a dry cleaning business. That detail was just too charming. A Korean restaurant would have been just as effective, but the clothes would have smelled of cooking and kimchi which could have been a slight impediment.
So with the cultural brass ring of an indigenous background, and the fact that she toiled in the basement of the family establishment warmed the hearts of all the politically correct mags, editors and stores sent her to the head of the class. As of late, she has fallen from the radar.She's selling , but without the fanfare of seasons past. I fear her fortune cookie said: Next.
Andrew Gn , another early success story has the most obvious talent. Having worked for various high powered designers, Ungaro and Balmain when Oscar de la Fantastique was driving the bus, he has come along with a clear and unique,personal style. He's cool and of the moment with an eye that is international and intelligent. So I'm biased, yes me...FLUFF, but he's got that thing that keeps you interested and feeling good in his clothes. They are clean, modern clothes ,well thought out, and beautifully made.They have a maturity that only comes from exposure to the fashion world at large. His sense of color is complicated and artful, he understands the fine line between too much and not enough. Lots of graphic elements are a common vein in these collections. Imagery, stripes,graphic elements all work together , in a young and yet all age encompassing way that make the overall vision one of discernment and that hard to find element:TASTE., Sportswear that works , and remains on this side of hip, not classic and dull. What impresses one the most is that though he 's yet another darling, he delivers. He takes more time in the studio working and less time at parties and grabbing the photo op. His commitment appears to be focused on the work and not desperate self promotion.
That is clearly not the case for Kimorra Lee Simmons. The empress of PHAT. Asian /Black/pseudo-Celeb/poor mans' Imelda Jones.....she makes the hair stand up on this hair free body of mine. I do have a few short hairs but they're situated in a place that shall remain private. She of the reality show stardom, ex-wife to Russell Simmons , and replacement red carpet critic......How she could critique style when hers is so thin it's absolutely transparent is way past me. Fabulosity is her catchword, and that is exactly what she doesn't possess in SPADES. Baby Phat started as a pitiful mish mash of clothes masquerading as fashion, but has come a long way over the past few years. It's a collection now with a particular taste level. I'd say, it's a rather low level taste ,but there's something there for the vulgar, uneducated, steaming , and ferociously acquisitive, stinking herd. Whenever one of her runway shows starts I sit back and take in it's sublime VULGARITY. Her approach is like a starving child let loose in Dean and Deluca. She's stuffing her purse, pockets and too tight clothes with every and anything she can get out the door. Yes, a style shoplifter. You'd think a woman with her means would grow some taste , having worked as a model at Chanel, girlfriends with Andre leon Talley and every stylist that can be bought, she remains a spoiled demanding oversized( bordering on truly large) wanna be. I can't say enough about how little there is there. To flip to blackspeak that she is fluent in: Girlfriend, you deserve a triple SNAP for pulling the cashmere over the eyes of the too easily led consumer.
Move over and go back to school. Stop pretending to be a designer, when your REALITY show gives you and your total absence of talent away. It's like fortune cookies after too heavy a meal. Forget the doggy bag......I feel queasy.
This DISH has too few ingredients and way too much MSG.

World’s Top 10 futuristic luxury hotels

---

10. The Apeiron island hotel





Designer: Sybarite
Status: Concept
Estimated project cost: $500million

The ‘Apeiron’ island hotel is a seven star resort with a total floor area of 200,000m². It is 185-m high and boasts of over 350 luxury apartment suites. The hi-tech futuristic hotel screams of luxury and comfort with its own private lagoon, beaches, restaurants, cinemas, retail shopping, art gallery, spas and conference facilities. Its out of the world design is magnetic enough to deliver a spell-bounded experience to visitors. (Photo Credit: Sybarite)

9. Foldable hotel pods



Designer: m3 Architects, London
Estimated project cost: $72 to $104 million

The foldable and fully transportable pods are for those traveling geeks who find it hard to shun all the amenities of their luxurious life. You can move the pods to exotic locations around the world and the amazing concept abodes will come with ‘Active’ walls and floors where guests can focus images of their choice and a disposable unit to care of all waste. (Photo Credit: m3architects)

8. The hotel Burj al-Arab





Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Designer: Tom Wright (WS Atkins PLC), Khuan Chew
Status: Complete
Estimated project cost: $650 million
Cost per person: $1,000 to over $28,000 per night, $75 to have a glimpse from inside

Considered, unofficially, the world’s first and only 7-star hotel, the Burj al-Arab is a truly the most luxurious hotel imaginable and hence we couldn’t help including it in this list of futuristic hotels, which also perhaps triggered architects around the world to look beyond the fence.

The tallest, 321-metres (1,053 ft), hotel, designed as a sail of a dhow, is constructed on an artificial island 280-metres (919 ft) out from Jumeirah beach. The hotel boasts of the world’s tallest atrium, which is 180-meters (590 feet) tall.

The suspended helipad on the top adds to the grandeur of the hotel. The lavish interior skillfully mingles the best of design ethics from both the east and the west. The 8,000 square meters of 22-carat gold leaf and 24,000 square meters of 30 different types of marbles give the hotel an enigmatic touch.



The 28 double-story floors of the hotel accommodate 202 luxury suites with prices ranging from $1,000 to over $28,000 per night (for the Royal Suite). The hotel also features 8 restaurants, including bars and lounges, latest business, conferencing, fitness and recreational facilities.

7. Waterworld





Location: Songjiang, China
Designer: Atkin’s Architecture Group
Status: Concept

This spectacular design by Atkin’s Architecture Group deservedly won the first prize award last year in an international design competition. The 400-bed resort hotel features underwater public areas, guest rooms, cafes, and restaurants. The major attraction is the extreme sporting facilities including a luxurious swimming pool, rock climbing and bungee jumping.

What more to say, the pictures are screaming BLISS. (Photo Credit: TheCoolHunter)

6. The Poseidon Undersea Resort





Location: Fiji, The Poseidon Mystery Island
Designer: Bruce Jones
Status: Under construction, will be completed by September 2008
Estimated project cost: $105 million
Cost per person: $15,000 per week

Our pursuit of unique spaces now goes straight 1,200-square feet under the sea in the lap of Poseidon undersea resort. The world’s first underwater resort will be ready by the end of next year with breathtaking coral reefs where you can literally immerse yourself.

Surrounded by 5,000-acre lagoon, the Bruce Jones’ Poseidon Mystery Island offers luxurious 550 square feet large suites.

Not only this, the Poseidon Resorts website says, “the first 1,000 guests will have their names permanently inscribed on two monuments one on the island, and one on the floor of the lagoon.” Now, that’s incredible!



Tourists can indulge in submarine piloting, deep reef excursions, scuba diving, sea track on the sea floor, water sports, para-sailing, cave exploration, and much more.

5. The Hydropolis: A self-acclaimed 10-star underwater hotel





Location: Dubai
Designer: Joachim Hauser, Crescent Hydropolis Resorts
Estimated project cost: $500-million

The Hydropolis Undersea Resort, especially designed keeping in mind that we’re around 60% water, endeavors to deliver the serene beauty of the ocean in its true colors. The one of its kind resort will encompass a whopping 1.1-million-square-foot of area offering shopping mall, ballroom, island villas, restaurant, high-tech cinema and surprisingly, a missile-defense system for your security 60-feet underwater.

Tourists can enjoy their stay in 220 theme suites within the submarine leisure complex. It is one of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world, covering an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London’s Hyde Park.

The resort is designed with a petal-like retracting roof to organize open-sky events.



Around 150 firms are involved in the project, which is expected to complete this year if all technical, land, and financial challenges are met, but it’s delayed as per the latest reports. Following the line and determined of the success of the Hydropolis, Crescent-Hydropolis is now planning a chain of underwater hotels around the world.

4. The Lunatic Hotel: Hotel on the Moon



Designer: Hans-Jurgen Rombaut, Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (WATG)
Status: Blueprint ready, will take real shape by 2050

Orbiting in space seems more thrilling but Moon brings in a nostalgic aura. Perhaps, the Lunatic Hotel concept will serve it all with spectacular views sprinkled with joys of low gravity and an alien feeling. Designer Hans-Jurgen Rombaut of the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture in the Netherlands is quite optimistic to complete the dream project by 2050.

The ‘sensation engine’, as the designer calls it, will allow tourists to indulge in low-gravity games with the help of two 160-meters high slanting towers. The towers will be equipped with teardrop-shaped ‘habitation capsules’ which will serve as spaceship like suits for tourists.

The 50-cms thick hull made of Moon rock and layers holding water will protect inhabitants from the harsh lunar environment including extreme temperatures and lethal cosmic rays and solar particles. If the whole concept comes out successful, we can expect a real lunar village too. (Photo Credit: NASA)

3. Aeroscraft: The flying luxury hotel of tomorrow





Designer: Igor Pasternak (Worldwide Aeros Corporation), Wimberly Allison Tong & Goo (WATG)
Status: Prototype under development

The ‘Aeroscraft’ is a gigantic 400-ton blimp designed to carry passengers in its spacious luxury cosmos onboard. The flying hotel with an area equal to two football fields hangs in air with 14 million cubic feet of helium, huge electric and hydrogen fuel cell powered propellers and six turbofan jet engines. The hotel can accommodate 250 passengers driving them at a speed of 174 miles per hour up to 6, 000 miles.



Flying 8,000 feet above in the air, the 165×244x647 feet airship will provide tourists hi-tech amenities including casino, restaurants and staterooms.

Designer Igor Pasternak has also plans to float a cargo-carrying version too once the project takes off. (Photo Credit: WATG)

2. Galactic Suite





Designer Xavier Claramunt has tried to imbibe things especially to whet a adventurer’s dream with the Galactic Suite which will have around 22 rooms, measuring 7X4 meters, free of straight lines or angles and huge windows. It is termed as the first global project of its kind, next to Robert Bigelow’s space hotel. Different capsules will act as bars, restaurants, reception, and more.

The prototype is still waiting for investors to shell out their fortunes to make this project a reality.
Galactic Suite space hotel to open for business in 2012

1. Commercial Space Station Skywalker: The inflatable space hotel





Designer: Bigelow Aerospace, Las Vegas
Location: 515-kms above Earth
Status: The human space complex will be accessible by 2015
Estimated project cost: $500 million
Cost per person: $1 million a night

Certainly, we’ll have to stop this constant to and fro journey and make space our permanent base. And to make this a reality, the assembling of ‘CSS Skywalker’ kicked off with the launch of ‘Genesis I’ from Russia mid last year. Solar cells will power the inhabitable complex made of various sections that will inflate to take their real form in space. The sections or rooms of the CSS will allow rockets to dock. In future, the modules will be used as basis for space yachts and moon cruisers.

With a volume of 1,500.00 m3 and mass of 100,000 kg, the CSS Skywalker will have a maximum diameter of 30.00 m (98.00 ft).

The concept is a big challenge while it tests inflatable technology and fights to survive in hazardous conditions. Hope it’s made to face the wrath of the meteorites, though the hull of each module is made of three protective layers with an outer 18-inch-thick shield made of alternating woven graphite composite and foam to protect against orbital debris. (Photo Credit: CNet)

Hole in the world

kimberley big hole - south africa


Nb: Dalemnya 1097 Meter,tambang Diamonds total estimasi yg telah dikeruk sekitar 22,5 Jt Ton...Tambang ditutup Tahun 1914

bingham canyon mine, utah


Nb: Lubang ini memang sengaja digali untuk tambang,tambang apa sy blm tau..Penggalian dimulai Thn 1863 - Sekarang..Ukuran dalam 3/4 mil dan 2,5 mil lebar.

great blue hole, belize




Nb: Letaknya 60 mil dari daratan belize..lebarnya 1/4 mil dan dalamnya bisa mencapai 145 meter..Kalo mau diving kesitu boleh2 aja..

monticello dam in california




Nb: Lubang ini untuk menampung kalo Dam-nya sdh penuh...Bisa menampung sekitar 14.400 cubic feet Per detik

Diavik mine, canada

Nb: Ini adalah tambang Diamond,letaknya di barat daya Canada..Mempunyai pekerja sekitar 700 org dan sudah memproduksi sekitar 1600kg..krn sangat besar,sampai2 mempunyai airport akomodasi yg bisa dipakai boeing 737



lubang mirny diamond mine,siberia di rusia










lubang sinkhole, guatemala

Touch the Sun

---