A daily fashion blog and podcast that looks at the future through the lens of the four main fashion tribes: Apocalytical, Supremium, Folkspun & Futurenetic.
A Witch Woman & Some Droogs at Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring 2015
Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, who preferred just Cameron, was a force of nature. Literally, according to her man, Jack Parsons, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which sends rockets into deep space. For a rocket scientist (literally), Parsons had quite the mystical side; a follower of the English occultist Aleister Crowley, he teamed up in the 1940s with the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, to practice a form of sex magick called the Babalon Working. And when the blue eyed, red-haired Cameron arrived in Los Angeles by way of the Second World War, where she had worked for a photographic unit of the U.S. Navy drawing maps (she was an unparalled draftsman) and showed up at Parsons's pad, he believed he had finally invoked an earthly incarnation of the Thelemite goddess Babalon. (image)
Goddess or no, this artist/poet/actress/occultist is now considered a countercultural icon in the development of postwar Los Angeles art - and influential enough to have inspired Cameron: Songs for the Witch Woman at MOCA Pacific Design Center (October 11, 2014–January 11, 2015). “A key figure navigating between disciplines and traditions of poetry, cinema, visual arts, and spirituality; Cameron has opened many doors that continue to intrigue and inspire generations of artists," observes MOCA Director Philippe Vergne. "Her hallucinated vision, at the edge of surrealism and psychedelia embodies an aspect of modernity that deeply doubts and defies cartesian logic at a moment in history when these values have shown their own limitations. Her work demonstrates that the space in the mind is without limit."
Cameron certainly transcended the limits of time and space to land on the Marc by Marc Jacobs runway for Spring 2015, after the line's co-designer, Luella Bartley (Katie Hillier is the other half) became interested in L.A.'s Ferus Gallery. It operated in L.A. from 1957-1966 and was the first gallery on the West Coast to devote a solo show to Andy Warhol. Others exhibited there included Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Frank Stella. Artist Ed Ruscha compared it to a jazz catalog: "a lot of different voices under the same record label. Each had a very distinctive take on the world and on his work, and so that made it a very vital place to aspire to and to be." With outlaw panache as well, after Cameron's tiny, matchbook-sized Peyote Vision (below) inspired an oversized vice raid at Ferus.
(image: Aleister Crowley's Guardian Angel by Cameron, Oil on board, 29 ½ x 19 ½ inches. Courtesy the Cameron Parsons Foundation, Santa Monica. Photo by Alan Shaffer via source)
Drugs also loomed large with the droogs, the ultra-violent friends in A Clockwork Orange who also walked at MBMJ, according to the insightful fashion critic Tim Blanks. He observed that both elements seemed to express the tribal vibe that characterizes fashion...which I buy into, obviously, having named my site Fashiontribes.
From the capelets, to the polka dots, nurse'ish stockings and post-apocalyptic feel, MBMJ seemed to shout "girl gang" - in a non-nurturing, scary sorta way. Which is indeed very Apocalytical, the fashion tribe I track that concerns itself with being appropriately attired for a walk on the dark side. For more of my posts and podcasts about this tribe, CLICK HERE.
A Witch Woman & Some Droogs at Marc by Marc Jacobs Spring 2015
Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, who preferred just Cameron, was a force of nature. Literally, according to her man, Jack Parsons, one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which sends rockets into deep space. For a rocket scientist (literally), Parsons had quite the mystical side; a follower of the English occultist Aleister Crowley, he teamed up in the 1940s with the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard, to practice a form of sex magick called the Babalon Working. And when the blue eyed, red-haired Cameron arrived in Los Angeles by way of the Second World War, where she had worked for a photographic unit of the U.S. Navy drawing maps (she was an unparalled draftsman) and showed up at Parsons's pad, he believed he had finally invoked an earthly incarnation of the Thelemite goddess Babalon. (image)
Goddess or no, this artist/poet/actress/occultist is now considered a countercultural icon in the development of postwar Los Angeles art - and influential enough to have inspired Cameron: Songs for the Witch Woman at MOCA Pacific Design Center (October 11, 2014–January 11, 2015). “A key figure navigating between disciplines and traditions of poetry, cinema, visual arts, and spirituality; Cameron has opened many doors that continue to intrigue and inspire generations of artists," observes MOCA Director Philippe Vergne. "Her hallucinated vision, at the edge of surrealism and psychedelia embodies an aspect of modernity that deeply doubts and defies cartesian logic at a moment in history when these values have shown their own limitations. Her work demonstrates that the space in the mind is without limit."
Cameron certainly transcended the limits of time and space to land on the Marc by Marc Jacobs runway for Spring 2015, after the line's co-designer, Luella Bartley (Katie Hillier is the other half) became interested in L.A.'s Ferus Gallery. It operated in L.A. from 1957-1966 and was the first gallery on the West Coast to devote a solo show to Andy Warhol. Others exhibited there included Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Frank Stella. Artist Ed Ruscha compared it to a jazz catalog: "a lot of different voices under the same record label. Each had a very distinctive take on the world and on his work, and so that made it a very vital place to aspire to and to be." With outlaw panache as well, after Cameron's tiny, matchbook-sized Peyote Vision (below) inspired an oversized vice raid at Ferus.
(image: Aleister Crowley's Guardian Angel by Cameron, Oil on board, 29 ½ x 19 ½ inches. Courtesy the Cameron Parsons Foundation, Santa Monica. Photo by Alan Shaffer via source)
Drugs also loomed large with the droogs, the ultra-violent friends in A Clockwork Orange who also walked at MBMJ, according to the insightful fashion critic Tim Blanks. He observed that both elements seemed to express the tribal vibe that characterizes fashion...which I buy into, obviously, having named my site Fashiontribes.
From the capelets, to the polka dots, nurse'ish stockings and post-apocalyptic feel, MBMJ seemed to shout "girl gang" - in a non-nurturing, scary sorta way. Which is indeed very Apocalytical, the fashion tribe I track that concerns itself with being appropriately attired for a walk on the dark side. For more of my posts and podcasts about this tribe, CLICK HERE.
