
Paris Fashion presentation “GIORGIO ARMANI PRIVĒ” Couture autumn/winter 2019/2020 2ⁿᵈ July 2019 (picture: Christian Janssen)	Milan Fashion presentation “VERSACE” Ready-to-wear spring/summer 2019 21ˢᵗ September 2018 (picture: Christian Janssen)	London Fashion presentation “PAUL COSTELLOE” Ready-to-wear autumn/winter 2018/2019 19ᵗʰ February 2018 (picture: Christian Janssen)	New York Fashion presentation “NAMILIA” Ready-to-wear spring/summer 2019 11ᵗʰ September 2018 (picture: Christian Janssen)

Index

Paris — couture autumn/winter 2022/2023

Zōa politika
Fashion and colour
The human being is a social living thing, a zōon politikon (ζῷον πολιτικόν); to work with real fashion models at physical fashion shows is more than just to regard fashion motion pictures on a screen in loneliness during the pandemic …

№ 424 · 4ᵗʰ August 2022 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

I’ll be back
Fashion weeks with real shows again
“I’ll be back,” says the Austrian-American actor Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger, alias Arnold Schwarzenegger, in the feature motion picture “THE TERMINATOR” by the Canadian director James Francis Cameron, alias James Cameron, from the year 1984 …

№ 421 · 1ˢᵗ August 2022 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear autumn/winter 2022/2023

The show must go on
Fashion between pandemic and war
From the COVID‑19 pandemic to the war in Ukraine, the fashion world cannot come to rest. On the one side, there were, step by step, less and less pandemic restrictions for fashion presentations; on the other side, the current war with some war crimes made a statement by the fashion branch necessary …

№ 419 · 1ˢᵗ May 2022 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture spring/summer 2022

The mask of the Corona
A pandemic changes the fashion world
“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all,” the American writer Edgar Allan Poe had so concluded his fantastic short story “The Mask of the Red Death” in the year 1842. In the last two years, the mask was the most necessary accessories piece during the COVID‑19 pandemic …

№ 418 · 1ˢᵗ April 2022 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Culture on the whole

Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
Culture, style and fashion worldwide
Times change, and we change with them. Now it is time for a new culture magazine. Know thyself (γνῶθι σεαυτόν) …

№ 417 · 1ˢᵗ January 2022 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture spring/summer 2020

Never give up your aim!
The fashion and the perspective
“Never give up your aim,” had been the title of a song by the German singer Harald Walter Bernhard Schubring alias Ted Herold in the year 1981. The Paris fashion designer Imane Ayissi stuck by this until he finally achieved his aim; he was the first couturier of black African origin, whose fashion presentation was included into the official calendar of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode …

№ 397 · 6ᵗʰ February 2020 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

All the luck on earth on horseback
The fashion and the mark on history
Ancient Egypt, the country of the pharaohs and pyramids, still has appeal with someone. The Beirut fashion designer Zuhair Murad admired Egyptian women who had left a mark on history by their beauty and power. Therefore, the couture collection for spring and summer of 2020 was a homage to goddesses like Isis as well as to queens like Nefertiti and Berenice …

№ 396 · 5ᵗʰ February 2020 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Between a Rhine nixie and Venetian courtesan
The fashion and the musical evergreen
Masterpieces of music are imperishable. The melody of the fairy music in the overture of the romantic opera “The Rhine Nixies” from the year 1864 had been so good, that the Franco-German composer Jakob Offenbach alias Jacques Offenbach had reused it at the barcarole (№ 13) of the fantastic opera “The Tales of Hoffmann” from the year 1881 …

№ 395 · 4ᵗʰ February 2020 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Let flowers speak!
The fashion and the homeland
The question of the personal development cannot be answered without considering the origin. The home-loving mostly arises from the studying of the origin. The Beirut fashion designer Georges Chakra honored his homeland Lebanon with the couture collection for spring and summer of 2020 …

№ 394 · 3ʳᵈ February 2020 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear spring/summer 2020

Giorgio Armani soars into the air
The fashion and the syncretism
“You peoples of the world, you peoples in America, in England, in France, in Italy! Look at this town …,” Ernst Rudolf Johannes Reuter, Chief Burgomaster of the City of Berlin, had exclaimed on 9th September 1948 during the Berlin blockade …

№ 380 · 5ᵗʰ November 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Outside ooh, inside not at all fie!
News from the apparel brand “MaxMara”
“Fiction needs more female spies,” the British feminist and publicist Natasha Walter had once uttered. Her debut novel “A Quiet Life” from the year 2016 is a spy thriller, at whose centre a female person stands …

№ 379 · 4ᵗʰ November 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

In the sun
The fashion and the polemics
The Paris fashion house “Maison Margiela” is present in the fashion weeks not only in Paris, but also in Milan. For its brand “MM6”, the event site “FABBRICA OROBIA 15” was the place, where the ready‑to‑wear collection for spring and summer of 2020 was shown on 18th September 2019 …

№ 378 · 3ʳᵈ November 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan goes bathing
The fashion and the climate rescue
The Milan fashion week from 17th September 2019 to 23rd September 2019, where it was about the ready‑to‑wear collections for spring and summer of 2020, became a damp affair, because a few presentations – it concerned the brands “UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON”, “Francesca Liberatore” and “ICEBERG” – took place at the edge of swimming pools …

№ 376 · 1ˢᵗ November 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture autumn/winter 2019/2020

Giorgio Armani in the night of love
The fashion and the metropolis
“I love to invite my friends,” it says in Prince Orlofsky’s couplet (№ 7) of the operetta “The Flittermouse” by the Vienna composer Johann Baptist Strauss (son) from the year 1874. What would a fashion show be without guests? The Milan fashion designer Giorgio Armani hosted the Australian-American actress and film producer Nicole Mary Kidman as a special guest …

№ 372 · 4ᵗʰ August 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear autumn/winter 2019/2020

Genius of fashion
News from the apparel brand “MONCLER GENIUS”
In the fashion world, sometimes a new creature sees the light of day. Remo Ruffini, chairman and chief executive officer of the MONCLER SPA in Milan, had conceived the apparel brand “MONCLER GENIUS” as a new business and communications model in the last year in order to celebrate the diversity of customers in the digital era. Thereupon he brought a “symposium of creative minds” into being …

№ 358 · 1ˢᵗ May 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture spring/summer 2019

Orion on the sea bed
The fashion and the fetish
The maritime world is a fascination, so when, by boundless horizon, the surface of the water glisters under the night sky. In view of the richness of the oceans, the Beirut fashion designer Zuhair Murad’s creative spirit dived into the sea as deep as its bed, so to speak …

№ 353 · 6ᵗʰ February 2019 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear spring/summer 2019

Donatella Versace and Medusa’s mystic power
The fashion and the five senses
Medusa, a Gorgon of originally beguiling beauty, is a monster with serpent hairs, pig tusks, bronze arms, glowing eyes, an outsticking tongue and a scale armour. The sight makes every viewer solidify into stones. Medusa’s mystical power was the mark of a powerful personality …

№ 340 · 16ᵗʰ November 2018 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture autumn/winter 2018/2019

Twenty-five years
News from the fashion brand “VIKTOR&ROLF”
Twenty-five years are a long time. In the year 1983, the song “25 Years” of the British band “The Catch” had been concerned wasted time and punishment. Other than in the song, there was something to celebrate in Paris recently. The Dutch fashion designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren looked back happily on twenty-five years of creative work …

№ 323 · 5ᵗʰ August 2018 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear autumn/winter 2018/2019

Catharsis
The fashion and the theatre
Just as theatre has a “cathartic and restorative” effect, so fashion activates the “collective and individual spark of change”. This was the fashion designer Lavinia Biagiotti Cigna’s firm conviction; she considered herself the guardian of Italian cultural heritage like her in the last year deceased mother and predecessor Laura Biagiotti …

№ 316 · 13ᵗʰ May 2018 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Elisabetta Franchi, Monica Vitti and the charismatic irony
Back to the sparkle of the 1970s
The fashion designer Elisabetta Franchi from Granarolo dell’Emilia near Bologna knows how to stage fashion glamorously. This time the Italian actress Maria Luisa Ceciarelli alias Monica Vitti was her inspiring muse as a modern symbol of authenticity. Everything revolved around the style of the 1970s as an era of female rebellion and power …

№ 313 · 10ᵗʰ May 2018 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture spring/summer 2018

There spoke the old chief of the red Indians
The fashion and the Charleston
The cultural heritage of foreign peoples is a rich treasure, which must be salvaged and preserved for posterity. Beirut fashion designer Zuhair Murad, who respected indigenous cultures all along, turned his attention to the American continent. He discovered the symbols and visual vocabulary of the Native Americans, especially the Sioux, Navajos and Iroquois …

№ 301 · 6ᵗʰ February 2018 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

The health of grace
The fashion and the salvation
The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had once remarked to German composer Richard Wagner: “Wagner has not thought about anything as deeply as about salvation. His opera is the opera of salvation.” …

№ 300 · 5ᵗʰ February 2018 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear spring/summer 2018

The wind of change
News from the fashion brand “roberto cavalli”
Based in Sesto Fiorentino near Florence, the brand “roberto cavalli”, a local brand with a global audience, had undergone enormous alterations. After Gian Giacomo Ferraris, as head of the management of the fashion house, had completed its restructuring, it had come to a change at the creative top …

№ 276 · 6ᵗʰ November 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Giorgio Armani in the artist’s atelier
The fashion and the power of the artistic gesture
Mass phenomena, whether swarm intelligence or herd mentality, are not the Milan Giorgio Armani’s matter, because he is not a fashion designer, who jumps through every hoop, which the apparent trend dangles in front of him …

№ 275 · 5ᵗʰ November 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Many thanks for the flowers!
News from the fashion brand “MOSCHINO”
At the Italian brand “MOSCHINO”, one relied on characters. The American fashion designer Jeremy Scott, who had worked for the brand since the year 2013, stocked the ready‑to‑wear collection for spring and summer 2018 with tomboyish ballerinas and human flower bouquets …

№ 274 · 4ᵗʰ November 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture autumn/winter 2017/2018

Azzedine Alaïa as a revenant in a good kind
The fashion and the dystopia
On 6th October 1989 Erich Honecker, President of the Council of State of the German Democratic Republic, had explained: “Persons declared dead live longer.” Here he had thought of his own well-being, but the unintended irony in his words had first come to light, when in the following year the so-called GDR had perished as a political entity and a subject of international law despite the jubilation, ordered by the authorities, on the occasion of its forty years of existence …

№ 266 · 8ᵗʰ August 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Wild animals in magical forests
The fashion and the infinity
A model of femininity has facets, which are subjects to change, and those, which rigidify. With his predilection for women, whose femininity was immense and who knew to accept themselves fully, the Beirut fashion designer Georges Chakra took up the girl in flowers from the last season …

№ 264 · 6ᵗʰ August 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld and the inner voice
The fashion and the fragrance
What would be a fashion week without celebration? So the so-called after-show parties do not only follow the fashion shows, but also events, where something other than clothing, for example a new fragrance, is presented in a solemn atmosphere, come to pass. For fifteen years there had been no new fragrance from the house “CHANEL”. Finally it was about time; on 4th July 2017 the new perfume “GABRIELLE CHANEL” was introduced …

№ 263 · 5ᵗʰ August 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear autumn/winter 2017/2018

Óscar de la Renta far away from baroque splendour
The fashion as a total artwork
The fashion designer Óscar de la Renta from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic founded the brand “Oscar de la Renta” in New York in the year 1966, after he had worked first in Madrid and then in Paris …

№ 241 · 10ᵗʰ May 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

A man for all cases and furs respectively: Gianfranco Ferré
Fur fashion from Italy
In the year 1987 the Milan fashion designer Dr. Gianfranco Ferré created his first collection of fur clothing. Nowadays, after his death in the year 2007, the brand “GIANFRANCO FERRE FURS” belongs to the Mondialpelli Spa in Milan, which also produces the garments …

№ 240 · 9ᵗʰ May 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Paris — couture spring/summer 2017

One more brick in the wall
The fashion and the pyrotechnics
The 1980s will presumably never pass. The impressive and sensational products of this era do not go out of one’s mind. This applies to, for example, the American television series “DYNASTY” …

№ 229 · 6ᵗʰ February 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

“Puttin’ on the Ritz”
Fashion from China and Japan in Paris
An opposite cannot be bigger, when the collections for the fresh spring and the warm summer are presented in the middle of the cold winter like in the couture week in January of every year. In the world of high fashion the brand „RALPH & RUSSO“ with its precious, freshening creations could not be assumed away anymore …

№ 226 · 3ʳᵈ February 2017 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

Milan — ready‑to‑wear spring/summer 2017

Gaia Trussardi, Theodor W. Adorno and the pop culture
Fashion for unification of worlds
Fashion designers are many-sided. The Paris fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld designs theatre costumes, designs furniture and photographs by the way. On the contrary composing is Milan fashion designer Gaia Trussardi’s further field of activity …

№ 208 · 8ᵗʰ November 2016 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece

The charming Giorgio Armani
Fashion between discipline and freedom
Standstill is unthinkable in fashion, because fashion means the perpetual movement of the manner of clothing; thus fashion necessitates a development of the clothing design. The Milan fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who stands for a sophisticated natural spirit, did not want to close his mind to such an evolution …

№ 205 · 5ᵗʰ November 2016 — by Christian Janssen ☞ To the piece


Berlin Ballet performance “THE NUTCRACKER” Berlin State Ballet 22ⁿᵈ October 2013 (picture: Christian Janssen)	Berlin Ballet performance “LA ESMERALDA” Berlin State Ballet 8ᵗʰ April 2011 (picture: Christian Janssen)	Berlin Ballet performance “Festive Ballet Gala” Berlin State Ballet 13ᵗʰ September 2013 (picture: Christian Janssen)	Berlin Revue performance “VIVID GRAND SHOW EINE LIEBESERKLÄRUNG AN DAS LEBEN” FRIEDRICHSTADT-PALAST 4ᵗʰ October 2018 (picture: Christian Janssen)