Yiba Jaba: February 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

The end of the plain plane

Who should be in charge of an ad campaign? The clients or the ad agency? That’s a question presented to interviewees in the documentary “Art & copy”. If the ad agencies were to please the clients in anyway they could and not push the boundaries, there may not have been “The end of the plain plane” or “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” Braniff campaign.

Braniff revamped the look of airline uniforms with Emilio Pucci’s bold colors — turquoise, parrot, green, and purple, go-go boots, and even space helmets. The stewardess job has since been more appealing. United Airlines, in 1967, recruited with the slogan “Marriage is fine! But shouldn’t you see the world first?” and with Jean Louis’s mini dresses and matching hats.

Long gone is the “golden-age” of flying. Christian Lacroix for Air france or Kate Spade for Delta were not much fanfare. The plane is back to be in plain and the stewardesses are now married. No more fun colors and prints for the long haul. Who is to blame? The companies that are too conservative, or the ad agencies that only work for the clients' needs?

Pucci for Braniff

Jean Louis for UA

Pictures of Jean Louis for UA from: Colette

Friday, February 4, 2011

Fellini, la Grande Parade

Federico Fellini and his wife Giulietta Masina

“I haven’t been to Via Veneto since La Dolce Vita” Valentino said so in “Valentino, the Last Emperor”, kicking off his couture show with Nino Rota’s music. It is in a café on the Via Veneto in 1960 where he met his lifelong partner. It is also on Via Veneto where Federico Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” was born, although the street in the scene was created in a studio.

Composed primarily of photographs and drawings of Fellini, the exhibition “Fellini, la Grande Parade” at Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris raised the veil on part of the mechanisms of Fellini’s creation.

Fellini went to Rome and made a living, first as a caricature artist then as a scriptwriter, both using pencils. Whichever medium Fellini used to express his fantasies and anxieties, the same world in his imagination seems to have been created—a world where all desires were explored. As he himself noted, “All art is autobiographical.” Through the movie characters, the exhibition again shows the dreams and obsessions of Federico Fellini.

Reference: Jeu de Paume

Jeu de Paume, Paris

Fellini drawing

La Dolce Vita