Couture Butchery

This is a butcher and clothing shop I found on coolhunter.com that is based in Sydney. It perfectly combines my themes of vulgar and unusual beauty. Its a nightmare with all the meat hanging around but the clothes are beautiful and everything is displayed like art, even the meat is beautiful. The textured walls of the restaurant are really cosy and I think I would feel like I'm a teddy bears stomach of I was in this room. Its the perfect contrast to the butchery in the shop.

I'm not sure how I feel about this shop. I really love the concept and it looks beautiful on the internet but I think if I was to visit the shop it would freak me out abit!

I would definitly love to lie on these walls!
victor chuchill butchery

These textures would work on the garments maybe in knit with a contrast of the long pile walls and then the sculptural foam. This could be translated into knit really well.

Victor Churchill Butchery

 I think this would really work as a way to display clothes in a conceptual way and to have them going round so peoples attention is held.

Victor Churchill Butchery
Front of the shop

Scandinavian Folklore

Going back to the nightmare theme I discovered the Scandinavian heritage is riddled with tales of folklore including Trolls, witches and mystical nymphs and elves. I first discovered this topic when I was looking into nightmares and Brothers Grimm.


These tales are told to children to show them that anything is possible and to ignite their imagination. They are scary tales and some children do have nightmares from these but again they are told to them to prepare them for the real world and the dangers in the outside world. 

I was struck by the beautiful imagery that accomponies these tales and the play on beauty and ugly. I was particularly interested in the Trolls and the human animal cross over and the tales of outsmarting the Trolls.

A Troll counting his fortune, John Bauer
http://www.themeshack.net/2008downloads/200812/1228/patches/JohnBauerArt-wallpaper.jpg

The tales of Trolls show that money can buy you happiness as the Trolls are very rich but very unhappy and that they are mesmerised by beauty as they are so scary looking. Young Scandinavian children understand the concept of Trolls and are scared of them as they often steal children in the tales, and a way to teach children to brush their teeth is to tell them to get rid of the very small "tooth trolls" that otherwise will make holes in their teeth. (Torbjørn Egner's "Karius og Baktus").

The Huldra was supposed to be an breath taking beauty, often naked woman, inhabitant of the deep of the forests. John Bauer. http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRiBxTV9iIDyVAdefw7epZtfO8cf8N7foDDuf84EW_7yHbpQ8YCOF1cxTcQNQ

John Bauer
http://www.artsycraftsy.com/bauer/jb_queen.jpg

The illustartor John Bauer is prevalent in the illustration of the folklore tales the and his work had a lot of elements of Gustav Klimt's paintings within it, they were painting at the same time and I wonder if Bauer was influenced by Klimt's colour schemes and style. 

Klimt's "Forces of Evil"
http://www.iklimt.com/

Trolls transfixed on the Huldra, John Bauer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Bauer_1915.jpg

Here you can see the similarity between the subject matter and some of the patterns between Bauer and Klimt's work. I would like to use these creatures as a starting point to create my own folk tale. Im thinking of creating my own creatures with their own personalities to design clothes around, maybe to use each personality of the creatures as a basis for designs. Im thinking of looking into traditional folklore clothing to compliment this?