DEPESHA

D was established in 2010 by Stephan R. Rabimov, publisher and editor-in-chief of DEPESHA magazine, with the aim to create 'an independent, in-house' public relations and marketing consultancy specializing in global markets entry activities for established and emerging fashion/arts clients. D cultivates a multi-channel approach to brand development, amplified by innovative vision and results-oriented execution, across a variety of platforms: events, runway shows, presentations, installations, digital and mobile applications. Over the last four years D has led the PR strategies, marketing and production of the American program for the Aurora Fashion Week in St. Petersburg, including fashion designer Thom Browne’s first-ever showcase in Russia; supported the launch of Nicola Formichetti’s pop-up store in New York City's TRIBECA with BOFFO Foundation; collaborated with Fashion Institute of Technology’s Museum of Fashion and San Francisco based Academy of Art University on a variety of initiatives, and successfully brokered media partnerships with the Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Russia, Mercedes Benz Kiev Fashion Days as well as Korean Preview, La Jolla Fashion Film Festival, Fashion Art Toronto, Vancouver Fashion Week, StyleUZ, among other prominent international fashion events, resulting in new market opportunities for our clients. Contact us: [email protected]

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SF Film Festival Is Your Ticket To The World

Film is an escape. With a giant cup of soda and a large tub of popcorn I feel ready to enter any unknown worlds I am about to experience in a movie theater. What awaits me? Time will tell, well in exactly one and a half hours, the average film length today. The San Francisco Film Festival that was launched on April 5th and concludes on April 19th offers two weeks of non stop fun for moviegoers of any taste. From shorts to documentaries, from full feature to experimental films, SF Film festival in its 60th year remains a memorable, transcending experience.

Don't know what to watch? Don't fret. Lean on me to offer you a glimpse into my worldly taste and aesthetics. Below I present some key selections for the next seven days that you still have a chance to catch. Just don't blink or you will miss it.

DUET

Iranian cinema continues to make headlines, and Duet by David Danesh is a fine example of the contemporary cinema from the Middle East. Four characters, four voices, all distinct and all vying for attention. The only connection these people have are their past and their present. Expect some drama.

THE STUDENT

Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov does it again. Tensions build up when a young student discovers The Bible and attempts to follow it blindly. Can he cope in the modern world, which is so tempting and sinful? Can he learn to adapt to its conflicting surroundings? See this slow-paced yet high-octane film that will leave you emotionally moved.

BEACH RATS

Sometimes best is homegrown. Made in the USA feature film by the Sundance Film Festival winning director Eliza Hittman, Beach Rats tells a conventional story of coming out in an unconventional way. Is the protagonist a slave or the master of his own reality? The answers are not so transparent. 

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VALENTINO takes on FOREVER Sure, love is a universal currency that helped humanity to phoenix through many a fire. When it comes to design, it’s also an eye-rolling caution-sounding cliché. To say a collection is inspired by love is to infer a muse may’ve taken a leave of absence. For their Valentino haute couture outing, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli bypassed the saccharine imagery to seek a vision steeped in metanarratives of greater gravity. Their ambitious fusion of Marc Chagall’s epic visuals with Italian grand poetics is an emotional testament worth its historic sources. True love favors not happenstance but rewards a painstaking commitment to pursuit of perfection. Plenty of layered chiffon and gauze maintained classic maison silhouettes in midi to floor-length bustier dresses with see-thru inserts eloquent enough for a body to manifest its own self-evident truths. The understated palette of beige, aqua and yellow pastels was richly accented by burgundy, nightshade and gold touches. Black and red velvet pieces served double duty as collection’s punctuation marks and tribute to brand’s glamour credo. Gowns hand-painted in assured strokes brought forth Chagall’s love of theater, his ballet costumes and fabrics collages featured recently in a superb retrospective at Palazzo Reale in Milan. The collection also offered a poignant insight into complexities of cross-cultural referencing in fashion. Automated critical response attributed the Slavic motifs in embroidery to Russian graphics heritage. However, the patterns appear arguably Ukrainian in color and design. Yet, they pay homage to the life and work of Chagall whose Jewish roots are spellbound to the rooftops of Vitebsk, a city in northeastern Belarus… Suddenly the red thread lines crisscross not just linen frocks, but maps and histories of an entire geopolitical region currently marred by territorial conflict and refugee displacement yet again. No matter how far into the past or the future fashion ventures, it cannot help but be made of zeitgeist. This is what makes any work of art timeless… like a Dante lyric woven into a Chagallesque bouquet on a Valentino skirt. Amor Vincit Omnia.

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SINGULARITIES: RAF/DIOR/BOWIE Raf Simons is a fashion media godsend… It’s not enough to wear-or-not his creations, oh please! The work demands analysis with shifts of perspectives and contexts to be understood within the Simons oeuvre itself. Few designers inspire such fervent critical discourse. Then again, few dare to deliver conceptually challenging collections opting for the commercially digestible consistency of trend-able garments. Not much wrong with that, yet Simons never appeared to care about being right. His are questions of a higher (style) order. While the presentation had some requisitely Dior silhouetted dresses, it was the inimitable amalgamation of three post-war decades that marked a brand departure/arrival for Simons. The stoic romanticism of the fifties, the sixties and its cultural Thaw, the wildly experimental seventies…. altogether reimagined into singular ensembles that could hardly be labeled “retro”. Radical plastic appeared in harmony with such haute couture staples like guipure and jacquard. Vinyl thigh boots paired with layered lace in a way that for once did not evoke streetwalker canon. Glorious floral prints and appliques on dresses complemented psychedelic abstractions of one-suits. Nearly everything came exquisitely bejeweled. The out-of-this-worldness of the latest Simmons endeavor was aptly underscored by tapping into David Bowie’s cult musical legacy. It took a real alchemist to lure the ghost of Christian Dior away from the maison runways while keeping the new look spirit alive.

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Lanvin Resort 2015

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McQ by Alexander McQueen Resort 2015

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Mugler Resort 2015

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Zac Posen Resort 2015

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Jean Paul Gaultier Resort 2015

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http://depesha.com/arts-culture/culture/kazaky-the-sun-official-music-video

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DEPESHA offers a look at top five Kiev-based designers who are crafting Ukrainian history against all odds. Read more @ http://depesha.com/arts-culture/culture/fashiondiplomacy-ukraine

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DEPESHA joins NYC-ARTS platform as an online partner. Discover what NYC has to offer via DEPESHA curated list of activities on www.depesha.com

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Halston Heritage Resort 2015

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DEPESHA partners with the Vancouver Fashion Week as the International Media Sponsor for the Spring/Summer 2015 showcase from September 15th to 21st, 2014. “Our compatibility goes far beyond the stellar social media statistics, complimentary demographics and scope of interest in fashion and arts. DEPESHA and VFW share an appreciation for the grassroots cultural efforts and we both honor an individual’s desire to manifest their creative potential. We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration,” comments Stephan R. Rabimov, founder and editor-in-chief of DEPESHA.

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“As a global fashion event, our core values are to promote and facilitate the exposure of creativity and fashion prodigy, regardless of geographical or socio-economic boundaries. The partnership between Vancouver Fashion Week and DEPESHA is forged from the shared belief that the showcase of emerging fashion talent should take absolute priority in shaping the fashion industry,” says Jamal Abdourahman, VFW’s executive producer.

http://depesha.com/fashion/depesha-joins-vancouver-fashion-week-as-official-international-media-sponsor

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DEPESHA VOL. 8 / 2014 'FASHION FILM' - is an intoxicating exploration of style as a form of cinematic spectacle, exploring episodes in world contemporary fashion and film that foreground costume, adornment, and styling as vehicles of sensuous pleasure and enchantment. Curated by Stephan R. Rabimov, editor-in-chief of DEPESHA, for your viewing pleasure at depeshavol8.squarespace.com/

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Film as a medium of diplomacy has historically transcended brewing conflicts and changing borders. Best Foreign Film Oscar for the USSR classic “Cranes Are Flying” awarded at the height of the Cold War helped re-humanize the Soviet people in the eyes of a world caught amidst propaganda wars. Fashion has never been too far from the international relations scene as well. Images of Jacqueline Kennedy in Moscow still speak volumes to the political power of style. No wonder that fashion film as an emergent genre keeps true to its diplomatic mission roots. From the open vistas lit by volcanic embers to the vacuum-tight spaces of memory… fashion films in DEPESHA VOL. 8 / 2014 ‘FASHION FILM‘ preserve the cultural zeitgeist. In just under 80 minutes of total screening time, the twenty five short videos, curated by Stephan R. Rabimov - DEPESHA’s founder and editor-in-chief - provide a rare insight into the mindset of a current generation of designers, performers and artists facing the ever-mounting pressures of contemporary politics, business and love. Life appears as an intoxicating exploration of styles in a form of cinematic spectacle that foregrounds costume, adornment, and visual mood as the all-six-senses vehicle for (dis)pleasure, (dis)enchantment and (dis)content. Not to be missed, to be continued…