Shirin Neshat, the Iranian-American visual artist, has had an exiguous but rewarding career. Her body of work, mostly engaging the position of women vis-à-vis Islam, is scant but forceful. The new book, Shirin Neshat (Rizzoli, $75), is an ambitious effort to gather her art under one roof. The 272-page volume documents all of Neshat’s projects with photographs and stills from her videos and her first feature film, Women Without Men.
    Neshat’s first undertaking, a series of photograph’s called The Women of Allah, remains her most poignant work. The photos depict Iranian women shrouded in veils and holding guns. Farsi poetry, including songs about martyrdom and sexual longing, is inscribed on their faces, hands, and feet. From Neshat, whose work is banned in Iran, one would expect a pointed critique of Islamist extremism, but the viewer doesn’t quite get that. The women don’t look like victims.
    The rest of Neshat’s work is less ambivalent. The book is full of stills from her videos depicting separation of sexes and limitations of women’s personal freedom. The book culminates with stills from Women Without Men. The film deals with oppression of women in Iran. It is based on the eponymous novel by Shahrnush Parsipur, about four women who are betrayed by the society in which they live. The photos in the book succeed in freezing the characters’ complex emotions and revealing their suffering. These silent and abandoned women surely find a sympathetic voice in Neshat, whose work remains urgent and charged.
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When creative fashion designers such as Yohji Yamamoto or Raf Simons want to try their hand at creating sunglasses, they call on Simon Jablon, the owner of the London-based eyewear brand Linda Farrow. The company boasts an unparalleled heritage. It was established in 1970 by Jablon’s mother, whose name the line carries today. Linda Farrow started out as a fashion designer, before realizing that she could approach eyewear the way designers approach fashion, putting a creative spin on a quotidian product. The London scene quickly caught onto her quirky designs, and Farrow became their go-to brand for sunglasses. Remember those famous wraparound shades that Yoko Ono wore in her photos from the ’70s? They were Linda Farrow.
    The company was successful through the ’80s and then slowly drifted out of sight. It wasn’t until Jablon stumbled upon Farrow’s archive that a light bulb went off in his head. Thus, the company was resurrected. “What makes the company unique,” Jablon said when we caught up at Pitti Uomo in Florence, “is that there was never any business plan behind restarting it. As a child I could never quite grasp my mother’s achievement because you don’t think about your parents in terms of their career. The whole thing happened by chance. One day I was helping out my father, who asked me to clean out our family warehouse. So, I went over there to go through my mother’s stuff. There were boxes upon boxes of samples, and only after handling the eyeglasses I realized that I stumbled upon a treasure.”
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Somewhere along the line luxury became a dirty word, and Karl Marx had probably less to do with it than Tom Ford. Contemporary consumer culture now champions oversexed logo-ed bling over subdued elegance. But there exist designers who aim to produce garments that are neither cocaine cocktail dress or the power suit. Rather, they are interested in making clothes that are real, not role-play, while conserving artisanal techniques that are slowly fading away as mass-production gains speed.
    Lost & Found, a small fashion company whose design studio is hidden in the Tuscan countryside, was founded by Ria Dunn, a Canadian expat, in order to produce clothes based on the organic relationship between the maker and his craft. According to a statement on her website, “This intimate work is designed and made entirely in Italy and is produced by the old hands of those still carrying with them the spirit of ‘hand made’ craftsmanship.”
    This intimacy is evident in the men’s and women’s garments Dunn produces, from carefully selected natural materials, such as cashmeres and wools interwoven with hemp and linen fibers, down to hand-finished stitching. The results feel earthy and organic. The textures are neither overly soft nor rough. This combination lured Karlo Steel, the buyer from Atelier, to Lost & Found.
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Henri Cartier-Bresson, the famous French photographer, had an incredibly prolific career as a photojournalist and portraitist. He traveled the globe for fifty years, from Mexico to Indonesia, obsessively freeze-framing the world, turning the ephemeral into the permanent. The new Cartier-Bresson retrospective at the MoMA, opening on April 11, is the first since the photographer’s death in 2004. It aims to put together a comprehensive summary of his illustrious career.
    The exhibit contains three hundred photographs dating from 1929 to 1989, one fifth of them previously unpublished. Divided into twelve chapters, it highlights Cartier-Bresson’s biggest accomplishments, most notably as the pioneer of the photo-essay genre. Among these are his trips to Communist China and the USSR, places that were not the most welcoming to Western photographers.
    It is not the photojournalism, however, that is the most moving part of the show. The middle of the exhibit is devoted to a selection of exquisite portraits that captures the essence of its subjects. There is a beautiful picture of Henri Matisse, the famous painter, serenely contemplating his pigeons. The well-known image of Albert Camus, the cigarette in his mouth and the collar of his coat upturned, the very picture of un homme is juxtaposed against the photo of Jean Paul-Sartre, his great existentialist friend and enemy.
    Cariter-Bresson once said that his aim was to engage the world. Of course, we’ve long known that he succeeded, and the MoMA exhibition is a testament to that, in case we had forgotten.

Robert Hughes, the famous art critic, once said that an artist’s charge is to produce art that has something to say about our world. Federico Fellini, the celebrated Italian film director, was acutely aware of this task. In 8 ½, arguably his most renowned film, the protagonist, a director caught in the midst of creative stupor, reflects, “I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves.”
    The new book, Federico Fellini: The Films (Rizolli, $75), carefully explores Fellini’s oeuvre. The 317-page tome is beautifully laid out, full of behind-the-scene images and biographical photos, many published for the first time. Some of the photos printed in the book are iconic, like the image of Anita Ekberg splashing in Fontana de Trevi from La Dolce Vita. Other visuals, like Fellini’s drawings are extremely rare.
    Yet, this is not merely a coffee table book. The volume successfully combines lush imagery with a meticulous study of each of the twenty-five pictures that Fellini directed. These summaries are written by Tullio Kezich, the director’s faithful biographer, and contain comprehensive background information, from ideas born in Felinni’s head to their final manifestation as films. Each chapter starts with a quote by the director that relays an anecdote, inviting us into the filmmaker’s world, depicting his struggles and anxieties. Fellini was dubbed the Maestro, but the book depicts a man who doubted, questioned, and painstakingly toiled in order to achieve the mastery of cinematic form while maintaining a singular voice.
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Sometimes we forget the meaning of the most common words. For example, ask yourself, “What is design?” The answer may not be as easy as you think. And maybe there is no single answer, but here is one: design is a carefully thought out process of manifesting ideas into physical form. Designers who do this are worthy of the name. Luca Laurini, the creator behind Label Under Construction (LUC), a niche clothing brand, is certainly one of them. Every garment designed by Laurini and manufactured by this obscure Italian brand is so carefully thought out that sometimes the level of detail borders on the obsessive. Despite being sold in exclusive boutiques around the world, Laurini is equally committed to keeping a low profile and avoiding the fashion media brouhaha. This is the first ever interview he has granted. (Don’t bother googling, there is no website.)
    I caught up with Laurini in LUC’s carefully hidden showroom in Le Marais. Dressed in his own clothes, Laurini was milling around the big white space where his clothes hung by their metal tags from one continuous spool of wire screwed into the wall along the room’s perimeter. He was helping buyers with their orders, patiently answering their questions. Laurini has a slim build and his bearded face is warm and inviting. He looks every bit the artisan that he is.
    The essence of Label Under Construction is its intricate knitwear.
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It’s no secret that the fragrance market is oversaturated, with about two hundred new perfumes launching each year. A perfume is the cheapest way to buy into a brand, and therefore a highly lucrative business. Everyone, be it a jewelry company or a newly minted Paris Hilton clone, wants a piece of the $15 billion-a-year pie.
    Kaya Sorhaindo, the man behind the fragrance project Six Scents, wanted to do something different. He came up with an idea: take six young, promising fashion designers and pair them with expert perfumers in order to create unique scents manufactured in small amounts. Sorhaindo discussed this idea with Symrise, a German scent laboratory, and thus Six Scents Series One was born. Symrise provided the perfumers and Joseph Quartana, the co-owner of a SoHo boutique Seven, chose the designers. “We tried to pick designers without previous experience with fragrances but with a strong vision and their own esthetic,” Sorhaindo told me in a recent interview. The line up for Series One includes such names as Bernard Willhelm and Gareth Pugh. The current collection, Series Two, features Damir Doma and Henrik Vibksov, among others.
    Cutting out the middlemen was essential to Sorhaindo. “It’s a one-on-one experience between the designer and the perfumer,” he said. “Once a frustrated perfumer who was collaborating with Bernhard Willhelm called me: ‘Bernhard wants a perfume that smells like air and water. I can’t create a fragrance that doesn’t smell like anything.’
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These days Robert Geller, a New York-based menswear designer, is busier than ever, which is just the way he likes it. Besides his successful eponymous line and a collaboration with Levi’s, Geller is launching a new retail venture, called Key Shop. The temporary store, a partnership between Geller and Greg Armas, the owner of the eclectic Lower East Side boutique Assembly, will feature a carefully edited selection of Geller’s products, many exclusive to the store.
 Geller has quietly become a fashion fixture of the downtown scene, his slim and pale dandy aesthetic fitting well with skinny dudes of unspecified occupations that roam the streets below Houston and well east of Broadway. “I feel that the Lower East side is where the Robert Geller guy likes to be,” wrote Geller in an email message. “The area has a lot of stores and restaurants popping up, and is still developing nicely. The guys (and girls) there get our aesthetic and will understand the store. I feel like it is the most exciting area of New York right now.”
 So, if you want your key (get it?!) Geller items, like a poncho made of cupro and cotton and suede ankle boots, they will be waiting for you at 129 Rivington St., but only until April 15, when the temporary shop will close its doors.
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Ever wanted to touch a cloud? Now you can. Because that’s what a Faliero Sarti scarf feels like in your hand. For Monica Sarti, the head designer, the tactile experience is of paramount importance – her company’s most popular fabric is a cashmere/silk blend that infuses the scarves with extraordinary softness.
     L’Accessorio Faliero Sarti was founded in 1949 in Tuscany, Italy. It started out as a fabrics house, supplying the newly reborn Italian clothing industry with high quality textiles from its mill. As its reputation grew, so did the list of their clients, which now includes Chanel and Donna Karan.
     But Monica Sarti wanted to take the company further than a mere textile manufacturer. Making accessories seemed like a first logical step, since Sarti already possessed extensive expertise in fabrics. Nevertheless, she wanted to push her obsession with manipulating the yarn further. I caught up with co-owner Federico Sarti at Pitti Uomo in Florence to discuss their fabric choices and methods of production. “We are famous of course for using traditional fabrics like cashmere, wool, and modal,” said he, “but we are now also experimenting with more innovative materials such as protein and bamboo.”
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Today is a sad day in the world of fashion. Alexander McQueen, the notorious British designer, passed away at the age of forty, cutting short one of the most illustrious creative careers. He apparently committed suicide just days after his mother passed on. He was supposed to present his next women’s collection in Paris in a month.
     McQueen was a genius. He relentlessly pushed the boundaries of fashion, especially with his phantasmagoric runway presentations, shocking his audience not only by the sheer force of his imagination, but also by his willingness to engage controversial topics in the industry that is immune to seriousness. For the Fall/Winter 1995 collection, titled “Highland Rape” he reflected on the English rule of his native Scotland, sending out models in airy clothes that were shredded at the breast. For the Spring/Summer 2001 collection, McQueen tackled the behind-the-scenes tragedy of the picture-perfect model image, putting models in a reflective-glass house. It was narcissism bordering on insanity. As the finale, another glass box was presented with writer Michelle Olley, naked, her body fat, face hidden by a mask, hooked up to a life support machine and covered with moths. There has never been a more poignant commentary on image obsession in fashion, and there probably never will be.
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