I used to love the diorama halls when I was a kid. They were so magical... like little portholes into these fascinating animal worlds.
Though I think a few of the cases could do with a spot of dusting and maintenance I must admit they are still pretty striking.
I love all of the little details they include in each display...
It was "First Fridays" when I was there so unfortunately I wasn't able to see everything (due to some talks and musical performances that were being held in certain wings) but I was able to get some good shots around the museum which you can access via my flickr account.
Apologies! The chaos in the run up to my trip to California partnered with the fact that I haven't been able to access the Internet in the mountains of San Diego have made me extraordinarily crap at posting!
I am now in Los Angeles and on the hunt for a venue to have a trunk show at, so if you know of somewhere, please let me know!
And for those of you who are experiencing crappy weather / Americana withdrawal please feel free to follow my flickr account HERE as I will be updating it as frequently as possible!
Two days before I left for California, I made the trek up North to the UK Guild of Taxidermists' Annual Conference.
This year we had an excellent Roe Shoulder Mount demonstration courtesy of Maurice Bouten who traveled from the Netherlands to teach us a thing or two.
Here are a couple of my favorite works brought in by guild members:
On Saturday a whole bunch of my mates from Central Saint Martins took to the catwalk to showcase their hard work from the Fashion MA course earning L'Oreal Awards and a whole heap of well deserved press. I'm going to their static show next week, so I'll be sure to post photos later on.
In the meantime: Here are some crappy iPhone photos (they SO don't do this collection justice!) I took at my friend Tessa's show (Tessa Edwards). I love her super cool scifi luxury wear or as i-D tweeted "idiosyncratic, brilliant collection of post-apocalyptic glamour":
My favorite looks are the last one and the transparent suit with the amazing greeny blue scarab wing encrusted (or so it looked) piece underneath. And look at those amazing shoes!! How lethal is Tessa? Gorgeous AND Talented... eeek! God help us!
I posted about Isabella Rossellini's "Green Porno" a while back (HERE) but I was recently alerted via the guardian and Tom Houser that a selection of these works in addition to some excellent taxidermy mounts are being shown at the Natural History Museum until the 2nd of October as part of their "Sexual Nature" exhibit.
I have a few left over from the Selfridges window display, and you're welcome to pop round the studio and pick them up if you're interested. I've got a mix of "standing" and "flying" models to choose from.
Here's a crappy iPhone photo (sorry!) of the flying ones:
First come first serve, so get in touch via e-mail (info@rpencore.com) if you're interested!
This weekend my dear friend Tom flew over from Belgium to celebrate his birthday with us in London.
We celebrated it in true style with a massive party boasting drinks galore (courtesy of Absolut Vodka), tons of amazing little frosted toadstools made of cake and presented like lollipops, popcorn a plenty and retro candy mania!
Oh all right: so AnOther Magazine happened to be celebrating it's 10th birthday on the same night, and we maybe/kinda/sorta just went to that. But we did achieve the main goal of the night which was to ensure Tom's alcohol and sugar consumption reached diabetes inducing heights.
The following morning, Christopher decided we should take the train down to Southend-on-Sea.
A.M.A.Z.I.N.G
I've been meaning to visit some of the UK's seedy seaside cities for a while now, and Southend on a pissy rainy day did not disappoint!
Here are some photos:
There was even an amazing junk shop that sold these:
RP/Encore is now stocked with high end jewellery retailer Kabiri!
In the next week or so you'll be able to visit, try on and purchase almost the entire RP/Encore collection of cast item jewellery at the following premises:
This year has kicked off to a really great start. This month I was selected by one of the UK's most prestigious department stores: Selfridges as one of 20 "Bright Young Things" they thought were "the most creative and exciting new names from the worlds of fashion and art".
For those of you not familiar with Selfridges: this is a really big deal, and a stupendous honour!
We installed the RP/Encore window last week, and if you find yourself in London, why not stop by and take a peek? Mine is on Oxford Street, four windows down from Duke Street!
Here are some behind the scenes photos from that eversohandsomeandtallented Mr. Houser:
More photos to be shown soon!
Big big thanks to Jack and Josh from Devise London who loaned me the video wall, re-edited the video content specifically for the display, installed everything and made the RP/E logo! You guys are the best! Also big thanks to Flick for staying with us for what ended up being a 13hour over night install shift, and Tom for helping out in spite of having come straight from working a full 8.5 hour workday!
