REPOST: News: Liya Kebede Designs for J.Crew; Miu Miu Won't Show in Milan Anytime Soon

Kate Upton is back on the Victoria's Secret catalog while Miu Miu may be a no-show in the Milan Fashion Week.  These and more in this update from Elle.

Image Source: J. Crew

Ethiopian model and philanthropist Liya Kebede showcased her clothing line, Lemlem, in J.Crew's June Style Guide catalog. She also designed a summer-ready tunic exclusively for the retailer. {J.Crew Press Release}

Despite Giorgio Armani's request for Italian brands to strictly present their collections during Milan Fashion Week, CEO of the Prada Group Patrizio Bertelli explained why Miu Miu will continue to show during Paris Fashion Week. {Business of Fashion}

Marni collaborated with Argentinian artist Romina Quirós on a collection of illustrated T-shirts, tote bags, and iPad cases for the Italian brand's Winter 2013 Denim collection, available this June. {Marni Press Release}

As the highly anticipated Sound of Change concert approaches, here's a list of the many international channels you can tune into on June 1 to watch the star-studded event. {WWD}

Kate Upton made her return to the Victoria's Secret catalog since posing for the lingerie brand in 2011. {New York Daily News}

Designer Erin Fetherston and Cobra Starship frontman Gabe Saporta got married on Sunday at a Bajan plantation. {People} Meanwhile, in Malibu, Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul married his longtime girlfriend and co-founder of the Kind Campaign, Lauren Parsekian. Congrats to the newlywed couples! {Vulture}

Google is looking to close the gender gap in technology by conducting initiatives aimed at hiring and training more female programmers. {CNN} 

Do you want more from Roman Magnus?  Follow me here.

How much mercy for Paul Gauguin?

Image Source: fullinbloommusic.com

Paul Gauguin colored Tahiti perhaps not the way he saw it but the way he wanted it to be. This is the tragic flaw of his legacy. Society is usually forgiving toward artists, especially post-mortem. But Paul Gauguin’s later biography seems to push people to the limits of tolerance, and if not for the wise reminders of waters under bridges, we could have defrocked his mythic persona and chastised him in press conferences, just like what happened to Lance Armstrong.

Image Source: freemanart.ca

 

Roughly, here’s what he did: He sold Tahiti to us fans in installments of dishonest art. Some of us didn’t buy the titillating, half-nude themes, as the white man’s burden has long lapsed into a cynical appreciation of noble savages, and how sophisticated they eventually turned out to be. Gauguin’s paintings, in blocks of naturalistic colors and picnic airs, depicted a tropical paradise with a manifest sexual ease. His representations seduced his French compatriots back home and reduced Tahiti to a greedy flicker in occidental eyes. Taken at face value, these paintings are things of beauty, albeit fantasist.

Image Source: daily-norm.com

 

It doesn’t help that new details surfacing about the life of the artist serve new rounds of a public trial. He was most-documented as a wife-beater and a swindler who played his peers’ impressionability. His florid musings about French Polynesia in the most exotic terms were meant to manipulate curiosity toward his paintings and his own persona. In the grips of art exceeding intention, how far are we willing to overlook these deluded depictions which were plucked from the malice of an otherwise talented painter?
 

I ask because in the book of Roman Magnus morals, I have yet to find an artistic villain to oppose my artistic heroes. Candidates other than Paul Gauguin can tweet me here.