Basso & Brooke (Q8795)
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- Basso Brooke
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Basso & Brooke |
No description defined |
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Statements
We were two for two in end-of-world inspirations for tonight's shows. (See PPQ.) For Christopher Brooke and Bruno Basso, last days require going for broke with their already, shall we say, optically demanding prints. How then to maximize maximalism? Basso, the print side of this operation, took a page from Matisse. Well, actually several pages and a pair of scissors. The overall look of them was a frenzied collage of relatively simple geometric motifs cut and pasted into one flat surface. The effect was quite cool, a sharper way to continue the fusions they did for Spring.It was at its best in sharper shapes, like the stiff rubber-back jersey T-shirts or a nipped-waist dress or a simple pencil skirt. (Though at times those shapes trespassed into the Eclectic Ladyland of Marni, particularly with the styling tic of socks scrunched in sculptural wooden wedges.) Brooke, however, attempted to transfer the concept of contrast to silhouettes, like the nearly David Byrne-oversize jackets, meant to offset narrow trousers. It's unclear what the matronly evening gowns with the long sleeves and heavy skirts were designed to counter, but they contributed to the jumbled side of the equation.Surprisingly, Basso and Brooke have never made a big knitwear statement, but an emphasis on another contrast—that of textures—led them to it now. It's hard to see why they waited so long. In cool slouchy shapes, they looked great. Ditto their new collaboration with the Cambridge Satchel Company of printed clutches—ripe and ready for their Tommy Ton close-up.
16 February 2012
Basso & Brooke is a brand defined by bold print. Each season, looking at the clothes made by Bruno Basso and Chris Brooke, you think that they couldn't possibly come up with anything more eye-popping, and then as the next season rolls around, they top themselves. For Spring, however, they pared back—sort of. Basso, who designs the prints, spun this season's tropical theme in a graphic new direction, fusing hothouse florals with galactic, constructivist motifs. His best efforts, such as the show-opening purple, yellow, and multicolored frond patterns, had a forceful simplicity. And Brooke, who cuts the label's clothes, did his partner's work justice by spinning them into grown-up, polished looks. A pair of ever so slightly mannish trousers in the purple frond and a strapless, rainbow-hued gown were the standouts—idiosyncratic yet sophisticated pieces that looked bang on trend.Elsewhere, things got a little muddled. The show could have used some editing: Your brain can process only so many draped dresses in jolting digital patterns. That said, the dresses were uniformly good, with Brooke's draping nicely complementing Brooke's print placement. The knee-length day dresses were a particularly strong group: Simple yet diaphanous, they had a ton of punch but looked easy to wear. And the show resumed focus every time the designers pulled back on color—a black, white, and gray long-sleeved top and long skirt snapped the mind to attention, thanks to the furnace of bright yellow and green by the hemline. Looks like that, and the frond prints that opened the show, point the way forward for Basso & Brooke: Though their maximalist inclinations still have lots of appeal, this collection proved that judiciousness makes its own kind of impact.
15 September 2011
By virtue of the baseline maximalist nature of their digital prints, you'd never classify Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke's work as minimal. But today's collection had a real kind of serenity. Brooke stripped silhouettes of nearly every bit of excess detail. Nearly. The pin-sharp tailored lines of coats were softened here and there into a puffed shoulder or the languid elegance of a draped shawl lapel. Even as the shape loosened up into more feminine jersey dresses and turtlenecks tucked into long skirts, there was still a precision.Aside from those long jackets and matching trousers, and a turtlenecked gown with a retro seventies clunk, the collection had an immediate commercial appeal. Within the intimate setting of the Portico Rooms, you could see how it would wow the kind of ladies who actually spend money on expensive clothes.That brings us to the beautiful prints, which in the simplest terms were inspired by camouflage. The best of them had a depth you could absolutely get lost in. Basso, the printmaking half of the duo, took his cues from the avian world, the painter Gerhard Richter, and even the beauty of an ancient disintegrating wall. The show notes also invoked Veruschka's work with makeup artist Holger Trülzsch in the bookTrans-figurations, where she's made up to blend into old doors and moss, and quoted Susan Sontag's intro about the conflicting desires of wanting to be seen but also to hide and blend in. It seems pretentious at first, but then you realize that's exactly what you should get from great fashion. Here you found some options to fit the bill.
20 February 2011
Bruno Basso and Chris Brooke feel digital print is so common now—in every sense of the word—that it's lost its luster. Amid the bells and whistles of the genre's Johnny-come-latelies, even their own kinetic work no longer has the frisson of how-did-they-do-that fascination. In response, Brooke said, their Spring collection is resolutely low-fi.For all any novice knows, the prints themselves may have been as technically complex and multidimensional as ever. They were based on hand-written manuscripts, maps, and abstract oddities like TV static (it actually looked like the diseased screen on a damaged laptop)—all part of an earnest effort by the designers to hark back to a pre-digital age. But the parchment-y tone of old maps and letters left one craving a hit of the hyper-colored pan-culturalism that was once Basso & Brooke's stock in trade, and that craving was only heightened by flashes of ingenuity like an oxidized leopard pattern.Without the polymorphous diversion of Basso's prints, Brooke's silhouettes took the "prim 'n' proper" (their words) effect to a repetitive extreme. In the high noon of London's glorious print renaissance, this was an odd moment for two of its pioneers to go quiet.
18 September 2010
Sign up for the fashion industry, see the world. Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke's search for inspiration took them on a two-week trip down the ancient Silk Road to fabled Samarkand, where East originally met West millennia ago. It was a high-risk endeavor (they had to travel with a bodyguard), but it yielded dividends in the overload of colors, patterns, and textures they were exposed to. As per the usual division of labor, Basso translated these into the extraordinary engineered prints that are the duo's signature, and Brooke designed the pieces that carried the prints. The clothes were significantly more straightforward than usual, as Brooke sensibly focused on classic shapes: a parka, a shirtwaister, a coat-dress, or a jersey evening dress that was as simple as an elongated T-shirt from the front but dipped to the tailbone in back. With the prints being such minor masterpieces of complexity, why gild the lily with tricksy constructions?Brooke also added solids such as a collarless camel coat and a jacket in maroon gabardine, like andante moments in Basso's symphony of color. And what a symphony it was. You know those scenes inAvatarwhere you just want to stop the movie and work out exactly what it is you're looking at? There were moments like that on the Basso & Brooke catwalk, when the print collages of marble, mosaic, textile, snakeskin, feathers, and gems teased the eye. It was more comprehensible, but scarcely less striking, when a single element was used, like the chevrons of roughly woven fabric printed on a fur-collared coat. The designers also used a new fabric treatment they called "a high-gloss aqua finish," which gave some prints a liquid 3-D sheen that was practically Pandora-perfect in every way.
22 February 2010
What Bruno Basso can't do with digital print probably isn't worth doing. Neo-pop, the theme of Basso & Brooke's Spring collection, gave him a tailor-made opportunity to duplicate on fabric (and micro sequin) the wildly lurid work of Jeff Koons. What's more, it neatly trailed back to Basso's psychedelic exploration of the natural world last season.New for Spring was a stronger interest in black and white, apparently inspired by the photos of Herb Ritts and intended as a counterpoint to all the color. It looked dramatic in a coral print and in the streak of lightning that zapped one half of a bifurcated graphic (the other half was a riot of pink). It also made its presence felt in the beading that covered the body of a dress with printed fan pleats below the waist. That item was an excessive little thing, but it worked. Elsewhere, the never-enough notion was tested to its limits. The Lurex jacquard was a littlede trop,especially when it had the bad luck to be paired with a metallic leather jacket in lurid yellow. The shapes, which Christopher Brooke had been streamlining so that the prints could shine, felt tricksier, more froufrou than usual. And a pouf dress printed with the names of fashion magazines was an oddly literal misstep. Better editing would have helped.
21 September 2009
With Michelle Obama as a new fan, Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke are about to get an attention boost. So it was good timing that their Resort collection offered an accessible introduction to their world. Simplification of silhouette and their signature prints was the key. "We wanted to find a balance between reality and fantasy," said Basso. In sharp contrast to the hyper-rococo engineered prints that established their reputation, print master Basso exploded microscopic natural images of, for instance, ice particles to create psychedelic prisms that loaned themselves well to Brooke's easy shapes. There was a vibrantly cartoonish quality to a printed T-shirt dress, and the cartoon worked just as well with the duo's new jeans range. At the other end of the sophistication spectrum, Basso & Brooke's recent mastery of digital printing on sequins meant they could offer a whole new glamour option for daywear. A sequined tee paired with navy shorts might just about make it into Michelle's resort closet.
19 June 2009
Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke are the Pixar of clothes. You stare fixedly at their stuff and wonder exactly what it is and how they did it, so hornswoggling are the effects they achieve with their digital prints. This season's exploration of Louis XIV's baroque and rococo was a match made in fashion heaven because it gave the duo an opportunity to render the Sun King's 3-D opulence in 2-D print form. Ormolu, pearls, lace, laurel leaves, Louis' favorite moiré, not to mention various architectural details of his palace Versailles—all were rendered in exquisite detail and sumptuous color. (Know ye this—Bruno Basso has 16 million hues at his digital fingertips. A human eye can barely register a fraction of them.)One striking effect was the detailing of a dress refracted into an abstract kaleidoscope of color to match the coat that accompanied it. It got even better with a wool trench printed so convincingly to mimic chinchilla that you could almost feel the caress of fur against the skin. Basso & Brooke know that a simple silhouette is the best canvas for their extraordinary work (well, usually they know—one dress, printed with scales like armor, flared into an unfortunate peplum that screechedMommie Dearest). For the most part, the clothes were shifts, shirtdresses, simple tops and skirts, the better to be completely transfigured by the designers' prints.For the specific and discerning clientele who are likely to respond to such work, this felt like revisionist luxury: an opulent look; an easy, light feel. True, these dresses had almost nothing to do with fall dressing, but you could imagine them rolled in a bag and carted off to more clement climes. Back in the showroom, there was a beautifully cut plain black coat, its broad shoulder tempered by a little pleat. Think of it as the sartorial equivalent of the restoratively head-clearing coffee beans you smell before plunging back into a round of scent sniffing.
20 February 2009
Turning Japanese did Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke a world of favors. Between Hokusai past andBlade Runnerfuture, Japan offered the master printmakers so much inspiration all they had to do was keep it simple and let the prints shine. And that—mercifully—is essentially what they did. From the moment Vlada Roslyakova hit the runway in matching top and leggings with a sculpted obi belt anchoring the look, the eye was dazzled by furious collages of pattern, some of them beaded, or over-embroidered, or crystallized by Swarovski for added eye appeal. Japan also provided the origamilike pleating and folding effects that drew simple jersey shift shapes in at the waist or puckered the fabric of a sheer blouse so it looked like a huge ruffle round the neck. Such effects may sound tricksy, but in fact they served their purpose in enhancing those gorgeous prints. Attention must also be paid to Raouda Assaf's shoes (the heels artfully carved like Japanese ivory) and Stephen Jones' headpieces.
16 September 2008
There comes a time when all outrageous young London designers must stop poking their tongues out at convention and start thinking about how to do more than give their 25 closest fans a great laugh. Unexpectedly—for they were the guys who rose to notoriety on their flying-penis prints two years ago—Basso & Brooke have had the good sense to know when to move on (and just in time, since others have already arrived to occupy the city's naughty slot). The collection they showed today left hardness and vulgarity behind, and took off in a direction that looked approachably commercial for the first time.For spring, they dropped their overwrought obsession with the eighties and went toward the stylistically safer twenties instead. They used the template of drop-waist, handkerchief-point flapper dresses as a frame for their prints, which were inspired by exotic travel. There were elephants, bamboo, birds, flowers, and moths—with nothing untoward lurking in the jungle, at least that could be seen from a distance. In fact, as the show went on, the realization began to flicker that Basso & Brooke might even be capable of delicacy. Gold-dabbed and silver-shot fabrics, combined with underlying prints, had a butterfly-wing effect that in places looked quite lovely.
18 September 2006
Welcome to a grimy vault adjacent to the London Dungeon, the setting for Basso & Brooke's Fall collection. While the Jack the Ripper surroundings certainly damped down the eye-searing color of their flamboyant summer collection, all the hallmarks of Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke's deliberately schlocky aesthetics were still on full display. For starters, they trotted out a Valkyrie in a top hat, cutaway redingote, and electro-fluoro patterned leggings.This Brazilian and British pair loves an eighties silhouette: leggings, nipped jackets, silk dresses, and big, poufy-sleeve tops. That hasn't changed, nor has their affection waned for covering every available surface in print. For fall, they dubbed their print story "New Discoveries." Close up, it proved to be an intricate merging of eighteenth-century etchings and surreal science and engineering illustrations, notable (for people with their reputation) for its lack of pornographic content, as well as for its darker palette of greens, browns, and purples."New Discoveries," though, had a hidden double meaning. The designers are increasingly aware of how the fashion machine works, thanks to their Italian backer Aeffe. And they're thinking seriously about proving they can do commercial, regular-looking jackets and blouses. Three seasons in, Aeffe is convinced and has signed them to another contract. So far, so good, but the ability to condense their message is still something they need to practice.
15 February 2006
Scoop! Who knew that Donatella Versace and John Galliano once eloped to Rio and secretly gave birth to a pair of love twins? They named them Basso & Brooke, and now the boys have exploded into London fashion with a carnival of multicolor, multiprint high campery that flung its astonished audience back in their seats, laughing wildly.Well, of course, we made the Don-and-John bit up. But their influence on the collection of Bruno Basso (a Brazilian) and Christopher Brooke (a Brit)—with its exuberant Latin color, theatrically exaggerated silhouettes (vast hats, flounces, and burlesque posturings), and potentially sinister subtext—is nonetheless obvious. Their show opened with a whoosh from a vast Elnett spray—one of the least subtle, yet most hilarious, fashion product placements ever witnessed—and degenerated from there into a highly enjoyable farrago of psychedelic computer-printed fifties prom dresses, hobbled Vegas gowns, and spray-on eighties leggings.But take a closer look at all those prints—lipsticks, mirrors, roses, musical notes, and piano keys jazz with chevron stripes and polka dots in a queasy melee of kitsch—and the question begs asking: Just what are these guys getting at? A glance at the program notes explains it: The show, entitledVanity Affair,is inspired by "disenchanted housewives … for whom bridge parties and coffee mornings have been superseded by pills and pitchers of cocktails before noon." Their comment on squiffy narcissism also includes mirror images of women as dogs. Which is not so nice. But there again, the audacious confidence of this show deserves applause. At last, in London, there's something weird on the loose, and it's a long time since we've been able to celebrate that.
18 September 2005
Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke, though absolute beginners in the fashion whirl, are already fully paid-up members of the shock-horror school of London fashion. Their army of 6-foot female predators—dressed, from towering scraped-up hairdos to spiky toes, in psychotic lashings of all-over print—was the latest in London's long history of assaults on good bourgeois fashion taste. Is it scary to see women apparently styled after the look of Eastern European hookers? Certainly. Is it offensively misogynistic? Of course. But Basso & Brooke know what they're doing: They're getting argued over with just the same amount of enthusiasm and revulsion as Giles Deacon, or Alexander McQueen and Vivienne Westwood were in their roistering days of showing in London.Basso & Brooke won £100,000 in support and consultancies from London's Fashion Fringe competition last year, awarded on the strength of their powerfully aggressive all-over prints (which, when closely inspected, turned out to feature an array of exuberant penises). Now backed by Aeffe, and benefiting from its immaculate production, they have a whole silhouette together, involving tightly tailored leather-insert jackets, jersey leggings, and skirts with draped side swags, and of course, a complete smothering of print (chains, Pop Art faces, and harlequin checks). Though the total look is guaranteed to appall the fainthearted, it would be churlish to disparage the intensity and conviction the Saint Martins graduates threw into this show. Does it amount to a flash premonition of what fashion will look like in 2010, though? Maybe not. Shock tactics apart, Brooke sensibly acknowledged, "It's not necessarily going to be worn as on the catwalk. We think you could easily wear one of our tuxedos with jeans."
12 February 2005