Acoustic performances at the 26th International Fashion & Photography Festival in Hyères
L’âne Alphonse avec ses panniers ailes, référence à la légende de l’âne volant de Gonfaron, sur le parvis de la villa, tirage original, circa 1955; fonds documentaire villa Noailles.
Villa Noailles has been the rendez-vous of the artistic avant-garde since the 1920s. This year, as part of the 26th International Festival of Art and Photography in Hyères, the villa’s gardens will host three artists from the new music scene, invited by Stage of the Art, with the support of Fred Perry.
Raf Simons, President of the Jury at this year’s festival, and Fred Perry have been recent high profile and highly successfull collaborators with their eponymous collection ‘Fred Perry by Raf Simons’.
Since its creation, the laurel wreath brand has gone from strength to strength, hand in hand with the rise of pop culture. After its beginnings on the tennis courts, the famous polo shirt was adopted by the Mod, ska, punk and Brit-pop movements and crossed the decades to become the major emblem that it is today. Icons Paul Weller, Norman Jay, Shane McGowan, Amy Winehouse, Terry Hall, Damon Albarn, Kanye West, André 3000 and John Peel have all worn the clothes of the famous brand, which has given back by supporting the emerging music scene.
Fashion is also in the minds of The Shoes, the two producers from Reims who dressed pop up in a brand new look with the great jazzy electro beats of their joyful first album “Crack My Bones”. Idolised by youth, bloggers and fashion designers alike, worshipped by the English, in demand from the likes of Shakira or Etienne Daho for their remixes, Guillaume and Benjamin are two kids who’ve grown up with electro and are truly of their time, with their feet firmly planted on the ground.
Photo : Gavin Watson
Prepare to be dazed by the dreamy Connan Mockasin, who unfurls a psychedelic and addictive brand of pop. Whether in the city or on stage, it’s stupefaction guaranteed when the musical potion brewed by this Kiwi UFO takes you to seventh heaven. His first album “Please Turn Me Into The Snat” is already revealing itself to be one of the musical highs of the year.
Photo : Richard Brimer
Flitting between Paris, Berlin and Mexico, Norman Palm is an artist freed from the constraints of distance and frontiers. His music likewise, and his second album “Shore To Shore” takes us from one shore of electro-pop to the other. He surprises with his covers of “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” and “Boys Don’t Cry”, and it all makes sense: he laughs, he cries, and he speaks to the girls just like the boys.
Photo: Gerfried Guggi
For this meeting between music, fashion and the avant-garde, where better than the gardens of the Villa Noailles? Stage of the Art, who specialise in programming and producing concerts and performances in partnership with prestigious art spaces, is proud to present this first collaboration with the Festival.
Throughout the Festival, the Hanging Garden of the Villa Noailles will host concerts and ping-pong tables in a spirit that brings together pop, art and the sport that Fred Perry loved, as he was a ping-pong champion before becoming king of the tennis courts.