blog by Joanna Przetakiewicz

Nothing is going to make you look more modern and warm you up better than cool biker jacket. La Mania has taken an iconic classic style and freshened it up to give it a modern feel in soft navy shearling, while maintaining the true aesthetic of biker details, such as the asymmetric zipper, and oversized lapel.

Jumpsuits are great for date night or even to a more formal affair. A black jumpsuit can instantly make you look more sophisticated. La Mania Fall-Winter 2015/2016

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Flesz Fashion Night Yesterday evening at Sluzewiec racetrack in Warsaw Flesz magazine held Flesz Fashion Night 2015 gala. As each year, the highlight of the evening was the fashion show of leading Polish designers. La Mania once again had the pleasure to participate in this fashion event of the season. Especially for this night, each of the designers has prepared a unique haute couture piece for their muse. My muse was a TVN journalist – Dorota Wellman – an extraordinary, unusual, wonderful woman with a great heart and a great sense of humor, whom I value for her strong character, her own style and personality. For that special event we design a one-of-a-kind dress for Dorota with hand-embroidered gold elements.

One of China’s most recognisable contemporary artists, Ai Weiwei - famous for openly disapproving of his country’s government,  at the Royal Academy of Arts“Everything is art. Everything is politics”, reads one of Ai Weiwei’s most famous quotations. True to this precept and “declaration of intent”, Ai’s eponymous exhibition at The Royal Academy of Arts offers a moving, powerful and coherent insight into the artist’s practice and political commitment. Born in 1957, the son of a dissident poet who spent much of his life in work camps, Ai Weiwei graduated from Beijing Film Academy before moving to the USA in 1981, and subsequently settling in New York in 1983, where he attended the Parsons School Of Design. In 1993 he returned to China, where he began to create works that, despite being deeply rooted in the Chinese tradition, reflect the influence Western culture (and Duchamp in particular) has had on his aesthetic approach. A leading and passionate defender of free speech and liberty in a country where individual’s rights are often denied, Ai has had several unpleasant encounters with the Chinese authorities. In 2009, he underwent emergency brain surgery after being brutally beaten by the police for trying to attend the trial of a fellow activist who had been investigating the deaths of more than 5,000 schoolchildren during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. More recently in 2011, he was illegally detained on charges of tax evasion, bigamy and pornography for 81 days and his passport confiscated. The document was then returned in July 2015, when he was allowed to travel to London and put the final touches to his show. A three-dimensional map of China is the first thing to be seen upon entering the exhibition, although it might be hard to recognise it as such at a first glance. Aiming to promote the traditional methods of carpentry that are dying out in this heavily industrialised age, Weiwei’s China is a large-scale piece spread across the floor like a carpet, putting a strong beginning to an exhibition that plays with perceptions, touches on the chords of the heart, asks inconvenient questions and sheds light on truths one might not be ready to see. The next room hosts the Furniture Series, where reimagined traditional pieces of furniture defy gravity, finding their new purposes, separating the space of the room in a new exciting way. One of the main themes of the whole exhibition is tradition seen through the prism of the modern age as familiar objects find their new meanings: an ancient Chinese vase painted with the Coca Cola logo on it or one ton of compressed tea in the minimalistic form of a cube. The most emotionally striking rooms are the ones dedicated to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake: Weiwei makes another very literal statement as he uncovers the true reason behind this great loss of life. Further in, there is black and white wallpaper covering the walls of a whole room with only the image of a middle finger repeated on it. Upon entering the next hall – consisting of models of the room the artist was held in – it is easy to understand why he would create such wallpaper. A middle finger pointed at  the corrupt, the censors and the suppressors – this is an exhibition that has to be seen.

Automn chic

La Mania Prato II coat

La Mania Fall -Winter 2015/2016