Michele Lamy Creates 'Lamyland', A Conceptual Pop-Up at Selfridges
The creative genius and wife of designer, Rick Owens creates a conceptual pop-up in London.
The creative genius and wife of designer, Rick Owens creates a conceptual pop-up in London.
Text: Nadja Sayej
Everyone's favorite Parisian Michele Lamy, wife to designer Rick Owens and mentor to A$AP Rocky, has opened a pop-up conceptual art exhibition and boutique called Lamyland at Selfridges London Oxford Street’s Corner Shop. Until March, expect to see a new line of activewear which Lamy has created in collaboration with artists and designers like Owens, Versace, and Nike. It's a conceptual approach to a pop-up shop, where boxing becomes a metaphor for the current state of the world.
The show is a throwback to the New York City’s Overthrow Boxing Club, which has the trademark slogan: “What are you fighting for?” Lamy alters the statement to ask: “What are we fighting for?” The punching bags are created by Brooklyn sculptor Hugo McLoud from his exhibition Veiled, which premiered at Sean Kelly Gallery in New York last month, alongside makeup by Edward Bess, millinery hats by London designer Stephen Jones and pieces by Virgil Abloh’s Off-White, Sacai and Gareth Pugh.
For fans of Lamy, who is widely known as the force behind Les Deux Café, the LA nightclub and dining hotspot she ran in the 1990s, and her ongoing series on culture and food hosted on barge boats which have featured talents like A$AP and Unkle’s James Lavelle, this is where one can score exclusive Lamyland logo-printed hoodies and cotton jersey t-shirts. There are also sweatshirts by British menswear designer Craig Green and silk CLOTHSURGEON robes and boxing shorts. In February, Selfridges teams up with London boxing gym BXR to host boxing classes in a custom-designed boxing ring to get beginners to duke it out in the ring.
To Lamy, this conceptual pop-up is just an addition to the artist’s eclectic tastes. “Boxing is fascinating,” says Lamy. “More than a sport, it’s a state of mind. Once up in the ring, losing the robe, almost naked, you bare your soul and mind and start the encounter of four fists and two heads in an uncertain outcome. The rage to live throws its thunders in the fight. It’s a noble art.”
