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Fashion Week to lift off with sky of balloons
By Louise Jury, Evening Standard 14.08.07
Colour and light: A similar sky full of balloons in Singapore
Light fantastic: An artist's image of the Holland Park cloud
Look here too
A cloud of moving light the size of a football pitch will be launched into the skies over Holland Park to mark the opening of London Fashion Week.
London-based architect and artist Usman Haque will create the undulating installation from a thousand helium-filled balloons containing sensors and lights.
It will be constructed on site next to the Holland Park Opera House and released as a plume into the sky as darkness falls on Sunday 16 September.
Haque, 35, said: "The idea came from wanting to make a kind of Jack and the Beanstalk - something in your backyard that could grow into this massive thing that went beyond the scale of anything you had encountered before."
Up to 100 members of the public will get to govern its direction and movement with the aid of a 30-metre handle at ground level.
The colours - with gold pre-eminent as a theme of London Fashion Week - are governed by the turbulence it faces, whether man-made or natural.
"It really comes alive when it's windy because it becomes this DNA-type thing unfurling in the wind," Haque said. "And it will go ahead in light rain, although if there's biblical downpours we might have to reconsider."
A similar work by Haque appeared at last year's Singapore Bienniale.
The commission is the idea of Fashion Week sponsor Moët & Chandon and takes its inspiration from the fashions of the 18th century, when Moët champagne was first imported into Britain.
Pleasure gardens where the wealthy walked and played were the fashion of the day and hot-air balloon rides were the latest entertainment.
Moët will create a 21st century pleasure garden, including a carousel and banquet, in Holland Park for a party with 350 famous names from the world of fashion the same night.
Caroline Warner, its brand director, said the balloon installation, to be called the Moët Mirage, was an attempt to include other Londoners in the celebrations.
They hope that hundreds of people will bring picnics to watch the cloud fill the sky. Harvey Nichols is preparing a special Moët Fashion Hamper containing champagne bottles encrusted with Swarovski crystals for the event, though more modest, home-made efforts are also encouraged.
Mrs Warner said: "We want to highlight our 10th anniversary with London Fashion Week by creating something fabulous for Londoners. London Fashion Week brings such a wonderful energy to the city but can only really be enjoyed by the fashion elite. We've been inspired to create something that everyone can be part of."
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