Is it possible to appreciate beauty and still be cool? That’s the essential question Antwerp-based Ninette Murk poses through her project, Beauty Without Irony. Murk, a hipster fashion journalist herself, is urging those of the fashion world and elsewhere to embrace their love of beautiful things that aren’t necessarily the coolest on the block. Claiming that “romantic sunsets and newborn puppies have a certain appeal, they’re not clichés for nothing, right?” Murk urges us all to drop gloss and embrace imperfection (do I hear a little Wabi-sabi? See jc report issue 10) and turn the fashionista idea quite neatly around, by proclaiming, “let’s all just sit at home or in a trendy bar dressed in our ironic, trashed and customized outfits and complain shall we? That’ll teach the world a thing or two; except I don’t think so.” Under this exciting (and spot-on) premise, Murk has been gathering together and exhibiting live and on the Beauty Without Irony website, the work of such acclaimed and emerging artists as Dirk Schonberger, Raf Simons, Diane Ferry, the New Seattle Formalists, and Maria Mochacz. A brilliant star in the galaxy of mass consumerism that engulfs the world today, we think Beauty Without Irony is poised to be quite a movement. As the website proclaims, ” ‘Beauty Without Irony’ is humanity, passion, synergy, understanding and the pleasure of creating.” Spread the beauty.

- Meghan Cleary
Photo: Still Sweethearts by Diane Ferry