The Cult French Magazine Behind Enfants Riches Deprimes

[00:00:00]I'm Beck and today we're going to be covering some more ERD references.

[00:00:03]There's been a lot of buzz around the more controversial graphics and names that ERD has been using recently, but it's really nothing new. But if you're not into that and you still want to know more about the brand, you'll be glad to hear that the references we're covering today are more pop culture ccentric and less like crazy. In today's video, we're going to be going over a handful of references from the French magazine Facade. Facade was a French underground magazine founded by Ela Benois and Arveet Pinar in 1976. It was a multimedia magazine covering fashion, art, music, and just popular figures in both the underground and pop culture scene. As you've probably already noticed, the graphic design and type face is very distinct and intentional, which makes sense considering both of the founders had a background in advertisement. The design and magazine as a whole was heavily inspired by Andy Warhol's magazine called Interview. Both featured a mix of pop culture and underground content in a laid-back yet loud graphic style. At its conception, Facade was supposed to be the French version of Interview. So, it was pretty cool that they were actually able to get Warhol for the fourth issue. The contents of Facade itself was also pretty unique with it not just being interviews and articles, but more unique and untraditional things. more unique thing were the false or fake advertisements created by none other than Carl Loggerfeld. Loggerfeld actually played a pretty big role in popularizing the magazine and he also held a couple of parties for them. Other big fashion figures such as Terry Muglare, Eve St. Lauron, Kenzo Takata, Christian Lubeton and Isaya Miyak were also involved with the magazine. Also, apparently for one of the essay shows, the models were actually handing out issues of facade to the audience. though I don't know how credible this is, but I did see it somewhere. The magazine itself has a total of 15 volumes with the 15th kind of being a throwback anniversary edition with it coming out 30 years after the 14th issue. Nowadays, the issues have been very soughta with collectors paying upwards of $500 for one. Anyways, getting to the actual erd references, let's start with the McJagger hoodie, which features this image from Facade Volume 5. As you probably know, McJagger is the founder and lead of the Rolling Stones and is one of the biggest rock stars of all time. What this image actually is in the context of facade is an astro view.

[00:02:24]These astro views with the image of a celebrity and this celestial thing layered over it was basically a way the facade team would interview the person and make certain connections to their astrological signs. For example, they'd interview a celebrity and he might say something generous and they'd be like, "Oh, that's corresponds to a Leo."

[00:02:41]because Leos are generous. I don't really know about astrology, but that's kind of what it read to me. And erd has actually used four of these astro views on various pieces. So, let's take a look at all of them. The second one they used comes also from volume 5 with it featuring Seyoko Yamaguchi. This is featured on this super rare long sleeve, which was a oneofone Paris intore exclusive. Yamaguchi was a very famous Japanese model and actress that was a huge trailblazer for Asian, specifically Japanese models. She was known for her more traditional Japanese look of black hair and pale skin that actually got her turned down by many Japanese agencies at the time as they were looking for a more modern western look. Despite this, she disregarded what they said and remained true to herself, which is exactly what made her so successful in Paris. Her almond-shaped eyes, pale skin, and mysterious gaze redefined both European and Asian beauty standards. She was so well-loved that she was said to be the muse of Kenzo Takata of Kenzo. And Eve St. and Luron also particularly loved her. Henry also seems to be a fan because she is seen on another piece called the Saporro tea. The original reference image is from issue 6 of Facade and in this image she's wearing Muglare bracelets while eating some ramen getting back to the other Astro views. We have this one of Jack Nicholson from issue 7 and it's used on this sick leather jacket. I'm actually pretty surprised to see Jack Nicholson getting interviewed and stuff just because like his public persona now is that he's so like hidden, you know? But uh I'm sure at the time things were different. Erd has actually used his likeness another time very recently in this long sleeve. Now to our last Astro view. We got Serge Gainsboro on the Serge track jacket and the Serge Raglin t-shirt. There's multiple graphics from multiple volumes on these two pieces, but they all depict French musician Serge Gainsboro. Gainsboro was a legendary French pop artist who in classic erd manner was very well known for his provocative art and personality.

[00:04:34]He was a chain smoker and drunk who often had public outbursts and was said to be very bad to women. His art was also very controversial with many works being highly sexual getting them banned in multiple countries. He also did this weird song called Lemon which was very PDF file undertones and was just overall really weird and like I get it's part of the provocation stick but still just weird. He's also pretty famous for dating Jane Birkin. Moving on, we got a ton of graphics from issue 14 on the Mort at Resurrection t-shirt featuring the English actress Charlotte Rampling.

[00:05:05]Rampling was and still is a very popular actress with her being in a ton of movies you probably know both when she was young and old. She was very involved with French movies, which is probably why she's featured in Facade. She was also a huge fashion icon with her actually starting as a model, and she continues to do shoots for brands like St. Lauron. In the main graphic, we see her next to Ela Benois, who, if you remember, is one of the founders of Facade. The graphic here doesn't actually feature her, but it's from another random page of Facade, which I can't show for YouTube reasons. Also, the words heavier than a Death in the Family are likely from this less res I don't even know how to say that. Put it on screen. Uh, album of the same name.

[00:05:44]This is unrelated to Facade, but it's a bootleg live album from a Japanese noise rock band, which definitely tracks.

[00:05:52]Finally, our last piece is the eyes collage crew neck featuring the artist group Gilbert and George from issue three. Gilbert and George are a two-person art collective made up of, well, Gilbert and George. The duo first emerged through performance art in the late 1960s, where they referred to themselves as living sculptures, believing that their entire existence could be considered art. One of their most famous early performances was the singing sculptures where they covered themselves in metallic paint and stood on a table singing for hours at a time moving in robotic ways. They're instantly recognizable in their conservative suits which kind of juxtaposed the absurdity of their art.

[00:06:27]Their visual identity became so iconic that even Andy Warhol ended up photographing them for portraits. A huge part of their philosophy was what they called art for all, which rejected the idea that art had to be exclusive or only understood by elite audiences. In the facade issue itself, they even described themselves as saying they weren't good artists or bad artists, but they were definitely artists. By the 1970s, their work evolved into what they're most known for today, which are these massive panel grid collages that they call pictures. These works were stained glass-like compositions with often disturbing or provocative subject matter involving various taboo subjects.

[00:07:03]ERD has directly referenced their pictures on another piece with the ritual prayer tea. This graphic is one of Gilbert and George's pictures and probably more specifically comes from issue three of Rapid Eye magazine. Now, this is off topic from Bad, but it's a whole separate magazine that covered your typical underground stuff like Psychic TV, William Burroughs, Alistister Crowley, that type of thing.

[00:07:25]There aren't enough references in it to constitute a whole video, so I'll just share the other one I found here. These couple graphics are used on the Neoism hoodie that I covered in this video. So, if you're curious about what that means, please check it out. I had some of the graphics then, but then I found the rest in this issue of the magazine, so that's why they're like split between two videos. Anyways, back to Gilbert and George. Their influence on fashion goes even further than obscure erd references, as they've actually had an official collab with Supreme. So, that's all for the references in this video.

[00:07:55]Still got a ton of erd stuff to cover that will all come out in due time.

[00:07:59]Also, shout out Vintage Washing Machine for helping me with a ton of the info for this video. He's like a human encyclopedia for erd. Like, subscribe, follow my Instagram, do all that. But that's it.