With respect to the archivists of my life, I give you the now famous Blemeesh Speesh I delivered at TALK20 Spartanburg. I am posting the original Speesh so those in attendance of TALK20 will notice differences. For my long distance followers, know that TALK20 is a regimented Lecture Series. Each participant shows 20 images and speaks for 20 seconds about each, so about 6 minutes total of speaking, which is not nearly enough time. My subject, The Fall of Erik Blemeesh. The following images are actually Blemeesh quality but wordpress likes to “format” them or something.
“Some men are allergic to medicority. Erik Blemeesh is allergic to those men.
The genius of fashion designer Erik Blemeesh is pungent, rare, and misunderstood. He was unable to achieve greatness in his own time (the mid 2000’s) but we see his influence throughout contemporary fashion. Looking back can you think of Perfume without thinking of House Blemeesh? The Answer is no. It is impossible.
Where do we begin? We could peer into the foggy alleys of Erik’s childhood in Helsinki, of which he speaks nothing. But better to find him in his prime, a strapping turtle farmer at 23. Like all messiahs, Erik Blemeesh appeared a fully formed youth with a pant load of ideas and a passport. He would go on to establish the fashion house Blemeesh in 2002.
His quintessential ideas manifested in his debut scent; Stepbrother. Stepbrother ripped the besequined neckerchief off the perfume industry. Stepbrother is a smell of corruption, intrigue. An odor to accompany people on their path to wrongness. The campaign encapsulated concepts that would go on to be essential to Blemeesh’s work.
The marriage of the royal and the profane, the forbidden, the outfits. There would be no CK1, no obsession, no harajuku lovers without Stepbrother. Stepbrother is scent, is impulse, is everything. Blemeesh himself explains..” Stepbrother is wanting. Stepbrother is No, not here. Stepbrother is a locked door. A barred window.”
Stepbrother also defined his gripping aesthetic. Blemeesh prepares his audience for the intrigue of the garage, the tragedy of the spare bedroom, the lust of your Aunt’s condo. He became recognized only amongst the fashion elite, granting him acceptance by the most discerning celebrities.
His next line would draw even more attention.
The fervor over Stepbrother was nothing compared to the panic over the emergence of LeTurd. The perfume made Blemeesh a household name amongst hair dressers and avant garde shut ins. Celebrity and pop commentators alike divided on Leturd, some hailing it others demanding an explanation. Blemeesh had to address the rancour surrounding his groundbreaking scent and created quite a stink when he explained. ‘Leturd is the shame of love. It is a willing failure. It is a genetic flaw. Juliette Binoche is Leturd.”
Leturd was also groundbreaking for Blemeesh as it is his first experience with his muse “She’s Stefany”. Blemeesh hailed She’s Stefany as the reason for the success of Leturd, citing her average looks and her remarkable lack of range. Despite her inspirational role, She’s Stefany only modeled as the face of the Leturd campaign. It was her first and last modeling role as she quickly succumbed to a tragic addiction to eating.
The new level of visibility gave Blemeesh an opportunity to express his many perspectives on fashion. “That looks terrible on you. Never take it off.” was a famous compliment to Alexander McQueen. He would later chide John Galiano “That waistcoat, it is poisonous, it is amazing, tre Blemeesh.” A low jab considering Galiano was rumored as having copied Blemeesh’s pattern for an experimental pair of transparent breeches.
The marginal success of LeTurd lead to the release of LeTurd for men. Blemeesh further developed his definition of masculinity and expressed it to skeptical audiences. Around this time it was suspected numerous greats borrowed their most provoking ideas from Blemeesh. One such instance involved a coffee between Marjan Pejoski and Erik Blemeesh. The next day she designed the swan dress Bjork wore for her infamous Dancer in the Dark performance. It is suggested the swan dress was a concept by Blemeesh he deemed not good enough for She’s Stefany.
The modeling industry felt shunned by Blemeesh’s insistence on using himself and incapable unknowns in place of professional models. Blemeesh’s runway shows tended to be exclusive unplanned affairs. He’d debut a whole line of work in an ikea parking lot instead of choreographing an event. He claimed to be too impatient for big productions. The fashion press were the last to know.
It is essential when discussing Blemeesh to indicate his many muses. Post-Leturd Blemeesh struggled to convey his ideas. His first muse was himself, which was an eternal source of inspiration. Despite his attempts he could not fulfill all the necessary scope of the Blemeesh image. This lead to his working relationship with Shes Stefany.
She’s Stefany made up for what little he did not possess. She is Shown here modeling for bed bath and beyond’s failed campaign in Europe. He recalls seeing her modeling an ad of BOGO on towels, “She was always so Stefany. She was unable be anything else and her homeliness could not be tamed.”
When Blemeesh lost She’s Stefany to a career ending 8 pound weight gain, he reached blindly for a replacement. He discovered Gorta Buuna. He was astounded by her talent to repulse the viewer and used her skill to debut a new line of perfumes in America.
So began what would become the renaissance of Blemeesh’s international advertising campaign. Who could forget the his gritty chic classic “wampire”? A line that all but tortured Karl Lagerfeld into early retirement.
Wampire was followed by Je’Peg. Blemeesh hailed it as “Le file format most technologiq of the future. It is about being always so available. Always waiting and doing things.” It was his first successful collaboration with Gorta Buuna.
HE LOVE was a tormented crescendo alluding to emotional themes in his later work. It contrasted so much of the powerful confidence of his early work suggesting hidden softness. “In so many ways I am He Love, it is true.” he is quoted. “When you cannot sleep, to be haunted, like when you are wanting to go to taco bell but no one will accompany you because it is too late and you are ashamed.”
At this point Blemeesh’s style was well established. “I am a citizen of the world,” he is quoted as saying ” but mostly Europe.” At last he presented his signature smell Blemeesh by Blemeesh an idea that would later be clumsily emulated as “Gucci by Gucci”. House Blemeesh seemed on the verge of main stream success when the bottom fell out of the luxury market.
Christmas Odour was a vague attempt at a commercial campaign but came too late for Blemeesh. His greatest supporters (mostly transgender) abandoned him in favor of less passionate glamor. His descent into emotional expressions was an unwelcome change. The fashion industry would not follow him as he attempted to describe the plights of the human soul.
Like many so many, Erik Blemeesh was lost in the recession. As of 2008 his talents could no longer sustain him and anyway Target released this line of perfumes called “Smells gone Couture” that all but desecrated his accomplishments. Distraught he became bedridden. Pneumonia claimed him in 2009.
I havent found any images of Tabaqui so far. Here is Bagheera and Baloo teaching Mowgli to climb trees.
