fashion – and so she thinks

Sunshine on a rainy day

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2014 11:21:00 +0000

It’s summertime, and with the longer days, BBQ evenings and buckets and spades comes a desire to infuse some of that summer feeling into everything. A bit of frivolity, joie de vivre, light heartedness. And everything includes our clothing and accessories. Sarah Nettleton, Founder and Designer, of aMuse Fashionsaims to bring a bit of the season into her jewellery pieces, and the Paper Sailboats, Fish ‘N’ Chips and Lollipop collections are perfect for this.
But as I found out from her, it’s far more complex than simply looking at a bucket and spade.
Sarah started out working on large scale sculptural pieces. As her passions and work progressed, she sought to transfer some of the skills and materials into jewellery. Like many women, she saw a problem, identified an solution, and a lot of hard work later it became her livelihood. “I started making jewellery mostly because I wanted certain looks that I could not find in the shops. I started doing it as a business when I realised that more people might be interested in my creations.”
Read more at Belle About Town.

Women In Clothes – Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton and 639 Others

admin — Sat, 29 Nov 2014 11:46:00 +0000

They say that clothes maketh the man. But women and their interest in fashion is often dismissed as a frivolous pursuit, a merry preoccupation that is accompanied with giggles, rolling of eyes, and casual dismissals. Yet sociologists, psychologists and zoologists would all concur that the way we choose to present ourselves to the world is hugely important, revelatory about both the inner self and our perceptions of the outer world.
In Women In Clothes, a hefty scrapbook like anthology, essays, lists, images and interviews are all gathered together in order to explore fashion in its relation to the women who wear it. The compendium was curated and compiled by three friends in their thirties – writers Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits and Leanne Shapton. None of them work in fashion, but they are all experts by virtue of wearing the very clothes that the book talks about. Fashion and cosmetics are not only decoration on a ‘blank page’ (Maya Fuhr) but a demonstration and investigation of oneself. The book sees clothes as functional, magical, and pieces of communication in a world where women are individually and collectively navigating their personalities and roles.
Style is something hard to pin down, and this certainly is not a ‘how to dress well’ manual. In total 642 women have added their thoughts, each with a unique perspective. Surveys make up a large majority of the content, and the questions asked are probing. Do you notice women on the street? Who is the ‘other’ person you create when you go out? What is ‘you’ and ‘not you?’ They touch on some particularly relevant political topics. The woman who wears a hijab explains her choice in a proud manner: “You cannot control what I wear to please your desires. My interaction with you is not physical.” Garment workers in Cambodia wonder about the wealthy Western women who will wear the garments they stich for pennies.
The structure is inventive. Sketched maps of women’s bedroom floors are an illuminating invitation into a private space. The ‘Mothers As Others’ montages, images of mother’s as submitted by their daughters and the comments on how they see their style as women is heartwarming. Pamela Baguley’s ‘An Older Woman Going Through Her Closet’ is not just an expose of her wardrobe, but relationships and sexuality associated with those items. Fifteen women in an office photocopy their hands and talk about them, the rings, lines and scars all telling their own small stories. The banality of safety pins and striped shirts is elevated when their role in everyday living every day is considered. Women talk about their bodies, the thing underneath their clothes, and how they feel, with a mix of positivity and acceptance.
It is surprising how many areas fashion infiltrates. The merger between the inner and outer person is far more fluid than we may imagine. Clothing is a visual language. When writing your name, choosing an outfit to wear to a funeral, putting on knickers and brushing your hair, a number of choices and thoughts are being made about how your presentation to the world may be perceived. This subtle and sympathetic examination into what this means for women is both exhilaratingly expansive and domestic in scope. Identities are communicated and forged through what we wear, which is not something to be dismissed as mere fashion triviality.
The final entry is a letter from Lisa Robertson. She describes getting dressed as process of ‘inventing concepts.’ Women In Clothes is less about the fabric, layers, sizes and shops, but that process, and what it means to females today. It’s about being a person, and telling the world who that person is. Inventing one’s self as it were.

An interview with Nadine Kanso

admin — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 08:59:00 +0000

‘Travelling and looking at new things around the world and around me is always inspiring. People do inspire me in so many ways, events , words…’ Nadine Kanso

Now based in Dubai, she has always seen creativity as an innate part of her being and her background and culture is evident. Her Arabic identity, and her pride in it, is a living element of her jewellery line, Bil Arabi, which fuses the Arabic language with her milieu of design and creative training and a passion for looking good.
http://www.stylehunter.com.au/interviews/nadine-kanso

Elizabeth Aaron – Low Expectations

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 17:44:50 +0000

Our twenties are a time when expectations and reality tread a murky transient place, and the desire to build our identity comes with more knock downs than we may have bargained for. Twenty four year old Georgie works in fashion, lives in hip East London, spends her days in a perpetual drunk/hangover haze and is having fun, bouncing off great friends, more one night stands than one true loves, a few fuck ups along the way.
But, as the blurb reads ‘how can she change it, and what does she really want? Stuck somewhere between a quarter-life crisis and self-fulfilment, Georgie is determined that this year, everything will be different.’
Oh how often have we heard that one? Not only in novels, but in our own heads.
It’s the genre’s great success, the ability to articulate a personal yet universal condition. Yet so many writers do this in a very ‘writing fashion’, a literary way, with prose more florid and obtuse than that which would ever actually be conceived in our minds at the point of thought and action. Low Expectations is not like that. Laugh out loud funny, observations are acute and amusingly acerbic. It is exactly like our own thoughts, troubles, foibles, and fun, if they were to be played out hilariously with sketch perfect humour, as Georgie leans that hair of the dog remedies can’t solve life.
Elizabeth Aaron knows a bit about the world of which she writes. A 25 year old Fashion Design Graduate she has worked for names including Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders and Givenchy. She lives in Paris now, but spent plenty of time amongst the hipster East End of which she writes.
Her character is cynical about magazines which have apparently been written for ‘an audience of lovelorn teenage nymphomaniacs with a mental age of 12’ and the fashion industry, a world filled with trustafarians of ‘undeniable talent and fearsome pretentions’ driven mad by the need to ‘seriously weigh the relative merits of nearly identical buttons.’ One of her nemesis is housemate Stacey, a wealthy, deluded and irritating socialite, who always looks zenned out and stylish, whilst Georgie herself is more likely to look either like a self confessed ‘slapper’ or ‘like the result of a passionate encounter between Alice Cooper an Pippi Longstocking, raised by Stich & Bitch enthusiasts.’
As well as being cutting and comical, Georgie is very perceptive, remarking on how ‘It is a confusing time in which to grow up, in terms of what constitutes inner strength and what constitutes emasculation, what will empower you and what will demean you, what is real and what is fake.’ Despite such articulation she doesn’t see herself as overtly political and with strong ideals, and when her flatmate refers to her as a feminist, she states that ‘whilst I am a feminist, I don’t think I’ve ever said anything strident to Stacy and can only assume she is making the judgement on the infrequency with which I wash my hair’. But it’s the simplicity and clarity with which she vocalises her opinions that make Georgie such an identifiable character, an unlikely heroine who tumbles along the path of life with her tights round her ankles, rather than glides along it hitch free.
As she says on the eve of her 25th, birthdays are ‘a barometer for how well you are succeeding in life combined with an annual reminder of how little time remains to catch up on your inevitable failures.’ What this book reminds us of is how much fun those failures and fuck ups can be, and the life lessons we learn from those experiences. In short, how they make us who we are. If you are looking for a book that can be described as easy reading but yet is not trashy, a book for sassy girls that isn’t chick lit, which talks about sex without being either sexual or crass, and is funny but god forbid not billed as a comedy Low Expectations may just be it.
www.elizabethaaronwrites.com
Out now on Quercus Books

Sarah Nettleton – summer style

admin — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 19:33:00 +0000

Down By The Sea

Is a passion for fashion compatible with a concern for the world around us?

admin — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 21:13:30 +0000

Do you ever wonder what your jeans have got to do with ethics? Your shirt with water levels? How your pants may be affecting social rights on the other side of the world? Probably not, if you are like the majority of people, despite the exponential growth of a concern for ethical fashion. However, the recent events in Bangladesh have cast a more critical eye on clothing and its path to the consumer, as it seems that what we wear on the outside may be wearing out our world in many ways.
See more at: http://blueandgreentomorrow.com/features/passion-fashion-sustainability/#sthash.LdF1g0ML.dpuf

Punk+ by Sheila Rock – capturing the sound and look of a movement

admin — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:10:02 +0000

Sheila Rock is what you might call a talented and prolific photographer. The US born London based artist has work in the National Portrait Gallery, and since her career took off after a commission from FACE in 1980, has snapped for everyone from Vogue to The Sunday Times. Her latest book PUNK+ is a collection of 119 of her favourite photographs that capture the mood of the early punk period, 1976-1978. Live performances, rehearsals, fashion, boutiques, behind the scenes and on the street, this a recollection of the excitement of the early punk movement and its impact on society, music, culture and style. I thought I would ask more…
The book does not focus on either music or fashion, but sees the two as inseparable. What for you is the relationship between music and fashion?
In the UK, I have always felt that music and fashion are interlinked. They are mutually expressive of one another and often relate to TRIBES that associate themselves with a particular music movement. For young people, it is a way of belonging but also expressing their individuality and making choices.
Is it individuality, or part of being a fan, to absorb the look and feel of the sounds you hear?
Absolutely. It’s an affirmation of the music or movement . You identify with this by wearing a badge or a colour or dressing up. With Punk it was the most extreme and brilliantly expressive.
How long have you been taking photos?
I always thought I started taking pictures in 1980 when I began working for the Face. Before then I would never dream of saying I was a photographer. I was young and inexperienced and didn’t know what I was doing. Except I had an interest and energy and was never someone who sat on the couch. But I guess with these photos, you can say I started taking photos in 1976. The time of Punk.
Either you have a natural skill, or have clearly learned something. Likely a combination of the two. What for you creates a good image or portrait?
Many things make up a good picture. Composition. Strong graphic shape. An honest expression. A caught moment. Trying to get beneath the surface is where you need to focus the lens.
1976-9 seems a very niche time period. Can you explain what was so cataclysmic about it?
Grey England and economic hardship predominated. Something interesting came from this flat time…. Punk. It was an attitude; a way of being individual. I think it was a very creative time.
You talk to a number of great artists and commentators of the period – Chrissie Hynde, Tony James, Don Letts, Glen Matlock, Chris Salewicz, Jon Savage etc – who was particularly enlightening and had some good stories to tell?
Everyone had some interesting stories to tell. From the “Conversation”, you understand that it was an exciting time and influenced all of us. It was everyone’s beginning and a humbling time. We all made a lot of noise…..
That was then. What is on your ‘record player’ at the moment?
David Sylvian. Verve. Placido Domingo. I love to mix things up.
Punk+ is out now, published by First Third Books.

It was acceptable in the 90s?

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 19:43:07 +0000

Are you ready to party like it’s 1999? Or 1995 for that matter? How about 1992? Any will do, as it seems that that the nineties are the decade da jour, if that’s not too much of an anachronism. Of course plundering the archives of the past for inspiration is hardly a novel idea but does the fact that a the vast majority of those partaking in the trend remember the decade that makes the nineties revival seem significant, or is it just another spell of looking back to ‘ye olden dayes’?
Whilst I hate to use the recession as an excuse for everything, and would rather not be accused of lazy thinking, it is well acknowledged by scientists to social commentators alike that we lean towards familiarity in times of discomfort. Change makes people uneasy and comfort is found in easy ways. You’re as likely to find bangers’n’mash or Spotted Dick on the menu of a fancy restaurant as you are on the tea tray of any Yorkshire family. People complain about the over reliance on technology and the intangible nature of much of our pastimes, such as listening to mp3s rather than a physical release, or spending hours on facebook rather than down the pub. The craze for mix-tapes or album clubs is then something that allows people to react against something, make a stand, but in a way that is easy and does not require too much of an adjustment of their ways of life. Of course this too is nothing new – the irony of the fact that in 1977 the Sex Pistols topped the music charts with ‘God Save The Queen’ and the book and merchandise charts were whipped by the revival of Edith Holden’s ‘The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady.’
Rather than the nineties coming back, it seems that people are going back to the nineties. Think about it, it is not people who have never known the nineties suddenly looking for inspiration from the decade and taking their own millennium twist on it ( although my thirteen year old sister’s friend has been posting Supergrass lyrics as her Facebook status. Like. ) The guys at the gigs are paunchy balding men taking Born Slippy’s ‘lager lager lager’ refrain verbatim. The front rows of Take That’s concerts are predominantly middle aged women who now feel that it’s not verging on the cradle snatching to fancy Mark Owen. In the music, the memories, the history books, it is clear that the nineties were meant to be some kind of zeitgeist that changed Britain for ever. With a Tory government, a rise in VAT and spikes in the unemployment rate eerily reminiscent of late 80s and early 90s Britain, is it any wonder that those who have the feeling that it all went a bit Pete Tong are seeking solace in the easier days, when all they had to be was mad for it and the rest fell into place.
If today’s twenty somethings are facing a futile search for employment, the practical impossibility of ever owning their own house, and mounting student debts, it is perhaps understandable that they seek solace in the easier times of their youth. Unable to do any of the standard things that mark the threshold of having made it to adulthood, there is almost no choice but to remain in the teenage years – the 1990 years.
Nickelodeon are bringing back the teen shows that made them famous, like Clarissa, Kenan & Kel and Sister Sister, but if the teens and tweens of 2011 don’t end up drooling over orange soda, it won’t be a failure. As Nickelodeon acknowledge, it is not today’s children that they are targeting. Keith Dawkins, senior VP and general manager of TeenNick, speaking to Entertainment Weekly said that “At the time, we were completely devoted to that audience ages 9, 10, and 11. It was ground-breaking and for the young viewers, a powerful and pivotal time in their lives. Those kids who are now 22, 23 and 24 want to bring that back.”
A look through the listings may lead you to believe that you have opened Time Out and slipped into the past. Pulp, Blur, and Suede have all reformed, and are taking to some big stages. What does it say about current music when Pulp and Blur are the preferred headliners of Isle of Wight and Glastonbury. It’s not even that bands are recording new material – Suede have remastered and reissued all five albums, and will be playing the entirety of 1993’s Suede, 1994’s Dog Man Star and 1996’s Coming Up this May at Brixton Academy, and if reports are to be believed Primal Scream’s Screamadelica gigs in which they played the seminal 1991 album out were a rather raucous affair. Take That’s 25 date Progress Tour was the biggest in UK history. Blue, Spice Girls and all have singles out, and even Let Loose are back this year along with audience that they were never a boy band… Much of the hype surrounding new bands seems to suggest that the 1990s were some kind of musical utopia to which we must lean again. Brother are the ‘new Oasis’ we are told. Why do we need a replica? Reading, a festival patronised by 16 year olds enjoying post exam and no parents freedom was last year headlined by Blink 182 and Guns’n’Roses, neither being hip young things.
Fashion has had plenty of nineties moments, with velvet, lace et all being donned on the catwalk and in our high street shops. Neon is the new black according to some commentators, and festival chic everywhere owes more than a passing nod to grunge, floral dresses and boots adorning female punters. There are also horrifying rumours that the bum bag is to replace the Alexa as the new ‘It’ accessory on every fashionista’s arm. Or bum.
Turning towards a time that a lot of people can remember is also more wallet friendly in a lot of ways. To be bang on trend you don’t need to pay over the odds for vintage wear from a hipper than thou boutique, but rummage in the back of your wardrobe for the greying bodysuit, fraying jeans, or adidas jacket, and hey presto, bang on trend. Either this, or the fact that entertainers are running out of ideas may help to explain our media channels. The BBC has been slammed for their schedules featuring, in 2009 screening a record level, equivalent to 530 full days of repeats and shows that we thought had disappeared seem to be being resurrected – Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, broadcast over the Easter weekend of 2009. More than one in five of films made in Hollywood this year will be sequels of 90s box office big sellers, and I have already seen posters and trailers for Titanic: Two The Surface and Scream 4. With smaller wallets, either in reality or made to believe so by the recession craze, companies are unwilling to take a punt and invest in new formulas that may not be successful and pull in the pounds. Although it seemed to be a social movement, a sort of uprising in the world of confectionary, Cadbury’s also must have realised that surely it was a better monetary bet to bring back the Wispa, harnessing the viral and social media as support.
The gap between the past and present is also being squeezed. It is now possible to study 1990s as a period of history, to do cultural studies of Cool Britannia. 2004 saw the first ‘I love the 90s’ television reminisce and Absolute Radio earlier this year launched Absolute Noughties – over for 3 months and yet we are still calling back for its familiarity. This may be because technology has enhanced the speed at which developments can be made, and indeed, some aspects of life in the final decade of the twentieth century do seem to be archaic – you just try explaining to a ten year old kid with an iPhone the sheer wonderment and allure of Snake on a Nokia phone. Rather than it being that we are looking back too soon, the pace of change has been such that this is viable.
Of course, as with any nostalgic look back, the view is somewhat hazy and the glasses smeared with the fingerprints of selective editing. 1997 may have been a buoyant year of optimism, the rising wave of Cool Britannia seeing the labour landslide election victory, Oasis made history in 1996 playing to 250,000 people at Knebworth, and British music once again flew its flag on both sides of the Atlantic. But what about the Rwandan mass slaughters that shocked the world, the pound’s economic decline, as it dropped out of the ERM for the second time in 1993, and the largest ever IRA bomb to hit the British mainland exploding in Manchester injuring at least 200 people in 1996…not to mention that, football did not come home.
But, why not focus on the good? Taking George Santayana’s famous quote for our own ends, we know that the value of history and knowing what has happened in the past is to ensure that we learn and do not make similar errors. So, perhaps this is exactly what the 1990s revival is – people taking what they loved, what made them happy, and sprinkling a little of this nineties magic into 2011.
See the original at the wonderful Who’s Jack http://issuu.com/whosjack/docs/wj50/72

Size 0 – who is to blame for women disappearing?

admin — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 19:15:32 +0000

Skinny versus healthy is a debate that has been raging on incessantly in the media, and the minds of women, for not only the last few months, but subconsciously forever. However, the increase in eating disorders over the last few years can not be entirely disconnected with the message coming from the catwalk that emaciation is somehow beautiful.
Women are capable of making their own choices, but images and advice promoting the ideal that being thin will lead to a perfect life are impossible to avoid. Despite being constantly told that curvy is back in fashion, the media presents a very confusing picture. Flick through any women’s magazine, and the chances are that on consecutive pages you will see an article criticising Victoria Beckham’s weight, a photo ridiculing the size of a celebrity’s thighs, and a double page feature promising you the secret of long term happiness if you follow their plan to lose half a stone in three days. Watch an advert break on television and you will see a refreshing campaign by Dove to use ‘real women’, followed by a Weightwatchers advert, or impossibly thin girls promoting a new perfume.
Of course the media can not be solely to blame for eating disorders. No one know what will motivate a girl or woman (male eating disorders are on the increase, but the size 0 debate is generally, if not correctly, confined to a focus on women) to punish their bodies to such an extent that they are unable to have children, their bones are at risk of crumbling due to osteoporosis, muscle eats away at itself, and they are at risk of heart failure. However, neither can it evade any responsibility. The point of the media is to influence people. The constant diet tips, pictures of scrawny celebrities, ‘real life’ tales of how weight loss led to happiness can not be unrelated to the fact that 97% of women now think a size 12 is fat, a third have tried to eat fewer than 500 calories a day in order to lose weight, and 75% constantly watch what they eat.
What does the term ‘healthy’ on the London Fashion Week certificates actually mean? The girls’ bodies may be functioning, therefore they are ‘healthy’, but is it psychologically healthy to be subsisting on lettuce; is it a healthy environment in which anything over a size 6 is seen as huge; is competitive under eating a healthy relationship to have with colleagues?
The message that the models are sending out certainly isn’t healthy. Reports of models such as Ana Carolina, who died due to multiple organ failure, septicaemia and a serious urinary infection caused by anorexia, are in constant opposition to the all the more prevalent message that you can never be too skinny.
However, where does the blame stop? Should websites such as Facebook stop pro-anorexia groups? The site’s owners argue that if they are to do this it would be infringing on people’s rights to make their own decisions. But if these people are psychologically and physically ill (anorexia is both), should they not be guided. Facebook may not get as many hits, but ultimately pro-anorexia groups take lives.
Ironically, the publicity the size zero debate has created may in fact be detrimental. Programmes putting journalists on regimes to get them down to the low weight trivialize the health of these women – suggesting that it is something that can be played about with, leading to no real harm. Sufferers of eating disorders admit that they watch these programmes looking for tips.
Runway models are not to blame themselves for the rise in eating disorders. The surroundings they are in has meant that to work they must be tiny. This environment and the media are influencing women, who are bombarded with the idea that skinny is best. Unfortunately, most women are happy to buy into this image. The relationship with the media is a two way process – if putting clothes on skinny models didn’t make women buy them, they wouldn’t. If women didn’t spend a fortune on dieting books, such as the heavily criticized yet widely read ‘Skinny Bitch’, publishers wouldn’t print so many. London Fashion Week has taken steps to trying to dispel this image, but Madrid went further by banning models with a BMI of under 18 – yes, these prepubescent girls may have been healthy, but a grown up woman with a real life to lead is likely to find living on such low calories diets to be thin more difficult. The media must take some responsibility, as they are creating an unhealthy nation, even if they claim the girls on the catwalk are fine.
http://www.helium.com/items/799709-size-0-phenomenon