Style Bubble

When You're A Boy...

2009-07-16T21:43:07+01:00

I'm a greedy cow. My boyf buys a new sweatshirt. I'll somehow find a way of wearing it once in a while. A new vintage leather jacket. I'm wearing it as an oversized dress. A new issue of Monocle? I'll take it into the bath for a read with Radio 4 on at the same time. Arena Homme Plus? I'm flicking through it and poring over the editorials with him as opposed to leaving him to read quietly. In theory I should have left this post to Steve seeing as menswear isn't my forte but alas, the boy is somewhere in Dorset and I popped to the private view of the new "When You're a Boy: Styled by Simon Foxton" exhibition at The Photographer's Gallery tonight, the first exhibition I've ever been to that's solely dedicated to a stylist.

Simon Foxton needs no introduction I think. Most will probably know him for his styling work in i-D where he has been toiling away at for over twenty years. Some might recognise his work from Arena Homme Plus most significantly this image from the 'Galliano's Warrior's editorial from the summer/autumn 2007 issue. He's basically a legend who has seen all those seismic shifts in menswear portrayal and is someone who is constantly questioning definitions of masculinity in his work. I'm always fascinated by menswear editorials given that there are obvious limitations when compared to womenswear that there are supposed more boundaries and barriers. A lot of Foxton's work dispels that myth for me and he weaves a compelling styling narrative with his quirky aesthetic, given his penchant for clashing tailored and sports in a neat mash-up.

The exhibition is highly selected and rightly so given how prolific Foxton has been over the years. His work for i-D alone could probably fill a cavernous Tate-sized gallery. It's distilled into four main sections; his collaborations with Jason Evans (1), Alistair McLellan (2), Nick Knight (3) and his portrait work.

This is probably Foxton at his iconic best... four images from the 'Strictly' series from i-D July 1991 photographed by Jason Evans...

One of my favourite images from the whole exhibition... which I think is an unpublished image from Arena Homme Plus summer/autumn 2008... mixed prints overlaid on what I think is a vinyl background...

*blub* Images from The Face Feb 1986 shot by Nick Knight...

I loved that Simon Foxton has been keeping sketchbooks since 1981... and here are some of them on display... I've seen stylists use moodboards and torn out sheets for references but never such neatly kept scrapbooks...

Simon Foxton's recent collabo with Fred Perry is on sale... the boyf has already been on the phone asking how muchy, how muchy...HAH... well we all know how that'll turn out...I see them sitting nicely with my stripy Co-Operative Designs dress...

The first five leaflet/zine issues of i-D are also on sale and going for a princely sum of £750 each... spot the cover price of... 50p!!!!!

I'm also in love with Simon Foxton's shed where he constructs his sketchbooks... again never thought a stylist would have such a specific workspace...

Earrings for Another

2009-07-16T17:36:30+01:00

There's a wee 14 year old girl (a wild guess but she has got a 'Year 8' look about her...) who rides the 43 bus who I see when I'm on the way to work and on weekends too. The lucky thing gets to be fairly liberal with her school uniform so along with her navy pinafore, she's got pink knee high socks, customised gem-encrusted heels, tons of bangles and rings, headbands and hairclips, and the whole mismatched kitschy earring thing going on. And I thought being allowed to wear flared trousers at secondary school was lenient enough. Pah. Not to sound stalkerish or anything (or maybe I've already crossed into that sketchy territory!) but on the weekends, the accessorizing on this girl goes 10-fold and even more kawaii in style.

So I immediately though of her when I stumbled onto Cecilia Fabbri's portfolio. Going through her carefully indexed mountain of work takes a little while but the gist of My Magic Diary, her label/portfolio, is that she has a cute, slightly subversive jewellery line as well as having worked for Karen Walker and is currently working on accessories for Moschino and Alberta Ferretti. She's also a polaroid freak as illustrated by her homepage image above. I love the way she has presented her latest line of earrings entitled "Doll Propaganda" superimposed on top of editorial pics...

I personally of course don't wear any earrings due to the pesky allergy but hopefully this will somehow make its way to that girl... or I'll feed it into her brain mentally through some kind of telepathy on the bus... or I'll overstep the border by printing these off and shoving them into her hands, walking off and it will be like a random and twee Wes Anderson-cinematic moment...

Repetitive Sticky Tape Lines

2009-07-16T15:01:33+01:00

Art Attack taught me that I wasn't smart enough to use sticky tape to make weird and wonderful things. Of course some people were quicker on the uptake and completely adept with the stuff. I feel I almost need to introduce Aussie designer Alexi Freeman's collaboration with Aaron Roberts in the manner of a Blue Peter craft project..."With a bit of acetate and some sticky tape, you too can create a recontextualisation of Alexi Freeman's S/S 09-10 plaid motif. You too can wow yourself with interplay of shadow and light."

Errrr....likely story because of course, most people's fingers and rolls of sticky tape aren't going to result in this installation that is currently on display at 1000 £ BEND as part of the Cloud 19 exhibition (part of the State of Design Festival) in Melbourne. I love how this project places Freeman's work in an entirely isolated context. Hard to believe from a collection of easy-breezy jersey and silk pieces and subtle and soft architected shapes comes something that's so minimal and repetitive.

His peachy coral pieces from his S/S 09-10 collection in particular emphasise Freeman's soft touch. I was thinking that I have to install this mantra in my head: MUST.STOP.WITH.THE.CORAL.FETISH... but when it's being flung at me from all directions, I guess I can't really resist.

Sugar, Sugar Online

2009-07-15T23:13:57+01:00

One instance where this wide column isn't working so well is probably when e-shops don't have large image pop-ups. So it's a good thing I've been to My Sugarland, a boutique in Angel I wrote about a while back, in person to see the wonderful wares they sell because their new online store alas doesn't have those aforementioned 1000 px by 1000 px images to peer at closely. Not that it's a deterrent when you're dealing with a selection that I extolled about before. Zoe Lem has been busy doing all sorts for the store, providing styling sessions, wardrobe auditing (is it weird that I like the combination of a tax term and fashion?) buying in more graduates and of course perfecting her website. Large images aside, it's a little more comprehensive than yer' average e-shop giving designer profiles, store galleries and the selection reflects the cavernous and eclectic physical store...

I feel compelled to emphasise the Reem (Alasadi, not the other one...) draped beaded jacket in particular in ALL three colours just because I believe that it's one of those pieces that actually can be 'thrown over' anything and miraculously an outfit is elevated. People seem to have a penchant for 'throwing' jackets over everything as demonstrated by the invasion of the boyf blazer. With this Reem jacket, it wouldn't just be a case of 'throwing' but I'd be literally chucking it in a violent manner, here, there and everywhere...
I never got struck by the number of hats in the store when I was last there and flicking through their varied vintage selection, suddenly it's hats galore which reminds me I must pop down to My Sugarland for a random hat trying-on sesh.

Juicy Jennivi

2009-07-15T19:45:07+01:00

Logging in my first post on Caribbean Fashion Week EVER but that's not to say it will be a regular thing because the sole reason for the post is Jennivi Jordan who is based in London anyway and most probably will end up showing her work in a less tropical-climate. For work purposes, I did have to go through folders and folders of quite um... *how to word this without sounding impolite*... uninteresting catwalk images. Then Jennivi Jordan's name and designs leapt out at me and whilst I'm going to hold my tongue on that F word (FI-ERCE... the mere thought of me saying that word is laughable...), her collection shown at Carribean Fashion Week is most definitely along those lines. There's a mix of texture, colours and textiles that is well balanced and at first glance has a touch of Louise Goldin's S/S 07 juicy coloured collection except Jennivi hasn't employed knitwear at all. Amongst the bathing suits, white cheesecloth dresses and floppy hats, Jennivi's sharpness completely outshone the rest and I'm thinking she'll be making her way back to our shitty raining, hailing weather soon enough, somehow.

Colours of the Wind and Rain

2009-07-15T14:08:36+01:00

Oh Pocahontas, if only I could bloody paint with the colours of the wind... it would make wearing a colour and print-ridden outfit on a soggy windy day a whole lot better if I could in fact make the wind's secret colours come forth and wrap around me with a flattering wind-machine effect with some pretty petals/leaves in motion as the finishing touches. Sadly I wasn't at one with the sky's spirits and so yesterday as I dressed with bundles of colourful enthusiasm, the rain fell and I became a kind of sad, faded chalk drawing a la Mary Poppins...

Still, the intention was all there. The enthusiasm mainly came about because in amongst the taupe and pink cut-out leather and delightful metal snappers was a bonus top that Angie had made for me, which gives me much reason to believe that a full blown collection branching out beyond the confines of Etsy should definitely be on the cards. She chose this beautifully bright and painterly silk fabric to form this extended bra top with hook and eye closure at the front and lace panelling at the back. It's a step into vivid colour that hasn't been unleashed yet on her Etsy site and somehow I'm seeing this fabric used in a multitude of ways but that would probably be second guessing Angie (I'll leave the design know-how to her...).

Top Marks

2009-07-14T17:47:07+01:00

It's a joy to be able to post single images of shoes in such a large column now because I suspect that nobody really has time to be clicking around on external window pop-ups. So let's just get straight to the point and smack your eyes with another curved comfy-looking heeled affair that slots in rather nicely into my A/W 09 shoe plan (there is in fact a Mac post-it note that lists out this plan which shall be revealed soon enough...). LF Markey hit me up with her 'ugly/pretty' shoe that will sadly not be for sale but she replied promptly with this initial design for her S/S 10 collection that she has made with shoe designer Hollie White. The colours of the shoes will reflect the collection and there'll be glass sections in the heel too which is an update to that clear perspex heel thing that was all over the place a while ago. I officially heart 600 px wide columns and look forward to smacking your eyes a bit more with more shoe porn.

As modelled by Louise Markey herself....!

Knitted Knickers

2009-07-14T16:03:51+01:00

Some of the Betsey Johnson Archive at Opening Ceremony images have been out there for a while... this being one of them. Thankfully having seen the whole lookbook, the ONE thing that I'm really after are these solid black knit zipper knickers. In fact I'll have to track them down somehow even though they're going into the OC store in Soho only, just purely for the fact that I can wear them on the blog and have the pleasure of typing 'Black Knitted Zipper Knickers'. Zipper knickers, zipper knickers... oh joy...

Though if we're gonna be technical, they're more like knitted shorts to me, longer than the knitted Tao ones which are my only pair of that ilk. There's something to be said about the odd fact that I feel way more comfortable wearing chunky knitted short-shorts than shorts of the same length in a more conventional fabric. Hence why these shall be mine even if I have to beg some poor NYC blogger to track them down for me...

Etsy Marriage of the Year

2009-07-14T09:23:50+01:00

If Etsy had an in-house publication in the style of OK! or Hello, surely this would get the front page complete with cheesy grin shoots of the partners in crime. Angie Johnson of I Heart Norwegian Wood's cage shape has come together with Marc Simard of Broundoor (artisan of quirky leather wallets) and his skills and knowledge of leather working to make this stupendous taupe and dusky pink creation. The powder pink may have left this blog's background but lives on in this skirt and though I'm away this weekend by the coast again, this ensemble is coming with me even if the 'skirt with holes' could potentially freak out the resident OAP's. The future is a cage. The future is leather. Take that Orange.

Mag Hag Art

2009-07-13T17:14:16+01:00

>This is the sort of thing I should have started doing once I had been bitten by the mag bug but instead I've let mine go yellow, dusty or they have been destroyed and cut-up for collage purposes. Then there's the teensy fact that I'm not exactly an adept sketcher either. Either way, my metaphorical spiritual hat goes off to John Paul Thurlow's project of sketching out every cover for every magazine he owns plus a few he wished he owned, with 70 covers already done and dusted (unearthed through Dazed's Twitter). I'm guessing that doesn't mean EVERY single issue or if it is, I hope he doesn't get logo-fatigued.

Send Me Off Par Avion

2009-07-13T09:31:03+01:00

What with the whole redesign blah blah blah, I didn't have time to take some proper pictures with my Par Avion from Hong Kong package from Daydream Nation (have FINALLY booked my ticket and I'm off for a loooong fortnight in HK in November...). But today, I am wearing the most literal ensemble from the package... yup, I'm an Air-Mail envelope. I used to steal these from my mum's stationery box and write letters to imaginary friends popping them into the make-believe post box that I think was in fact a bush, sticking stickers all over them in stead of stamps and making sure I used biro on thin writing paper (I liked the embossed effect you get when you write hard with a biro on thin paper...). Looking at the address of this particular envelope, I suddenly got the urge to read that very long letter that Jing and Kay Wong from Daydream Nation had constructed as their A/W 09 lookbook.

Just to recap, the collection entitled 'Letter to Paul' is dedicated to Jing and Kay's father Paul... hence the airmail, postal theme and little nods like 70s' mens' glasses hanging on necklaces as jewellery. I love that Jing and Kay have designed something that's so personal to them but yet so accessible to everyone in terms of styles and wearability and I'd like to thank them for making me chuckle, thinking about the embarrassing shit I used to do when I was a child. I'm off to crumple the dress a bit (achieved when sitting on the 43 bus...) exactly like I did with the paper versions (I thought that if you crumpled them up a bit, it might quicken the 'aging' process... I was dead serious in thinking that in the future, people would relish finding my fake air mail letters in the dirt... and this sounds ridiculous even as I'm typing...).

Image Testing Testing 1,2,3,

2009-07-12T20:05:21+01:00

>> I've been dying to test out the larger main column so have dug out some random pics that haven't been used before. They were meant to be for the Borders and Frontiers t-shirt lookbook though in hindsight, the lighting was a bit too bright. Apologies for the lack of posting. All will be back to norm once I've sorted this design malarky...

Finally!

2009-07-12T13:14:55+01:00

>>Some of you may have already noticed that I've overhauled the blog design-wise. Whilst I was dearly attached to the powder pink and green and the bright yellow mantua, it has been three years and to be honest, this has been plaguing my mind for a while now! Hopefully nobody is too shocked and I haven't gone for an overly ker-razy design. There'll be tweaks throughout this week so bear with me...

I hesitated about putting my mug in the banner but Aurore de la Morinerie's wonderful quick brushstroked illustration of me sort of fits the bill.... she captured me pondering things as I do on this blog. Anyway, blah blah blah...it's all symbolic... couldn't find a better image without copyright issues etc etc etc...

You'll notice that this main column is also a bit wider as I've always found the old template a bit restrictive and seeing as most of my pics are 1000 px wide, why have them pinched and squeezed at half that size? Apologies that all previous posts will seem a bit small and lost in this wider space but going forward, it should all look slightly better...

Beach Reminder

2009-07-11T11:30:20+01:00

It's highly amusing that the day this Urban Collection Summer '09 cover comes up on their homepage is the day that storms are brewing and showers are aplenty here in London and pretty much back to normal dodgy up-and-down summer weather. Nope, gone are the days when the heatwave managed to convince me that 'frollocking' on a REAL beach was doable...

I therefore look back at these particular pics with great fondness. I might even shed a tear. A commentor got a little confused by the cover thinking I had designed something for The Urban Collection. Indicative of the sort of weird, surreal times we're living in when certain bloggers are doing kerazy things like designing ranges for high street stores. Nope, I can't be going down that odd route seeing as I have no design bone in my body. Instead, like Karla and Queen Michelle, I'm just featured on the homepage of Dree's wonderful vintage emporium... along with Westgate on Sea.

A snapshot look at the current offerings of The Urban Collection site already yields a few more goodies and *gasp* ANOTHER interesting bit of denim (the ruffled shirt), and there's a big apparel drop to come next week...

You Can Wear it Everywhere

2009-07-10T15:26:53+01:00

You're gonna be seeing a lot from this book 'Cheap Chic' by Caterine Milinaire and Carol Troy that I picked up for a pretty penny last week.... I'm milking it for all it's worth because it IS such a joyous book on all levels; there's kitsch factor, home truths, sagely advice and hilarious prose. It's unintentionally funny but also freakishly useful even if it was originally published in 1975. So if anyone else has this tome, bear with me. It didn't come cheap though so I get the feeling there aren't a huge number of copies about so hopefully it won't all be wasted posting. Grey marl keeps coming at me in unexpected ways; through an old issue of Fantastic Man where writer James Anderson waxes lyrical about grey marl in a far more eloquent way than i ever did and through these images in Cheap Chic. Terry Melville (whoever she is...) here makes a plain grey sweatshirt and sweatpants (tracksuit for Brits) work in the office, on the weekends and for a night out on the town.

Click on the first image to read the text...

"Terry turns up the collar of her shirt and ties and old bowtie, just so."
"The cowboy belt comes from Uncle Wally, who works for the railroad in Ohio."
"Disco sweatsuit?"

Flatte Wot?

2009-07-10T14:47:20+01:00

>> A post in the Beauty School Dropout category!?! On a Friday no less. Well, actually i cheated and grabbed this pic that just went up on the Dazed fashion team Blog. Nails extraordinaire Teresa Smith is doing someone's nails for a shoot in the office and beauty numpty that I am, I asked about the matt, chalky looking, nail polish shown here. I'll 'fess up now and say I'm SHIT when it comes to product names etc and I guess this is common knowledge to most but these are by Knockout Cosmetics, from their Flatte range of nail polishes, the famous one being the black that Karen O is a fan of. Errr.... just puked up knowledge that I don't really know anything about... I just want Love Hearts-textured/coloured nails....

Don't Have a Feud With Me

2009-07-09T16:56:46+01:00

I've not written about a mid-level (not quite high street, not quite designer) shoe brand in a while and I guess I've been a bit slow on the uptake considering this brand isn't exactly new. Still though, I was delighted to discover Feud London shoes just in time before their A/W 09 collection drops because whilst I love that chunky heel they have going on, their S/S 09 styles are a little too girly for my liking. It's a different kettle of fish however for A/W 09 as they've combined different textures and colours for a heeled brogue that I can see getting much wear out of. Ditto goes for the flat brogues...

Feud is all over Amazon and ASOS as well as Office I think but I should hope that the natural step is a Feud online store so we can bombard their customer service department with emails subject lined "Purple/Red/Grey Amazingness - Drop Date?!?!?!" (?! x 4 gets people's attention, right?)

Heliocentric Goodness

2009-07-09T13:45:19+01:00

This week has been parcel/package-filled to the point where I'm beaming and yelping in excitement in the office in a way that is deemed most silly and uncool. You might have seen a Fred Butler trademark pyramid package in the set of Swide images that I posted yesterday. Quick as a flash the busy-bee, crafty Ms. Butler delivers another pyramid to the office and whilst I could devote a paragraph or two to the awesomeness of the packaging... what matters of course is what's inside...

A layer of silver foil and a click of the metal clasp fastening reveals a grin-inducing headband that features that S/S 09 heliocentric motif that graces Fred Butler's creations on a larger scale.

A quick snap in the office doesn't do it justice and if the sun decides to come out to play this weekend, so should this headband...

Swide This

2009-07-08T18:34:04+01:00

>>I will come back and add further words to my thoughts on Dolce & Gabbana-produced and branded website Swide.com because it's an interesting development in that luxury brands are now tentatively branching out into content production that isn't banal and chokingly cheesy.

For now though because I'm about to shoot off, I'll just bung this up and say that Swide have done a very cute interview with me where they asked me to take 'backstage' shots of my blogging environment... aka my messy apartment... I took the opportunity to give the feather headdress, which I randomly bought at Casa Mexico in Hackney, a visual mention.

You've Got Even Bigger Mail

2009-07-08T12:53:59+01:00

>> I was going to wait until the weekend to post about the joyous package I received from Daydream Nation that not only has those uplifting HK stamps and postmarks on the package (I get a bit pathetic and teary when I receive parcels from Hong Kong) but more importantly, inside contains this dress that I'm wearing today which plays tribute to the humble postmark. Look closely at the woven fabric and ye shall find markings that could make a philatelic nut go mental. I'm almost semi-tempted to purchase a catalogue just to see whether these postmarks are the genuine dealio.

From the small bit of mail which I received a while back containing their lookbook, I'm of course happy that it has given way to this even bigger bit of mail that carries through that Par Avion theme Daydream Nation have got going on in their A/W 09 collection. I'll be delving into the other parts of this postmarked mail this weekend. For now though, the dress has given me a way of wearing these old Zucca open net trews that have been languishing away in a useless manner...