It’s hard to describe the atmosphere of the festival as there’s just so much going on. Dance troop performances spring up every now and then in front of shops and on the red carpet. If it’s raining, you can escape by watching Bugsy Malone in the cinema or grab a bite to eat in the Tanqueray Torch Club. There’s the huge red Pimm’s bus at one side of the field, and the 80s Audi Quattro Warehouse club at the other. Kids could the first day, mess around on the water bed – quite simply a giant (think swimming pool sized) orange water bed plonked next to the Leisure dome – or be entertained by the redcoats in the 50s style Butlins. You could enjoy a makeover in the Beauty Box salon (if you didn’t mind queuing out the door) or watch leather clad bikers zoom around the Wall of Death.

There was, of course, also the music. You could boogie on down to the best of British funk, soul and reggae in the Soul Casino, or enjoy a pint and have a go at the karaoke in the traditional pub. On the main stage bands like the Faces and the Buzzcocks wowed audiences with their sets and remarkable ability to keep their hair despite a good few decades of rock-and-roll lifestyle.

The defining feature of Vintage at Goodwood was, however, the fashion and design. You simply couldn’t go without dressing up. The attention to detail was fantastic – each area was compiled by an expert curator dedicated to their era (see videos here). Everyone entered into the spirit of the event – from stallholders who managed three days of mud in court shoes, to festival goers who managed to pull together immaculate outfits each day in their soggy tents! Queuing for my free makeover, I got chatting to an Adam Ant – also waiting to have his makeup done. Elaborately dressed, he worried that his outfit wasn’t quite up to scratch. That’s how high the standards were. However, the festival wasn’t snobbish – disco studs in joke shop wigs and medallions rubbed shoulders with ladies in vintage Chanel suits and the exact shade of lipstick that was popular in 1955. It retained the ultimately eclectic, welcoming vibe that a festival has – making Vintage accessible for those just out for a laugh and a go in the roller disco, as well as keeping the dedicated vintage lovers more than satisfied.

By Amy Sandiford-Watts

Refusing all PR photos, listings and reviews, Spindle’s pages are well thought out and beautifully shot, proving the designers featured are talented individuals keen to show off the best of their work. In issue one, currently available across Brighton and the UK, we see Alis Pelleschi, Yeasayer and Bombay Bicycle Club amongst other artists. Issue two will be out in September.

Spindle’s launch party at Madame Geisha was a fantastic evening of art and fashion. Heather, Spindle’s editor, is continuing its success with a monthly fashion party, Rack and Ruin, in association with the Laden Showrooms (also to be held at Madam Geisha). Featuring sample sales from local and international designers, fashion shows, and collection previews, Rack and Ruin is not to be missed. Along with Spindle, it is sure to become a fixture on the Brighton fashion scene.

Pick up your copy of Spindle from Madam Geisha, The Duke of York’s, Komedia, Resident Records and various other locations. For a full list of stockists visit the Spindle website.

Written by Amy Sandiford-Watts

Through her photography and writing Coffey is hoping to explore water, the life-giving element that sustains us and makes up over half our bodies – but which also holds the power to destroy. Get down to the Artists Residence, Regency Square, Brighton to ponder the questions raised by Coffey’s work.

Private view 30 July 2010, 6PM – 9PM. Free admission.

Madison Honey Vintage is Kimberley Vernonn’s creative outlet: ‘I create romantic and dreamy, fabulous hand-made limited edition jewellery, using vintage and modern trinkets to create cute little kitsch treasures.’ Named after her baby daughter Madison Honey , Kimberley’s company has been trading since December 2009. Being made redundant gave her the opportunity to transform her lifelong hobby – she has always made jewellery for family and friends – into a business she could develop at the same time as being a full-time mum.

Kimberley loves to scour boot fairs, flea markets and charity shops for beautiful vintage jewellery which she then recycles into her own modern designs, often inspired by the trinkets themselves. ‘I’ve been really into nature inspired pieces recently as I found a vintage necklace with gold plate leaves…’ Ranges popular with her customers are the Skull Cameo Lockets with black satin bows, French charm necklaces and Alice in Wonderland charm bracelets. No two pieces are ever quite the same but Kimberley has a passion for her occupation, and she says every piece is made with love.

There is nothing Kimberley loves more than to be given a commission to source unusual or rare charms – she’s currently on the look out for scissors and other sewing related charms for a fashion designer client – and expects to grow this service when her website is up and running soon. She will also invite prospective customers to contact her with ideas for customised pieces. She confesses to having recently been tempted to keep for herself a one-off bracelet she made especially for a friend using skull cameos and vintage silver charms: ‘I had to control myself…!’

Kimberley’s website ( www.madisonhoneyvintage.co.uk) will soon be up and running. In the meantime her beautiful and inventive jewellery can be bought online on eBay, Etsy and Folksy. She sells at some craft fairs as well (including Telscombe Craft and Gift Market on the third Sunday of every month) and dreams of a bricks and mortar shop one day, to go alongside her online business.

Follow Kimberley on facebook (Madison Honey Vintage) and twitter (@madisonhoney) and look out for freebies and discounts when the website launches.

eBay: www.stores.ebay.co.uk/madisonhoneyvintage
Etsy:www.madisonhoneyvintage.etsy.com
Folksy: www.folksy.com/shops/madisonhoneyvintage

Written by Catherine Meek

As most of you know, we The Brighton Collective have been busy working behind the scenes to create a website for Brighton based designers to showcase their wonderful unique creations. Well i am pleased to say we are putting the finishing touches to the website as we speak and will be announcing our grand opening any time now so watch this space for an update!

We have a Collective of brilliant local designers all ready for the launch but there is plenty of room for more. We would love to hear from more of you to really get this project off to a flying start.

Our grand plan is to help promote your creativity by hosting meet ups, networking sessions and fairs and events where you can promote and sell your ideas and products.

The Brighton Collective is just around the corner so why not get in touch and see what we are all about!

info@thebrightoncollective.co.uk

Claire Potter’s Simple Pleasures Cupcakes are one of those things. I came across her stall at the BHASVIC boot sale whilst freezing my socks off looking for vintage treasure one chilly Sunday morning. With lashings of frosting and flavours I’d never even thought possible (Coke Float, anyone?) they were the perfect antidote to the Sunday morning blues.

Claire and her team make them from scratch in their cupcakery near Brighton using traditional recipes and just a sprinkling of magical imagination.

Flavours include Strawberry Fields (which has a strawberry jam centre), Lemon Meringue, Oreo and, my personal favourite, After Eight, which is topped with green butter cream and a little chocolate flake. The more adventurous can try Coke Float, Hot Chocolate(not as innocent as it sounds – a chocolate and chilli cupcake with spicy butter cream topping), and seasonal flavours such as Pumpkin Pie and Courgette. This month’s flavour, Vanilla Roses, pays homage to the Chelsea Flower Show. For updates on the latest flavours follow @simplecupcakery on Twitter.

Simple Pleasures cupcakes cost just £1 each for a very generously sized ‘maxi’ cake. Look out for their bright red parasol at the BHASVIC boot sale or get them delivered by contacting Simple Pleasures Cupcakery via http://simplepleasurescupcakery.blogspot.com/ .

Enjoy!

By Amy Sandiford-Watts

Shooting from across the country to snap up the creative vibes, many up-and-coming artists, designers and photographers are joining Brighton University to kick-start their careers and unleash their talents, including photography graduate Kat McCarthy. Kat specialises in photographic manipulations, creating beautiful and mystifying shots inspired by the film-maker and photographer Floria Sigismondi, who has also directed videos for Björk, Marilyn Manson and Christina Aguilera.

Pictured are some of her most recent works, in which she uses stock photographs (where models pose in neutral backgrounds to allow for photographers to manipulate the photo how they see it), to display the destructiveness of society. Blistered the Man displays the transcendence of societal-inflicted emotional turmoil onto the physicality of a man’s body., in which a man attempts to cover his face, but is scarred by the corrosive nature of a post-modern society. Kat wished to reflect how technology is taking over nature, wherein nothing is left without an online identity, which is slowly eating into mankind’s beauty.

Choices of a Geisha, is a stunning shot from the same series, which reflects how those who are regarded as beautiful are often exploited. A geisha lays in turmoil; no matter which way she turns, she is surrounded by objectification. What is so haunting about this particular shot is how representative it is of beauty ideals worldwide; often those who are regarded as the pinnacles of beauty are the ones who suffer the most at the hand of it (we only have to look at Marilyn Monroe to see evidence for this).

Kat uses inspiration from those around her to create her artwork, which was a central reason for her move from Basingstoke, an industrial town, to Brighton, a town often regarded as one of diversity and cultural acceptance, as well as beautiful photographical locations such as the Pavilion, the Laines (a series of independent shops), and, of course, the beach.

Her next project is to be based on Alice in Wonderland, furthering her more sinister side to photography. Now she has graduated, she is planning to create her own dark room, so hopefully Brighton will have yet another great photographer to add to its ever-growing alumni.

To see more of Kat McCarthy’s work, visit http://bedlam-baby.deviantart.com/

Written by Isabella Stockwell

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3356858/Arts-and-crafts-The-woof-and-the-warp-of-the-web.html

The first Sunday Crafternoon took place on Sunday 10 April at a community venue in Saltdean overlooking the sea. I was inspired by a painting by Oliver Kilbourn (a pitman painter) of women sitting around a kitchen table making a northern ‘proddy mat’ to generate a community of women to come together to participate in a creative project and invited a handful of women to knit, crochet, collage, make poetry, paint and – for fun – attempt origami. Materials were provided as was instruction and suggestions for mini projects: the women were invited to learn to knit and crochet by making 8 inch squares to be sent off to South Africa to be made into blankets for abandoned children and AIDS orphans (knit-a-square.com); experienced knitters tackled knitted hearts from a pattern downloaded from The Children’s Society’s website (childrenssociety.org.uk/bigstitch).

The afternoon kicked off with a ‘share and tell’ – everyone was invited to bring something either they had made themselves or something handmade which

they found inspiring. Lisa stunned everyone with her beautiful intricate embroidery, Jenny brought homemade pickle, Helen brought out a patchwork quilt which her grandmother had made and recounted memories engendered by some of the fabrics – her old green and white candystriped school dress had been cut up for squares – and Helen also shared a crocheted cover she had made for her parents’ wedding anniversary one year. Catherine brought handknitted socks and a collection of poetry containing one of her poems in print. Lotus used the event as an opportunity to get back into her watercolour painting, bringing with her an easel and canvas – she has been setting aside time in the week to paint ever since and maintains that the Crafternoon was an important support to this routine. Lynne left the event with enthusiasm for getting back into her lapsed hobby of leatherwork.

Catherine had provided home made cakes and these were served with tea. Leisa Brown, natural health practitioner (Highfields Natural Health), brought with her a massage chair and oils and relaxing music and pampered everyone who took advantage of her offer of a free mini-massage. These went down a treat and Leisa’s diary bore a few new bookings by the time she left the party.

Every one expressed that they had enjoyed taking ‘me time’ to make something. In many cases they had surprised themselves at what they had produced and the satisfaction they had taken to do so; some of the women who work together and thought they knew each other were surprised at what they hadn’t known which they learned as a result of the show and tell activity. Rumour has it that there has been a shift in the teatime gossip at work to discussions concerning needlework projects.

Invited to feed back her appraisal of the Crafternoon, Vicki wrote that the afternoon was ‘An opportunity for me to do something for myself and meet some lovely and inspiring people’. My intention to provide a nurturing space for women to express themselves was a success and my claim that ‘everyone is creative’ gained a few more adherents.

A Sunday Crafternoon is being planned for September. Follow me on twitter at @youarecreative to receive details of this and other community creative projects I am hosting in 2010.

Love in every stitch is the promise of Catherine Meek’s label for bespoke hand knitted sweaters and socks. Hailing from the north east of England Catherine is inspired by generations of women before her who knit for their families as the men mined coal down the pit. She celebrates the devotion of these women to the make do and mend brand of homemaking they lived with pride. Whilst she agrees that shopping on the high street for mass produced cheap and cheerful items available globally makes sense in today’s fast paced world, she also maintains there is no substitute for the love and care these women knitted into the garments they produced by hand.

Catherine offers a knitting service with a difference: “Just as the cable pattern in fishermen’s jumpers represents elements of a life at sea as well as being decorative, so I craft a personal gift for my clients.” Jumpers and socks are created to the customer’s size and spec. Jumper designs range from the more traditional aran knit to one off items which say something about the wearer – a golf club or a teddy bear for example. Socks can be fine and monogrammed or soft and fluffy subject to requirement.

Contact Catherine at loveineverystitch@gmail.com to discuss your order.