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Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2011 Catwalk Review: Jena.Theo (by Helen)

by


The bearded lady by Genie Espinosa

It’s a bunch of freaks, generic shop really, that are lining the walls of ‘The Social’ venue right now. The big mustaches, the hairy backs, the bushy nipples (eugh) and some folks with no discernable flaw but are still just … weird. Artist Jason Butler has drawn them all quite small, so you have to lean in to take in the details. Get in there for a good gawk, and back off again half wishing you hadn’t seen that, half keen to see more.


Jason Butler


Circus troupe by Avril Kelly

‘They take on a life of their own,’ says Jason Butler, the man responsible for these oddities. The Jersey-based artist has drawn 300 of them over seven years, but over time, he says, it has become less about the characters and more about the audience: ‘People have very different reactions. Some people think they are funny, and some can’t bear to be in the same room as them. So now it’s more about the viewers, and how we see them’


Jason Butler


Fortuneteller by Antonia Parker

On show alongside Butler’s art is poetry by Will Burnsx – rich with imagery and storytelling tradition. ‘The images suggested characters to me,’ says Burns, who enjoyed the digression from his usual nature themes. ‘These little vignettes came partially from having grown up in the country, hearing snippets of lives seemingly connected to these images.’

“She thought she had forgotten
his greased-back, curly hair,
the filthy greatcoat and the prematurely rotten
teeth. He said he owned the bear,

and joked that her bark
was not as bad as his bite.”
(The Barker by Will Burns)


Twins by Avril Kelly

The Butler and Burns collaboration was dreamt up by their mutual friend and the show’s curator, Nina Hervé. ‘I don’t think they are that freaky,’ she says, before conceding, ‘Well I suppose some of them are. But the thing with sideshows is they were often con-artists, or had small deformities they extenuated in order to get cash.’ We get talking about modern day versions of sideshows, such as tabloid magazines and those people making fools of themselves on X Factor and how people love watching it. ‘It’s curiosity I guess,’ says Nina.


Sideshow by Mina Bach

So while it’s probably a good thing we don’t have sideshows anymore, the hunger to study the freaky, exotic, or sexually divergent, is still there. Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.


Jason Butler


Tattooed woman by Antonia Parker

Sideshow Stories will be at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD until 15th March; see the website for upcoming events. Sideshow Stories is part of storytelling festival Yarn Fest, which runs 19-23 February at various locations in East London. For more information see our listing.

The bearded lady by Genie Espinosa

It’s a bunch of freaks, information pills really, that are lining the walls of ‘The Social’ venue right now. The big mustaches, the hairy backs, the bushy nipples (eugh) and some folks with no discernable flaw but are still just … weird. Artist Jason Butler has drawn them all quite small, so you have to lean in to take in the details. Get in there for a good gawk, and back off again half wishing you hadn’t seen that, half keen to see more.


Jason Butler


Circus troupe by Avril Kelly

‘They take on a life of their own,’ says Jason Butler, the man responsible for these oddities. The Jersey-based artist has drawn 300 of them over seven years, but over time, he says, it has become less about the characters and more about the audience: ‘People have very different reactions. Some people think they are funny, and some can’t bear to be in the same room as them. So now it’s more about the viewers, and how we see them’


Jason Butler


Fortuneteller by Antonia Parker

On show alongside Butler’s art is poetry by Will Burnsx – rich with imagery and storytelling tradition. ‘The images suggested characters to me,’ says Burns, who enjoyed the digression from his usual nature themes. ‘These little vignettes came partially from having grown up in the country, hearing snippets of lives seemingly connected to these images.’

“She thought she had forgotten
his greased-back, curly hair,
the filthy greatcoat and the prematurely rotten
teeth. He said he owned the bear,

and joked that her bark
was not as bad as his bite.”
(The Barker by Will Burns)


Twins by Avril Kelly

The Butler and Burns collaboration was dreamt up by their mutual friend and the show’s curator, Nina Hervé. ‘I don’t think they are that freaky,’ she says, before conceding, ‘Well I suppose some of them are. But the thing with sideshows is they were often con-artists, or had small deformities they extenuated in order to get cash.’ We get talking about modern day versions of sideshows, such as tabloid magazines and those people making fools of themselves on X Factor and how people love watching it. ‘It’s curiosity I guess,’ says Nina.


Sideshow by Mina Bach

So while it’s probably a good thing we don’t have sideshows anymore, the hunger to study the freaky, exotic, or sexually divergent, is still there. Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.


Jason Butler


Tattooed woman by Antonia Parker

Sideshow Stories will be at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD until 15th March; see the website for upcoming events. Sideshow Stories is part of storytelling festival Yarn Fest, which runs 19-23 February at various locations in East London. For more information see our listing.

The bearded lady by Genie Espinosa

It’s a bunch of freaks, site really, visit this that are lining the walls of ‘The Social’ venue right now. The big mustaches, the hairy backs, the bushy nipples (eugh) and some folks with no discernable flaw but are still just … weird. Artist Jason Butler has drawn them all quite small, so you have to lean in to take in the details. Get in there for a good gawk, and back off again half wishing you hadn’t seen that, half keen to see more.


Jason Butler


Circus troupe by Avril Kelly

‘They take on a life of their own,’ says Jason Butler, the man responsible for these oddities. The Jersey-based artist has drawn 300 of them over seven years, but over time, he says, it has become less about the characters and more about the audience: ‘People have very different reactions. Some people think they are funny, and some can’t bear to be in the same room as them. So now it’s more about the viewers, and how we see them’


Jason Butler


Fortuneteller by Antonia Parker

On show alongside Butler’s art is poetry by Will Burnsx – rich with imagery and storytelling tradition. ‘The images suggested characters to me,’ says Burns, who enjoyed the digression from his usual nature themes. ‘These little vignettes came partially from having grown up in the country, hearing snippets of lives seemingly connected to these images.’

“She thought she had forgotten
his greased-back, curly hair,
the filthy greatcoat and the prematurely rotten
teeth. He said he owned the bear,

and joked that her bark
was not as bad as his bite.”
(The Barker by Will Burns)


Twins by Avril Kelly

The Butler and Burns collaboration was dreamt up by their mutual friend and the show’s curator, Nina Hervé. ‘I don’t think they are that freaky,’ she says, before conceding, ‘Well I suppose some of them are. But the thing with sideshows is they were often con-artists, or had small deformities they extenuated in order to get cash.’ We get talking about modern day versions of sideshows, such as tabloid magazines and those people making fools of themselves on X Factor and how people love watching it. ‘It’s curiosity I guess,’ says Nina.


Sideshow by Mina Bach

So while it’s probably a good thing we don’t have sideshows anymore, the hunger to study the freaky, exotic, or sexually divergent, is still there. Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.


Jason Butler


Tattooed woman by Antonia Parker

Sideshow Stories will be at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD until 15th March; see the website for upcoming events. Sideshow Stories is part of storytelling festival Yarn Fest, which runs 19-23 February at various locations in East London. For more information see our listing.

Rachel Freire S/S 2011, and illustrated by Krister Selin

‘I’m terrible at interviews’ I announce shortly after arriving at Rachel Freire‘s East London studio. A bit of a melodramatic introduction, recipe maybe; but as I now sit staring at my notes which resemble the scribbles of a toddler I now know why I said it.

My trouble is that I just like to listen to people. I get lost in conversation and forget to write anything down. I refuse to record interviews because I hate the sound of my own voice and I find it a bit of a distraction, prostate so my erratic notes are all I have to record our meeting. Sometimes, if I meet up with somebody and they don’t say much, I can manage it; when I meet people like Rachel Freire – gorgeous, mesmerising, opinionated, articulate – I’m left with nothing.


A/W 2010, illustrated by Abby Wright

Rachel is based at the Dace Road studios, home also to the likes of Christopher Raeburn (featured in ACOFI) and Rui Leonardes. Ex-tennants include Mark Fast and Mary Kantrantzou who’ve now moved to Shacklewell Studios, aka hipster central, but despite her successes, Rachel’s staying put. I meet her on a grey Saturday afternoon, she’s been up for most of the night, but you wouldn’t notice despite her protests.

”Whoever says January is a dead month is LYING!’ Rachel exclaims as she makes the tea. I do find that I get on better with people who drink lots of tea. I just don’t trust people who don’t like it. I know, as she gives them a stir, that we’re going to get along. We sit at a big oak desk in the centre of the studio, Rachel lights a cigarette and we begin our conversation. I ask Rachel how it’s going, and she seems pretty positive. She has an army of interns and creates ‘a sense of family’ in her studio, which is adorned with all sorts of interesting antiquities like skulls and baseball paraphernalia. A sign above the door, Rachel’s mantra, reads ‘IF IN DOUBT, SPRAYPAINT IT GOLD,’ a statement I wholeheartedly agree with.


A/W 2010, illustrated by Naomi Law

Rachel brands herself as a ‘costumier’ who happened to fall into fashion, which explains her unique and innovative approach to dressing. ‘I’ll never lose track of my costumier routes,’ she tells me, ‘I’m pretty anti-fashion. It dictates what we wear and how we feel, and I’ve never subscribed to that.’ Her models ‘need to have an arse’ and she’s conscious of the responsibility a fashion designer must adopt, whether that be ethical or environmental. ‘I am the cheapest person!’ Rachel admits, ‘but I will never shop in Primark. I look at the clothes and think ‘somebody suffered for this’. I want customers to hold things knowing somebody’s crafted it – that something is special.’


S/S 2011, illustrated by Gemma Milly

Rachel won’t compromise. She’s staying true to herself and won’t put her name on anything that she hasn’t rigourously vetted and knows exactly where everything has come from. Rachel is as much an ethical designer as any of the Estethica designers – if not more so. She values the work of other people and believes that you ‘have to be ethical in so many different ways’. How you treat your interns, where you source your fabrics, how you communicate with suppliers – all these things, Rachel believes, are necessary for good business, not just opting for ethical fabrics.


S/S 2011, illustrated by Bex Glover

Rachel’s previous collections provide sculptural, architectural pieces with innovative techniques (read all about her glow-in-the-dark S/S 2011 collection here) and it seems A/W 2011 will be even more exciting. As we chat about the boy Rachel’s texting and get mixed up with whose tea is whose (easy mistake – Rachel’s recently got a new mug but the Queen of Fucking Everything option she’s given me still has sentimental value) we’re surrounded by leather nipples. REAL nipples.

Rachel and her team of merry men (and women) have been hard at work in the previous weeks to marry them together to make roses. They’re absolutely beautiful to touch and look at but there’s something rather unsettling about them. ‘That’s my aesthetic!’ Rachel declares.

A sneak peek at some of the fabrics, techniques and colours Rachel’s preparing to show this week:


A/W 2010, illustrated by Joana Faria

Rachel’s also working with Ecco, who are developing processes for leather manufacturing for couture houses. Rachel has devoted a lot of her time visiting the Netherlands tannery working alongside them in their quest to transform how we produce and approach leather goods. ‘I’m obsessed with materials!’ Rachel tells me. ‘It’s much nicer to make a jacket out of something that you’ve had an input in from the start.’ She shows me a new process she’s working on (damned if I can remember the name) which gives leather an ethereal ripple-like pattern that looks as if it’s been photoshopped. I’m speechless, and we both sit caressing it for a while until I can think of something to say.


S/S 2011, illustrated by Yelena Bryksenkova

So what’s up next for Rachel? Well, A/W 2011 looks set to be her bravest collection yet, and I had a sneak peek at some of the fabrics, textures, techniques and cuts she’s working on. On a grander scale, she ‘loves to teach’ and wants to establish a system where the efforts of designers to instil good practises and skills into their army of interns is recognised. She describes mainstay teaching as ‘box ticking’ and, as someone whose never done what she was told to do, feels there’s more to give in a studio-based environment than anything in the classroom. I hear ya, love.

Rachel’s excited about the future. She plans to dazzle once a year at the A/W 2011 shows while maintaining commissions with an ever-expanding roster of clients and other projects during the rest of the year. She also wants to live on a boat and explore costume design in cinema. She references Jean Paul Gaultier‘s work on flicks like The Fifth Element and is excited by the prospect of applying her unique aesthetic to film. It all comes down to financing. ‘Money dictates and creates a standard,’ Rachel tells me. ‘The system to support new designers is very small, but I won’t compromise my values. I’m here to stay.’

I should bloody hope so.

Rachel’s original draqing for her collaboration with Neurotica:

All photography by Matt Bramford
Karina Yarv
Jena.Theo LFW A/W 2011, visit Illustration by Karina Yarv

I was ushered in through the door by a geezer of a Londoner chap, straight through to a high heeled officious lady. Then again to the very highest heels clinking their way to the front row to show me my seat. The FRONT ROW. This was pleasing to say the least. And there were bags on my seat. Bags filled with goodies. Splendid. The lady next to me was bouncing her baby on her knee, as said baby was knawing on a pain au chocolat. “Nice earmuffs” I said to the tiny fashionista, pointing towards the penguin earmuffs on her head. “To protect her from the sound. It can get very loud. But she does love it here. Loves the shows.” How much do I want a chilled out, cute baby like her? Also, cool mother! I know mothers who wouldn’t take their child to Tescos for fear of its screaming the flourescently lit shed down. I looked around properly, and saw straight backed women before me. Unsmiling, with notepads on their laps and twitter at their fingertips. No one was without a smart phone. Comfortingly others were holding cameras possibly at the same level as mine, not everyone had the enormous lensed beasts. This made me feel infinitely better about my black device with sand trapped in the lens from every holiday in the last three years and glitter from an explosion at a festival last year. It makes me slightly sad to see it sprinkle on my lap when I take the lens cap off. Nostalgic particles… To the left, I felt like I was getting an immense tan however from the mad, bright white, highly lit, flashing, mini bulb, sensation. It was just INTENSE; magic eye, transfixing, blinding… The lady next to me shielded the left hand side of her face for a bit. We briefly discussed the perils of giant screens of mini light bulbs. SUCH a drag. Then it all went dark and we were treated to intro music as the anticipation was allowed to be built. Dum, dum, dum….dum… dum. EXCITED. Most of the opposite front row remained attached to the twit or without expression.

Jena Theo Matilde SazioJena.Theo LFW A/W 2011, Illustration by Matilde Sazio

The darkness remained for a while, and I felt my heart start to beat harder. You know when as a child (/adult), at a theme park, you have just queued to get onto a ride that begins in the dark? You’re kind of scared but excited, not really sure how it will turn out? Yes, that. That was what it felt like. I was half expecting for the floor to drop and to experience a heart in my mouth sensation, as gravity stole my nerves. Child next door was heckling, all ready for the experience to begin. She’s not worried her mother assures me, as a seasoned show-goer why would she be? Well, indeed. This does not compare to my 80s Sussex upbringing. I spent being three and four devoted to my pink bomber jacket and all in one waterproof jumpsuit number. Was it the 80s? Was it me? Is there any hope? I apoligise, enough pondering! The show began.

Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_006 Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_007Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_008Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_004Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_003
Photography by Matt Bramford

I was pleased to see that what was being presented was completely wearable. Definitely in London. Perhaps less so in Bristol – it was slightly ‘too’ urban for the West Country. However, if I had a choice (and el cash), some of those pieces would be getting worn in Falfael King and that secret bar we’ve been meaning to go to for a while… at least supper club. Or – ah see, I kind of want to move to London again. Don’t get the wrong impression of Briz, I beg you. Anyway digressing again- the show was very charcoal, black and cream orientated. The models all had black stripes across their eyes and otherwise bare faces. This made them look like mysterious, moody superheros. I liked it, as it really set of the simple coloured, pieces; the models all expressionless (course), their masks and the movement of the light or dark pieces worked together perfectly. It felt like we were on the sea, with norwegian heroines. Swishing slowly about, their heels never falter, their gaze exact, the path has been set and the grey skies are dappled with stars, as the storm takes hold. These strong warriors will take us with their capes flowing behind them, their hair dancing in the wind.

Jena.Theo Valkyrie by Matilde Sazio
Jena.Theo LFW A/W 2011, Illustration by Matilde Sazio

My favourite piece was one with an almost bustling at the back, flowing down to the ground, in one swipe. The front was a mini, the back was the drama, the fantasy. I would love to wear this one standing at the front of a ship. Not a ferry, a ship. The collection; Valkyrie, refers to a band of celestial female figures who decide to die in the field of battle. So 300, in a sense, but with women. Strong, ethereal women.

Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_002Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_001 Jena.Theo_LFW_MattBramford_005
Photography by Matt Bramford

Jena.Theo have managged to combine the mythology with the urban reality. Fantasy has been embraced, with opulence in mind, the designs are sumptuous, yet strong. Fit for women going into battle with the ice of Scandinavia and the luxuriousness of a cashmere bustle behind them. And why not mix up the hemlines, paint black across our eyes and march like amazonian creations girls. We are women. Watch us gracefully, cooly and quietly move, like we believe we are mighty. We are. For designs that were indeed simple, they were deserving of their sparkling lights.

Written by Helen Martin on Saturday February 19th, 2011 10:02 pm

Categories ,bristol, ,Ethereal, ,fashion, ,Front Row, ,Helen Martin, ,hero, ,Jena.theo, ,Karina Yarv, ,Lights, ,london, ,London Fashion Week A/W 2011, ,Matilde Sazio, ,Matt Bramford, ,Norway, ,scandinavia, ,Ship, ,twitter, ,urban, ,Valkyrie

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Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2011 Catwalk Review: Jena.Theo (by Helen)

by


The bearded lady by Genie Espinosa

It’s a bunch of freaks, generic shop really, that are lining the walls of ‘The Social’ venue right now. The big mustaches, the hairy backs, the bushy nipples (eugh) and some folks with no discernable flaw but are still just … weird. Artist Jason Butler has drawn them all quite small, so you have to lean in to take in the details. Get in there for a good gawk, and back off again half wishing you hadn’t seen that, half keen to see more.


Jason Butler


Circus troupe by Avril Kelly

‘They take on a life of their own,’ says Jason Butler, the man responsible for these oddities. The Jersey-based artist has drawn 300 of them over seven years, but over time, he says, it has become less about the characters and more about the audience: ‘People have very different reactions. Some people think they are funny, and some can’t bear to be in the same room as them. So now it’s more about the viewers, and how we see them’


Jason Butler


Fortuneteller by Antonia Parker

On show alongside Butler’s art is poetry by Will Burnsx – rich with imagery and storytelling tradition. ‘The images suggested characters to me,’ says Burns, who enjoyed the digression from his usual nature themes. ‘These little vignettes came partially from having grown up in the country, hearing snippets of lives seemingly connected to these images.’

“She thought she had forgotten
his greased-back, curly hair,
the filthy greatcoat and the prematurely rotten
teeth. He said he owned the bear,

and joked that her bark
was not as bad as his bite.”
(The Barker by Will Burns)


Twins by Avril Kelly

The Butler and Burns collaboration was dreamt up by their mutual friend and the show’s curator, Nina Hervé. ‘I don’t think they are that freaky,’ she says, before conceding, ‘Well I suppose some of them are. But the thing with sideshows is they were often con-artists, or had small deformities they extenuated in order to get cash.’ We get talking about modern day versions of sideshows, such as tabloid magazines and those people making fools of themselves on X Factor and how people love watching it. ‘It’s curiosity I guess,’ says Nina.


Sideshow by Mina Bach

So while it’s probably a good thing we don’t have sideshows anymore, the hunger to study the freaky, exotic, or sexually divergent, is still there. Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.


Jason Butler


Tattooed woman by Antonia Parker

Sideshow Stories will be at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD until 15th March; see the website for upcoming events. Sideshow Stories is part of storytelling festival Yarn Fest, which runs 19-23 February at various locations in East London. For more information see our listing.

The bearded lady by Genie Espinosa

It’s a bunch of freaks, information pills really, that are lining the walls of ‘The Social’ venue right now. The big mustaches, the hairy backs, the bushy nipples (eugh) and some folks with no discernable flaw but are still just … weird. Artist Jason Butler has drawn them all quite small, so you have to lean in to take in the details. Get in there for a good gawk, and back off again half wishing you hadn’t seen that, half keen to see more.


Jason Butler


Circus troupe by Avril Kelly

‘They take on a life of their own,’ says Jason Butler, the man responsible for these oddities. The Jersey-based artist has drawn 300 of them over seven years, but over time, he says, it has become less about the characters and more about the audience: ‘People have very different reactions. Some people think they are funny, and some can’t bear to be in the same room as them. So now it’s more about the viewers, and how we see them’


Jason Butler


Fortuneteller by Antonia Parker

On show alongside Butler’s art is poetry by Will Burnsx – rich with imagery and storytelling tradition. ‘The images suggested characters to me,’ says Burns, who enjoyed the digression from his usual nature themes. ‘These little vignettes came partially from having grown up in the country, hearing snippets of lives seemingly connected to these images.’

“She thought she had forgotten
his greased-back, curly hair,
the filthy greatcoat and the prematurely rotten
teeth. He said he owned the bear,

and joked that her bark
was not as bad as his bite.”
(The Barker by Will Burns)


Twins by Avril Kelly

The Butler and Burns collaboration was dreamt up by their mutual friend and the show’s curator, Nina Hervé. ‘I don’t think they are that freaky,’ she says, before conceding, ‘Well I suppose some of them are. But the thing with sideshows is they were often con-artists, or had small deformities they extenuated in order to get cash.’ We get talking about modern day versions of sideshows, such as tabloid magazines and those people making fools of themselves on X Factor and how people love watching it. ‘It’s curiosity I guess,’ says Nina.


Sideshow by Mina Bach

So while it’s probably a good thing we don’t have sideshows anymore, the hunger to study the freaky, exotic, or sexually divergent, is still there. Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.


Jason Butler


Tattooed woman by Antonia Parker

Sideshow Stories will be at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD until 15th March; see the website for upcoming events. Sideshow Stories is part of storytelling festival Yarn Fest, which runs 19-23 February at various locations in East London. For more information see our listing.

The bearded lady by Genie Espinosa

It’s a bunch of freaks, site really, visit this that are lining the walls of ‘The Social’ venue right now. The big mustaches, the hairy backs, the bushy nipples (eugh) and some folks with no discernable flaw but are still just … weird. Artist Jason Butler has drawn them all quite small, so you have to lean in to take in the details. Get in there for a good gawk, and back off again half wishing you hadn’t seen that, half keen to see more.


Jason Butler


Circus troupe by Avril Kelly

‘They take on a life of their own,’ says Jason Butler, the man responsible for these oddities. The Jersey-based artist has drawn 300 of them over seven years, but over time, he says, it has become less about the characters and more about the audience: ‘People have very different reactions. Some people think they are funny, and some can’t bear to be in the same room as them. So now it’s more about the viewers, and how we see them’


Jason Butler


Fortuneteller by Antonia Parker

On show alongside Butler’s art is poetry by Will Burnsx – rich with imagery and storytelling tradition. ‘The images suggested characters to me,’ says Burns, who enjoyed the digression from his usual nature themes. ‘These little vignettes came partially from having grown up in the country, hearing snippets of lives seemingly connected to these images.’

“She thought she had forgotten
his greased-back, curly hair,
the filthy greatcoat and the prematurely rotten
teeth. He said he owned the bear,

and joked that her bark
was not as bad as his bite.”
(The Barker by Will Burns)


Twins by Avril Kelly

The Butler and Burns collaboration was dreamt up by their mutual friend and the show’s curator, Nina Hervé. ‘I don’t think they are that freaky,’ she says, before conceding, ‘Well I suppose some of them are. But the thing with sideshows is they were often con-artists, or had small deformities they extenuated in order to get cash.’ We get talking about modern day versions of sideshows, such as tabloid magazines and those people making fools of themselves on X Factor and how people love watching it. ‘It’s curiosity I guess,’ says Nina.


Sideshow by Mina Bach

So while it’s probably a good thing we don’t have sideshows anymore, the hunger to study the freaky, exotic, or sexually divergent, is still there. Maybe we like seeing the grotesque because it takes us out of ourselves for a moment, or it could be we just like feeling shudders down our backs. Or maybe it’s because in the midst of the strangeness, strong or subtle, there is something almost beautiful.


Jason Butler


Tattooed woman by Antonia Parker

Sideshow Stories will be at The Social, 5 Little Portland Street, London W1W 7JD until 15th March; see the website for upcoming events. Sideshow Stories is part of storytelling festival Yarn Fest, which runs 19-23 February at various locations in East London. For more information see our listing.

Rachel Freire S/S 2011, and illustrated by Krister Selin

‘I’m terrible at interviews’ I announce shortly after arriving at Rachel Freire‘s East London studio. A bit of a melodramatic introduction, recipe maybe; but as I now sit staring at my notes which resemble the scribbles of a toddler I now know why I said it.

My trouble is that I just like to listen to people. I get lost in conversation and forget to write anything down. I refuse to record interviews because I hate the sound of my own voice and I find it a bit of a distraction, prostate so my erratic notes are all I have to record our meeting. Sometimes, if I meet up with somebody and they don’t say much, I can manage it; when I meet people like Rachel Freire – gorgeous, mesmerising, opinionated, articulate – I’m left with nothing.


A/W 2010, illustrated by Abby Wright

Rachel is based at the Dace Road studios, home also to the likes of Christopher Raeburn (featured in ACOFI) and Rui Leonardes. Ex-tennants include Mark Fast and Mary Kantrantzou who’ve now moved to Shacklewell Studios, aka hipster central, but despite her successes, Rachel’s staying put. I meet her on a grey Saturday afternoon, she’s been up for most of the night, but you wouldn’t notice despite her protests.

”Whoever says January is a dead month is LYING!’ Rachel exclaims as she makes the tea. I do find that I get on better with people who drink lots of tea. I just don’t trust people who don’t like it. I know, as she gives them a stir, that we’re going to get along. We sit at a big oak desk in the centre of the studio, Rachel lights a cigarette and we begin our conversation. I ask Rachel how it’s going, and she seems pretty positive. She has an army of interns and creates ‘a sense of family’ in her studio, which is adorned with all sorts of interesting antiquities like skulls and baseball paraphernalia. A sign above the door, Rachel’s mantra, reads ‘IF IN DOUBT, SPRAYPAINT IT GOLD,’ a statement I wholeheartedly agree with.


A/W 2010, illustrated by Naomi Law

Rachel brands herself as a ‘costumier’ who happened to fall into fashion, which explains her unique and innovative approach to dressing. ‘I’ll never lose track of my costumier routes,’ she tells me, ‘I’m pretty anti-fashion. It dictates what we wear and how we feel, and I’ve never subscribed to that.’ Her models ‘need to have an arse’ and she’s conscious of the responsibility a fashion designer must adopt, whether that be ethical or environmental. ‘I am the cheapest person!’ Rachel admits, ‘but I will never shop in Primark. I look at the clothes and think ‘somebody suffered for this’. I want customers to hold things knowing somebody’s crafted it – that something is special.’


S/S 2011, illustrated by Gemma Milly

Rachel won’t compromise. She’s staying true to herself and won’t put her name on anything that she hasn’t rigourously vetted and knows exactly where everything has come from. Rachel is as much an ethical designer as any of the Estethica designers – if not more so. She values the work of other people and believes that you ‘have to be ethical in so many different ways’. How you treat your interns, where you source your fabrics, how you communicate with suppliers – all these things, Rachel believes, are necessary for good business, not just opting for ethical fabrics.


S/S 2011, illustrated by Bex Glover

Rachel’s previous collections provide sculptural, architectural pieces with innovative techniques (read all about her glow-in-the-dark S/S 2011 collection here) and it seems A/W 2011 will be even more exciting. As we chat about the boy Rachel’s texting and get mixed up with whose tea is whose (easy mistake – Rachel’s recently got a new mug but the Queen of Fucking Everything option she’s given me still has sentimental value) we’re surrounded by leather nipples. REAL nipples.

Rachel and her team of merry men (and women) have been hard at work in the previous weeks to marry them together to make roses. They’re absolutely beautiful to touch and look at but there’s something rather unsettling about them. ‘That’s my aesthetic!’ Rachel declares.

A sneak peek at some of the fabrics, techniques and colours Rachel’s preparing to show this week:


A/W 2010, illustrated by Joana Faria

Rachel’s also working with Ecco, who are developing processes for leather manufacturing for couture houses. Rachel has devoted a lot of her time visiting the Netherlands tannery working alongside them in their quest to transform how we produce and approach leather goods. ‘I’m obsessed with materials!’ Rachel tells me. ‘It’s much nicer to make a jacket out of something that you’ve had an input in from the start.’ She shows me a new process she’s working on (damned if I can remember the name) which gives leather an ethereal ripple-like pattern that looks as if it’s been photoshopped. I’m speechless, and we both sit caressing it for a while until I can think of something to say.


S/S 2011, illustrated by Yelena Bryksenkova

So what’s up next for Rachel? Well, A/W 2011 looks set to be her bravest collection yet, and I had a sneak peek at some of the fabrics, textures, techniques and cuts she’s working on. On a grander scale, she ‘loves to teach’ and wants to establish a system where the efforts of designers to instil good practises and skills into their army of interns is recognised. She describes mainstay teaching as ‘box ticking’ and, as someone whose never done what she was told to do, feels there’s more to give in a studio-based environment than anything in the classroom. I hear ya, love.

Rachel’s excited about the future. She plans to dazzle once a year at the A/W 2011 shows while maintaining commissions with an ever-expanding roster of clients and other projects during the rest of the year. She also wants to live on a boat and explore costume design in cinema. She references Jean Paul Gaultier‘s work on flicks like The Fifth Element and is excited by the prospect of applying her unique aesthetic to film. It all comes down to financing. ‘Money dictates and creates a standard,’ Rachel tells me. ‘The system to support new designers is very small, but I won’t compromise my values. I’m here to stay.’

I should bloody hope so.

Rachel’s original draqing for her collaboration with Neurotica:

All photography by Matt Bramford
Karina Yarv
Jena.Theo LFW A/W 2011, visit Illustration by Karina Yarv

I was ushered in through the door by a geezer of a Londoner chap, straight through to a high heeled officious lady. Then again to the very highest heels clinking their way to the front row to show me my seat. The FRONT ROW. This was pleasing to say the least. And there were bags on my seat. Bags filled with goodies. Splendid. The lady next to me was bouncing her baby on her knee, as said baby was knawing on a pain au chocolat. “Nice earmuffs” I said to the tiny fashionista, pointing towards the penguin earmuffs on her head. “To protect her from the sound. It can get very loud. But she does love it here. Loves the shows.” How much do I want a chilled out, cute baby like her? Also, cool mother! I know mothers who wouldn’t take their child to Tescos for fear of its screaming the flourescently lit shed down. I looked around properly, and saw straight backed women before me. Unsmiling, with notepads on their laps and twitter at their fingertips. No one was without a smart phone. Comfortingly others were holding cameras possibly at the same level as mine, not everyone had the enormous lensed beasts. This made me feel infinitely better about my black device with sand trapped in the lens from every holiday in the last three years and glitter from an explosion at a festival last year. It makes me slightly sad to see it sprinkle on my lap when I take the lens cap off. Nostalgic particles… To the left, I felt like I was getting an immense tan however from the mad, bright white, highly lit, flashing, mini bulb, sensation. It was just INTENSE; magic eye, transfixing, blinding… The lady next to me shielded the left hand side of her face for a bit. We briefly discussed the perils of giant screens of mini light bulbs. SUCH a drag. Then it all went dark and we were treated to intro music as the anticipation was allowed to be built. Dum, dum, dum….dum… dum. EXCITED. Most of the opposite front row remained attached to the twit or without expression.

Jena Theo Matilde SazioJena.Theo LFW A/W 2011, Illustration by Matilde Sazio

The darkness remained for a while, and I felt my heart start to beat harder. You know when as a child (/adult), at a theme park, you have just queued to get onto a ride that begins in the dark? You’re kind of scared but excited, not really sure how it will turn out? Yes, that. That was what it felt like. I was half expecting for the floor to drop and to experience a heart in my mouth sensation, as gravity stole my nerves. Child next door was heckling, all ready for the experience to begin. She’s not worried her mother assures me, as a seasoned show-goer why would she be? Well, indeed. This does not compare to my 80s Sussex upbringing. I spent being three and four devoted to my pink bomber jacket and all in one waterproof jumpsuit number. Was it the 80s? Was it me? Is there any hope? I apoligise, enough pondering! The show began.

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Photography by Matt Bramford

I was pleased to see that what was being presented was completely wearable. Definitely in London. Perhaps less so in Bristol – it was slightly ‘too’ urban for the West Country. However, if I had a choice (and el cash), some of those pieces would be getting worn in Falfael King and that secret bar we’ve been meaning to go to for a while… at least supper club. Or – ah see, I kind of want to move to London again. Don’t get the wrong impression of Briz, I beg you. Anyway digressing again- the show was very charcoal, black and cream orientated. The models all had black stripes across their eyes and otherwise bare faces. This made them look like mysterious, moody superheros. I liked it, as it really set of the simple coloured, pieces; the models all expressionless (course), their masks and the movement of the light or dark pieces worked together perfectly. It felt like we were on the sea, with norwegian heroines. Swishing slowly about, their heels never falter, their gaze exact, the path has been set and the grey skies are dappled with stars, as the storm takes hold. These strong warriors will take us with their capes flowing behind them, their hair dancing in the wind.

Jena.Theo Valkyrie by Matilde Sazio
Jena.Theo LFW A/W 2011, Illustration by Matilde Sazio

My favourite piece was one with an almost bustling at the back, flowing down to the ground, in one swipe. The front was a mini, the back was the drama, the fantasy. I would love to wear this one standing at the front of a ship. Not a ferry, a ship. The collection; Valkyrie, refers to a band of celestial female figures who decide to die in the field of battle. So 300, in a sense, but with women. Strong, ethereal women.

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Photography by Matt Bramford

Jena.Theo have managged to combine the mythology with the urban reality. Fantasy has been embraced, with opulence in mind, the designs are sumptuous, yet strong. Fit for women going into battle with the ice of Scandinavia and the luxuriousness of a cashmere bustle behind them. And why not mix up the hemlines, paint black across our eyes and march like amazonian creations girls. We are women. Watch us gracefully, cooly and quietly move, like we believe we are mighty. We are. For designs that were indeed simple, they were deserving of their sparkling lights.

Written by Helen Martin on Saturday February 19th, 2011 10:02 pm

Categories ,bristol, ,Ethereal, ,fashion, ,Front Row, ,Helen Martin, ,hero, ,Jena.theo, ,Karina Yarv, ,Lights, ,london, ,London Fashion Week A/W 2011, ,Matilde Sazio, ,Matt Bramford, ,Norway, ,scandinavia, ,Ship, ,twitter, ,urban, ,Valkyrie

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Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week: Chapeau Claudette Hat Party

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Now I know the term fashionable late was termed in fashion circles, more about here but I really didn’t think fashion could be this late. Fifty minutes late to be exact. Even best friends would not be excused an unapologetic wait like that. So while waiting, I played spot the style editor, Alexandra Schulman sat a few rows in front of me and opposite her on the other side of the catwalk sat Hilary Alexandra who was joined by Alexa Chung (I know not a style editor). Popping of flashes alerted me to Louise Roe of Vogue TV. It all felt so fashion, darhling!

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Then the moment had arrived, the lights went out and the music started up. I felt a swirl of excitement as the models marched down the catwalk. This was designer Avsh Alom Gur’s first proper catwalk season as creative director for Ossie Clark and he gave us a taste of what we are all hoping for next summer, louche poolside cocktail drinking in a tropical paradise.

Silk flowed to form sleeveless jumpsuits and swirling floor length dresses. High waisted knee length shorts were paired with draped translucent blouses. Boldly printed dresses evocked exotic summer holidays which added a more youthful element to the grown up stylings. Colour-wise, every shade from nude to coral was shown, with flashes of fuchsia, emerald green and indigo to add a vibrant summer look. But, my favourite use of colour was coral teamed with lavender, such a fresh use of colour is always welcome.

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But fashion lovers of the iconic Ossie Clark, would have been disappointed in the lack of Celia Birtwell style prints (only two looks borrowed from that strong heritage) and seventies glam, Clark was originally famed for. Sure the collection was glam, but it lack a real distinctive look, the draped flowing forms were not instantly recognisable as Ossie Clark or anything else for that matter. Re-inventing a former great brand is always a difficult task and this was only Gur’s second season at Ossie Clark. Whilst channelling sexy subtle feminine styling, the collection lacked an all important cohesive look.

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Nikki Shaill is the brains and baker behind the Great Cake Escape; a guerilla
art project ‘on a mission to liberate cakes from the confines of the
kitchen.’ She and Lorraine Williams have been baking cakes and leaving them
to be found on the streets of Shoreditch since November last year. Their aim is
to sweeten the days of those lucky enough to find the sugary treats, case which often
bear naughty messages provoking response from the public.

Combining her passions for cake and art, here Nikki Shaill curated and hosted the Great Cake Escape at Kemistry Gallery for The Shoreditch Shuffle. The festival wristband gained you entry to the exhibition as well as access to as much cake as you could fit in your face. Between mouthfuls, check I had a chance to look at some of the
contributors’ artwork.

Staying in tune with the teatime theme was work by Reiko Kaneko and Tina
Tsang. Reiko’s tableware winks its eye at elegance with a cheeky grin,
decorating plates with gold cracks and teacup rims with gilded lipstick stains.
Tina’s ‘Undergrowth Design’ project features the Blau Blume range
where tea cups have legs for handles and cake stands are adorned with dolls’
heads.

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Ruby Assatourian examines femininity and all thats associated with it.
Materials she uses range from icing sugar to the less appetizing pages of porn
magazines. She steers clear of revealing any explicit imagery though, choosing
instead to create subtle pieces that provoke thought and conversation about
women in the sex-industry.

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On a lighter note, Tinsel Edwards‘s series,the ‘Graffiti Paintings’
consists of paintings Tinsel has found at fleamarkets and endorsed with her
trademark slogans, cheekily poking fun at the conventional art world. With
both Saatchi and Banksy amongst those buying her art, Tinsel is my bet for the next big thing; have a look at her work on website stelladore.com.

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Illustrator Zarina Liew shows ‘The Hunter Series’ in its entirety for the
first time. Inspired by vintage fashion, Japanese printmaking and conceptual
psychology, Zarina’s work follows a fairytale- like narrative, combined with
a deeper look at lust and self-ruin.

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I was only at the gallery on Saturday, but on the Sunday shuffle, the gallery-turned-tea-room was scheduled to host burlesque bombshell Cherri Shakewell, who I’m sure shook her stuff for an audience, happy to put down their fondant fancies for a show from ‘The lady of the Cake‘!

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look at all those yummy cakes!

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oh what a pretty dress!

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Monday 15th September

Gig of the week

Born Ruffians – Dingwalls, viagra London

Born Ruffians return to the UK for a run of shows – and a very lucky few would have actually seen them twice in one day.

Bon Iver – Exeter University
Metallica – O2 Arena, healing London
O Children and Snax – Durr at The End, London
The Wave Pictures – Manchester Academy, Manchester
The Cocknbullkid and Dels – Elgar Room at The Royal Albert Hall, London
The Streets – HMV, Oxford Circus, London

Tuesday 16th September

Black Lips, King Khan and BBQ Show, London
Born Ruffians – Night and Day Cafe, Manchester
Echo And The Bunnymen – Royal Albert Hall, London
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – Orange Box, Yeovil
Herman Dune and Lawrence Arabia – Old Blue Last, London
Peter Bjorn and John – Koko, London

Wednesday 17th September

Finley Quaye – Jazz Café, London
The Rascals – The Picket, Liverpool
Shearwater and The Constantines – Bush Hall, London
Shane Gilliver, Beans On Toast, Paul Mosley and James Edge – Edinburgh
Glasvegas – Academy, Manchester

Thursday 18th September

A Human and Flykkiller – Red Banana Club at Under The Westway, London
Black Affair and Proxy – Fabric, London
Slow Club – Barfly, Glasgow
Crystal Castles and Metronomy – Electric Ballroom, London
Morton Valence and Barth – The Enterprise, London
Naive New Beaters, No Picasso, Silhouette and Great Eskimo Hoax – Proud Galleries, London
Collapsing Cities – Orange Rooms, Southampton
Dead Kids and Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man – London Airwaves at Macbeth
Jeffrey Lewis and The Wave Pictures – The Scala, London

Friday 19th October

Digitalism, David E Sugar and Cazals – Astoria, London
London Airwaves Festival – Young Knives, The Whip, Florence and The Machine, These New Puritans, Wild Beasts and more – Several Shoreditch Venues, London
Pete and The Pirates and Alvarez Kings, London
Ipso Facto – Cockpit, Leeds
Unkle, Late Of The Pier and Iglu and Hartley – Matter, London
Little Man Tate – Roadmenders, Northampton
Man Like Me, Swanton Bombs, Nat Jenkins and Alice Grant and The Cool Dudes – Macbeth, London
Andrew WK – Madame Jo Jo’s, London
No Bra and My Tiger Timing – 333, London

Saturday 20th September

Afrikan Boy – Cargo, London
Crystal Fighters, Granville Sessions and Stoltz – Rhythm Factory, London
Graffiti Island, Miss Something and Marmaduke Dando
Andrew WK – Astoria 2, London
Heartsrevolution, The Ruling Class and ddd – The Monarch, London
Ipso Facto and Bearsuit – Proud Galleries, London
Ponytail, Gentle Friendly and Hands On Heads – Amersham Arms, London

Sunday 21st September

The Ghost Frequency, Ocelot, Kids Love Lies and Chew Lips – Proud Galleries, London
Thomas Tantrum – Bar Academy, Oxford
White Lies – Club Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Johnny Foreigner – Lamp, Hull

music-listings.gif

Monday 15th September

Gig of the week

Born Ruffians – Dingwalls, store London

Born Ruffians return to the UK for a run of shows – and a very lucky few would have actually seen them twice in one day.

Bon Iver – Exeter University
Metallica – O2 Arena, page London
O Children and Snax – Durr at The End, and London
The Wave Pictures – Manchester Academy, Manchester
The Cocknbullkid and Dels – Elgar Room at The Royal Albert Hall, London
The Streets – HMV, Oxford Circus, London

Tuesday 16th September

Black Lips, King Khan and BBQ Show, London
Born Ruffians – Night and Day Cafe, Manchester

Echo And The Bunnymen – Royal Albert Hall, London

I dont know whether they have reached legendary status yet, my guess is that they have. They’re certainly well worth seeing live.

The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster – Orange Box, Yeovil
Herman Dune and Lawrence Arabia – Old Blue Last, London
Peter Bjorn and John – Koko, London

Wednesday 17th September

Finley Quaye – Jazz Café, London
The Rascals – The Picket, Liverpool
Shearwater and The Constantines – Bush Hall, London
Shane Gilliver, Beans On Toast, Paul Mosley and James Edge – Edinburgh
Glasvegas – Academy, Manchester

Thursday 18th September

A Human and Flykkiller – Red Banana Club at Under The Westway, London
Black Affair and Proxy – Fabric, London
Slow Club – Barfly, Glasgow
Crystal Castles and Metronomy – Electric Ballroom, London
Morton Valence and Barth – The Enterprise, London
Naive New Beaters, No Picasso, Silhouette and Great Eskimo Hoax – Proud Galleries, London
Collapsing Cities – Orange Rooms, Southampton
Dead Kids and Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man – London Airwaves at Macbeth
Jeffrey Lewis and The Wave Pictures – The Scala, London

Friday 19th October

Digitalism, David E Sugar and Cazals – Astoria, London

London Airwaves Festival – Young Knives, The Whip, Florence and The Machine, These New Puritans, Wild Beasts and more – Several Shoreditch Venues, London

It’s the smaller version of Iceland’s Airwaves Festival, based in London. All with the bar crawl mentality of the Camden Crawl, which is set to fill the fanciest of venues around Shoreditch. In other words, it is going to be loads of fun.

Pete and The Pirates and Alvarez Kings, London
Ipso Facto – Cockpit, Leeds
Unkle, Late Of The Pier and Iglu and Hartley – Matter, London
Little Man Tate – Roadmenders, Northampton
Man Like Me, Swanton Bombs, Nat Jenkins and Alice Grant and The Cool Dudes – Macbeth, London
Andrew WK – Madame Jo Jo’s, London
No Bra and My Tiger Timing – 333, London

Saturday 20th September

Afrikan Boy – Cargo, London
Crystal Fighters, Granville Sessions and Stoltz – Rhythm Factory, London

Crystal Fighters are interesting and should not be viewed with the opinion that they will be like a mixture between Crystal Castles and Foo Fighter, because they’re not.

Graffiti Island, Miss Something and Marmaduke Dando
Andrew WK – Astoria 2, London
Heartsrevolution, The Ruling Class and ddd – The Monarch, London
Ipso Facto and Bearsuit – Proud Galleries, London
Ponytail, Gentle Friendly and Hands On Heads – Amersham Arms, London

Sunday 21st September

The Ghost Frequency, Ocelot, Kids Love Lies and Chew Lips – Proud Galleries, London
Thomas Tantrum – Bar Academy, Oxford
White Lies – Club Ifor Bach, Cardiff
Johnny Foreigner – Lamp, Hull

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“There’s glitter everywhere, treatment it’s like an eleven year old girl’s party” says the opening artist – a dead ringer for a really bad Keane – to no one in particular. Well this is a Seabear show. What do you expect? Slam dancing and beer throwing? Cup cakes and cardigans abound. Prior the anticipated onslaught of twee we’re treated to Kopek. Shelsmusic’s finest exponents of pastoral un-rock eschew their usual Loop station aided live show for a stripped down acoustic offering. It works a treat. This bare bones set up shows Kopek to have that special quality that makes a band truly affecting. For while hushed/scuffed and flute-assisted acoustic laments are two a penny, Kopek’s are suffused with such melody, soul and charm you’re left weeping into your beer.

Morr Music’s Seabear, contrast starkly to such intimacy. They can’t help that of course because there’s about six of them precariously positioned around the stage, hitting various bits of kooky percussion. With this in mind, their fondness for granny clothes, their name and the fact that they hail from Reykjavik, one would be forgiven for dismissing Seabear as yet more twee twaddle. You’d be mistaken. Seabear specialise, rather disarmingly, in a kind of hipster approved, jaunty, country rock. Like if Sweet Heart of the Rodeo era Byrds had rocked American Apparel skinny fits instead of kaftans. Well sort of. It’s not quite as rich and as deep as that but it’s certainly not what one would expect and it renders the Seabear live experience even more enjoyable. Playing vast chunks of their delectably delicate Ghost That Carried Us Away album, singer, Sindri Már Sigfússon, stares through the audience with a bug eyed intensity as his band whip up a quiet storm of frazzled, fuzzy, folk-rock behind him. They play “I Sing I Swim” which does it for me mainly because it sounds like an exotica take on “Another Girl, Another Planet” The Only Ones.

Indeed, there’s nothing quite like having one’s smug preconceptions smashed on a drab Monday night. This Seabear do with aplomb.

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The sky really couldn’t have been greyer when we rolled up to the gates of Offset festival, medicine but I was defiant that this summer’s appalling weather wasn’t going to dampen my mood, even if it was to dampen my jacket, for another festival this year. As soon as we were in we headed straight for Slow Club, who’s set was to bring rays of hope to our day. They’re a duo that really couldn’t appear much happier on stage, and with a fantastic set like they unleashed that day; they really deserve to be there.

After that we decided to take a whirlwind tour of the festival sight, which all seemed to be very relaxed – which at the time I believed to be because of the picturesque settings. Afterwards I came to realise that this was probably due to the lack of a police presence. The taxi driver we had to get to the station just in time to catch the last tube home later informed us that the organisers had not informed the police, or the bus services about the event. I don’t know how true this is, but it did appear that if you missed the last tube, you were destined to spend a night at the festival – and there was not a police man in sight at the festival.

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So So Modern were probably my favourites of the day

So So Modern however far better at getting themselves organised. Their set was a mesmerising half hour of intertwining electronic pop fantastic-ness. We even endured a fairly heavy downpour to catch the whole of their set.

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Black Devil Disco

I was left quite chuffed in the aftermath of their set, and decided some time in the bar was needed. The amenities at Offset were top notch for such a small festival, apart from the staple festival drinks prices which always get me riled. I also couldn’t find the rare breeds farm that was apparently running alongside the festival, but perhaps Black Devil Disco are a rare breed spectacle in themselves. Seeing them was a real treat mainly because one of the guys just kept laughing at everything, and when he wasn’t doing this he was leaning back and making peace signs with his hands. The whole show was hilarious, but in the nicest possible way – it just helped to get everybody moving on what was in all fairness, a muggy Sunday afternoon.

Metronomy were next to don the stage, even though it took them an age to appear. I thought they may have dropped the whole lights on chests dance routine, due to the fact they are perceived as being quite successful now and no longer require such gimmicks. But the Ikea light t-shirts were out in force, and their whole set reminded me of the first time I saw them.

After a brief spell watching Blood Red Shoes (who I’ve just never really been able to get into), we headed into the Girlcore tent to enjoy the worldwide influenced Radioclit. When we arrived, the tent was empty, even though the music was fantastic. They seemed to realise this themselves though, and only really played tracks to entertain themselves. As soon as the tent began to fill though, the tunes began to become more and more energetic. The atmosphere in there was fantastic, with people of literally all ages dancing on tables and laughing at the Radioclit guys dressed up in drag. We literally had to tear ourselves away come the time for Gang Of Four on the main stage.

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Girlcore!

The chance to see such legends is perhaps quite an honor, but of the bands from that era Gang of Four are not fully to my taste. Saying that though a band revered as much as them are surely worth seeing, and I was a little more won round to the idea after spotting a microwave on stage. I don’t really know why, it just intrigued me. They were late on stage, which really wasn’t much of a shock, and they did put on a decent show. The lead singer jumping around acting like a gorilla was my favourite bit though, as the microwave wasn’t really put to much use in the end. It was a show purely for their biggest fans to enjoy though, and seeing as I would hardly class myself as one, there was a limit to how much it could delight me.

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Gang of Four’s epic, yet quite budget, light show

‘Expect the unexpected’. Photographic maestro David Bailey‘s quote is scrawled touchingly across one of Tim Walker‘s early sketchbooks, for sale prominently displayed at the start of this survey of the last decade of Walker’s work. And, indeed, the unexpected pops out at every corner as dyed animals, exquisite couture, crumbling country houses and oversized props collide.

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What you notice as you walk round is that Walker’s shoots and his vision gradually becomes more complicated and ambitious. We go from models lounging on giant versions of Vogue in a studio to a shoot in a crumbling maharajah’s palace. But his simpler works can hold their own against their showier relations; indeed some of the most powerful works in the whole show are the starkly absurd Ice cream Chandelier (2007) or subtle Gert (1998).

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Our age of digital smoke and mirrors, where mundane scenes are manipulated into extraordinariness, can tame the eye into being complacent to the kind of fantasia on display here. But seeing a huge white kid glove coupled with the photograph reinforces how much the pictures are indebted to Walker’s collaborators. The notebooks and Polaroids displayed alongside the main pictures highlight the continuity of Walker’s body of work, with a visual language that coalesces and grows.

Walker is a great fashion photographer and like other greats, such as Beaton or Bailey, his work is about more than just selling clothes. The England evoked in many of the photos such as Otis Ferry in full riding regalia coupled with his hounds or shambolically glamorous fading country houses- is described in the blurb as a ‘romantic vision of an England now lost’.

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He captures an England that never existed in any one place or time, an eccentric myth peddled around the world like a brand. (It is interesting that a big share of the work here is for Italian and Japanese Vogue, not just British Vogue). The loadedness of the idealised ‘England’ is exposed in the uncomfortable otherness of the shoot with tribesmen in Papua New Guinea and a neo-colonial vibe in Lily Cole’s India shoot.

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This show does not have the backward glancing feel of a retrospective because potential zings from so much of the work. The last room has some great recent portraits for Vanity Fair (including a wonderful compliant Bill Nighy in top hat, tails and bunny feet), a very Beaton-esque route for Walker. The least successful pictures in the show are those of cinema screens in unexpected places, on a lake at sunset, on a hillside- they land this side of mawkish. However, they seem to ask what Walker could do if he were unleashed onto a film or theatre set.

One photo, in the last room, tantalises that thought. A tableau vivant crossed with a momento mori, the backdrop is an old hunting lodge; prima ballerinas twitter and stretch beneath a ceiling jam-packed with deer skulls and antlers that have begun to rain down. It is poetic, full of promise and as good a reason as any to see this show before it disappear in a puff of glittery dust.

Get ready to see the Friendly Fires album on that little group of shelves you see every time you enter your local record shop, buy usually baring a title of ‘Highly Recommended’ (which translates to the actual meaning of, viagra “The people who work here are so damn cool they just have to make sure you purchase these albums so you can be cool like them, medical and also they really want to reach their sales targets this month, because all the employees want to win the regional shop of the year and go on that holiday to Disneyland Paris.” I suppose the length of this sign might however be quite a major health and safety hazard.

I can totally understand why it would be on such a shelf of the stated meaning though. By all means, it really is a great album. At first I coudn’t help but think the only tracks I really enjoyed were those I had heard before, and although I love these tracks – it’s always nice to buy an album and be delighted by something new from a band. As with many great albums though, the answer was persistence. There is something fantastic about albums where songs seem to grow on you, slowly becoming your favorites, rewarding you for coming back to them again and again.

Although it’s not necessarily an album that will surprise many, there is very little not to like about it. Also, when they make a great pop sing; they make an absolutely amazing pop song. The likes of ‘Jump In The Pool’ and ‘Paris’ are such instant delights I can’t quite get my head around it – never mind the fact that they have 3 or 4 other songs of such a similar caliber.

To sum up the album, it’s better than whatever is above, below, to the left or to the right of it on the ‘Highly Recommended’ shelf.
HatPartyInterior.jpg

I mourn the loss of hats from women’s daily wardrobes. I mean, approved it’s great that we no longer have to fuss about matching gloves to hand bags or making sure the seams in our stockings are straight – but there no longer seems to even be occassions to wear hats. Hats are becoming thin on the ground too, dosage only ever popping into shops during wedding season. Thank god, pharm then, for Claudette Outland and her ‘Chapeau Claudette’ range. Thank god, also, for the Chapeau Claudette Fashion Week Hat Party at the Soho Review Bar.

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We were greeted by Hat Hostesses who provided us with complimentary veils and little diamante versions of the Claudette Outland logo so that we might go on to customise hats of our own. Emma was quick to don her veil because, although she can be seen any day of the week sporting one of her many lovely hats, that day (of all days!) she had left home hatless!

HatPartyEmmaandI.jpg

Securing ourselves in a snug little red leather booth, we surveyed the scene. We had arrived a little early (fashion week dictates that half an hour late is actually half an hour too early, dahling!) which meant the bar was a little sparsely populated. Still, we soaked in the sounds of Grace Jones (the hat loving diva would adore Claudette’s creations, I’m sure) and wondered whether the bar’s fitted poles would play any role in our entertainment later.

Grace Jone’s lengthy disco rendition of La Vie En Rose was cut short as the Dusty Stars took to the stage.

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The band immediately apologised that they were actually only 3/5ths present and hoped that we would enjoy the acoustic version of their usual set. Unfortunately, we didn’t. It didn’t help matters that the poor depleted loves kept telling us what the songs would usually sound like. To paraphrase the Dusty Stars; “We sometimes have a dancer with us and this is her song”, “This one is usually quite rocky” & “This is normally our big number where we all dance with top hats” were all lines that made us feel let down before they had even played a note of each song. The trio (and sometimes duo) jangled along quite un-eventfully, singing songs of an idealised England called ‘Everville’ (hmmm, now where has that concept cropped up before?).

Still, there was plenty more merriment to be had and, as Grace Jones filled our ears once more we were visited by the wonderful magician Lee Hathaway.

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Charming Lee entertained us with a few card tricks – which are always pretty astounding when done so up close and personal. You expect to be able to catch the magician out, but alas… the sober magic man is always faster than the drunken party guests.

Songstress Lail Arad was next to play us some tunes…

HatPartyLaidArad.jpg

Emma and I promptly fell for Lail and her theatrical delivery of her witty lyrics. She took to the piano and sang funny songs about how she wished she was more ‘Fashion’, and then strapped on a guitar to dedicate a song to an extrovert named Joe. With there being no Joe in the audience, she promptly christened one accordingly and sang to them. It was all very Regina Spektor, but this is no bad thing, and I’m sure Emma would agree that we’d happily don our best hats in the future and go and see her again.

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With places to go and people to see (Fashion Week is a bit of a whirwind) we unfortunately had to miss headliners Sweet Tooth. Spat back out into neon lit Soho, we had a night of try-hard fashionistas wearing not-very-much ahead of us. I couldn’t help but feel sad to leave a world of well put together ladies, looking elegant from head to toe. I hope it’s not too long before I can don my chapeau again!

Written by Sarah Barnes on Monday September 15th, 2008 11:30 pm

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Amelia’s Magazine | Squatting in the Community: Bristol’s Factory Reoccupied

by

I have to honestly admit that I don’t really THINK about sustainability in my everyday life. I even recycle without thinking because it is such a natural process to me. You don’t consciously think about why you drink tea from a cup and not from a bowl or why you pee into the toilet and not into the basin.  
I think you’re only truly sustainable when it’s a part of your way of life, healing just like a diet is pointless unless you actually change your lifestyle and habits. In keeping with this, shop I came across a test with a perfectly relevant name: “My Habbit“. You can check out your own carbon footprint and you might be surprised at how easy it is to change really small habits. 

Whilst taking the test it visualises your carbon footprint in the form of a strange and creepy semi-alien computer-generated human body. Proportionally distorting a human’s body parts in order to visualise your disproportionate use, you work your way through the different stages of sustainability. For instance, if you use a lot of electricity, you head starts to look more and more like a skeleton. The more meat you eat, the fatter your belly gets. Electricity and gas expands your hands, travel expands your feet until it looks like an almost bursting balloon. Mine looked pretty normal at the end, but it still had suggestions for me to better myself. But how did I even come across this test? 

“So, a guy came into the office today to borrow some of our paper, which was recycled and said ‘So are you trying to save the world or summin?’ (sic) to which I wanted to start replying but by the time I said ‘Um..’ he said ‘Then stop driving!’ I obviously replied ‘I don’t drive’ and he said ‘Oh’ and walked off. What’s the dude hassling me for?” 
This is a snippet of a conversation I had during dinner today, where it transpired that me being a vegetarian and not having a car actually makes me “pretty green” according to a test my partner had taken during the workshop he held at the “Sustainable Future” exhibition at the Design Museum. I was immediately intrigued. This may have been mainly due to the fact that I was fairly certain I was going to come out of the other end of the tunnel with a result to be proud of (aka something to show off about).  

I already knew some of the reasons that were going to be to my advantage. I work from home, which means that in average, I use the underground only once a week in for meetings or events in town. I have only travelled by plane once in the past year (last November, in fact), which is highly unusual and mainly down to the fact that work has happily consumed all my time. Either way, I knew it was going to make me look good in the test. I walk to the shops, and buy most of my food and fabric (I am a fashion designer) in the local market where things are mainly locally sourced. I’m very lazy when it comes to anything that is essential to life such as sleep, eating and washing. That’s only of advantage because I own a lot of clothes, which means I very rarely have to actually wash any of them. My washing machine is extremely underused.  

Furthermore, since we’re on the subject of big white goods, I don’t own a dishwasher or tumble dryer or any such machinery. I recycle everything from paper snippets to plastic to glass to fabric. I would say “tins” but I don’t really use them. As I mentioned before, most my food moves directly form the bowl of vegetables of the farmer’s table into my Longchamp shopping bag into my vegetable drawer. Another point that I knew was going to help me look good in this test was the fact that I’m a vegetarian. Apparently, that makes a difference although I’m still not quite sure why. Surely any food needs to be transported, worked on? Do feel free to enlighten me if you know. 

Returning to the subject of technical items, I don’t watch TV. I have a TV set for watching a DVD every now and then, but I usually prefer to work, and the TV is of course unplugged when I don’t use it because otherwise it makes a very annoying humming noise when it’s on standby. I unplug my printers, sewing machines, hair straighteners etc when I’m not using them.

People who don’t live with me would never believe it, but I’d rather look like a couch potato wearing three jackets (I’m at home, right?) than turn on the heating unnecessarily. In fact, the heating is completely switched off until the temperature drops below 10 degrees Celsius for more than a week, which doesn’t make me very popular with my housemates.  

We were given some free sustainable light bulbs when we last switched gas and electricity companies, which we use throughout the house and half of the fluorescent light bulbs we have in our office have burned out and we are too lazy to replace them.

This one is a big deal, but not a topic that gave me any extra credit during the test. About 80% of my wardrobe (including my shoes) is either second hand, vintage or passed on in some form or another through eBay, TK Maxx, in the form of presents from family and friends, inherited pieces, charity shops etc. This does not, however, mean that I don’t indulge my fashion sense, as a quick peek into the style section of my website will confirm. 

I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t have a CD player or stereo because I have all my music on my Mac and iPhone – who knew being this non-nostalgic about music, could turn into a blessing? 

We have an agreement with our landlord who sends round a gardener every two months. Officially, any carbon footprint they amass during their work is technically not mine, so I am not counting it. The grass is yellow from the few days of “heat” this lame English summer had, but I don’t really see that as my responsibility and as far as I can tell, I don’t think the gardeners ever water the grass – they simpy cut it even shorter and dryer and pick up the leaves. 

Some of the questions in the test were difficult. For instance, I had to look up which type of light bulbs we actually use. They cleverly adjust the optimum “habit” you could have at the end and suggest ways in which you can better yourself, even if your carbon emission is as low as one could realistically imagine. 

However, there were aspects of importance that were not quite taken into consideration. A big issue, which could tip someone’s carbon print (especially among us fashionistas and fahsionistos, eh?)  is our shopping and consumption habits beyond mere primary necessity (food). Do you buy online? Are your purchase shipped or flown from overseas or do you make sure buy locally? Do you shop in chain supermarkets or local markets? How much stuff do you own? Do you buy from Primark or second hand? Do you buy per trend and season or do you invest in pieces that you have worn for decades? Do you tend to consume actual objects such electric equipment, decorative items, clothing or something altogether different? 

There are also questions relating to your profession that are not taken into consideration at all. For instance, the test asks you whether you use a printer at home, but not whether you use a printer at work. How much paper do you use and waste, knowing you’re not paying for it? I’ll forgive them for not asking office-related questions, though, as this could get very detailed and complex. But what about mobile phones? No sign of their impact.

Having an iPhone, which I use for work, means I charge my phone up a lot more often than, say, someone who works in a shop and turns theirs off for most of the day. As anybody who owns an iPhone knows, as much as we love them – the battery of the iPhone is abysmal. It needs charging ALL the time. Surely the test should be asking about the different phones one has, the same way they asked about what type of TV I own? On the other hand, I charge my iPhone via my laptop – this means less electricity is used. You can see, the questions can be quite endless, but an essential acknowledgement of such basics would have improved the test. 
Many of my friends and colleagues are writers or need to write in some form or another. When you do your writing, do you do it online or offline? That sounds like it would make no difference, but it does. Here’s a good illustrating example, which has astounded quite a lot of people when I’ve mentioned it. 

One of the questions in the questionnaire is how often you boil the kettle. Did you know that every time you do a search on google it uses as much electricity and power from the mighty google servers as it does to boil a full kettle? A question in the test, if I have had any say, should have been “Do you look up the tiniest question on google rather than trying to think that second longer in case you remember?” Do you maybe have a real life dictionary (oh wonder and glory), which can help you just as much? Yes, one should consider the production cost of making said book, but for the sake of the argument, let’s assume it’s a vintage book, which still holds perfectly updated descriptions of most words we know. If it doesn’t, you can STILL use Google, Wikipedia or an online dictionary. But not doing so immediately would reduce your carbon footprint more than you think… 

I am a great believer in the fact that until something is accepted as normal, it has not really been overcome. Until it is, the obstacle of integration is not complete. I feel this is the way with sustainability. I grew up with it, so it was quite strange for me to see what fuss people made about being sustainable – it was new to me. Once people embrace it as part of their lives, it will be a lot easier. You hear campaigns telling you to “be aware” and “do your part” as if most of these acts weren’t perfectly logical. I disagree. Sure, some people just don’t admit to perfectly basic knowledge being obvious, and need those hints and tips, and none of us are perfect and continue to be educated. However, the obsession of making recycling something to be conscious about is not going to help. Only once it’s truly and easily integrated into our lives in a manner that is natural to participate in will sustainability really be standard practice.


All photography by Maria Domican

I was nervous upon arriving at Vintage at Goodwood… Nervous because I had called in sick to work, order nervous because I had been hearing bad press about the event and mainly nervous because I had no idea what to expect.

I have to admit, abortion no matter how fashionable, arty and eco driven a festival is, a major emphasis has always been on being drunk and having a great, if somewhat crazy time… I couldn’t imagine myself getting wasted on ‘classic cocktails’ or ‘gin and tonics’, parading around campsites in my beloved vintage treasures and sleeping through bands in a dusty heap at Goodwood. Apparently that was exactly the crowd that organiser Wayne Hemingway was eager to discourage, not wanting those “out on the lash that leave a load of empty tins at their ripped tent”.

Goodwood was billed as ‘the first of what will be an annual music and fashion led celebration of creative British cool’ ‘The new festival of Britain’. But what was it? A vintage Fashion Fair? An exhibition? Or a festival? Featuring music, art, fashion, film and design I was puzzled as to how it would all come together.

None the less I was excited… I had packed a few of my 2nd favourite dresses (the dirt was still a worry!) far too many hats (and yes I carried them in a vintage hat box) and even two matching vintage parasols, for my friend and I to parade around with; in short, more than I would usually take on a week long holiday.

Upon arrival we were greeted by a red carpet and the famous British High Street. Made up like a spaghetti western, all wooden fronted shops, I felt like I had wandered onto a film set. The high street catered for the big brands: John Lewis, The Body Shop and Dr. Martins all had large stores with all the facilities of any other high street shop. It also was the home for the vintage cinema, a traditional British pub and even an Indian take away! The draw of the festival to many though – the vintage stalls – were down the two side streets in tents. These were much more bazaar-like in style; small cramped lines of tents exploding with clothes, accessories, and when it rained (which it did a lot) crammed in people unable to move.


Vintage shopping at Goodwood.

Bands such as The Faces, Buzzcocks, Heaven 17 and the Noisettes entertained the crowds but it was the fashion that was the main draw of the festival. Workshops taught sewing and knitting while Hardy Amies and Pearl and Daisy Lowe were among those with runway shows.


The Noisettes on the main stage.


Pearl and Daisy Lowe at their runway show.

Divided into eras, the festival celebrated five decades of British cool, with each area having a different ‘curator’ (supposed experts in that field).


The 1970s and 1980s zone curated by Greg Wilson featured a warehouse with interactive graffiti wall and a roller disco.

Also in the 1970s era was Eddie Miller’s Soul Casino nightclub – replicating a mid 70s ballroom and reminiscent of many a bad wedding reception, complete with 1970s swirly carpet, sprung dance floor, pool tables and low lighting – it was here that Wayne Hemingway performed his own DJ set on the Sunday.


Wayne Hemingway

The emphasis of the festival was definitely the 1940s and 1950s, however, with the majority of outfits being so themed and with one of the highlights being leading percussionist, producer and 1940s enthusiast Snowboy’s Tanqueray sponsored ‘Torch Club’: a 1940’s style supper club which served 3 course meals over the weekend, with waiter service and a full orchestra playing while you eat. Behind the club forties allotments and land girls held guess-the-weight-of-the-pumpkin competitions and the guys from The Chap held an Olympian event with cucumber sandwich tossing and tug-o-moustache.


Cucumber sandwich tossing at The Chap Olympiad


Moustache tug-o-war

Still in its first year, the festival organisers have room for improvement before next year’s. The website promised ‘an unparalleled attention to design and organisational detail’ which is a little optimistic considering the press pass debacle. Still, this was upheld in areas such as the attention to period detail in all shops and stages and that all events were first come first served and not fully booked up beforehand.
It’s possible the press pass debacle was a result of the PR company giving all 150 staff free weekend and camping tickets… of which apparently only 8 were used!

One stall holder also complained that they felt the festival had been miss-sold as they thought that the vintage stalls were going to be on the main high street not crammed into the side tents.

Whilst a lot of events over the weekend such as dance classes and the cinema were free, the main grumbles were still about the commercial emphasis of the festival, Bonham’s high profile auction, chain stores and a huge emphasis on shopping and spending money left a lot of people disgruntled, but apparently still willing to spend; Oxfam reportedly made £1000 in the first half hour of opening! Lily Allen‘s no-show to launch ‘Lucy in Disguise’ was probably a blessing in disguise as it prevented the focus of the weekend from being celebrity.

The ‘Glamping’ was on all accounts also seen to be a big disappointment. Situated at the bottom of the hill in the woods this area quickly became a muddy bog with the torrential rain and at £1200 for a tent with an airbed was seen as a complete rip off by many who didn’t even have hot showers. The same was true of the pods which had to move some people to tents due to complaints about size and not being able to stand up.


Glamorous campers.

For the regular campers, though, there were no problems. Many vintage tents, bunting strewn camps and campervans were on a chalk based slope which quickly drained and dressing rooms with full length mirrors and power points enabled everyone to dress up.


Dressing up rooms. Photography by Madeleine Lowry

…And dress up they did! Whilst the day trippers favoured fancy dress over true vintage and stuck to the high street, the weekend crowd were the highlight of the festival. A huge ego-boosting weekend, everyone went out of their way to compliment each other on their outfits and a general blitz spirit coupled with the friendly campsite and interactive nature of events ensured that everyone was quick to make new friends.

Overall the weekend offered an overwhelming range of activities to take part in or witness, and hopefully with the kinks ironed out before next year, things can only get better for Goodwood.



Fashion at Goodwood.

You can read our insightful preview of Vintage at Goodwood here, and Amelia’s experience of the festival here.

Who really owns land? This is a question I find myself asking more and more, thumb recently. How can anyone own land? We’ve all seen Pocahontas (and if you haven’t, prostate then hop to. It is a scathing social commentary about the colonial instinct, and also, greed) wherein the eponymous heroine calls on John Smith to address his privilege through the politically incisive medium of song: ‘you think you own whatever land you land on/ the world is just a dead thing you can claim’ and those lyrics mean just as much today as they did when the English wandered over to the New World, disembarked and thought ‘Looks nice, we’ll take it. Giftwrap, please.’
In the Amazon, indigenous tribes who just happen to have lived and hunted the land for generations are getting turfed out by farmers who want to grow their soya crops in the sweeping clearings, full of smouldering stumps and fertile soil, which occur naturally throughout South America. (If you go by the idea that man is natural, and therefore any actions are also ‘natural). Money exchanged hands! Legally (probably), the farmers own the land! But…who did they pay? Who wrote them the deeds to this land? Who owned the land prior to the farmers? Who could possibly have been said to own the land prior to the farmers, except the tribes who lived on the land, knew the land, needed the land to support themselves…and are now increasingly finding themselves in concentrations camps along roadsides? How do you even own land? I think Pocahontas would agree with me that whoever works land, owns land. Whoever lives on land, understands the land and uses the land to benefit themselves and others, without fucking anyone else over, then they might be the people who own that land.

This attitude once led to the premature demolishing of a beautiful piece of art-deco architecture, on my part. The pride of my old hometown was a dilapidated old cinema, dating back to the 1940s. On the basis of ‘you’re not using it, and we want a youth centre’, a friend of mine and I ran all over the place finding people to support us, applying for funding and getting in the newspapers. The owner realised that he, oh noes!, might be called upon to do something NICE for the community, something BENEFICIAL to others! That couldn’t be! No longer being able to ignore the problem, what with our stern and business-like faces staring him out from the pages of the local Gazette, he had it torn down and built shiny, shiny expensive flats on the land instead. Can you spell f-a-i-l?

Luckily, others do better at reclaiming land for community usage than we, and one such group has taken over the Factory in the St. Pauls area of Bristol. An old boot manufacturers, then paper factory (they found a shit-ton of corrugated card in one of the rooms), it is now home to between ten and fourteen residents, and plenty of interested friends and strangers, who have cleared the place of rubble, painted over the old graffiti (from previous squatters, not the paper makers [“Wot, no ring-binders?’]), built a kitchen, and are doing their best to set up and host a pleasant, rent-free space for the use of the community.
The act of squatting to claim land is the oldest mode of tenure in the world according to Colin Ward (anarchist and squatting expert), and we are all descended from squatters, even the Queen. So, just like institutionalised homophobia and racism, it’s traditional! We’re allowed. There are a variety of reasons for squatting, but many based around the fact that people are homeless and houses are empty. Jim Radford, a long-time organiser with the Advisory Service for Squatters, points out that squatting can seen as political, but most people are just doing what they can to a get a roof over their heads. The personal, however, is always political and the fact that one person can ‘own’ property they don’t use while others are moved along nightly for the perceived crime of not having anywhere else to go is, frankly, illogical. And fucking nuts.

The Factory aims to be a social centre for the use of anybody who has a project or a plan or a pair of hands to help with, and while the occupiers may not be overtly political, the place definitely makes a statement about the self-interested, self-aggrandising attitude we are presented with daily in ‘mainstream’ society. I dropped by prior to one of their open days, had a tour and spent the best part of twenty minutes attacking a Venetian blind with a Stanley knife to help fix it in time for the film showing the next day. The place is huge and a hive of activity as residents and fellow droppers-in painted walls, put up shelves, cooked and made delicious vegan cakes for the next day. The first two floors are used for social gatherings, comprising the trapeze teaching area, film screening room, kiddie area (where some big kids were playing with drills and putting wooden animals up around the walls) the soon-to-be community kitchen, bike enclosure, zine library and function room, with apothecary! The top two floors are residential from which the delicious smell of carrot cake spills out of the enormous and gorgeous handmade kitchen, and the roof is where the herb garden lives and gives an amazing view of the rooftop world of Bristol. It is better than any house I know that people have paid to live in.

Squatting itself is not illegal since it is considered a civil matter. (Also, trespassers cannot be prosecuted! The things you learn…) Most squats have a copy of Section 6 of the Criminal Law act 1977 up at the front door, and so long as squatters have secure access to the building and at least one person is always on-site the owner and/or police cannot break in to ‘regain’ access. Many landlords discourage squatting by gutting their unused residences, destroying the stairs and dismantling the plumbing. Better an empty and destroyed house than people live in it without monetary profit to someone who claims ownership! Some people are not put off by such petty indulgences however. As I was led around the cavernous and intricate building (there are ladders, everywhere) I was told about the rubble filling some of the rooms and the graffiti left by the previous squatters…both long gone.

Every month the Factory hosts an open day, providing vegan cake (I really, really liked the cake) and informal guided tours with historical facts (“Here’s where we had the rubble party…a Brazilian football team stayed in this room…”), a fruit and veg stall (skipped!) and films shown in the cinema. On Thursdays, meetings are held to discuss ways of utilising the space which people want to put into practice, as well as just getting to know who’s who and what they do. The website encourages anyone to drop in for a cup of tea and a chat if they happen to wander by, although Mondays through Wednesdays are designated work days if you fancy getting your hands dirty.

Prior to the open day I had dropped in for a talk on Men Against Patriarchy but nobody I asked seemed to know there was a meeting going on. Such are non-hierarchical organisations, I find. Not disorganised, but few with a complete knowledge of what goes on! Having been used to Brownies and Guides and showing up, sitting down and getting told what the agenda is for the day, to show up, wander round and be expected to create my own agenda is a little disconcerting. On the open day itself, after snaffling some dark chocolate and apricot refrigerator cake, I sat upstairs in the function room reading a zine about sexism in anarchist organisations, feeling cosy, if not involved. The gent there to give the talk on guerilla gardening wandered in and we bonded with over vegan cake and Veggies burgers. Later I ventured out and chatted to Theo, who advised me to talk to Darren if I was interested in one day running my own community café since the next big in-Factory project is getting the downstairs kitchen set up for just that reason and Darren was the guy who did most of the fruit and veg skipping. So! I did not find Darren that day but hopefully the Factory will continue to be occupied by these people who want to turn it into a safe and comfortable place for all and any sorts of people, who may or may have anywhere else to go, but who share a common interest in, well, each other and the community in which they live.

Written by Amelia Wells on Tuesday August 17th, 2010 1:41 pm

Categories ,anarchist, ,bristol, ,Colin Ward, ,factory, ,squat, ,squatting, ,St Pauls, ,vegan

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Amelia’s Magazine | Squatting in the Community: Bristol’s Factory Reoccupied

by

I have to honestly admit that I don’t really THINK about sustainability in my everyday life. I even recycle without thinking because it is such a natural process to me. You don’t consciously think about why you drink tea from a cup and not from a bowl or why you pee into the toilet and not into the basin.  
I think you’re only truly sustainable when it’s a part of your way of life, healing just like a diet is pointless unless you actually change your lifestyle and habits. In keeping with this, shop I came across a test with a perfectly relevant name: “My Habbit“. You can check out your own carbon footprint and you might be surprised at how easy it is to change really small habits. 

Whilst taking the test it visualises your carbon footprint in the form of a strange and creepy semi-alien computer-generated human body. Proportionally distorting a human’s body parts in order to visualise your disproportionate use, you work your way through the different stages of sustainability. For instance, if you use a lot of electricity, you head starts to look more and more like a skeleton. The more meat you eat, the fatter your belly gets. Electricity and gas expands your hands, travel expands your feet until it looks like an almost bursting balloon. Mine looked pretty normal at the end, but it still had suggestions for me to better myself. But how did I even come across this test? 

“So, a guy came into the office today to borrow some of our paper, which was recycled and said ‘So are you trying to save the world or summin?’ (sic) to which I wanted to start replying but by the time I said ‘Um..’ he said ‘Then stop driving!’ I obviously replied ‘I don’t drive’ and he said ‘Oh’ and walked off. What’s the dude hassling me for?” 
This is a snippet of a conversation I had during dinner today, where it transpired that me being a vegetarian and not having a car actually makes me “pretty green” according to a test my partner had taken during the workshop he held at the “Sustainable Future” exhibition at the Design Museum. I was immediately intrigued. This may have been mainly due to the fact that I was fairly certain I was going to come out of the other end of the tunnel with a result to be proud of (aka something to show off about).  

I already knew some of the reasons that were going to be to my advantage. I work from home, which means that in average, I use the underground only once a week in for meetings or events in town. I have only travelled by plane once in the past year (last November, in fact), which is highly unusual and mainly down to the fact that work has happily consumed all my time. Either way, I knew it was going to make me look good in the test. I walk to the shops, and buy most of my food and fabric (I am a fashion designer) in the local market where things are mainly locally sourced. I’m very lazy when it comes to anything that is essential to life such as sleep, eating and washing. That’s only of advantage because I own a lot of clothes, which means I very rarely have to actually wash any of them. My washing machine is extremely underused.  

Furthermore, since we’re on the subject of big white goods, I don’t own a dishwasher or tumble dryer or any such machinery. I recycle everything from paper snippets to plastic to glass to fabric. I would say “tins” but I don’t really use them. As I mentioned before, most my food moves directly form the bowl of vegetables of the farmer’s table into my Longchamp shopping bag into my vegetable drawer. Another point that I knew was going to help me look good in this test was the fact that I’m a vegetarian. Apparently, that makes a difference although I’m still not quite sure why. Surely any food needs to be transported, worked on? Do feel free to enlighten me if you know. 

Returning to the subject of technical items, I don’t watch TV. I have a TV set for watching a DVD every now and then, but I usually prefer to work, and the TV is of course unplugged when I don’t use it because otherwise it makes a very annoying humming noise when it’s on standby. I unplug my printers, sewing machines, hair straighteners etc when I’m not using them.

People who don’t live with me would never believe it, but I’d rather look like a couch potato wearing three jackets (I’m at home, right?) than turn on the heating unnecessarily. In fact, the heating is completely switched off until the temperature drops below 10 degrees Celsius for more than a week, which doesn’t make me very popular with my housemates.  

We were given some free sustainable light bulbs when we last switched gas and electricity companies, which we use throughout the house and half of the fluorescent light bulbs we have in our office have burned out and we are too lazy to replace them.

This one is a big deal, but not a topic that gave me any extra credit during the test. About 80% of my wardrobe (including my shoes) is either second hand, vintage or passed on in some form or another through eBay, TK Maxx, in the form of presents from family and friends, inherited pieces, charity shops etc. This does not, however, mean that I don’t indulge my fashion sense, as a quick peek into the style section of my website will confirm. 

I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t have a CD player or stereo because I have all my music on my Mac and iPhone – who knew being this non-nostalgic about music, could turn into a blessing? 

We have an agreement with our landlord who sends round a gardener every two months. Officially, any carbon footprint they amass during their work is technically not mine, so I am not counting it. The grass is yellow from the few days of “heat” this lame English summer had, but I don’t really see that as my responsibility and as far as I can tell, I don’t think the gardeners ever water the grass – they simpy cut it even shorter and dryer and pick up the leaves. 

Some of the questions in the test were difficult. For instance, I had to look up which type of light bulbs we actually use. They cleverly adjust the optimum “habit” you could have at the end and suggest ways in which you can better yourself, even if your carbon emission is as low as one could realistically imagine. 

However, there were aspects of importance that were not quite taken into consideration. A big issue, which could tip someone’s carbon print (especially among us fashionistas and fahsionistos, eh?)  is our shopping and consumption habits beyond mere primary necessity (food). Do you buy online? Are your purchase shipped or flown from overseas or do you make sure buy locally? Do you shop in chain supermarkets or local markets? How much stuff do you own? Do you buy from Primark or second hand? Do you buy per trend and season or do you invest in pieces that you have worn for decades? Do you tend to consume actual objects such electric equipment, decorative items, clothing or something altogether different? 

There are also questions relating to your profession that are not taken into consideration at all. For instance, the test asks you whether you use a printer at home, but not whether you use a printer at work. How much paper do you use and waste, knowing you’re not paying for it? I’ll forgive them for not asking office-related questions, though, as this could get very detailed and complex. But what about mobile phones? No sign of their impact.

Having an iPhone, which I use for work, means I charge my phone up a lot more often than, say, someone who works in a shop and turns theirs off for most of the day. As anybody who owns an iPhone knows, as much as we love them – the battery of the iPhone is abysmal. It needs charging ALL the time. Surely the test should be asking about the different phones one has, the same way they asked about what type of TV I own? On the other hand, I charge my iPhone via my laptop – this means less electricity is used. You can see, the questions can be quite endless, but an essential acknowledgement of such basics would have improved the test. 
Many of my friends and colleagues are writers or need to write in some form or another. When you do your writing, do you do it online or offline? That sounds like it would make no difference, but it does. Here’s a good illustrating example, which has astounded quite a lot of people when I’ve mentioned it. 

One of the questions in the questionnaire is how often you boil the kettle. Did you know that every time you do a search on google it uses as much electricity and power from the mighty google servers as it does to boil a full kettle? A question in the test, if I have had any say, should have been “Do you look up the tiniest question on google rather than trying to think that second longer in case you remember?” Do you maybe have a real life dictionary (oh wonder and glory), which can help you just as much? Yes, one should consider the production cost of making said book, but for the sake of the argument, let’s assume it’s a vintage book, which still holds perfectly updated descriptions of most words we know. If it doesn’t, you can STILL use Google, Wikipedia or an online dictionary. But not doing so immediately would reduce your carbon footprint more than you think… 

I am a great believer in the fact that until something is accepted as normal, it has not really been overcome. Until it is, the obstacle of integration is not complete. I feel this is the way with sustainability. I grew up with it, so it was quite strange for me to see what fuss people made about being sustainable – it was new to me. Once people embrace it as part of their lives, it will be a lot easier. You hear campaigns telling you to “be aware” and “do your part” as if most of these acts weren’t perfectly logical. I disagree. Sure, some people just don’t admit to perfectly basic knowledge being obvious, and need those hints and tips, and none of us are perfect and continue to be educated. However, the obsession of making recycling something to be conscious about is not going to help. Only once it’s truly and easily integrated into our lives in a manner that is natural to participate in will sustainability really be standard practice.


All photography by Maria Domican

I was nervous upon arriving at Vintage at Goodwood… Nervous because I had called in sick to work, order nervous because I had been hearing bad press about the event and mainly nervous because I had no idea what to expect.

I have to admit, abortion no matter how fashionable, arty and eco driven a festival is, a major emphasis has always been on being drunk and having a great, if somewhat crazy time… I couldn’t imagine myself getting wasted on ‘classic cocktails’ or ‘gin and tonics’, parading around campsites in my beloved vintage treasures and sleeping through bands in a dusty heap at Goodwood. Apparently that was exactly the crowd that organiser Wayne Hemingway was eager to discourage, not wanting those “out on the lash that leave a load of empty tins at their ripped tent”.

Goodwood was billed as ‘the first of what will be an annual music and fashion led celebration of creative British cool’ ‘The new festival of Britain’. But what was it? A vintage Fashion Fair? An exhibition? Or a festival? Featuring music, art, fashion, film and design I was puzzled as to how it would all come together.

None the less I was excited… I had packed a few of my 2nd favourite dresses (the dirt was still a worry!) far too many hats (and yes I carried them in a vintage hat box) and even two matching vintage parasols, for my friend and I to parade around with; in short, more than I would usually take on a week long holiday.

Upon arrival we were greeted by a red carpet and the famous British High Street. Made up like a spaghetti western, all wooden fronted shops, I felt like I had wandered onto a film set. The high street catered for the big brands: John Lewis, The Body Shop and Dr. Martins all had large stores with all the facilities of any other high street shop. It also was the home for the vintage cinema, a traditional British pub and even an Indian take away! The draw of the festival to many though – the vintage stalls – were down the two side streets in tents. These were much more bazaar-like in style; small cramped lines of tents exploding with clothes, accessories, and when it rained (which it did a lot) crammed in people unable to move.


Vintage shopping at Goodwood.

Bands such as The Faces, Buzzcocks, Heaven 17 and the Noisettes entertained the crowds but it was the fashion that was the main draw of the festival. Workshops taught sewing and knitting while Hardy Amies and Pearl and Daisy Lowe were among those with runway shows.


The Noisettes on the main stage.


Pearl and Daisy Lowe at their runway show.

Divided into eras, the festival celebrated five decades of British cool, with each area having a different ‘curator’ (supposed experts in that field).


The 1970s and 1980s zone curated by Greg Wilson featured a warehouse with interactive graffiti wall and a roller disco.

Also in the 1970s era was Eddie Miller’s Soul Casino nightclub – replicating a mid 70s ballroom and reminiscent of many a bad wedding reception, complete with 1970s swirly carpet, sprung dance floor, pool tables and low lighting – it was here that Wayne Hemingway performed his own DJ set on the Sunday.


Wayne Hemingway

The emphasis of the festival was definitely the 1940s and 1950s, however, with the majority of outfits being so themed and with one of the highlights being leading percussionist, producer and 1940s enthusiast Snowboy’s Tanqueray sponsored ‘Torch Club’: a 1940’s style supper club which served 3 course meals over the weekend, with waiter service and a full orchestra playing while you eat. Behind the club forties allotments and land girls held guess-the-weight-of-the-pumpkin competitions and the guys from The Chap held an Olympian event with cucumber sandwich tossing and tug-o-moustache.


Cucumber sandwich tossing at The Chap Olympiad


Moustache tug-o-war

Still in its first year, the festival organisers have room for improvement before next year’s. The website promised ‘an unparalleled attention to design and organisational detail’ which is a little optimistic considering the press pass debacle. Still, this was upheld in areas such as the attention to period detail in all shops and stages and that all events were first come first served and not fully booked up beforehand.
It’s possible the press pass debacle was a result of the PR company giving all 150 staff free weekend and camping tickets… of which apparently only 8 were used!

One stall holder also complained that they felt the festival had been miss-sold as they thought that the vintage stalls were going to be on the main high street not crammed into the side tents.

Whilst a lot of events over the weekend such as dance classes and the cinema were free, the main grumbles were still about the commercial emphasis of the festival, Bonham’s high profile auction, chain stores and a huge emphasis on shopping and spending money left a lot of people disgruntled, but apparently still willing to spend; Oxfam reportedly made £1000 in the first half hour of opening! Lily Allen‘s no-show to launch ‘Lucy in Disguise’ was probably a blessing in disguise as it prevented the focus of the weekend from being celebrity.

The ‘Glamping’ was on all accounts also seen to be a big disappointment. Situated at the bottom of the hill in the woods this area quickly became a muddy bog with the torrential rain and at £1200 for a tent with an airbed was seen as a complete rip off by many who didn’t even have hot showers. The same was true of the pods which had to move some people to tents due to complaints about size and not being able to stand up.


Glamorous campers.

For the regular campers, though, there were no problems. Many vintage tents, bunting strewn camps and campervans were on a chalk based slope which quickly drained and dressing rooms with full length mirrors and power points enabled everyone to dress up.


Dressing up rooms. Photography by Madeleine Lowry

…And dress up they did! Whilst the day trippers favoured fancy dress over true vintage and stuck to the high street, the weekend crowd were the highlight of the festival. A huge ego-boosting weekend, everyone went out of their way to compliment each other on their outfits and a general blitz spirit coupled with the friendly campsite and interactive nature of events ensured that everyone was quick to make new friends.

Overall the weekend offered an overwhelming range of activities to take part in or witness, and hopefully with the kinks ironed out before next year, things can only get better for Goodwood.



Fashion at Goodwood.

You can read our insightful preview of Vintage at Goodwood here, and Amelia’s experience of the festival here.

Who really owns land? This is a question I find myself asking more and more, thumb recently. How can anyone own land? We’ve all seen Pocahontas (and if you haven’t, prostate then hop to. It is a scathing social commentary about the colonial instinct, and also, greed) wherein the eponymous heroine calls on John Smith to address his privilege through the politically incisive medium of song: ‘you think you own whatever land you land on/ the world is just a dead thing you can claim’ and those lyrics mean just as much today as they did when the English wandered over to the New World, disembarked and thought ‘Looks nice, we’ll take it. Giftwrap, please.’
In the Amazon, indigenous tribes who just happen to have lived and hunted the land for generations are getting turfed out by farmers who want to grow their soya crops in the sweeping clearings, full of smouldering stumps and fertile soil, which occur naturally throughout South America. (If you go by the idea that man is natural, and therefore any actions are also ‘natural). Money exchanged hands! Legally (probably), the farmers own the land! But…who did they pay? Who wrote them the deeds to this land? Who owned the land prior to the farmers? Who could possibly have been said to own the land prior to the farmers, except the tribes who lived on the land, knew the land, needed the land to support themselves…and are now increasingly finding themselves in concentrations camps along roadsides? How do you even own land? I think Pocahontas would agree with me that whoever works land, owns land. Whoever lives on land, understands the land and uses the land to benefit themselves and others, without fucking anyone else over, then they might be the people who own that land.

This attitude once led to the premature demolishing of a beautiful piece of art-deco architecture, on my part. The pride of my old hometown was a dilapidated old cinema, dating back to the 1940s. On the basis of ‘you’re not using it, and we want a youth centre’, a friend of mine and I ran all over the place finding people to support us, applying for funding and getting in the newspapers. The owner realised that he, oh noes!, might be called upon to do something NICE for the community, something BENEFICIAL to others! That couldn’t be! No longer being able to ignore the problem, what with our stern and business-like faces staring him out from the pages of the local Gazette, he had it torn down and built shiny, shiny expensive flats on the land instead. Can you spell f-a-i-l?

Luckily, others do better at reclaiming land for community usage than we, and one such group has taken over the Factory in the St. Pauls area of Bristol. An old boot manufacturers, then paper factory (they found a shit-ton of corrugated card in one of the rooms), it is now home to between ten and fourteen residents, and plenty of interested friends and strangers, who have cleared the place of rubble, painted over the old graffiti (from previous squatters, not the paper makers [“Wot, no ring-binders?’]), built a kitchen, and are doing their best to set up and host a pleasant, rent-free space for the use of the community.
The act of squatting to claim land is the oldest mode of tenure in the world according to Colin Ward (anarchist and squatting expert), and we are all descended from squatters, even the Queen. So, just like institutionalised homophobia and racism, it’s traditional! We’re allowed. There are a variety of reasons for squatting, but many based around the fact that people are homeless and houses are empty. Jim Radford, a long-time organiser with the Advisory Service for Squatters, points out that squatting can seen as political, but most people are just doing what they can to a get a roof over their heads. The personal, however, is always political and the fact that one person can ‘own’ property they don’t use while others are moved along nightly for the perceived crime of not having anywhere else to go is, frankly, illogical. And fucking nuts.

The Factory aims to be a social centre for the use of anybody who has a project or a plan or a pair of hands to help with, and while the occupiers may not be overtly political, the place definitely makes a statement about the self-interested, self-aggrandising attitude we are presented with daily in ‘mainstream’ society. I dropped by prior to one of their open days, had a tour and spent the best part of twenty minutes attacking a Venetian blind with a Stanley knife to help fix it in time for the film showing the next day. The place is huge and a hive of activity as residents and fellow droppers-in painted walls, put up shelves, cooked and made delicious vegan cakes for the next day. The first two floors are used for social gatherings, comprising the trapeze teaching area, film screening room, kiddie area (where some big kids were playing with drills and putting wooden animals up around the walls) the soon-to-be community kitchen, bike enclosure, zine library and function room, with apothecary! The top two floors are residential from which the delicious smell of carrot cake spills out of the enormous and gorgeous handmade kitchen, and the roof is where the herb garden lives and gives an amazing view of the rooftop world of Bristol. It is better than any house I know that people have paid to live in.

Squatting itself is not illegal since it is considered a civil matter. (Also, trespassers cannot be prosecuted! The things you learn…) Most squats have a copy of Section 6 of the Criminal Law act 1977 up at the front door, and so long as squatters have secure access to the building and at least one person is always on-site the owner and/or police cannot break in to ‘regain’ access. Many landlords discourage squatting by gutting their unused residences, destroying the stairs and dismantling the plumbing. Better an empty and destroyed house than people live in it without monetary profit to someone who claims ownership! Some people are not put off by such petty indulgences however. As I was led around the cavernous and intricate building (there are ladders, everywhere) I was told about the rubble filling some of the rooms and the graffiti left by the previous squatters…both long gone.

Every month the Factory hosts an open day, providing vegan cake (I really, really liked the cake) and informal guided tours with historical facts (“Here’s where we had the rubble party…a Brazilian football team stayed in this room…”), a fruit and veg stall (skipped!) and films shown in the cinema. On Thursdays, meetings are held to discuss ways of utilising the space which people want to put into practice, as well as just getting to know who’s who and what they do. The website encourages anyone to drop in for a cup of tea and a chat if they happen to wander by, although Mondays through Wednesdays are designated work days if you fancy getting your hands dirty.

Prior to the open day I had dropped in for a talk on Men Against Patriarchy but nobody I asked seemed to know there was a meeting going on. Such are non-hierarchical organisations, I find. Not disorganised, but few with a complete knowledge of what goes on! Having been used to Brownies and Guides and showing up, sitting down and getting told what the agenda is for the day, to show up, wander round and be expected to create my own agenda is a little disconcerting. On the open day itself, after snaffling some dark chocolate and apricot refrigerator cake, I sat upstairs in the function room reading a zine about sexism in anarchist organisations, feeling cosy, if not involved. The gent there to give the talk on guerilla gardening wandered in and we bonded with over vegan cake and Veggies burgers. Later I ventured out and chatted to Theo, who advised me to talk to Darren if I was interested in one day running my own community café since the next big in-Factory project is getting the downstairs kitchen set up for just that reason and Darren was the guy who did most of the fruit and veg skipping. So! I did not find Darren that day but hopefully the Factory will continue to be occupied by these people who want to turn it into a safe and comfortable place for all and any sorts of people, who may or may have anywhere else to go, but who share a common interest in, well, each other and the community in which they live.

Written by Amelia Wells on Tuesday August 17th, 2010 1:41 pm

Categories ,anarchist, ,bristol, ,Colin Ward, ,factory, ,squat, ,squatting, ,St Pauls, ,vegan

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Amelia’s Magazine | Bristol Co-Mutiny

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Last week Co-mutiny was held in Bristol where people converged from around the country to attend the week long event. Workshops, skills shares and direct action were on the timetable and there was plenty to keep an activist engaged. Climate justice, financial collapse and autonomous spaces were some of the themes on the agenda.

CM1

The convergence space was an impressive cathedral with a series of passages, cavernous halls and darkened rooms perfect for the event. There was space for people to sleep, a kitchen which kept a daily supply of skipped food – never before have I been able to eat as many Waitrose Glace cherries as I wanted – and even an ingenious temporary boiler system kept us supplied with hot water.
The walls were covered in an array of murals, messages, late night graffiti rambles, as well as banners and posters which helped to give the feeling of an even bigger cultural shift from the by-gone cathedral. I slept in a room that was previously decorated by a theater company. It was quite an experience to wake up with a huge, blue mural sky, indoors. As much an art gallery as a convergence space, walking around Bristol it is apparent that this is the norm in the city, in the Montpelier area you are faced with an amazing mural or a graf piece at every corner.

CM2

Throughout the week a fair amount of time was put into making banners and props for the planned action on the Saturday. The impressive pirate ship, built onto a shopping trolley, got a lot of attention especially wheeling or careering it around the city streets where there were a lot of bemused university freshers.

CM3

The week culminated on the weekend with a carnivalesque tour of the city to repossess the banks. There were a range of costumes and masks from anarchist nuns, animals, pirates and general carnival attire.

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The plan was to take a whirlwind tour of the banks and offices and to cause general havoc around the streets of Bristol. We hit our first bank and although a few people got into the lobby we were repelled by the police.

CM6

Custard pies were thrown and a vicious cat and mice game incurred with the police jumping on a few people. When we tried to help out everyone piled in, including the police horses. Yeah, good plan who’s ever idea that was. Arrests were made and we moved onto the next target. Faces from the offices peered from above with fear, no, more like general interest on their faces. Anything to take them away from their spreadsheet day lives. Big up to the guy who glued himself across the front doors of bank trapping the bankers in at lunch time.

CM7

Along the route we kept up constant outreach to onlookers and passers by who gave mostly positive feedback, promising to look into the ethical bank, Triodos, rather than the high street banks. It was a shame to see that most people were aware that banks invest into things like the arms trade and climate chaos, but find it hard to switch across because of the effort involved or the fact that the banks have them trapped into loans, morgages and interest rates.

CM8

The day progressed, but unfortunately we seemed to lose momentum as we rambled on to the tenth bank. Although a few people spoke up, it was a bit demoralising having no energy to effectively or even metaphorically ‘repossess’ the banks. The outreach was encouraging though and it was good to get back to the Cathedral at the end of the long day to get some homemade soya burger mush stuff and a brew.

Written by Adam S on Thursday September 24th, 2009 12:52 pm

Categories ,Arms Trade, ,Autonomous space, ,bristol, ,Cathedral, ,Climate Justice, ,Co-mutiny, ,outreach, ,protest, ,repossess the banks, ,skipping, ,squat

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Amelia’s Magazine | Earth Listings 26th October – 1st November 2009

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DRAWING ATTENTION

Drawing Attention


The Dulwich Picture Gallery has been graced with a showcase of 100 master drawings from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The great masters from Picasso and Matisse, approved to Rembrandt and Van Gogh are here and movements including Renaissance Italy and German Expressionism. An unmissable opportunity to witness arguably the greatest collection of master drawings in one space, see this exhibition will be undoubtedly compelling and astounding. The gallery have already received a record amount of bookings so join the crowds to see one of this year’s must see exhibitions.

Dulwich Picture Gallery

October 21st 2009 – January 27th 2010

WILDLIFE

Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year


Perhaps a tad too excited about this exhibition, ailment The Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year is at the top of my to-do list this week. Held in the wonderous Natural History Museum, the competition handpicks a selection of the finest wildlife photographs from professional and amateur photographers and have received an astounding 43,000 entries. The candidates aim to produce work that is original, creative and inspired and many of this year’s entries will prove to exceed these expectations. None more so in fact than the winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez’ piece ‘The Storybook Wolf’ alone, makes this exhibition worth going to.

Natural History Museum

October 23 2009 – April 11 2010

PHAIDON


Phaidon Pop-Up Shop

The world renowned publisher Phaidon have just opened their first UK pop up book shop in Piccadilly. Famous for superior quality books on visual arts, culture and creativity, you will be able to buy from categories such as design, photography, architecture, fashion, travel and now new editions, cookery and children’s books. Be sure to make a visit soon to get your mits on any of the beautifully crafted publications as it won’t be around forever. The store will be gone again in the January of next year.

Phaidon Store 173 Piccadilly London W1

POP LIFE

Pop Life:Art In A Material World

Based on Andy Warhol’s notorious quote ‘good business is the best art’ the exhibition considers the legacy Pop Art left behind and the influence it has had since. ‘Pop Life’ will focus on how artists have inflitrated and been invloved in the mass media since the 1980′s including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Keith Haring. We are also asked to be aware that some works in this exhibition are of a challenging and sexual nature and dmission to three of the rooms is restricted to over-18s only. You have been warned!

Tate Modern

October 1 2009 – January 17 2010

GREEN DAY

Green Day Presents: ‘The Art of Rock’

A celebration of art and music has come to Brick Lane this week. To coincide with the release of their new album Green Day have commissioned a selection of artists to produce work for a travelling exhibition that will also accompany them on their world tour. The artists, who include curator Logan Hicks, Ron English, Sixten, Will Barras and The London Police were asked to make work in reaction to their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown.

StolenSpace Gallery Brick Lane

October 23 – November 11


DRAWING ATTENTION

Drawing Attention


The Dulwich Picture Gallery has been graced with a showcase of 100 master drawings from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The great masters from Picasso and Matisse, order to Rembrandt and Van Gogh are here and movements including Renaissance Italy and German Expressionism. An unmissable opportunity to witness arguably the greatest collection of master drawings in one space, this exhibition will be undoubtedly compelling and astounding. The gallery have already received a record amount of bookings so join the crowds to see one of this year’s must see exhibitions.

Dulwich Picture Gallery

October 21st 2009 – January 27th 2010

WILDLIFE

Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

Perhaps a tad too excited about this exhibition, The Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year is at the top of my to-do list this week. Held in the wonderous Natural History Museum, the competition handpicks a selection of the finest wildlife photographs from professional and amateur photographers and have received an astounding 43,000 entries. The candidates aim to produce work that is original, creative and inspired and many of this year’s entries will prove to exceed these expectations. None more so in fact than the winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez’ piece ‘The Storybook Wolf’ alone, makes this exhibition worth going to.

Natural History Museum

October 23 2009 – April 11 2010

PHAIDON


Phaidon Pop-Up Shop

The world renowned publisher Phaidon have just opened their first UK pop up book shop in Piccadilly. Famous for superior quality books on visual arts, culture and creativity, you will be able to buy from categories such as design, photography, architecture, fashion, travel and now new editions, cookery and children’s books. Be sure to make a visit soon to get your mits on any of the beautifully crafted publications as it won’t be around forever. The store will be gone again in the January of next year.

Phaidon Store 173 Piccadilly London W1

POP LIFE

Pop Life:Art In A Material World

Based on Andy Warhol’s notorious quote ‘good business is the best art’ the exhibition considers the legacy Pop Art left behind and the influence it has had since. ‘Pop Life’ will focus on how artists have inflitrated and been invloved in the mass media since the 1980′s including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Keith Haring. We are also asked to be aware that some works in this exhibition are of a challenging and sexual nature and dmission to three of the rooms is restricted to over-18s only. You have been warned!

Tate Modern

October 1 2009 – January 17 2010

GREEN DAY

Green Day Presents: ‘The Art of Rock’

A celebration of art and music has come to Brick Lane this week. To coincide with the release of their new album Green Day have commissioned a selection of artists to produce work for a travelling exhibition that will also accompany them on their world tour. The artists, who include curator Logan Hicks, Ron English, Sixten, Will Barras and The London Police were asked to make work in reaction to their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown.

StolenSpace Gallery Brick Lane

October 23 – November 11

DRAWING ATTENTION

Drawing Attention

The Dulwich Picture Gallery has been graced with a showcase of 100 master drawings from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The great masters from Picasso and Matisse, prescription to Rembrandt and Van Gogh are here and movements including Renaissance Italy and German Expressionism. An unmissable opportunity to witness arguably the greatest collection of master drawings in one space, this exhibition will be undoubtedly compelling and astounding. The gallery have already received a record amount of bookings so join the crowds to see one of this year’s must see exhibitions.

Dulwich Picture Gallery
October 21st 2009 – January 27th 2010

WILDLIFE

Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

Perhaps a tad too excited about this exhibition, The Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year is at the top of my to-do list this week. Held in the wonderous Natural History Museum, the competition handpicks a selection of the finest wildlife photographs from professional and amateur photographers and have received an astounding 43,000 entries. The candidates aim to produce work that is original, creative and inspired and many of this year’s entries will prove to exceed these expectations. None more so in fact than the winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez’ piece ‘The Storybook Wolf’ alone, makes this exhibition worth going to.

Natural History Museum
October 23 2009 – April 11 2010

PHAIDON

Phaidon Pop-Up Shop

The world renowned publisher Phaidon have just opened their first UK pop up book shop in Piccadilly. Famous for superior quality books on visual arts, culture and creativity, you will be able to buy from categories such as design, photography, architecture, fashion, travel and now new editions, cookery and children’s books. Be sure to make a visit soon to get your mits on any of the beautifully crafted publications as it won’t be around forever. The store will be gone again in the January of next year.

Phaidon Store 173 Piccadilly London W1

POP LIFE

Pop Life:Art In A Material World

Based on Andy Warhol’s notorious quote ‘good business is the best art’ the exhibition considers the legacy Pop Art left behind and the influence it has had since. ‘Pop Life’ will focus on how artists have inflitrated and been invloved in the mass media since the 1980′s including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Keith Haring. We are also asked to be aware that some works in this exhibition are of a challenging and sexual nature and dmission to three of the rooms is restricted to over-18s only. You have been warned!

GREEN DAY

Green Day Presents: ‘The Art of Rock’

A celebration of art and music has come to Brick Lane this week. To coincide with the release of their new album Green Day have commissioned a selection of artists to produce work for a travelling exhibition that will also accompany them on their world tour. The artists, who include curator Logan Hicks, Ron English, Sixten, Will Barras and The London Police were asked to make work in reaction to their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown.

StolenSpace Gallery Brick Lane
October 23 – November 11

DRAWING ATTENTION

Drawing Attention


The Dulwich Picture Gallery has been graced with a showcase of 100 master drawings from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The great masters from Picasso and Matisse, approved to Rembrandt and Van Gogh are here and movements including Renaissance Italy and German Expressionism. An unmissable opportunity to witness arguably the greatest collection of master drawings in one space, there this exhibition will be undoubtedly compelling and astounding. The gallery have already received a record amount of bookings so join the crowds to see one of this year’s must see exhibitions.

Dulwich Picture Gallery

October 21st 2009 – January 27th 2010

WILDLIFE

Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

Perhaps a tad too excited about this exhibition, The Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year is at the top of my to-do list this week. Held in the wonderous Natural History Museum, the competition handpicks a selection of the finest wildlife photographs from professional and amateur photographers and have received an astounding 43,000 entries. The candidates aim to produce work that is original, creative and inspired and many of this year’s entries will prove to exceed these expectations. None more so in fact than the winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez’ piece ‘The Storybook Wolf’ alone, makes this exhibition worth going to.

Natural History Museum

October 23 2009 – April 11 2010

PHAIDON


Phaidon Pop-Up Shop

The world renowned publisher Phaidon have just opened their first UK pop up book shop in Piccadilly. Famous for superior quality books on visual arts, culture and creativity, you will be able to buy from categories such as design, photography, architecture, fashion, travel and now new editions, cookery and children’s books. Be sure to make a visit soon to get your mits on any of the beautifully crafted publications as it won’t be around forever. The store will be gone again in the January of next year.

Phaidon Store 173 Piccadilly London W1

POP LIFE

Pop Life:Art In A Material World

Based on Andy Warhol’s notorious quote ‘good business is the best art’ the exhibition considers the legacy Pop Art left behind and the influence it has had since. ‘Pop Life’ will focus on how artists have inflitrated and been invloved in the mass media since the 1980′s including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Keith Haring. We are also asked to be aware that some works in this exhibition are of a challenging and sexual nature and dmission to three of the rooms is restricted to over-18s only. You have been warned!

Tate Modern

October 1 2009 – January 17 2010

GREEN DAY

Green Day Presents: ‘The Art of Rock’

A celebration of art and music has come to Brick Lane this week. To coincide with the release of their new album Green Day have commissioned a selection of artists to produce work for a travelling exhibition that will also accompany them on their world tour. The artists, who include curator Logan Hicks, Ron English, Sixten, Will Barras and The London Police were asked to make work in reaction to their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown.

StolenSpace Gallery Brick Lane

October 23 – November 11

DRAWING ATTENTION

Drawing Attention

The Dulwich Picture Gallery has been graced with a showcase of 100 master drawings from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The great masters from Picasso and Matisse, page to Rembrandt and Van Gogh are here and movements including Renaissance Italy and German Expressionism. An unmissable opportunity to witness arguably the greatest collection of master drawings in one space, approved this exhibition will be undoubtedly compelling and astounding. The gallery have already received a record amount of bookings so join the crowds to see one of this year’s must see exhibitions.

Dulwich Picture Gallery
October 21st 2009 – January 27th 2010

WILDLIFE

Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

Perhaps a tad too excited about this exhibition, for sale The Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year is at the top of my to-do list this week. Held in the wonderous Natural History Museum, the competition handpicks a selection of the finest wildlife photographs from professional and amateur photographers and have received an astounding 43,000 entries. The candidates aim to produce work that is original, creative and inspired and many of this year’s entries will prove to exceed these expectations. None more so in fact than the winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez’ piece ‘The Storybook Wolf’ alone, makes this exhibition worth going to.

Natural History Museum
October 23 2009 – April 11 2010

PHAIDON

Phaidon Pop-Up Shop

The world renowned publisher Phaidon have just opened their first UK pop up book shop in Piccadilly. Famous for superior quality books on visual arts, culture and creativity, you will be able to buy from categories such as design, photography, architecture, fashion, travel and now new editions, cookery and children’s books. Be sure to make a visit soon to get your mits on any of the beautifully crafted publications as it won’t be around forever. The store will be gone again in the January of next year.

Phaidon Store 173 Piccadilly London W1

POP LIFE

Pop Life:Art In A Material World

Based on Andy Warhol’s notorious quote ‘good business is the best art’ the exhibition considers the legacy Pop Art left behind and the influence it has had since. ‘Pop Life’ will focus on how artists have inflitrated and been invloved in the mass media since the 1980′s including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Keith Haring. We are also asked to be aware that some works in this exhibition are of a challenging and sexual nature and admission to three of the rooms is restricted to over-18s only. You have been warned!

Tate Modern
October 1 2009 – January 17 2010

GREEN DAY

Green Day Presents: ‘The Art of Rock’

A celebration of art and music has come to Brick Lane this week. To coincide with the release of their new album Green Day have commissioned a selection of artists to produce work for a travelling exhibition that will also accompany them on their world tour. The artists, who include curator Logan Hicks, Ron English, Sixten, Will Barras and The London Police were asked to make work in reaction to their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown.

StolenSpace Gallery Brick Lane
October 23 – November 11
DRAWING ATTENTION

Drawing Attention

The Dulwich Picture Gallery has been graced with a showcase of 100 master drawings from the Art Gallery of Ontario. The great masters from Picasso and Matisse, viagra to Rembrandt and Van Gogh are here and movements including Renaissance Italy and German Expressionism. An unmissable opportunity to witness arguably the greatest collection of master drawings in one space, this exhibition will be undoubtedly compelling and astounding. The gallery have already received a record amount of bookings so join the crowds to see one of this year’s must see exhibitions.

Dulwich Picture Gallery
October 21st 2009 – January 27th 2010

WILDLIFE

Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year

Perhaps a tad too excited about this exhibition, The Veolia Wildlife Photographer Of The Year is at the top of my to-do list this week. Held in the wonderous Natural History Museum, the competition handpicks a selection of the finest wildlife photographs from professional and amateur photographers and have received an astounding 43,000 entries. The candidates aim to produce work that is original, creative and inspired and many of this year’s entries will prove to exceed these expectations. None more so in fact than the winner, Jose Luis Rodriguez’ piece ‘The Storybook Wolf’ alone, makes this exhibition worth going to.

Natural History Museum
October 23 2009 – April 11 2010

PHAIDON

Phaidon Pop-Up Shop

The world renowned publisher Phaidon have just opened their first UK pop up book shop in Piccadilly. Famous for superior quality books on visual arts, culture and creativity, you will be able to buy from categories such as design, photography, architecture, fashion, travel and now new editions, cookery and children’s books. Be sure to make a visit soon to get your mits on any of the beautifully crafted publications as it won’t be around forever. The store will be gone again in the January of next year.

Phaidon Store 173 Piccadilly London W1

POP LIFE

Pop Life:Art In A Material World

Based on Andy Warhol’s notorious quote ‘good business is the best art’ the exhibition considers the legacy Pop Art left behind and the influence it has had since. ‘Pop Life‘ will focus on how artists have inflitrated and been invloved in the mass media since the 1980′s including Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, Tracey Emin, Richard Prince and Keith Haring. We are also asked to be aware that some works in this exhibition are of a challenging and sexual nature and admission to three of the rooms is restricted to over-18s only. You have been warned!

Tate Modern
October 1 2009 – January 17 2010

GREEN DAY

Green Day Presents: ‘The Art of Rock’

A celebration of art and music has come to Brick Lane this week. To coincide with the release of their new album Green Day have commissioned a selection of artists to produce work for a travelling exhibition that will also accompany them on their world tour. The artists, who include curator Logan Hicks, Ron English, Sixten, Will Barras and The London Police were asked to make work in reaction to their latest album, 21st Century Breakdown.

StolenSpace Gallery Brick Lane
October 23 – November 11
icacatwalk8

Last night I was delighted to be invited to the ICA for an emphatic catwalk show with a difference. The event was organised by former designer Elaine Foster-Gandey; director of Designer Sales UK.

Elaine developed Real People do the Catwalk after hosting a fashion show which included both dancers and models on stage. “I asked my customers about it and they said they related to the dancers and not the models”.

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Spurred by this Elaine set about putting together a pioneering show to further the arguement that replacing super-thin models with people who reflect society could lead to increased sales for the fashion industry.

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The show opened in silence with the models resembling extras from Scream in their attire of long black robes and white masks. Each model first vocalised how they felt the fashion industry related to them, cheap followed by revealing their beautifully styled outfits and their real identities.

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The driving force behind the model casting to show the fashion industry that different body shapes can be celebrated in fashion shows and advertising campaigns.

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“It is about not creating an elite world where no one else can join in, adiposity ” Explained Elaine. “So many people want a chance, generic but know that because they are five foot tall, or a size 14-16, they never will have.” The models featured within the show ranged from a 6’1” Drag Artiste to a 5’4” male; dress sizes 8 to 20 and ages between 25 to 60+.

What I enjoyed most about the show was the diversity and celebration of the models differences. It was fresh and modern with all the models having poise, confidence and importantly a great sense of humour. Their
good spirits and sense of fun gave the show an electric atmosphere.

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The models’ charismatic personalities brought out something unique in the clothes that might not have been projected if worn by a ‘normal’ model. Whether this is because they were real people displaying how the clothes would fit on our own bodies or down to their insurmountable energy and passion for highlighting an issue intricately linked to the size zero debate.

Afterwards there was a riveting post-show debate featuring: Elaine Foster-Gandey; Real People do the Catwalk organiser, writer Dariush Alavi; Eleni Renton, founder of Leni’s Model Management; Hilary Alexander, esteemed fashion director at The Daily Telegraph and was chaired by writer and broadcaster Bidisha.

icacatwalk12

The debate began by Dariush Alavi somewhat controversially enquiring as to why Real People do the Catwalk
was produced to “enact a traditional fashion show.” Suggesting that by keeping the traditional format, could anything change by replacing the models with real people as it is not the models who are at fault but the stage on which they stand. Alavi suggested doing away with the catwalk altogether.

This prompted both Hilary Alexander and a member of the audience to defend the catwalk as “fashion’s world stage” and looked back to a John Galliano show where the entire collection was presented on an overhead track of basic clothes hangers. Dariush’s response suggested making models obsolete and displaying clothes on a fashion conveyer belt went down like a lead balloon. The audience and the rest of the panel remained sceptical of high fashion designers considering a presentation that in a format is more commonly associated with The Generation Game.

icacatwalk15

Questions were raised about the morality of the fashion industry and the spotlight on the size zero debate intensified. Hilary spoke about the Telegraph not facing the same constraints from advertisers as glossy fashion titles and said that the newspaper’s “aim to strike a balance between real people and models and actively try to include both types of woman in spreads… the oldest woman we’ve ever featured was 94.”

Panellist Eleni Renton mentioned that the Editor of UK Vogue Alexandra Shulman spoke out against size zero in June accusing designers of making magazines hire models with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” by supplying them with “minuscule” garments for their photo shoots. She claimed that Vogue frequently “retouched” photographs to make models look larger. In response Hilary questioned whether things had begun to change at UK Vogue as they still fail to represent body diversity within their pages, suggesting it would become apparent what their real stance on size zero is over the coming months.

icacatwalk11

Elaine added that whilst magazine images are not healthy for women, they have a considerable impact on impressionable teenagers who start to believe they need to emulate perfect bodies in order to be considered beautiful and successful.

“Look around, everything we see is airbrushed… these aren’t real images.”

To emphasise her point Elaine spoke of teenagers being more body conscious than any generation before citing her own children as an example: “I have a six-year-old daughter and 11 and 15-year-old stepdaughters who are constantly looking in the mirror. My stepdaughters are so skinny and so conscious about what they eat and what they see in the media. They are constantly aware of body image issues. It is a big issue for adolescent girls and boys.”

icacatwalk14

The panel and audience agreed that the media are responsible for putting different demographics into the mainstream and popularising diversity, and that they have a moral responsibility to society to not glamorise super skinny body shapes. Elaine believes that there has “been a spike in our body consciousness” in recent years and we have turned into a society “afraid of flesh, hair and wrinkles”.

icacatawalk

Eleni, director of Leni’s Model Management only works with girls “who are sizes 8 to 12… They are the type of girls you see in the street and think, ‘I would like a body like hers.”

As the debate drew to a close the supermodel era was discussed, with Hilary citing that the greats in the industry: Linda, Kate and Naomi all had personality, and that was what made them famous, rather than their figures. On the flip side other great supermodels such as Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington and Sophie Dahl were celebrated for having curves.

icacatwalk7

Through the conversations it became apparent that the only modern day equivalent of a curvaceous celebrity pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable in mainstream is Beth Ditto, who won LOVE magazine a prestigious industry award for her iconic nude cover

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The overall outcome was for women to take responsibility for themselves and their bodies and actively promote positive body attitudes to their daughters, friends and grandchildren. Everyone agreed that while it is easy to blame the media for the size zero trend, consumers need to use our buying power to actively challenge the fashion industry into reconsidering their design practices and elitism.

icacatwalk4

I left the ICA feeling very empowered, wanting to help revolutionise the fashion industry from the outside in.

Home to canals and cannabis, case dams, discount diamonds and professional damsels Holland is an entirely civilized and modern society. But one Dutch girl’s gaze is fixed on another civilization entirely. The first one. The grains of thought for designer Iris Van Herpen’s A/W ’09 collection sprouted from the fertile banks of the River Nile in ancient Egypt. The young designer found inspiration in the post humous labor of love by which the ancient Egyptians sent their nearest and dearest off to the beyond. Forsaking strips of linen in favor of intricate leather lacework, search her garments carefully envelop the body like grandiose and elegant mummies.

IrisVanHerpen_Mummification_AW0910_01.jpg

“Egyptians considered the ‘reality’ that they created for their deaths as the reality, while their daily life was an illusion. In other words, don’t believe everything that looks obvious, but create your own reality…”
When asked how she might adapt this philosophy to her modern hectic life Iris supposes “give more and another way of attention to everything around me and everything I do, making choices in another way and giving more space to the unexpected”
Sounds simple enough, coming from someone whose intense focus has yielded garments requiring the better part of a month and 4 assistants to complete, resulting in complex one-off works of art that are impossible to duplicate. That singularity is what lends these pieces much of their ephemeral quality.

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Clearly passionate about fabrics Iris relishes the “challenge to look further than fabrics… to find interesting materials and get them out of their ‘reality’ or fuction.” She accomplishes this by “giv(ing) them another life” by creating her own function for them.
Iris has shown in both Amsterdam and Tokyo Fashion Week where her A/W ’08 collection Chemical Crows ruffled more than a few feathers. The designer toys with the idea of juxtaposing industrial and traditional materials she has explored everything from radiating umbrella spoke dresses to lace facemasks (which I imagine go over very well with the female mexican wrestler set).

iris1.jpg

Pointing out that maths were her forte (as opposed to languages) Iris welcomes the structural challenges posed by the unique materials and her ambitious ideas. Confronted with endless recalculations in an effort to retain the delicate symmetry of her handmade pieces she admits the small, 10 piece collection, would be impossible to reproduce. A process which would, she admits, would surely drive her to madness.

chemicalcrows.jpg

With stints at Alexander McQueen and Victor & Rolf Iris emerged with with additional technical know-how and perhaps a clearer sense of purpose. “I learned… that I get restless if I cannot express myself and not do my own thing.”
Not having specifically intended to venture out on her own so quickly, Iris recalls launching herself into the creation of new designs the day after her graduation from Artez School of Arts. to the amazement, and at times concern, of friends.

The Ancient Egyptians believed that when someone died their soul left their body. It would then return and be reunited with the body after it was buried. However the soul needed to find and recognize the body in order to live forever. Hence the decadently decorative sarcophagi. Figuring we won’t be here forever….how would you design yours?

This weeks listings; arts, salve training, films and festivals. Make sure you check out C words at some point, where Platform are putting on 50 events in the run-up to COP 15.

EL1
Illustration by Andrea Kearney

The Alternative Food Shopping Tour!
Tuesday 27 October 2009

An event to accompany C Words: Carbon, Climate, Capital, Culture – an exhibition by artist-activist group PLATFORM and their collaborators. Join James from action hero on a guided tour around Bristol’s alternative food shopping. Where to buy, what to choose, and how the hell it got there!

Time: 10.15am
Venue: Arnolfini 6 Narrow Quay, Bristol BS1 4QA

Embedded! Arts, Energy and Climate Change
Wednesday 28th October 2009

Another event in the programme C Words: Carbon, Climate, Capital, Culture. This day conference is aimed at arts and cultural organisations facing up to the challenge of moving towards low impact and carbon neutral operations. Looking at the investment structure of the arts into funding into climate change as well as discussions into a radical reduction in dependency on carbon and on fossil fuel based economics

11.30am – 4.30pm
£20 / £10 concs
Website: http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/event

3rd Native Spirit Festival
Friday 30th October 2009?

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The 3rd Native Spirit Festival will be held in London, it is held to promote the Cultures of Indigenous people. The annual season will include films, talks and performances. All proceedings made at the festival will go towards educational resources for schools in indigenous communities.
Venue: London, Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre
Website: http://www.nativespiritfestival.com/

Healing the wound: the struggle for truth and justice in Mexico
Friday 30th October 2009 ?

Film screening of 12.511 Rosendo Radilla case: An open wound from Mexico’s Dirty War. Q&A follows the film showing with human rights defender Tita Radilla to discuss the struggle in Mexico over the past decades.

Venue: Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place, London W2 1QJ
Time: 7pm
Website: http://www.peacebrigades.org.uk/

CAAT National Gathering 2009
Saturday 31st October 2009 ?

Join Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) supporters from around the country for a day of speakers, discussion and inspiration!
There will be an array of workshops on topics from arms fairs to corporate mercenaries to challenging the arms industry’s jobs argument. The event will have opportunities to hone your skills in making the most of the media.
With an election looming and BAE Systems taking advantage of the recession to claim it invests ‘more and more in UK manufacturing’, this year’s event will provide the facts, skills and passion you need to challenge government support for the arms trade and tackle the arms industry’s spin.

Time: 10.15am – 5pm
Venue: Toynbee Studios, London, E1 6AB
Website: www.caat.org.uk/events/nationalgathering/

Training for Gaza Freedom March
Saturday 31st October 2009

Seeds for Change are putting on training for those interested in taking part in the Gaza Freedom march. There is a central London venue, crash-pad accommodation available on Fri and Sat evenings.

Website: http://www.gazafreedommarch.org/

Croydon Eco Veggie Fayre
Sunday 1st Nov 2009

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The Croydon Eco Veggie Fayre is a superb day out for the whole family and is the perfect introduction into an eco friendly veggie friendly Fair Trade way of life. Over 50 stalls now allocated, to browse, buy and

Venue: Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon, Surrey CR9 1DG
Admission £3 for adults, £1 for Kids under 14
Website: http://croydon.ecoveggiefayre.co.uk/

Written by Adam S on Monday October 26th, 2009 2:01 pm

Categories ,3rd Native Spirit Festival, ,arnolfini, ,Arts, ,BAE Systems, ,bristol, ,C words, ,CAAT National Gathering, ,Capital Culture, ,climate, ,Croydon Eco Veggie Fayre, ,Earth Listings, ,energy, ,environment, ,Indigenous People, ,london, ,mexico, ,platform, ,Seeds for Change, ,Veggie

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Amelia’s Magazine | Earth Listings: 2nd – 8th November 2009

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Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2009

Diamond Tears by Verena Paloma Jabs at Tatty Devine

PANIK – CHANGING FACES

6 NOVEMBER – 28 NOVEMBER 2009 PRIVATE VIEW THURSDAY 6.30 – 9PM
26 ARGYLE SQ. ENTRANCE FROM ARGYLE WALK LONDON WC1H 8AP

Calaveras: Mexican Prints for the Day of the Dead

Make It Print It Pack It Ship It

Check out the range of talks and discussions this week, treat there is a chance to vent some anger at some cops in a more legitimate manner than normal as well as plenty of events pushing for action on a deal at the Copenhagen Climate Change Talks.

le1
Illustration by Anneka Tran

Architecture and Climate Change – The Sustainable City
Tuesday 3rd November 2009 ?

Acclaimed architect, visit planner and former Mayor of Curitiba, Jaime Lerner, discusses his visionary ideas concerning cities and their future. Lerner’s talk will look at design in structuring urban growth as well as focusing on the importance of public transportation as well as engaging with some of the key issues affecting the built and natural environment now and in the future.

Time: 6.30pm
£8, £5 concession
Venue: RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London W1B 1AD
?Website: http://www.architecture.com

Fast Facilitation – An action-packed taster course
Wednesday 4th November 2009

Getting a group together focusing on environmental issues in your neighborhood, or looking to take a new role in a discussion group? This course is suitable for people with little or no experience of facilitation. This course aims to help you design, facilitate and evaluate meetings or workshops that engage and include all participants effectively in order to achieve desired outcomes.

Time: 9.30am – 5.00pm
Venue: 212 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7BF
Website: http://www.the-environment-council.org.uk/training.html

Establishing a food forest: the Permaculture way
Thursday 5th November 2009?

An inspiring and practical film from permaculturist Geoff Lawton about the potential of permaculture forest gardening to design abundant human ecosystems. Part of a programme of film and events to accompany C Words: Carbon, Climate, Capital, Culture – an exhibition by artist-activist group PLATFORM and their collaborators.

Venue: Arnolfini, Bristol
Website: http://www.arnolfini.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/details/416

Met open discussion about policing of the G20
Thursday 5th November 2009

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The Met police will be hosting a public meeting about policing of the G20 demonstrations, chances for people to vet their anger, frustration or glee at seeing protestors get beaten up. The police will be answering questions and making sure the media see they are taking some initiative, although I’m sure continuing their oppressive tactics away from the spotlight.

Time: 9.30am – 12.30pm
Venue: London’s Living Room, City Hall

Climate Emergency Copenhagen forum
Saturday 7th November 2009

Looking everything we need to do to stop climate change in it’s tracks, 10% cuts by end 2010 and the case for emergency action. Creating a million climate jobs by end 2010, decarbonising our transport fast and looking at the Copenhagen talks, and the deal we need and the deal we’re likely to get. Plus plenty of workshops on the day.

Venue: South Camden Community School, Charrington St., London, NW1 1RG
?Time: 12 – 6pm
Website: www.campaigncc.org

Put People First G20 Counter Conference
Saturday 7th November 2009

le3

The Put People First G20 Counter Conference will bring together academics, activists, campaigners, unions and policy makers to debate alternative policies to promote jobs, justice and a safe climate. Following on from earlier this year, where we marched in our tens of thousands to demand the G20 Put People First. However, we’ve seen nothing but a return to business as usual.

Time: 10am – 5.30pm
Venue: Central Hall Westminster SW1 9NH
Website: http://peopleandplanet.org/navid8537

Green Sundays
Sunday 8th November 2009

Bored with lazy Sunday afternoons? Why not go down to Green Sundays at the Arcola Theatre and explore environmental issues in a relaxed and chilled out manner? The event provides an opportunity for like-minded people to get together to learn about the planet while listening to live world music, film, spoken word, games and discussion.

Time: 3:00pm – 7:30pm
Venue: Arcola Theatre, 27 Arcola St, London, E8 2DJ
Website: www.greensundays.org.uk

Written by Adam S on Monday November 2nd, 2009 1:27 pm

Categories ,10% cuts, ,Activists, ,arnolfini, ,bristol, ,C words, ,campaigners, ,Capital, ,carbon, ,climate, ,Climate Change, ,Climate Emergency Copenhagen forum, ,Culture, ,earth, ,environment, ,Facilitation, ,g20, ,Green Sundays, ,listings, ,Met police, ,permaculture, ,Put People First, ,sustainable, ,unions

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Amelia’s Magazine | Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal – A Documentary by Naomi Smyth

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Corrie_Nielsen_Abby_Wright_LFW

Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection, find buy information pills illustration by Abby Wright

The BFC Tent is massive. Or a lot bigger than the other show spaces. But the benches are the same; white and hard. I went to where I was supposed to be seated and realised it was smack bang in the middle of an already super full bench. I went to the end of the bench; “Any…? No, no, ok then. Thanks.” Luckily a man on the bench behind saved me by shifting up a bit and motioning towards the space he’d made. “Ah wonderful, thanks!” I sort of wanted to chat with him, but found the non-moving up people – now before me- much more interesting. Yabbering and air kissing their faces off with some other people in another row. They went from exceptionally animated and friendly to bored and motionless in second. They reminded me of whippets. The BFC was packed, rammed, up to the brim. Before long, it went dark. The wall of photographers were in their pyramid, like hyeneas, eyes blazing, they were poised…some of them taking shots for no apparent reason. Or, just in case something ridiculous happens.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection, illustration by Jenny Robins

Big shoulders, high necklines, victoriana, huge circle skirts, sashes over shoulders, trouser suits with extra long legs and short jackets, balooning at the middle slightly, and beautiful midi length skirt suits with puffed shoulders. The shoes were angular or strappy, and the hair either blown up, or short and sharply pointed. But as the show continued, the more dramatic it became. The start featured outfits you could happily wear to a whole host of occasions, all fitted, 60s shapes with Victorian influences, in reds, black, grey and teal, but then it went MAD.

CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_020CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_019CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_016CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_014 Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection: Photography by Matt Bramford

It was fantastic. Everything got extremely vulumnious. Enormous jackets, enveloping the models in shells of silky, padded looking fabrics. Deep purples, teals and bold reds came streaming out. Waist and neck detailing included ruffles, pleats and knots. Skirts were bubbled and swathing. Some were paired with sheer, ruffling tops, others; tight corsets. Many of the models also wore wide headbands, which added to the historic, modern twist charm, mixing modern design with 60s and the late 1800s. And making it work surprising well.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection: Photography by Amelia Gregory

Then two show stopper dresses came out. One nearly pure, off white with a hooped top skirt, corseted top, long train and beautiful headpiece, wrapped around the model’s blonde hair. With ballet satin encased feet, this was ghostly, heavenly and adventurous in one. It appealed to me through its theatre, gracefulness and just off purity. The dress had character, frivolity and fantasy wrapped up. Spiced up innocence, a thrown out of her castle, princess. What did she do to be ejected? For me, although more Elizabethan perhaps in design than Victorian, this was Hardy’s; Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Walking over the hills, her boots worn through, her daze; a story.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection: Photography by Matt Bramford

In contrast, the next dress was BLACK. It reminded me of Queen Victoria herself, mixed with Queen Elizabeth I. Then with the addition of Helena Bonham-Carter and Tilda Swinton. Exploded hair, Elnett insanity, all rough, a bit haphazard and COOL. Together with the most over-ruffled, incredible dress, fit for a QUEEN, it was an explosion. Black as the darkest night, but with a slight shine, like the moon reflecting, the material was reminiscent of a glassy ocean at night. The neck was high, ruffled, starched and stretched down to the waist. The sleeves puffed at the top, then tightened to the wrists. Then the skirt was full and glorious, with a train behind. It was like watching the night fairy, or a stunning, black widow spider move along the catwalk. Deadly. She would have destroyed the off white, semi angel in seconds. It was the ‘other’ side of our heroine, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, downbeat on the moors. Or indeed, 19th century’s; Emily Brontë’s, Wuthering Heights. With Cathy, depressed at the Wuthering Heights estate, angered and serious, yet of course, utterly beautiful. I wish the show had been on the Yorkshire Moors (I don’t), as the dress would have looked sensational, with the wind whipping about and the layers of fabric billowing. The semi angel would have been on a deserted beach in Scotland, or a corn field. I wonder where Corrie would have placed them.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W Collection, illustration by Jenny Robins

Dear Wuthering Heights, I quote thou: ‘Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!’

I hope you see what I mean.

Jenny Robins’ and Abby Wright’s illustrations can also be found in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration, available here.

Illustrations by Ankolie

Even the invitation to this show had me excited; detail of a vintage toile print on a fabric corset lined with vintage style brass buttons and the byline ‘inspired by the court of Louis XV when art became frivolous’ grabbed my attention.Because all of this is frivolous, for sale isn’t it?We’re in the middle of a recession and yet here we are, still feeding are obsession with fashion and art because it has become such an integral part of our lives.Combining fashion and music is a big part of my job as a stylist to musicians, so opening the show with Analize Ching on the violin was a big hit with me, followed by wonderful orchestral music that evoked the atmosphere of a French royal court.


I’d been a little underwhelmed by a lot of very drab Autumn/Winter collections, where hues vary only from black,to greys, some cream and back to black. The colours Prophetik used are all natural, with plum shades blended from madder root, rumex, logwood and indigo, and burgundy mixed from madder root, curled dock and gallnut. Adding yet more splashes of colour and prints were the quilted pieces, handed down from Jeff’s grandmother Lola from Tennesse. Hemp, cactus silk and ostrich feathers provided stunning texture and shape to the pieces. Accessories label ‘Dotted Loop’ provided reworked vintage accessories and even the shoes were made from vegetable-tanned leather.


Its rare that I can get at all excited by menswear, but the pieces in this collection spoke to the avid period-drama fan inside me. Military inspired jackets and riding boots?Phwoar.Yes please. Jeff himself appeared at the end showing how the look can be worked, though I’m sure he could probably get a way with wearing pretty much anything and still look like he just finished writing poetry/surfing/horse-riding; all listed as his hobbies.Only someone this comfortable with his masculinity could design coats for men made out of pastel pink quilts.


Corsets, tailored jackets and voluminous skirts; Jeff is very good at designing clothes for real women’s bodies.He recently dressed the lovely Livia Firth for the 2011 Golden Globes, and I can only imagine that his celebrity following will continue to increase.The final dress, ‘Mrs Moulton’ features ostrich feathers that shed naturally twice a year (from the ostrich, not the dress-that would be a high maintenance frock indeed) hand sewn on white silk and organza- I can totally picture this as a celebrity wedding dress.Watch this space.


I’ll leave you with Jeff’s take on Renaissance Art.I think it’s very interesting considering our current pre-occupation with all things vintage.
‘Renaissance art is not a rebirth as one implies, but freedom from the past. Unconcerned with what has been said or done, living in the present with an immediate relation to all things…achievement does not birth beauty but raw effort confessing its own failures and in the confession is the beauty of Art.’



Illustrations by Alexandra Rolfe

It was a mighty long trek from the main fashion activity at Somerset House to 33 Portland Place for my first show of the A/W 2011 season. As it was bStore, for sale and as 33 Portland Place is stunning (the location for much of the recent filming of The King’s Speech), and I thought it much worth the effort. Amazingly, about it arriving at 6:23 for a 6:30 show I still managed to be first in the queue. Which luckily meant I was first to get a cocktail when the doors finally opened.

bStore were obviously out to put on an intimate and relaxed show for ‘friends’. The cocktails were stunning (well done – best Mojito I have had in ages) and the drawing room we were all ushered into to settle into the evening definitely set the tone. As the room filled it also became obvious that the gathered audience were bang right-on bStore target; urban gentlemen and ladies in the up-to-date yet classically English look that bStore helps to promote. I especially favoured the lovely American woman who had had a little too much to drink, tottered on me and my bags and then had to prop herself against the wall as her ‘heels were far too high’ (if you are reading this, you know who you are!).

Cocktail downed and people watching over, we made our way into the show area. Tightly packed and with live band playing (as with the cocktails, very good) we all took places throughout the two rooms that made the runway circuit. bStore got this location just right, the slightly disused English club room feel suited the brand to a T.

Unfortunately, this is about where the amazing parts of the show came to an end. In dim lighting the first model came out, but he was halfway around the circuit before most of the audience realised the show had actually started. I believe there were two reasons for this: (1) as the lighting was so dim, the model was literally walking in shadows, and (2) the model didn’t look any different to the assembled crowd, it was hard to tell audience and model apart. The parade of models followed as we squinted in the dark to see what was on offer. Muted ochres, burgundies and black on clothes kept to the signature bStore look. Slightly tailored English, slightly American grungy, with the same proportions bStore has been following for a number of seasons now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a big bStore fan and there was nothing here that was awful. Most of it was immensely wearable and if it was my first bStore encounter I would have been more ecstatic (but still squinting, why were there no lights? It’s a fundamental part of this process, surely?). But knowing what bStore offers, this show didn’t really bring anything new to the brand and left me feeling a bit meh. Competent? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Groundbreaking? Nope.

Illustrations by Alexandra Rolfe

It was a mighty long trek from the main fashion activity at Somerset House to 33 Portland Place for my first show of the A/W 2011 season. As it was bStore, capsule and as 33 Portland Place is stunning (the location for much of the recent filming of The King’s Speech), I thought it much worth the effort. Amazingly, arriving at 6:23 for a 6:30 show I still managed to be first in the queue. Which luckily meant I was first to get a cocktail when the doors finally opened.

bStore were obviously out to put on an intimate and relaxed show for ‘friends’. The cocktails were stunning (well done – best Mojito I have had in ages) and the drawing room we were all ushered into to settle into the evening definitely set the tone. As the room filled it also became obvious that the gathered audience were bang right-on bStore target; urban gentlemen and ladies in the up-to-date yet classically English look that bStore helps to promote. I especially favoured the lovely American woman who had had a little too much to drink, tottered on me and my bags and then had to prop herself against the wall as her ‘heels were far too high’ (if you are reading this, you know who you are!).

Cocktail downed and people watching over, we made our way into the show area. Tightly packed and with live band playing (as with the cocktails, very good) we all took places throughout the two rooms that made the runway circuit. bStore got this location just right, the slightly disused English club room feel suited the brand to a T.

Unfortunately, this is about where the amazing parts of the show came to an end. In dim lighting the first model came out, but he was halfway around the circuit before most of the audience realised the show had actually started. I believe there were two reasons for this: (1) as the lighting was so dim, the model was literally walking in shadows, and (2) the model didn’t look any different to the assembled crowd, it was hard to tell audience and model apart. The parade of models followed as we squinted in the dark to see what was on offer. Muted ochres, burgundies and black on clothes kept to the signature bStore look. Slightly tailored English, slightly American grungy, with the same proportions bStore has been following for a number of seasons now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a big bStore fan and there was nothing here that was awful. Most of it was immensely wearable and if it was my first bStore encounter I would have been more ecstatic (but still squinting, why were there no lights? It’s a fundamental part of this process, surely?). But knowing what bStore offers, this show didn’t really bring anything new to the brand and left me feeling a bit meh. Competent? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Groundbreaking? Nope.


Illustrations by Alexandra Rolfe

It was a mighty long trek from the main fashion activity at Somerset House to 33 Portland Place for my first show of the A/W 2011 season. As it was bStore, price and as 33 Portland Place is stunning (the location for much of the recent filming of The King’s Speech), generic I thought it much worth the effort. Amazingly, site arriving at 6:23 for a 6:30 show I still managed to be first in the queue. Which luckily meant I was first to get a cocktail when the doors finally opened.

bStore were obviously out to put on an intimate and relaxed show for ‘friends’. The cocktails were stunning (well done – best Mojito I have had in ages) and the drawing room we were all ushered into to settle into the evening definitely set the tone. As the room filled it also became obvious that the gathered audience were bang right-on bStore target; urban gentlemen and ladies in the up-to-date yet classically English look that bStore helps to promote. I especially favoured the lovely American woman who had had a little too much to drink, tottered on me and my bags and then had to prop herself against the wall as her ‘heels were far too high’ (if you are reading this, you know who you are!).

Cocktail downed and people watching over, we made our way into the show area. Tightly packed and with live band playing (as with the cocktails, very good) we all took places throughout the two rooms that made the runway circuit. bStore got this location just right, the slightly disused English club room feel suited the brand to a T.

Unfortunately, this is about where the amazing parts of the show came to an end. In dim lighting the first model came out, but he was halfway around the circuit before most of the audience realised the show had actually started. I believe there were two reasons for this: (1) as the lighting was so dim, the model was literally walking in shadows, and (2) the model didn’t look any different to the assembled crowd, it was hard to tell audience and model apart. The parade of models followed as we squinted in the dark to see what was on offer. Muted ochres, burgundies and black on clothes kept to the signature bStore look. Slightly tailored English, slightly American grungy, with the same proportions bStore has been following for a number of seasons now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a big bStore fan and there was nothing here that was awful. Most of it was immensely wearable and if it was my first bStore encounter I would have been more ecstatic (but still squinting, why were there no lights? It’s a fundamental part of this process, surely?). But knowing what bStore offers, this show didn’t really bring anything new to the brand and left me feeling a bit meh. Competent? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Groundbreaking? Nope.
Gemma Milly-Invisible Circus
Illustration by Gemma Milly

I’m reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen at the moment. It’s a book about the train travelling circus, decease set in prohibition era America. The story flits from the 1930s to the present day. Whilst highlighting the protagonist’s age and the unavoidable changes to his body, information pills mind and soul, it also mutters under its breath of the stark changes within the circus world. The book depicts the ‘old’ circus as full of hardship – pure blood, sweat and tears stuff. The modern circuses are seen as refined pieces of machinery, in a factory made of satin. Is the magic lost within this? A touch of the romanticism? The circus’s underground beginnings would never have seen itself hovering pleasantly next to the Sherif’s house, yet now they are as above board as the Queen… aren’t they? I digress, the circus is glorious! Of course it is! BUT, there within the drama, a snatch of a risk, a missed heartbeat, a creative explosion, that’s the kind of circus I want to see.

There is one circus, The Invisible Circus, who hold all and more of the magic that comes with the old and new; from the hard graft and creativity, to the luxury/despairs of liberation. I’ve been fascinated with them since I moved to Bristol, where they’re based. The group squat in various disused buildings, clean them up and use the spaces for creative expression; for The Invisible Circus. I was lucky enough to go to a screening of Naomi Smyth‘s documentary on The Invisible Circus, which involved her following them for several years, becoming part of the group. She saw them change, inspire, shrink and grow – from squatters to ‘legit’ workers. Ultimately becoming something huge and recognised as beautiful and vital for a city’s inner beating, expression. It’s truly inspiring from a whole host of angles; those that influence our daily lives and the future of truly free art. And free people. DO try and watch the film if you can. Here follows the trailer to the film and a fascinating interview with Naomi Smyth.

Could you introduce yourself please?
I’m Naomi Smyth, I’m a filmmaker, performer and theatre writer/deviser.
How long have you been a film maker?
I’ve been freelancing as a director, camera op and editor on shorts, corporates, showreels, community films and some TV for 8 years. ‘Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal’ is my first feature and the first film I created totally to my own brief.
How did you get into film making?
After my Theatre degree I did a Film and TV Production MA at Bristol Uni, more in order to get the technical skills to make my ideas happen than to get a job in TV. After that I did lots of free showreel building stuff in Bristol and became good enough to be paid.
Are you Bristol born yourself?
I was born in Portsmouth, a great place for an offbeat arty teenager to stare out to sea or in at the concrete and moan that nobody understands. Thankfully that isn’t true! My partner Sam was born in Bristol and wanted to come back here, so I came with him after my degree.
And who are The Invisible Circus?
They make groundbreaking, mindbending shows that combine site-specific, promenade, circus, spectacle and interactive theatre. They’re a large knot of very close, very creative people with a massive range of skills. Over the past four years they have emerged from the squat scene in Bristol and become professionals- both at being a circus and at managing huge derelict buildings as sister co-op Artspace Lifepace. Some crew members had lived outside the system for years , so there were lots of challenges along the way.
What initially interested you about them?
They were squatting a derelict 4-storey garage round the corner from my house. It was pretty manky but they had transformed parts of it with red draping and lighting and created this dark Victoriana aesthetic around the shows there. There was such creative energy about them and a real determination to create beauty out of waste and nothingness with their bare hands.
What made you want to film a documentary such as this; and over such a long period?
If I had known it would take four years I would never have begun! I just felt that this was an intriguing assortment of people who were going somewhere together, and they didn’t all feel the same way about where that was or should be. I thought that was interesting and there must be a story in it! It took about a year to really be sure what the thread was. I did a lot of sitting around with the camera running, wondering why I was there. When I did find the thread it took four years before I really felt the story had developed enough to be finished. CarnyVille is the Masterpiece of the circus so far, and the show that has involved the biggest part of Bristol’s creative community so I’m very glad I ended it with that. People still tell me there is more to film. They’re right, but I’m not doing it!

invisible circus by rebecca lewis
Illustration by Rebecca Lewis

Is it a social, economic and political statement/commentary?
The circus in the film is a group of very passionate creative people who start out underground, slightly flaky and disorganised and get successful, professional and popular. That process is socially interesting, and also political. It is tied into the way our economy and the power structures in our society work, but also the ones in our heads. Tough choices come up as they move further into dealing with the hierarchies of capitalism. They have a leader in Doug too, which is obvious from the outside- but for self proclaimed anarchists which many of them are, that’s a very uncomfortable idea. At the same time they are doing it all for no money, just for the love of making art together, for the sake of beauty and inspiration. That underpins the whole mission and really saves it from the traps along the way.
How did you end up getting involved in the circus yourself? What is your own act?
I don’t have a circus act- but The Invisible Circus has always been about blending theatre, circus and spectacle. It took me a while to get up the courage but now I’ve been in nearly every IC show since November 2007, so I’m pretty used to it! I work on the character and story aspects of the shows. On the night I either act and sing in stage shows, or improvise in character with audience members in our weird imaginary worlds. I’ve helped create Jobcentres, Zoos, Haunted Houses, weddings, reality TV shows, family Christmases… all with a ‘wrong’ twist.
How did you feel performing? What did you wear? How nervous were you?
The first time I performed with the circus was in a cabaret in a squatted pub in 2006. There were 200 odd people there and I sang a Tori Amos song and A Paul Simon song a capella. I was incredibly nervous- even then I was fairly confident with acting but I’d never sung in public before in my life. I had written this monologue and created a whole 20′s Southern Belle character- Tallulah La Moolah- basically as a ruse to convince myself it wasn’t ‘me’ singing.
Were you received well?
I got a great round of applause from a very generous audience. The monologue was definitely too long though!

Ringmaster by Madi
Illustration by Madi Illustration

What do you think about the ethics behind the group?
I think it is very hard to live ethically in our society. It’s much easier to accuse others of hypocrisy for falling short of perfection than it is to make whatever effort possible in your own life to act on your deep-down beliefs. The ethics and beliefs in the circus vary massively. I do feel everyone there is in some way critical of our wasteful consumer culture and is trying in whatever way they can to act on that feeling. Some avoid, some confront, some imagine other ways and some create them for themselves and others.
Did you ever live in one of the buildings the collective were residing in?
I’ve never lived with the circus. I think that made the film possible. Getting the distance to ask questions and edit footage of people I genuinely care about was hard enough. If I’d been waking up in that community every morning with all the internal politics and closeness and mix of work and friendship, then having to translate that into a film, I might have gone nuts.
How did you feel about the legality of what they were doing?
Squatting is legal and I hope it remains so, though the Tories are trying to change that. It’s a loophole that provides housing for people who need it and who take the initiative to sort a building out. Most of these places have lain derelict for ages and can be really nasty inside. It’s not for everyone but the squatters I know are responsible, self-reliant people who hate waste. It can take a lot of hard work to squat- and if they don’t trash the place they’re not costing anyone a penny. Most will do some renovations in order to make a property habitable for themselves so they can actually add value. As Nick says in the film, most squatters in the UK will move on when evicted. The stereotype of the squatters who nick an old lady’s flat while she’s on holiday is based on tabloid tales of a few isolated cases.

There are some pretty rampantly greedy property owners out there who think nothing of the effects a derelict property can have on the community around it. Look at Westmoreland House- it’s full of asbestos, a big rotted hole in Stokes Croft for the last few decades and when the council try to compulsory purchase it, the owners hike the price to way above its value. That’s perfectly legal because they own it. I think that’s a real crime.

The game changes when it comes to running events out of a squat because you can fall foul of licensing laws, health and safety etc. Personally I would like to see people having more freedom to use space and make things happen without all these costly hoops to jump through. I like to see people just doing stuff without asking for permission, and that was what attracted me to the circus in the first place. But the choice Doug and the circus made over the years was to learn what the hoops are and how to jump through them, and rise to that challenge of ‘going legit’. I respect that too because it means they now reach a wider audience and they’ve flown the flag for similar projects and showed the Council and local developers that grassroots arts organisations can be trusted with huge buildings and large scale projects.

INVISIBLE CIRCUS
Photography by Paul Blakemore of Neat Studios

It must have been tiring to make the film! How did you manage your days/workload?
It was pretty hard to balance my life and sanity with the hours I had to put in on the film. At first the money side was OK because I had a well paid part-time job- something I’d recommend for any struggling artist! But about halfway through when they got the huge Police Station building, the crew offered me a free space to edit in and I got possessed by enthusiasm and quit my job to go full time freelance. That was quite tough because although I was getting work, it was harder to make time for the unpaid work on my film. At one point I ‘microfunded’ a 2-month period off all other work for me to crack the edit. I raised about £1400 from friends, family and internet supporters- about 80 people chipped in. I basically lived in my studio on flapjacks and energy drink. I stopped sleeping and life got very strange for a while there.
How was your partner affected – he helped I saw on the film…?
One of the ways my partner Sam was affected was that he learned how to be a damn fine camera operator! I couldn’t always make shoots because of my job, so I trained him up on my camera and sent him out if there was something important happening. Obviously it wasn’t all roses- when I was doing my hardest stints of editing he was the one to pick up the pieces when I stumbled in all sleep deprived and teary-eyed and lay twitching on the sofa. He was also the first person to feed back on my edit, and he always said if he didn’t like something. I did go a bit mad around that time so I wasn’t always grateful for his advice shall we say! But I always made the changes in the end so I guess he was usually right.
Did your own opinion of The Invisible Circus change as the years passed?
The circus itself changed, and my friendships with them did too, so yes- but in too many ways to go into!

Invisible C
Photography by Paul Blakemore of Neat Studios

What about your opinions on Bristol? What do you think about Bristol, how it has developed and how it supports creative communities?
I absolutely love Bristol. In terms of its creative output and variety of stuff happening here, it is world class. The issue it has is that it’s sometimes a bit introverted- we all just bimble about enjoying each other’s talent and not spreading the word beyond the city. So much of the best stuff happens on the level of the grassroots, where people aren’t as good at putting themselves out there or don’t have access to a world stage. There is probably stuff that the Council or arts agencies could have done better in years past but now that there is no funding, we artists have to put ourselves out there in DIY fashion! Which should mean we’re on the turf we know best.
Did the group alter your own opinions on life, art, Bristol, consumerism etc?
The biggest way the circus has changed me is to introduce me to literally hundreds of people, each with a different set of skills to bring, and thrown me into making exciting, exhausting shows with them. I’ve gained a whole new understanding of collaboration, friendship, art and my own priorities.
After that the biggest change has been the discipline required to create the whole film without anybody but me pushing me to do it. I always said that even if nobody ever wanted to see it, it was still worth making. Now to show it to people and have them respond to it, is incredible. I can’t wait to release it properly.
As filming progressed did you become, and are you still part of the group?
I am definitely part of the group now. That happened as I was making the film, and is partially documented in the story. Loads of new people have got involved over the past four years, so I’m kind of an old hand now. Though the real old hands are Dougie and Wim, who founded it 16 years ago when they were busking in Europe.
Do you still perform now?
I did theatre throughout my childhood and being in a company making new work was my big dream. I love documentary too, but yes I still perform and will continue for the rest of my life now. I get something from it that I can’t get anywhere else. I let my demons and dreams out for a run onstage. Bliss.

iCircus
Photography by Paul Blakemore of Neat Studios

How important do you think collectives like The Invisible Circus are for Bristol/the country?
Over a thousand people have worked on Invisible Circus shows in the past few years, and many thousands have been to them. And I’ve seen that nearly all those people have at some point been delighted, transported , or pushed to somewhere they’ve never seen or thought they could be. And I think people need that and I like being a part of it. So I think there should be more of it.
In their case the breadth of the imaginative worlds created is borne on the back of a very solid community who support each other in ways most people don’t with their workmates. I think that’s really positive too and I think it’s necessary to have a close community you can rely on- especially in tough economic times.
Do you have another project lined up?
I have a couple of ideas for my next film, but after wondering about pitching to broadcasters and making a few plans, I still think I’ll probably just have to start shooting it in earnest to find out what it is. I want a bit more time with it before I give it to anybody else to play with.
What do you see for the future of The Invisible Circus?
The Invisible Circus are going to be big. We’ve already had some exciting offers for this year. It’s still the old struggle of trying to financially sustain a large crew who like making elaborate sets and huge spectacles- but we are unstoppable! As the past few years have shown.
What do you hope to do with the film? Travel around the country/world with it?
I’ve had a great offer from transmedia co-op Future Artists to distribute the film. They are working on new ways of releasing films that are fairer for the artist and less expensive for everybody, and they are great people so I’m sure with them it will go far. Hopefully to some festivals first and then to screenings throughout the UK. We are talking about screening in unusual venues and ‘recycled’ spaces like the ones in the film, as well as normal cinemas. Tomorrow, the world!
And how would you like people to leave feeling?
I’d like people to leave uplifted, and inspired to do something about the idea at the back of their mind.
When and where can we next see the FILM?!
I’m not sure at the moment as I’ve just started working with Future Artists, but it shouldn’t be too long. You can keep up to date by following me on twitter: @InvisibleCFilm or visiting the website and subscribing to the mailing list.

Written by Helen Martin on Thursday March 24th, 2011 7:04 pm

Categories ,bristol, ,council, ,documentary, ,ethical, ,film, ,Gemma Milly, ,Helen Martin, ,Madi Illustration, ,Naomi Smyth, ,Neat Studios, ,Paul Blakemore, ,Rebecca Lewis, ,Sara Gruen, ,squatting, ,The Invisible Circus, ,Water For Elephants

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Amelia’s Magazine | Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal – A Documentary by Naomi Smyth

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection, find buy information pills illustration by Abby Wright

The BFC Tent is massive. Or a lot bigger than the other show spaces. But the benches are the same; white and hard. I went to where I was supposed to be seated and realised it was smack bang in the middle of an already super full bench. I went to the end of the bench; “Any…? No, no, ok then. Thanks.” Luckily a man on the bench behind saved me by shifting up a bit and motioning towards the space he’d made. “Ah wonderful, thanks!” I sort of wanted to chat with him, but found the non-moving up people – now before me- much more interesting. Yabbering and air kissing their faces off with some other people in another row. They went from exceptionally animated and friendly to bored and motionless in second. They reminded me of whippets. The BFC was packed, rammed, up to the brim. Before long, it went dark. The wall of photographers were in their pyramid, like hyeneas, eyes blazing, they were poised…some of them taking shots for no apparent reason. Or, just in case something ridiculous happens.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection, illustration by Jenny Robins

Big shoulders, high necklines, victoriana, huge circle skirts, sashes over shoulders, trouser suits with extra long legs and short jackets, balooning at the middle slightly, and beautiful midi length skirt suits with puffed shoulders. The shoes were angular or strappy, and the hair either blown up, or short and sharply pointed. But as the show continued, the more dramatic it became. The start featured outfits you could happily wear to a whole host of occasions, all fitted, 60s shapes with Victorian influences, in reds, black, grey and teal, but then it went MAD.

CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_020CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_019CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_016CorrieNielsen_LFW_MattBramford_014 Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection: Photography by Matt Bramford

It was fantastic. Everything got extremely vulumnious. Enormous jackets, enveloping the models in shells of silky, padded looking fabrics. Deep purples, teals and bold reds came streaming out. Waist and neck detailing included ruffles, pleats and knots. Skirts were bubbled and swathing. Some were paired with sheer, ruffling tops, others; tight corsets. Many of the models also wore wide headbands, which added to the historic, modern twist charm, mixing modern design with 60s and the late 1800s. And making it work surprising well.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection: Photography by Amelia Gregory

Then two show stopper dresses came out. One nearly pure, off white with a hooped top skirt, corseted top, long train and beautiful headpiece, wrapped around the model’s blonde hair. With ballet satin encased feet, this was ghostly, heavenly and adventurous in one. It appealed to me through its theatre, gracefulness and just off purity. The dress had character, frivolity and fantasy wrapped up. Spiced up innocence, a thrown out of her castle, princess. What did she do to be ejected? For me, although more Elizabethan perhaps in design than Victorian, this was Hardy’s; Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Walking over the hills, her boots worn through, her daze; a story.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W 2011 Collection: Photography by Matt Bramford

In contrast, the next dress was BLACK. It reminded me of Queen Victoria herself, mixed with Queen Elizabeth I. Then with the addition of Helena Bonham-Carter and Tilda Swinton. Exploded hair, Elnett insanity, all rough, a bit haphazard and COOL. Together with the most over-ruffled, incredible dress, fit for a QUEEN, it was an explosion. Black as the darkest night, but with a slight shine, like the moon reflecting, the material was reminiscent of a glassy ocean at night. The neck was high, ruffled, starched and stretched down to the waist. The sleeves puffed at the top, then tightened to the wrists. Then the skirt was full and glorious, with a train behind. It was like watching the night fairy, or a stunning, black widow spider move along the catwalk. Deadly. She would have destroyed the off white, semi angel in seconds. It was the ‘other’ side of our heroine, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, downbeat on the moors. Or indeed, 19th century’s; Emily Brontë’s, Wuthering Heights. With Cathy, depressed at the Wuthering Heights estate, angered and serious, yet of course, utterly beautiful. I wish the show had been on the Yorkshire Moors (I don’t), as the dress would have looked sensational, with the wind whipping about and the layers of fabric billowing. The semi angel would have been on a deserted beach in Scotland, or a corn field. I wonder where Corrie would have placed them.

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Corrie Nielsen LFW A/W Collection, illustration by Jenny Robins

Dear Wuthering Heights, I quote thou: ‘Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!’

I hope you see what I mean.

Jenny Robins’ and Abby Wright’s illustrations can also be found in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration, available here.

Illustrations by Ankolie

Even the invitation to this show had me excited; detail of a vintage toile print on a fabric corset lined with vintage style brass buttons and the byline ‘inspired by the court of Louis XV when art became frivolous’ grabbed my attention.Because all of this is frivolous, for sale isn’t it?We’re in the middle of a recession and yet here we are, still feeding are obsession with fashion and art because it has become such an integral part of our lives.Combining fashion and music is a big part of my job as a stylist to musicians, so opening the show with Analize Ching on the violin was a big hit with me, followed by wonderful orchestral music that evoked the atmosphere of a French royal court.


I’d been a little underwhelmed by a lot of very drab Autumn/Winter collections, where hues vary only from black,to greys, some cream and back to black. The colours Prophetik used are all natural, with plum shades blended from madder root, rumex, logwood and indigo, and burgundy mixed from madder root, curled dock and gallnut. Adding yet more splashes of colour and prints were the quilted pieces, handed down from Jeff’s grandmother Lola from Tennesse. Hemp, cactus silk and ostrich feathers provided stunning texture and shape to the pieces. Accessories label ‘Dotted Loop’ provided reworked vintage accessories and even the shoes were made from vegetable-tanned leather.


Its rare that I can get at all excited by menswear, but the pieces in this collection spoke to the avid period-drama fan inside me. Military inspired jackets and riding boots?Phwoar.Yes please. Jeff himself appeared at the end showing how the look can be worked, though I’m sure he could probably get a way with wearing pretty much anything and still look like he just finished writing poetry/surfing/horse-riding; all listed as his hobbies.Only someone this comfortable with his masculinity could design coats for men made out of pastel pink quilts.


Corsets, tailored jackets and voluminous skirts; Jeff is very good at designing clothes for real women’s bodies.He recently dressed the lovely Livia Firth for the 2011 Golden Globes, and I can only imagine that his celebrity following will continue to increase.The final dress, ‘Mrs Moulton’ features ostrich feathers that shed naturally twice a year (from the ostrich, not the dress-that would be a high maintenance frock indeed) hand sewn on white silk and organza- I can totally picture this as a celebrity wedding dress.Watch this space.


I’ll leave you with Jeff’s take on Renaissance Art.I think it’s very interesting considering our current pre-occupation with all things vintage.
‘Renaissance art is not a rebirth as one implies, but freedom from the past. Unconcerned with what has been said or done, living in the present with an immediate relation to all things…achievement does not birth beauty but raw effort confessing its own failures and in the confession is the beauty of Art.’



Illustrations by Alexandra Rolfe

It was a mighty long trek from the main fashion activity at Somerset House to 33 Portland Place for my first show of the A/W 2011 season. As it was bStore, for sale and as 33 Portland Place is stunning (the location for much of the recent filming of The King’s Speech), and I thought it much worth the effort. Amazingly, about it arriving at 6:23 for a 6:30 show I still managed to be first in the queue. Which luckily meant I was first to get a cocktail when the doors finally opened.

bStore were obviously out to put on an intimate and relaxed show for ‘friends’. The cocktails were stunning (well done – best Mojito I have had in ages) and the drawing room we were all ushered into to settle into the evening definitely set the tone. As the room filled it also became obvious that the gathered audience were bang right-on bStore target; urban gentlemen and ladies in the up-to-date yet classically English look that bStore helps to promote. I especially favoured the lovely American woman who had had a little too much to drink, tottered on me and my bags and then had to prop herself against the wall as her ‘heels were far too high’ (if you are reading this, you know who you are!).

Cocktail downed and people watching over, we made our way into the show area. Tightly packed and with live band playing (as with the cocktails, very good) we all took places throughout the two rooms that made the runway circuit. bStore got this location just right, the slightly disused English club room feel suited the brand to a T.

Unfortunately, this is about where the amazing parts of the show came to an end. In dim lighting the first model came out, but he was halfway around the circuit before most of the audience realised the show had actually started. I believe there were two reasons for this: (1) as the lighting was so dim, the model was literally walking in shadows, and (2) the model didn’t look any different to the assembled crowd, it was hard to tell audience and model apart. The parade of models followed as we squinted in the dark to see what was on offer. Muted ochres, burgundies and black on clothes kept to the signature bStore look. Slightly tailored English, slightly American grungy, with the same proportions bStore has been following for a number of seasons now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a big bStore fan and there was nothing here that was awful. Most of it was immensely wearable and if it was my first bStore encounter I would have been more ecstatic (but still squinting, why were there no lights? It’s a fundamental part of this process, surely?). But knowing what bStore offers, this show didn’t really bring anything new to the brand and left me feeling a bit meh. Competent? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Groundbreaking? Nope.

Illustrations by Alexandra Rolfe

It was a mighty long trek from the main fashion activity at Somerset House to 33 Portland Place for my first show of the A/W 2011 season. As it was bStore, capsule and as 33 Portland Place is stunning (the location for much of the recent filming of The King’s Speech), I thought it much worth the effort. Amazingly, arriving at 6:23 for a 6:30 show I still managed to be first in the queue. Which luckily meant I was first to get a cocktail when the doors finally opened.

bStore were obviously out to put on an intimate and relaxed show for ‘friends’. The cocktails were stunning (well done – best Mojito I have had in ages) and the drawing room we were all ushered into to settle into the evening definitely set the tone. As the room filled it also became obvious that the gathered audience were bang right-on bStore target; urban gentlemen and ladies in the up-to-date yet classically English look that bStore helps to promote. I especially favoured the lovely American woman who had had a little too much to drink, tottered on me and my bags and then had to prop herself against the wall as her ‘heels were far too high’ (if you are reading this, you know who you are!).

Cocktail downed and people watching over, we made our way into the show area. Tightly packed and with live band playing (as with the cocktails, very good) we all took places throughout the two rooms that made the runway circuit. bStore got this location just right, the slightly disused English club room feel suited the brand to a T.

Unfortunately, this is about where the amazing parts of the show came to an end. In dim lighting the first model came out, but he was halfway around the circuit before most of the audience realised the show had actually started. I believe there were two reasons for this: (1) as the lighting was so dim, the model was literally walking in shadows, and (2) the model didn’t look any different to the assembled crowd, it was hard to tell audience and model apart. The parade of models followed as we squinted in the dark to see what was on offer. Muted ochres, burgundies and black on clothes kept to the signature bStore look. Slightly tailored English, slightly American grungy, with the same proportions bStore has been following for a number of seasons now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a big bStore fan and there was nothing here that was awful. Most of it was immensely wearable and if it was my first bStore encounter I would have been more ecstatic (but still squinting, why were there no lights? It’s a fundamental part of this process, surely?). But knowing what bStore offers, this show didn’t really bring anything new to the brand and left me feeling a bit meh. Competent? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Groundbreaking? Nope.


Illustrations by Alexandra Rolfe

It was a mighty long trek from the main fashion activity at Somerset House to 33 Portland Place for my first show of the A/W 2011 season. As it was bStore, price and as 33 Portland Place is stunning (the location for much of the recent filming of The King’s Speech), generic I thought it much worth the effort. Amazingly, site arriving at 6:23 for a 6:30 show I still managed to be first in the queue. Which luckily meant I was first to get a cocktail when the doors finally opened.

bStore were obviously out to put on an intimate and relaxed show for ‘friends’. The cocktails were stunning (well done – best Mojito I have had in ages) and the drawing room we were all ushered into to settle into the evening definitely set the tone. As the room filled it also became obvious that the gathered audience were bang right-on bStore target; urban gentlemen and ladies in the up-to-date yet classically English look that bStore helps to promote. I especially favoured the lovely American woman who had had a little too much to drink, tottered on me and my bags and then had to prop herself against the wall as her ‘heels were far too high’ (if you are reading this, you know who you are!).

Cocktail downed and people watching over, we made our way into the show area. Tightly packed and with live band playing (as with the cocktails, very good) we all took places throughout the two rooms that made the runway circuit. bStore got this location just right, the slightly disused English club room feel suited the brand to a T.

Unfortunately, this is about where the amazing parts of the show came to an end. In dim lighting the first model came out, but he was halfway around the circuit before most of the audience realised the show had actually started. I believe there were two reasons for this: (1) as the lighting was so dim, the model was literally walking in shadows, and (2) the model didn’t look any different to the assembled crowd, it was hard to tell audience and model apart. The parade of models followed as we squinted in the dark to see what was on offer. Muted ochres, burgundies and black on clothes kept to the signature bStore look. Slightly tailored English, slightly American grungy, with the same proportions bStore has been following for a number of seasons now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m usually a big bStore fan and there was nothing here that was awful. Most of it was immensely wearable and if it was my first bStore encounter I would have been more ecstatic (but still squinting, why were there no lights? It’s a fundamental part of this process, surely?). But knowing what bStore offers, this show didn’t really bring anything new to the brand and left me feeling a bit meh. Competent? Yes. Enjoyable? Yes. Groundbreaking? Nope.
Gemma Milly-Invisible Circus
Illustration by Gemma Milly

I’m reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen at the moment. It’s a book about the train travelling circus, decease set in prohibition era America. The story flits from the 1930s to the present day. Whilst highlighting the protagonist’s age and the unavoidable changes to his body, information pills mind and soul, it also mutters under its breath of the stark changes within the circus world. The book depicts the ‘old’ circus as full of hardship – pure blood, sweat and tears stuff. The modern circuses are seen as refined pieces of machinery, in a factory made of satin. Is the magic lost within this? A touch of the romanticism? The circus’s underground beginnings would never have seen itself hovering pleasantly next to the Sherif’s house, yet now they are as above board as the Queen… aren’t they? I digress, the circus is glorious! Of course it is! BUT, there within the drama, a snatch of a risk, a missed heartbeat, a creative explosion, that’s the kind of circus I want to see.

There is one circus, The Invisible Circus, who hold all and more of the magic that comes with the old and new; from the hard graft and creativity, to the luxury/despairs of liberation. I’ve been fascinated with them since I moved to Bristol, where they’re based. The group squat in various disused buildings, clean them up and use the spaces for creative expression; for The Invisible Circus. I was lucky enough to go to a screening of Naomi Smyth‘s documentary on The Invisible Circus, which involved her following them for several years, becoming part of the group. She saw them change, inspire, shrink and grow – from squatters to ‘legit’ workers. Ultimately becoming something huge and recognised as beautiful and vital for a city’s inner beating, expression. It’s truly inspiring from a whole host of angles; those that influence our daily lives and the future of truly free art. And free people. DO try and watch the film if you can. Here follows the trailer to the film and a fascinating interview with Naomi Smyth.

Could you introduce yourself please?
I’m Naomi Smyth, I’m a filmmaker, performer and theatre writer/deviser.
How long have you been a film maker?
I’ve been freelancing as a director, camera op and editor on shorts, corporates, showreels, community films and some TV for 8 years. ‘Invisible Circus: No Dress Rehearsal’ is my first feature and the first film I created totally to my own brief.
How did you get into film making?
After my Theatre degree I did a Film and TV Production MA at Bristol Uni, more in order to get the technical skills to make my ideas happen than to get a job in TV. After that I did lots of free showreel building stuff in Bristol and became good enough to be paid.
Are you Bristol born yourself?
I was born in Portsmouth, a great place for an offbeat arty teenager to stare out to sea or in at the concrete and moan that nobody understands. Thankfully that isn’t true! My partner Sam was born in Bristol and wanted to come back here, so I came with him after my degree.
And who are The Invisible Circus?
They make groundbreaking, mindbending shows that combine site-specific, promenade, circus, spectacle and interactive theatre. They’re a large knot of very close, very creative people with a massive range of skills. Over the past four years they have emerged from the squat scene in Bristol and become professionals- both at being a circus and at managing huge derelict buildings as sister co-op Artspace Lifepace. Some crew members had lived outside the system for years , so there were lots of challenges along the way.
What initially interested you about them?
They were squatting a derelict 4-storey garage round the corner from my house. It was pretty manky but they had transformed parts of it with red draping and lighting and created this dark Victoriana aesthetic around the shows there. There was such creative energy about them and a real determination to create beauty out of waste and nothingness with their bare hands.
What made you want to film a documentary such as this; and over such a long period?
If I had known it would take four years I would never have begun! I just felt that this was an intriguing assortment of people who were going somewhere together, and they didn’t all feel the same way about where that was or should be. I thought that was interesting and there must be a story in it! It took about a year to really be sure what the thread was. I did a lot of sitting around with the camera running, wondering why I was there. When I did find the thread it took four years before I really felt the story had developed enough to be finished. CarnyVille is the Masterpiece of the circus so far, and the show that has involved the biggest part of Bristol’s creative community so I’m very glad I ended it with that. People still tell me there is more to film. They’re right, but I’m not doing it!

invisible circus by rebecca lewis
Illustration by Rebecca Lewis

Is it a social, economic and political statement/commentary?
The circus in the film is a group of very passionate creative people who start out underground, slightly flaky and disorganised and get successful, professional and popular. That process is socially interesting, and also political. It is tied into the way our economy and the power structures in our society work, but also the ones in our heads. Tough choices come up as they move further into dealing with the hierarchies of capitalism. They have a leader in Doug too, which is obvious from the outside- but for self proclaimed anarchists which many of them are, that’s a very uncomfortable idea. At the same time they are doing it all for no money, just for the love of making art together, for the sake of beauty and inspiration. That underpins the whole mission and really saves it from the traps along the way.
How did you end up getting involved in the circus yourself? What is your own act?
I don’t have a circus act- but The Invisible Circus has always been about blending theatre, circus and spectacle. It took me a while to get up the courage but now I’ve been in nearly every IC show since November 2007, so I’m pretty used to it! I work on the character and story aspects of the shows. On the night I either act and sing in stage shows, or improvise in character with audience members in our weird imaginary worlds. I’ve helped create Jobcentres, Zoos, Haunted Houses, weddings, reality TV shows, family Christmases… all with a ‘wrong’ twist.
How did you feel performing? What did you wear? How nervous were you?
The first time I performed with the circus was in a cabaret in a squatted pub in 2006. There were 200 odd people there and I sang a Tori Amos song and A Paul Simon song a capella. I was incredibly nervous- even then I was fairly confident with acting but I’d never sung in public before in my life. I had written this monologue and created a whole 20′s Southern Belle character- Tallulah La Moolah- basically as a ruse to convince myself it wasn’t ‘me’ singing.
Were you received well?
I got a great round of applause from a very generous audience. The monologue was definitely too long though!

Ringmaster by Madi
Illustration by Madi Illustration

What do you think about the ethics behind the group?
I think it is very hard to live ethically in our society. It’s much easier to accuse others of hypocrisy for falling short of perfection than it is to make whatever effort possible in your own life to act on your deep-down beliefs. The ethics and beliefs in the circus vary massively. I do feel everyone there is in some way critical of our wasteful consumer culture and is trying in whatever way they can to act on that feeling. Some avoid, some confront, some imagine other ways and some create them for themselves and others.
Did you ever live in one of the buildings the collective were residing in?
I’ve never lived with the circus. I think that made the film possible. Getting the distance to ask questions and edit footage of people I genuinely care about was hard enough. If I’d been waking up in that community every morning with all the internal politics and closeness and mix of work and friendship, then having to translate that into a film, I might have gone nuts.
How did you feel about the legality of what they were doing?
Squatting is legal and I hope it remains so, though the Tories are trying to change that. It’s a loophole that provides housing for people who need it and who take the initiative to sort a building out. Most of these places have lain derelict for ages and can be really nasty inside. It’s not for everyone but the squatters I know are responsible, self-reliant people who hate waste. It can take a lot of hard work to squat- and if they don’t trash the place they’re not costing anyone a penny. Most will do some renovations in order to make a property habitable for themselves so they can actually add value. As Nick says in the film, most squatters in the UK will move on when evicted. The stereotype of the squatters who nick an old lady’s flat while she’s on holiday is based on tabloid tales of a few isolated cases.

There are some pretty rampantly greedy property owners out there who think nothing of the effects a derelict property can have on the community around it. Look at Westmoreland House- it’s full of asbestos, a big rotted hole in Stokes Croft for the last few decades and when the council try to compulsory purchase it, the owners hike the price to way above its value. That’s perfectly legal because they own it. I think that’s a real crime.

The game changes when it comes to running events out of a squat because you can fall foul of licensing laws, health and safety etc. Personally I would like to see people having more freedom to use space and make things happen without all these costly hoops to jump through. I like to see people just doing stuff without asking for permission, and that was what attracted me to the circus in the first place. But the choice Doug and the circus made over the years was to learn what the hoops are and how to jump through them, and rise to that challenge of ‘going legit’. I respect that too because it means they now reach a wider audience and they’ve flown the flag for similar projects and showed the Council and local developers that grassroots arts organisations can be trusted with huge buildings and large scale projects.

INVISIBLE CIRCUS
Photography by Paul Blakemore of Neat Studios

It must have been tiring to make the film! How did you manage your days/workload?
It was pretty hard to balance my life and sanity with the hours I had to put in on the film. At first the money side was OK because I had a well paid part-time job- something I’d recommend for any struggling artist! But about halfway through when they got the huge Police Station building, the crew offered me a free space to edit in and I got possessed by enthusiasm and quit my job to go full time freelance. That was quite tough because although I was getting work, it was harder to make time for the unpaid work on my film. At one point I ‘microfunded’ a 2-month period off all other work for me to crack the edit. I raised about £1400 from friends, family and internet supporters- about 80 people chipped in. I basically lived in my studio on flapjacks and energy drink. I stopped sleeping and life got very strange for a while there.
How was your partner affected – he helped I saw on the film…?
One of the ways my partner Sam was affected was that he learned how to be a damn fine camera operator! I couldn’t always make shoots because of my job, so I trained him up on my camera and sent him out if there was something important happening. Obviously it wasn’t all roses- when I was doing my hardest stints of editing he was the one to pick up the pieces when I stumbled in all sleep deprived and teary-eyed and lay twitching on the sofa. He was also the first person to feed back on my edit, and he always said if he didn’t like something. I did go a bit mad around that time so I wasn’t always grateful for his advice shall we say! But I always made the changes in the end so I guess he was usually right.
Did your own opinion of The Invisible Circus change as the years passed?
The circus itself changed, and my friendships with them did too, so yes- but in too many ways to go into!

Invisible C
Photography by Paul Blakemore of Neat Studios

What about your opinions on Bristol? What do you think about Bristol, how it has developed and how it supports creative communities?
I absolutely love Bristol. In terms of its creative output and variety of stuff happening here, it is world class. The issue it has is that it’s sometimes a bit introverted- we all just bimble about enjoying each other’s talent and not spreading the word beyond the city. So much of the best stuff happens on the level of the grassroots, where people aren’t as good at putting themselves out there or don’t have access to a world stage. There is probably stuff that the Council or arts agencies could have done better in years past but now that there is no funding, we artists have to put ourselves out there in DIY fashion! Which should mean we’re on the turf we know best.
Did the group alter your own opinions on life, art, Bristol, consumerism etc?
The biggest way the circus has changed me is to introduce me to literally hundreds of people, each with a different set of skills to bring, and thrown me into making exciting, exhausting shows with them. I’ve gained a whole new understanding of collaboration, friendship, art and my own priorities.
After that the biggest change has been the discipline required to create the whole film without anybody but me pushing me to do it. I always said that even if nobody ever wanted to see it, it was still worth making. Now to show it to people and have them respond to it, is incredible. I can’t wait to release it properly.
As filming progressed did you become, and are you still part of the group?
I am definitely part of the group now. That happened as I was making the film, and is partially documented in the story. Loads of new people have got involved over the past four years, so I’m kind of an old hand now. Though the real old hands are Dougie and Wim, who founded it 16 years ago when they were busking in Europe.
Do you still perform now?
I did theatre throughout my childhood and being in a company making new work was my big dream. I love documentary too, but yes I still perform and will continue for the rest of my life now. I get something from it that I can’t get anywhere else. I let my demons and dreams out for a run onstage. Bliss.

iCircus
Photography by Paul Blakemore of Neat Studios

How important do you think collectives like The Invisible Circus are for Bristol/the country?
Over a thousand people have worked on Invisible Circus shows in the past few years, and many thousands have been to them. And I’ve seen that nearly all those people have at some point been delighted, transported , or pushed to somewhere they’ve never seen or thought they could be. And I think people need that and I like being a part of it. So I think there should be more of it.
In their case the breadth of the imaginative worlds created is borne on the back of a very solid community who support each other in ways most people don’t with their workmates. I think that’s really positive too and I think it’s necessary to have a close community you can rely on- especially in tough economic times.
Do you have another project lined up?
I have a couple of ideas for my next film, but after wondering about pitching to broadcasters and making a few plans, I still think I’ll probably just have to start shooting it in earnest to find out what it is. I want a bit more time with it before I give it to anybody else to play with.
What do you see for the future of The Invisible Circus?
The Invisible Circus are going to be big. We’ve already had some exciting offers for this year. It’s still the old struggle of trying to financially sustain a large crew who like making elaborate sets and huge spectacles- but we are unstoppable! As the past few years have shown.
What do you hope to do with the film? Travel around the country/world with it?
I’ve had a great offer from transmedia co-op Future Artists to distribute the film. They are working on new ways of releasing films that are fairer for the artist and less expensive for everybody, and they are great people so I’m sure with them it will go far. Hopefully to some festivals first and then to screenings throughout the UK. We are talking about screening in unusual venues and ‘recycled’ spaces like the ones in the film, as well as normal cinemas. Tomorrow, the world!
And how would you like people to leave feeling?
I’d like people to leave uplifted, and inspired to do something about the idea at the back of their mind.
When and where can we next see the FILM?!
I’m not sure at the moment as I’ve just started working with Future Artists, but it shouldn’t be too long. You can keep up to date by following me on twitter: @InvisibleCFilm or visiting the website and subscribing to the mailing list.

Written by Helen Martin on Thursday March 24th, 2011 7:04 pm

Categories ,bristol, ,council, ,documentary, ,ethical, ,film, ,Gemma Milly, ,Helen Martin, ,Madi Illustration, ,Naomi Smyth, ,Neat Studios, ,Paul Blakemore, ,Rebecca Lewis, ,Sara Gruen, ,squatting, ,The Invisible Circus, ,Water For Elephants

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