For fans of the drug-n-whisky soaked darker side of life this intimate venue should be the perfect place to catch the full intensity of this bad boy duo’s melancholic rumblings.
15-piece Californian band/orchestra/whatever headline with their sunny but diverse indie pop. Plus cool electro pop from We Have Band.
Tuesday 20th January
Sometimes gigs from old favourites can be a risky business, often liable to disappoint when your heroes have become sad old has-beens. With any luck these late 70s punk stalwarts were too cool to age badly and this should be a great gig.
She’s in Issue 10 so she must be pretty good but don’t just take our (and every other music journalist in England’s) word for it. Check out her fun dance pop live.
Once the founder of 80s punk metallers Squirrel Bait, David Grubbs now plays grungy post-rock as a solo concern.
Saturday 24th January
James Yuill, The Macbeth, London
Think Jose Gonzalez without the advert but with plenty of electronic sounds to accompany the quiet and introspective acoustic numbers.
Of Montreal, Digital, Brighton
Much loved indie pop, spreading a little happiness whilst supporting Franz Ferdinand on their latest tour.
Sunday 25th January
Le Corps Mince de Francoise, Library, Lancaster
Daft Finnish pop in the same vein as CSS, Chicks on Speed and others of that ilk. Crazy make up and fun party girls = a great end to the weekend.
Rows of fish heads preserved in salt – even in the quirky world of Tatty Devine, viagra 60mg that’s an unexpected sight. They peer out from a long black board mounted on the gallery wall like hunting trophies. Next to them, buy cast copies of ripe oranges burrow into blocks of dark red velvet, rx as if victims of a bloody fruit massacre.
This is the first solo show of sculptor Amaia Allende, which opened on Thursday at the Tatty Devine boutique and gallery space in Brick Lane, east London. Allende claims to tackle the “subject of belonging” by assembling similar everyday items into tidy rows. It looks suspiciously like she has emptied her kitchen bin around the shop.
By the front door, some sort of green pear-like fruits line up on a narrow shelf. Poking out of the top are long strands of polyester blond hair, which make them look like a family of Mrs Pear Heads. So they belong together, you see, while at the same time having individual personalities (because of the hair).
Tatty Devine is famous for its unique jewellery and edgy art exhibitions, including “Jane Amongst the Birds”, a competition for the best foreign bird or budgie (complete with Tatty Devine trophy) held in September last year. So when it comes to belonging, it seems that Allende and her sombre line-up of fish heads and old fruit, have found an appropriate home.
The most glamorous way of recycling clothes is buying vintage. Last week atelier-mayer.com was launched by luxury fashion PR, viagra orderCarmen Haid, about it and fashion journalist, Alice Kodell, and it is a literal vintage heaven. It’s not the place to go if your vintage needs are met by Beyond Retro but if you want a designer dress to suit your decadent palette, you’ll love it.
In the 1930′s Carmen Haid’s grandmother, Klaudia Mayer ran a haute couture atelier in Vienna, selling exquisite clothes sourced from all over the world and it is this that atelier-mayer.com recreates as an online boutique.
The launch truly indicated the splendour of the site, as we entered Marks Club – gentlemen’s club extraordinaire – in Mayfair, we were greeted with roaring fireplaces, country estate décor and the elegant melodies of the violinists could be heard wafting down the staircase.
Photograph by Tilly Pearman
Such a grand setting was fitting for the designer and couture gowns on show, a taste of what can be bought on the site. As well as on rails, the clothes were worn by models and the violinists, to show off the true beauty of them.
Photographs by Tilly Pearman
The site not only allows you to browse through the clothes online, the style me section acts as your very own personal shopper, taking into account your size and preferences and finding appropriate pieces and accessories for you.
Atelier-mayer.com is also a great source for brushing up on your fashion knowledge, it has biographies of designers and fashion houses, guides to buying vintage and the style minute section contains a collection of fashion videos, including a fabulous Audrey Hepburn montage and an interview with key sartorial players including Coco Chanel, which is in her native French but we (Prudence Ivey – bilingual Music Editor) has done a handy translation of the key questions for you:
Could you give me a definition of elegance?
Coco: It’s difficult, you ask a difficult question, what is elegance? It’s many things. I will say something which I repeat all the time that for me is obvious but which many people don’t understand: that you can never be elegant enough.
Many of the dresses you designed last year have been copied or imitated in practically every country in the world. The Chanel style has descended to the street. Are you happy about this?
Coco: I am delighted. That was my goal. I don’t believe in defending fashion. You can’t have fashion if you are against imitation. There is no fashion if no-one sees it. Not me but many of the couturiers have an insane fear of imitation but you can’t be successful without it. For me success is the copy. You can’t be successful without that and imitation.
Wise words Coco.
photograph from Gavin Cullen
I should confess that I don’t come to First Love with impartial ears, information pills but more as an inadvertent geek, verging-on-groupie, who has faithfully been following the movements of Emma-Lee Moss since first stumbling across the girl who sang out prophecies of premature death and the difficulty in distinguishing between love and a stomach disorder. Assembling whoever I could, I stood among many a rowdy crowd turned to enchanted silence – the boys would always fall in love and the girls would come away a little jealous.
Now her album has appeared on our desk and I am all excitement and nerves. The name is taken from Samuel Beckett’s depressing novella about a violently misogynistic lover, whilst Emmy’s First Love is a “hard-won innocence-to-experience saga about a destructive but ultimately character forming relationship, in which songwriting process was her final act of catharsis”. But the tracks that most explicitly fit this bill are the ones I find hardest to warm to, stripped of the subtlety and delicacy of earlier songs, they can be a little sour to the taste. For the most part however, the album shines with all the appeal that makes Emmy great. Lyrics that are dark, humorous and full of brilliantly evocative imagery – all veiled beneath teasingly playful melodies and a disarmingly sugared deliverance – “Our guitarist Euan says our songs are passive aggressive – people think we’re harmless unless they’re really listening”.
We went along to 12 Bar to see her play an acoustic set of before an intimidating crowd of straight clothed industry folk, though she was unfazed, always confident, “we’re used to much bigger stages” she joked …. and so Emmy the Great enters into the mainstream, and perhaps it is just the natural preconditioning of any fan but I think I preferred her on intimate stages when it was just her, her guitar, and a pool of admirers. Saying that, ‘We are Safe” is my new favourite song, full band.
Opening with a Billy Bragg mockney cry, web you expect Napoleon IIIrd’s mini-album to be a fairly straightforward chronicle of the times, viagra saleJamie T stylee with shades of Blur in the guitars. All fine but all a little 2006 and not terribly promising. And then the second track, A Strong Nuclear Force, hits you very much as it says on the tin, with its Prince via Beck falsetto and electro beats and you realise there may be more to this boy. A Leeds music scene stalwart, having played with iLikeTrains, iForward Russia! and The Research and remixed a whole bunch of his Northern counterparts, it is perhaps no wonder that there is a little more variety and interest in this collection of songs than might be expected.
So much variety in fact, that it is easy to feel a little disorientated by the broad mix of genres which Napoleon IIIrd introduces, apparently on a whim. He certainly keeps you on your toes with his playful approach to continuity but challenging the audience is no bad thing and just a couple of listens bring out a common thread running throughout the record. The songs seem to build up to and around the pulsing, driving and crashing The Sky Is Too High, which at around 7 minutes certainly stands apart from the punchy observational territory of the rest of the disc, lacking as it does any discernable lyrical content. Proceedings are then rounded off on a dramatic note with the electro-hymn See Life, down-tempo enough to fall asleep to but interesting enough to give your full attention to on a long dark wet afternoon of the soul. It may take a little perserverance but this mini-album is definitely worth the time.
Now based in London, pill Finnish designer Minna Hepburn is showing her A/W 09 collection as part of Esthetica, and the ethical branch of London Fashion Week. Her beautiful and delicate designs caught our eye and even better, they’re eco-friendly, with all her materials being locally sourced, organic and fair-trade. She took the time to talk to us about her ideas and work:
When did you decide to persue a career in fashion design?
After I graduated, I went travelling with my husband and we ended up in Asia. I felt lost in terms of my career as I had studied War Studies at Kings College and worked a bit in the city, neither of those options really inspired me. Travelling and my ever so encouraging husband gave me the confidence to do something that I really loved – which is fashion.
What are you currently working on?
I am putting together my A/W 09 collection that I am showing at London Fashion Week, Esthetica in February. I think Esthetica will be bigger and better this year. I am really looking forward to it!
I am also finalising designs for my online boutique, which will be launched at the end of February.
What designers do you admire?
I absolutely love Rodarte. What they have achieved without any proper training in fashion is incredible and very inspiring!
Who or what inspires your work? My biggest inspirations are lace and antique markets. England has such amazing antique markets. We never had anything like that in Finland. It’s amazing that you can find gorgeous pieces from the early 1900′s and they are still in wearable condition. Sometimes I might find an old buttons or a postcard and get an amazing design idea.
When I am travelling I always look out for antique markets, France has some of the best ones I have seen!
What has been your biggest professional achievement so far?
Being accepted to do London Fashion Week and putting a collection together after just having a baby. My son Hayden was merely days old and I was still sore after a cesarean when I returned to work to finish the collection. I could not have done it without my friends though!
Also, I think one of the proudest moment was when A la Mode, started stocking my designs. They are such an institution, old and respected shop with impressive list of labels. They have been such a joy to work with!
Why did you decide to create an eco-friendly label?
With my first label, SE1 London, I experienced fast fashion as its worst. It was a range of silk dresses, tops and skirts that were made in Vietnam but I did a lot of traveling and it opened my eyes. It made me re-think the whole fashion industry and how it operates. I decided that second time round I would do it differently. I took some time to research the ethical fashion market, suppliers and the whole concept. I noticed that there was a gap in the high end of the ethical fashion market. A lot of the other ethical fashion brands were doing lots of wardrobe staples and there was not much choice, so I wanted to focus on that and provide some. I really wanted to create not just a label, but a brand, and to feel that I was doing something differently and maybe setting an example.
Is it important to you that your materials are locally sourced?
I wanted to show that beautiful and affordable garments can be made in the UK, which is where Scottish lace came into the picture. Also, I have always loved antique markets and found Scottish lace to have that vintage look and appeal.
I started testing my designs with high end shops in Bath and London and got positive feedback. Encouraged by this, I applied to London Fashion Esthetica and decided to produce a full collection for S/S 09.
How do you feel ethical fashion is perceived by the public?
I think ethical fashion is getting better every season. It’s important to show people that ethical fashion can also be commercial, affordable and in line with the current trends.
The media has played a very big part in bringing the message that eco-fashion is in vogue. With the current economical climate, I think people are more aware how they are spending and what they want to spend their money on. With lots of cool ethical brands emerging, I think fashion with conscience has never been more in fashion.
How would you describe your personal style?
At home, as a mother of two young children I try to keep things simple. White lace tops and baby sick does not go well together…
But when I go out, it’s all about antique cocktail rings, pieces from my collection, dresses, high heels and vintage.
Do you like to wear ethical brands yourself?
I wear lot of vintage and I have discovered this amazing French brand, Ekyog, who have a shop on the Kings Road. They have the softest organic knitwear I have ever worn! But I have to say that most of the time I wear my own designs. Also by wearing it, I am testing each design, the fit and the fabrics before I put anything to production. It’s important to know how the garment will behave and last.
Thanks for talking to us Minna, have fun at Fashion Week. London Fashion Week runs from 20th-25th February 2009.
Woman? Good. Self-publishing? Also good.
This Saturday at the The Women’s Library there will be a hands-on day celebrating woman’s involvement in self-publishing. Publishers, information pills artists, stomach illustrators and crafters – all will come together to share advice and techniques for making zines, magazines and comics. There will be a creative workshop with zine producer Red Chidgey, who will be dishing out advice on how to get started with your own zine, or you can just browse through stalls to find little treasures of your own, and meet zine distributors and makers, you might just come away inspired.
Check here for a more detailed itinerary. This event is free, but you must book.
The 7:20s are an enigmatically named bunch of attitudinous blokes from the West Midlands whose debut EP landed with a feisty thump on our doormat a couple of weeks ago. After some fairly bolshy correspondence and downright pestering we were convinced that we really had to give it a listen and the results lived up to expectations.
Aquarian Charm is a real rock record in the old tradition of driving guitars and powerful male vocals with some great hooks and, buy more about no surprises, more about lyrics with balls. As a relatively new and unsigned band there’s not much info about the 7:20s on the internet so we decided to get in touch with them to find out what they could tell us about themselves and their music.
What are your main influences?
Andy: Our musical influences start with Depeche Mode and early electronica, pill cool beats and synths through to Massive Attack, MGMT and M83. Add to that 90s influences from The Stone Roses, Nirvana, Radiohead, Primal Scream and through to Coldplay, The Editors, The 22-20s to name but a few from recent years. All journeys in life and the people you meet influence you and this comes through sonically too. Everyone that knows us is an influence!!
Where does your name come from?
Ed: It happened in 1981, in Preston. My mum and dad thought about many different names but decided on “Edward Paul Thurstan Wright”
The name of the band came because it was better than “Big yellow floppy cheese band”.
What do you think you’ve got to offer that other bloke bands can’t? Especially when all music critics are proclaiming this to be the year of the female solo artist.
John: We make epic, anthemic music infused with atmosphere with lyrics straight from the heart and soaring melodies. There’s no pretentiousness, no angular jangly chords, just pure music, pure emotion. We aren’t in the business of criticising other bands, but we will only say that if you’re after the real deal, you need to listen to our music and see us live. If it turns out to be true that 2009 is the year of the female solo artist, then we have a contingency plan of disbanding, and choosing one band member to front the music in drag. That should sort it…
You’re from Rugby. Is there much good music knocking around there?
Eddy: Yes there is a lot of really good music about in Rugby at the moment, such as Dukes Jetty, Lost Theory and Who Needs Heroes.
How important do you think a band’s image is? How important is your image to you?
Andy: Naturally, image is important….Why are there so many Elvis impersonators? He was arguably the most memorable artist in history but he was a cool artist too. Our first priority is to make life changing music and our band mirrors that in its image. We haven’t created an image to suit an environment. Instead, we hope our music will influence it. And, we look cool as fu*k to boot ha ha!
Ed: Image is only important to bands if their music is sh*te and they need to conform in order to be accepted and liked by the Topshop brigade and Radio One…though we are kinda guilty of that too!
Hm well, speaking of image, our Fashion Editor was keen to offer some styling advice when she saw these pics, perhaps they’d like to drop her a line for some tips on how to jazz up their look. We think it would lead to greater success in the future!
For fans of the drug-n-whisky soaked darker side of life this intimate venue should be the perfect place to catch the full intensity of this bad boy duo’s melancholic rumblings.
15-piece Californian band/orchestra/whatever headline with their sunny but diverse indie pop. Plus cool electro pop from We Have Band.
Tuesday 20th January
Sometimes gigs from old favourites can be a risky business, often liable to disappoint when your heroes have become sad old has-beens. With any luck these late 70s punk stalwarts were too cool to age badly and this should be a great gig.
She’s in Issue 10 so she must be pretty good but don’t just take our (and every other music journalist in England’s) word for it. Check out her fun dance pop live.
Once the founder of 80s punk metallers Squirrel Bait, David Grubbs now plays grungy post-rock as a solo concern.
Saturday 24th January
James Yuill, The Macbeth, London
Think Jose Gonzalez without the advert but with plenty of electronic sounds to accompany the quiet and introspective acoustic numbers.
Of Montreal, Digital, Brighton
Much loved indie pop, spreading a little happiness whilst supporting Franz Ferdinand on their latest tour.
Sunday 25th January
Le Corps Mince de Francoise, Library, Lancaster
Daft Finnish pop in the same vein as CSS, Chicks on Speed and others of that ilk. Crazy make up and fun party girls = a great end to the weekend.
Rows of fish heads preserved in salt – even in the quirky world of Tatty Devine, viagra 60mg that’s an unexpected sight. They peer out from a long black board mounted on the gallery wall like hunting trophies. Next to them, buy cast copies of ripe oranges burrow into blocks of dark red velvet, rx as if victims of a bloody fruit massacre.
This is the first solo show of sculptor Amaia Allende, which opened on Thursday at the Tatty Devine boutique and gallery space in Brick Lane, east London. Allende claims to tackle the “subject of belonging” by assembling similar everyday items into tidy rows. It looks suspiciously like she has emptied her kitchen bin around the shop.
By the front door, some sort of green pear-like fruits line up on a narrow shelf. Poking out of the top are long strands of polyester blond hair, which make them look like a family of Mrs Pear Heads. So they belong together, you see, while at the same time having individual personalities (because of the hair).
Tatty Devine is famous for its unique jewellery and edgy art exhibitions, including “Jane Amongst the Birds”, a competition for the best foreign bird or budgie (complete with Tatty Devine trophy) held in September last year. So when it comes to belonging, it seems that Allende and her sombre line-up of fish heads and old fruit, have found an appropriate home.
The most glamorous way of recycling clothes is buying vintage. Last week atelier-mayer.com was launched by luxury fashion PR, viagra orderCarmen Haid, about it and fashion journalist, Alice Kodell, and it is a literal vintage heaven. It’s not the place to go if your vintage needs are met by Beyond Retro but if you want a designer dress to suit your decadent palette, you’ll love it.
In the 1930′s Carmen Haid’s grandmother, Klaudia Mayer ran a haute couture atelier in Vienna, selling exquisite clothes sourced from all over the world and it is this that atelier-mayer.com recreates as an online boutique.
The launch truly indicated the splendour of the site, as we entered Marks Club – gentlemen’s club extraordinaire – in Mayfair, we were greeted with roaring fireplaces, country estate décor and the elegant melodies of the violinists could be heard wafting down the staircase.
Photograph by Tilly Pearman
Such a grand setting was fitting for the designer and couture gowns on show, a taste of what can be bought on the site. As well as on rails, the clothes were worn by models and the violinists, to show off the true beauty of them.
Photographs by Tilly Pearman
The site not only allows you to browse through the clothes online, the style me section acts as your very own personal shopper, taking into account your size and preferences and finding appropriate pieces and accessories for you.
Atelier-mayer.com is also a great source for brushing up on your fashion knowledge, it has biographies of designers and fashion houses, guides to buying vintage and the style minute section contains a collection of fashion videos, including a fabulous Audrey Hepburn montage and an interview with key sartorial players including Coco Chanel, which is in her native French but we (Prudence Ivey – bilingual Music Editor) has done a handy translation of the key questions for you:
Could you give me a definition of elegance?
Coco: It’s difficult, you ask a difficult question, what is elegance? It’s many things. I will say something which I repeat all the time that for me is obvious but which many people don’t understand: that you can never be elegant enough.
Many of the dresses you designed last year have been copied or imitated in practically every country in the world. The Chanel style has descended to the street. Are you happy about this?
Coco: I am delighted. That was my goal. I don’t believe in defending fashion. You can’t have fashion if you are against imitation. There is no fashion if no-one sees it. Not me but many of the couturiers have an insane fear of imitation but you can’t be successful without it. For me success is the copy. You can’t be successful without that and imitation.
Wise words Coco.
photograph from Gavin Cullen
I should confess that I don’t come to First Love with impartial ears, information pills but more as an inadvertent geek, verging-on-groupie, who has faithfully been following the movements of Emma-Lee Moss since first stumbling across the girl who sang out prophecies of premature death and the difficulty in distinguishing between love and a stomach disorder. Assembling whoever I could, I stood among many a rowdy crowd turned to enchanted silence – the boys would always fall in love and the girls would come away a little jealous.
Now her album has appeared on our desk and I am all excitement and nerves. The name is taken from Samuel Beckett’s depressing novella about a violently misogynistic lover, whilst Emmy’s First Love is a “hard-won innocence-to-experience saga about a destructive but ultimately character forming relationship, in which songwriting process was her final act of catharsis”. But the tracks that most explicitly fit this bill are the ones I find hardest to warm to, stripped of the subtlety and delicacy of earlier songs, they can be a little sour to the taste. For the most part however, the album shines with all the appeal that makes Emmy great. Lyrics that are dark, humorous and full of brilliantly evocative imagery – all veiled beneath teasingly playful melodies and a disarmingly sugared deliverance – “Our guitarist Euan says our songs are passive aggressive – people think we’re harmless unless they’re really listening”.
We went along to 12 Bar to see her play an acoustic set of before an intimidating crowd of straight clothed industry folk, though she was unfazed, always confident, “we’re used to much bigger stages” she joked …. and so Emmy the Great enters into the mainstream, and perhaps it is just the natural preconditioning of any fan but I think I preferred her on intimate stages when it was just her, her guitar, and a pool of admirers. Saying that, ‘We are Safe” is my new favourite song, full band.
Opening with a Billy Bragg mockney cry, web you expect Napoleon IIIrd’s mini-album to be a fairly straightforward chronicle of the times, viagra saleJamie T stylee with shades of Blur in the guitars. All fine but all a little 2006 and not terribly promising. And then the second track, A Strong Nuclear Force, hits you very much as it says on the tin, with its Prince via Beck falsetto and electro beats and you realise there may be more to this boy. A Leeds music scene stalwart, having played with iLikeTrains, iForward Russia! and The Research and remixed a whole bunch of his Northern counterparts, it is perhaps no wonder that there is a little more variety and interest in this collection of songs than might be expected.
So much variety in fact, that it is easy to feel a little disorientated by the broad mix of genres which Napoleon IIIrd introduces, apparently on a whim. He certainly keeps you on your toes with his playful approach to continuity but challenging the audience is no bad thing and just a couple of listens bring out a common thread running throughout the record. The songs seem to build up to and around the pulsing, driving and crashing The Sky Is Too High, which at around 7 minutes certainly stands apart from the punchy observational territory of the rest of the disc, lacking as it does any discernable lyrical content. Proceedings are then rounded off on a dramatic note with the electro-hymn See Life, down-tempo enough to fall asleep to but interesting enough to give your full attention to on a long dark wet afternoon of the soul. It may take a little perserverance but this mini-album is definitely worth the time.
Now based in London, pill Finnish designer Minna Hepburn is showing her A/W 09 collection as part of Esthetica, and the ethical branch of London Fashion Week. Her beautiful and delicate designs caught our eye and even better, they’re eco-friendly, with all her materials being locally sourced, organic and fair-trade. She took the time to talk to us about her ideas and work:
When did you decide to persue a career in fashion design?
After I graduated, I went travelling with my husband and we ended up in Asia. I felt lost in terms of my career as I had studied War Studies at Kings College and worked a bit in the city, neither of those options really inspired me. Travelling and my ever so encouraging husband gave me the confidence to do something that I really loved – which is fashion.
What are you currently working on?
I am putting together my A/W 09 collection that I am showing at London Fashion Week, Esthetica in February. I think Esthetica will be bigger and better this year. I am really looking forward to it!
I am also finalising designs for my online boutique, which will be launched at the end of February.
What designers do you admire?
I absolutely love Rodarte. What they have achieved without any proper training in fashion is incredible and very inspiring!
Who or what inspires your work? My biggest inspirations are lace and antique markets. England has such amazing antique markets. We never had anything like that in Finland. It’s amazing that you can find gorgeous pieces from the early 1900′s and they are still in wearable condition. Sometimes I might find an old buttons or a postcard and get an amazing design idea.
When I am travelling I always look out for antique markets, France has some of the best ones I have seen!
What has been your biggest professional achievement so far?
Being accepted to do London Fashion Week and putting a collection together after just having a baby. My son Hayden was merely days old and I was still sore after a cesarean when I returned to work to finish the collection. I could not have done it without my friends though!
Also, I think one of the proudest moment was when A la Mode, started stocking my designs. They are such an institution, old and respected shop with impressive list of labels. They have been such a joy to work with!
Why did you decide to create an eco-friendly label?
With my first label, SE1 London, I experienced fast fashion as its worst. It was a range of silk dresses, tops and skirts that were made in Vietnam but I did a lot of traveling and it opened my eyes. It made me re-think the whole fashion industry and how it operates. I decided that second time round I would do it differently. I took some time to research the ethical fashion market, suppliers and the whole concept. I noticed that there was a gap in the high end of the ethical fashion market. A lot of the other ethical fashion brands were doing lots of wardrobe staples and there was not much choice, so I wanted to focus on that and provide some. I really wanted to create not just a label, but a brand, and to feel that I was doing something differently and maybe setting an example.
Is it important to you that your materials are locally sourced?
I wanted to show that beautiful and affordable garments can be made in the UK, which is where Scottish lace came into the picture. Also, I have always loved antique markets and found Scottish lace to have that vintage look and appeal.
I started testing my designs with high end shops in Bath and London and got positive feedback. Encouraged by this, I applied to London Fashion Esthetica and decided to produce a full collection for S/S 09.
How do you feel ethical fashion is perceived by the public?
I think ethical fashion is getting better every season. It’s important to show people that ethical fashion can also be commercial, affordable and in line with the current trends.
The media has played a very big part in bringing the message that eco-fashion is in vogue. With the current economical climate, I think people are more aware how they are spending and what they want to spend their money on. With lots of cool ethical brands emerging, I think fashion with conscience has never been more in fashion.
How would you describe your personal style?
At home, as a mother of two young children I try to keep things simple. White lace tops and baby sick does not go well together…
But when I go out, it’s all about antique cocktail rings, pieces from my collection, dresses, high heels and vintage.
Do you like to wear ethical brands yourself?
I wear lot of vintage and I have discovered this amazing French brand, Ekyog, who have a shop on the Kings Road. They have the softest organic knitwear I have ever worn! But I have to say that most of the time I wear my own designs. Also by wearing it, I am testing each design, the fit and the fabrics before I put anything to production. It’s important to know how the garment will behave and last.
Thanks for talking to us Minna, have fun at Fashion Week. London Fashion Week runs from 20th-25th February 2009.
Woman? Good. Self-publishing? Also good.
This Saturday at the The Women’s Library there will be a hands-on day celebrating woman’s involvement in self-publishing. Publishers, information pills artists, stomach illustrators and crafters – all will come together to share advice and techniques for making zines, magazines and comics. There will be a creative workshop with zine producer Red Chidgey, who will be dishing out advice on how to get started with your own zine, or you can just browse through stalls to find little treasures of your own, and meet zine distributors and makers, you might just come away inspired.
Check here for a more detailed itinerary. This event is free, but you must book.
The 7:20s are an enigmatically named bunch of attitudinous blokes from the West Midlands whose debut EP landed with a feisty thump on our doormat a couple of weeks ago. After some fairly bolshy correspondence and downright pestering we were convinced that we really had to give it a listen and the results lived up to expectations.
Aquarian Charm is a real rock record in the old tradition of driving guitars and powerful male vocals with some great hooks and, buy more about no surprises, more about lyrics with balls. As a relatively new and unsigned band there’s not much info about the 7:20s on the internet so we decided to get in touch with them to find out what they could tell us about themselves and their music.
What are your main influences?
Andy: Our musical influences start with Depeche Mode and early electronica, pill cool beats and synths through to Massive Attack, MGMT and M83. Add to that 90s influences from The Stone Roses, Nirvana, Radiohead, Primal Scream and through to Coldplay, The Editors, The 22-20s to name but a few from recent years. All journeys in life and the people you meet influence you and this comes through sonically too. Everyone that knows us is an influence!!
Where does your name come from?
Ed: It happened in 1981, in Preston. My mum and dad thought about many different names but decided on “Edward Paul Thurstan Wright”
The name of the band came because it was better than “Big yellow floppy cheese band”.
What do you think you’ve got to offer that other bloke bands can’t? Especially when all music critics are proclaiming this to be the year of the female solo artist.
John: We make epic, anthemic music infused with atmosphere with lyrics straight from the heart and soaring melodies. There’s no pretentiousness, no angular jangly chords, just pure music, pure emotion. We aren’t in the business of criticising other bands, but we will only say that if you’re after the real deal, you need to listen to our music and see us live. If it turns out to be true that 2009 is the year of the female solo artist, then we have a contingency plan of disbanding, and choosing one band member to front the music in drag. That should sort it…
You’re from Rugby. Is there much good music knocking around there?
Eddy: Yes there is a lot of really good music about in Rugby at the moment, such as Dukes Jetty, Lost Theory and Who Needs Heroes.
How important do you think a band’s image is? How important is your image to you?
Andy: Naturally, image is important….Why are there so many Elvis impersonators? He was arguably the most memorable artist in history but he was a cool artist too. Our first priority is to make life changing music and our band mirrors that in its image. We haven’t created an image to suit an environment. Instead, we hope our music will influence it. And, we look cool as fu*k to boot ha ha!
Ed: Image is only important to bands if their music is sh*te and they need to conform in order to be accepted and liked by the Topshop brigade and Radio One…though we are kinda guilty of that too!
Hm well, speaking of image, our Fashion Editor was keen to offer some styling advice when she saw these pics, perhaps they’d like to drop her a line for some tips on how to jazz up their look. We think it would lead to greater success in the future!
There are so many talented and creative people out there that this year we’ve decided to showcase the ones that really catch our eye. First up is Danish fashion illustrator Mia Overgaard.
While training as a fashion designer in Denmarks Designskole in Copenhagen she realised her true passion was in fashion illustration rather than actually creating the pieces, viagralook so focused her talents on design illustration.
Born in Copenhagen in 1978, abortion she now lives in the grand old US of A, where she illustrates for magazines and fashion design firms.
She kindly answered some questions for us, so we could get to know her a little better.
Hi Mia, what are you currently working on?
Right now I am working on a website design for an up and coming Danish designer called Nikoline Liv Andersen. After that I am giving my own website a much needed makeover!
Who are your favourite designers?
This is actually a very hard question for me, because I find that there are so many extremely talented designers in this world, but if I had to mention only one, John Galliano definitely never fails to surprise and amaze me.
With that said Rei Kawakubo has the same effect on me, even though her approach to fashion and design is of a totally opposite tradition. I guess regarding successful design, raising emotion is key for me.
How would you describe your personal style?
I love items that have character and remind me of something from my childhood, both in interior design, in fashion and in getting dressed.
I love thrift stores and spend hours flipping through the clothes and looking at all the things left from another time. I don’t really follow a certain trend, but try dressing out of emotion and mood, rather than putting on whatever the runway predicts.
I love the way children choose to dress when their parents let them pick out what to wear. They follow no rules – but choose their clothes out of emotion. That is inspiring to me.
What or who inspires you?
Music, children, fairy tales, art in general, nature, my life!
Do you think you’ll ever go back to fashion design?
Maybe… probably, I just have to figure out the right approach to it though. I have to have my heart with me.
What do you think of Karl Lagerfeld‘s work as a fashion illustrator? He is such an icon! But personally I would get bored with having the same look for decades! As for his work as an illustrator, I must say that he has years of experience and he has a great talent for depicting textures. With that said I think that his style is timeless but then again I do not find it contemporary… if that makes any sense at all…??
Yes Mia, it makes sense to us, so does your wonderful, whimsical take on fashion illustration.
With Omnifuss it’s all about engaging with everyday space. No white gallery walls for a backdrop; instead work must respond directly to the space in which it is displayed, approved forming an intimate interaction between art and place and blurring the lines between.
With their second show and seven artists stepping to the challenge, medicineDownstairs was all about domesticity in its rawest state; and where better to stage it but in their own basement flat in Whitechapel? It cannot be said that Sam Hacking and Christopher Patrick, treat the partnership behind Omnifuss, do not live their art. Learning about the lead-up to the exhibition was as intriguing as the work itself: converting your home into an art-space is clearly a major enterprise, particularly when said artwork consists in covering an entire bedroom, object by object, in toilet paper. “We’ve been sleeping under the bed and we cook on a camping stove”, Chris told me proudly.
Of all the pieces, Hacking’s piece – the one with the toilet paper – was perhaps the most striking. With a typewriter and three months devotion, streams of consciousness were typed onto the rolls relating to her own personal engagement with each object the paper would then cover; a labour of love that she joked had slightly un-hinged her, “I haven’t really talked to people in a while”, she apologized. It was with irony that her work formed a white walled space with a twist, to which other artists could respond.
It is in the blurred lines between art and everyday space that all the work excels. Esther Ainsworth, one of the seven artists featured in Downstairs, explained that it is in these subtleties that she likes best to work, “I am particularly interested in manipulating time and place in the pursuit of an individual way of understanding the things that we come into contact with each day” says on her blurb, and in person, told me about an intricate and slightly ornate piece she had done on the pavement outside, that unfortunately could not be seen by night. These are the details of our everyday landscapes that become so familiar they are no longer noticed – blink and you might miss it, but that’s the point.
Omnifuss is a project to watch in the future, expect something novel and refreshing; whatever next?
Here’s a little gem I found while perusing the world wide web. The most ingenious and by far the most stylish way I’ve ever seen of re-using a plastic bag – turning them into a pair of stylish ankle boots! Not by tying old bags around your feet, buy more about crazy bag-lady style but by creating these:
How is this done though? Well, 23-year old Chilean fashion design student Camila Labra did it by fusing many layers of plastic bags to create a thick, robust material, which she then designed into the boots. Genius!
She named her beautiful creations the Dakka Boots after the capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka, which banned plastic bags in 2002 after excess amounts of them became a problem. Nice link there. Each shoe has a cotton lining and takes around 8 plastic bags to make. They are available in a wide range of colours and patterns:
If you want to get your hands on these beauties, e-mail Camila for prices and availability.
On Monday evening a collective of artists known as ‘ARTPORT‘ will be supporting The Climate Rush at Heathrow Airport. Hundreds of the capital’s artists are expected to attend bringing with them installations, there interventions and performance pieces to accompany the Dinner at Domestic Departures.
As the string quartet plays its first note, picnic blankets will be laid, the dinner guests will reveal their Edwardian dress and enjoy the music and food. A la Carte at the Climate Rush dinner is cheaper train fares instead of short-haul domestic flights, with a delectable accompaniment of better transport hubs and coach links. There will also be higher taxation for airlines according to carbon dioxide emissions to wet one’s appetite for the piece de resistance…a Green New Deal.Yum.
This evening of Edwardian refinement will be all the more enjoyable with the artwork brought by ArtPort, a dynamic and non-hierarchical collective.
A central concern of Artport is to stimulate through entertainment in the hope that a public engaged through humour, imagination and creativity will be more willing to reflect and act upon the problems of today’s world. Public spaces will be accessed and reclaimed in order to find a voice which is often stifled by political and corporate collusion.
Monday’s collaboration will see artists from a host of backgrounds come together with bold, legible pieces, ranging from performance to poetry and installation to illustration. Actors, musicians, painters and writers united by the urgency of action in a deteriorating climate will come together and collectively make themselves heard. The result may well be somewhat cacophonous, but it will be better than silence.
Everyone is welcome to submit work for Artport. Please contact Artport directly at artportist@gmail.com here we will be able give advice regarding logistics, practicalities and legalities, as well as encouragement.
In issue nine we told you about the exceptionally talented frYars who could “do no wrong” (p.24 – near the bottom of the page). Longevity is what he’s striving for – he actually has to throw songs away because he writes too many of them – and so far he shows no sign of waning.
His new track, buyVisitors, viagra 40mg has appeared on our desk and rather than tell you what I think about it, prescription I wrangled his number off a mutual friend and gave him a ring to see what he had to say: “he’ll be happy to talk, just say something funny”, wow, pressure.
After awkward introductions and no jokes on my behalf, I find out that he is, surprise surprise, on his bed (due to comfort/room-size considerations) making music as we speak. He is charmingly soft spoken and polite, and agrees to tell me a little about Visitors, but only a little; apparently songs ought not to be explained too much and I think I agree.
frYars: It’s about a man in a house who has a guest turn up … the guest turns out to be mentally ill and then the man is troubled because he doesn’t know how to help him but knows he should. He hints at wider themes of wanting to do social good and feeling incapacitated, but this is where explanations become too much. I concur. Luisa: You’ve been compared to the likes of David Bowie, how’s that? f: That’s good. L: A fair comparison? f: Well no, because I’m obviously not as good yet and I haven’t reached that kind of status … also the stage stuff, I don’t think I’d be into all the costumes. L: Make-up? f: Well who knows, I could say no now, but a few months down the line you might see me wearing something scary on stage. L: When can we see you on stage? f: Well we just did the Goldfrapp tour and we’ve got some gigs planned in April, but we don’t want to play too much. Most of the people I like don’t play very often, I think it’s best to wait until the anticipation is strong. L: Keep it aloof? f: Yup.
Tangents started to occur at this stage but I did find out that his album is out in May, he’s fond of table tennis, and that he googles himself regularly, finding for the most part that people say nice things about him, which is good.
As I come to the end of writing this up I have listened to the song eight or so times … it’s nestling between my ears and I can tell already that the chorus will roll around my head for my pedal home and beyond (in a good way)… frYars strikes again.
Written by Luisa Gerstein on Thursday January 8th, 2009 7:20 pm
If you try to describe this to someone (which you shouldn’t, this websales don’t give anything away), doctormedications you will sound like you are conjuring from memory a nonsensical and fantastical dream; not something remotely tangible that actually happened in a 25-minute journey through a Shorditch warehouse.
Enter the ride and find yourself wheeled through 15 distinct scenarios with over 70 artists acting out micro-performances. “Designed to mentally and visually astound”, check; “leaving you overwhelmed and exhilarated’, check and check; and finishing the ride “in a totally different emotional state from the one you were in when you embarked on the journey”, most definitely true: utterly elated, mesmerised, and psychologically discombobulated.
The You Me Bum Bum train represents a new branch of experimental live art where the line between performer and audience is not just blurred, but utterly turned on it’s head; interaction is integral to the experience, and how far you take this is up to you. It’s creators Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd, intend to strip individuals of decision-making, giving passengers the would-be ordinary experience of somebody else’s shoes. You are left with fleeting slices of alternate realities, one moment you might be a drummer, the next a translator (I really don’t want to say much!). It’s real human experience through the prism of the utterly surreal, and it will take you some time to reclaim your grasp on the two, a most marvellous and novel experience.
The venue is essential to the experience, and they describe Cordy House as their dream venue, lending itself to the most ambitious event they’ve held yet.
There isn’t much time to go, and I whole-heartedly recommend it as an unforgettable experience. It runs every Saturday from now until the 20th of December between 7pm and 11pm.
Hip Parisian fahion and electro label, buy Kitsuné, what is ed are fast becoming as well known for their associated music as they are for their fashion. In fact, there is a clear cut three-way divide at Heaven tonight: scenesters, dressed for the fashion blog photographers collide en masse with those who know Kitsuné for the music and are quite unprepared for the additional rooms full of said scenesters, and with the regular Heaven clubbers, used to G-A-Y Camp Attack on Friday nights and probably the most bemused of everyone here.
Within the four rooms there’s a frustrating mix of real djs and acts like Autokratz, whose Pet Shop Boys go big beat set was a joy to behold and left me humming ‘Stay The Same’ for the rest of the night. Hearts Revolution, Punks Jump Up and Kitsuné house band Digitalism all turned out in force to impress and did so, although at times the acts felt a little repetitive. Alas, alongside these quality acts, we also got a number of vanity djs, including various models and boutique owners, which all blurred into the same set as the night progressed and seemed to play to rooms full of people aiming to get to the bar and move on.
It transpired that the ‘Don’t Panic’ room was the place to be. Inspired by K-Tron, blasting bass heavy No-Wave, they held me and the room in near divine rapture. The highlight of the night however, was Matthew Stone who dragged us back to 1985 via The KLF, his effortlessly sublime musical compass taking us on a seemingly random adventure, fitting perfectly with the tone of the night. There were some true high points tonight, but Kitsuné are probably best enjoyed via one of their compilations than live, based on tonight’s evidence.
Global Day of Action
6th December 2008
This will be the Saturday midway through the next round of UN Climate Talks and our best chance to influence the decisions of delegates ahead of the critical UN talks in 2009 at which a post-Kyoto treaty agreement will be decided.
LONDON
Climate Bike Ride 2008
Assemble 10.30 am Lincolns Inn Fields for a mass bike ride around Central London joining up with the National Climate March at Grosvenor Square (see next listing for National Climate March info)
The three stops on the route are:
-Outside Greenergy, 198 High Holborn – for an agrofuels protest organised by Biofuelswatch
-Outside E.On 100 Pall Mall – for a speaker on NO NEW COAL
-Outside the Department of Transport – for a speaker on sustainable transport
Everyone welcome; decorate your bikes, bring whistles, bring music!
Want to help out for this action? Contact Jeremy Hill on 07816 839883 or jeremy.hill1@btopenworld.com
National Climate March and Global Day of Action on Climate
The march starts at 12noon at Grosvenor Square and will move via Carlos Place and Mount Street to Berkley Square and Berkley street to Picacadily, Picadilly Circus, Lower Regent street, Pall Mall and Cockspur street to Trafalgar Square and Whitehall to Parliament Square.
We will bring the UK issues of Aviation, New coal and Biofuels to the streets of London, along with a call for more investment in renewable energy, more energy efficiency and more green jobs.
Speakers will include Nick Clegg (leader Liberal Democrat Party), Caroline Lucas (leader, Green party), Michael Meacher (ex-Environment Minister) and George Monbiot (Honorary President, Campaign against Climate Change).
Contact: 020 7833 9311 www.campaigncc.org
There will also be an After-Party in the Synergy Centre from 5.00 pm till late.
The March on Parliament has four main themes –
1) NO to a 3rd runway at Heathrow and the runaway expansion in aviation expansion.
2) NO new coal – no new coal-fired power stations as planned at eg Kingsnorth in Kent
3) NO to the expansion of agrofuels – with negative impacts on forests, the climate and world food supply.
4) YES to a renewable energy revolution and green jobs – a “Green new Deal”
Come with your own banners, costumes on one of these themes and join up with others pushing that theme……
The March on Parliament for the Climate marks the Saturday midway through the UN Climate Talks in Poznan, Poland and we make our demands on the UK government in solidarity with the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities that will suffer worst and most immediately from climate change caused overwhelmingly by the rich long-industrialised countries.
We need the government to act now on climate, to stop building coal-fired power stations and new runways – and to begin the renewable energy revolution. We need a tidal wave of people outside parliament to make them act to stop climate catastrophe now! Be part of that tidal wave, be there! Next year may be too late.
BUST is a magazine devoted to the female. Providing an unapologetic view of life in the female lane, they break down stereotypes! Based in the US and established in 1993, the magazine addresses a variety of different issues within pop sulture, including music, fashion, art & crafts and news.
Editor-in-Chief, Debbie Stoller, decided to call the magazine BUST, because it was “aggressive and sexy and funny… It was a title that could belong to a men’s porn magazine.”
For Women With Something To Get Off Their Chests! Click here for the Christmas Craftacular’s Facebook Page
Jumble Fever Under the bridge on Beck Road, E8 Saturday 6th December
Midday-4pm, Entry £1
A fabulous jumble sale with a boogie twist! There will be a great deal to see and do and buy.. See you there!
ETSY
An online shopping bazaar; Etsy is a cross between eBay and Amazon with a humble handmade twist. Launched in June 2005 by Robert Kalin, for sale Chris Maguire and Haim Schoppik, the site has grown to be incredibly popular, with tens of thousands of people selling their handmade goods (90% of whom are women!).
As Christmas draws nearer and greener, we have chosen our favorite handmade things to inspire your presents list. www.etsy.com
“The Kelsey”; a pleated clutch in paisley mocha
This handmade clutch is one of many adorable bags created by GraceyBags; get in touch through etsy.com to custom order a clutch and choose from a rainbow of fabrics.
Featured is ‘The Kelsey’ in a paisley mocha print on the outside in greens, blues, pinks, yellows and browns. The inside has been sewn from a silky brown fabric and the bag closes with a small magnet.
Recycled Journal – handbound Find a lovely selection of hand bound recycled books by Rhonda; bookbinder and book artist.
This particularly wonderful journal is made with a variety of recycled scrap papers ranging from large envelopes, posters, junk mail, blank paper, lined and graph paper, covers from old sketch books, old maps, discarded photocopies, misprints from the computer printer to paper bags.
Perfect as an art journal, the book is covered with an old map of the world, the one pictured above showing the islands of Guatemala, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.
There are 256 pages (when you count both sides of each sheet). The pages are handbound using green and brown linen threads, visible on the spine in 4 rows of chain stitches.
The book size is approximately 4″ x 4¼” and 1″ thick (or 10.5cm x 11cm x 2.5cm).
This adorable cotton tote is the perfect carry-all for any occasion. BellaBlu Designs signature French Bulldog silhouette has been cut from Heather Bailey‘s ‘Sway in Brown’ Pop Garden print and appliquéd to this cotton canvas bag. It is 100% 10 oz. cotton, measures 15 x 13 x 3 inches and can be customized with most other dog breeds.
We’ve also had a browse round treefort.myshopify.com, for some gift ideas for those of you with little ones in your life!
Dreamlets Dolls These cute little creatures would make an adorable gift this season, and as a product that gives 1% back to Artworks, Bridges to Understanding, or Poncho, they’re doing a lot more than making a loved one happy! The dolls come in a variety of shapes and colours, each with their own quirky personality. You are also able to choose which organization will benefit from your gift by registering your doll online.
Nikki McClure’s Mama & Baby Things Treefort also sell many of Nikki Mcclure‘s prints, books, cards, and calendars. Nikki McClure creates complex, yet natural designs by cutting away from a single piece of black construction paper with an x-acto knife. Her works are printed on 100% Recycled, 100% Post-Consumer Waste, Processed Chlorine Free paper that was manufactured with electricity that is offset with Green-e® certified renewable energy. Her work is printed by a small family-owned press in Portland, Oregon, US- and uses soy-based inks.
Kids On Roof “House” is made of Eco friendly-100% recycled cardboard and is 100% biodegradable. These houses are the perfect gift for creative children, as they’re meant to be decorated and personalised! (see below for examples from treefort) Kidsonroof donates 5% of its profits to specific Unicef projects; €24,000 has now been collected for the Unicef project for building better, small-scale housing for HIV/Aids inflicted orphans in Russia.
Beyond Retro Christmas Party!
This evening Beyond Retro is throwing it’s annual seasonal gathering – in both it’s shops, viagra buy the original Cheshire St warehouse and new sibling store in Soho – from 6pm – 8pm, there’ll be lots of exclusive goodies for you to browse through and they’ll even throw in some mulled wine and mince pies. Good times.
Made In Clerkenwell
This evening and all weekend, the Clerkenwell Green Association open their studios for Made in Clerkenwell, an event that showcases the work of over 70 designers they support through providing them with studio space, mentoring and business advice to help them create their work.
The fruits of their labors are exhibited and available for purchase, so you can hunt out that unique Christmas gift and buy all kinds of original and creative wares – ranging from fashion designs to jewellery, accessories, textiles and even ceramics.
What makes this shopping experience so different is that you can mingle with and chat to the designers and find out about their craft, inspirations, working method, becoming a designer, anything you want to know! So pop down, get a great gift and support new designers.
Open 6pm to 8pm, Thursday 27th November 2008 and
12pm to 6pm on Friday 28th, Saturday 29th and Sunday 30th November 2008.
£2.50 entrance – free to the under 16s.
It’s no secret that Brooklyn’s the place to be for smart indie pop these days, view but look a little closer to home and you might be surprised. Take tonight’s superb support acts, advice for example. First up is Pens, erectile a cute lo-fi local trio who, despite playing to only a handful of people, put on a wonderfully frantic and ramshackle performance – think Karen O‘s kid sisters gleefully bashing at snare, guitar and synths.
Fellow Londoners Chew Lips are up next and are nothing short of a revelation. The threesome cater in captivatingly melancholy electronic music and boast a bona fide icon-in-waiting in singer Tigs; she prowls and creeps around the venue, all black bob and wide eyes, unleashing powerful vocals and jumping on the bar to serenade us, while the boys whip up a glitchy synth and bass storm in the background. ‘Solo’ is the band’s set-closer and an undeniable highlight – scuzzy and danceable yet strangely sad, it will be one of your anthems of 2009, no question.
This bunch are hard to follow, but Telepathe just about manage it. Dave Sitek-produced debut ‘Dance Mother’ is on the way in January, and recreating its majesty live is clearly still a tricky undertaking for the Brooklyn duo. They do their best, unleashing a stream of cluttered soundscapes, layered harmonies and clipped rhythms, and while the effect is hypnotic at times, barely a word is uttered between songs – resulting in a distinct lack of atmosphere. This could of course be due, in part, to the fact that they are playing to a room full of typically disinterested Shoreditch types. Whatever the reason the performance falls a little flat, until final effort ‘Chromes On It’ that is, its spine-tingling beats waking the crowd from its stupor and climaxing with speakers shaking and half the band hanging from the ceiling as the hysterical throng down the front excitedly punch the air. It’s just enough to convince us that we’re not quite prepared to give up on Telepathe as a live proposition yet. More like this please.
Nuclear: Art and Radioactivity discount -4.064941&sspn=16.764146, visit this site 39.418945&ie=UTF8&ll=51.524712,-0.079694&spn=0.008598,0.019248&z=16&g=E1+6PG&iwloc=addr”target=”_blank”>Nicholls and Clarke Building, 3-10 Shoreditch High Street, Spitalfields, London E1.
‘Half-life’ Chris Oakley, 2008
High-definition video, 15 minutes
The Nicholls and Clarke Building hosts an exhibition that explores the changing perceptions of nuclear power. In our rapidly deteriorating climate, the effects of nuclear development from the past have come to haunt us. ‘The Nightwatchman,’ by Simon Hollington and Kypros Kyprianou, captures this disturbing predicament.
As we entered the installation there was something immediately unsettling about it. A board-meeting table situated in the centre of a large dilapidated storeroom indicated recent activity, and as we crept further through the exhibition space there was more evidence of some night watchmen. But they are no where to be found…
Together with the film ‘Half-life’ by Chris Oakley, there was a sense of being caught in a crossfire of two different eras: the naïvely optimistic 80′s and the knowledgeable cynicism of the present day.
The film showed a series of paradoxical images of nature vs. technology, and through it we were reminded of how our idea of what is progressive has been turned on it’s head.
If you’d like to have something of yours across the chests of music aficionados throughout the country, viagra you might like to apply for this. 100% music, cheap 100% recycled paper (well done), sildenafil Bearded Magazine is preparing for the re-launch of the printed magazine on January 29th, and they’re throwing in a t-shirt as well.
When it came to deciding what should go on the front of said t-shirt, they mumbled gibberish into their beards and drew blanks, and so they’ve put the task out to you the reader to help them out. In fact, they might be so filled with indecision that there could be four winners, so better chances for you! Have a look at the criteria and send in a design soon, you have until the 15th of December.
The Wellcome Collection’s new temporary exhibition is entitled ‘War and Medicine’ and focuses on the individual human consequences of war rather than the overall statistics of death and destruction that impersonalise and almost glorify military combat and which we are most often presented with. Soldiers are heroes when they die for their country but uncomfortable representatives of horror when they return wounded and disfigured.
Installation artist David Cotterrell‘s film, sales specially commissioned for the exhibition, salve attempts to rectify this. Covering three walls of a darkened room, more about the film shows wounded soldiers, with varying degrees of injury, being loaded onto a flight back to England from Helmand Province in Afghanistan. The only soundtrack is the constant hum of the plane’s engine, an eerie backdrop to the calm, efficient activity taking place on screen. There is an unsettling disjunction between our inclusion in the scene through the way it is presented to us and the alienness of the sight before our eyes. This slightly dreamlike atmosphere helps separate the artwork from the realms of documentary photography and helps us understand the confusion of this homeward flight, which we are told in the information outside, is often only partially remembered by the soldiers.
What is most striking about this piece is the individual humanity behind the uniforms of the men and women depicted. On the left are the walking wounded with a variety of arm slings and facial injuries being tended to by medical staff and waiting patiently for their journey to begin, on the right, more distressingly, a person is carried in on a stretcher, connected to breathing apparatus. It is heartbreaking to realise that although most of these people will probably survive, and so not register in the public consciousness, they will have been scarred for life both physically and emotionally. I began to see them as people beyond whatever my personal attitudes to their profession and the war they are fighting in was.
A harrowing counterpart to this work is Cotterrell’s written diary, where he describes with civilian horror, the daily minutiae of life amongst the medical staff in Camp Bastion. The exhibition’s mission statement is to explore the dichotomies in a society that is simultaneously developing ever more sophisticated means of destroying life and protecting it. The stalemate futility of this situation is given a human face by Cotterrell’s work.
David Cotterrell is featured in issue 10 of the magazine, out shortly.
Hurrying through the lights and sounds of Soho, stuff the words ‘bloody hell it’s cold’ rattled my skull. I was heading to see the Canadian singer and illustrator Chad VanGaalen, this known for rarely leaving his basement. In this weather, who would blame him?
Once inside Borderline I was able to thaw out and to take in the cosy surroundings. Kindly folk in chequered shirts patiently waited as they sipped Guinness. But there was something odd about this fresh-faced crowd. Moustaches, I realised. There were loads of them.
It’s Mo-vember, apparently. The time of year for all socially conscious gentlemen to grow out their fluff to raise money for testicular cancer. ‘That’s nice,’ I thought.
This playful and boyish act of sincerity seemed fitting for the night in store as there’s something of the fourteen-year-old boy about Chad VanGaalen. Deceptively awkward and immediately charming, he’ll break your heart.
Together with a hairy-faced accordionist he delivered a homemade and reflective sound. It was as if we had wandered into his basement, and he seemed a little surprised to see us there.
His hesitancy on stage draws you nearer, and his tight and masterful song-writing capabilities took a hold of my senses like a sedative.
That uneasy fluidity reminded me of Beach House and the unexpectedly punchier tunes provided an excitable energy that twanged some of those moustaches.
Listening to Chad is like putting on a pair of earmuffs and skate boarding down smooth suburban streets.
There’s a yearning to be free and limitless but it only slightly ventures out of the comfortable. A girl behind me whispered excitedly ‘It’s the kind of music I’d ride my bike to.’
It is difficult for any set at the Borderline to not feel intimate and Chad VanGaalen’s was by no means revolutionary.
But the evening was all together thoughtful and enchanting, and as I braved the bitter London streets once more, the words of Electric City wrapped me up like a duvet.
At 8am on Friday 28th November on a wet and grizzly morning, stuff the Greenwash Guerillas and a band of allies rallied together outside the E-On Head Office at 100 Pall Mall. We were there to protest against the planned government-approved scheme to build 7 new coal fired power stations. E-on will be responsible for the first of these havoc wreaking death chambers (no hyperbole here) at Kingsnorth, Kent. This power station alone will emit between 6 and 8 million tones of CO2 every year. If all 7 are built, treatment their collective emissions would be approximately 50 million tones of CO2 a year. This would make the Climate Change Committee’s proposal to cut back on CO2 emissions an average of 2% per annum so that by 2050 we’ll have an 80% reduction well… impossible.
Browsing through E-on’s website, it might be easy to be fooled into thinking they are an environmentally conscientious company promoting ‘clean, green energy that never runs out.’ But it doesn’t take long to realize that their wind farms and claims of boosting local employment are cleverly marketed to cast a rosy sheen over more profitable projects that use coal.
Coal is the grimiest of fossil fuels. It’s carbon-intensity is higher than oil and double that of natural gas. Yet, as the driving force behind the industrial revolution, it has been the primary source of power for the electricity generation. Gathered outside the E-on head office, we are no longer in the 19th century but in the 21st century and in the midst of a climatic crisis. With sea ice disappearing at a never-before-seen rapidity now is the time to use new greener sources of power, not to revert to the practices of the past.
So why is the government supporting what seems a disastrously archaic project?
The government’s answer is that by increasing the cost of carbon, power stations will be forced to use a process of carbon capture and storage (CCS) whereby the harmful carbon dioxide produced by coal is extracted from the air and buried underground.
However, a presentation made by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee concluded that this reasoning is implausible. Voicing research from the U.K. Energy Research Centre and Climate Change Capital, it showed that using a process of CCS would in fact be the least cost effective option for power stations. The research they gathered predicted that CCS will cost power companies like E-On 70-100 or 90-155 Euros per ton of CO2, while the government estimates that the price of carbon between 2013 and 2020 will be less at approximately 39 Euros per ton.
It’s fair to say that it is extremely unlikely that power companies will go for the more expensive option, especially when the margin is as large as it is. In short, the government’s criteria for approving E- On’s power station at Kingsnorth is worryingly unsatisfactory.
If our government is failing to alleviate the catastrophic predicament of climate change that is costing lives then it is up to us as citizens to take action against the construction of Kingsnorth and others like it. For more information on what you can do please click here and please go to the national climate march on Saturday 6th December, bring your mates and make it fun. This is a serious issue and we need to get the message across but optimism is always the best the way of creating change, in my view anyway. Klimax is a network for climate activists that started in 2007 by environmentalists who wanted a platform for people with more radical ideas about direct actions. Well known in Sweden for their campaigns against private motorism and the meat industry, viagra sale the group has spread to a number of Swedish cities, cialis 40mg and in Gothenburg they consist of 20 active members.
Members of Klimax initially wanted to protest on the 13th October, which is the actual date of the anniversary, but after finding out there were no meetings that day, postponed to the 12th November. This allowed them the much needed time to plan their action in detail; the first few weeks consisted of a few hours of planning and as the time drew nearer members were working five hours a day to make sure everything was finished. Among writing speeches, making banners and establishing contact with the media, they had to prepare their costumes!
Our contact at Klimax said “We do not always dress up for events but we believe that it is a good way to spice up an action! We sometimes dress up as penguins or polar bears because they are the two types of animal that are severely affected by Climate Change; it is also fun and looks nice!”
Their aims with the action was threefold; firstly to pay tribute to the work done by the suffragettes- strong women fighting for women’s right to vote, secondly to make the politicians aware that there was strong opposition to the building of another tunnel under the river in Gothenburg; Miahabo Berkelder from Klimax in Gothenberg says that the group believe this to be an awful way to spend a large amount of money, just so that more cars can be on the road; asking ‘What if the money was invested in buses instead? New roads simply lead to more traffic and that is a disaster for our climate.’
The third reason for the protest was to make sure that politicians knew that climate change isn’t just a moral topic, it is a political topic.
On the day, members were shocked to see the six activists storm the meeting,
but after the action Klimax joked that if they had been politicians sitting there during long and boring meetings, they would have been happy with the distraction!
They certainly created a buzz, and definitely caught the attention of the council! After a short while the six were asked to leave the building and did so with little fuss.
In reaction to the protest, a woman from the Swedish environmental party said Klimax had a valid point, but a man from the conservative party was more concerned about security, wondering what would have happened if terrorists had stormed the meeting instead!
The plans for the tunnel are still up in the air. The initial decision to build the tunnel was made solely by Göran Johansson, the chairman of the Municipal Council. Because this wasn’t a democratic way of deciding, the case has been reported to the county administrative court.
According to Miahabo, there are a lot of plans in Klimax’s future; new actions will take place during the spring and there will be a new regular event called Climate Café- where anyone can attend to share coffee and discuss climate change, sometimes including an expert on the subject to answer any questions.
The next big event for Klimax is on the Global Day of Action, taking place in cities all over the world on the 6th of December. At the same time as the leaders of the world will be discussing the climate problems, demonstrations will be arranged all over the world including London and of course Gothenberg. Klimax have come together with several other groups to arrange a huge demonstration, Miahabo says that Klimax are organising a “Climate Clash” which is a wide spread Klimax phenomenon; they will walk out in the middle of a busy road and block the traffic; a perfect and simple way to make people aware of the climate problems.
Anyone who is interested in joining Klimax is welcome- it is a flat organization with no board of directors, anyone who wants to be a member is simply one.
For more information about Climate Rush, please visit: www.climaterush.co.uk Monday 1st Dec
The Ashni Art Gallery specialises in Indian Art that is both contemporary and of the past. They will be exhibiting the best of their collection from now until the 19th of December.
Tuesday 2nd Dec
Live in Bristol? Feeling somewhat alarmed by the continued transformation of the city centre to all things consumerist (with 120 new shops having just opened)? Slipping between the gap of reality and fantasy, andSomewhere Here are hijacking advertisement space to provide shoppers with a brief respite during the fall of capitalism. Nine artists take nine advertising hoardings (billboards) until the 3rd of December only. Catch them before they are swallowed by Advertisement Beast.
Wednesday 3rd Dec
Opening today at the ICA: Dispersion; an exploration by seven artists of the appropriation and circulation of images in contemporary society. They examine money, desire, and power in our accelerated image economy. It runs until Feb 1st.
Thursday 4th Dec
First Thursdays of the month is here! But aren’t galleries open most Thursdays anyway? It would be silly tell you a single thing to go and see, 100 galleries will be opening their doors until 9pm, so there will plenty to satiate your creative appetites, but if you perhaps feel so inspired that you are driven to the pencil yourself, The Princess Studios will be hosting free life-drawing drop-in sessions throughout the evening.
Friday 5th Dec
Vauxhall’s best kept secret-art-laboratory, Beaconsfield, curates Late at Tate this Friday, adapting Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries and transitory places to create a terminal space, with an array of arrival and departure points, in which only the surreal applies …
Satuday 6th Dec
Colin McKenzie senses that art ought to be more like a day at Woodstock, or at least what he imagines Woodstock to be like: electric, dynamic, smooth, and mind-expanding. At the Red Gate Gallery. McKenzie strives against order and sense, aiming to manoeuvre without restriction.
Monday 1st December
The Lady: A Tribute to Sandy Denny, page Royal Festival Hall, treat London
An evening of songs from the back catalogue of one of the most influential female folk singers, approved Sandy Denny. Various artists including Marc Almond, P.P. Arnold and Johnny Flynn will be performing songs from her Fairport Convention days as well as her solo career. Should be a really interesting night in light of the current trend for new female folkies and a timely tribute to one of the godmothers of the genre.
A lovely gentle way to start the week with this folky-country duo who will hopefully be celebrating the first day of December with a performance of their Christmas single, released next week.
In the UK for one night only, this much-loved San Francisco band’s staccato, rough-round-the-edges punk pop is even better live.
Ten Kens, The Duchess, York
Anyone who has a blurry picture of people snogging on their record sleeve is a good bet for a messy live show and these Canadian grungers are reportedly no exception. Should be good in this small venue too.
New album produced by Will Oldham, harpist on Anthony and the Johnsons first album and with Andrew W.K. providing bass on her new record, this transsexual musician’s musical pedigree is assured.
Wednesday 3rd December
Kitty, Daisy and Lewis single launch, Madame JoJos, London
Snappily dressed, hearse-driving siblings playing rockabilly at their single launch party.
Liam Finn, Night and Day, Manchester
Introspective folk.
The Wave Pictures, Club Fandango, St Aloysius Social Club, London
Thursday 4th December
Vivian Girls, The Social, Nottingham
Uber-hyped Brooklyn girl group bring their shoe-gaze tinged grunge-pop to the UK. Time to see if they live up to their recorded promise as a live act.
Really bummed about breaking up with some girl called Emma, he headed into the woods alone and wrote an album about it. He must be feeling a bit better as he’s spreading the heartache on a UK tour.
Lovely duets from surprisingly compatible artists.
Pretty Taxing is a fashion collection with a twist, stuff as the end product is not clothes but car tax discs. Unusual – yes, sick but we all know how important accessorising is…
It would seem like a bad idea if such creatively interesting designers hadn’t contributed to the cause. They include Emma Bell, who has twice shown at London Fashion Week, David David and Pam Hogg. Along with artists Natasha Law and Stuart Semple, they have all created unique collectable pieces of fashion memorabilia.
You can pick up these discs of fashion-random-brilliance at Matches or at the pop-up shop KIN in Kingly Court, Carnaby Street. Abiding the law has never looked so good.
Today I was sent to Coventry, abortion quite literally. Together with 30 other Climate Camp activists dressed as Santa we descended on E.On, health the energy company responsible for the proposed new coal fired power station to be built at Kingsnorth.
This action followed a 48 hour action that happened over last Friday and Saturday – and E.On were not expecting our return. In fact, buy they were probably kicking themselves that the special fencing that they had put in place late last week was now lying dismantled on the floor next to their headquarters.
As a result our merry busload hopped off easily and headed straight for the main entrance of E.On’s offices.
Why? Despite spending a lot of time and energy letting the public know that they are one of the biggest investors in renewable energy in the UK (they’ll point out the big array of solar panels on one of their buildings and the lobby features a looped tape about wind farms) they are also pitching to build the first new coal fired power station to be built in the UK in 30 years, which will alone defeat all our CO2 emissions goals. So why spend so unwisely?
Whilst some merry santas climbed atop the revolving door and superglued their hands to the various entrances, another bunch of santas headed off into the building to see if they could speak to head honcho Paul Golby and let the employees know a bit more about the facts behind new coal.
Bearing banners that said Stop Coal and E.On F.Off they set off down the corridors singing some specially adapted carol songs.
Two intrepid santas managed to enter a boardroom meeting, surprising the attendees with some gifts of lumps of coal – for as you know santa gives bad children coal instead of gifts and E.On has been very bad this year. They were ejected from the property, but soon raced back in again…
We managed to disrupt operations for four hours, stopping employees and visitors as they came to work and giving interviews to the BBC and ITV, and live on the radio. Our action was spoken about on the World at One on Radio 4, which you can listen to here. We are talked about at approximately 8 minutes and 20 seconds into the programme.
The police were surprisingly even handed, although some employees were clearly fuming, especially the head of security (woops) One indoor santa even managed to locate a cup of tea and a newspaper to read.
At one point we were able to reenter the building, with the santas forming a conga line for the cameras. We delivered papers written by leading NGOs describing why there is no need for coal power, and generally had a merry old time. All employees and visitors were rerouted through back entrances, so I think it is fair to say that we were fairly disruptive…
Eventually we decided that once unstuck it was best that we leave, but the police had other ideas, and as we walked off down the road they tried to contain us, managing to trap four of our number and arrest them.
The rest of us ran off down the street to find our getaway vehicles, parked up in a local pub car park. Our drivers had thoughtfully bought us lunch in the pub, but shortly after we had gulped it down we were asked to leave because the police presence was putting off other customers. The police followed us as we left to pick up the other santas at Warwick university student union, and thereafter ensued the slowest police chase ever, with us managing to lose them after taking a wrong turn.
The purpose of this action was to embarrass E.On and raise awareness of what they up to in a light hearted and humourous way – I think that as a bunch of merry santas we did this exceptionally well. We hope that E.On will take heed and stop greenwashing their plans. It’s simple, don’t build Kingsnorth. Spend your money increasing investment in your (meagre) renewable energy supplies. If you would like to help us stop companies like E.On destroying our world check out what Climate Camp is up to next. More articles on this action can be read on Indymedia here and here.
We’re having a bit of a Grace Jones moment here at Amelia’s HQ. Obviously we’ve always known she was AMAZING but her majestic new single ‘Williams’ Blood’ goes to prove that she’s still totally got it. In fact, buy it’s been on repeat for about the past week and we’ve all been waving our arms in the air singing “I’ve got the Williams’ blood in me”. There’s an infectious gospel refrain running through this song that really brings out Jones’ strident message. Strongly autobiographical, link ‘Williams’ Blood’ tells the story of her parents’ life together in small-town domesticity and her musician grandfather – he of the Williams blood – philandering his way around the world, an insight into the Grace Jones spirit of rebellion.
There’s a cry for freedom and for breaking away from the strictures and constraints of her background, which you can’t help but feel has been successful for this overtly sexual, bonkers wardrobed, gay icon, hence the joyful bursts of the chorus. It also seems almost subversive for a female singer to talk about the influence of a male ancestor on their lives but Jones has never been one to play by the rules. In fact, as one of our writers proved, she’s perhaps the only woman with such immense stature you could prove your respect for by mooning. But that’s another story…
‘Williams’ Blood’ is released next Monday 8th December on Wall of Sound.
“The film was an experiment”, abortion says Jonas Cuaron, settling down across from me on a sofa at the Renoir this Saturday. I’ve come for the release of his debut film, Año Uña – year of nails – and the place is abuzz with excitement; I’m especially enamoured by the snippets of Mexican-tilted Spanish I hear that always make me nostalgic (Luisa with no ‘o’, can you guess?), “Ai que deliciosa!” someone behind me exclaims at the sight of a quesadilla in the first few minutes of the film; maravillosa indeed.
“I wanted to make a film”, he continues, “using a format that would be hard to watch”. Hard to watch? A legitimate concern when it dawns on you that you’re in for a feature-length film composed entirely of still-frame photographs. But the merit of any film boils down to one thing, a good story – and the impossible romance between American girl and Mexican boy in the throes of puberty, subsumes this hard-to-watch format and makes it altogether accessible. Plot aside for a moment though, the genesis of the film deserves as much attention, so I asked Jonas how the whole thing came about.
JC: For the film I took photographs of my everyday life for a year. I wanted to break the way in which film is normally done. Normally people write a screenplay first, and then out of the screenplay they do the image, but here I wanted to do it backwards. I took the photographs and then we made an installation where we put them all up in a room, and made a story from that.
Were there other possible narratives, did you find it hard to pick which story to tell?
Well I always knew that it had to be a story of this girl from the US and this boy from Mexico. They were the ones I photographed the most that year, and so I knew they were going to be the main characters and it grew organically from there. But sometimes I think, with all those photographs I could make a different movie, draw something completely different from the same images.
What was exciting about working in that format?
Well I wanted to play with the boundaries between reality and fiction. I wanted to have images that were real, but to show, how with text, or with a narrative over those images, you can have a completely different meaning. All the images in the movie are real, but none of that happened, I wanted to play with that boundary.
So there was no interchange between reality and fiction? There must’ve been!
Well I mean, in the events there was. Like my Grandpa really did get sick and he had cancer, but for instance, the main characters, Diego and Molly, they are my brother and my girlfriend, so I hope that wasn’t real (chuckles).
How did your brother feel about in falling in love with your girlfriend, was that awkward?
Well the narrative was so fictional, so far away from reality that both him and Eireann saw it as an acting job; they never thought of it as real. All the character’s names are real aside from Eireann, which I changed to Molly because I wanted to help Diego and Molly not feel awkward, and I knew that Diego was gonna be saying really dirty things about her character, so I thought it would be easier for him if she was called Molly and not Eireann.
Throughout the film, Molly seems to be perpetually trying to capture something real from Mexico in a photograph, and failing. Is that Ironic? Seeing as you’re playing with a moment captured and how it can mean lots of things.
With Molly, a lot of what I wanted to play with was the idea of the tourist, being a foreigner in another country, so even though she’s the one seeing, she’s the observer with the camera, in the case of a tourist like Molly, people are also observing her. So with her character I played a lot with the subconscious of being in a new place.
You grew up partially in Mexico and partially in the US, so is that something you link closely too?
For me, that part of the narrative – the interchange between two cultures – it really fascinates me; so when I realised that Diego and Molly would be my main characters, I was happy because the relationship between both cultures is an important one for me. I know what it is to be new in a different place, and I understand the boundaries between the two languages, and a lot of this is seen in the character of Molly. Many of those pictures were taken during Eireann’s first visit to Mexico, and it was at the time when Bush had just been elected. For her it was really hard to be in Mexico because everyone was judging her for what Bush was doing, so I wanted to play with the idea, that I also feel from being a Mexican in the US, that people see you as a nationality and not who you are.
What is the main theme of the film for you?
When I first started making a film with photographs, I realised that the main theme would be the passage of time and the impermanence of things. You can’t do anything about photography and not talk about the passage of time, and particularly in a film – film is always dependent on the idea of time and still-photography doesn’t have time in a way, and so for me, the whole film is an exploration of how nothing lasts forever.
Would you use the format again?
I think it’s a very interesting format to explore, but for me, I’ve done everything I would want to do with that format. It’s been a very important learning experience for me. At the end of the day, the important thing is having a good story.
Muchisimas Gracias Jonas. How do you like London?
It’s cold.
Last night, adiposity to coincide with World AIDS Day, clinicvinspired.com, a youth volunteer organisation website, hosted a charity fashion show to raise money for the children’s HIV Charity, Body & Soul.
This fashion show was the last stage in a creative process, which started off with four volunteer design teams, based in four parts of the country, who gave their time to find new and exciting designers. The creative workshops were set up by Junky Styling in London, Traid, who nurtured the Bristol designers, the Ethical Fashion Forum in Nottingham and Kesh(pictured above), who worked with the Manchester based designers.
Said designers had to then compete against each other to create the best outfit from recycled clothes, e.g.: the clothes given to charity shops – and it was at this fashion show where the winner would be decided by designer Ben de Lisi.
TV presenter Miquita Oliver hosted the event and the celebrity quota was filled by Rolling Stone daughter, Leah Wood (pictured above), who modeled on the catwalk and Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman, who provided some post-show tunes.
Even bigger names (not in attendance) but supporting the charity include actress Kate Winslet and Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who donated a suit and a shirt respectively, to be remade into something fabulous. Designer Zandra Rhodes is also a big supporter of this recycling fashion cause saying, “It is appalling how much we waste in society these days, but it seems we are entering a new era of resourcefulness. This is really exciting – and the best part of it is young people are leading the new trend.”
Taking place in Central Saint Martins aptly named Innovation Centre; the venue was small and intimate, which perfectly captured the tone of the event. Unlike most fashion shows, this one had a very human element when a representative from the Body & Soul charity got on stage to talk about her experience living with HIV. She spoke about having to live a double life, having to hide her illness from the world due to the level of prejudice that still exists towards the disease. Money raised from this event will go towards generating awareness about HIV.
As we sat by the catwalk, video screens showed the designers in their workshops making the clothes that would soon appear in front of us. What these guys did with discarded shirts and dresses was pretty impressive, it wasn’t about following trends but making creative, innovative and pretty pieces, and there was a lot of that evident on the catwalk.
Ben de Lisi was there to judge the entries, with only a matter of minutes to decide who the winner would be, he was asked how he would do it and said, “I shoot straight from the hip, I know exactly what I want.”
Who he wanted was designer Anne-Marie Fleming, from the Junky Styling stable. She seemed to me to be a safe choice as although her design was good, it was not the best seen on the catwalk by a long way.
This event worked so well to promote two causes, the importance of recycling (not always being a slave to trends) and reducing the level of our prejudice about supposedly taboo subjects.
All the clothes can be viewed at vinspired.com/fashion and will be auctioned on eBay from today, so you can get your hands on a uniquely designed piece and give some cash to a very good cause.
If you’re planning on going to any of these events, viagra buy or have something you want to write an article about for the Earth Blog, more about email us: earth@ameliasmagazine.com!
Eco-Design Christmas Fair 2008 website +152+Brick+Lane,+London+E1+6RU&sll=51.521668,-0.071497&sspn=0.007423,0.019011&g=152+Brick+Lane,+London+E1+6RU&ie=UTF8&ll=51.522349,-0.072269&spn=0.007423,0.019011&z=16&iwloc=A”target=”_blank”>The Boiler House, The Old Truman Brewery, 152 Brick Lane, London E1 6RU
Saturday 13th December 2008 12pm-7pm
Sunday 14th December 2008 11am-7pm
entry £2 or £1
A great event at which you will be able to see and buy some wonderful eco-design products (including organic clothing, furniture, jewellery, books and alternative technology) directly from the makers.
Exhibitors include Amira Fairtrade Fashion Clothing, Green Oil UK Ltd (Green bicycle chain lubricant & maintenance products) , Lizzie Lee Lighting and Po-zu Ecological footwear, amongst others! For a full list and for more information about the event please visit www.ecodesignfair.co.uk
Contact Louise Kamara: info@ecodesignfair.co.uk or 07956 916 079
Make Christmas as ethical as you can this year with another Fairtrade fair at Westminister Hall. Fair Trade Fair is an annual event that has been going on for 20 years; the first of which was organised in 1987 by Benny Dembitzer and opened by Bob Geldof.
Fairtrade events are incredibly important as they play a major role in empowering developing country producers, promoting sustainability and reducing world poverty.
The fairtrade movement encourages the payment of a fair price and the improvement of environmental standards; products range from handicrafts, coffee, tea and sugar to wine, flowers and cotton. http://www.fairtradefair.org/ftf/index.htm http://www.myspace.com/FairTradeFair
Here’s a scary thought: there’s only 21 days left for Christmas shopping… so leave the high street and take advantage as London’s coolest shopping districts throw late night events…
Bermondsey Street – nearest tube: London Bridge Thursday 4th December
From 6.30pm to 9.30pm, drugs pop down to this fashion-forward little street, viagra sale where not only will you get 10% off in all the shops but the Fashion and Textile Museum is also open late, stomach with guest appearances by some of the designers featured in the museum. Shopping and culture: the perfect way to spend an evening.
Cabbages and Frocks Christmas Fair – nearest tube: Kentish Town Sunday 7th December
Want designer goodies at bargain prices? This is the place to go. The weekly market pulls out all the stops this Sunday for its annual Christmas Fair, with all the sellers offering special yule-time discounts and the chance for you to get a genuine designer garment into your wardrobe – or give someone the best gift ever – get down there now….well, on Sunday.
Columbia Road – nearest tube: Old Street Every Wednesday in December
Situated in the heart of the east-end, you can browse in over 50 boutiques and shops, which are all open until 9pm and listen to live music to get you in that Christmas spirit while you browse for gifts.
As the title suggests, this shopping experience takes place within three roads – Old Street, Great Eastern Street and Shoreditch High Street – the shops taking part are offering special discounts on their wares, free gift wrap and the chance to pick up a brilliant present for the fashion-conscious people in your life. More details below:
Up a spiraled staircase and into a dim-lit attic, physician where all manner of curious objects in shadowy corners invite inspection, pilule I am offered gin and set my eyes and hands to formidable forceps, viagra ominous looking diagrams, and glass jars with organs bulging at the edges. The place is The Old Operating Theatre in London Bridge, where road names like ‘crucifix lane’ set a befitting tone for The Butchers Shop, a new monthly writing workshop/theatrical experience hosted by Badidea Magazine.
Badidea is brainchild of Daniel Stacey and Jack Roberts who have, against all advice, launched a magazine “based on ideals”, as opposed to the “lip-licking, cash-hungry intentions that drive any sane publishing adventure”. At Amelia’s we know a thing or two about such endeavours. The introduction/mission statement to their anthology is suffused with the enthusiasm and honesty that comes when a group of people create their own platform to do and say what they want, which in the case of Badidea, is to create a space for the “curious and the optimistic – for thinkers”.
Short stories submitted by guests are dissected, chopped up, and improved through an intensive process of live editing and debate – so says the description. It all sounded a bit painful, and whilst I was not brave enough to submit a story of my own, I took myself along to lurk at the back and see how cruel they would be. Wearing blood splattered aprons, they placed selected stories on the operating table and begun. But what unfolded was surprisingly comfortable and un-threatening: participatory idea-shooting involving toy guns, illustrations, role-play (only if you volunteered), and for anyone who has a genuine interest in creative writing, some very sound advice, delivered on a sign held by a man in a blue and white bathing costume. I did at times feel a little like I was back in a lecture room, there’s a quality and tone to the chesty laughs of the over-educated that seemed to ricochet around the room, but that’s writers for you.
An installation by Dutch designer/artist Thomas Voorn can be seen from today in b Store, this London. Thomas creates works of graffiti, viagra but not in the traditional paint or stencil way – he uses clothes to convey his ideas. For this exhibition he has created a poem using the names of designers featured at b Store.
We wanted to find out a bit more about his sartorial take on graffiti, so here’s a little insight into his thinking:
Why did you decide to use clothes as your chosen medium?
Clothes are most of the time my starting point, I design them or use them;
I take away their meaning or I give them meaning.
I play professionally with the language of clothes, verbal and non-verbal
communication. We say so much with what we wear.
Where do you get the clothes you use?
Depends on the Garment Graffiti I make. For my own work I usually buy clothes at different shops, wear them and then use them for a Garment Graffiti. I’m hypersensitive for colour and colour-combinations, always looking to find fresh combinations of materials, prints and colours.
For my commissioned Garment Graffiti’s I use clothes of designers/shops or
I select them in a variety of colour-combinations that I find contemporary at that time.
Once an installation is finished, do you re-use the clothes for the
next one?
Sometimes, and sometimes not. I can spot a Garment-Graffiti-Finder
wearing one of my shirts from a distance!
Why did you choose b Store as a venue to display your work?
I really appreciate their fashion sense.
For fans of the drug-n-whisky soaked darker side of life this intimate venue should be the perfect place to catch the full intensity of this bad boy duo’s melancholic rumblings.
15-piece Californian band/orchestra/whatever headline with their sunny but diverse indie pop. Plus cool electro pop from We Have Band.
Tuesday 20th January
Sometimes gigs from old favourites can be a risky business, often liable to disappoint when your heroes have become sad old has-beens. With any luck these late 70s punk stalwarts were too cool to age badly and this should be a great gig.
She’s in Issue 10 so she must be pretty good but don’t just take our (and every other music journalist in England’s) word for it. Check out her fun dance pop live.
Once the founder of 80s punk metallers Squirrel Bait, David Grubbs now plays grungy post-rock as a solo concern.
Saturday 24th January
James Yuill, The Macbeth, London
Think Jose Gonzalez without the advert but with plenty of electronic sounds to accompany the quiet and introspective acoustic numbers.
Of Montreal, Digital, Brighton
Much loved indie pop, spreading a little happiness whilst supporting Franz Ferdinand on their latest tour.
Sunday 25th January
Le Corps Mince de Francoise, Library, Lancaster
Daft Finnish pop in the same vein as CSS, Chicks on Speed and others of that ilk. Crazy make up and fun party girls = a great end to the weekend.
Rows of fish heads preserved in salt – even in the quirky world of Tatty Devine, viagra 60mg that’s an unexpected sight. They peer out from a long black board mounted on the gallery wall like hunting trophies. Next to them, buy cast copies of ripe oranges burrow into blocks of dark red velvet, rx as if victims of a bloody fruit massacre.
This is the first solo show of sculptor Amaia Allende, which opened on Thursday at the Tatty Devine boutique and gallery space in Brick Lane, east London. Allende claims to tackle the “subject of belonging” by assembling similar everyday items into tidy rows. It looks suspiciously like she has emptied her kitchen bin around the shop.
By the front door, some sort of green pear-like fruits line up on a narrow shelf. Poking out of the top are long strands of polyester blond hair, which make them look like a family of Mrs Pear Heads. So they belong together, you see, while at the same time having individual personalities (because of the hair).
Tatty Devine is famous for its unique jewellery and edgy art exhibitions, including “Jane Amongst the Birds”, a competition for the best foreign bird or budgie (complete with Tatty Devine trophy) held in September last year. So when it comes to belonging, it seems that Allende and her sombre line-up of fish heads and old fruit, have found an appropriate home.
The most glamorous way of recycling clothes is buying vintage. Last week atelier-mayer.com was launched by luxury fashion PR, viagra orderCarmen Haid, about it and fashion journalist, Alice Kodell, and it is a literal vintage heaven. It’s not the place to go if your vintage needs are met by Beyond Retro but if you want a designer dress to suit your decadent palette, you’ll love it.
In the 1930′s Carmen Haid’s grandmother, Klaudia Mayer ran a haute couture atelier in Vienna, selling exquisite clothes sourced from all over the world and it is this that atelier-mayer.com recreates as an online boutique.
The launch truly indicated the splendour of the site, as we entered Marks Club – gentlemen’s club extraordinaire – in Mayfair, we were greeted with roaring fireplaces, country estate décor and the elegant melodies of the violinists could be heard wafting down the staircase.
Photograph by Tilly Pearman
Such a grand setting was fitting for the designer and couture gowns on show, a taste of what can be bought on the site. As well as on rails, the clothes were worn by models and the violinists, to show off the true beauty of them.
Photographs by Tilly Pearman
The site not only allows you to browse through the clothes online, the style me section acts as your very own personal shopper, taking into account your size and preferences and finding appropriate pieces and accessories for you.
Atelier-mayer.com is also a great source for brushing up on your fashion knowledge, it has biographies of designers and fashion houses, guides to buying vintage and the style minute section contains a collection of fashion videos, including a fabulous Audrey Hepburn montage and an interview with key sartorial players including Coco Chanel, which is in her native French but we (Prudence Ivey – bilingual Music Editor) has done a handy translation of the key questions for you:
Could you give me a definition of elegance?
Coco: It’s difficult, you ask a difficult question, what is elegance? It’s many things. I will say something which I repeat all the time that for me is obvious but which many people don’t understand: that you can never be elegant enough.
Many of the dresses you designed last year have been copied or imitated in practically every country in the world. The Chanel style has descended to the street. Are you happy about this?
Coco: I am delighted. That was my goal. I don’t believe in defending fashion. You can’t have fashion if you are against imitation. There is no fashion if no-one sees it. Not me but many of the couturiers have an insane fear of imitation but you can’t be successful without it. For me success is the copy. You can’t be successful without that and imitation.
Wise words Coco.
photograph from Gavin Cullen
I should confess that I don’t come to First Love with impartial ears, information pills but more as an inadvertent geek, verging-on-groupie, who has faithfully been following the movements of Emma-Lee Moss since first stumbling across the girl who sang out prophecies of premature death and the difficulty in distinguishing between love and a stomach disorder. Assembling whoever I could, I stood among many a rowdy crowd turned to enchanted silence – the boys would always fall in love and the girls would come away a little jealous.
Now her album has appeared on our desk and I am all excitement and nerves. The name is taken from Samuel Beckett’s depressing novella about a violently misogynistic lover, whilst Emmy’s First Love is a “hard-won innocence-to-experience saga about a destructive but ultimately character forming relationship, in which songwriting process was her final act of catharsis”. But the tracks that most explicitly fit this bill are the ones I find hardest to warm to, stripped of the subtlety and delicacy of earlier songs, they can be a little sour to the taste. For the most part however, the album shines with all the appeal that makes Emmy great. Lyrics that are dark, humorous and full of brilliantly evocative imagery – all veiled beneath teasingly playful melodies and a disarmingly sugared deliverance – “Our guitarist Euan says our songs are passive aggressive – people think we’re harmless unless they’re really listening”.
We went along to 12 Bar to see her play an acoustic set of before an intimidating crowd of straight clothed industry folk, though she was unfazed, always confident, “we’re used to much bigger stages” she joked …. and so Emmy the Great enters into the mainstream, and perhaps it is just the natural preconditioning of any fan but I think I preferred her on intimate stages when it was just her, her guitar, and a pool of admirers. Saying that, ‘We are Safe” is my new favourite song, full band.
Opening with a Billy Bragg mockney cry, web you expect Napoleon IIIrd’s mini-album to be a fairly straightforward chronicle of the times, viagra saleJamie T stylee with shades of Blur in the guitars. All fine but all a little 2006 and not terribly promising. And then the second track, A Strong Nuclear Force, hits you very much as it says on the tin, with its Prince via Beck falsetto and electro beats and you realise there may be more to this boy. A Leeds music scene stalwart, having played with iLikeTrains, iForward Russia! and The Research and remixed a whole bunch of his Northern counterparts, it is perhaps no wonder that there is a little more variety and interest in this collection of songs than might be expected.
So much variety in fact, that it is easy to feel a little disorientated by the broad mix of genres which Napoleon IIIrd introduces, apparently on a whim. He certainly keeps you on your toes with his playful approach to continuity but challenging the audience is no bad thing and just a couple of listens bring out a common thread running throughout the record. The songs seem to build up to and around the pulsing, driving and crashing The Sky Is Too High, which at around 7 minutes certainly stands apart from the punchy observational territory of the rest of the disc, lacking as it does any discernable lyrical content. Proceedings are then rounded off on a dramatic note with the electro-hymn See Life, down-tempo enough to fall asleep to but interesting enough to give your full attention to on a long dark wet afternoon of the soul. It may take a little perserverance but this mini-album is definitely worth the time.
Now based in London, pill Finnish designer Minna Hepburn is showing her A/W 09 collection as part of Esthetica, and the ethical branch of London Fashion Week. Her beautiful and delicate designs caught our eye and even better, they’re eco-friendly, with all her materials being locally sourced, organic and fair-trade. She took the time to talk to us about her ideas and work:
When did you decide to persue a career in fashion design?
After I graduated, I went travelling with my husband and we ended up in Asia. I felt lost in terms of my career as I had studied War Studies at Kings College and worked a bit in the city, neither of those options really inspired me. Travelling and my ever so encouraging husband gave me the confidence to do something that I really loved – which is fashion.
What are you currently working on?
I am putting together my A/W 09 collection that I am showing at London Fashion Week, Esthetica in February. I think Esthetica will be bigger and better this year. I am really looking forward to it!
I am also finalising designs for my online boutique, which will be launched at the end of February.
What designers do you admire?
I absolutely love Rodarte. What they have achieved without any proper training in fashion is incredible and very inspiring!
Who or what inspires your work? My biggest inspirations are lace and antique markets. England has such amazing antique markets. We never had anything like that in Finland. It’s amazing that you can find gorgeous pieces from the early 1900′s and they are still in wearable condition. Sometimes I might find an old buttons or a postcard and get an amazing design idea.
When I am travelling I always look out for antique markets, France has some of the best ones I have seen!
What has been your biggest professional achievement so far?
Being accepted to do London Fashion Week and putting a collection together after just having a baby. My son Hayden was merely days old and I was still sore after a cesarean when I returned to work to finish the collection. I could not have done it without my friends though!
Also, I think one of the proudest moment was when A la Mode, started stocking my designs. They are such an institution, old and respected shop with impressive list of labels. They have been such a joy to work with!
Why did you decide to create an eco-friendly label?
With my first label, SE1 London, I experienced fast fashion as its worst. It was a range of silk dresses, tops and skirts that were made in Vietnam but I did a lot of traveling and it opened my eyes. It made me re-think the whole fashion industry and how it operates. I decided that second time round I would do it differently. I took some time to research the ethical fashion market, suppliers and the whole concept. I noticed that there was a gap in the high end of the ethical fashion market. A lot of the other ethical fashion brands were doing lots of wardrobe staples and there was not much choice, so I wanted to focus on that and provide some. I really wanted to create not just a label, but a brand, and to feel that I was doing something differently and maybe setting an example.
Is it important to you that your materials are locally sourced?
I wanted to show that beautiful and affordable garments can be made in the UK, which is where Scottish lace came into the picture. Also, I have always loved antique markets and found Scottish lace to have that vintage look and appeal.
I started testing my designs with high end shops in Bath and London and got positive feedback. Encouraged by this, I applied to London Fashion Esthetica and decided to produce a full collection for S/S 09.
How do you feel ethical fashion is perceived by the public?
I think ethical fashion is getting better every season. It’s important to show people that ethical fashion can also be commercial, affordable and in line with the current trends.
The media has played a very big part in bringing the message that eco-fashion is in vogue. With the current economical climate, I think people are more aware how they are spending and what they want to spend their money on. With lots of cool ethical brands emerging, I think fashion with conscience has never been more in fashion.
How would you describe your personal style?
At home, as a mother of two young children I try to keep things simple. White lace tops and baby sick does not go well together…
But when I go out, it’s all about antique cocktail rings, pieces from my collection, dresses, high heels and vintage.
Do you like to wear ethical brands yourself?
I wear lot of vintage and I have discovered this amazing French brand, Ekyog, who have a shop on the Kings Road. They have the softest organic knitwear I have ever worn! But I have to say that most of the time I wear my own designs. Also by wearing it, I am testing each design, the fit and the fabrics before I put anything to production. It’s important to know how the garment will behave and last.
Thanks for talking to us Minna, have fun at Fashion Week. London Fashion Week runs from 20th-25th February 2009.
Written by Jennifer McNulty on Wednesday January 21st, 2009 3:18 pm
If you’ve read my Elisa Palomino S/S 2012 preview interview with the designer, viagra sale you’ll know I’m already in love with her designs. The designer had invited me to pop backstage before the show to view her spring/summer collection up close and as I’d not experienced before, prostate the behind the scenes affairs of a fashion show, my curiosity was most definitely piqued!
Zooming past the infinite queue at Vauxhall Fashion Scout, I am escorted backstage by the lovely people of Blow PR, to the organised chaos of the catwalk performance in construction. I’m told Elisa is preoccupied right now, but if I return after the show, I may speak to her then. In the meantime, I decide to hover for a while, take in the scene and take some pictures.
With about twenty odd statuesque and fat free women towering over me, I’m feeling a little like a munchkin, but they look as nervous as I’m feeling, so I smile in support and swoon over their exaggerated 1920s style make-up and exquisite head-pieces. One minute they’re having their make-up applied and the next they’ve changed into one of Elisa’s opulent garments; everything is moving dizzyingly fast and the anticipation is transparent.
I spy Elisa, attired in her signature pink and adorning a pretty floral head-piece – she flits from one model to another, making sure all is as it should be. I realise I may be getting in the way as the phrase “excuse me” is directed at me for the umpteenth time and so I withdraw from the orderly pandemonium and retreat to the beautiful amphitheatre to await the performance.
If you’ve read my Elisa Palomino S/S 2012 preview interview with the designer, you’ll know I’m already in love with her designs. The designer had invited me to pop backstage before the show to view her spring/summer collection up close and as I’d not experienced before, the behind the scenes affairs of a fashion show, my curiosity was most definitely piqued!
Zooming past the infinite queue at Vauxhall Fashion Scout, I am escorted backstage by the lovely people of Blow PR, to the organised chaos of the catwalk performance in construction. I’m told Elisa is preoccupied right now, but if I return after the show, I may speak to her then. In the meantime, I decide to hover for a while, take in the scene and take some pictures.
With about twenty odd statuesque and fat free women towering over me, I’m feeling a little like a munchkin, but they look as nervous as I’m feeling, so I smile in support and swoon over their exaggerated 1920s style make-up and exquisite head-pieces. One minute they’re having their make-up applied and the next they’ve changed into one of Elisa’s opulent garments; everything is moving dizzyingly fast and the anticipation is transparent.
I spy Elisa, attired in her signature pink and adorning a pretty floral head-piece – she flits from one model to another, making sure all is as it should be. I realise I may be getting in the way as the phrase “excuse me” is directed at me for the umpteenth time and so I withdraw from the orderly pandemonium and retreat to the beautiful amphitheatre to await the performance.
Having had the chance to see the behind the scenes activities for the Elisa Palomino show, ask I am super excited and eager for the show to begin. Unlike the other shows I have seen at the Freemason’s Hall, thumb this one is to be performed in a majestic chamber upstairs; a room very well suited for Elisa’s A Fairy Dance collection. I am early, so I sift through the press materials and study the inspirations behind the clothes.
The culture of Madrid played a significant part in the creation of the stunning collection, with the conception of the intricate embroidered motifs taking root from pieces like the traditional shawl, a garment very much present in the city’s fiestas even today. Elisa’s S/S 2012 collection aspires to reawaken the opulence of a far away era, as well as paying homage to the Asian influence on embroidery and the Victorian Fairy Painting movement and in particular the narratives of Pre-Raphaelite fairy paintings. The collection is an expedition from Victorian suppression and lament to the luxury of uninhibited freedom.
Slowly but surely, the room is teeming with guests and familiar faces, all ready to enjoy the treasures of Elisa Palomino‘s collection. An ethereal melody fills the air and out drifts a fairy in mourning, attired in tense black taffeta, net and leather and freckled in contrasting white floral print. The glossy onyx hairpieces resemble frightful inanimate crows, harbingers of bad news. The extensive palette of colours range from bold black, red and white, to the pretty; powder blue and candy-floss pink and the tones of an Indian summer; sand, caramel and antique gold.
Floral cut-work mutate into giant white butterflies, set for flight and ready to escape to a brighter existence. Rich crimson robes float across the runway giving way to pretty pastel coloured organza with flora and fauna motifs, carefully embroidered using the bobbin technique. Iridescent and visceral fabrics, in 1930s silhouettes and increasingly impressive headpieces command the stage next. Once again the embroidery is intricate and enchanting and there’s a chorus of “ooh-ing” and “aah-ing” from somewhere behind me as images of Chinese tea-houses and pagodas sweep past.
One of my favourite details is the row of fabric coloured buttons trickling down the side of floor skimming, pin-tuck detailed and appliquéd café au lait dresses. It’s a good thing I do not lack self-restraint or I’d very likely be tackling the models to the ground and fleeing with the stunning garments they are wearing. And what of the hairpieces? Are they not extraordinary? I especially have my eye on the bird cage design and make a note to find out more about the designer, Angel Amor.
Elisa Palomino’s A Fairy Dance collection is undoubtedly worthy of the label couture and I can easily see celebrities wearing such opulent garments at red carpet events.
A resounding applause fills the room as the show ends and I make my way backstage in hope of a meeting with the designer and comments on her S/S 2012 collection. Elisa greets me enthusiastically and insists I should have introduced myself earlier, though she’d obviously been incredibly busy. For somebody who boasts such a remarkable curriculum vitae, Elisa comes across as incredibly humble and sincere.
Her family and friends are eager to congratulate her, but she encourages me to go ahead and ask her a few questions. So she can get to celebrating her beautiful show, I keep the interview very brief before heading home for a cup of tea and daydreams filled with sheer fabrics, lilies and hummingbirds and glorious headgear. Read my post show interview with Elisa Palomino below:
What did you make of that reverberating applause?
It was very exciting to hear! Were you pleased with the performance of the catwalk show?
Well, it’s difficult to say when you’re backstage, but the girls look really happy. I think the make-up and hair were really amazing; the team from Tony & Guy and Lan (Nguyen) were so divine. They perfectly translated the entire theme.
How long did it take to build the collection with all the intricate detailing involved?
Oh, a long time. About seven or eight months. Will you be taking some time out to relax now?
Oh no, there’s never time to take a break unfortunately. Since I started designing my own collections I haven’t had the opportunity to take a break or a holiday. There’s always work to be done. I guess it requires a lot of devotion!
What will you be doing next? Have you already conceived ideas for your next collection?
Oh yes, I’m already working on my next collection. Can you offer any hints as to what we might expect?
I am taking inspiration from eccentric women and there will always be the influence of the same kind of periods, the 1920s and 30s.
The delightful Elizabeth Lau has quickly built up a strong reputation as a quirky and playful designer to watch. In this interview I discover how she started her label, what influences her designs, and what defines an Elizabeth Lau girl.
When did you complete your studies at UCA Epsom and how long did it take to set up your own label?
I completed my Fashion Design degree in 2000, and worked first as an assistant stylist and then as an accessories designer in Hong Kong. During this time, I realised that I enjoyed it more when I was designing for myself and then I knew I wanted to launch my own label. Once this decision was made, everything happened super quickly as I knew exactly how I wanted the branding to be. From conception to having the first collection ready was 5 months. Looking back, launching the brand was the easy part. Keeping the label growing has been a lot harder, especially when you are a self funded indie brand. I wouldn’t mind having parents who own a factory or are in the fashion industry, as we probably wouldn’t have made so many costly mistakes!
Did you always know what kind of creative direction you would take?
In terms of branding, I always knew exactly how I wanted everything (logo, labelling, website and presentation materials) to look. All the graphics/web designers/artworkers we work with can testify that I am a control freak!! As for the design direction, I only design items that I would wear myself, so the brand is a true reflection of me, my loves and my personality. Very self indulgent but I have kept true to this throughout the life of the brand. The brand direction is always evolving as I am evolving as a person, but it still maintains its core values.
Was knitwear always an integral part of your idea? What do you think makes your knitwear so special?
Initially we presented dresses, outerwear and a couple of cardigans. Although designing and pattern cutting dresses and coats was a real labour of love for me, over time it was clear that our knitwear sold much better and was what buyers honed in on. This had a big impact on the direction of the brand. Demand meant we could meet the factory minimums without having to pay a surcharge or order more than necessary, so we started to offer more knitwear as a result and work to this strength. I think our knitwear has done well because it is of good quality, offers something different to what is in the shops but is still wearable and well priced. I try and come up with some original ideas every season.
What do you think defines the Elizabeth Lau look?
It is a contrast of sweet and cool, naïve yet chic. We came up with this definition a few seasons back and I think it really sums up the Elizabeth Lau London look.
How did you choose the model Annie Monroe for your S/S 2012 video? What were you looking for?
It was a stroke of good luck! I tweeted I was model casting for the S/S 2012 video and the lovely Ellen Burney (contributing editor to Lula) suggested Annie Monroe. I was already a fan of The Like and their 1960s style. I was looking for someone who would be a natural in front of the camera and not afraid to dance, so I knew Annie would be perfect for the video. We were over the moon that she was in London and that she agreed to do it. Everyone in the team agreed she was a real star; ultra professional, chilled and easy to work with. She got the vibe of the video straight away and improvised all her moves on the day. Then the techie wizards Future Jim and Jamie Ace did their magic and voila!
What inspired the S/S 2012 collection and how do you filter these references into a unique offering? S/S 2012 started off with our muse Olive Oyl (a childhood favourite) and grew from there… colours, ideas from the comic strip, the look of Olive and what I imagined her to wear now, and I guess most obviously a nautical theme and everything that comes with that mixed in with my signature style. I try not to over think it and inspirations are quite loosely interpreted.
What kind of girl enjoys wearing Elizabeth Lau?
I think it is girls who are individuals and appreciate clothes that are well cut, witty and fun. They are likely to be whimsical but also possess an inner confidence. My brand is not dictated by seasonal trends so they will wear Elizabeth Lau simply because they love it. I don’t want there to be an age limit either, as girlish charm is something that remains with you always.
Where can people buy Elizabeth Lau clothes?
Independent boutiques such as Fifi Wilson, Donna Ida, Amelie andNola. We have stockists and a loyal following in Japan and the Far East. When I get around to perfecting it, my e-boutique will be opening sometime in February!
Written by Amelia Gregory on Thursday January 26th, 2012 8:42 pm
Describing herself as an ex-Camden townie, the self-taught illustrator, Zarina Liew, has thrown her arms up at the big smoke and a career in marketing; and has chosen instead the serenity of the Cambridgeshire countryside, pencils, watercolours, and strange lonely creatures ridden by lust and self-ruin.
Her Hunter Series, eight inked paintings which exhibited at the Shoreditch Shuffle Festival, started life as a 24-page graphic novel. It tells the story of a gramaphone and a lonely creature, who forms an unlikely friendship with three musicians. She is driven by a need for company and music, they are captured by her beauty and seduced by her authority. The musicians fall into her charm and into her gramophone where they are trapped and eventually perish, singing songs of solidarity and love.
Over a virtual cup if Green Tea, we ask Liew a bit more about her curious creatures of emotional turmoil, her illustrative inspiration and whether or not she misses Camden.
Tell us about the Hunter Series.
I wanted The Hunter Series to be an extension of the original story both visually and metaphorically – a story within a story. You get a sense of the narrative from the different pieces, but as a whole, you see the Hunter for who she is – a hungry, lonely and melancholic being. It’s an illustration of lust and self-ruin; both the musicians and the Hunter are acting on impulse, blind to their terrible fates. Even though she is the one to end the men’s lives, the Hunter does not get what she wants. With no one to listen or play with, she’s alone again.
Where do you draw information for your characters from?
I draw most of my information from observing the people around me. I never assume that what you see in someone is what you get – everyone has a hidden interior of ambition and desire. Music plays a large part as well. I found the musicians for The Hunter listening to an unsigned band playing at the Dublin Castle in Camden – the Parallel Animals. After falling in love with them – and the front man! – I offered to sketch them during rehearsals and help out at their gigs. Seeing how hard local bands work at this music business, and how ruthless the whole industry is, gave me a sense of direction in depicting the musician’s fate in my artwork.
The emotional context of the characters is strong; the nature of lust and self-ruin… is this an expression of your own emotional turmoil?
I suppose yes – in a sense that all of my work is an expression of myself, my feelings and thoughts. I wouldn’t say that I am strongly affected by the nature of lust and self-ruin though, let’s just say that I am extremely aware of it in myself, and all too conscious of letting myself go, or losing control of who I am. As I mentioned earlier we all have a hidden interior of ambition and desire – acting on lust however (whatever the desire – money, sex, fame) can only lead to self-ruin. Sometimes I wonder if I’m making the right choices, I question why I did certain things and what is behind my motivations. It’s a constant cycle of self-reflection.
And finally, Camden vs Cambridge countryside… who wins?
This is a real toughie. Can I be wayward and say that weekdays are for Camden and weekends are for Cambridge?
During the week I get a lot of inspiration from the Camden kids, lovely hidden-away galleries and sweaty underpriced indie nights. By the weekend though it’s full of puffy tourists and very long queues for nothing.
That’s when I retreat to the gentle Cambridge countryside. It’s perfect for lethargic country strolls and relaxing afternoon teas; this is also where I get a lot of my inspiration down onto paper and start to paint. All the week’s bustle leaves my mind ready to draw in peace and quiet!
You can see more of her work here, or catch her at the Alternative Press Fair on Sunday 1st February where she will be featuring the Hunter Storybook alongside other homemade creations, and apparently, lots of Green Tea.
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Written by Luisa Gerstein on Tuesday January 13th, 2009 4:03 pm
©Thomas Voorn
©Thomas Voorn
