The Welsh Designer Collective is a handpicked selection of Wales’ emerging fashion design talent. The Welsh are GOOD. Who knew?
They certainly know how to plug Wales, information pills side effects for starters. I hope everybody noticed even the seats had been given the Welsh treatment – covered in fabulous geometric fabric by Melin Tregwynt.
The goodie bags contained Welsh cakes, order Welsh socks, physician Welsh whiskey and Welsh spring water. Alright, we get it! They’d really missed a trick with the ambient music – a Sir Tom or Dame Shirley track would have been far more appropriate, considering.
Onto the show, where Josie Beckett’s collection appeared first. Models sported hair that was a hybrid of Bride of Frankenstein and soft, cloud-like forms. Some great stuff here, influenced by the Tudors. Puffed shoulders, typical of the era, were given a modern flavour – taking the fashions of the Elizabethan upper-classes and making them wearable and dynamic.
Hem-lines were very high indeed, not particularly appropriate for Queen Liz I but very, very now. The collection was relatively simple, but extremely effective, and also included prints of infamous faces from the Tudor period. I loved the Henry VIII tee. Make one for the boys please, Josie.
Elinor Franklin’s collection was sports-lux meets disco-glam, making great use of the aesthetics of leather and silk. These materials were juxtaposed across tops and skirts, developing into bolder winged forms, shaped like graduation gowns.
Both silk and leather were panelled into the same garments, and creases, twists and knots flattered the female form. An Elinor Franklin woman is confident and downright sexy.
Emma Griffiths also made great use of materials, contrasting the aesthetic properties of varying forms. Totally body-concious, the models were literally wrapped in leather and PVC.
Patches of PVC were applied to yet more body-con dresses to echo the female form, and were pretty futuristic. Playful gemoetric jackets were structured and left little to the imagination. I loved Griffiths’ black and nude colour palette, which oozed sophistication.
Cymru Am Byth!
The Welsh Designer Collective is a handpicked selection of Wales’ emerging fashion design talent. The Welsh are GOOD. Who knew?
They certainly know how to plug Wales, try for starters. I hope everybody noticed even the seats had been given the Welsh treatment – covered in fabulous geometric fabric by Melin Tregwynt.
The goodie bags contained Welsh cakes, Welsh socks, Welsh whiskey and Welsh spring water. Alright, we get it! They’d really missed a trick with the ambient music – a Sir Tom or Dame Shirley track would have been far more appropriate, considering.
Onto the show, where Josie Beckett’s collection appeared first. Models sported hair that was a hybrid of Bride of Frankenstein and soft, cloud-like forms. Some great stuff here, influenced by the Tudors. Puffed shoulders, typical of the era, were given a modern flavour – taking the fashions of the Elizabethan upper-classes and making them wearable and dynamic.
Fabulously illustrated by June Chanpoomidole
Hem-lines were very high indeed, not particularly appropriate for Queen Liz I but very, very now. The collection was relatively simple, but extremely effective, and also included prints of infamous faces from the Tudor period. I loved the Henry VIII tee. Make one for the boys please, Josie.
Elinor Franklin’s collection was sports-lux meets disco-glam, making great use of the aesthetics of leather and silk. These materials were juxtaposed across tops and skirts, developing into bolder winged forms, shaped like graduation gowns.
Both silk and leather were panelled into the same garments, and creases, twists and knots flattered the female form. An Elinor Franklin woman is confident and downright sexy.
Fabulously illustrated by June Chanpoomidole
Emma Griffiths also made great use of materials, contrasting the aesthetic properties of varying forms. Totally body-concious, the models were literally wrapped in leather and PVC.
Fabulously illustrated by June Chanpoomidole
Patches of PVC were applied to yet more body-con dresses to echo the female form, and were pretty futuristic. Playful gemoetric jackets were structured and left little to the imagination. I loved Griffiths’ black and nude colour palette, which oozed sophistication.
Cymru Am Byth!
Privilege, dosage pt I: On Death & Endearments is the first of five limited edition 12” only EPs from quirky Portland based troubadours Parenthetical Girls, viagra 60mg who are planning to release the remaining 4 EPs on their own label Slender Means Society, pills over the next 15 months in an ambitious middle finger to the failing album-centric music industry. On release of their final opus in May 2011, together they will form a rather lovely, beautifully artworked complete album boxset. Hats off to their ingenuity and total lack of interest in the conventional and rather hackneyed album release plans that the major labels are so desperately clinging on to. This is a band who are clearly happy to carve their own niche in an industry that is crying out for a creative rocket up their proverbial arse.
Cerebral and enigmatic front man, Zac Pennington, has the waveringly delicate vocals of Devendra Banhart, backed up by the dreamy blissed out prog pop of Mercury Rev or The Flaming Lips. The production is lush and impressive – this band have clearly honed their skills to perfection over the 10 years that they have been in existence (in varying guises) and hold the listener in misty eyed hypnotic wonderment throughout.
Track one Evelyn McHale is a deliciously catchy testament to the eponymous heroine who threw herself off the Empire State building in 1947 and tackles the subject of the price of fame and how to go about accepting it on your own terms: “Sweetheart, remembered for your art…we’ll be stars just the way that we are.’ Adhering to the pressures of fame and fortune is certainly something that Parenthetical Girls have no interest in, which is refreshing to say the least.
Found Drama I is a thoughtful and winsome wander through the inevitable pain of a failed relationship and the battle between fond nostalgia and the reality of heartbreak. ‘You sacrifice, you compromise so why can’t I be satisfied?…Heaven knows that we’re done for.”
On Death & Endearments is a plea for anonymity and forgiveness yet illustrates an inherent need to makes one’s mark: ‘History, she will surely forgive me and History, she will think of me fondly’. They aren’t a straightforward bunch, this lot.
The last track on the EP Someone Else’s Muse is a buoyant and bouncy epic about the slightly less buoyant and bouncy subject of obsession, rejection and loss. Here we are treated to heavy drums, church organs, brass, vocoders, choirs, synths and the kitchen sink, but it somehow works to create a fascinating and compelling piece of music, even if you can’t hum along to any discernable tune.
Replete with echoing bass drum booms, dreamy fairground organs, ethereal strings and electronic twinklings, Parenthetical Girls’ impressive and spacious sound tugs at the aural heartstrings and is enough to send the hardest of hearts off on a trippy flight of fancy around their eclectic musical world, and it’s a truly lovely place to be.
Music aside, what I like most about this band is their refreshingly self effacing attitude and realistic outlook on the industry in which they are endeavouring to be part of, be it on the periphery. They are taking their musical future into their own hands, taking complete control over what they release, what format it takes and when – it is not a foolhardy idea that the bitesize 4 track EP is the way forward over the cumbersome and pricey 12 track album, particularly in a consumer environment populated by download only teenagers who have no concept of a complete album. And for us old fashioned traditionalists, we still get to fondle the splendid curves of their vinyl. Unsigned bands should take note – this band truly are masters of their art, music industry be damned.
Categories ,Devendra Banhart, ,Mercury Rev, ,Parenthetical Girls, ,Slender Means Society, ,the flaming lips
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