Amelia’s Magazine | My adventures at Practicum: British Fashion, put together by the British Council in Moscow

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011
The Moscow Practicum: British Fashion crew in Red Square. All photography by Amelia Gregory. (unless I am in the pic that is)

Just over a week ago I travelled to Moscow with the British Council to talk to a group of young fashion designers from across Europe as part of a educational program called Practicum: British Fashion. I travelled from the UK with Toby Meadows, pilule who offers advice to fashion designers with the Centre for Fashion Enterprise, sales and with Janine Passley, approved an expert in buying and sustainability practices for EI8HT who consults for ASOS.

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011
With Toby Meadows, Janine Passley and Michael Salac.

It was the first time that I have flown in nearly three years. R/H the label travelled from Finland by train to reduce their carbon footprint, but unfortunately it was just that little bit too far for me to do the same…

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011 with Janine Passley and Clare Lopeman
With Janine Passley and Clare Lopeman

It’s the second time I’ve been to Moscow: the first time having been in 2007 when I went there to discover up and coming creatives for issue 8 of Amelia’s Magazine. It takes under 5 hours to fly there, which seems remarkably close for a culture that is so very different from our own.

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011 with Evgenia Gerasimova
Practicum: British Fashion 2011 was put together by Evgenia Gerasimova, seen here introducing the programme.

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011 Kristian Steinberg
Kristian Steinberg gives us his pitch.

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011 Toby Meadows
Toby Meadows in front of a giant plastic bag sculpture in the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture.

Michael Salac of Blow PR joined us the next day, as did Clare Lopeman, a fashion designer and head of fashion at the British Higher School of Art and Design. Practicum: British Fashion took place in a wonderful old industrial complex known as the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, a huge hall that was built in 1926 as a bus garage and that now houses exhibitions, a cafe, lecture halls and a fantastic bookshop.

Moscow The Garage Centre of Contemporary Culture
Moscow’s The Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture.

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011 Toby Meadows
We ate a lot of canapes!

Together we made up a hopefully non scary panel of “experts” who listened to short pitches from the designers, who came from Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Finland, Denmark, Estonia and Latvia. We then offered our opinions and advice on how to improve their businesses – in my case this invariably meant encouraging sustainable practice and prompting them to improve their online presence. The next day it was our turn to lecture on our expert subjects, in my case, How to produce good promotional material that will attract editorial coverage in magazines, and how to promote your brand successfully on social media. Just some of my favourite subjects!

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion 2011 Michael Salac
Practicum: British Fashion lecture with Michael Salac

Moscow British Council Hede Kerstin Luik
Hede Kerstin Luik from the British Council in Estonia

I like teaching and lecturing so I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and it was lovely that so many people came up to me afterwards to tell me how inspired they were. I took loads of postcards with me and they all got taken which I take as a good sign!

Moscow British Council-after my talk

But what was undoubtedly the most brilliant part of the whole experience was the opportunity to meet lots of wonderfully talented people who are doing really interesting things in their own countries. Sitting at my computer all day every day I sometimes forget that I am very much a people person at heart, and I enjoy hanging out with other people. As is often the case at these kind of events some of the most important networking was done outside of official hours, when we were chatting at the hotel bar or exploring the extremely expensive rooftop bar at the Radisson Hotel which is housed in one of Moscow’s famous Seven Sisters – laughing as we all squished into the tiny lift to zoom up to the 29th floor, and then coming straight back down again when we discovered how expensive it was.

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Red Square
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Red Square

Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Red Square
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Red Square Soulland
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Red Square Soulland
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Radisson Hotel
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Radisson Hotel
Moscow Practicum: British Fashion Radisson Hotel
The incredibly fancy Radisson toilets…

We also got the opportunity to attend one of the many Russian Fashion Weeks, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, for which the British Council had flown over Lulu Kennedy of Fashion East to showcase three of her star designers: Marios Schwab, Louise Gray and James Long.

Moscow British Council-russian fashion week
Moscow British Council-russian fashion week
At Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, sponsored by, ahem, Tupperware.

Moscow BC 2011-partying after fashion week
Partying after fashion week shenanigans.

I’ll be writing up that experience in a separate blog post. In the meantime here are a bunch of pictures from my time in Moscow… fun times indeed. As a result it looks as though I will be attending Fashion Philosophy Fashion Week Poland in Lodz in early May 2011. Thankyou so much Evgenia Gerasimova and the British Council!

Moscow Red SQUARE soldiers
Soldiers in Red Square.

Moscow Dior advertising
Giant Dior advertising.

Moscow BCmy legs
My legs in the lift.

Moscow BC 2011-Michael and Emilia of R/H
Michael of Blow and Emilia of R/H

Moscow BC 2011-Lovely knitwear in Solyanka
Lovely knitwear in the shop at the Solyanka nightclub.

Moscow BC 2011-Red Square
Red Square

Moscow BC 2011-Russian Dolls
Lots of Russian dolls

Moscow BC 2011-Toby Meadows on the Metro
Toby Meadows on the Metro

Moscow BC 2011-Michael Salac and Janine Passley
Michael Salac and Janine Passley on the Metro

Moscow BC 2011-Metro

Moscow British Council-Amelia Gregory with cocktail
Enjoying an EXTREMELY expensive Cherry Pepper cocktail – like a meal in one!

Categories ,1926, ,ASOS, ,Blow PR, ,British Council, ,British Higher School of Art and Design, ,Carbon footprint, ,Centre for Contemporary Culture, ,Centre for Fashion Enterprise, ,Clare Lopeman, ,D.EFECT, ,Denmark, ,EI8HT, ,Estonia, ,Evgenia Gerasimova, ,fashion, ,Fashion East, ,Fashion Philosophy Fashion Week, ,finland, ,Fortytwo, ,garage, ,James Long, ,Janine Passley, ,Kristian Steinberg, ,Latvia, ,Lisa Shahno, ,Lodz, ,Louise Gray, ,Lulu Kennedy, ,Mareunrol’s, ,Marios Schwab, ,Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia, ,Michael Salac, ,Michaela Mazalanova, ,Moscow, ,Nadya Nurieva, ,Networking, ,poland, ,Practicum: British Fashion, ,R/H, ,R/H the label, ,Radisson, ,Red Square, ,Russia!, ,Seven Sisters, ,Slovakia, ,Slovenia, ,Social Networking, ,Soulland, ,sustainability, ,Toby Meadows, ,Tupperware

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Amelia’s Magazine | Seven Little Houses animation for the 4th Annual Aniboom Awards: the inside scoop.

It’s the day before the general election and the concluding part of Amelia’s Magazine interview with Think Act Vote founder Amisha Ghadiali. Tomorrow you have a chance to vote, mind order use it.

Why do you think if “politics were a brand, visit this no one would wear it!”?

This statement is about Westminster politics, symptoms in many ways the system we have is out of date for the world we are living in now. I don’t see people wanting to “wear” it as it is. This is why I really support the work of campaigns like Vote for a Change that focus their around how we can make the system work better for us.

How can fashion be used to engage people in Politics?

I think that fashion plays a key role in how we express ourselves and we use it to communicate things about ourselves or messages that we care about. The campaign t-shirt has become iconic as a phenomenon. At the beginning of the campaign, we ran a competition to design the perfect campaign t-shirt, which was a great opportunity for up and coming illustrators to showcase their work. The winning design by Jesson Yip was selected by a judging panel that included Katharine Hamnett and Daisy de Villeneuve. The symbols represent each word, with different fonts to represent different people’s voices. The design was then printed onto Earth Positive Eco T-shirts and is now on sale.

Through working in the ethical fashion industry I see fashion as a key way to think about sustainability. We all wear clothes, and the fashion industry affects so many people across the world as well as the environment. I work closely with Ethical Fashion designers at EFF and am one myself with my jewellery label. As an ethical designer, you don’t just have to make sure that your collection looks and fits great, but you spend a huge amount of time researching new fabrics, new technologies and finding out who is telling the truth about their labour standards or production methods. You need to be pioneering and inquisitive as you think through your entire collection and its impact on the environment and people at every stage.

Ethical Fashion designers are always pushing boundaries and are extremely passionate about what they do. I wanted to include this talent in the campaign and asked leading ethical fashion designers to create a show piece or an easy DIY customisation using a Think Act Vote t-shirt and off cuts from their collections. The designers that took part included Ada Zanditon, Junky Styling, Traid Remade, Tara Starlet and Beautiful Soul. The pieces that they created in just a week are stunning.

Think Act Vote discusses the negativity imbedded in modern politics – Were there any particular examples that spurred you into action?

There are loads of examples, just try and think when the last time you heard something positive about politicians or about changes in our communities. We are always focusing on people’s failings and the ‘fear’ out there. Just last week the country spent two days focusing on the story about Gordon Brown saying a woman was a bigot.

Is this negativity the reason, do you think, for the decline in the number of votes?

Not the only reason. Things have changed a lot over the last few decades. I think two features of the neo-liberal British political landscape are related: the rise of consumerism and the demise of traditional participation. I think that the way we express who we are is different now, not that many people are lifetime members of political parties. Political identity is no longer inherited.

As mentioned before I don’t think the political system reflects who we are, which makes us lose interest.

Have you been watching the Leader’s Debate?

I have seen bit of them, but not all the way through as have been doing talks and events most evenings in the past few weeks. I think it is great to have the leaders on TV, as it has really helped getting people talking about the election. I am not sure how much of their personalities and policies we are really seeing as the whole things does feel a little over polished. I think it would mean more if we had a vote on who was PM as well as on our local MP. I would also like to see some of the smaller parties be given this platform too.

Will you be voting this election?

Yes I will be voting, I think this is vital. I haven’t decided who for yet. I will decide on election day. I am deciding between three parties but then I went on Voter Power and saw that my voter power in my constituency is only 0.039. It is an ultra safe seat. So I am thinking about voting through Give Your Vote. It is a fantastic campaign about Global Democracy which allows you to give your vote to somebody in Afghanistan, Ghana or Bangladesh. It is an act of solidarity with those who do not have a say in the decisions that affect them.

Join Amisha tonight at: The Future I Choose with Live Music, Poetry, Fashion, Photography ??
The City and Arts Music Project, 70-74 City Road, London, EC1Y 2BJ?
5.30pm til 9pm

When Lesley Barnes found out about the 4th Annual Animboom Awards animation competition in conjunction with Sesame Street (Blimey, symptoms try saying that fast!), she just knew she had to work with fellow illustrator Thereza Rowe. The results of their collaboration is this wonderful piece: Seven Little Houses. You can also watch the video here.

Seven Little Houses clouds
Seven Little Houses bottles

Lesley Barnes describes how they approached the Aniboom competition:

One of the competition categories was to design an animation that would help children learn about either colours, shapes, numbers or letters. We chose the number seven as it seemed to give us scope to do a bit of counting without it being a huge number for kids to deal with and for some reason we both agreed that there was something special about an odd number.
We gave the animation a circular feel by creating it around the idea of a day, with the sun at the beginning and the moon at the end. Repetition was key so the narrative turns around lots of groups of seven; the idea being that children will get used to counting 124567 and begin to repeat it. As well as having the numbers on screen we included groups of seven objects; seven houses, seven bottles, seven clouds, etc. because it’s easier to visualise the numbers as objects.
The animation was mostly done in after effects and took about a month to finish. My friend Al Paxton, who is a musician in Brooklyn, provided the sound. It was his idea to have the voices (him and his girlfriend) shouting out 1234567 and I think it’s really important because it encourages children to shout out along with the animation.

twoofhearts_sheltercardquilt_lesleybarnes
Lesley Barnes’ illustration for the sShelter Card Quilt.

Thereza Rowe Shelter Card Quilt
Thereza Rowe’s illustration for the Shelter Card Quilt.

Lesley first got in touch with Thereza after admiring the playing card that she designed for my Shelter House of Cards Quilt in 2009, and since then they’ve kept in constant contact via email and twitter. I asked them to write down a few words about each other.

Lesley Barnes on Thereza Rowe:

We both had cards included on Amelia’s final Shelter Card Quilt and Thereza‘s goats – although she now tells me they are deer – were my favourite! Amelia’s Magazine has given us such a great platform for our work: we have been in touch ever since and knew that we wanted to do a collaboration at some point… When I saw the Aniboom Sesame Street competition I thought that Thereza’s textures, colours, shapes, illustration style and personality (including her love of pink milk and bendy straws) would be perfect for it. We started work with Thereza‘s house illustrations and from that we both designed a selection of characters. There were far too many in the end, so the final seven characters were a bit of an amalgamation of our work.
Working with Thereza was ace and the best thing was all the colour that she brought into the animation – my animation can sometimes get a bit monochromatic so it was such a pleasure to work with such a great selection of colours and textures. I also think that Thereza‘s lovely upbeat personality comes through in Seven Little Houses.

Seven Little Houses umbrellas

Thereza Rowe on Lesley Barnes:

When Lesley contacted me for the first time with some nice words about my work and a suggestion that we should collaborate in a future project I was so excited because as soon I set eyes on her stunning animation and illustration work I knew that we would eventually produce something really good together. Since then we have kept in touch whilst keeping an eye out for interesting briefs which would suit our ideas of a collaboration… and so the Aniboom competition came about!
Working with Lesley has been an ongoing joy as she’s creative, diligent, determined and hands on. We both share a similar sense of humour which is very important because it makes the working process a pleasant experience. As the project developed I was amazed to see how the aesthetics of our work just gelled together effortlessly, almost like magic. Surprisingly we have not met in person yet, although it feels like we have….
I am really proud of how she made our illustrations move in such a graceful manner and we’ve been receiving some lovely responses from people who have seen the animation. I’d also like to echo Lesley’s thoughts on the constant support and appreciation of the work we produce that we get from Amelia’s Magazine.

seven little houses
seven little houses people

I also wanted the girls to talk about the importance of Twitter to their collaboration, as I often see conversations between Lesley and Thereza passing through my own Twitter feed: it’s how I found out they were collaborating on the project for Aniboom, and it’s a medium I feel strongly that all illustrators should engage with.

Lesley on Twitter:
Twitter is an easy way of staying in touch and see what each other is up to. When you are a freelancer it’s great for reminding you that you are not completely alone in the world and means you can check out what’s inspiring other people, collaborate with them, get feedback and generally just have a bit of a chat.

Thereza on Twitter:
Using Twitter helped make the collaboration go more smoothly because Lesley and I were always tweeting bits of work in progress to each other and teasing other about what was coming next. I used to be very resistant to using Twitter but now I’m a self proclaimed addict because it’s enabled me to engage with some ace collaborations that otherwise might not have happened.
Twitter is probably the best current social tool for illustrators in terms of networking and establishing links with both the industry and peers as it provides an open channel for direct communication and it’s fab for promoting your own work and the work of others. I love the fact that Twitter is free of advertising and has a nice layout which allows you to customize your page background nicely. I’m really fussy about such factors…
Also, the job of an illustrator can often be a lonely one as we spend a great deal of time confined in our workspaces, well, working… so I tend to have my twitter page open through the day, so it almost feels like having lots of nice people around :)

Both Thereza Rowe and Lesley Barnes appear in Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration.

Categories ,Al Paxton, ,Amelia’s Anthology of Illustration, ,Aniboom, ,animation, ,brooklyn, ,collaboration, ,Goats, ,illustration, ,Lesley Barnes, ,Open brief, ,Sesame Street, ,Seven Little Houses, ,Shelter Card Quilt, ,Shelter House of Cards, ,Social Media, ,Social Networking, ,Thereza Rowe, ,twitter

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