Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2011: Illustrator Gareth does Menswear Day!

Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, treat enticingly printed on pearly lilac-y grey paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, and you can read the interview here. The pearly lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection – there were some nice ideas – especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s – but it didn’t exactly blow me away. And yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. But I did really love the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, cialis 40mg enticingly printed on pearly lilac-y grey paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, viagra order and you can read the interview here. The pearly lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection – there were some nice ideas – especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s – but it didn’t exactly blow me away. And yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. But I did really love the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, clinic enticingly printed on pearly lilac-y grey paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, buy more about and you can read the interview here. The pearly lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection – there were some nice ideas – especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s – but it didn’t exactly blow me away. And yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. But I did really love the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, remedy enticingly printed on pearly lilac paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou whoever thought to mention us, clinic it’s appreciated! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, and you can read the interview here. The lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection… there were some nice ideas; especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s. But it didn’t exactly blow me away, and yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. And I loved the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, side effects enticingly printed on pearly lilac paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou whoever thought to mention us, dosage it’s appreciated! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, visit and you can read the interview here. The lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection… there were some nice ideas; especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s. But it didn’t exactly blow me away, and yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. Here’s hoping that the next season might see the reintroduction of colour again. Go on Jayne!
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young.

Every now and again London Fashion Week throws out a curveball and you end up in the most random of places with the most ridiculous collection of people, physician wondering what the hell is going on. The Olivia Rubin show was just such an occasion.

I was very early to this show – a confluence of circumstances that left me standing at the front of a line outside the Jalouse nightclub in central London until I was completely numb with cold. From my prime vantage point I was able to ogle as the paps pounced on a series of D-Z list celebrities. I recognised Konnie Huq and footballer’s wife Danielle Lloyd but after that it was anyone’s guess. In my mind it’s never a good idea for the guests to overshadow a fashion show, dosage and especially not if I haven’t got a clue who they are.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

Once the celebs had been swept into the hallowed basement of Jalouse I too was invited in. I picked up a drink and swiftly headed towards the sunken seating area, viagra approved ignoring the protestations of the press girl to wait and see if there was space later on. As if! We’ve run an extensive interview with Olivia Rubin on this website and I didn’t much feel like standing around on my own anymore, so I plonked myself down next to a friendly looking bunch of people on a curved sofa. I soon discovered that the lad next to me was on work experience at a fashion magazine and somewhat in thrall to his first fashion week. Herein is revealed the ridiculousness of seating arrangements at fashion shows – at the end of the day they are completely arbitrary. Depending on who you know and whether you’re bolshy enough you can sit wherever you want, be you intern or editor.

Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon
Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon.

As guests slowly filled the club celebrities stepped up on to the catwalk at my head height to pose for the paps. First Danielle, swishing her hair this way and that like a prime racehorse. Then, to my delight, Laura Goodger and friends from The Only Way is Essex. Don’t worry, I had to look up her full name. I did watch a few episodes, but I’m not THAT SAD. By this point I was gobsmacked by the stunning level of celeb-dom in attendance. I later discovered that another fashion PR had been approached for tickets by the *cast* of The Only Way is Essex, but had rapidly turned them down as way too tacky. I must say, I don’t really understand the logic. Rather than making me think, way-hey, this must mean Olivia Rubin is really cool… it makes me utterly distracted… anthropologically fascinated by these strange creatures.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

The result? I spent the entire catwalk show trying to capture Lauren pouting and preening, rather than concentrating on the clothes – which in any case were hard to see against the glare of flashbulbs. Famous model Olivia Inge certainly enjoyed herself too; gunning at friends in the audience as she pranced down the catwalk.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

In a way it’s a shame that there was so much flimshaw surrounding this show because Olivia Rubin makes very cute clothes that feature colourful, fun prints and simple 80s styling. This collection encompassed giant splodgy animal prints, flowery brick designs and lacey goodness. To my mind not at all Essex.

As soon as the show was done the music leapt up to dancing volume, and yet more Essex girls headed to the toilets to touch up wondrously over-wrought hair and make-up that must surely have taken all day to perfect. I could happily have stayed next to the basins all night with my camera, but Matt and I instead drank free cocktails and put the world to rights.

You can read Matt Bramford’s fabby review here. Read our interview with Olivia Rubin here.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young.

Every now and again London Fashion Week throws out a curveball and you end up in the most random of places with the most ridiculous collection of people, viagra sale wondering what the hell is going on. The Olivia Rubin show was just such an occasion.

I was very early to this show – a confluence of circumstances that left me standing at the front of a line outside the Jalouse nightclub in central London until I was completely numb with cold. From my prime vantage point I was able to ogle as the paps pounced on a series of D-Z list celebrities. I recognised Konnie Huq and footballer’s wife Danielle Lloyd but after that it was anyone’s guess. In my mind it’s never a good idea for the guests to overshadow a fashion show, seek and especially not if I haven’t got a clue who they are.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

Once the celebs had been swept into the hallowed basement of Jalouse I too was invited in. I picked up a drink and swiftly headed towards the sunken seating area, ignoring the protestations of the press girl to wait and see if there was space later on. As if! We’ve run an extensive interview with Olivia Rubin on this website and I didn’t much feel like standing around on my own anymore, so I plonked myself down next to a friendly looking bunch of people on a curved sofa. I soon discovered that the lad next to me was on work experience at a fashion magazine and somewhat in thrall to his first fashion week. Herein is revealed the ridiculousness of seating arrangements at fashion shows – at the end of the day they are completely arbitrary. Depending on who you know and whether you’re bolshy enough you can sit wherever you want, be you intern or editor.

Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon
Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon.

As guests slowly filled the club celebrities stepped up on to the catwalk at my head height to pose for the paps. First Danielle, swishing her hair this way and that like a prime racehorse. Then, to my delight, Laura Goodger and friends from The Only Way is Essex. Don’t worry, I had to look up her full name. I did watch a few episodes, but I’m not THAT SAD. By this point I was gobsmacked by the stunning level of celeb-dom in attendance. I later discovered that another fashion PR had been approached for tickets by the *cast* of The Only Way is Essex, but had rapidly turned them down as way too tacky. I must say, I don’t really understand the logic. Rather than making me think, way-hey, this must mean Olivia Rubin is really cool… it made me utterly distracted… anthropologically fascinated by these strange creatures.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

The result? I spent the entire catwalk show trying to capture Lauren pouting and preening, rather than concentrating on the clothes – which in any case were hard to see against the glare of flashbulbs. Famous model Olivia Inge certainly enjoyed herself too; gurning at friends in the audience as she pranced down the catwalk.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

In a way it’s a shame that there was so much flimshaw surrounding this show because Olivia Rubin makes very cute clothes that feature colourful, fun prints and simple 80s styling. This collection encompassed giant splodgy animal prints, flowery brick designs and lacey goodness. To my mind not at all Essex.

As soon as the show was done the music leapt up to dancing volume, and yet more Essex girls headed to the toilets to touch up wondrously over-wrought hair and make-up that must surely have taken all day to perfect. I could happily have stayed next to the basins all night with my camera, but Matt and I instead drank free cocktails and put the world to rights.

You can read Matt Bramford’s fabby review here. Read our interview with Olivia Rubin here.


J.W. Anderson (not Gareth) photographed by Matt Bramford

It’s 8:45 on a cold wet Wednesday and I’m stalking the entrance to Somerset House, order waiting for Matt Bramford to come and meet me for my first ever day of London Fashion Week, check which I’ve come to with a view to doing some live fashion illustration. I’m feeling surprisingly calm, considering how out of my depth I’m expecting to find myself. I put my serenity down to sleep deprivation, busying myself with not looking too out of place. At the point where the security guards are starting to wonder what I’m hanging around for, Matt texts me and I amble off, as coolly as I can, to meet him at the doors into the main ‘Tent’.

As I arrive, Matt hands me my Press Pass and I feel like he’s given me a Willy Wonky Golden Ticket which provides access to a new and magical world. I flash it on the way into the Press Room where Matt picks up his stuff, hands me the ridiculously over-sized invitation to J.W. Anderson and we’re out again, straight into the queue for the show. The bouncer in charge of the queue takes a look at our invites and sends us to opposite sides of the room. I experiment with making myself look natural in my surroundings, the queue that Matt’s in gets allowed through, and once that’s cleared, my queue starts shuffling forward.


J.W. Anderson, photographed by Matt Bramford

I’m allowed past some rope barriers into the main room, and am… well, not unimpressed, rather just not as overwhelmed as I’d prepared myself for. The room’s long and poorly lit, its sides lined with rows of wooden benches, and a polythene-covered runway running up the middle – I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is a lot plainer than I’d thought it was going to be. I make my way over to the row of benches dictated by my ticket, and then busy myself with getting my video-camera, pad and pens ready. As the room settles down I realise that in an almost-full room, I’ve got an entire bench to myself, and am not sure whether to feel lucky or to take offence. 


All illustrations by Gareth A Hopkins

The room hushes as the polythene sheet is pulled away by some burly stagehands and then before I’m really ready for it the lights are on full-blast and there’s a man marching down the catwalk. I pop the lid off my pen, put the nib to the page and the model’s already been and gone. I wait for the next few guys to come and go, then pick my target and start frantically sketching. By the time he’s tucked away backstage I’ve managed to capture the top corner of his sleeve and that’s it. I write in my sketchbook “Shit, I can’t draw this fast” and get out my video camera, with a view to capturing the outfits and then working from the videos – the trouble is the lights are so bright that all I get on the viewing screen is a bright white shape moving at speed, like the aliens from Cocoon are parading for a crowd assembled in a gymnasium. 


J.W. Anderson, photographed by Matt Bramford

I realise that I’m not going to achieve very much through either drawing or filming, and so instead take the opportunity to enjoy the show, and concentrate on the clothes as much as I can. The clothes are sharply tailored, often military-style, but made out of combinations of textures and textiles – a jumper with furry arms and Barbour-style body for instance. There are also some skirts in there, which I think look pretty cool. The only thing I’m not keen on is the use of paisley, which of all patterns in the world is probably my least favourite. And then ‘Wave Of Mutilation’ by Pixies is playing over the PA and all the models are walking in a line to applause from the audience – in joining in, I manage to drop both my camera and my pad, and spend this final section of the show flicking my attention between applauding, watching the clothes and trying to find my dropped possessions. 

After it’s all over I re-locate Matt, who asks if I got much done, and I explain about my inability to draw as fast as I needed to. He reassures me by saying that next up is Sibling, who are holding a presentation, and that I’ll have much more time to get some decent drawing done. With some time to kill, we wait outside in the thankfully quite mild weather. Nick Bain comes and joins us after a while and tells us about Charlie Le Mindu’s show from earlier in the week and I feel a little disappointed that none of the models from JW Anderson’s show were covered in pig’s blood.

As 10:30am rolls around, we make our way up to the Sibling presentation. I don’t know what to expect from Sibling – I’d researched them in preparation and in all honesty wasn’t that fussed about them. Their mix of high fashion and self-aware bloke-ishness didn’t really do anything from me, but I kept an open mind. I know Nick loved the clothes on show, but I still can’t get behind it – I find their use of the ‘Kiss Pandas’ a bit boorish, and this combined with a inbuilt distrust of knitted ski masks and people dressed as pandas puts me on edge. That’s not to say I hate it, though – there’s a furry headwear/scarf combination that I wish I could get away with wearing, and I really like some of the jumpers. I manage to get some sketching of two of the outfits done, but find myself being more and more in the way of people with cameras and notebooks and pens tapping against their lips, and sidle out of the room after Matt and Nick. 
 


Sibling, photographed by Matt Bramford

Once outside I make the most of my half-day from work, and go back to my office for a few hours, to return for some more catwalk shows in the afternoon…

Look out for the rest of Gareth’s account tomorrow!

See Gareth’s illustrations in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration

Categories ,A/W 2011, ,Barbour, ,Charlie le Mindu, ,Cocoon, ,fashion, ,illustration, ,J.W. Anderson, ,Kiss, ,London Fashion Week, ,Matt Bramford, ,Menswear Day, ,Nick Bain, ,Pandas, ,Portico Rooms, ,press, ,Sibling, ,Somerset House, ,the pixies, ,Wave of Mutliation, ,Willy Wonka

Similar Posts:






Amelia’s Magazine | London Fashion Week A/W 2011: Illustrator Gareth does Menswear Day!

Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, treat enticingly printed on pearly lilac-y grey paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, and you can read the interview here. The pearly lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection – there were some nice ideas – especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s – but it didn’t exactly blow me away. And yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. But I did really love the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, cialis 40mg enticingly printed on pearly lilac-y grey paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, viagra order and you can read the interview here. The pearly lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection – there were some nice ideas – especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s – but it didn’t exactly blow me away. And yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. But I did really love the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, clinic enticingly printed on pearly lilac-y grey paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, buy more about and you can read the interview here. The pearly lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection – there were some nice ideas – especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s – but it didn’t exactly blow me away. And yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. But I did really love the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, remedy enticingly printed on pearly lilac paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou whoever thought to mention us, clinic it’s appreciated! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, and you can read the interview here. The lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection… there were some nice ideas; especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s. But it didn’t exactly blow me away, and yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. And I loved the jewellery – I’d love myself a bit of that I would.
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton
Jayne Pierson A/W 2011 by Ellie Sutton.

For Jayne Pierson I raced into town alone – yet another early morning show for which we only had one ticket, side effects enticingly printed on pearly lilac paper. This despite a very nice mention of our support in the accompanying press release – thankyou whoever thought to mention us, dosage it’s appreciated! We did in fact catch up with Jayne just prior to her show, visit and you can read the interview here. The lilac invite and goodie bag were not, however, an indicator of a colourful show but rather the favoured shade of lipstick. Kingdom of Shadows began on a black note and carried on in the same vein, broken up only by a curious grey and beige striped taffeta that is something of a Pierson signature but would not have looked out of place on curtains or a sofa in a certain type of house.

Jayne Pierson Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme
Jayne Pierson’s Kingdom of Shadows by Kerri-Ann Hulme.

Jayne Pierson formerly worked in the music business and this show felt deeply imbued with the remnants of an 80s rock sensibility. A gothic Victorian kind of rock, with swaggering shoulders and bunched bustle skirts. The models sported messy up dos, pallid faces with lilac lips and pin sharp shapely heels. Black tailored jackets featured inset patent fabric shoulders and cuffs, leather minidresses cowl-necked atop rubberised leggings. The sudden introduction of striped silk was balanced with patent detailing on collar, waist and cuffs – a jaunty pillbox hat set askance. Devore lacy velvet also made an appearance, not to mention a terribly racy see through crop top and leggings. I particularly liked the large but lightly draped silver jewellery by Fiona Paxton, who fuses Indian artisanship with a British punk sensibility and Bauhaus design. A corseted jumpsuit that hit the catwalk in a tipsy fashion was less desirable: the poor dresser must have got a shafting but I blame the model’s lack of boobs. What’s the point of a shaped bodice if there’s nothing to put in them?

Jayne took her bow on the catwalk accompanied by her celebrity model – which no one knew. I had to check in with the PR to find out who she was but I can’t for the life of me remember – apparently a Welsh singer of some description.

If I’m honest I’m not entirely sure what to make of this collection… there were some nice ideas; especially the strong shoulders and nipped in waists that recalled my fondest decade, the 80s. But it didn’t exactly blow me away, and yet again there was all that pesky black, which will never ever be my favourite fashion colour. Here’s hoping that the next season might see the reintroduction of colour again. Go on Jayne!
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young.

Every now and again London Fashion Week throws out a curveball and you end up in the most random of places with the most ridiculous collection of people, physician wondering what the hell is going on. The Olivia Rubin show was just such an occasion.

I was very early to this show – a confluence of circumstances that left me standing at the front of a line outside the Jalouse nightclub in central London until I was completely numb with cold. From my prime vantage point I was able to ogle as the paps pounced on a series of D-Z list celebrities. I recognised Konnie Huq and footballer’s wife Danielle Lloyd but after that it was anyone’s guess. In my mind it’s never a good idea for the guests to overshadow a fashion show, dosage and especially not if I haven’t got a clue who they are.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

Once the celebs had been swept into the hallowed basement of Jalouse I too was invited in. I picked up a drink and swiftly headed towards the sunken seating area, viagra approved ignoring the protestations of the press girl to wait and see if there was space later on. As if! We’ve run an extensive interview with Olivia Rubin on this website and I didn’t much feel like standing around on my own anymore, so I plonked myself down next to a friendly looking bunch of people on a curved sofa. I soon discovered that the lad next to me was on work experience at a fashion magazine and somewhat in thrall to his first fashion week. Herein is revealed the ridiculousness of seating arrangements at fashion shows – at the end of the day they are completely arbitrary. Depending on who you know and whether you’re bolshy enough you can sit wherever you want, be you intern or editor.

Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon
Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon.

As guests slowly filled the club celebrities stepped up on to the catwalk at my head height to pose for the paps. First Danielle, swishing her hair this way and that like a prime racehorse. Then, to my delight, Laura Goodger and friends from The Only Way is Essex. Don’t worry, I had to look up her full name. I did watch a few episodes, but I’m not THAT SAD. By this point I was gobsmacked by the stunning level of celeb-dom in attendance. I later discovered that another fashion PR had been approached for tickets by the *cast* of The Only Way is Essex, but had rapidly turned them down as way too tacky. I must say, I don’t really understand the logic. Rather than making me think, way-hey, this must mean Olivia Rubin is really cool… it makes me utterly distracted… anthropologically fascinated by these strange creatures.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

The result? I spent the entire catwalk show trying to capture Lauren pouting and preening, rather than concentrating on the clothes – which in any case were hard to see against the glare of flashbulbs. Famous model Olivia Inge certainly enjoyed herself too; gunning at friends in the audience as she pranced down the catwalk.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

In a way it’s a shame that there was so much flimshaw surrounding this show because Olivia Rubin makes very cute clothes that feature colourful, fun prints and simple 80s styling. This collection encompassed giant splodgy animal prints, flowery brick designs and lacey goodness. To my mind not at all Essex.

As soon as the show was done the music leapt up to dancing volume, and yet more Essex girls headed to the toilets to touch up wondrously over-wrought hair and make-up that must surely have taken all day to perfect. I could happily have stayed next to the basins all night with my camera, but Matt and I instead drank free cocktails and put the world to rights.

You can read Matt Bramford’s fabby review here. Read our interview with Olivia Rubin here.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011 by Jane Young.

Every now and again London Fashion Week throws out a curveball and you end up in the most random of places with the most ridiculous collection of people, viagra sale wondering what the hell is going on. The Olivia Rubin show was just such an occasion.

I was very early to this show – a confluence of circumstances that left me standing at the front of a line outside the Jalouse nightclub in central London until I was completely numb with cold. From my prime vantage point I was able to ogle as the paps pounced on a series of D-Z list celebrities. I recognised Konnie Huq and footballer’s wife Danielle Lloyd but after that it was anyone’s guess. In my mind it’s never a good idea for the guests to overshadow a fashion show, seek and especially not if I haven’t got a clue who they are.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

Once the celebs had been swept into the hallowed basement of Jalouse I too was invited in. I picked up a drink and swiftly headed towards the sunken seating area, ignoring the protestations of the press girl to wait and see if there was space later on. As if! We’ve run an extensive interview with Olivia Rubin on this website and I didn’t much feel like standing around on my own anymore, so I plonked myself down next to a friendly looking bunch of people on a curved sofa. I soon discovered that the lad next to me was on work experience at a fashion magazine and somewhat in thrall to his first fashion week. Herein is revealed the ridiculousness of seating arrangements at fashion shows – at the end of the day they are completely arbitrary. Depending on who you know and whether you’re bolshy enough you can sit wherever you want, be you intern or editor.

Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon
Olivia Rubin by Karolina Burdon.

As guests slowly filled the club celebrities stepped up on to the catwalk at my head height to pose for the paps. First Danielle, swishing her hair this way and that like a prime racehorse. Then, to my delight, Laura Goodger and friends from The Only Way is Essex. Don’t worry, I had to look up her full name. I did watch a few episodes, but I’m not THAT SAD. By this point I was gobsmacked by the stunning level of celeb-dom in attendance. I later discovered that another fashion PR had been approached for tickets by the *cast* of The Only Way is Essex, but had rapidly turned them down as way too tacky. I must say, I don’t really understand the logic. Rather than making me think, way-hey, this must mean Olivia Rubin is really cool… it made me utterly distracted… anthropologically fascinated by these strange creatures.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

The result? I spent the entire catwalk show trying to capture Lauren pouting and preening, rather than concentrating on the clothes – which in any case were hard to see against the glare of flashbulbs. Famous model Olivia Inge certainly enjoyed herself too; gurning at friends in the audience as she pranced down the catwalk.

Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia GregoryOlivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory
Olivia Rubin A/W 2011. Photography by Amelia Gregory.

In a way it’s a shame that there was so much flimshaw surrounding this show because Olivia Rubin makes very cute clothes that feature colourful, fun prints and simple 80s styling. This collection encompassed giant splodgy animal prints, flowery brick designs and lacey goodness. To my mind not at all Essex.

As soon as the show was done the music leapt up to dancing volume, and yet more Essex girls headed to the toilets to touch up wondrously over-wrought hair and make-up that must surely have taken all day to perfect. I could happily have stayed next to the basins all night with my camera, but Matt and I instead drank free cocktails and put the world to rights.

You can read Matt Bramford’s fabby review here. Read our interview with Olivia Rubin here.


J.W. Anderson (not Gareth) photographed by Matt Bramford

It’s 8:45 on a cold wet Wednesday and I’m stalking the entrance to Somerset House, order waiting for Matt Bramford to come and meet me for my first ever day of London Fashion Week, check which I’ve come to with a view to doing some live fashion illustration. I’m feeling surprisingly calm, considering how out of my depth I’m expecting to find myself. I put my serenity down to sleep deprivation, busying myself with not looking too out of place. At the point where the security guards are starting to wonder what I’m hanging around for, Matt texts me and I amble off, as coolly as I can, to meet him at the doors into the main ‘Tent’.

As I arrive, Matt hands me my Press Pass and I feel like he’s given me a Willy Wonky Golden Ticket which provides access to a new and magical world. I flash it on the way into the Press Room where Matt picks up his stuff, hands me the ridiculously over-sized invitation to J.W. Anderson and we’re out again, straight into the queue for the show. The bouncer in charge of the queue takes a look at our invites and sends us to opposite sides of the room. I experiment with making myself look natural in my surroundings, the queue that Matt’s in gets allowed through, and once that’s cleared, my queue starts shuffling forward.


J.W. Anderson, photographed by Matt Bramford

I’m allowed past some rope barriers into the main room, and am… well, not unimpressed, rather just not as overwhelmed as I’d prepared myself for. The room’s long and poorly lit, its sides lined with rows of wooden benches, and a polythene-covered runway running up the middle – I don’t know what I was expecting, but this is a lot plainer than I’d thought it was going to be. I make my way over to the row of benches dictated by my ticket, and then busy myself with getting my video-camera, pad and pens ready. As the room settles down I realise that in an almost-full room, I’ve got an entire bench to myself, and am not sure whether to feel lucky or to take offence. 


All illustrations by Gareth A Hopkins

The room hushes as the polythene sheet is pulled away by some burly stagehands and then before I’m really ready for it the lights are on full-blast and there’s a man marching down the catwalk. I pop the lid off my pen, put the nib to the page and the model’s already been and gone. I wait for the next few guys to come and go, then pick my target and start frantically sketching. By the time he’s tucked away backstage I’ve managed to capture the top corner of his sleeve and that’s it. I write in my sketchbook “Shit, I can’t draw this fast” and get out my video camera, with a view to capturing the outfits and then working from the videos – the trouble is the lights are so bright that all I get on the viewing screen is a bright white shape moving at speed, like the aliens from Cocoon are parading for a crowd assembled in a gymnasium. 


J.W. Anderson, photographed by Matt Bramford

I realise that I’m not going to achieve very much through either drawing or filming, and so instead take the opportunity to enjoy the show, and concentrate on the clothes as much as I can. The clothes are sharply tailored, often military-style, but made out of combinations of textures and textiles – a jumper with furry arms and Barbour-style body for instance. There are also some skirts in there, which I think look pretty cool. The only thing I’m not keen on is the use of paisley, which of all patterns in the world is probably my least favourite. And then ‘Wave Of Mutilation’ by Pixies is playing over the PA and all the models are walking in a line to applause from the audience – in joining in, I manage to drop both my camera and my pad, and spend this final section of the show flicking my attention between applauding, watching the clothes and trying to find my dropped possessions. 

After it’s all over I re-locate Matt, who asks if I got much done, and I explain about my inability to draw as fast as I needed to. He reassures me by saying that next up is Sibling, who are holding a presentation, and that I’ll have much more time to get some decent drawing done. With some time to kill, we wait outside in the thankfully quite mild weather. Nick Bain comes and joins us after a while and tells us about Charlie Le Mindu’s show from earlier in the week and I feel a little disappointed that none of the models from JW Anderson’s show were covered in pig’s blood.

As 10:30am rolls around, we make our way up to the Sibling presentation. I don’t know what to expect from Sibling – I’d researched them in preparation and in all honesty wasn’t that fussed about them. Their mix of high fashion and self-aware bloke-ishness didn’t really do anything from me, but I kept an open mind. I know Nick loved the clothes on show, but I still can’t get behind it – I find their use of the ‘Kiss Pandas’ a bit boorish, and this combined with a inbuilt distrust of knitted ski masks and people dressed as pandas puts me on edge. That’s not to say I hate it, though – there’s a furry headwear/scarf combination that I wish I could get away with wearing, and I really like some of the jumpers. I manage to get some sketching of two of the outfits done, but find myself being more and more in the way of people with cameras and notebooks and pens tapping against their lips, and sidle out of the room after Matt and Nick. 
 


Sibling, photographed by Matt Bramford

Once outside I make the most of my half-day from work, and go back to my office for a few hours, to return for some more catwalk shows in the afternoon…

Look out for the rest of Gareth’s account tomorrow!

See Gareth’s illustrations in Amelia’s Compendium of Fashion Illustration

Categories ,A/W 2011, ,Barbour, ,Charlie le Mindu, ,Cocoon, ,fashion, ,illustration, ,J.W. Anderson, ,Kiss, ,London Fashion Week, ,Matt Bramford, ,Menswear Day, ,Nick Bain, ,Pandas, ,Portico Rooms, ,press, ,Sibling, ,Somerset House, ,the pixies, ,Wave of Mutliation, ,Willy Wonka

Similar Posts:






Amelia’s Magazine | Dispatches: Fashion’s Dirty Secret


Illustration by Antonia Parker

Saying you work in fashion normally garners one of two reactions: awe with a smidgen of jealousy on the presumption all you do is swan around with fabrics and making swishy type movements before dashing off to an exotic shoot/party/event of the year, more about ambulance or utter contempt.

On arriving at a friend’s boyfriend’s drinks it was the second reaction I received. He and his friends were doing a masters degree in ethical business, seek and had I arrived dressed as Cruella DeVil with a baby’s head on a silver platter I possible would have got a warmer reception. As allegedly glamorous as fashion is, medicine it is also many people’s favourite whipping boy. Neither picture is entirely true.

Channel 4’s Dispatches programme exposed the vile, undeniably horrific and illegal working conditions of UK based sweatshops. Showing the secret film to a sweatshop surveyor, he stated these compared to some of the worst conditions he’s seen in the Far East. The conditions in the sweatshop should never be allowed to happen regardless of where it is in the world: Leicester or Laos it really doesn’t matter.


Illustration by Karolina Burdon

The UK High Street actually has some very high standards when it comes to treatment of labourers. The retailers featured, including New Look, Peacocks and Jane Norman stated their supply chains were SEDEX approved. SEDEX allows retailers to independently demonstrate their commitment to ethics. Obviously this self regulation had failed. Each retailer appeared to take on board the facts and launch appropriate investigations into sub-contracting. If only they had been more proactive in the first place.

One retailer leading the way in the UK is ASOS. In the last few months they have built on the successes of Fashion Enter, a not-for-profit enterprise, specialising in garment sampling and helped them open a dedicated ASOS factory. Having a UK based factory will not only cut transport costs, carbon footprints, and lower turnaround times for ASOS but also boost the local economy.

It’s thanks to programmes like Dispatches that public awareness of poor working conditions is being raised. This is undeniably a good thing. Sweatshops like this should not be allowed to exist.

Let’s look at the facts for a moment. The story doesn’t end there and Dispatches, to their credit, touched on it. The existence of fast fashion and super cheap clothes has a huge role to play in the existence of sweatshops. In yesteryear clothes were luxury items, to be worn over and over; to be mended and repaired, to be recycled into new garments. Not so anymore.  Some of the responsibility must inevitably fall on the heads of all of us. How often have you bought a cheap top, or bargain basement jeans, or a £15 dress that was such a steal it’d be rude not to buy it? I know I have (not the dress, but you get the picture). How often do you really think about where that has come from? The Dispatches vox pop revealed that few people actually do.


Illustration by Willa Gebbie

The fact is until UK consumers begin to demand better working conditions and simultaneously agree to pay for them little will change. When asked why UK retailers rarely manufacture in the UK anymore, the answer is simple. The UK consumer won’t pay the necessary price. Why do these sweatshops exist? Because on ever dwindling profit margins short cuts will happen. Blind eyes will be turned – a feeling echoed by both Mary Portas and Melanie Rickey in their tweets after the show. Such things are, again, totally unacceptable.

I used to get asked to make outfits for people. When I gave honest rock bottom quotes, I found most of these requests vanished. Why pay £100 for a shirt when you can go down town and get one for a tenner? Scales of economy and an essentially bespoke service aside, it’s the same thing. Regardless of who does it, every piece has to be cut, every seam sewn, and every feature, rhinestone, embellishment and sequin attached. A suit has over 140 separate pieces, a zipper five, a shirt cuff six or more including buttons and buttonholes.

A lot of work goes into the shirt on your back. Those making it deserve to get paid a living wage, and work in safe conditions. Those manufacturing deserve to make a profit. The consumer deserves quality goods at the right price. At some point someone is going to lose out. Nine times out of ten this will be the person we can’t directly see.


Illustration by Karolina Burdon

So what do we do? A little bit of research goes a long way. Check out responsible manufacturers, check out your local boutiques (a small designer is often more likely to be ethical and more importantly the chance of bumping into someone in the same outfit is greatly reduced), check out eco-fashion labels (for instance in Amelia’s new book) or places like Traid, and check out ASOS’ own brand.Your t-shirt may cost £25 instead of £5, your jeans £40 instead of £15, but in each tiny way it’ll help stop sweatshops.

As one of the members of the public on the programme stated, ‘we each have to buy within our means, but that doesn’t mean buying irresponsibly.’

To watch the documentary on Channel 4′s 4oD, click here.

Categories ,Antonia Parker, ,ASOS, ,Channel 4, ,designers, ,Dispatches, ,ethical, ,Far East, ,fashion, ,Fashion Enter, ,High Street, ,Jane Norman, ,Laos, ,Leicester, ,Mary Portas, ,Melanie Rickey, ,New Look, ,Peacocks, ,SEDEX, ,Sweatshops, ,traid, ,Willa Gebbie

Similar Posts:






Amelia’s Magazine | Fashion on Film: Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

thumbnailthe_books_jpeg

It’s nigh-on impossible to define The Books, approved or the genre of music that they create. Because they are relying on an ever changing source of material as their inspiration, so too does their music morph and flow into new directions and styles; a constant evolution of sounds. If pressed, you could say that they were a ‘folktronica’ band, but even then, this doesn’t deal with the complexities of their music. Building a track out of a computer can sometimes render a song as cold and clinical as the software on which it was created, but The Books have a warmth and deftness of touch that permeates through their work and makes each song seem human. It’s no coincidence then that the men behind The Books, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong are both highly attuned to their surroundings, appreciating and needing to be immersed in the natural world in order to do what they do. I caught up with the both of them on the phone; I was sat in noisy old Brick Lane, they were calling from their homes in New York State. I was a little jealous.

Can you talk me through the creation and the concept of your new album, The Way Out?
Nick: Basically the primary instrument of The Books is the sample library and Paul is the master librarian. So I will let you fill him on the creation of that…..
Paul: Since we’ve started I have always been a collector of sounds and images. When we started going on tour about five or six years ago I had the opportunity to visit a lot of different cities in the US and worldwide, and when there was time, I would try to hit as many thrift stores and book stores as I could find and pick up LP’s and tapes and video tapes. So by the time I would get home I would have a room full of new material that I could then get cut into new samples. In the past four years the library really grew enormously. I had so much material about certain subjects that they kind of presented themselves out of the library, it gave us a real choice to find a body of samples that deal with a certain subject that we can then create a new narrative from. In the first track of the record (Group Autogenics I) there are a lot of samples from hypnotherapy recordings and self help records. We had a lot of those samples so we had the opportunity to use the best ones. The way these people speak makes them really easy to cut; because they separate their voices and they speak very slowly, so we could move their voices around at will and create a completely new narrative out of that.
Nick: Then the next step in the process is to figure out how it all fits together, which is an equally obsessive process!

Are your roles clear cut? How does the creative process work?
Nick: There is a significant crossover in our roles, but the basic dynamic is that Paul is the collector and I am the composer.

If you are assimilating that much material in your library, I’m guessing the process of recording an album must take a long time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s hard to finish one track in less than a month!

So, when you create your work and put that much effort into it, does it automatically have to lead to an album? Is it too much effort to just create one single?
Nick: No, we have done some one-off singles in the past, and we have also done remixes for people.
Paul: We made a song for the Cultural Ministry in France for their elevators recently and we recorded a Nick Drake song for a compilation. (Featured on Louisiana; compiled by Kenneth Bager). So we do shorter projects but we like the idea of having an album and a body of work. It’s a good reflection of a period of time and work for us.

Is there a particular concept or narrative to this album?
Nick: There is no center to it, necessarily. The hypnotherapy samples frame the record, I think; we are trying to go deeper, not in an overbearing way, but in kind of a playful style.

I see what you mean about the playfulness…. In the hypnotherapy samples, I distinctly heard the Doctor say “you will get fat and lose your self esteem”. That doesn’t sound like typical hypnotherapy to me!
Nick: Of course, that wasn’t its original form. That was Pauls mission, to turn a weight loss record into a weigh gain record! (laughs) So he was able to pull different fragments from the same tape and rearrange them to mean their opposite.
Paul: Nothing is quite what it appears to be. Not that the original songs can’t stand by themselves, it just means that in this new narrative they take on another identity. The only track that is completely undoctored is the track of Ghandi making a short statement, which is something that is so beautiful in itself and so deep that you don’t want to change it, you just want to pass it on.

Is there is a particular way that your tracks come together? Is it samples first, then lyrics?
Nick: I think that Paul and I are always working in parallel, while he is putting the library together I am sketching out melodies and different kinds of musical textures. Eventually the work that I am doing and the work that Paul is doing comes together somehow and there’s a kind of resonance; we call it the ‘critical mass moment’ where it looks like there is something that is worth exploring in a deeper way. Once you have the body of samples that you want to use and a rhythm and a melody you can start to figure out where the beginning is.

You both clearly have a symbiotic relationship, but do you ever come to each other with work that doesn’t mesh well or work out?
Nick: I think that’s most of the time (laughs) There is so much going on in both of our computers that there is always something in there that’s worth pursuing, but yeah, there is a lot of trial and error. I sometimes think of it as an evolutionary approach to music. Brian Eno has used the word ‘emergence’ which I like. There is a lot of chaos and a lot of sounds going every which way and every once in a while, the sounds find each other in a way that is really unexpectedly beautiful. You know, like the way that organisms will mutate and change over time into something completely different. I think, we look at those moments that are worth saving and let them grow on each other and eventually we have something.

Was there anything in particular that was inspiring you while you were creating this record, or was it a case of just having your ear to the ground and seeing what comes your way?
Nick: It’s both, for sure.

I was wondering if your surroundings affect your work; you both live in the Catskill Mountains (in New York State). I can imagine that it’s quite an experience to be surrounded by such peace and tranquility.
Nick: Yeah, I have spent a lot of time in my life living outside, and to have that more direct connection to the natural world has always been a way for me to stay sane.

Do you mean that you have literally lived outside?
Nick: Uh-huh, I spend a lot of time camping and hiking, going on extremely long hikes. (pauses) There is the standard existential crisis that you have in your twenties when you realise that you are probably going down a path that you really don’t want to be on, and hiking was a way for me to reset my life at that time, so now living out here in the mountains just makes me feel at home, it always brings me back to that deciding moment in my life.

Do you switch off when you are hiking, or are you busy thinking up new melodies?
Nick: It’s more of a complete emptying of my thought process; that’s been its value to me, a time where I can leave everything behind. That’s where everything starts from, the silence, and I could never find it in the city, it was so chaotic and noisy that I needed to change my surroundings in order to make the work that I wanted to make.

I have read that you both have your own recording studios in your homes.
Nick: Yes, that is a key part to it, we never pay for studio time.

I’m guessing that this gives you the freedom to experiment when you are not watching the clock, and paying for the time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s sort of a complicated idea, but I think what we are doing is nu-folk music; people are taking technology out of the hands of corporations and big businesses and into their homes. The folk instrument of our time is the computer, and it’s changed how people make music. You see a lot of music coming out of the woodwork now where people are living with the music instead of doing it in a rush in some expensive place, they can pick away at it.

I’m curious if you focus as much on visuals as you do on audio; do you incorporate visuals into your live shows?
Paul: Yes, the visuals came about because we really didn’t start as a live project at all, we were just making music at our homes in our studios, and once we found out that it’s really the only way to sustain ourselves with our music – to go on the road, we saw that as an opportunity to create something around our visual interests so we started creating videos. In the beginning we retrofitted our videos with our music, and now we are moving towards creating a video library which is being created in the same way as the sound library. When we are on the stage we call the video screen our frontman. It’s more than just a light show or a vectorial, it comes more to the foreground than the live musicians.

You’ve recently been touring around Europe. Do you have plans to do more touring, I can imagine that the whole process takes a lot of effort!
Nick: Well there is no effort in the sense that we don’t jump on stage very much! The real limitations are that we both have young children so we don’t leave home too much at this point in our lives, but we will be back in Europe sometime next year.

YouTube Preview Image

It’s nigh-on impossible to define The Books, pharmacy or the genre of music that they create. Because they are relying on an ever changing source of material as their inspiration, case so too does their music morph and flow into new directions and styles; a constant evolution of sounds. If pressed, you could say that they were a ‘folktronica’ band, but even then, this doesn’t deal with the complexities of their music. Building a track out of a computer can sometimes render a song as cold and clinical as the software on which it was created, but The Books have a warmth and deftness of touch that permeates through their work and makes each song seem human. It’s no coincidence then that the men behind The Books, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong are both highly attuned to their surroundings, appreciating and needing to be immersed in the natural world in order to do what they do. I caught up with the both of them on the phone; I was sat in noisy old Brick Lane, they were calling from their homes in New York State. I was a little jealous.

Can you talk me through the creation and the concept of your new album, The Way Out?
Nick: Basically the primary instrument of The Books is the sample library and Paul is the master librarian. So I will let you fill him on the creation of that…..
Paul: Since we’ve started I have always been a collector of sounds and images. When we started going on tour about five or six years ago I had the opportunity to visit a lot of different cities in the US and worldwide, and when there was time, I would try to hit as many thrift stores and book stores as I could find and pick up LP’s and tapes and video tapes. So by the time I would get home I would have a room full of new material that I could then get cut into new samples. In the past four years the library really grew enormously. I had so much material about certain subjects that they kind of presented themselves out of the library, it gave us a real choice to find a body of samples that deal with a certain subject that we can then create a new narrative from. In the first track of the record (Group Autogenics I) there are a lot of samples from hypnotherapy recordings and self help records. We had a lot of those samples so we had the opportunity to use the best ones. The way these people speak makes them really easy to cut; because they separate their voices and they speak very slowly, so we could move their voices around at will and create a completely new narrative out of that.
Nick: Then the next step in the process is to figure out how it all fits together, which is an equally obsessive process!

Are your roles clear cut? How does the creative process work?
Nick: There is a significant crossover in our roles, but the basic dynamic is that Paul is the collector and I am the composer.

If you are assimilating that much material in your library, I’m guessing the process of recording an album must take a long time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s hard to finish one track in less than a month!

So, when you create your work and put that much effort into it, does it automatically have to lead to an album? Is it too much effort to just create one single?
Nick: No, we have done some one-off singles in the past, and we have also done remixes for people.
Paul: We made a song for the Cultural Ministry in France for their elevators recently and we recorded a Nick Drake song for a compilation. (Featured on Louisiana; compiled by Kenneth Bager). So we do shorter projects but we like the idea of having an album and a body of work. It’s a good reflection of a period of time and work for us.

Is there a particular concept or narrative to this album?
Nick: There is no center to it, necessarily. The hypnotherapy samples frame the record, I think; we are trying to go deeper, not in an overbearing way, but in kind of a playful style.

I see what you mean about the playfulness…. In the hypnotherapy samples, I distinctly heard the Doctor say “you will get fat and lose your self esteem”. That doesn’t sound like typical hypnotherapy to me!
Nick: Of course, that wasn’t its original form. That was Pauls mission, to turn a weight loss record into a weigh gain record! (laughs) So he was able to pull different fragments from the same tape and rearrange them to mean their opposite.
Paul: Nothing is quite what it appears to be. Not that the original songs can’t stand by themselves, it just means that in this new narrative they take on another identity. The only track that is completely undoctored is the track of Ghandi making a short statement, which is something that is so beautiful in itself and so deep that you don’t want to change it, you just want to pass it on.

Is there is a particular way that your tracks come together? Is it samples first, then lyrics?
Nick: I think that Paul and I are always working in parallel, while he is putting the library together I am sketching out melodies and different kinds of musical textures. Eventually the work that I am doing and the work that Paul is doing comes together somehow and there’s a kind of resonance; we call it the ‘critical mass moment’ where it looks like there is something that is worth exploring in a deeper way. Once you have the body of samples that you want to use and a rhythm and a melody you can start to figure out where the beginning is.

You both clearly have a symbiotic relationship, but do you ever come to each other with work that doesn’t mesh well or work out?
Nick: I think that’s most of the time (laughs) There is so much going on in both of our computers that there is always something in there that’s worth pursuing, but yeah, there is a lot of trial and error. I sometimes think of it as an evolutionary approach to music. Brian Eno has used the word ‘emergence’ which I like. There is a lot of chaos and a lot of sounds going every which way and every once in a while, the sounds find each other in a way that is really unexpectedly beautiful. You know, like the way that organisms will mutate and change over time into something completely different. I think, we look at those moments that are worth saving and let them grow on each other and eventually we have something.

Was there anything in particular that was inspiring you while you were creating this record, or was it a case of just having your ear to the ground and seeing what comes your way?
Nick: It’s both, for sure.

I was wondering if your surroundings affect your work; you both live in the Catskill Mountains (in New York State). I can imagine that it’s quite an experience to be surrounded by such peace and tranquility.
Nick: Yeah, I have spent a lot of time in my life living outside, and to have that more direct connection to the natural world has always been a way for me to stay sane.

Do you mean that you have literally lived outside?
Nick: Uh-huh, I spend a lot of time camping and hiking, going on extremely long hikes. (pauses) There is the standard existential crisis that you have in your twenties when you realise that you are probably going down a path that you really don’t want to be on, and hiking was a way for me to reset my life at that time, so now living out here in the mountains just makes me feel at home, it always brings me back to that deciding moment in my life.

Do you switch off when you are hiking, or are you busy thinking up new melodies?
Nick: It’s more of a complete emptying of my thought process; that’s been its value to me, a time where I can leave everything behind. That’s where everything starts from, the silence, and I could never find it in the city, it was so chaotic and noisy that I needed to change my surroundings in order to make the work that I wanted to make.

I have read that you both have your own recording studios in your homes.
Nick: Yes, that is a key part to it, we never pay for studio time.

I’m guessing that this gives you the freedom to experiment when you are not watching the clock, and paying for the time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s sort of a complicated idea, but I think what we are doing is nu-folk music; people are taking technology out of the hands of corporations and big businesses and into their homes. The folk instrument of our time is the computer, and it’s changed how people make music. You see a lot of music coming out of the woodwork now where people are living with the music instead of doing it in a rush in some expensive place, they can pick away at it.

I’m curious if you focus as much on visuals as you do on audio; do you incorporate visuals into your live shows?
Paul: Yes, the visuals came about because we really didn’t start as a live project at all, we were just making music at our homes in our studios, and once we found out that it’s really the only way to sustain ourselves with our music – to go on the road, we saw that as an opportunity to create something around our visual interests so we started creating videos. In the beginning we retrofitted our videos with our music, and now we are moving towards creating a video library which is being created in the same way as the sound library. When we are on the stage we call the video screen our frontman. It’s more than just a light show or a vectorial, it comes more to the foreground than the live musicians.

You’ve recently been touring around Europe. Do you have plans to do more touring, I can imagine that the whole process takes a lot of effort!
Nick: Well there is no effort in the sense that we don’t jump on stage very much! The real limitations are that we both have young children so we don’t leave home too much at this point in our lives, but we will be back in Europe sometime next year.

YouTube Preview Image

It’s nigh-on impossible to define The Books, treat or the genre of music that they create. Because they are relying on an everchanging source of material as their inspiration, so too does their music morph and flow into new directions and styles; a constant evolution of sounds. If pressed, you could say that they were a ‘folktronica’ band, but even then, this doesn’t appreciate the complexities of their music. Building a track out of a computer can sometimes render a song as cold and clinical as the software on which it was created, but The Books have a warmth and deftness of touch that permeates through their work and makes each song seem human. It’s no coincidence then that the men behind The Books, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong are both highly attuned to their surroundings, appreciating and needing to be immersed in the natural world in order to do what they do. I caught up with the both of them on the phone; I was sat in noisy old Brick Lane, they were calling from their homes in New York State. I was a little jealous.

Can you talk me through the creation and the concept of your new album, The Way Out?
Nick: Basically the primary instrument of The Books is the sample library and Paul is the master librarian. So I will let you fill him on the creation of that…..
Paul: Since we’ve started I have always been a collector of sounds and images. When we started going on tour about five or six years ago I had the opportunity to visit a lot of different cities in the US and worldwide, and when there was time, I would try to hit as many thrift stores and book stores as I could find and pick up LP’s and tapes and video tapes. So by the time I would get home I would have a room full of new material that I could then get cut into new samples. In the past four years the library really grew enormously. I had so much material about certain subjects that they kind of presented themselves out of the library, it gave us a real choice to find a body of samples that deal with a certain subject that we can then create a new narrative from. In the first track of the record (Group Autogenics I) there are a lot of samples from hypnotherapy recordings and self help records. We had a lot of those samples so we had the opportunity to use the best ones. The way these people speak makes them really easy to cut because they separate their voices and they speak very slowly, so we could move their voices around at will and create a completely new narrative out of that.
Nick: Then the next step in the process is to figure out how it all fits together, which is an equally obsessive process!

Are your roles clear cut? How does the creative process work?
Nick: There is a significant crossover in our roles, but the basic dynamic is that Paul is the collector and I am the composer.

If you are assimilating that much material in your library, I’m guessing the process of recording an album must take a long time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s hard to finish one track in less than a month!

So, when you create your work and put that much effort into it, does it automatically have to lead to an album? Is it too much effort to just create one single?
Nick: No, we have done some one-off singles in the past, and we have also done remixes for people.
Paul: We made a song for the Cultural Ministry in France for their elevators recently and we recorded a Nick Drake song for a compilation. (Featured on Louisiana; compiled by Kenneth Bager). So we do shorter projects but we like the idea of having an album and a body of work. It’s a good reflection of a period of time and work for us.

Is there a particular concept or narrative to this album?
Nick: There is no center to it, necessarily. The hypnotherapy samples frame the record, I think; we are trying to go deeper, not in an overbearing way, but in kind of a playful style.

I see what you mean about the playfulness…. In the hypnotherapy samples, I distinctly heard the Doctor say “you will get fat and lose your self esteem”. That doesn’t sound like typical hypnotherapy to me!
Nick: Of course, that wasn’t its original form. That was Pauls mission, to turn a weight loss record into a weigh gain record! (laughs) So he was able to pull different fragments from the same tape and rearrange them to mean their opposite.
Paul: Nothing is quite what it appears to be. Not that the original songs can’t stand by themselves, it just means that in this new narrative they take on another identity. The only track that is completely undoctored is the track of Ghandi making a short statement, which is something that is so beautiful in itself and so deep that you don’t want to change it, you just want to pass it on.

Is there is a particular way that your tracks come together? Is it samples first, then lyrics?
Nick: I think that Paul and I are always working in parallel, while he is putting the library together I am sketching out melodies and different kinds of musical textures. Eventually the work that I am doing and the work that Paul is doing comes together somehow and there’s a kind of resonance; we call it the ‘critical mass moment’ where it looks like there is something that is worth exploring in a deeper way. Once you have the body of samples that you want to use and a rhythm and a melody you can start to figure out where the beginning is.

You both clearly have a symbiotic relationship, but do you ever come to each other with work that doesn’t mesh well or work out?
Nick: I think that’s most of the time (laughs) There is so much going on in both of our computers that there is always something in there that’s worth pursuing, but yeah, there is a lot of trial and error. I sometimes think of it as an evolutionary approach to music. Brian Eno has used the word ‘emergence’ which I like. There is a lot of chaos and a lot of sounds going every which way and every once in a while, the sounds find each other in a way that is really unexpectedly beautiful. You know, like the way that organisms will mutate and change over time into something completely different. I think, we look at those moments that are worth saving and let them grow on each other and eventually we have something.

Was there anything in particular that was inspiring you while you were creating this record, or was it a case of just having your ear to the ground and seeing what comes your way?
Nick: It’s both, for sure.

I was wondering if your surroundings affect your work; you both live in the Catskill Mountains (in New York State). I can imagine that it’s quite an experience to be surrounded by such peace and tranquility.
Nick: Yeah, I have spent a lot of time in my life living outside, and to have that more direct connection to the natural world has always been a way for me to stay sane.

Do you mean that you have literally lived outside?
Nick: Uh-huh, I spend a lot of time camping and hiking, going on extremely long hikes. (pauses) There is the standard existential crisis that you have in your twenties when you realise that you are probably going down a path that you really don’t want to be on, and hiking was a way for me to reset my life at that time, so now living out here in the mountains just makes me feel at home, it always brings me back to that deciding moment in my life.

Do you switch off when you are hiking, or are you busy thinking up new melodies?
Nick: It’s more of a complete emptying of my thought process; that’s been its value to me, a time where I can leave everything behind. That’s where everything starts from, the silence, and I could never find it in the city, it was so chaotic and noisy that I needed to change my surroundings in order to make the work that I wanted to make.

I have read that you both have your own recording studios in your homes.
Nick: Yes, that is a key part to it, we never pay for studio time.

I’m guessing that this gives you the freedom to experiment when you are not watching the clock, and paying for the time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s sort of a complicated idea, but I think what we are doing is nu-folk music; people are taking technology out of the hands of corporations and big businesses and into their homes. The folk instrument of our time is the computer, and it’s changed how people make music. You see a lot of music coming out of the woodwork now where people are living with the music instead of doing it in a rush in some expensive place, they can pick away at it.

I’m curious if you focus as much on visuals as you do on audio; do you incorporate visuals into your live shows?
Paul: Yes, the visuals came about because we really didn’t start as a live project at all, we were just making music at our homes in our studios, and once we found out that it’s really the only way to sustain ourselves with our music – to go on the road, we saw that as an opportunity to create something around our visual interests so we started creating videos. In the beginning we retrofitted our videos with our music, and now we are moving towards creating a video library which is being created in the same way as the sound library. When we are on the stage we call the video screen our frontman. It’s more than just a light show or a vectorial, it comes more to the foreground than the live musicians.

You’ve recently been touring around Europe. Do you have plans to do more touring, I can imagine that the whole process takes a lot of effort!
Nick: Well there is no effort in the sense that we don’t jump on stage very much! The real limitations are that we both have young children so we don’t leave home too much at this point in our lives, but we will be back in Europe sometime next year.

YouTube Preview Image

It’s nigh-on impossible to define The Books, dosage or the genre of music that they create. Because they are relying on an everchanging source of material as their inspiration, information pills so too does their music morph and flow into new directions and styles; a constant evolution of sounds. If pressed, you could say that they were a ‘folktronica’ band, but even then, this doesn’t appreciate the complexities of their music. Building a track out of a computer can sometimes render a song as cold and clinical as the software on which it was created, but The Books have a warmth and deftness of touch that permeates through their work and makes each song seem human. It’s no coincidence then that the men behind The Books, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong are both highly attuned to their surroundings, appreciating and needing to be immersed in the natural world in order to do what they do. I caught up with both of them on the phone recently; I was sat in noisy old Brick Lane, they were calling from their homes in New York State. I was a little jealous.

Can you talk me through the creation and the concept of your new album, The Way Out?
Nick: Basically the primary instrument of The Books is the sample library and Paul is the master librarian. So I will let you fill him on the creation of that…..
Paul: Since we’ve started I have always been a collector of sounds and images. When we started going on tour about five or six years ago I had the opportunity to visit a lot of different cities in the US and worldwide, and when there was time, I would try to hit as many thrift stores and book stores as I could find and pick up LP’s and tapes and video tapes. So by the time I would get home I would have a room full of new material that I could then get cut into new samples. In the past four years the library really grew enormously. I had so much material about certain subjects that they kind of presented themselves out of the library, it gave us a real choice to find a body of samples that deal with a certain subject that we can then create a new narrative from. In the first track of the record (Group Autogenics I) there are a lot of samples from hypnotherapy recordings and self help records. We had a lot of those samples so we had the opportunity to use the best ones. The way these people speak makes them really easy to cut because they separate their voices and they speak very slowly, so we could move their voices around at will and create a completely new narrative out of that.
Nick: Then the next step in the process is to figure out how it all fits together, which is an equally obsessive process!

Are your roles clear cut? How does the creative process work?
Nick: There is a significant crossover in our roles, but the basic dynamic is that Paul is the collector and I am the composer.

If you are assimilating that much material in your library, I’m guessing the process of recording an album must take a long time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s hard to finish one track in less than a month!

So, when you create your work and put that much effort into it, does it automatically have to lead to an album? Is it too much effort to just create one single?
Nick: No, we have done some one-off singles in the past, and we have also done remixes for people.
Paul: We made a song for the Cultural Ministry in France for their elevators recently and we recorded a Nick Drake song for a compilation. (Featured on Louisiana; compiled by Kenneth Bager). So we do shorter projects but we like the idea of having an album and a body of work. It’s a good reflection of a period of time and work for us.

Is there a particular concept or narrative to this album?
Nick: There is no center to it, necessarily. The hypnotherapy samples frame the record, I think; we are trying to go deeper, not in an overbearing way, but in kind of a playful style.

I see what you mean about the playfulness…. In the hypnotherapy samples, I distinctly heard the Doctor say “you will get fat and lose your self esteem”. That doesn’t sound like typical hypnotherapy to me!
Nick: Of course, that wasn’t its original form. That was Pauls mission, to turn a weight loss record into a weigh gain record! (laughs) So he was able to pull different fragments from the same tape and rearrange them to mean their opposite.
Paul: Nothing is quite what it appears to be. Not that the original songs can’t stand by themselves, it just means that in this new narrative they take on another identity. The only track that is completely undoctored is the track of Ghandi making a short statement, which is something that is so beautiful in itself and so deep that you don’t want to change it, you just want to pass it on.

Is there is a particular way that your tracks come together? Is it samples first, then lyrics?
Nick: I think that Paul and I are always working in parallel, while he is putting the library together I am sketching out melodies and different kinds of musical textures. Eventually the work that I am doing and the work that Paul is doing comes together somehow and there’s a kind of resonance; we call it the ‘critical mass moment’ where it looks like there is something that is worth exploring in a deeper way. Once you have the body of samples that you want to use and a rhythm and a melody you can start to figure out where the beginning is.

You both clearly have a symbiotic relationship, but do you ever come to each other with work that doesn’t mesh well or work out?
Nick: I think that’s most of the time (laughs) There is so much going on in both of our computers that there is always something in there that’s worth pursuing, but yeah, there is a lot of trial and error. I sometimes think of it as an evolutionary approach to music. Brian Eno has used the word ‘emergence’ which I like. There is a lot of chaos and a lot of sounds going every which way and every once in a while, the sounds find each other in a way that is really unexpectedly beautiful. You know, like the way that organisms will mutate and change over time into something completely different. I think, we look at those moments that are worth saving and let them grow on each other and eventually we have something.

Was there anything in particular that was inspiring you while you were creating this record, or was it a case of just having your ear to the ground and seeing what comes your way?
Nick: It’s both, for sure.

I was wondering if your surroundings affect your work; you both live in the Catskill Mountains (in New York State). I can imagine that it’s quite an experience to be surrounded by such peace and tranquility.
Nick: Yeah, I have spent a lot of time in my life living outside, and to have that more direct connection to the natural world has always been a way for me to stay sane.

Do you mean that you have literally lived outside?
Nick: Uh-huh, I spend a lot of time camping and hiking, going on extremely long hikes. (pauses) There is the standard existential crisis that you have in your twenties when you realise that you are probably going down a path that you really don’t want to be on, and hiking was a way for me to reset my life at that time, so now living out here in the mountains just makes me feel at home, it always brings me back to that deciding moment in my life.

Do you switch off when you are hiking, or are you busy thinking up new melodies?
Nick: It’s more of a complete emptying of my thought process; that’s been its value to me, a time where I can leave everything behind. That’s where everything starts from, the silence, and I could never find it in the city, it was so chaotic and noisy that I needed to change my surroundings in order to make the work that I wanted to make.

I have read that you both have your own recording studios in your homes.
Nick: Yes, that is a key part to it, we never pay for studio time.

I’m guessing that this gives you the freedom to experiment when you are not watching the clock, and paying for the time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s sort of a complicated idea, but I think what we are doing is nu-folk music; people are taking technology out of the hands of corporations and big businesses and into their homes. The folk instrument of our time is the computer, and it’s changed how people make music. You see a lot of music coming out of the woodwork now where people are living with the music instead of doing it in a rush in some expensive place, they can pick away at it.

I’m curious if you focus as much on visuals as you do on audio; do you incorporate visuals into your live shows?
Paul: Yes, the visuals came about because we really didn’t start as a live project at all, we were just making music at our homes in our studios, and once we found out that it’s really the only way to sustain ourselves with our music – to go on the road, we saw that as an opportunity to create something around our visual interests so we started creating videos. In the beginning we retrofitted our videos with our music, and now we are moving towards creating a video library which is being created in the same way as the sound library. When we are on the stage we call the video screen our frontman. It’s more than just a light show or a vectorial, it comes more to the foreground than the live musicians.

You’ve recently been touring around Europe. Do you have plans to do more touring, I can imagine that the whole process takes a lot of effort!
Nick: Well there is no effort in the sense that we don’t jump on stage very much! The real limitations are that we both have young children so we don’t leave home too much at this point in our lives, but we will be back in Europe sometime next year.

YouTube Preview Image

It’s nigh-on impossible to define The Books, web or the genre of music that they create. Because they are relying on an everchanging source of material as their inspiration, adiposity so too does their music morph and flow into new directions and styles; a constant evolution of sounds. If pressed, you could say that they were a ‘folktronica’ band, but even then, this doesn’t appreciate the complexities of their music. Building a track out of a computer can sometimes render a song as cold and clinical as the software on which it was created, but The Books have a warmth and deftness of touch that permeates through their work and makes each song seem human. It’s no coincidence then that the men behind The Books, Nick Zammuto and Paul de Jong are both highly attuned to their surroundings, appreciating and needing to be immersed in the natural world in order to do what they do. I caught up with both of them on the phone recently; I was sat in noisy old Brick Lane, they were calling from their homes in New York State. I was a little jealous.

Can you talk me through the creation and the concept of your new album, The Way Out?
Nick: Basically the primary instrument of The Books is the sample library and Paul is the master librarian. So I will let you fill him on the creation of that…..
Paul: Since we’ve started I have always been a collector of sounds and images. When we started going on tour about five or six years ago I had the opportunity to visit a lot of different cities in the US and worldwide, and when there was time, I would try to hit as many thrift stores and book stores as I could find and pick up LP’s and tapes and video tapes. So by the time I would get home I would have a room full of new material that I could then get cut into new samples. In the past four years the library really grew enormously. I had so much material about certain subjects that they kind of presented themselves out of the library, it gave us a real choice to find a body of samples that deal with a certain subject that we can then create a new narrative from. In the first track of the record (Group Autogenics I) there are a lot of samples from hypnotherapy recordings and self help records. We had a lot of those samples so we had the opportunity to use the best ones. The way these people speak makes them really easy to cut because they separate their voices and they speak very slowly, so we could move their voices around at will and create a completely new narrative out of that.
Nick: Then the next step in the process is to figure out how it all fits together, which is an equally obsessive process!

Are your roles clear cut? How does the creative process work?
Nick: There is a significant crossover in our roles, but the basic dynamic is that Paul is the collector and I am the composer.

If you are assimilating that much material in your library, I’m guessing the process of recording an album must take a long time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s hard to finish one track in less than a month!

So, when you create your work and put that much effort into it, does it automatically have to lead to an album? Is it too much effort to just create one single?
Nick: No, we have done some one-off singles in the past, and we have also done remixes for people.
Paul: We made a song for the Cultural Ministry in France for their elevators recently and we recorded a Nick Drake song for a compilation. (Featured on Louisiana; compiled by Kenneth Bager). So we do shorter projects but we like the idea of having an album and a body of work. It’s a good reflection of a period of time and work for us.

Is there a particular concept or narrative to this album?
Nick: There is no center to it, necessarily. The hypnotherapy samples frame the record, I think; we are trying to go deeper, not in an overbearing way, but in kind of a playful style.

I see what you mean about the playfulness…. In the hypnotherapy samples, I distinctly heard the Doctor say “you will get fat and lose your self esteem”. That doesn’t sound like typical hypnotherapy to me!
Nick: Of course, that wasn’t its original form. That was Pauls mission, to turn a weight loss record into a weigh gain record! (laughs) So he was able to pull different fragments from the same tape and rearrange them to mean their opposite.
Paul: Nothing is quite what it appears to be. Not that the original songs can’t stand by themselves, it just means that in this new narrative they take on another identity. The only track that is completely undoctored is the track of Ghandi making a short statement, which is something that is so beautiful in itself and so deep that you don’t want to change it, you just want to pass it on.

Is there is a particular way that your tracks come together? Is it samples first, then lyrics?
Nick: I think that Paul and I are always working in parallel, while he is putting the library together I am sketching out melodies and different kinds of musical textures. Eventually the work that I am doing and the work that Paul is doing comes together somehow and there’s a kind of resonance; we call it the ‘critical mass moment’ where it looks like there is something that is worth exploring in a deeper way. Once you have the body of samples that you want to use and a rhythm and a melody you can start to figure out where the beginning is.

You both clearly have a symbiotic relationship, but do you ever come to each other with work that doesn’t mesh well or work out?
Nick: I think that’s most of the time (laughs) There is so much going on in both of our computers that there is always something in there that’s worth pursuing, but yeah, there is a lot of trial and error. I sometimes think of it as an evolutionary approach to music. Brian Eno has used the word ‘emergence’ which I like. There is a lot of chaos and a lot of sounds going every which way and every once in a while, the sounds find each other in a way that is really unexpectedly beautiful. You know, like the way that organisms will mutate and change over time into something completely different. I think, we look at those moments that are worth saving and let them grow on each other and eventually we have something.

Was there anything in particular that was inspiring you while you were creating this record, or was it a case of just having your ear to the ground and seeing what comes your way?
Nick: It’s both, for sure.

I was wondering if your surroundings affect your work; you both live in the Catskill Mountains (in New York State). I can imagine that it’s quite an experience to be surrounded by such peace and tranquility.
Nick: Yeah, I have spent a lot of time in my life living outside, and to have that more direct connection to the natural world has always been a way for me to stay sane.

Do you mean that you have literally lived outside?
Nick: Uh-huh, I spend a lot of time camping and hiking, going on extremely long hikes. (pauses) There is the standard existential crisis that you have in your twenties when you realise that you are probably going down a path that you really don’t want to be on, and hiking was a way for me to reset my life at that time, so now living out here in the mountains just makes me feel at home, it always brings me back to that deciding moment in my life.

Do you switch off when you are hiking, or are you busy thinking up new melodies?
Nick: It’s more of a complete emptying of my thought process; that’s been its value to me, a time where I can leave everything behind. That’s where everything starts from, the silence, and I could never find it in the city, it was so chaotic and noisy that I needed to change my surroundings in order to make the work that I wanted to make.

I have read that you both have your own recording studios in your homes.
Nick: Yes, that is a key part to it, we never pay for studio time.

I’m guessing that this gives you the freedom to experiment when you are not watching the clock, and paying for the time.
Nick: Definitely, it’s sort of a complicated idea, but I think what we are doing is nu-folk music; people are taking technology out of the hands of corporations and big businesses and into their homes. The folk instrument of our time is the computer, and it’s changed how people make music. You see a lot of music coming out of the woodwork now where people are living with the music instead of doing it in a rush in some expensive place, they can pick away at it.

I’m curious if you focus as much on visuals as you do on audio; do you incorporate visuals into your live shows?
Paul: Yes, the visuals came about because we really didn’t start as a live project at all, we were just making music at our homes in our studios, and once we found out that it’s really the only way to sustain ourselves with our music – to go on the road, we saw that as an opportunity to create something around our visual interests so we started creating videos. In the beginning we retrofitted our videos with our music, and now we are moving towards creating a video library which is being created in the same way as the sound library. When we are on the stage we call the video screen our frontman. It’s more than just a light show or a vectorial, it comes more to the foreground than the live musicians.

You’ve recently been touring around Europe. Do you have plans to do more touring, I can imagine that the whole process takes a lot of effort!
Nick: Well there is no effort in the sense that we don’t jump on stage very much! The real limitations are that we both have young children so we don’t leave home too much at this point in our lives, but we will be back in Europe sometime next year.

YouTube Preview Image

Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, online illustrated by Naomi Law

Plans to large it in East End boozers or at Green Kite Midnight‘s Ceilidh on Saturday night turned sour when my other half broke his arm in a freak gymnasium accident. So, unwilling to sit in sulking, we took a trip to the Rich Mix Cinema.

Mainstream fashion films don’t come around that frequently. Okay, so we had Tom Ford‘s plotless but beautiful adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man, but it’s rare for those who control film production company’s purse strings to invest their cash in fashion biopics. Things might be changing though – we had Coco avant Chanel recently – an exceptional film starring Audrey Tatou (who, I’d like to add, should stick to acting en Francais). Next up, it’s the release this week of Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky.

Viewers will be forgiven for thinking that this is the sequel to Coco avant Chanel – the bulk of the movie focusses on Gabrielle Chanel’s life post lover Arthur ‘Boy’ Capel’s death. There are many similarities – the fashion, the smouldering actress, the references, the consultants (Monsieur Lagerfeld lent his services and granted full access to the couturier’s archives). The films, in fact, have nothing professionally to do with each other. 

This film actually kicks off in 1913. We join the male protagonist (played by devilishly handsome Mads Mikkelsen – well, until you Google him and see what he really looks like) as he is about to present his first major opera, at which Coco (devilishly beautiful Anna Mouglalis) is in the audience. The Rite of Spring is a disaster; the audience descends into chaos. It’s here though that fashion fans first get a feast for the eyes. Row after row sit bourgeois women dressed decadently in the early indications of the prosperous fashion of the 1920s, with stunning millinery galore.  


Illustration by Stacie Swift

The film then jumps to 1920, and we see the chic Chanel meet Stravinsky properly for the first time at a party. Coco Chanel was nothing short of a tart. Dressed in a risque (for the era) shoestring-strap floor-length dress and hair in a 1920s twist, Coco oozes appeal and ‘even makes grief seem chic’ according to one bystander. She has, after all, just lost Boy Capel in a car accident – but you’d never know.


Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky, illustrated by Kayleigh Bluck

The pair arrange to meet at Paris’ Muséum national diHistoire naturelle, where Gabrielle invites Igor (and his wife and children) to stay at her glorious villa outside Paris. He accepts, and the rest of the film takes place here. Here we’re treated to Coco’s impeccable interior design taste – room after room decorated with stunning art-deco style, and rooms themed on exotic locations from around the world. Chanel dazzles in outfit after outfit, and after a few scene/outfit changes, it’s easy to see where Lagerfeld gets his ideas from.  

I won’t spoil it for you, but the frivolous pair get it on at the villa while poor Stravinsky’s wife is laid up in bed upstairs with a bad cough. Cue gratuitous sex scenes on various carpets. Chanel is always impeccably dressed in floor-length silk numbers, while tormented Stravinsky, dressed in simple sartorial style, tinkles the ivories and stomps around the villa’s gardens like a bear with a sore head. You can’t carry on like this without somebody finding out…


Chanel No.5, illustrated by Natasha Thompson

1920 is also the year that Chanel devised and launched what is probably the world’s most iconic scent – the Chanel No.5 perfume. Cut to Gunther-Von-Hagens-slash-Willy-Wonka-esque perfumer Ernest Beaux, who appears with a twirl of his chemist lab coat like a zany magician; here the film goes a little pantomime, and while committing this crucial piece of fashion history to film is inspiring, it’s difficult not to cringe at the ‘ooo! numero cinq’ revelation at the end of this scene…

This is certainly a film for fashion fans and documents a fascinating piece of history – rumour has it that the makers of Coco Avant Chanel plan to pick up where this film leaves us, so that’s something we can look forward to. We do get a glimpse of glamour-granny Chanel at the end, too; perhaps to whet our appetite – Anna Mouglalis makes a fantastic mature Coco decked in prosthetic make-up.


31 Rue Cambon, illustrated by Thomas Leadbetter

What this film occasionally lacks in empathy for the characters – it’s a marriage of egos and there’s little to make you feel anything for this homewreckin’ harlot – it certainly makes up for in sophistication. Most exciting for me were scenes at 31 Rue Cambon, fashion’s most famous address, both inside and out. With a soundtrack of Stravinsky’s effortless symphonies and Coco Chanel’s visionary and groundbreaking fashion, this film celebrates two massive twentieth-century figures in style.

Cinemas nationwide.

Categories ,1920s, ,A Single Man, ,Anna Mouglalis, ,Arthur Boy Capel, ,Audrey Tatou, ,Borgeois, ,Chanel No.5, ,Christopher Isherwood, ,Coco Avant Chanel, ,Coco Chanel, ,Ernest Beaux, ,fashion, ,film, ,Gabrielle, ,Google, ,Gunther Von Hagens, ,Igor Stravinsky, ,Karl Lagerfeld, ,Kayleigh Bluck, ,Mads Mikkelsen, ,millinery, ,Muséum national diHistoire naturelle, ,Naomi Law, ,Natasha Thompson, ,paris, ,Rich Mix Cinema, ,Stacie Swift, ,The Rite of Spring, ,Thomas Leadbetter, ,Tom Ford, ,Willy Wonka

Similar Posts: