I don’t recall if I’ve posted this before, but I watched it again last night and feel the need to share.
Made in Sheffield was made in 2001 and covers the rich pickings of the Sheffield music scene. I’m well aware of how biased I am, but there are a heap of awesome bands from my hometown and this documentary speaks to some o f the most interesting ones. I mean sure, they interview Jarvis (and Saskia!!) – but they also speak to The Extras and Artery for a really rounded and fascinating take on the Sheffield scene in the late 70s and early 80s.
I mean, it’s Sunday night and you have nothing better to do than watch Downton – you should totes take your chances on what I suggest.
[Excellent picture of Sheffield's finest landmark: Tom Panton]
I like it when illustrators do their thing over fashion editorials * so pretty into this collaboration between Esprit, the Royal College of Art’s MA Fashion course and artist Andy Rementer.
I guess the focus should really be on these talented young designers and the creations they’ve constructed for the collaboration, but Andy’s Roman mythology-inspired doodles are what I’m drawn to most.
Even as a mega model fan, I’m enjoying the wave of anonymous editorials that I’ve seen lately – who needs a face anyway? Love the idea that it could be anyone behind there – intern, the security guy on the door of the studio, dude from the sandwich shop who helped the intern carry the lunch back…
Time Out reports that London Underground is auctioning off 300 of its most iconic vintage posters this week – what I wouldn’t give to get my hands on one.
I think most people that live in London and have any kind of interest in design will be familiar with these – the fantastic London Transport Museum sells reprints of most of them and they are such lovely pictures that THE INTERNET HIVE MIND posts them pretty regularly.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that my favourite designs are the ones from the 20s and 30s – no way! You surprise me! The Lure of the Underground by Alfred Leete has always been my absolute favourite in terms of design – did you know that he also designed the your country needs you poster? (Estimate: £4,000 – £6,000)
I’m also very fond of the Brightest London one by Horace Taylor, which dates to 1924. I don’t know any backstory to it but I love the idea that some on-the-ball designer heard the phrase ‘bright young people’ in use and decided they could work with it. There’s a bit of debate around when the phrase was first used but it wasn’t particularly in popular use until the 20s so thumbs up who ever cashed in on that one. (This one isn’t in the auction but Horace’s other works are estimated at about £2,300 upwards.)
The Posters with a Purpose sale is happening at Christie’s on Thursday 4 October- and you can bid online, so I’d suggest drinking half a bottle of wine then spending £800 on your favourite design and feeling pretty pleased with yourself.
You can enjoy the whooole catalogue here and I really recommend you do – there are some really awesome pictures in there that I hadn’t seen before (like this one) and some great in situ pictures of old stations. You can also buy the catalogue for £20 here which is very tempting, but I’d rather get my hands on a proper big book of the history of tube posters if such a thing exists. Anyone know if this is any cop?
Finally, you can buy a postcard pack (LAME) of some of the sale’s highlights here.
Inspired by Iso and my summer goals from last year – and by a general feeling of being mopey and needing some kind of motivation – here are some cool things that I want to do in the second half of the year.
Any suggestions or additions more than welcome, although I feel like I might be stretching myself already if this weekend’s achievements are anything to go by. Does ‘Jeeves & Wooster in the bath with a large whisky’ count as an achievement?
1) Get my arse down to 1920s revival-but-real Brasserie Zedel. Can’t believe I haven’t been to bathe in its art deco splendour yet but perhaps it’s a night for me and Christine. [Picture: London Town]
2) Spend any and every minute of downtime on my work trip to San Diego searching for perfect tacos. A full and extensive argument which is fuelling my research is taking place here. [Picture: Mexican Food Recipes]
3) Intelligence Squared is hosting one of its weirdest events yet; Dominic West in Conversation with John Major. At the Royal Geographical Society. I’m just fascinated by this entire concept – and there’s drinks with Dominic in the bar after. [Picture: Intelligence Squared]
4) I spent quite a lot of time at a work thing the other night talking about my lifelong aim for mermaid-boob-hair. I was tired and drank wine, I guess. It is true though, and I’m pretty much there. What better way to show off my skills than at Azealia Banks’ Mermaid Ball at the London Aquarium? [Picture: Rasha]
5) Progress with Sons of Anarchy until we reach the Henry Rollins bits.
6) Book tickets for Fantasia at the Royal Albert Hall. And then get high as a kite beforehand. [Picture: Chris Corner]
7) Work out if I can make any of my old cowboy shirts (from *those* days) work in a vaguely Marant-ish way, or if it’s never gonna happen. [Picture: Tany's Journal]
10) Go see some pearly kings and queens at their 2012 festival. More here! [Picture: Pearly Society]
11) Stop obsessing over trying to be Cara Delevingne and remember that this picture of her (right and she’s in the centre) was taken in 2003!!! [Picture: Lulucherie | Daily Mail]
12) Book for A Chorus Line next year. Tits and Ass is a marvellous song, isn’t it? [I know it's called Dance 10, Looks 3 but it's always been Tits and Ass to me]
18) Actually properly finally go to Strawberry Hill House for a Twilight Tour. [Picture: me]
“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”
― Horace Walpole
19) And actually properly read some Horace Walpole first.
20) Stick to this Phyto oil regime. Blog post to come, but essentially it’s a pre-shampoo oil and regular hair oil and together they have made my hair incredibly happy.
21) Convince someone to come and see Viva Forever, the Spice Girls musical, with me. Or get invited on a press jolly, that’d be nice. [Picture: SpicePix]
22) Go and see the Alex Katz exhibition at the Turner Contemporary. Really just an excuse to go back to Margate and go to some more of its fine ale pubs, but I’ll take a bit of Alex’s work at the same time quite happily. [Picture 1: Pop-Up Studio, Picture 2: Tory Burch blog]
23) One of my favourite Persephone Books - Cheerful Weather for the Wedding - has been made into a film. No word yet on a UK release date, but there’s a lot to be said for watching a trailer repeatedly and wishing and hoping, right?
24) AND another favourite Persephone Book (who am I kidding, they’re all favourites), The Making of a Marchioness, is being made into an ITV drama to screen at Christmas some time. The name has been changed to The Making of a Lady though, because people are too thick to know what a marchioness is? Is that it, ITV? Because I’m sure people would figure it out.
26) Go to the new Wahaca sandwich bar on Charlotte Street for a torta and Mezcal Cup cocktail. I make a mean torta myself, but I’d rather eat one that someone else made, at a bar. With a cocktail. [Picture: Guardian and Wahaca]
27) Meat shot glasses. Say no more. [Picture: ManBQue]
28) Plot a visit to my fatherland. Actual fatherland, as in the land of my father, as in the Isle of Man. I haven’t been for years and there are Manx cats and real ales with my name on. AND you can fly from City Airport, which is always an exciting experience. [Picture: IsleofMan.gov]
29) Sort my shit out and get to the cinema to see Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel. Question: when do people find the time to go to the cinema? [Picture: Liberty blog]
30) Ahead of the Met Costume Institute’s Punk exhibition next summer, enjoy a free wander around the Someday All The Adults Will Die! exhibition at the Hayward. Focussing on design from the punk era, it includes zines, record artwork, posters, flyers, the lot. Bet it’s dead good. [Picture: Manystuff]
31) Go and see Dorothy Bohm’s photos of women in London in the 90s at the Museum of London. Women in Focus will showcase some of Dorothy’s unseen colour photography from the last 20 years – and there’s a lecture by her on Monday 26 November too. Ideal nineties fashion inspiration, right there. [Picture - which isn't from this collection but from an earlier project: ArtFinder]
32) Eat all-I-can-eat shrimp at Big Easy now that they’re opening in Covent Garden. The original branch is on the Kings Road, ie West London, which means I am unable to go. West London indeed. Not sure yet when it’s opening – other than ‘Autumn 2012′ – but surely it can’t be too long. [Picture: Big Easy Facebook]
33) Pose with Chris Bracey’s neon wings at the next V&A Friday Late event – the general theme is the sky and there’s all sorts going on as always, but the neon is my personal pick. [Picture: ArtNet]
34) Not sure why I’m so into the idea of hanging around stately homes after dark (see #18), but I’d love to see my beloved Eltham Palace by night too so hopefully I’ll get to go to the Twilight Tour on 4 November. Art deco in the gloom – coooooool. [Picture: Gardens to Go]
35) And another one. Syon House and Park are transformed by night this autumn with the Enchanted Woodland. Oooooooooooh, spooky. Actually it’s just a big light show that sees all the trees and ponds and spooky bits illuminated for a magical look. [Picture: Syon Park]
36) LEARN HOW TO GROW PLANTS IN SPACE! A new series of horticultural-themed lectures at Kew Gardens kicks off in style with a talk by SPACEMAN Michael Foale on the difficulties of growing shit on a spaceship. Book now – that one’s this Friday – but there’s loooooads more here. [Picture of SPACEPLANTS: NASA Space Shuttle blog]
37) Work out how best to spend London Cocktail Week. Perhaps at Smatt’s Rum & Ice Cream Shack? Nothing says autumn like rum punch and ice cream, right? [Picture of someone else's idea of a rum and icecream cocktail: Drunkard]
39) Visit the tiny, seemingly unheard of real ale pub in Westfield Stratford. Run by the same people as the smashing Rake in Borough Market, it offers more than 150 bottled beers and 17 ales on draught. And it’s in Westfield. What? God I love drunk shopping. [Picture: BeerLens]
41) Master a new cocktail from the Savoy Cocktail Book. Still haven’t got it, still relying on internet scans of recipes, still managing to learn a few drinks anyway. With Halloween around the corner, here’s a classic – and appropriate – recipe from the book;
The Corpse Reviver #2
[There are several Corpse Revivers in the book, but this is the variation which I reckon is most drinkable.]
1 shot of gin
1 shot of Cointreau
1 shot of Lillet Blanc (you may not have it to hand, but you should invest for the bottle alone. And for making this drink regularly.)
1 shot fresh lemon juice
Dash of absinthe (really, really has to be a dash – for taste purposes, not drunk ones. You’ll be drunk anyway.)
Shake well with ice and strain in to a cocktail glass. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.
As you may expect, it’s kinda potent. The Savoy advise that you proceed with caution; “four of these taken in straight succession will unrevive the corpse again.”
42) Not particularly something I need any help with, but the School of Life has a lecture on at the end of the month called How to Be Cool.
According to Aristotle the correct pursuit of life is happiness. We can only be happy when we exercise each of the virtues in moderation. Thus, we must not lack courage, for this would make us cowards, nor have too much courage, which would make us foolhardy. One might summarise this approach as one of taking an appropriate response to every situation, an idea central to the notion of being cool.
And there’s a free buffet and drinks. Soooooo. [Picture: Pyxurz]
43) Check out the Death exhibition at the Wellcome Collection. Covering everything from Day of the Dead skulls to memento morti, it aims to tackle our obsession with death and how previous generations and civilisations dealt with it. As a big goth and someone who is preoccupied with death a lot of the time, I’m looking forward to it – and the promised accompanying events schedule. [Picture: the Wellcome Collection]
44) Investigate the Hair of the Dog; an exhibition dedicated to the morning after the night before. Sounds confusing, sounds amazing.
An inner ear singing with tinnitus, smudged stamp marks on hands, sorry bits of tinsel clinging to styrene ceiling panels, regretful recollections of fumblings and ill advised proclamations, sticky carpets, powder encrusted glass coffee tables, the echo of a permissive naivety and the moment it tipped from optimism to cold, dew soaked reality.
Whatever it’s all about, it starts on Friday at Block 336 in Brixton and you can (sort of) find out more here.
46) Go and smell the Cire Trudon Spiritus Sancti candle in Liberty and see if it makes me giddy enough to buy it with my eyes closed, stabbing my card numbers into the machine blindly. They are very expensive – I mean, you actually are burning money aren’t you? – but they just smell so good. I remember when they launched the range somewhere in London and you could smell them the proper way, under a glass bell jar that was lifted for you to sniff. MMM.
Anyway – this one is inspired by heady candles and incense in a church and that’s preeeetty much my favourite thing. This shot is one of the images they have on their moodboard – you can pretty much smell it already, right? [Picture: Cire Trudon]
47) Think I’ve already mentioned this, but the exhibition of Cecil Beaton wartime photography at the Imperial War Museum is supported by a great events schedule. I want to see Beaton, Vogue and Wartime Fashion. [Picture: IWM]
I can only apologise for the lack of anything interesting round here lately. I’m still in a bit of a slump after various life-mares and work-mares, so there’s not much in the way of inspiring content pumping through my veins.
Today would have been P G Wodehouse’s 131st birthday and as he’s the person I turn to whenever I’m feeling slumpish, I figured I’d share this documentary on his life and works.
It was on originally aired on the BBC last September and it’s like the visual equivalent of a onesie, a lasagne or the Mamas and Papas; good, clean comfort and nothing else.
Here’s a bit of Wodehouse to end on;
“There was something sort of bleak about her tone, rather as if she had swallowed an east wind. This I took to be due to the fact that she probably hadn’t breakfasted. It’s only after a bit of breakfast that I’m able to regard the world with that sunny cheeriness which makes a fellow the universal favourite. I’m never much of a lad till I’ve engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee.
“I suppose you haven’t breakfasted?”
“I have not yet breakfasted.”
“Won’t you have an egg or something? Or a sausage or something? Or something?”
“No, thank you.”
She spoke as if she belonged to an anti-sausage league or a league for the suppression of eggs. There was a bit of silence.”
I think – and this is based in about 14 hours of sleep over the last week – that my favourite show of London Fashion Week was Simone Rocha.
I know she’s a bit of a fashion-person favourite but hers was the only show that made me do a little gasp of joy, with all the stars aligning for one all-out, head-to-toe perfection.
It all started when I was backstage doing my actual job of speaking to the hair team, headed up by James Pecis. He’s one of my favourite hairdressing people at the best of times – and not just because of the donkey tattoo on his hand. He always does really cool, interesting hair with reference points that make me ball my hands with glee because I know they’re either going to be something that I’m obsessed with, or something that I’m about to become obsessed with.
This season it was photographer Ed Templeton and specifically his ‘pictures of teenagers making out‘. As someone who spends their entire life writing about hair, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to hear something so different and yet so nail-on-the head accurate to a look. [Picture: Too Many Kisses]
James explained that he wanted the hair to look youthful and that the two easiest ways to do that are adding a fringe and doing a ponytail. So that’s what he did.
He also wanted hair to look a bit weird and off, so grungy texture and hacked-into baby bangs all round. My total fave, like Jean-Pierre Braganza last season and Aminaka Wilmont this season too.
The next thing that got me doing excited stampy feet was the music. As I was finishing up backstage they were doing the walk through and the music boomed out backstage. It’s a vital make-or-break for any show and while there’s a lot of songs you can play that will make me happy, if it’s something totally unexpected then more’s the better.
I don’t think I ever expected to hear the Stone Roses at a show. I mean, I know they reunited this year and have been quite high profile and that the 90s is our all-powerful leader this season but STILL. And for it to be I Wanna Be Adored? I couldn’t have been happier if it was Bad Moon Rising. [Picture: Sound on Sound]
And then I guess there’s clothes! I mean, I don’t feel qualified to talk too much about catwalk collections these days but there’s full skirts! There’s neon! There’s a school-uniform influence! There’s daisies! There’s cool and interesting textiles! There’s tiaras! It’s just a beaut of a collection all round and all the *stuff* that goes with it makes it even more so.
I urge you to just look at the pictures and listen to the video and think about how dreamy and beautiful this all is. And, it wasn’t played at the show but the combination of James Pecis’s grungy love-in and the teenagers making out thing and the drawly cool of the whole show also makes me just want to listen to Teenage Fanclub even more than usual. I mean, that ahhhhh-ahhhhhhh breakdown at the end is just the perfect match for this collection isn’t it?
I know I keep going on about Goodhood and their fifth anniversary, but that’s because I love them. Look at those pictures of the pop-up shop; what a mentally-soothing palette of grey and white black. MMMmmm. Just what the brain needs after five days of CLOTHES and FASHION WEEK and MAKEUP.
Calm, cool, collected and all of my favourite brands in one place selling limited edition treats. What’s not to love, eh? The fact that pay day is a fortnight away? Hmm, yeah, that.
London Fashion Week is back for Spring/Summer 2013 and, as with last season, my friends at Rightster are helping me to live stream all the on-schedule shows right here on the blog.
From models falling over and Jameela Jamil forcing her way on the front row half-way through the show – and CLOTHES, glorious clothes of course – you can enjoy all the best bits of the week from the comfort of your own home just by staring at this post.
Here’s the digital schedule as it stands – of course this is subject to change but if you check in with #LFWTimeline you’ll find out what’s going on. Most likely, Jameela Jamil is running late*.
Friday 14 September
09:00 Antoni & Alison
11:00 Caroline Charles
13:00 Maria Grachvogel
14:00 Corrie Nielsen
15:00 Bora Aksu
17:00 Jean-Pierre Braganza
19:00 Felder Felder
20:30 KTZ
Saturday 15 September
09:00 Daks
10:00 Kinder Aggugini
13:00 Jasper Conran
15:00 Todd Lynn
17:00 John Rocha
19:00 Issa London
Sunday 16 September
12:00 Marios Schwab
15:00 Unique
19:00 Mary Katrantzou
Monday 17 September
09:00 Peter Pilotto
11:00 Michael van der Ham
12:00 David Koma
15:00 Louise Gray
17:00 Mark Fast
20:00 Osman
20:30 J.W.Anderson Women
Pamela Love didn’t bother with a fashion week presentation this season – she hosted a pop-up tattoo store instead.
Much as I love Love’s designs, I’m not entirely sure I could handle the commitment of getting one tattooed on me for good, but I sure do like the idea of the tattoo parlour in place of a presentation space.
All too often those designers that don’t opt for a catwalk show seem to be fobbed off – in London, at least. A big white room at Somerset House with a bunch of rails in might do the job perfectly well, but it doesn’t necessarily sell the brand in a very exciting way or inspire in the same way that a show with a set, soundtrack and atmosphere does.
“Tattoos and jewelry are very similar,” explains Pamela. “They are both decorative adornments for the body that often have deep meaning to the individual. Jewelry is very personal, it is something that you can wear every day and after a while the pieces you wear most feel like they’ve become a part of you. Getting a tattoo is a logical extension of that idea. It’s something you can carry with you forever.”
Pretty cool idea, right?
Pamela’s parlour was supported by Nokia Music, which means that there’s also a playlist to enjoy. And who doesn’t enjoy a playlist?
You can see what music cool people in NYC listened to while getting tattoos did here!
I don’t really go in for the idea of fashion week ~survival kits but nevertheless, there are a few things that I would be lost without when I’m working at the shows and with no more original ideas in my head in this hell-hole of a working week, here are some of them. [And a few things that I would like to magically find at the end of my bed on Friday morning, like a special fashion week Christmas stocking.]
Clockwise from top left;
1. Zoe Karssen Live Fast Sweater, £95, Net-A-Porter - Like all things Karssen, I really want this. I tend to wear much less than usual at fashion week and that’s all good when you’re razzing around all day, but when you’re on Waterloo Bridge waiting for the 171 at 11pm… it gets a bit cold.
2) Cat Eye and Contrast sunglasses, both £12, ASOS – I buy ASOS sunglasses like they’re going out of fashion [LOL IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE THEY ARE] and usually have several pairs squeezed into one of those little drawstring sock bags they send you. I am, of course, against sunglasses indoors/at shows/on public transport, but when you leave the house at 6am for Margaret Howell on Sunday morning, no-one needs to see your little piggy eyes.
3) I finally managed to find some dungaree shorts I like! Not these ones – these are from Topshop Petite – and have approx. twelve outfits in mind already that I want to somehow fit into fashion week involving them.
4) Children’s Bristle Brush, £36, Mason Pearson - I know, I know. You hear about these brushes all the time. That’s because they are that good and they do make a difference to your hair. I tend to go without brushing mine for days at a time, but when I do want to look slightly more presentable – or I’m interviewing the kind of hairdresser that intimidates me – this brush makes me look like a normal person.
5) Black Block Heel Boots, £35, Dorothy Perkins - I bought these after seeing Natalie in them and as you’d expect from such a stylish person, they are a WIN. Goes without saying that I don’t do ridiculous heels at fashion week.
6) Monochrome Tote, £68, Eley Kishimoto - You can tell the important people from the non-people (like me) at fashion week by the size of their bag. If it’s a small, tasteful handbag they are an important person who has a car, hotel room, or servant to carry their belongings around. Not for them the change of shoes, jumper, laptop, camera, cables, notepads and umbrellas that we mere mortals need. They shove all that in their car, hotel room or servant and make them deal with it. The non-people have to buy enormous tote bags and get bad backs.
7) Blush in Flush, £6 and Lipstick in Nevada, £8, Topshop – I got both of these in a goodie bag the other week and am pretty taken with them both. Topshop makeup is really good and cheap enough to allow you to buy into a trend without regretting it a few weeks later. This blush is nowhere near as insane as it looks and also works on your lips, while the lipstick is nude but with a creme-gloss finish so you don’t look too sixties. Both nice little seasonal updates that will make a welcome addition to my razz-around makeup bag.
8) Worker Pen, £2.29, Stabilo - These pens aren’t actually that great for fashion week because they smudge really easily if it rains or you get sweaty, but I seem to have a lifetime supply of them so they invariably end up being my pen of choice. I love that the website describes them as; ‘THE TOOL FOR HARD WORK.” Because that’s what writing about hair is. HARD WORK.
9) Deodorant. Doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just good to have. Yeah, yeah, your pocket-sized perfume might be a bit nicer for Into The Gloss to talk about or for you to Instagram when you do a ~what’s in my bag??~ feature but you can’t beat some good old deodorant when you stink after piling on the tube to get to that show. Another problem Important People with cars/hotels/servants don’t have, perhaps.
10) CX300 In-Ear Headphones, £26.10 Sennheiser - Just bought another pair of these. The headband ones are great for day-to-day listening but when you’re pulling them in and out and screwing them up in your bag, these are much more practical. Ever see those people keeping headphones in on the front row? MAN, who does that?
11) Power Rock Case, £23.95, New Trent - an iPhone case that charges your phone at the same time. Because you can never, ever, have enough charging implements at fashion week.
12) Flask, $50, In God We Trust - I have never taken a hip flask to fashion week, and I am only just starting to question why.
