Tuesday, February 03, 2015

 
Sometimes geometry can be fun. Particularly when you get rid of the 'find x' part and fuse it with knitwear. In the words of graphic designer (and wise fellow) Paul Rand: 'You can't criticise geometry. It's never wrong.'

Wow. Puns make math even more fun. Who knew?
 
Here's Cal and his geometric jumper. The bag says, 'I'm ready to go learn some more math.'
 
{T-Shirt, Next. Jumper, Vintage C.1990s. Jeans, River Island.
Shoes, Asics. Bag, Element.}
 
 
Some music to throw some shapes to: a-ha's Take on Me.
 

Dressing in the Light: Geometric Knit

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Last week I decided to venture forth from my natural habitat and go gallery hopping in Mayfair. There were two exhibitions I was desperate to see - Rob and Nick Carter's Chinese Whispers at The Fine Art Society and Joseph Kosuth's Amnesia: Various, Luminous, Fixed at Sprüth Magers.
 
I loved the concept behind Chinese Whispers. It's like a visual version of that childhood game, where a message is whispered around a group, passed through each person, until by the end it's just nonsense, like 'purple monkey dishwasher' or 'Ben likes Katie' or something. The Carters commissioned a Chinese artist to reproduce various Warhol images. The reproductions were then passed onto another studio and who then copied them and sent their versions to another studio. This was repeated twenty-eight more times. The Carters then arranged the images from first to the thirtieth picture. Each artist made little mistakes or alterations that eventually eroded the original image until the final reproduction looks nothing like the first or very much like anything really, just a lot of lines and dark patches.
 
This was done for all sorts of Andy Warhol greats - the soup can, the Coca-Cola logo, even Da Vinci's Last Supper.
 
According to the blurb, the exhibition is all about truth and authenticity. This is a big sticking point in fashion. The majority of people don't have access to a wardrobe of one-of-a-kind pieces. We buy off the rack. Granted, an item can look completely different depending on who's wearing it and how but there's always a risk of bumping into someone wearing the same thing. (Oh, the horror!) The High-Street takes a lot from high-fashion designers, who in turn find inspiration from all sorts of sources, from muses to trends past to cinema. By the time it's got to you, it can be hard to disentangle your individual style thumbprint (what I see as authenticity) from the web of fashion.
 
So after this, I went to look at some lights. 
Looking in at Sprüth Magers from the rainy street outside.
 
People are going to start saying I have an obsession with neon lights. Well, maybe I do. But these are a million miles away from The God's Own Junkyard exhibition I went to a few weeks ago. There's no sex, no rock'n'roll, no Soho.
 
The first thing I noticed was the noise. It sounded like a beehive. A beautiful, glowing beehive.
Well, if you don't even know, Kosuth...
 
Language is central to Kosuth's work. Statements like 'Language must speak for itself.' and '"I see (hear, feel, etc.) X"' were translated into neon. The room downstairs featured a sort of timetable version of Joyce's 'Ulysses' - the lights said 'Sirens 4p.m.' and 'Cyclops 5 p.m.'. Fab
 
While going around looking around galleries, I wore some clothes:
 
{Headband, H&M. Jumper, Topshop. Trousers, Topshop.
Shoes, Topshop.)
 
A marvellous song if ever there was one and the sort of music video that makes you question everything: R.E.M's Imitation of Life.

Wear: The Gallery {The Fine Art Society & Sprüth Magers}

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Sunday, February 01, 2015

So here's the situation: I'm a really bad vegetarian. Actually, that's a lie. I just masquerade as one - I'm a pescetarian (or 'hipstertarian' as Cal spells it). The thing is, I discovered smoked salmon so late in my career as an omnivore and there's still so much I want to explore: on blinis, at 1am from that legendary bagel shop on Brick Lane that never closes, smeared with avocado on potato farls. I'm not ready to give it up, yet.

Let me make it even worse: I love leather. I may squirm about the very notion of a cheeseburger but a pair of soft, leather boots will give me the good kind of shivers. Hypocrisy thy name is Laure.

A few weeks back, I went to coffee with my good ol' vegan friend, M. She leaned over and stroked my grandmother's sheepskin coat with a vague look of disgust.

"That's a pretty weird thing for a vegetarian to wear," M pronounced.

I had to agree she was right.

The majority of my leather is vintage, often stolen from my parents' wardrobes. The rest of it, however, isn't. In my experience, a good leather bag tends to last longer than a pleather one and a pair of shiney brogues fight off the rain so well. I must admit these do sound like the pro-meat arguments I encountered when I first renounced my bacon-eating ways - 'where will you get your protein/iron/vitamin B12/vital life force from?' There are ways around these percieved problems, you just need a bit of a life-style shift, is all.

The list of sins continue. I wear wool. I stole one of my Dad's cashmere jumpers. It's a sticking point that I'm still figuring out.

But where I do draw the line, carefully with a ruler, is fur.

Nope. No way, son. It's just not going to happen.

A few years ago, my sister and I inherited a fur coat from my grandmother's friend. At eighty-years-old, it's more antique than vintage. Apart from it being a few sizes too big and its undeniable musty smell, it's just too furry, too real, for me to love it. Even as I convinced Cal to put on the infamous fur, or the pimp coat as he calls it, my hands were going clammy.

The notorious cruelty of the fur trade is well documented. (Click here for PETA's assessment of it.)
Yet somewhere between foxes being skinned alive (and the fact that it sheds), Fur seeps its way back into fashion.

And it's something I just can't wear. I prefer my Cruella de Vil homage faux. And none of that 'good' faux malarky, thank you.Give me super-soft hyper-reality or leopard print or colours that resemble muppet skin. Give me something just as warm, with less guilt. 

{Cal: Coat, Vintage C.1940s. Shirt, Vintage C.1990s.
Jeans, River Island. Socks, Next. Shoes, Vintage C.1990s.
Laure: Coat, New Look. Jumper, Topshop. Skirt, Topshop.
Shoes, H&M.}

Embrace the inner animal: District 78's Circle of Life Remix.

The Controversial Edit: Fur or Faux

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Sunday, January 25, 2015

Brick Lane should come with a health warning: don't come anywhere near it when tired. It's sensory overload on 100% volume, with a strobe light and the taste of curry on your tongue.

So I've lived in London for a year and a half now and I feel I know the city pretty well. I know the difference between North, South, East and West. I can successfully nightbus from A to B. I have a map of shortcuts in my head. Tick. Tick. Tick. Perhaps the most the important lesson I've learnt about the city is that it'll never stay static enough for you to completely understand it. London can always catch you off-guard, like a good magician. Or a seasoned mugger.

Brick Lane is a bag of such surprises. The area's known for a few things: it's status as Banglatown, vintage shops, offbeat cafes. But it's also home to some of the most impressive street art in London.

You can spend a day roaming Brick Lane and still not See It All, so I decided to get some insider knowledge. A few friends and I booked ourselves onto an Alternative London Tour. It's a great company - the tours are conducted by street artists that work in the area and you only pay as much as you think the tour is worth.

Our guide was the London artist Josh Jeavons and over the course of two hours, in extremity-obliterating temperatures, he showed us his favourite pieces around Brick Lane.

For Jeavons, the area was an exhibition space. He spoke about how different pieces of street art became more prominent as the light changed or as streetlights were turned on. Although he led us to the usual attractions, such as Roa's giant bengali crane on Hanbury Street, Jeavons also drew our attention to more subtle graffiti: little bronze figurines on the tops of streetlights left by Jonsey or the message '99% of people won't notice this' on a wall tattooed with all the incarnations of 'Je suis Charlie.'

{At one point in the tour, the guide broke-off to say,"Alright, Russ." The group turned around to see Russell Brand, who briefly joined us. Only in London.}

{A soon-to-be knocked down VHil}


Transience is a big feature of street-art, whether the work's illegal or commissioned. Jeavons described it as a piece's 'lifetime'. Even if the council or property owner doesn't paint over it, graffiti can be easily covered by another tag or a mural altered by another artist. The artist Lily Mixe even works in paper pasted onto walls that, organically, weathers away. A lot of the work is politically charged, so it makes perfect sense that there is some sort of visual discussion happening. The more respected the artist, the more untouched his or her work tended to be.

The last stop on the tour was the work above. Jeavons's described it as a 'game-changer'. The artist, who's tag name is VHil, had chip away at a wall to create the face - the depth of colour and shadow you can see is just the difference between exposed brick, plaster and whitewash. But in two weeks it won't exist anymore, as the building is scheduled to be demolished to make way for something new: a trend in the increasingly gentrified east.
  
{Hat, Topshop. Coat, Vintage C.1970s. Shirt, Vintage C.1990s
Skirt, Topshop. Shoes, Topshop [included in this edit]}


London's spectacular attempt to become artic demands the sheepskin. Horrendous bed-hair (the curse of the curly) requires the hat. 

Here's one to listen to while on a street art safari: Kill Them With Colour, Always Something.

Wear: The Area {Brick Lane}

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Wednesday, January 21, 2015

 
 
When backpacks first started making a comeback, (around two-and-a-half years ago, if my memory serves me well) I was a little bit dubious. I'd spent the last few years of secondary school avoiding them like the plague, preferring instead to opt for over-sized doctor's bags that gave me the daily gift of upper-back pain.

Fast-forward to now and I am a firm convert. They are the perfect vessels for laptop-hauling, book-smuggling and water-bottle-transporting.

I even had a love-affair with my current backpack. At £90 (with student discount) from Topshop, it was out of my sensible spending range, even if my old bag was only held together with safety-pins and determination. It was also an impractical bright blue, hairy, spotted, tasselled, soft-leather and water-absorbing creation (admirers have dubbed him 'Sully', after the Monsters Inc. character.) But I adored it - love is a reaction not a choice. I bored friends with tales of its beauty and embarked on a pilgrimage to the Oxford Circus shop everyday for a week.

But one day, the backpack wasn't there. It was a special item for the flagship store, you see, not available for purchase online or elsewhere. After imploring a sales-assistant, the last one was brought from the stockroom. And, dear reader, I bought it. Even it meant eating Special-K for a two weeks to afford it. And for all it's impractical blueness, Sully's a staple for my wardrobe now.

So the moral of the fable is: a good backpack will be a loyal companion. Or something else that justifies impulsive, emotion-driven buying. Let's roll with that.

Here's my picks for this week. All of them characters: boring be damned.
 
 
 
 
Although the clean-cut whiteness of this bag raises its rating on the impracticality scale (unless you are one of these people who never spill anything), that's also its strength. It'll pretty much work well with anything. The design is simple but the Dalmatian print flap really makes it something to notice and envy. It's not at all surprising that ASOS is running low on these.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
As a brand, Lazy Oaf celebrates weirdness. Other bags include a tote that declares 'Not Normal' and another that says 'Take me to the fucking chicken shop.' This bag would make you smile every time you looked at it. It's all colours and real 3D pom-poms. Sure, all your contents would get soaked in the rain but hey, that's why we invented indoors.
 
 
 

 
 
Look at this backpack - its sensible colour, sensible pockets, sensible size, sensible material. Oh so sensible. But it's tooled with this beautiful fern pattern - the perfect balance between statement and need, a great prop for convincing others you make amazing financial decisions.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Not only the pattern and dark suede combination perfectly on point, this backpack has a wonderful story to it. It's entirely made by tradesmen in Bolivia, so you're supporting a community as well. Beara Beara say they want 'to provide an antidote to the throwaway market of the high-street and aim to help create a sense of fun, style, individuality and belonging in people’s lives.' That's exactly it - you'll want a piece you can keep coming back to again and again.
 
 
 
Here's an uplifting song to lighten your load: Bobby McFerrin's Don't Worry Be Happy.

The Weekly Covet: Backpacks

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Sunday, January 18, 2015

One of the great advantages of the internet age is the wealth of inspiration we have at our fingertips. It’s like that degrees of separation game, in which everyone, even undiscovered tribes in the rainforest, are somehow connected to Kevin Bacon. Out in the virtual ‘there’, masterpieces of art, literature and music are just waiting for you to start procrastinating. So are movies, especially 80s cult classics that you can stream on Amazon Instant Video. Who knew The Karate Kid  was pure fashion gold?

"Wax on, wax off."
 
Here's Cal and 1984 getting acquainted. The dark jacket and jeans combo provide a strong background for the over-sized lumberjack shirt and bright blue paisley bandana.


{Bandana, eBay. Jacket, Fred Perry. Shirt, Vinatage c.1980s. T-Shirt, Next.
Jeans, River Island. Socks, Next. Shoes, Nike.}
 
What other song could it be? Carl Douglas' Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting.

Dressing in the Light: The Karate Kid

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I really should spend more time with Soho. Going there is like when you have your iPod on shuffle and this disco-great comes on, that you completely forgot you even had and you realise that you should be listening to it all the time. Love me some Soho. Get in those grooves.

The ‘God’s Own Junkyard’ exhibition at Lights of Soho celebrates the work of the late neon-sign maker Chris Bracey. The pieces address Soho’s hedonistic side: ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’, ‘Sexy’, ‘Love’ and even ‘Sex, Drugs and Bacon Rolls’ shine off walls. Bracey was commissioned to produce work for Eyes Wide Shut, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and four Batman films but it was in Soho that Bracey made his name. At one point, he was the main producer of neon signage for the area’s famous sex shows.
Yet it’s not sordid – it’s carnivalesque. The vibrant designs can be enjoyed in themselves, as a celebration of colour, light and indulgence. As I looked at a fluorescent ‘Lucky’  above an old bicycle, a little girl ran up to statue of Christ on a pedestal of lights: "Look at Jesus, Mum!"
Upstairs, the walls are plastered in signs but when you step into the basement, the pieces become sparser. It feels a bit like a storage area. Perhaps the most arresting piece is a neon-framed mirror in the shape of a coffin, a reminder of Bracey’s absence.


I decided to channel Bracey's enthusiasm for Americana today. I call this ensemble: 'because there is nothing more Rock n Roll than novelty knitwear.' Take notes, Jagger.


{Srunchie, American Apparel. Shirt, ASOS. Cardigan, ASOS.
Jeans, Topshop. Socks, Topshop. Shoes, Converse}

Speaking of Disco greats - Pointer Sisters' Jump.



Wear: The Gallery {Lights of Soho}

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