Tuesday 26 July 2011

Return of Woodstock (not that it ever left)

Recently in Elle I read about a new designer Elle Jervoise who uses Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix's stage costumes as inspiration behind her line of embroidered denim. I've fallen completely in love with the whole range. Though it's expensive, similar things can be made by us more thrifty spenders using some old denim and bit of DIY.
                           
  http://www.jervoisejackets.com/








Monday 18 July 2011

The Influence of Sex in Fashion. The Four.

With the arrival of the "Fetish" trend to Autumn 2011 catwalks I thought i'd dedicate some posts to the important role that sex can play in fashion.  For me there are four things which over the decades no one has been able to get enough of.
                                                                What is it about?

                                                                         Smoke

A lot of my friends find it strange that since leaving school I've started smoking as I used to be a most irritatingly zealous anti-smoking dictator and would set out on vendettas to prevent my friends from becoming addicted. Despite being anti I couldn't help but be obsessed by all aspects of smoking. Maybe it's the whole breaking out of the strict boarding school thing that finally turned me, going off the rails in rebellion of my upbringing and all that crap. Maybe it's because of my new found love of classic Hollywood films such as Gilda (i have the most inappropriate girl crush on Rita Hayworth) and Casablanca or even the series Mad Men where no character is ever caught without a cigarette in their hand. Whatever it was I started and now I can't get enough of smoking and everything that goes with it.
My current most wanted items are a silver vintage cigarette case (made young and acceptable again by Mila Kunis in Black Swan with an alternative use of ecstasy pill container) and a cigarette holder.





Lara Stone, finally a high fashion model with some curves.



                                                                             Lips

Linked to Smoke, cigarettes draw attention to the mouth after all, are lips. I just can't get enough of them, the photo below of three girls kissing is one of my all time favourites. It's by Terry Richardson, son of the photographer Bob Richardson who did the photograph above, guess some things really do run in the family. Thinking this is where my penchant for red lipstick sprung from.




Black Lace


This must be one of the sexiest dresses ever made, and to think that Natalia Vodianova had already had a baby when she wore it.  



Red
If sex was a colour, it would be red. Whether in the form of red lips, dresses or even that hint of glossy red on the bottom of a Louboutin shoe it draws the eye 




I don't know what did it. My obsession with lrd's (long red dresses) probably stemmed from that "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" scene where Jessica Rabbit emerges in her glitttering red number that despite being a gown, appears to be hardly there. 


Valentino, the king of the lrd. The day I have a proper job and guiltily spend a few months wages on my first designer dress it'll be a Valentino. 



Blake Lively in a particularly show stopping number even for her by Versace.


This picture's quite random but i've always had a thing for baths. The petals are pretty cool, the model looks like a modern day sexy Ophelia.

Sunday 10 July 2011

A Collection of Foreign Things

Going Native


Necklace from a Bazaar in Morocco, fringed bag from a shop in Koh Phangan in Thailand, feather pouch from a stall on Khao San road in Bangkok, earrings from Reminiscence (formerly on Kings Road).


Spirituality

Blue and Red pendant from shop in Bangkok, jade fat Buddha, elephant anklet and Ganesha statue a market in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Thursday 7 July 2011

The Lost Boys



As well as a classic 80s cult film The Lost Boys is inspiring for both a biker and bohemian look. There is plenty of man candy including a young Keifer Sutherland, it's strange seeing him in something where he's not racing against time to save the US from terrorists, all sporting leather or embroidered jackets (check out far right in the picture) and crazy haircuts. The lead actress Jami Gertz, aptly named Star spends most of the film in glittering ra ra skirts and white gyspy tops teamed with her massive mane of curly hair. "The Lost Boys" is the "Desperately Seeking Susan" of boy vampire films.






 This film reminds me of the "Iron Maiden" photo shoot by Mario Testino featured in Vogue in 2009.








                                        Again with the motorbikes, but they are just so fucking cool

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Rise of the Bohemians

I'm pretty glad that I was in Asia for the "festival gear" torrent that hits all the fashion magazines as soon as summer approaches. We all know what to wear by now, hunter wellies, unbelievably short high waisted denim shorts- (preferably ripped) and some florals. It's the only time of the year that Barbour jackets are cool and not just for public school country bumpkins.  Throw in some feathers/ head band/ or flowers for the hair and we're set. And yes the goddess of festival season is of course Alexa Chung. We get it! What makes it worse is that I'm just too lazy to attempt to get tickets to festivals such as Glastonbury so it's with enviable irritation that I read the festival trend articles. Though I am hopefully going to the Green Man festival   http://www.greenman.net/ this year where Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale are playing. Beat that Glastonbury for playing around with the folk bohemian look.

I don't meant to be too cutting since this look is exactly what I love about this time of the year and spring. The re awakening of the long boho skirts, brought to life by that incredible Roberto Cavalli skirt advertised by Kate Moss in 2007 (fuck that seems like such a long time ago now). In fact I should have a post devoted to Cavalli, I love the raw inspirations for his prints, animals flowers and general nature. I consider him the king of boho and I still find this photo one of the sexiest and Summer inspiring of all time. Though I confess to having the strange preference of Autumn as a season you can't help but get carried away by the Bohemian trend.

Songs for the Summer
Mumford and Sons and Ray Davies- Days/ This time tomorrow
Noah and the Whale- For Love of an Orchestra
Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros- Home
Stornaway- I saw you blink







Crockery Orgasm

The markets of Sapa were full of painstakingly painted opium pots and pipes, couldn't help bringing a couple home with me. (Caused absolute hell at customs, I couldn't help but thinking how cliche and obvious security were to think a gap year student would be coming home with drugs stored in a pot from a market).


I've never seen such odd kinds of fruits until Vietnam, one called dragon fruit was particularly strange looking, the pink spiky one on the right in the collage.

I bought a mini pipe as well that I'm in love with and tried to smoke with tobacco from my cheap Cambodian cigarettes, kind of worked....


The Hmong people, indigenous to the North mountain area of Vietnam and absolutely hilarious. As you sit in a cafe in Sapa you can see ten of them following one tourist down the street, it didn't get irritating because they were very entertaining whilst selling. Their outfits were absolutely incredible, they would all wear a very dark navy blue embroidered with bright  colours, I ended up buying a short jacket in the Hmong style, can't see myself walking down the streets of London in it, even somewhere as indie as Camden but its nice to have.


Though the rest of Vietnam had little impact on me, it seemed confused whether it was East or West, I would recommend Sapa to anyone. 

Tuesday 5 July 2011

The Motorcycle Diaries

Sapa, Vietnam. A beautiful town in the clouds and one of the most photogenic places I've ever been to. The whole trip made me want to own a motorbike which I've decided is the only appropriate transport for really seeing a country. One of the best moments of Asia was when my friend Polly and I were listening to "The Cave" whilst biking around the paddy fields. Yep, we felt cool. 



Really, really want this parasol! 













A really good book I read whilst in Asia is called "Burmese Days" by George Orwell (so of course it was going to be worth reading), not only is the Penguin Modern Classics cover really cool (again with the great parasol) but its an interesting read. It is a satire of the colonial rule of Burma by the British in the 1920's, one of the great quotations of the book is from one of the members of the exclusive white only club described in the novel "after all, natives were natives- interesting, no doubt, but finally... an inferior people". 


 
Throughout Asia I found that though much of the effects of imperialism have worn off the book is still very relevant to modern day with the prosperity of white Westerners compared to the poverty of the people in places like Cambodia. In India and other Asian countries white people are still relatively revered and respected for their skin colour and many look to their charity or consumerism/tourism for their livelihood. The  taking of the men in the novel of Burmese prostitutes as mistresses is hardly different to the casual ease with which Western men can take prostitutes in Bangkok. I wonder how many more years before East and West are truly equal, hopefully not many.