9 December, 2010

Teenage Dreams

Going into town this weekend? Well while you’re pootling around Liberty and Carnaby Street, don’t forget to stretch your legs a wee bit further, to Youth Club at 35 Marshall Street. For TWO DAYS ONLY (tomorrow and Saturday), Sign of the Times, Double Dice and Karen Savage present TEENAGE DREAMS, a photography exhibition celebrating alternative teenage style featuring work by FDA Styling and Photography students from London College of Fashion.

While you’re there you can also have a nose at the other youth culture goodies on offer at Youth Club including hard-to-find books and photography.

Teenage Dreams, 11am-6pm, 10-11 December, 35 Marshall Street, W1 (020 7494 4546). Admission free.

Disneyrollergirl 0 Comments Photography

31 October, 2010

Manchester: fashion destination?

Two weeks ago I was introduced to the delights of Manchester to celebrate its Heart Of Fashion campaign. Aimed at showcasing the fashion offer of the city, I was given a tour of the Northern Quarter (AKA vintage heaven), treated to an audience with Amanda Wakeley at Harvey Nichols and wined and dined in the Harvey Nichols restaurant. In between, I managed to shoe-horn in a three-hour vox pop session with most excellent photographer Jason Lock for a travel mag. During our ‘stylish people of Manchester’ scouting, we spotted the most incredible trio of 70-somethings, straight off the Corrie set (circa 1968). There they were, ‘aving a fag and a mother’s meeting on the street, resplendent in pastel-hued raincoats, shampoo-and-set coiffs and sheer Northern character. And – I swear to God – one of them sported a handful of ghetto-fab nails that put Willow Smith’s 3-D claws to shame. Did we get a photo? Hell no, the poor biddies were camera-shy and ‘running late for bingo’. I could’ve wept.

We drowned our missed photo-op sorrows at Harvey Nichols as local girl, Amanda Wakeley presented her AW10 collection in an animated presentation. Super-luxe leathers, suedes, cashmeres and jerseys, scissored into capes, coats, sculpted jackets and ‘scuba’ dresses, were accompanied by Camilla Skovgaard asymmetric heels. All flattering for all ages and made to last. I was impressed with the attention to detail; Wakeley’s cashmere cardigans are lined in satin and all the stretch pieces are lined in stretch silk so they feel as good as they look. We discussed the commercial side of fashion. Wakeley believes that “in a recession, people buy things that stand out but have a longevity. They want value in the fabric, the make, the cut.” On the subject of fashion and the web, she’s a firm believer (next season Amanda Wakeley will be sold on Net-a-porter.com), but doesn’t think online will kill bricks and mortar. And of the moment Angelina Jolie wore Wakeley’s silver beaded gown to the premiere of Salt, she said, “the follow-up was phenomenal, the blogs went berserk! The power of celebrity and online has surged.”

Following a make-your-own-mojitos session, we feasted on slow-cooked Cheshire beef, truffle gnocchi and baby leeks in the Harvey Nichols restaurant, where I discovered that the best selling labels in the Manchester store are Juicy Couture and Roberto Cavalli. Who said bling is dead? By bedtime, I was truly spent. Thank God then for the Lowry Hotel, who comped me the biggest hotel room I have ever seen – think floor to ceiling river-view windows, a massive bed, ocean-liner size desk, leather chaise longue, plus an entire separate dressing area (makes a change from the usual foot of rail space and two meagre hangers).

It would have been nice to have free in-room wi-fi but luckily I’d come equipped with my mi-fi dongle *smug face*. After an emotional half hour watching the Chilean miners emerge triumphant from their hellhole, I drifted off into a deep and blissful slumber.

Day two involved a tour of some of Manchester’s high end boutiques and stores. Manchester is a city where old and new exist proudly side by side. While 175 year old Kendals is the oldest department store in the world, there was much ado about the Armani store opening in the newly built luxury destination, The Avenue at Spinningfields.

There’s clearly something of a Westwood following in Manchester, judging by the two shops and an Agent Provocateur store (not strictly Westwood I know, but loosely-related). However, the highlight for me was Hervia Bazaar. Owned by the same team who run the Westwood franchises around the country, it stocks an eclectic edit of labels including Rick Owens leathers, Elke Kramer jewellery, Pierre Hardy shoes and bags, A Child of the Jago menswear (see, the Westwood connection again) and Pyrenex outerwear, all beautifully merchandised. The store has also been a great supporter of emerging British labels – unsurprisingly my eyes went straight to the Sibling knitwear…

A Child of the Jago

Menswear

Pierre Hardy

Elke Kramer

Accessories

Sibling

Disneyrollergirl 4 Comments Designers, Photography, Retail concepts

5 October, 2010

Intensity

Boo George’s pictures of Zambian diamond miners

Disneyrollergirl 4 Comments Photography

8 September, 2010

Style Book: Fashionable Inspirations

If you’re a fashion bibliophile, you may be feeling all your Christmases have come at once. Hot on the heels of Jasper Conran’s ravishing ‘Country’ (not strictly a fashion book but definitely one for fans of breathtaking imagery) come Orla Kiely’s Pattern, Matthew Williamson’s monograph and Luella Bartley’s Guide to English Style.

And then there is Style Book: Fashionable Inspirations. A collaboration between Getty Images and former Marie Claire fashion editor Elizabeth Walker, it’s a fat-but-compact resource of fashion shoots, portraits and reportage imagery – some never seen before – that spans decades. I asked Liz a few nosy questions…

Liz Walker with Bruce Oldfield

Disneyrollergirl: How did you end up working in fashion?
Liz Walker: I trained as a graphic designer in the days before computers. My first job in London was as Assistant Art Director at Harpers & Queen magazine , as it was called then. I went on to be the Men’s Fashion Editor and then the Women’s Editor as well; you could move around more easily in those days.

DRG: How is the business of making fashion images different today from when you started?
LW: The main difference in creating fashion images today is obviously the birth of the digital age when everything can be finalised on location including the layouts and you can even change the colour of the clothes. This has it’s advantages as well as the disadvantage of having less of a choice; I also mourn the death of the Polaroid.

DRG: You have had a long, successful career, what has been your highlight?
LW: When I started the men’s magazine for Harpers it was at the time of a new wave of handsome actors appearing on our screens. Nigel Havers in ‘Chariots of Fire’, Art Malik in ‘Jewel in the Crown’ and Rupert Everett in the West End theatre to name but a few. It was much easier then; you just telephoned them at home, had lunch and then took the snaps without an agent in sight, very good fun.

I did some very creative pictures with an Italian photographer, Fabrizio Ferri, where we dyed backcloths and hung then over the edge of cliffs and the like; we also did various stories on huge Polaroids sometimes using double images which all sounds so antique now. Later at Marie Claire, where I did a lot more broadcast work, Ruby Wax and I made a television film at the Paris fashion collections; that was quite a challenge. And Jenny Murray on ‘Woman’s Hour’, where I did a couple of round-ups of the looks for the season, is set to get any journalist quaking in her stilettos.

DRG: How did the idea for the book come about? Had you been sitting on it for ages or were you approached by the publisher?
LW: I have known Charles Merullo, the publisher of Endeavour, for many years since we shared a rather chaotic houseboat. We had planned to do some sort of fashion book for ages and even worked on a couple of dummies; at the time I had a seriously seven day a week job and couldn’t really dedicate enough time to another project. When I went freelance, the time seemed right and I got together with the Art Director, Tea Aganovic, to work out the initial concept. We had an idea to do a boxed set with two volumes, one of men and one of women, but it became apparent to me that the juxtaposition of different generations and genders was a more interesting idea.

DRG: What makes an iconic fashion image? What is your favourite image in the book?
LW: An iconic image really etches itself on your memory like the photograph of Dior’s New Look by Cecil Beaton and all of Slim Aarons’ work, which is so evocative of the sixties and seventies. I find it very difficult to choose only one image from ’Style Book’ as they have all become best friends; I love the spread with the Indian army officer dressed top-to-toe in tartan including his turban facing a funny little Japanese artist in checks. Also the cover of Jackie O’, maybe because somebody thought that it was an old picture of me!