Related #2: What's Your Time Period?

If I had to pick a time period, I'd pick the 60's and be a mod.  Typical of people who always want that they can't have, I don't have the legs for micro minis and am deathly afraid of scooters (or any two-wheeled transport).  I would be a terrible mod.

In yesterday's post, I talked about my dad and the punk movement in Dublin.  Any street style phenomenon that predates digital cameras in Ireland is usually woefully underdocumented.  Maybe it's because Ireland is such a small country, maybe it's because we're all really lazy - who knows?

On top of that, Mod culture is also woefully underdocumented (at least in comparison with other subcultures like punk) so there's not a lot to go on.  But here are a few Mod Links...

Mods go wild in Margate after a clash with rockers (source)

For all things Mod, Modculture is the go-to place.

Polka dot mod mini from Nod to Mod Vintage (could there be a more appropriate name for this shop?)

Do you want to organise your very own Mod Club Night?  Click here.

Richard Nicoll's collection for Fred Perry has more than a whiff of Mod to it.

Listen to the Modcast - more music oriented, but worth a listen.  Guests have included Matt Berry.  Oh Matt.  I love your dulcet tones.

Minidress from Hellhound Vintage

From Dave's Mod Photos

Recollections of a Mod life (lots more pics here)

Jumper Dress from Novella Bleu

Licentiate Column 12/05/11: Fashioning Nightwear

What do you wear in bed? Burberry pajamas? Silk kimonos? Calvin briefs? Something saucy by Elle MacPherson or (cue scandalised gasps) Ann Summers?

The politics of nightwear aren’t so much convoluted as they are unexplored. I can’t remember the last time a fashion magazine dedicated a shoot to fashionable nightwear, if ever. I doubt somehow that the sticky subject of what to wear while unconscious and riding the waves of REM has Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington engaged in vicious debate over the best hemline for a babydoll nightie.

A straw poll taken amongst my female friends (the answers the males gave are unfit for print and would probably result in a mental-picture induced fainting fit) revealed that fashion has no place between the sheets, unless grey Marks and Spencers t-shirts are the new Spring/Summer trend that Vogue have unforgivably forgotten to report on.

We already over-analyse what we should wear to weddings, to dates, at work and at play. Why not stir a pot already overloaded with spoons and discuss the ramifications of what you wear in bed? That grey tee will never look the same again.

1) Pajamas. Loose fitting shirt and trousers, often made in a cotton or silk material. A much beloved Christmas present from clueless maiden aunts the words over, pajamas are basically slouchy suits. The pajama is the formal matriarch of the nightwear family. It is staid, perennial and probably best worn in cream silk with reams of pearls, a la Coco Chanel. Here’s a bonus fun fact: Pajamas were, up until the 1940’s, an acceptably chic form of daywear. Those girls who go to Tesco in their best Penney’s piggy print know more than they’re letting on.

2) Baby-doll nighties. Super short, often transparent nightgowns, sometimes sold with matching underwear. Much-maligned, under appreciated and terminally neglected now that suggestion just doesn’t cut it in the sexy stakes, baby-dolls were once the pinnacle of Playboy risque. Modern baby-dolls are close cut on the hips and have slightly seedy connotations. If buying, vintage baby-dolls are your best bet. Be warned, old polyester can scratch like angry sandpaper and if worn by the wrong person, can make you resemble a circus tent with legs.

3) T-shirt and underwear. By far the most popular answer in the straw poll, the thinking behind this combo is that, before bed, you take off everything but your underwear and cotton vest. And that’s it. No effort equals high function and low impact. Many women labour under the thought that this is actually the sexiest option for bed-time attire and they’d be right, unless their partner watches too many exotic films. It’s you with the absolute minimum of clothing on - what’s not for your partner to love?

4) Funzie - The adult version of a onesie, this is best indulged on a lonely night in front of the tv, with a tub of ice cream and a dab of paraphilic infantilism. Just say no.

Licentiate Column 07/04/11

Last week I was lucky enough to attend a talk given by one of Ireland’s foremost fashion editors. She spoke about her teenage years and the birth of a clothes obsession, raiding her granny’s wardrobe for vintage threads, taking the bus to London and razoring the Topshop tags off her purchases (a pre-EU measure to throw the customs man off the scent).

It sounds a lot like the gestation period of any fashion-fixated teen, except now we’re detagging tops from Woodbury Common, not Oxford Street. It seems as if nothing has changed. Is this a template that we all follow? Discover the joys of clothing at an early age, then let it develop naturally through occasional, light cross-border smuggling?

But, while the measures in which the individual grows to love clothes never changes, society goes through convulsive totterings, from one cultural extreme to another, and often because of the most unexpected catalysts.

In 1995, there was a heatwave. Not the Irish heatwaves that we’re used to, in which there’s three days of fine weather and everyone migrates to the beach purely out of fear that the nice weather will end before the planning permission for the first sandcastle comes through. A proper heatwave - with water rationing and yellow grass and a million lobster-skinned Hibernians hovering around the place with barely any clothes on, displaying tatty bra straps and previously unseen cleavage.

It was this heatwave, the fashion editor proposed, that was the driving force that knocked Ireland headfirst into modernity. Before then, we were prudish about showing our breasts, unaware of the technology of ceramic plates for hair-straighteners and unwilling to let our unique Irishness be subsumed into a European mould.

Before 1995, the bodycon dresses that we see in every town in Ireland on every Saturday night would have been the Church-intervening kind of scandalous. Afterwards, the typical pale-faced colleen was about as visible as a unicorn. That summer was the starting point for a baby boom and, some might argue, the real start of the Celtic Tiger phenomenon. We had our first taste of the good life; the heat, the cleavage, the acts that inevitably precede a baby boom. We didn’t want it to end.

Could a heatwave really be the starting point for Modern Ireland? Were these the bra-straps seen around the world? Well, yes.

It’s a perfect storm. A heatwave did change the way that we wear clothes, but it’s was a rare combination of cultural,economic and social factors that accelerated this change, going from zero to couture in less than a decade.

It was the start of a decade of excessive prosperity. It was the decade when the Catholic Church loosened it’s moralising grip on the country. Travel became cheaper. Women began to see what life was like on the other side. We wanted change. We wanted progress. We wanted freedom.

It was then that Dunnes started selling lacy bras. See what I mean? The perfect storm.

Distilled: London Fashion Week A/W '11

Here's another extra super-duper, handy-dandy guide to Fashion week. Last one was New York, Milan will be posted in a few days. Here's some of my favourite looks, with a bit of trend prediction thrown in under the guise of journalistic integrity.

from l-r

Row 1 - Deep Red - Betty Jackson, John Rocha, Saloni

Row 2 - 70's Granny Patterns - Christopher Kane, Henry Holland, JW Anderson Woman

Row 3 - Twisted Brit Heritage - Burberry, Paul Smith, Pringle

Row 4 - Bright Pattern Clash - Jonathan Saunders, Lousie Gray, Mary Katrantzou

Row 5 - Grown-up Prints - David Koma, Erdem, Jonathan Saunders

Row 6 - Bonkers Tailoring - Jaeger, Jean Pierre Braganza, Krystof Strozyna

All pics from catwalking.com

YAY TRENDS

• Asymmetrical lapels - lapels as dresses, lapels as scarves, lapels as trousers.  We'll be wearing lapels as bikinis next - this can only be a good thing.
• Blue and green - the ultimate optical aquamarine colourpop.
• Heavy materials - I there's something I love, it's going out with he reassuring weight of a blanket around my shoulders (actually, that might be something I need to see a psychotherapist about).
• Sherlock Holmes coats - full length or cropped, as seen at Pringle.  All I need now is a tweed hat and a pipe.  I already have a sidekick called Dr. Watson.

NAY TRENDS

• No... Can't think of anything.

NOTES

Pics 4 and 5 - Who knew that Granny's blankets would be back in fashion - and I don't hate it...

Pic 6 - Paisley has finally been given it's due in JW Anderson's first womenswear collection.

Pic 8 - Paul Smith's collection was probably my favourite catwalk show thus far - there was not one thing that I didn't want to wear.  And the models!  Like tall, willowy versions of Daria .

Pic 18 - Off-kilter draping deserves to be all over the place come this Autumn

Licentiate Column 24/02/11 The Red Shoes

Have you ever heard the Tale of the Red Shoes, written by Hans Christian Anderson? A vain girl tricks her adoptive mother into buying her a pair of much-coveted red shoes, which causes her to pay no attention in church. She stops attending services and goes to a party in her bescarleted feet instead. Once she starts to dance, the shoes will not allow her to stop. She dances and dances without an end in sight, through storms, through her mother's funeral, until she reaches the point of insanity or death, when a man take mercy on her and chops off her feet.

She eventually realises the folly of emotionally blackmailing a parent into irresponsible shoe buying, then she dies. So, a happy ending for everyone involved. Or maybe not.

In 1948, a seminal dance film was released, also called The Red Shoes. In it, aspiring prima ballerina Vicky Page gets the chance to dance the lead role in the titular ballet, but eventually has to choose between love of a man or love of her art, symbolised potently in the form of a pair of red ballet slippers. The consequences are predictably disastrous.

That's the trouble with red shoes: They symbolise the things that a woman are, very unfairly, restricted from freely having. These stories are designed to encourage women to conform. Dedicate yourself to your artistic passion instead of looking after a husband? Indulge in hedonism and freedom of self expression? Be an independent person who answers only to herself? Then prepare to have your legs chopped off with a rusty axe before repenting your wicked, wicked ways.

Even now, the world at large doesn't want us to own a pair of proper red shoes. After spending a day in town with my friend Fiona, bemoaning the dearth of such appendages, she came home and asked a question on Facebook; 'what do red shoes mean?' The answers were varied, but the real corkers included such gems as 'red shoes, no knickers' and 'red shoes = Amsterdam window girl'. Apparently, only whores get to don red shoes.

In this day and age, it's surprising that such asinine restrictions actually exist in terms of a simple primary colour. I want a pair of red shoes. Preferably with a very high heel and all kinds of ribbons and general fripperies. And yet, I have never ever had sex in exchange for money - what kind of topsy-turvy world do we live in?

My non-purchase is not as a result of these utterly sophomoric preconceptions; it's the conditions that these preconceptions may have precipitated. There are just no nice red shoes to be had. Of the 1000 or so pairs of women's shoes available on behemoth e-tailer ASOS.com, just fifteen are red, and even then, maybe only two pairs are even slightly close to that particular shade or rich, tomatoey, viscid, brilliantine red that has provoked centuries-long controversy.

It's damnably sexist to assume that such a shade of footwear automatically shrills 'come to bed NOW'. Don't get me wrong, it commands your attention - but the sexual attention can be unwanted or unintended. Red holds immense, often untapped power. Just look at the pope. He wears red shoes, and you don't see anyone wolf-whistling at him or mistaking him for a call girl, now do you?

Distilled: New York Fashion Week A/W '11

Here's a handy-dandy pocket guide to New York Fashion Week - Favourite runway looks, trend predictions and the stuff that didn't go over so well.  I'll be doing one for London, Milan and Paris every week so if you like this, make sure to check back next Friday for more catwalk overanalysis.


All photos from Fashion Gone Rogue, except photo 3, from Getty Images



From left to right, per row

Tartan galore: 1 - Y3, 2 - Rag& Bone, 3 - Libertine

Slick monochromatic tailoring:  4 - Jason Wu, 5 - Michael Kors, 6 - DKNY

Print clash:  7 - Proenza Schouler, 8 - Rodarte, 9 - Preen

Left-field details:  10 - Jeremy Scott, 11 - Marc Jacobs, 12 - Prabal Gurung

70's trend:  13 - Diane Von Furstenberg, 14 - Marc by Marc Jacobs, 15 - Rodarte

Trends from New York for Autumn/Winter 2010/11

YAY TRENDS

• Red - and LOTS of it.
• Pattern clashes - intricate patterns based on maths/science (as seen on Preen with their uniform polyhedra prints)
• Polka dots - as at Marc Jacobs.
• Texture tastic - not only will we be mixing patterns, we'll be mixing textures as well.  As seen at Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler,
• Thigh-high split skirts - my legs say no, but my brain says YES!

NAY TRENDS

• Sheer tights - Is it just me or are they a bit, erm, Maggie Thatcher?
• Fur - on everything - on cuffs, on hats, skirts, everything.  I guarantee that someone will manufacture fur underpants and make a profit.  My personal stance on fur is pretty non-committal but the sheer amount of fur on the catwalks in NY seemed incredibly self-indulgent.  Some of the most original collections didn't use fur at all. 

NOTES

Pic 10 - Where would we be without Jeremy Scott?  The world would be a much duller place (and Katy Perry would have a yawning chasm in her wardrobe).  I think that his collections are best viewed on individual merits.  Example; this bikini/clear mac combo.  Not something I could ever pull off in real life (and the world breathes a sigh of relief) but pair the crystal-encrusted mac with some monochrome tailoring?  WIN.

Pic 11 - Marc Jacobs also works the clear clothing look, but this blouse is much more subtle.

Pic 15 - If you can hold a pair of knitting needles, you could easily knit this Rodarte jumper.  I wonder how much the retail will be?

What were your NYFW highlights and lowlights?

Who was the real Holly Golightly?

Any fashion blogger worth his or her sodium intake has heard about, if not already read Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's.  The book's heroine, Holly Golightly, is a gadabout girl-about-town with a predisposition for rich men and total character reinvention.  She's flighty and flirty.  She's a phony - but she's a real phony.

Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the 1961 film

I've got a real grá (that's Irish for love, international readers) for Truman Capote.  I wrote many essays about him while studying English in university.  He was an enfant terrible, an enigma with a cryptic tongue, an interviewer with an uncanny knack to get details out of any source and reduce macho men like Muhammad Ali to tears.  When it came to being interviewed, Capote was undeniably economical with the truth.

Playboy:  Shortly after publication of Breakfast at Tiffany's, a writer named Bonnie Golightly sued you for $800,000, on the grounds that she was the real-life inspiration for your fictional heroine.  At least four other New York girls about town countered with the claim that they were the prototype of Holly.  Was the characterisation of Holly based on a real person?
Capote:  Yes, but not on any of the people you refer to.  The real Holly Golightly was a girl exactly like the girl in Breakfast at Tiffany's, with the single exception that in the books she comes from Texas, whereas the real Holly was a German refugee who arrived in New York at the beginning of the War, when she was 17 years old.  Very few people were aware of this, however, because she spoke English without any trace of an accent.  She had an apartment in the brownstone where I lived and we became great friends.  Everything I wrote about her is literally true - not about her friendship with a gangster called Sally Tomato and all that, but everything about her personality and approach to life, even the most preposterous parts of the book.
                 - From a 1968 interview with Playboy, click to read


Sorry Truman, I call bullshit on your answer...

People like to search for the 'real' Holly Golightly', just as they want to know who the 'real' Sherlock Holmes is, or the 'real' Sal Paradise.  In fiction, there is no 'real' anything, only composites and impressions drawn and interpreted through that writer's vision.  Even if the German did exist (which, due to Capote's predisposition for embellishment, I seriously doubt), she's not Holly Golightly.  Holly is her and more of the many women in Capote's coterie of female friends, all exceptional, all stylish, all Holly, all the time.  Here's a few of Capote's possible influences.

Maeve Brennan

Maeve Brennan at home - Photo by Karl Blissinger

Maeve Brennan moved from Ireland to the USA when she was seventeen.  Both Brennan and Capote worked at Harper's Bazaar, which is probably where they met.  They also worked at The New Yorker (where Brennan wrote a column called The Long-Winded Lady) at the same time.  She was regarded as eccentric, but this soon turned into obsessive behaviour and she became an alcoholic.  Towards the end of her life, she was committed to a hospital, where she died in 1993.

Just like Holly - Wore trademark black dresses and dark glasses. Spent far beyond her means.  Erratic behaviour.  Often had a case of the Mean Reds.
Not so Golightly - Brennan had a real, taxable job and a creative outlet, writing short stories and a novel.

Read more:  The Long-Winded Lady , by Maeve Brennan and Maeve Brennan: Wit, Style and Tragedy - An Irish Writer in New York by Angela Bourke

Doris Lilly

Lilly in later years

After Capote published Other Voices, Other Rooms, he became very good friends with Doris Lilly, a blonde starlet who famously dated Gene Kelly and Ronald Reagan and with whom he'd eat dinner and talk for hours.  Lilly said "Truman used to come over all the time and watch me put make-up on before I went out..., there's a lot of me in Holly Golightly".  Lilly died in 1991 with no money.  Her mountain of costume jewellery, given to her by her many admirers over the years, had to be sold off to cover funeral costs.

Just like Holly - Had a thwarted Hollywood career, was a gal-about-town, had a famously pragmatic attitude towards men (Lilly wrote How to Marry a Millionaire, amongst other suggestively titled works and said "Millionaires are marrying their secretaries because they're so busy making money that they haven't time to see other girls"), never actually got to marry a millionaire.
Not so Golightly - Can you see Holly Golightly as a leggy blonde?

Read More - How to Make Love in Five Languages by Doris Lilly

Suzy Parker and Dorian Leigh

Parker (left) and Leigh at a shoot for LIFE Magazine

Parker and Leigh were two sisters who were both models.  Leigh was photographed by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Cecil Beaton, amongst others. Parker, 15 years younger than Leigh, became Avedon's muse and the face of Chanel during the 50's and 60's.

Just like Holly - Terminal cat owners, use of the fire escape as means of exit and entry, beguiling and hilarious.
Not so Golightly - Both sisters were supposed homebodies and, unlike the champagne and cigarettes Golightly, both were excellent cooks - Leigh even had cordon Bleu training.

Read More - Avedon Fashion 1944 - 2000, by Richard Avedon

There are more women who could be Golightly.  If I was to list them all I'd be writing this post for a month.  But, that's what's so great about Holly Golightly.  She's such a singular character, but she could be anyone.  That's why so many women (myself included) identify with her.

Licentiate Column 10/02/11 Transitional Dressing and how to work it

I sometimes wonder who thought up the phrase 'Spring has sprung', because I can categorically guarantee that he or she was not an Irish person. In February Spring doesn't so much leap and bound about like an Easter rabbit as it does limp like a semi-retired March hare with a double hip replacement and an inner ear problem.

We all know that there are four seasons; Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter - Ireland is but one temporal nexus in a massive clump of countries where all four seasons make an appearance in one day. You step out on the street in the morning and the walk to work is punctuated by dangerous, icy puddles. It's blisteringly hot as you eat a sandwich in the park on your lunch break.On the way home, your much-needed umbrella gets turned inside-out by gale force winds powered by the unholy sneezes of Zeus.

In the month of February, fashion magazines are stuffed to the gills with articles on transitional dressing, that is, the subtle art of bridging the gap between winter and summer wardrobes without looking like the little girl who broke into her grannies dressing up box and decided that the denim hotpants and the feather-lined parka made a stylish and practical ensemble for all weather eventualities (if you have your own granny-esque dress up box then you deserve a high five - if your granny happens to have a pair of denim hotpants in her dress-up box then give her a high five from me).

Transitional dressing is a bit of a misnomer for temperate places like Melbourne or Cork or Glasgow or Reykjavik, where the time span between seasons can be a matter of minutes. We are forced to dress transitionally all year round, peeling off and putting on more layers than Salome dressed up as an onion at Hallowe'en.

A pessimistic person could argue that the emphasis put on the perceived importance of transitional dressing is one of the unwelcome side effects of global warming; the increasingly uncertain weather means that we have to be prepared for any outcome. A cynical person could argue that transitional dressing is a concerted effort by clothing manufacturers and fashion magazines to sell more clothes and draw in enough full-page advertising to make Vogue look like the Argos catalogue. A realistic person knows that everyone will always be somewhere between hot and cold most of the time, unless you happen to live in Antarctica or on Mercury, so dress accordingly.

There's really only one rule when it comes to transitional dressing, and that is layering. Layer, layer again, then add another layer for luck. Is it rainy but warm? Layer on a light raincoat. Wearing a floaty floral summer dress but unsure of the temperature? Leggings and fine knits are your new best friends.

The cardigan is perpetually useful when the seasons are having mood swings. Simultaneously demure and sexy, in a clichéd 'seductive librarian' way, it can be worn buttoned up, open, around the shoulders, with rolled up sleeves or knotted around the waist.

Transitional dressing is as easy as putting on your clothes. If you can't master that (I'm looking at you, Jodie Marsh) then all hope is lost. For everyone else, this is one trend that will outlast the seasons.

Licentiate Column 03/02/11

Paddy Englishman, Paddy Irishman and Paddy Scotsman walk into a bar. Englishman is wearing a riding habit, resplendent in jodphurs and red jacket. Scotsman is no less magnificent in tweed plus fours, wielding a golf club and swinging his familial tartan scarf over his brawny neck. Paddy Irishman is decked out in a three piece suit in varying shades of emerald green and pristine patent slippers, offset with unnecessarily large silver buckles.

Who's the odd one out? Surprise, surprise, it's the Irishman. While all three men are exemplary cliches, only the Irishman's clothing has no basis in fact whatsoever. Englishmen have been known to wear riding habits and some Scottish people don tweed from time to time (where do you think Chanel got the idea for all those suits?) but the Jolly Green Getup? That territory has been untouched by Irish Man, with the possible exception of Paul Galvin.

What is Irish style? The French have their innate chicness and tendency to favour quality over quantity, the Americans their cult of grooming and the English their mix of heritage and eccentricity. What do the Irish have that marks them out from everyone else? Could you pick out an Irish person in a foreign country if they weren't wearing a hurling jersey and a bad case of sunburn?

It's not that we don't have a long tradition of manufacturing distinctly Irish clothing. We did that hundreds of years ago and still do now- it's just that the Irish message has got lost in translation in an effort to engage in global communication. Consider the Aran jumper; originating from the Aran Islands in the west of Ireland. Even the stitches are imbued with a Celtic mysticism. The cable in the cable knit signifies an integral part of the Aran fishermen's trade as well as a talisman to ensure safety while on the sea. How much does this matter to the Topshop stylist who believes that they are an integral part of Scottish life, as well as being totally on trend? Zilch. Zippo. Zip.

Irish clothing also has the tendency to assimilate with the style of other countries. Take the brogue, the most famous manufacturer of which is Church's, a quintessentially British brand. Church's brogues come with different tips, perforations and colours, English stamps on an Irish template. It's not a bad thing (if it's good enough for Alexa Chung, it's definitely good enough for me) but a smidge of Gaelic recognition wouldn't go awry. The same goes for Irish lace and linens, Donegal tweeds, sturdy woolens and intricate Celtic patterns.

But what gives an Irish person her style? I don't think that it's as easy as popping on a geansaí; it's something else - indistinct, but still indelible. I don't think that Irish style is truly represented by the beaming, perma-tanned, body-conned lovelies that we often see hanging off rugby players or doing promotions for Bavaria on Stephen's Green.

For me, great Irish style is loose and slightly rumpled, like a poet taking in a liquid lunch in a boreen. The look is always slightly undone; hair is loose and natural, a top button on a shirt must never be done up. It's well put together, nicely thought but never overwrought. Low maintenance,high impact. It's always been there, so we don't think to much about it or wonder why other people don't notice.

We're so laid back that we don't question the implications of our appearance. And, with the typical luck of the Irish, it's that laid back casualness that makes Irish style great.

The Clothes On Their Backs

Riccardo Tisci's Givenchy couture offerings this season were all about Asian influence. It's little wonder, because Asia and all the rich facets of it's culture are slowly permeating Western consciousness. Asia also has a major commercial influence, what with Prada joining the ever-increasing ranks of companies choosing to list in Hong Kong as opposed to their home markets.

This collection draws on a LOT of Asian influences (butoh, Kazuo Ohno, anime, embroidery, cranes, dragons... the list goes on) but I'm really interested in (as far as my incredibly amateurish, untrained eyes can see) the samurai and origami influences.

Japanese samurai circa 1870

When you go on websites that feature this collection and the insano, day-glo Philip Treacy headgear, the comments section is inevitably clogged with cries of 'VIKING!' - you can really see the influence of the samurai helmets.  Irrelevant note alert - One of my favourite places to go in the V&A Museum in London is the Japanese section to look at all the samurai uniform.  It's all so intricate and well crafted.  Every aspect of the samurai uniform is carefully considered; every colour, every fold, every image has a cultural or practical significance.  Perhaps it's this attention to detail that aligns it so well with Givenchy.

Samurai circa 1880

You can really see the samurai and origami influences in the sharpness and angularity of the shoulders.  The pink motif above looks like it could be a representation of a samurai helmet (or a backpack in the shape of a bug if you think about it in a Rorschach kinda way).  I love the pristine whiteness of this dress.  It's like a fresh piece of paper begging to be folded into all sorts of magical shapes.

Origami samurai helmets

The headgear made so much more sense when I saw these mini samurai helmets made out of paper.  I know that it's supposed to be based on robots... but I like thinking it's an origami samurai helmet.  Let me have my wrongfooted delusion, ok?  Here is a link if you want to make a tiny samurai helmet and wear it on your finger.

I'm not very good at conclusions, so let me just say that the Givenchy collection is beautiful and batshit crazy.  Just the way I like it.

Licentiate Column 26/01/11

I'll listen to everything that I'm told, but I almost never listen to a) my father or b) political news.  Both are fond of grand pronouncements, hyperbolic accusations and statements resulting in a sense of self-loathing the likes of which The National Enquirer can only dream of publishing.

It's fortunate that the one time I actually did listen to my father was in regards to politics - a double whammy that filled up my aural assault quota quite nicely, thank you very much.  He told me that the population of Ireland is close to the population of Manchester, but we have as many political representatives as country ten times Ireland's size.  The result is a tin-pot government, unable or unwilling to pull itself out of the country's present funk due to a lethal combination of corruption, ineptitude and a misguided sense of self-entitlement.

Ireland needs a Maggie Thatcher.  Calm down now, put down your pitchforks and Poll Tax paraphenalia, I'm not suggesting for a nanosecond that Ireland needs a woman who refuses people a fair wage, denies small children their calcium and plays with the power grid as if it was a tricky dimmer switch.

Margaret Thatcher was the Iron Lady, a politician that you could legitimately hate for legitimate reasons.  With her navy blue power shoulders and impervious helmet of hair, she personified the cold, steely, uncaring gaze of an impassive statue, unflinching at the chaos she was causing.  Our politicians bumble about more than the Three Stooges and the Marx Brothers in a bouncy castle and retain the slightly greasy sheen of stress-induced sweating as if was going out of fashion (which it is).  The rumpled suits of Brian Cowen only add to his frazzled 'Whoops, there goes the Central Bank!' aura.  The shoulders of his suits are cut exclusively for faux-contrite shrugging or incredibly defensive prognostication.  Ireland's politicians are every bit as as bad as Thatcher; their shambolic, pseudo-apologetic clothing is the only thing to dictate otherwise.

We need politicians to smarten up and fly right.  The adoption of Margaret Thatcher as a sartorial National Treasure in Britain despite the deep well of public hatred (she was photographed for Vogue by Mario Testino in 2008) should draw attention to the power of the right suit in the face of gross ineptitude.  We need a decisive leader who can take charge, preferably with a swift jab of an Aquascutum handbag and the flash of a well-turned out ankle (Brian Lenihan or Enda Kenny, I'm looking at you).

What we really need are some good politicians, but since that's a near impossibility, we should just tart up the terrible ones that we have.  Give them some small veneer of public professionalism with the right clothing and attitude, and we'll have reason to double our complaints.  Backcomb Mary Harney's hair and cement with a pint of hairspray into the eponymous Thatch, pop her into a pair of suitable Ferragamos and presto!  We have a new Maggie.

A term coined appropriately at the apex of Reaganism and Thatcherism, 'politics is showbusiness for ugly people' still stands strong today.  And if that really is the case, then we're all watching Eastenders - not Questions and Answers.

Licentiate Column 13/01/11

I'd like to thank everyone who has voted for me so far as one of Ireland's most influential bloggers .  The competition is ending tomorrow at 6pm Irish time, so I'm going to make a final (very annoying) push for more votes.  If you've voted before you can vote again (it's every 24 hours).  The instructions for voting are on the page.  I'm just about creaking into the top ten and I'd love to stay there but I'm neck and neck with another blog - so I really really do need them votes.  Click here - I'm number 42!


*Public Service Announcement over - on to this week's column...*

Today I picked up a nice, shiny magazine. You know, the kind of nice, shiny magazine full of nice, shiny clothes with nice, shiny prices. The kind of magazine that issues the most hallowed and anticipated of all biannual supplements (barring Heat Magazine's soul-crushing celebrity swimsuit pull-outs) - the catwalk report.

We'll just call this magazine a generic, vaguely evocative French word. Let's call it Haute. I love Haute because it is cover-to-cover with beautiful people, fairytale settings and clothes you and I can never afford. It is pure escapism. It inhabits a world totally inaccessible and separate to our own, albeit one that we can peer into just by briefly licking our thumbs and flicking a page corner, like a version of Alice and the Looking-Glass for shopping addicts.

Magazines like Haute publish the catwalk reports as a way of imposing themselves into our world. Haute has picked up the Looking Glass and smashed it over Alice's head. It's less assimilation - more indoctrination.

The idea is to pick and choose which aspects of which collection appeal most to you and blend it into your wardrobe; simple things like (a) bold block colours or (b) simple tailoring or (c) a pair of flared jeans. You're not really supposed to wear the catwalk look from head to toe, because if you did, you'd look a bit like (a) a lego brick, (b) an extra from Logan's Run or (c) a Studio 54 reject for whom the party has long since ended.

This season Haute is championing the Luxe Sportswear trend. 'Luxe' does not mean 'luxury', rather 'Luxe Sportswear' means 'Expensive Tracksuits... In Impractical Heels'. Popularised by designer Alexander Wang, Luxe Sportswear has been around for a few seasons and is defined by distressed shrunken leather biker jackets with leggings, oversized t-shirts, lace-up heeled boots and enough grey jersey to swaddle a million coltish-legged prepubescent models. Nothing we haven't seen before.

Luxe Sportswear is perverse; it pairs the practical with the impractical. Waterproof neoprene, traditionally found in wetsuits, is used to construct soft, shell-like bodycon dresses. Joggerbums are worn with towering heels.

The neoprene dresses I can understand. It's an unorthodox material and, because it's such a stiff fabric, it can hold it's shape and produce some unexpectedly beautiful results. The heel and tracksuit pants? Oho no.

Today I saw a woman walking down the street wearing a pair of billowing khaki jersey pants. The cuffs of said pants were tucked into spindly McQueen-esque lace-up heels of the same hue. Her gait was circumspect, possibly because every step she took would inflate a pant leg like a runaway wind sock in a wheezing gale.

Apart from that segue into the risible, Luxe Sportswear is fully representative of it's beloved grey jersey. It's boring.

Even the ringleader of the bland, sorry, grand circus, Alexander Wang, is getting tired of the monsters he has created. He is quoted in interviews, saying "If I see another distressed black leather motorcycle jacket, I'm going to shoot myself in the face".

That's a bit harsh, Mr Wang. Perhaps you should make your weapon a water pistol instead. When the time comes for that fateful splashing, pray that you'll be wearing neoprene.

Get yo' swag on

Was Santa good to you this year?  I must have been a good girl, because I got a mighty sack of Christmas swag, mostly in the form of some excellent fashion books.  To be honest, I could have done with a sack of coal too because It. Is. Freezing.

Here's what I got book-wise, in no particular order.

Blow by Blow: The Story of Isabella Blow by Detmar Blow.  This biography of the famed and much mourned super-stylist purports to be her definitive biography.  But really, it's not.  It's not particularly well-written and her husband goes into too much detail in some places (he paints Alexander McQueen as an egocentric, cruel megalomaniac) and not enough in others (Blow's heroin use and both his and her extramarital affairs are casually touched on or barely acknowledged).  It's distinctly unbalanced, but I feel as if I know Blow a bit better after reading it.

The Look: Adventures in Rock and Pop Fashion by Paul Gorman.  From Elvis to Gwen Stefani, this book charts the intermingling of fashion and music.  Where the musos bought their clothes, what the trends meant and what people thought of them at the time - it's a supremely interesting read.  And there's introductions and forewards by Paul Smith AND Malcolm MacLaren.  AND a free CD.

Style Wars by Peter York.  Published in 1980, this book is now sadly out of print.  If you're a fan of subculture, then buy it second hand on Amazon.  I got a nice clean ex-library copy.  Reading about the different style tribes in the 80's and thinking about how radically different the world is now after only thirty years is a bit of a mind-melt.  A good mind-melt.  Chapter on Sloane Rangers = Hilarious.

A photo from Take Ivy.  Gotta love those preppy boys.

Take Ivy by Teruyoshi Hayashida.  Loads and loads and LOADS of iconic pictures of preppy men (and a few women) at Ivy League universities.  All of the photos were taken in the early sixties, so it's collegiate cool at it's most distilled, before Woodstock and Women's Lib changed the face of the common college uniform.

Face Hunter by Yvan Rodic.  Enough said.

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius and Glorious Excess in 1970's Paris by Alicia Drake.  I cannot wait to get my teeth into this book, which tells the story of the friendship and rivalry between Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld before they achieved their godlike statuses.  It's reassuringly thick, which is always a good thing when it comes to non fiction.  More pages equal more juicy details.

Knitting Masterpieces via etsy - buy it!

Knitting Masterpieces by Ruth Herring.  This (also out of print) knitting book shows you have to make jumpers with some of art's greatest works emblazoned across the front.  I will not rest until I figure out how to knit a Mona Lisa sweater.  It will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine.

Style and the Man: How and Where to Buy the Best Men's Clothing by Alan Flusser.  Everything a person could possibly want to know about how to buy a suit, how to wear a suit, the best proportions to suit a man's figure, how to tie a cravat - basically every GQ fashion article ever written that never actually appeared in GQ.  I'll be passing it on to the boyfriend according.

Great Fashion Designs of the Sixties: Paper Dolls in Full Colour: 32 Haute Couture Costumes by Courreges, Balmain, Saint-Laurent, and Others by Tom Tierney.  Sixties.  Paper.  Dolls.  Marrying my love of sixties fashion and cutting shapes out of paper.  The words 'childish glee' were made for this book

A plate from Portrait in a Velvet Dress - a beautifully composed and considered shot

Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress: Frida's Wardrobe by Carlos Phillips Olmed and Magdalena Rozenzweig.  Many people love the art of Frida Kahlo, but equally fascinating was her attitude to clothing.  This book is full of pictures of her flamboyant outfits (found in a trunk in a disused bathroom in her house, still smelling of her cigarettes) and essays about the artist's relationship and attitudes towards her wardrobe.

Coco Chanel:  The Legend and the Life by Justine Picardie.  Coco Chanel was so protective of her own life story that it seems that there will never be a totally truthful and authoritative biography written on her.  Justine Picardie grapples admirably with what she has to work with and the book is printed on gorgeous glossy paper with some seriously great, insightful images.

It's going to take me a while to get though these.  Wish me luck.  Did you get anything nice for Christmas?  Got any fashion-type reads that you fancy sharing?

Catalogue Shopping

There's been a lot of controversy this week over the Elle.es blogging scandal (click to read about it here) which, if anything, has taught us bloggers to be more conscious and aware of the legal implications of reblogging pictures, especially the work of others  If you're like me and have a serious aversion to posting pictures of yourself in different outfits leaping all over the place, then your options are limited and images are sourced from elsewhere.

All images that I take from other blogs or websites are credited and linked appropriately and if not they're usually my own, stock photos or in the public domain (just an FYI).  Here's some images that I came across the other day that I'd like to share with you.



These images are from the back pages of the NME from about '81 to '85 respectively and I think they are pretty darn cool. If the NME still had these kinds of ads I would probably still be buying it and not reading Pitchfork and The Quietus (so good, Google it if you haven't heard of it) online instead. Winklepickers and mohair and bowling shoes, oh my!

This ties in with sourcing photos, I swear. Here's the long journey I took to source these pictures properly.

I saw one of these ads on Self Constructed Freak , one of my daily reads...
which linked back to the Tumblr, Now This Is Gothic, which is chock-a-block with great 80's goth photos...
which linked back to Tin Trunk, a blog with a concurrent vintage shop on Etsy...
who scanned them in from old copies of NME!

Phew.

You don't have to go through this complicated rigamarole whenever you source a photo, I just thought it would be good to illustrate how many places a picture can come from.  If you're ever in doubt about how to source a picture, a good rule of thumb is to remember the photographer and/or where the image first appeared.

If you want to know more about crediting and finding public images, click here.
If you want to know more about photo crediting for bloggers, click here.

And is you want to show me some love on Facebook, click here (gratuitous plug alert).

And a big PS - I'm going on my holidays on the first of January.  While I'm hungover in a series of airports, I'll need a few guest bloggers.  My email address is in the sidebar if you're interested.

So what is a fashion film anyway?

Not content with releasing photographs of impossibly young, slim and beautiful people, Hedi Slimane, former Dior Homme designer has breanched out with a small film about two, eh, impossibly young, slim and beautiful people.

Titled, 'I Love USA', it's somewhere between fashion and art, in that the emphasis is on beauty and movement, but it's also abstract. In short - I have no idea what's going on. I mean, I've read the press release, so I know what it's about, but I think that it hardly amtters because it's a simple joy just to watch the product of Slimane's discerning eye (on a par with Tom Ford, I think).  To quote:

"This exclusive video is an improvisation exercise (like ‘Improvisation 1’, with the royal Ballet of Copenhagen)that highlights the naїvety, the innocence of Sidney and Wolf, and features themes that have made the designer famous throughout the world: the representation of a generation, the diaphanous beauty of Sidney, and the very slim silhouette of Wolf project the intimate emotional atmosphere of a couple of teenagers in California.

Sidney improvises a chaotic cheerleader, far from the sweet imagery of cheerleading in American culture, and Wolf is a teen indie transposed in an ‘indie’ representation of ‘Peter and the Wolf’. He accompanies Sidney on his out of tunecello, in a wolf mask. Behind, a fleet-worn American flag belonging to Slimane is visible, a recurring image seen inseveral of his artistic works."

The great thing about fashion film is that it's so young that is has yet to develop distinct characteristics like the need for a storyline or even clothes to promote.  The brief is totally open. What do you think - is this a fashion film?  What makes a film 'fashion'?

When I hear 'GG' I don't think 'Gossip Girl'

I think 'Grey Gardens'.

This post was originally going to be an examination of female relationships through clothing in Grey Gardens and Ghost world, with a focus on Little Edie and Enid and the clothes they wear.  Then I realised that this is a fashion blog and I don't want people falling asleep in the middle of my verbal contortions on how Edie is like Enid because of how they dress and... eh... yeah.  I still have that post in my mind, but I have to make it workable on paper before I go and confuse myself by writing a post.

















I bought Grey Gardens a few weeks ago and loved everything about it.  The Maysles Brothers and the editing unit were masterful with their material and the Bouvier Beales are knowingly entertaining, funny, sly and vulnerable all at the same time.

The fashion fascination with Little Edie stems from her identity defining headscarves, canny knack for colour co-ordination and her ability to turn fashion inside out and upside down, often literally.  I wonder how much of this ingenuity stems from living with such amazingly limited means, and how much of it stems from her relationship with her mother.  When Grey Gardens was filmed, Little Edie was in her fifties, but you can barely tell.  Not because of her face, but because of her flirting with the Maysles, singing, dancing and exclamations and affirmations of her own character.

Her boundary testing stretches to her wardrobe.  Her shirts are turned upside down and pinned and gathered in an avant-garde way, she wears net curtains as skirts and a swimsuit as a top.  Her sweaters are pinned with a gold brooch over her head to disguise her baldness.  And like a woman who is still finding her identity, she is continually experimenting with what she has, placing one item over another, casually knotting skirts and shirts, blending colours together and fixing what's broken. She's a teenager in a middle-aged woman's body - that's what makes her such an inspiration despite the dismal settings..

You can read Little Edie's obituary and some interesting GG tidbits here.
And if you want to know even more, visit this Grey Gardens blog here.

This scares me.

From here

Not Kate Moss and Johnny Depp. They don't scare me.

I wonder what kind of love they had that made them able to open themselves up to the world, to show such intimacy to everyone with such ease.

I'm the opposite of the ideal woman, in that I'm very vocal, but seldom seen and I have a serious aversion to photographs. You'll probably find about three pictures of me on this blog. I'm also not a huge Moss or Depp devotee.

But there's just something about this picture. It perplexes me. I just don't understand how pictures like this come about. But I'm glad that they do.

P.S - In direct contravention to what I just said, you can follow me very publicly on Bloglovin!  Just click on the wee icon on the right.

Anyone seen this?

The new M.I.A video for XXXO, which is being hailed by some as a new height in retro 80's cheese or a damning indictment of social networking sites (depending on whoever's overblown Youtube comment you want to believe).

Personally though, I like the video and have to give serious props to M.I.A for her style chops, She knows what she likes and doesn't listen to anyone else's opinion, which can only be commended.

What do you think? Retro throwback or MySpace circa 2007 nightmare?

Kinderwhore - not as original as one might think

So, for most people, the word kinderwhore brings to mind images of Courtney Love and Kat Bjelland wearing torn, dirty baby doll dresses and thick smeared red lipstick with messy, peroxide-blonde hair. Bad little girls up to no good.





People might think that Both Love and Bjelland have fought about who came up with the disengenuous combo of clumsy make-up with children's clothing, Love even going as far as to allegedly say that she got it from Christina Amphlett on the cover of the Divinyls 1982 album, Desperate.



Erm, yeah. Totally.

But I'd like to introduce you to the granny and grand dame of Kinderwhore.







Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? She is the result of a dirty battle between mutton and lamb with a crooked referee. Baby Jane is duplicitous, nasty, childish, impetuous and a terrible singer. More than a coincidence that Hole and Babes in Toyland chose to adopt this image?

Why I Blog

I just returned from a holiday with my family on the Amalfi coast, which was amazing, and suffered a bout of (not so amazing) food poisoning. That, and the kind of existential crisis that can only happen when your plane home is flying through the kind of severe turbulence that makes an otherwise sturdy machine seem about as fortified as an empty can of Pepsi.

The first patch of turbulence was scary.  The second was fucking terrifying.

So, as the plane rolled around in patches of grey cloud, I alternated between praying (no atheists in foxholes and all that...) and coming to terms with the fact that I have NO direction whatsoever career-wise.  This is unfortunate, because I have wanted to be a journalist since seeing April O'Neal prancing around and being generally inept in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a wee one.



Now though, it's a slightly different story.  I've worked in a staff capacity and as a freelancer for some papers and magazines and I love doing it, despite the lack of pizza, light bondage-esque kidnappings and anthropomorphic sidekicks.  Aside from that, I've got a few (writing) projects that I tool away on from the sidelines.  A bit of fiction, a bit of research, some scripts, none of which has yet seen the light of day (and might never, I'm not kidding myself that I'm the modern Renaissance woman of writing).  But I'm not a Journalist journalist, or broadly speaking, I don't earn enough money doing it and I don't have a formal media qualification.  You could forgo the qualification for work experience, but in the current economic climate and given the geography, even internships are beyond hard to get*

I have a finger in a lot of pies, but (apart from the journalism), it's largely half-arsed, or filled with ideas that might never, ever come to fruition.  I'm a dilettante, a total amateur who hopes one day to have just one finger wedged firmly into one pie**.

Thing is, I'm now constantly second-guessing myself.  Do I really want to be a journalist, or do I want to write something else?  And if I did, what if I was terrible at it and ended up going back to bartending (which is fun, but not something I'd spend my life doing)?

Alright.  Rant terminated.

I've veered off point slightly.  Whoops.  To recap, all that stuff I've complained about above, the lack of direction, the indecision, the fear for the future.  That's the first reason I like blogging.

Why I Blog

1. None of that stuff matters when I blog.  It has little or no consequence or impact on my future.  I don't need a masters degree to blog.  I don't need to have previous experience.  All I need is a bit of enthusiasm and a Photobucket account.  Which is nice.
2. I get to meet all kinds of nice bloggers and read comments from people who agree with me or have something to add or refine.  Blogging really encourages community feeling and a discourse between people with mutual hobbies and interests, and I really, really appreciate everyone who takes the time to follow my blog or leave a comment.
3. Blogs are immediate.  My Google reader is a bit like the ticker on Sky Sports, except with shoes and bags instead of Raoul Moat.
4. Even though blogging involves a lot of writing, it's still nothing like journalism.  Good journalism is based on getting your point across in the quickest, most entertaining way possible.  Blogging, not so much.  I can ramble on and talk about whatever I want, which is great.  I can even throw in the odd spelling mistake. 
5. I get to share what I love and find out what other people love too.  I'm like a creepy fashion voyeur.
6. Reading other people's blogs and blogging helps me to draw inspiration, to really think about personal style, or what style means to me.  Even though I'll only do outfit posts very rarely, blogging does help me to dress a little bit better

So here's the science bit.  If you've gotten through this incoherent ramble without chewing on some tinfoil for light relief and you feel like commenting, let me know why you blog and what you like about it.  I'd really love to know (creepy fashion voyeur lurking in again).



*Sorry if I sound bitter but I've just had a particularly crushing experience with an internship (or lack thereof).
**If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, then you're a total smut merchant.