Past and present, beautiful.

With the way I dress, I like to mix vintage with simple, modern, minimalist pieces. With this in mind this particular internet find from The Guardian's The Guide, I found the concept really interesting and quite fun....






The idea reminds me of the 'Record Sleeve face' idea that was quite a big hit in 2008.

S/S 2010 Favourite show.....

Chloe has to be my favourite spring catwalk for this season, I love the models natural look, and I appreciate the fact that Hannah MacGibbon showed us that flat shoes can look very sexy and refreshing (I aint a heels type girly girl) and the colour palette for the season is stunning, lots of pastel colours with a variety of beige tones and quick shots of dusk blue.

The first look for me really hit it off, although the look was quite masculine, the cut of the trouser suit and the soft fabric gave it that feminine ideal.

The look had a sense of Anna Karinas style which I love, (very simple, chic styling).
I love to recognise the small details that really help evoke the look; the buttoned up shirt,the cinched in belted waist, the tucked in top. It's all these elements that really highlight the brand of Chloe and inspire me to be a stylist.

Oh, and not forgetting the fact that denim was everywhere for a s/s10 trend, yehay!

La Vie en Rose

Yesterday I was woken up to a lovely cappuccino in bed and watched the film La Vie en Rose to kick start my day.

The capuccino was yummy...so was the beautiful film (directed by Olivier Dahan).

After seeing the film Nine the other day I have a little obsession with Marion Cotillard. She is stunning. Maybe not so much in this film, but still, shes an amazing actress, she presented the character of Edith Piaf, the tragic, sometimes bossy 'artiste', ever so gracefully.

The art direction of the film I love: the lighting and the interior used throughout really highlights Edith's character. The location, mainly Paris, shows a different side of the city we aren't that familiar with in films, it seemed to be a whole lot more grittier and dirtier than the usual chic look we normally get of Paris. Obviously the choice was made to again evoke Edith's distressed character and life background.



The film is very inspirational not only for the imagery you can get from it but the fashions also. The movie is full of flashbacks, balancing between Edith's younger self to the boystress usually drunken 20 year old, to the sophisticated 30 year old and finally to her golden years.

If you like the french language, love subtitled films and want to watch a good movie, buy this.

Magazines smell amazing!

As part of a lecture we had, we had to look at our favourite magazines: looking at the type of photography that's used in the magazines, looking at layout and styling ideas. Now if I had to mention every one of my favourite magazines I would be here for a long while, so i've decided to look at one of my favourite contemporary fashion magazines and a more commercial magazine that I like to look at for up and coming trends and high street buys.

Pop

To me reading a magazine and holding it in your hands is much more fulfilling than reading a magazine over the internet, so when Katie Grand left Pop in 2008 (relaunched on the net) to make the magazine Love (which is also a fantastic mag) it was a little dissapointing but hay huuuu...




anyway I love the simple yet organic layout Pop has throughout, the styling is quite contemporary, I love the Fashion stories Pop has. I love the styling of these images below, also the way I've taken the photograph (which wasn't intentional) makes the models head look slightly smaller than her body, it makes the image to me look quite interesting.



Elle
My favourite commercial magazine has to be Elle. I love the art direction of the magazine, and I think that it's one of the commercial magazines out there (that isn't Vogue!) that offers readers more fashion news and updates. There is a lot of catwalk coverage in the magazine alongside high street buys which kind of suits a more varied audience and for a training stylist it's brilliant!

Seminar Task- Fashion Photgraphy

For our next seminar we were given a little task of reading an essay about photography in the 1990's, from the text 'Fashioning Fiction in photography Since 1990'

When I read the text (which, if you follow this link, are able to see some images the text actually talks about) the general sense I got from it was that it was catargorised into two sections (that may blur at times): the photograph as an idealized notion vs a real life/realistic shot.

The text discussed cinematic shots - the snapshot which highlighted the more 'autobiographical picture'; the set up, elegant images taken in the 50's in comparison to the more gritty images of the 90's; commercial photographic techniques for magazines and the family album aesthetic. The text refers to many photographers some I have heard of others not (I know very bad of me) so I decided to look at some of the work and photographers listed;


Philip-lorca diCorcia - 'best known contemporary exempler of the fusion of self-conscious cinematic photography'



I love Philip's use of lighting and the location choice is stunning. The models don't look like your average model also, making the image look more like a film still than a photograph.

Corinne Day - the 'real life', gritty photographer





I love the setting for these photographs also, although very different from Philip's location. The lighting also helps in making the image look more real life.

Cool Grannies

Every weekend I've gotta buy The Guardian newspaper, not only to relax after a day at work but to see what's happening in the world I also love to look through The Guide and find funny things to look at over the internet however the fashion section, although small, in the Guardian magazine (saturdays) is always satisfying. Over the past couple of months I've noticed a brand that the stylists use for the, I call it the line up fashions, I've seen many a time, called Old Ladies' Rebellion.

The clothes that feature in the magazine I really like, although they're simple, they have a somewhat elegant sense and young look, so I decided to look into the brand that little bit more...

The french designer, Fanny Karst (25) wants to dress the over 70's in glamorous clothing, giving the granny look a very modern edge. The oldest model for the brand is 80 and the youngest 60, so we are really talking about the older lady here, but the clothes are not for the older lady that we know, the one that sits at a busstop with a plastic bag covering her blue rinse, Old Ladies' Rebellion isa brand more for the lady that visits gallaries and drinks strong espresso.

I'd like to think that I could be this lady when I grow older and buy into this parisian, cool brand.

If you haven't seen the fashion section in the Guardian newspaper on a saturday, and you want a little fashion and style inspiration buy one this weekend..it won't disappoint.

New Uni, New ideas, New Briefs, New Me!

Well, I have finished my first semester at UCLAN uni and I've loved every minute of it, even the long commute on a morning, accompanied as always with Chris Moyles and his Radio1 team. It's been a brilliant start to a new life for me.

My briefs have been varied, i've worked alone, in a team, with collage, with a professional photographer on every project, with different models, different materials, it has been a real eye opener, lots of hard work and fun styling ideas. As the course is a lot more focused on the styling side of fashion i have been keeping up to date with the trends up and coming and at present which i have loved doing, i did do this before at UCA but im tending to do it that bit more here, i feel as though i have more free time to be productive here and as im living with the lady my head is really clear and my grades show it, and i dont mind saying it myself (cheeky grin!).

My favourite brief this year has got to be my very first brief. The credit crunch, customisation shoot. It was the first time i have worked with a professional model wearing my clothes and my ideas. The final look im pleased with and in the post production process my shoot only got better, and that little more complex. Im very proud of my sketchbook for this brief, its probably the best i've done in all of 2009.

1st Brief: Credit Crunch Shoot.

2nd Brief: Y.S.L Perfume campaign, group work.

3rd Project: Style Icon, Interview Magazine, Trend Page.

'Nine', Directed superbly by Rob Marshall

Last night i went to the cinema to see the ever so chic, 'Nine', directed by Rob Marshall. I went with the expectation that I wouldn't really enjoy the film as I'm not that big a fan of musicals (and to be honest I went to check out the fashion and the stunning outfits of the film, thank you film reviews and magazines!) but this one, i loved very much. It is the closest Ive been to a musical in a very long time. Im not talking about the sort of musical that's full of glitter, colour and happy go lucky songs, no no, this 'musical' was full of men in suits with slim black ties, women dressed with attitudes and lots of sexy embelishment!

The character that stood out to me for her natural beauty and effortless chic look was Luisa Contini, the wife of the stylish, gritty smoking and main character Guido Contini, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. Luisa, played by Marion Cotillard reminded me of the 1960 beauty, Anna Karina very much there beauty mainly, but there almost identical simple chic elegance mostly.

Anna Karina

I throughly loved the art direction of the film, the stunning setting, the architecture, the music, the characters, everything!

If you want to feel inspired to: read, blog, or something as simple and chic as drink espresso then go see the film.

The 3 B'S.

I came across this really cool poster for the first edition of the Barcelona Streetwear Show, The Brandery in Berlin. Confirmed exhibitors include Armand Basi, Reebok and Lacoste.

That is all. :)

Vintage Monday!

Ok so today me the lady and jj went to leeds to do some vintage shopping, not just clothes: accessories, furniture, jewellry, books (god so many books!).

We only shopped at one high street store, and im kinda ashamed to say it but i am a student and i needed some cheap stuff (look at me justifying myself!) cos im going away to Cyprus, Paphos for 2 weeks in a weeks time so i needed some cheap tanks and t's for my jollies, so we nipped in quickly to Primark. Like i said this was the only high street store we visited the whole day, thankfully, cos leeds is full of little gem-charity shops and vintage stores.

We started at Scope, from the outside it kinda looked a little drab but like i said, GEMS! when we got in i headed straight for the clothing rails all full with so many clothes from all over the place and from all types of people. There downstairs was untrue, just full of books and furniture dirt cheap (not dirty!), we found a very comfortable (well, you gotta sit down somewhere to read through the mounds of books on sale) light grey sofa that cost only £50 what a bargain, if i wasn't living back with the rents again and was living by myself i woulda picked that up, popped it in my bag and ran away! After Scope we walked through the main shopping strip in leeds centre, heading to one of my favourite vintage shops in Leeds, ironically called 'Vintage' :) and the shop really does what it says on the tin.

As soon as you walk in you can smell the age of the clothes. Between the labels Aquascutum,Fred Perry and DKNY you see mounds of vintage clasp bags all different shapes and sizes (most bags a tenner) and at the back of the shop theres a huge shelf space entirely for vintage trainers, all at £20 each! I ended up buying a leather, patchwork (all earthy colours) bag, that hadn't even been put out onto the mismatched shop floor yet, at a tenner you cant really say no! I also grabbed a really cool mustard and navy blue patterned silk scarf and a battered, slim black leather tie...all this for £15, what?!! Theres sumfin wrong there...nope just really REALLY good prices.

After here we went for dinner at Wokon, noodle bar- beef teriyaki yum yum!

Onto Oxfam, the biggy charity shop, which by the way im gonna try to change, we need to help all the other, smaller charities too people! The books here were incredible, my brother has a slight obsession with old books, in this one visit he bought 5, all older then 1930! You should check out his work, and see what he does to these books to modernise them, its amazing.

After the biggy, and R.S.P.C.A which to my astonishment sold pianos! We went to the British Heart Foundation, which apparently every two weeks gets Harvey Nichols 'cast offs' but i did a lot of rummaging and didn't really see that much but hay hoo still a really cool and full charity shop.

On the way to the bus we passed the leeds centre market where we bought sooo many cherries for 80p!! We saw some amazing stuff there too, i came across a table selling shoes, clothes, accessories, old books and everything was a quid each!

We've decided we are gonna do the charity shop rounds once a month to update my wardrobe and to get some srummy food and not forgetting all this goes to good causes!

Brill day! xx

Pretty Good

I can't remember how i came across this but i kinda like it!! Has anyone seen the new clothing range, all 'limited edition', 'Pretty Green' owned, founded and designed by no other than the 90's bad lad Liam Gallagher.

Now as you may know i love basic clothing and this range is well, basically basic, its the logo that grabbed my attention. The range includes scarves, tshirts, footwear, accessories, jackets, trench coats, knitwear, denim, hats and obviously Liams wardrobe staple (and i mean check out any 90's image of him, you wont see him without it!), the parka.

The site describes the range as 'straight talking, classic clothing range' and yeh i agree completely, but like ive mentioned the logo is anything but straight! The text is a wrap around of 1970's bubble writing. The site is easy to maneuver and the range has a somewhat Ralph Lauren feel with the placing of the simple logo on the Crew Neck Knit's Pretty Green sells.

Not only are the products sold sharpley simple, but the packaging the clothing comes in is just as good as the logo and the products, and gives the range a brilliant designer esque feel.

Wonderwall'tll come next!!!

Uni Busy ness!

Well i have been a busy bee this year at uni!!

I've come up, (with a team of 4 others) a marketing campaign 83% worth of a mark for the company TRAID and experienced what those poor souls do on Dragons Den when being grilled about their budgets and ideas, not nice! ive taken over Oxford street with giant mascara bent brushes; ive turned my friend into a chic homeless woman; ive researched every type of student you could imagine and produced a successfull photoshoot pitched at Nylon; ive enjoyed thoroughly researching Hussein Chalayan for a fashion written piece, which led me to visiting the brilliant exhibition at The Design Museum dedicated to Chalayan's work; ive tried to add my personality to a brands webpage; ive used a dictaphone for the first time and i just love how much easier and less embarassing it is to stand and chat rather than ask the interviewee to lean over whilst i just borrow her back as a leaning surface whilst scribbling all thats said down on post it notes! and one thing that i found so valuable and have been meaning to do it for years is form a visual library, full of inspirations! All organised so perfectly!

Overall the year has been a huge learning curve, i can see more of what the industry is going to be like and how hard you gotta work to be heard and not just trampled on!

Now if you have read any of my previous posts, if you read the London Baby?? post you can probably understand my thoughts and feelings of living so far away from home and for some reason this year at uni was the hardest, maybe because it was my first year on the actual course im wanting to do and i could see how hard i had to work, maybe its the fact that im surrounded by a lot of brilliant, creative talent, maybe its because the people including the lecturers see everyone as a number or maybe its because the house that i lived in...well lets just say i may have been kidnapped: because of these reasons, ive decided to transfer to UCLAN and study Fashion Promotion with Styling.

I had my interview a couple of weeks back, it went really well, the lovely woman who interviewed me was very nice and she got me really excited about joining the uni and the course, so from september, i will be studying up north! Yayyy! Im joining the 2nd years so i need to get a group to let me in!! hahahah! She said i was more than ready to start 2nd year which was a nice confidence boost and after doing my Personal Pathway Project at the end of the year at UCA, doing the marketing pathway, im glad i chose to do styling rather than marketing at UCLAN, i found the last project at UCA really difficult although my mark was good.

So yes, a lot has changed this year, a lot of questions have been asked and answered, lots of pro's and con's lists were written and i do think i have taken a huge step in my future career. I hope i have done the right thing: at the minute it feels good but, i just hope in 20 years time it shows me that my decision was correct.

UCLAN here i come, goodbye Epsom!

Stylathon...

I was a little apprehensive for fridays stylathon. As all we were told to prepare was; to keep our style tribe (which by the way has changed to students) in mind, whilst picking 5 pieces of clothing to bring to the stylathon to be able to style outfits through the day. I did have a really good day, i mean which girl wouldn't all we were doing was dressing us ladies! I was in a huge group of about 6 of us, the table was piled high with sequins, fur, jersey, neon brights, and a hell of a lot more. We didnt really set out what looks we were going for we just played about with the clothing and we did actually come up with some really lovely looks. With the help of Meg, our stylist lecturer who is infact a stylist herself (for 6 years) the looks became something completely different-amazing in fact when considering some of the outfits styled, just were the garments used as other things than that they really are. I learnt a lot through the day too-especially "don't just look at the clothing like they literally are"- a tshirt isnt just a tshirt-deconstruct it, wear it backwards, turn it inside out etc.. All these concepts help the fashion image look more like a high end fashion shot rather than a look you may see from say, More Magazine. Overall i loved the day and it gave me a huge insight into student fashions and obviously styling concepts.