Recent Purchases, In Situ (My House)

These shoes are from New Look (I put them on the cooker for this photo but have no intention of getting them burnt!). I really like the cage effect, which was big a couple of years ago with YSL, and I'm getting into these wedges as they're not some of those gimmicky ones with raffia or cork on them. I want to be able to wear my shoes all year round!


This hairband is from Primark and I shot it with rose petals. I'm going to wear it as a corsage because my head is far too large for any kind of headband - the other day I bought a hat and it was a men's size large. Seeing as few men wear floral headbands, there isn't much chance of me getting anything I can fit on my head with a flower on it. Alternatively, I might just dig into my stash of ribbon and pin the flower onto some of that. I really like the dusky grey/blue colour.


Here are some fingerless gloves from New Look, which I love. I'm accumulating nearly as many grey items in my wardrobe as black, because it's so versatile.


No, I didn't buy a ship, but I bought the necklace below it. Was feeling a bit Blue Peter with this styling. The necklace is from M&S - I'd been looking for some statement jewellery for a while, and this is just a really nice aqua shade for putting with t-shirts and vests. I like the way that the beads are all irregular sizes, so it feels more handmade.

Visual References Post, Continued...

So, here are three more for my top ten selection of my biggest visual references for style. Above is quite a tragic photo of me in preparation for Avatar Night (I get the feeling an acting career is not in the pipeline!) - see point number 5 for more information.

4. Street style photography - I know it's an obvious one, but there's a lot to be gained from looking at how other people dress, and these bloggers definitely know their stuff. As a result of becoming addicted to their sites, I am the proud owner of the spin-off coffee table reads from The Sartorialist (Scott Schuman) and Facehunter (Yvan Rodic). The images are varied in location and style; we do not always see polished people, or young people, or conventionally well-dressed people. They are not models and they possess a certain innocence because of this. I love looking at how people dress around the world, especially as I do not have the disposable income to find this out first-hand, so the blogs are my guide to the cut of clothing and the mixing of colours. Other sites I'd recommend are jakandjil.com (for a more fashion industry directed approach - people are spotted outside the catwalk shows and you can compare their poses to those of the non-modelling blogs) and copenhagenstreetstyle.dk.

5. Fancy dress outfits - I love dressing up in costumes because of the freedom it gives you to express your creativity, but I also pick up ideas for my everyday wardrobe. It's the little touches, like a vampire's black cape lined with scarlet, that can give me the inspiration for making a cropped cape or wrap with that very same lining. Making a costume to be a detective during a GCSE Drama exam many years ago, I realised that borrowing my dad's stone mac looked very cool, due to its large size hanging off the rest of my ensemble. More recently, finding a costume for an Avatar-themed night meant that I gathered up different shades of teal, blue and turquoise and combined them closely together, which I wouldn't have otherwise thought of. In fact, a lot of fancy dress involves playing around with proportion, shades and fabrics, and it's a great starting point for rethinking the way that you dress.

6. AllSaints - if there is one single shop that has influenced me, it is this one. I was already fascinated with skulls and corporeality - my artwork often focuses around this, and I have written countless essays on the subject for university - but often in fashion they can seem too tongue-in-cheek and cartoon-based. The AllSaints designers celebrate the skeleton in a more mature way, creating intricately drawn graphic t-shirts as perhaps their most famous product. Their recent collaboration with the artist Laurie Lipton futher emphasised this, putting the skeleton in various situations such as family portraits or dancehalls, with brilliant results. Aside from this, another point of reference is the way that AllSaints flatters the body of the wearer in their clothes; fabric is draped and pulled expertly, making you think differently about your silhouette and body shape. Their clothing can suit curvy or slender people, and always works to a simple pallette of basic colours, meaning that each piece is easily incorporated into your current wardrobe. I think this is what fashion is really about - finding key pieces that set off everything else you own, giving structure and a focal point. I spend a lot of time looking at the shape of clothes on their website and the pairing of items, because this is a company that clearly knows what it's doing and celebrates the body.

Imaginary Re-Style

I found this man wandering the street where I live and decided he would be a perfect candidate for a style rehaul. His clothing is typical of someone who is resigned to not being interested in their appearance, but could drastically improve things with a few minor adjustments. We're not talking plastic surgery and designer suits here - obviously this man is casually dressed and likes to wear items for comfort and practicality, not for seduction (well, I hope not, anyway). So, what needs changing and why?

1.) The t-shirt - There's nothing wrong with a bit of khaki, especially standing next to a road sign which says 'Military'; hell, this bloke could be part of some underground fashion campaign for summer's colours of 2010. But he's not. The problem is that this t-shirt finishes at the thickest part of his stomach, therefore exposing it and drawing the eye towards it even more. Instead, he should be aiming to conceal this and allow the eye to focus on something else, such as a high-up logo on a longer khaki t-shirt which finishes just below the waist belt of his jeans.
2) The jeans - Again, nothing wrong with the colour, but these are too baggy on the leg, perhaps because his stomach makes him feel larger across his whole body. Going for jeans one size smaller than his current pair could make all the difference, especially when paired with a decent belt.
3) Footwear - If you're going for the military look, sir, I'd replace those forgettable black flats with some charcoal or brown worker boots (not those hideous Timberland boots adored by chavs) slightly undone at the top, from a stockist such as AllSaints or Topman.
4) Cardigan - Yes, I do believe that's a cardigan, and it may even belong to a woman. The ideal replacement would be an unbuttoned shirt - again, longer in length than the current option - in a darker colour than the t-shirt underneath. The shirt could either be plain or slightly detailed, with vertical stripes or a chequered pattern, and by leaving it undone then the eye will see the two panels of shirt slimming down the exposed middle section.

And, if you're really feeling brave, there's those Man Spanx on the market which claim to work wonders on the male version of love handles (no bitchiness meant; my stomach's much the same).

Basically, I just wanted to demonstrate that even the average man on the street can take a little bit of time and effort to improve his appearance and get creative. You don't have to live in shapeless clothes and feel exposed, unless you're completely comfortable with this.

My Top 10 Visual References for Fashion - The First 3

[Image taken from Pembrokeshire Virtual Museum website].

1. Charlie Chaplin films - if you want to talk about cultivating a look, then this is the man to start with. Chaplin's 'Tramp' figure evokes the style of the time whilst also exaggerating it, and later created accidental parallels when his short, sharp moustache look was sadly stolen by Hitler (though this led to Chaplin's hilarious anti-Nazi film, The Great Dictator). Also, Charlie Chaplin is the reason I own a bowler hat, although mine is blue rather than black.
2. Atonement - that green dress. Keira Knightley gets to snog James McAvoy whilst wearing a gorgeous backless dress which can only be described as the colour of freshly cut grass, as tame as that sounds. There are, of course, other people wearing clothes in this film, but you won't really notice them.
3. Vintage Photographs - I tend to pick these up in Brighton, and there's nothing like looking at the past to see how it's done (as my previous two visual references state). Soft lighting or harsh contrast, contours and shapes, blurs and patterns; they can all be found within photographs, whether in colour or monochrome. The design of someone's wallpaper can give you an idea for a motif, or the cut of someone's fancy dress costume can make you think differently about how to wear an item. Besides this, they look amazing in mood boards!

Working In Fashion

So, I've finished my degree (what a scary thought that is!) and have now turned my attention to the world of work. I've sent off an application for a further education course in Fashion Journalism, because clearly I'm now a bit of a sucker for all this learning. It'll be nice to do something a bit more vocational, though, and feel like I'm preparing myself for working in the fashion industry. Everything suddenly feels very real! Anyway, I don't find out for a while if I've even got an interview, let alone a place on the course, as I applied quite early in order to look efficient and maybe irritatingly keen (apparently it's better that way than doing a late application, which can look too spontaneous). At the moment, my life is full of waiting, for both my degree results and a potential interview and exam for this course. I'm passing the time by slowly packing up my room to leave university, reading lots of Jackie Collins (because my mind has been a bit damaged by too much studying of serious books discussing semiotics and Renaissance gentility, for example) and cutting up old magazines.

Of course, I can't live on Vogue alone, and so I've been looking for any kind of work related to fashion for the summer and beyond, but the town where I live seems to be full of overly enthusiastic workers who will not leave their posts as sales assistants and visual merchandisers for the next generation to take over. Sometimes it seems more likely that I will be offered a position as a forklift truck driver than a cashier in a shop. I've also applied for some internships, but obviously competition is tough as graduates battle it out, and this is partly why the journalism course will be useful: having any kind of advantage over your fellow interviewees has got to be worth it. It'd be fascinating to learn the ropes of fashion writing in a prestigious institution as well... basically, I'm excited just thinking about it.

Everything feels like a turning point at the moment, but it's got to be a good thing, right?

Burgundy is the New Black

It may be summer, or thereabouts, but I'm not ready to let go of winter colours. Burgundy is definitely making its way into my wardrobe for some time yet - above is a Zara jumper with leopard print tights and an All Saints vest... and me attempting yoga. Another not so brilliant component is my wrist splint (inflamed tendon), which has been part of my outfits for the last month and shows few signs of disappearing! I am tempted to break out the fingerless gloves to hide it, but having a metal plate resting against your wrist isn't exactly subtle.

A Little Bit of Designing

So... in the middle of revision, I decided it would be the perfect time to try my hand at River Island Style Insider's 'Design a Blazer' competition. My inspiration was (as evident in very small grey print across the waistline) 'Another Brick in the Wall', so basically Pink Floyd. It took ages to make all those little bricks using the software, but the result turned out okay, apart from the rather sickly cream shade as a background - the closest I could find to mortar colour!
The link to my entry is:
http://www.styleinsider.riverisland.com/?p=GFW&id=Blazer_Gallery&sort=latest&page=12&img=1631&sp=2