sections from Front Row with Tim Blanks - October 2010

'the world loves a good fairytale. the teenagers love Twilight, music's got Lady GaGa. we have Avatar, Inception.. there's something irresistible about a dream state. fashion's fairytale is haute couture, the twice-yearly parade in Paris of outifts that have as much to do with the practical concerns of everyday dressing as a chinchilla coat in a sauna. a fairytale is supposed to cloak a germ of instruction - there's a moral to this story - which is one reason why couture always brings on a bout of media breast-beating about its relevance. a dying art? its already stone cold, cry the doubters.

it didn't used to be that way. there was an era when the Countess Mona Bismarck had even her gardening clothes custom-made by Cristobel Balenciaga, the greatest couturier of them all. those were different times. now, depending on who you listen to, haute couture is a laboratory in which an ever-declining number of designers experiment with ideas that htey will translate into their ready-to-wear. or its a loss-eader promotional vehicle for designer fragrances, where there is still some real money to be made. or its a clothing resource for a few hundred wealthy women around the world. or its still a fairytail that is sustained by fashion's faith in the beauty of decades-old craftsmanship. or its a gorgeous zombie.

i used to cover couture regularly for television, and it always yielded a telegenic spectacle that knocked the major read-to-wear trend of the day into a cocked hat, on screen at least. so that was my own purely selfish reason for appreciating the four or five days in Paris when Chanel, Christian Dior, Valentino, Emanuel Ungaro, Givenchy, Christian Lacroix and Jean Paul Gaultier, among others, would parade heights of extravagance unattainable at any other stratum of fashion. i hadn't been to the couture shows for a few years until this past July's presentations for autumn 2010. i'd love to tell you i come to praise couture, not to bury it, but the thrill had gone (along with a number of those names whose shows i used to attend).
execept, that is, for John Galliano's latest couture collection for Christian Dior.
Flowers were his theme, and it was the perfect marriage of designer and inspiration, given Galliano's native flair for colour and shape. there all sorts of reminders - petals and fronds and ruffles - that nature is unmatchable for special effects.

Galliano offered daywear, too, in the sense that there were jackets and skirts in which you could perambulate through a hotel lobby without scarring the horses. there's always wit in the window-dressing of any Galliano collection. this time, Stephen Jones wrapped the models' heads in florist's cellophane and the belts looked like the raffia that ties a bunch of flowers - such playfully humble accompaniments to clothes that cost a queen's ransom. Galliano nails that notion so well: in this pragmatic day and age, haute couture is designer playtime, the one moment when commercial considerations, the dreaded cost effectiveness, for exmample, can take a back seat. but playfulness was in short supply over the rest of the couture calendar. Givenchy's Riccardo Tisci, for instance, offered a masterclass in the extraordinary techniques, fabric treatments and embellishments that are the traditional stuff of haute couture. a gown in Chantilly lace appliqued with leather that was a tone-on-tone duplication of the pattern of hte lace was utterly, impressively obbsessive in its detailing. another lace dress had taken six months to make. in these years of fast-food-fashion-everything, such conspicuous consumption of time and effort has evolved into a strut for couture's luxury cred, almost an end in itself. i think that's kind of decadent, but Tisci's fascinated with decadence. and he's not alone. maybe that's why couture endures, if not as an actual code of dressing, at least as a form of popular entertainment.

Karl Lagerfeld can lay claim to being the last real grand master of couture. so he understands all about creating a wardrobe that should technically dress a couture client for every conceivable exigency in her life. and he has always done this with an enviable lightness of touch. but this couture collection was heavy, almost morbid in its palette and elongated proportions. it took me by surprise, and i found that rather seductive.

i've been saying for quite a while that the future of fashion will belong again to the tailor and the dressmaker, as people search for somethign that is truly informed, special and personal, rather than the product of a huge fashion concern. perhaps that presages the end of couture as we know it now. but it will never be "The End".'

•(red-e too war / Josie ‘i just linked myself’ Edwards, Timba ‘computers are whack’ Smits

'LEGO, Birthday cards, microsleeps, drunkenness, sobriety, overwhelming cities, wrapping paper, punctuation, the scent of used book stores, smiling at strangers, writing letters (among so many other things), knock knock jokes, Italian futurism, femme fatale, postmodernist, mermaid, loveyoumoon, waxwayne, thesis, monotonous, idea, fumemployment, vehemently, manufactory, nicola, nicolour, menageries, November 1997, ubiety.' thoughts not my own.

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'when Summer starts, there are suddenly an awful lot of very pretty people dressed in Summer clothes, which are sexy in a different way from Winter clothes. and i find myself swinging wildly back and forth between thinking, 'calm down, Joey. these are real people, who should be treated with respect. i wonder what she thinks of that book she's reading?' and half a second later thinking, 'i want to spend the rest of my life just kissing that one spot on her neck oh god oh god.''
– www.asofterworld.com


'my Mum used to have this loaf waiting for us when we got home from school. when we were older, we’d let ourselves in with a key hidden inside a fake rock in the front yard. we grew up in St Kilda and there was an asylum nearby. sometimes when we came home from school, a man from the asylum would be sitting on the front porch with his suitcase, trying to convince us that he had bought the house from Mum and that we didn’t live there anymore. but we always got past him and to the yummy afternoon tea inside!
- p84, Anna Krien - Date and Nut Loaf recipe, Afternoon Tea cookbook by Frankie


'i would guess in a world of billions of people conformity is a necessity to run a smooth functioning culture. everything is directed at sameness. uniformity is security. but sometimes polyps develop in the ___ of ___, and i just might be one of these distracting anomalies. i wouldn’t dare hide behind the cloak of artistic privilege myself, and especially classify all other artists as mavericks. being an artist and associating with artists for more than fifty years i would have to confess many artists are simply close followers. artists tend to huddle together under the safety of movements and trends, they milk the prevailing crazes dry. of course this isn’t true of all artists, but the rare original few are generally sidelined until they eventually surface. with all due respect, i myself can't avoid nonconformity, its not an affectation with me, its my psychosis. i am a born recalcitrant, and unfortunately an unrepentant miscreant. ‘recalcitrant’ is the military term for those who cannot be brought into line, a reactionary malcontent. i know this because i faced this problem in military school as a child. if that wasn’t enough i show all the symptoms of being an unbridled ‘miscreant’, an old biblical term for someone who has been miscreated, an incorrigible person. i don’t revel in my personal anomalies, i just keep them in check. that is, until a pencil or brush gets into my hands. at this point i seem to exalt through my compulsion (in my mind anyway).
i see this in other artists.
this is the malady of true ____ such as painters, sculpturs, writers, poets, musicians, actors and other people who are driven to do things that aren't socially accountable. in my opinion however, one thing to be cautious about is this ____ ____ mind is only two degrees away from the criminal mind. ____ ____ many cases they overlap. this is not a chance coincidence. irregularities in any system causes problems, problems ___ work out accidentally for the good is in fact evolution ____ ____ grants its favours only through the benefits of mistakes. i would say, if it had been a perfect world we would never have gotten here.'
- Robert? Williams, 06/04/08, Monster Children? magazine


'if you go into a war zone with a camera and manage to come out a) alive and b) with a roll of film, then you’ve qualified as a Photojournalist. this is the kind of artform that calls less on ego and more on instinct. danger isn’t necessarily a prerequisite. maybe you only go as far as the local swimming hole, or a drive in. either way, your images capture and record a series of a moment in time. frequently, these shots are featured in the monochrome pages of a paper, only to disappear the next day. some are never published. this is why the Reportage Festival exists, to exhibit a wider body of local and international photojournalistic work.
now in its eighth year, the 2008 showcase travels from a rioting Pakistan, by Tijuana prostitutes to a Melbourne drive-in. the well-versed eye of festival co-founder Stephen Dupont was charged with guest curation along with Jacqui Vicario. Dupont has captured his fair share of stories, from India's fading steam trains to Port Moresby street gangs. the following five stories grabbed our guts and taught us a thing or two about photojournalism.
in northern Scotland, Agnes Rose Willmington lived at this address for over forty years. during this time she only spoke to one other human being, her mother, who died in 1951. upon Agnes’ death in the winter of 1979, authorities found in the old house: over 1,000 bibles, 297 prayer books, 50 statues of Mary, over a 1,000 crucifix’s, and 70 mason jars filled with urine and feces.
conceptually and visually, this is a compelling work, a modern-day version of 17th-century Dutch vanitas paintings, which remind viewers of man's mortality. when i suggest that the piece resonates with religious references - blood, death and renewal - he does not demur.'
- www.reportage.com.au/festival

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'i’ve heard of a Chinese folk belief that we have a certain number of days allotted to us in our lies but any time spent fishing doesn’t count. its an appealing notion, the idea that some activities are outside time.'
– p45
'their first child was born a year later and died from pneumonia the year after that. that would hollow a face.'
– p48
'London was beautiful yesterday. the sky was like a painting, perfectly still, scudded clouds against pale blue, and i walked a long time, pounding out the post-24-hours-on-a-plane blues. passed by the Royal Academy and saw they had an exhibition called Rembrandt’s Women so i went in. it was the perfect antidote.
i walked out afterwards in an exalted state - a kind of alchemised melancholy – which i stayed in all day and all through the gig last night, and which lent a back note to my singing.
he paints age and beauty, health and decay, sagging bellies, cellulite thighs, blotches on the skin next to bejewelled fabrics and threaded gold, the dark thread of hair trailing down from the navel to the mound of Venus; a woman peering out of a canopied bed, pulling back the curtain with her large clumpy hand, with a tendy, steady gaze that says, We are one.
there was a painting of his mistress later in her life when she was beginning to get ill that ripped my heart. i wanted to put my arm around you and stand in front of it together. instead, in my weird jetlagged state, i just stood there and wept – for her, for him, for you, for us all. i miss you like sleep. - P'
– p114
Sonnet 147:
my love is as a fever, longing still
for that which longer nurseth the disease;
feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
the uncertain sickly apetite to please.
my reason, the physician to my love,
angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
hath left me, and i desperate now approve
desire is death, which physic did except.
past cure i am, now Reason is past care,
and frantic-mad with evermore unrest;
my thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,
at random from the truth vainly expressed;
for i have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
who art as black as hell, as dark as night.
- William Shakepeare
'no-one ever did themselves any favours putting their lyrics next to Shakespeare’s. but its you, sweet reader, not me i’m doing the favour for. songs often remind me of other things after i’ve written them. you don’t start with somebody else’s poem or song and try to rewrite it, but years later, maybe, you come across some lines that bear a resmemblance. had you been carrying them unknowingly? or are there only so many themes and only so many ways to arrange words and images? anything you write of any pith you can be sure to find in Shakespeare eventually. if I could be re-incarnated backwards – if one’s solid flesh could melt and resolve into something old/new – i’d gladly re-fledge with those upstart feathers.'
– p234
'one evening in the Hunter Valley, as i was halfway through singing ‘Everything’s Turning to White’, a flock of seven snowy egrets flew across the sky above the huge crowd, large birds radiant in the setting sun as they carefully stroked their way back to their nesting grounds. golden days.
you never know what’s around the coner, though. as Leonard (Cohen) himself says, ’the older i get, the surer i am i’m not running the show.’ the wheels keep turning.
i opened once for Ani DiFranco in Madrid. the venue was a noisy rock club filled mostly with loud-takling ex-pat Americans. it was one of those nights when youre singing and thinking to yourself, What the fuck am i doing here? who talked me into this? one of those nights when you have to square your shoulders, take a deep breath and say to yourself, Sing to the people listening. they’re out there. they just don’t make as much noise as the people talking. sing to the shy Goths.
– Paul Kelly, p422, How to Make Gravy

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''i’m no good at art, i can’t draw’ – it’s a common refrain, too common. many high school art teachers have a lot to answer for in my opinion for perpetuating the notion that if you can't render something lifelife on paper, then you can’t ‘draw’ and so, by inference, you aren’t any good at Art. sure the great masters, da Vinci chief amongst them, prided themselves on being able to pencil something almost perfectly anatomically correct, but, as society has evolved, so has Art..
‘i could have done that’ – it’s a common refrain, too common. perhaps you could have painted Mondrian’s squares with some masking tape and primary paints on a $10 canvas from Chinatown (and come up with a titled such as ‘Composition with Yellow, Blue and Red’), but you didn’t. neither did you sign the base of a porcelain urinal with the moniker of your alter ego and submit it into an Art exhibition, as Duchamp did in 1917. both these artists broke completely new ground and, while definition of art is certainly not ‘something that's never been done before' (and attempting to tackle it here would be biting off far more than can chew), there's something to be said for being able to imagine that which has never been seen before. indeed that’s surely a better criteria for an artist than ‘a good drawer’ in my sketchbook.'
– ‘Well Drawn’ by Kate Bezar, p40, Dumbo Feather magazine


'ultimately i believe we’re all very selfish until we have children. children force you to consider them just by the nature of your relationship to them, and the fact that they rely on you so much.'
- Matt Grant (founder of Peat's Ridge Festival), p17, Dumbo Feather magazine


'it felt natural to work with Jonathan. a lot of people say to us, ‘how can you work together and live together?’ the way we look at it is that this way we spend the best time in our day together, rather than coming home tired and spending the evening together as most people do. we spend our most alive and active part of the day together. '
- p41
'yes, for me, being creative is such an internal process and when you become a mother you don’t have time for that internal process. zuddenly you have this other person you hve to look after. it took me time to adjust to that. for me, to not be able to create would mean death. nobody can tell you about being a mother, but i feel like an aspect of me - i know this sounds negative, but its actually very postive – a part of me died when i gave birth. i’m not romantic about being a mother because i think its an incredibly hard thing to be a mother and to work and to balance everything. i have to create time for myself by waking up really early so i can do my yoga practice and have two or three hours in the morning before it all starts. also with a child i’m really looking forward to educating him..he’s now almost two, and its fun; its brought me out of myself.'
– Nipa Doshi, p47, Dumbo Feather magazine


'it’s a challenge, but i have the same philosophy with everything i do and that’s to put all my energy into it regardless of what it is. you know, it’s the 21st Century, if you are not getting paid that’s ridiculous, right? i just curated a magazine with fellow designer, Deanne Cheuk, in New York and the whole ceonceprt was about that – people whoe work both in the arts and commercially. the process is seamless..
what do you think is design/illustration’s place in the world? you know, does it matter?
well i do believe that art matters. you have to believe that things matter, regardless of your interests. i’m very aware that everything as we know it will all be gone one day, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to use my time on this planet as I feel to be important, at least on a small level, i’ll leave the rest up to the sun and the solar system.
– Chris Rubino, p58, Dumbo Feather magazine

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i believe myself to be a small amphibian. / i have sequipedalism.*
i fell over in the shower and a lemon went up my bottom. / my car wouldn’t stop.
i don’t know why you won’t believe me, i’ve worked for days on that excuse.
i didn’t. i wouldn’t. it was HER. / my goldfish is psychotic.
i’d love to help you, but i’m actually quite spectacularly self-centred.
it’s not that i don’t find you enchanting, you just remind me of Ernest Borgnine.
i have a tendency to Isochronal Biperdal Vectitation.**
my pants were unusually tight. / my pants, as it happens, are on fire.
my axolotl died. of course i’m sure. i shot it.
there is a boiled egg stuck in my ear. / i would, but i’m a Pisces.
i would love to help with housework, but you’re so good at it, it’s like watching the creation of Art. another beer would be good.
i would go for a run, but don’t want to frighten my lungs.
i can’t leave the house; i had cosmetic surgery on the weekend and now i look like Melanie Griffith.
at the time, i was captain of the Australian Cricket Team and i just couldn’t get away.
psychologically, it’s important that i’m late so that you feel more strongly about wanting me to arrive.
i hit every red light on the way here. (and now my car is covered in dents.)
i must have blacked out – either that or my skivvy was stuck on my head.
i have a flat tyre and i lent my spare tyre to a friend who was making a swing.
i think i’m dead, but i’ll call you tomorrow and let you know when i’m sure.
* tendency to use long words.
** walk using both feet.
- Kaz Cooke, Little Book of Excuses

the grey album

every step calculated, balanced.
stride.

(swagger).


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what i aim to look like this Summer:




i catch my breath every time i see this image.. so luxurious. i'm so glad that the Olsen sisters (Ashley especially) have got their designing shoes tied on tight:

image via

Azzedine Alaïa: the Master of the Female Form

segmented, via.

one thing alone identified the dress as an Alaïa; well, two things. even without the cold gleam of the First Lady’s arms, it provoked the idea that a woman tends to look her most beautiful in clothes that make her look strong, not glamourous or sexy or powerful. there is a difference. those with a vivid memory of Stephanie Seymour squatting in Richard Avedon’s 1994 portrait to plant a kiss on her favorite designer, her naked buttocks leaving her Alaïa chaps with the whooosh of an automobile in a snowbound slide, will surely debate the point that strength is the essential ingredient of an Alaïa.
and maybe so. maybe the notion of strong-looking fashion, based on concrete methods and examples rather than abstractions and ironic statements, is dying, and there is nobody around with the grit and stamina to map the geography of a woman’s body, as he has done for last 45 years. ballet has its technique and physical rigors. painting has its schools. american music has its places of the heart, like the Delta; cookery, its ingredients and careful preparations. fashion, though, gets its power and unanswerable logic from the female body, and, at roughly 70, Azzedine Alaïa is its undisputed master.

the standard pattern of a designer interview is to give you emotional turbidity. (John Galliano, on a 2003 Dior couture show: 'i want to feel it. i want to rip and tear it and cut it until the pain is in the dresses.')
Mr. Alaïa would show you how to make the dress and shut up about the rest. not talking about it is also a way to avoid a falseness — the falseness of thinking poetic language can be applied to dressmaking. at some point you have to decide what color 'pain' is, and whether it should have long sleeves or short.

like other types of craftsmen who perform the actual work themselves — aside from designing every style, he does all the pattern-making and fittings — he’s happiest when working. he works all the time. and since he has always lived and worked under the same roof (for the last 19 years on rue de Moussy, and for much longer with his partner, Christoph von Weyhe, a painter, and a variety of dogs and cats), this is no problem. his ideal assistant is someone just like him. 'he wants someone who understands his way of thinking, someone who makes him happy when he’s working and gives him feedback,' said the designer Sophie Theallet, who worked with him for a dozen years.

also useful to his fashion education were the few years he designed costumes for the dancers at the Crazy Horse. 'i learned a lot about women’s naked bodies at the Crazy Horse,' he once said.
yhou could certainly find interview subjects with more to say about themselves. but as far as he is concerned, everything that is worth knowing can be observed. you just have to watch him work, and wait.

- Cathy Horyn, 8 December 2010, New York Times

the story delves between two linear timelines, one in the 1970s the other the 1990s, and explores elements of drugs, murder and quantum physical philosophy

had another epiphany dream last night. divine manifestation. the sudden realisation & comprehension of the (larger) essence & meaning.

has been months since the last.

have been having less and less – a sign of maturing & accounting more for own actions, or of an eventless life ?

similar to a mini self-religion - full of morals, warnings, reminders, pseudo fortune telling of what will happen if certain path is chosen / act in a certain way / forget to do something for someone..

only usually happen before / after personal or social events.

was reminded this time to give more, expect less - not live purely on own time and own requirements; take into account the other’s needs, wants, desires.

perhaps just reading into symbolism of dreams too much.

the f word(s) - fashion vs feminism

some sections from Valerie Steele’s 'The F-Word', originally published in Lingua Franca (1991):
the F-word still has the power to reduce many academics to embarrassed or indignant silence. some of those to whom i spoke while preparing this article requested anonymity or even refused to address the subject; those who did talk explained that many of their colleagues found it 'shameful to think about fashion.' one professor explained the 'denial' of fashion this way: 'people say that they don't care about fashion, but that may be because they aren't self-conscious enough to envision a personal style. style is what most academics don't have.'

academics may be the worst-dressed middle-class occupational group in the United States. but they do wear clothes. so i set out to discover what professors choose to wear (the clothes don't grow in their closets), what they think about fashion (even when they claim not to think about it), and, well, why they tend to dress so badly.

THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM:
certain widely held (but little examined) philosophical and epistemological assumptions militate against on-campus sartorial nonconformity. in academic circles, many professors say, clothing is perceived as 'material' (not intellectual) and, therefore, 'beneath contempt.' there is a sharp division between 'the life of the mind and that of the body'--and as a result (one professorial source quips) academics tend to have 'bad bodies, and no one dresses well.'
according to John Brewer, a professor of history at UCLA, 'to dress fashionably is to be labeled frivolous, to seem to care about the body and, therefore, by implication to downplay the life of the mind. most colleagues view sartorial interest and especially sartorial 'play' or facetiousness with a mixture of amusement, condescension, and fear. dowdy is safe and serious; bad dressing, one of the last ways in which academics can project the illusion of other- worldliness.'

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some sections from Elaine Showalter’s 'Better Things to Do', in Media History 6.2 (2000):
as an academic who occasionally publishes in women's magazines, i've learned first-hand that they are both widely read and openly disparaged by my feminist peers. i suspect that my contribution to Vogue fell into the category of the 'humour column' described by Lisa Nevarez in this issue of Media History. certainly it was self-deprecating, but even so, some of my smart women readers in this academic world were not taken in by its humour, page placements, or cosmopolitan sophistication. they were adamant about their belief that i should have 'better things to do' than to write for these magazines, and their insistence that they had better things to do than read them, and would not have even read my article except in the line of feminisit theoretical duty. why are 'intelligent, successful' womeon so guilt-stricken for self-righteousness about reading women's magazines? why do those who work for them write for them, subscribe to them, and study them continue to feel apologetic and defensive? there are three reasons, i believe, why women's magazines, a force in shaping women's political and social culture for centuries, should elicit such mixed, and moralistic reactions.

first of all, the prose in women's magazines is brief, or at aleast brevity is favoured instead of expanse. as feminist critics since Virginia Woolf have pointed out, there is an unconscious psychological association in people's minds between the length of a work and its intellectual stamina.
second, magazines carry advertising, and for many feminists, they are much more guilty than, say, academic journals, of associating their readers and writers with the corrupt worlds of business and commerce. when i wrote for Vogue about enjoying paper dolls as a little girl, i was accused of supporting sweatshop labour. in other words, any woman involved with women's magazines is suspected of being either a victim or an oppressor of the commerical systems that allegedly compel us to consume.
third and most important, the concept of women's play is still underdeveloped. that reading magazines, trying on make-up, or doing needlework could be relaxing, pleasureable, or amusing for busy, bright, successful women seems to go against an unstated belief that women should always be working - caring for others, improving themselves, and casting a rosy glow of morality on all about them.
i myself believe that when i am reading Vogue i should not have to be worrying about whether i have 'better' things to do, and that pleasure and play are as necessary for women as for men and children.

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some sections from Emily Raine’s 'The F Word', in Worn: Fashion Journal issue 5 (Fall/Winter 2007):
fashion has always been treacherous terrain for feminists. they must caerfully negotiate critiques of the toll fashion sometimes takes on women's bodies, wallets, adn self-esteem, while recognising its capacity for pleasure, power, and entrepeneurship. while they have proven quite skilled at attacking fashion's many shortcomings, i have consistently been saddened and disenchanted by their failure to notice its many benefits.
feminism has a long history of disdain for clothing that is expressive, decorative or extravagant - in short, everything about fashion that is fun.
the fashion-conscious feminist is made to feel double shamed for having twice betrayed the feminist cause: first for falling into the old patriarchal trap of mugging for the objectifying sexual gase, then again for enjoying it.

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some sections from Susie Lau's 'Haters Gonna Hate' post, on Style Bubble (22 January 2010):
so i pick up my daily Guardian for the bus journey, rip into the G2 supplement first (doesn't everyone?) and was confronted with this article that i could feel would make me irrate before i even started scan-reading the text. 'Why I Hate Fashion' by Tanya Gold, whose writing i actually normally get a few chuckles out of. there are all the hazardous assumptions that a lot of mainstream media perpetuate about fashion as this 'evil' entity that i didn't think someone like Gold would well..continue to perpetuate.

as far as i can surmise..Gold has distilled her hatred of fashion because of the following..
..Carrie Bradshaw's love of shoes..
..a girl falling over in her heels in between two trains and dying..
..a model having a horrendous time in the industry..
..her hollow feelings of buying something expensive and designer..
Are we not missing a few things here? Gold's hatred of fashion is based on high heels, mal-treated models and gross consumption, when fashion and style (i'm lumping the two together because i'm thinking Gold hasn't made a distinction between the two..) is SO much more than that..

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some sections from Tavi Gevinson's 'Why I Don't Hate Fashion' post, on the Style Rookie (22 January 2010):
this morning Tanya Gold published an article in The Guardian entitled 'Why I Hate Fashion.' i can't say i fully disagree with everything she said. i hate the size issue, i hate the commercialism, i hate 14-year-old models being told to lose weight so they can look sexy in a dress made for women twice their age. the problem, though, is how she is so general-ALL of it is uncreative and evil, apparently. but it's a broad subject. criticising parts of it (poorly, might i add) is understandable, but putting Yohji Yamamoto in the same category as a magazine about cellulite, dating tips, and makeup is not. oh, and speaking of Yohji Yamamoto? he hates fashion, too. oh, and speaking of makeup? neither editors Katie Grand, editor of Love, or Anna Dello Russo, editor of Vogue Nippon, (you know, Vogue, the magazine Ms. Gold said she spits at and sometimes rips up) wear any.

you know, in the beginning of The September Issue, Anna Wintour says she thinks some people mock fashion because they are intimidated by it. and she's right. yeah, it's snobby, but you know what? so is turning up your nose at a runway collection because you thinks it's weird and you just don't get it. this, in fact, makes the nose-turner-upper not too different from those horrible 'fashion' magazines - dismissing something because it's strange. how very narrow-minded.

Ms. Gold speaks about how she discovered fashion at 13 and then dressed in a way she knew she was supposed to dress. 'how i enchanted. how i belonged. i thought i looked just like the effortlessly beautiful girls at school. except i didn't. and, very soon, i realised that i didn't. all that weekend job money and childish angst and still i looked like me. that was the first seduction – and the first betrayal.' i don't believe Ms. Gold 'discovered' fashion; she discovered middle school and teenagerdom. she said that before that, she dressed as Andy Pandy and was happier. i find the idea of dressing as Andy Pandy pretty awesome. it's creative and it's fun, and that sounds fashionable to me. what Tanya Gold and many others, including myself, hate is the everyone-has-to-look-the-same-and-also-sexy philosophy, which is NOT fashion.

i think that the problem with fashion isn't fashion, but how others decide to see it. the same 'fashion' magazines that offer advice about pleasing men might decide that fashion isn't for overweight people, but it's Tanya Gold's fault for believing it, and if she really wanted to have fun with clothes she could. same goes for the idea that clothes HAVE to make you look sexy. not if you don't want to! isn't that amazing!

i invite these folks to read a constructive runway review by Cathy Horyn, Robin Givhan, Suzy Menkes, Hilary Alexander, or Lynn Yaeger. look at the works of Comme des Garcons, Rodarte, Issey Miyake, Alexander McQueen, or Vivienne Westwood, at the very least. read a magazine that has not one word about plastic surgery or dieting, or at least, ignore those parts and appreciate the art (Lula, i-D, Russh, Dazed and Confused, Pop, Love, Vogue, Bazaar, W, to name a few). be open-minded.

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some sections from Lisa Armstrong’s Times (UK) article, 'Fashion is Still a Feminist Issue' (3 March 2010):
so it looks as though, in 2010, even lipgloss is political again. on Women’s Hour the other week, Jane Garvey asked whether it’s possible to wear lipstick and be a feminist. not that old canard, i thought. don’t people realise that sometimes what seems oppressive — high heels, corsets — can also, for reasons of status and (self) control, give great pleasure?
can’t they see that fashion and beauty are two industries in which women operate on an equal (or possibly superior) level to men? just look at Helena Rubinstein. Or Elizabeth Arden, Estée Lauder, Coco Chanel and, more recently, Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg and, for that matter, Donatella. on the other hand, women on the lowest rungs of the fashion ladder — in the sweatshops — might not feel so empowered by their labour. or perhaps they do — knowing that they could have even more exploitative jobs, in the sex industry for instance.

the power to unsettle is good by the way. part of fashion’s job is to challenge society’s norms. sometimes it does this in the only way it knows — pendulum swings that last one season. it’s hard to say whether Prada’s latest demure, almost prim (and all the more erotic for it), collection will stick. Marc Jacobs pulled off a similar trick the week before in New York and the fashion editors, for the most part, swooned. grown-up, covered-up clothes at last. only Luke Leitch, my esteemed colleague, demurred. didn’t i think, he asked, that all those folds of fabric might, actually, be anti-feminist, or at least anti-female, or at least anti the female body? i haven’t decided, but at least fashion is asking some interesting questions.

a weekly clearing out of my 29-page to-do-list word document / is covered by ocean is covered by air

on blogging:
use lists.
be topical - write posts that need to be read right now.
learn enough to become the expert in your field.
break / announce news.
be timeless - write posts that will be readable in a year.
be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
share your expertise generously so people recognise it and depend on you.
write short, pithy posts.
don't write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
write long, definitive posts.
be sycophantic. share linklove and expect some back.
tag your posts.
coin a term or two.
do email interviews with the well-known.
use photos. salacious ones are best.
be anonymous.
start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
point to useful but little-known resources.
digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don't bore your readers.
don't interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
edit yourself. ruthlessly.
be patient.
give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.

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Joey is a firm believer in the idea that if you can't be a good example, you have an obligation to be a horrible warning. he writes the comic. he has a degree in linguistics which really only comes in handy when smart-asses try to correct his grammar at parties.
- asofterworld.com

28 year old Charlie Salvo and 26-year old Luke Walker are menswear designers for Lanvin. Luke is from the Midlands and Charlie is from Chile by way of Sweden. the jolly duo met in Lanvin’s studio in Paris and sharing a love for sharp tailoring and eccentricity became firm friends ever since.
what do you love most about each other? L: his not-so-secret toy obsession.
C: that he thinks he lives in a different era.
what do you love most about fashion? L: its heritage. and its hysterical. C: the emotion it gives.
what do you love most about life? L: the wind, it makes me feel like i’m 7 again, and strong cheddar. C: eating chocolate and riding my bike.
describe your personal style.. L: anachronistic. C: John Maikovich meets Veronica Lake.
David-Ivar Herman Dune is a 33-year old singer/painter from Israel. he’s pictured here with his good friend and partner in crime, 35-year old Lomographic Ambassador Peter Boesch from Lustenau, Austria. when they’re not working, Peter likes to entertain David by playing records.
what do you love most about each other? D: his love for life, the joy he feels about little things, his kindness and his taste for Bruce Springsteen. P: his unbound enthusiasm and curiosity, his attention to detail, how smart and simple he is to be with. we went through some rough periods and David was always there for me.
what do you love most about fashion? D: the shoe designer Marion Hanania.
P: craftsmanship, materials, classics.
what do you love most about life? D: i love that there’s a word for life in many languages, and that we can use that word to refer to the most complex, wonderful, miraculous and beautiful thing. P: the vast wickedness of the human imagination. think fetish sites, Large Hadron Collider, Wes Anderson and my friends. i am privileged and grateful to have them.
describe your personal style.. D: that would be an odd and self-absorbed thing to do. P: gentleman farmer with a Bic Quatre Couleur. which probably is my equivalent to the Alan Partridge Blazer Patch.
- i-D Magazine

you never know where falling in love will take you. for history’s quixotic poets and artists, it may have been the cause of eternal anguish, yet for love-strcuk Danish creative Henrik Vibskov, it proved to be the catalyst for a dream career in fashion.
‘there was a girl i fancied who planned to go to London’s Central Saint Martins to study fashion, and i just said, ‘yeah, me too,’ remembers Vibskov. ‘so i called Saint Martins and got an interview appointment the next day, i prepared a file during the night, jumped on the plane, and got into the course.. i also got the girl actually.’
– Indigo Clarke

they loved each other, not driven by necessity, by the 'blaze of passion' often falsely ascribed to love. they loved each other because everything around them willed it, the trees and the clouds and the sky over their heads and the earth under their feet. perhaps their surrounding world, the strangers they met in the street, the wide expanses they saw on their walks, the rooms in which they lived or met, took more delight in their love than they themselves did.
- Transcendent Experiences: Phenomenology and Critique, Louis Roy

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they explored separate interests: Architecture for Ashley, Photography for Mary-Kate. but where they met then, and still meet now, is at fashion, and that’s what they’re here to discuss. The Row consists mainly of expensive knit T-shirts with fancy French seams, and a few minimalist separates, like a well-cut blazer and a tight, banded miniskirt in the style of Hervé Léger. the palette is as minimal as the collection: black, white, cream, gray, the occasional shot of red, and the label itself, a small, easy-to-miss gold chain embossed THE ROW. it’s like the Olsens themselves in its simultaneous desire to be both noticed and hidden. she suggested additions to the line, like oversize man-tailored pants. they like simple, somewhat anonymous pieces and loads of accessories. a tiny leather jacket with little ruched sleeves.
'i was studying Architecture and Psychology and i loved it, but i kept thinking about t-shirts and how to make the perfect one. it was my dad who said, ‘you should do it.’ w
whether The Row will attract the customers who buy Alaïa and Ghesquière is an open question. all of their peices are classic and basic. you could live your life in that whole collection and never need anything else. it's genius.
oh and dont forget to mention that the girls have also been enducted into CFDA (council of fashion designers of america) which pretty much validates their work and shits on whatever it is you think you're talking about.
'what it always comes down to is simple, clean lines and beautiful fabrics,' Ashley Olsen said at a promotions event in Dallas yesterday. 'the whole collection is based on fit and quality.'

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to do:
- styleportfolio.com., juanvidal.net., artdesignfashion.com/portfolio + /textile.,
- Smiths & Winehouse cds.,
- more black opaque stockings.,
- more uni basics.,
- grey (? - ~AP's) / sheer(? - ~Therese Rawsthorne?) blazer.,
- 'confront what disgusts you'.,
- Unearthed High bands.,
- youtube: sunn 0))) – belulrol pusztit part ½ & blog images.,
- Domayne – homewares and furniture shop f valley 1058 anne st level 1 homemaker city.,
- find a perfurme,
- the 'nix-fix-quick-and-tasty' salad contains: rocket leaves, feta cheese, cranberry bits (craisins!) and some chunky spinach and chunky pumpkin dip as le indulgent dressing,
- printscreen of Gossip Girls' wedding scene = flowers on backs and legs of chair at wedding ceremony
- to google: 90s fluoro lisa frank images
- hot Sandy from Grease outfit at the end of movie (take note of form., etc. eg.)
- look up: the Illuminati.,
- General Pants bubble site – get own,
- blog: 4th Dimension.,
- Ben Folds live myspace vid songs onto ipod,
- message ZC: i just remembered walking along Strand in Tville out to dinner, you called from Dallas Green

aesthetically displeasing

i wore this to do a spot of shopping and errands in town yesterday on my monthly day off.

the leotard is Emma Rea from a brilliant Bessie Head shopping trip in Brisbane a couple of months ago - it is so beautiful and fragile, i've been scared to wear / wash it so far but i felt that the time was right. it is less sheer in reality, but i think with my choice of bottom-half clothing some people in shops mistook me to be on a break from work. i certainly would not be wearing that leotard to work, at least not in this city. the taboo factor would be through the roof.
the clutch is crotcheted Samvara.

below is a more recent addition to my corporate outfit schedule - as previously noted here - for the workplace.. i have found myself becoming more and more uninspired in finding new outfits / ways of layering for work, though i guess being completely surrounded by men (apart from one other woman) in strict work uniform has not aided the matter a great deal.


the photo quality in the following photographs is extremely poor, but i have always been in a hurry each time - which explains the lacking in any sort of better looking, flora-related scenery..also, when in need of mirror shots i much prefer a non-flash / slightly-blurred option over an evident reflected flash equivalent. for the quality of the other bedroom photos i have no excuse.




the image on the left is a side project that i was working on a couple of days ago.

i was hoping to create a fairly simple cuffed-up long sleeve shirt - completely sheer but cut in half diagonally on both the front and back with a change in fabric - one a spotted black soft tulle, the other a plain black sheer material. i tried not to rush it, but the overlocker was misbehaving so that caused a number of negative results..


i culled and rearranged my magazine collection a couple of days ago. i saw a Selby photograph of an area in Alexander Wang's studio(?) a couple of months ago and have been meaning to replicate it ever since. he had stacks of books / magazines carefully laid out on a white bookshelf - there was lots of open space, and an apparent 'cleanliness' to the layout. i try to keep my bookshelf fairly clean and uncluttered like his, but it can be hard.
i have been really appreciating Twin, Bon and The Gentlewoman magazines of late. i usually just go to Borders when i am chasing international magazines - it requires little thinking on my behalf and i nearly always find something new during those visits.

Lanvin Luhnvuhn Luhnvaaarhn

one of the questions at my recent university entrance interview touched on who (designers, especially) inspired me particularly.
i answered that while on one hand i was/am incredibly interested (perhaps more interested than inspired - i am not so much likely to design similarly myself / fill my wardrobe with their pieces) in concept-driven / conceptual design. i love that a political or social or even personal idea can be voiced so easily and globally through fashion. fashion can be so powerful; the industry can be used so influentially as a platform upon which these opinions, ideas, problems..are voiced. i spoke specifically of some of the more resonant Eastern designers; Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons, Yohji Yamamoto..Vivienne Westwood even.. these figures have, on occasions, almost single-handedly altered the view of a society. they have changed pre-existing ideas of incredibly powerful standards such as what beauty, the feminine and masculine forms, clothing, wealth..should be, or should involve..or even stand for. i find this so interesting.

HOWEVER i rambled the most (which may be hard to believe, given the above^) about what Alber has been doing at Lanvin in recent years.
on a more aesthetic, rather than intellectually stimulating (i'm embarrassed by that sentence as much as you are<) level, i cannot go past Alber. everything that he does seems so simple..i am constantly asking myself why i had not thought of that, or done that, or why hadn't i even considered fusing those extremely simply ideas together before now.. the following looks are some of my ~most recent favourites, via style.com:




Alber Elbaz is brilliant. i love that idea of power dressing that he is all over. he dresses 'power women' / women with intelligence, direction, power, strength. but what i love even more about that is that he does it so unapologetically femininely. there are no strong shoulders, studs, 'rough' textures or colours as is nearly always seen to convey 'strength' or 'power' or even rebellion within clothing (think Balmain, for example). Alber's women are strong-minded, they're sexy, and they ooze femininity.
i also love that he fuses both minimalism (though not to the extent of Phoebe Philo) with excessive feminine embellishment (though not as much as that at Valentino)..not that there is anything wrong with any of those extremes. BUT with Lanvin there is no need for the extreme use of strictly cream, camel, grey, white, black, that minimalism has been so connected to recently. the colours at Lanvin ARE generally muted, but interestingly so. he has done his own thing here and i respect and admire it lots lots lots. there are shades of blue and green and brown and grey that i didn't even know existed, and shades that i had most certainly not previously considered to exist harmoniously side-by-side. AND neither are his designs ever frill / lace /etc city. i hate the idea that there is no other way to represent a sense of 'woman' or pride in femininity.

recently Lanvin has teamed up with mega chain H&M to create a small collaborative collection. it is so obvious that Alber has been completely involved in it, and is not at all what i had expected of this sort of product. the pieces actually LOOK like they could be of Lanvin origin. they do not look cheap, nor do they look repetitive, or from such a mass-produced store such as H&M. the fabrics look luxurious, the shapes interesting.
Alber has noted on a couple of occasions something along the lines of the following:

('H&M approached us to collaborate, and see if we could translate the dream we created at Lanvin to a wider audience, not just a dress for less. i have said in the past that i would never do a mass-market collection, but what intrigued me was the idea of H&M going luxury rather than Lanvin going public. this has been an exceptional exercise, where two companies at opposite poles can work together because we share the same philosophy of bringing joy and beauty to men and women around the world.'
- Alber Elbaz, artistic director of Lanvin.)

a short film for the H&M vs Lanvin collection:

i love the details, even the maids in the hotel look they have stepped out of a Lanvin shoot.

this song does off like milk in the sun

Marion Borgelt’s work "Cryptologist’s Memoir No.35" is part of the Memoir series and was inspired by the death of 98year old Yang Huaanyi - the last living person fluent in Nushu, a secrent women’s written language over a thousand years old. the remarkable work in sculpted beeswax and oil comments on hidden language. Nushu is believed to have been invented by one of the Emperor's concubines in the Hunan Province of Southern China and passed down from mother to daughter in the form of poetry and feminine advice often disguised as patterning in embroidery. during a time when women were not permitted to be educated, and unable to read or write their own thoughts and feelings, they communicated with each other through messages written on embroidered gifts.

- mauve long tulle skirt, think Adelaide st in Brisbane
- Gossip Girl mum's reading glasses
- tan floral ish cut-out stiff cropped over pink fluoro faded lace sheer over white shear pleats, fall ish drapes easily. for top half sort of like gossip girl Sarina silver cage dress

'A Life in the Day of Benjamin André (Incomplete)':
i met you in a club in Atlanta, Georgia, said 'me and my homeboy - we're coming out with an album'. you looked at me like 'yeah nigga, right,' but you gave me you number anyway. you were on the talcum powder.
moved away from home to school with big plans. by day, studied the history of music, by night, just to pay for that shit you'd dance. to get your pants was a mission impossible, we were both the same age but i suppose wasn't on the same page.
we starting hanging like Ernie and Bert and in my idle head i'm thinking, 'cool', just when i think i'm going down your shirt, you're hiking up your skirt now. the angelic nastiness you possessed made you by far the best, therefore hard to tell. you'd dropped me off by the dungeon, never came in, but i knew that you were wondering, 'now are these niggas in this house up to something? selling crack by sacks so they could function?' well, yes and no. yes, we were selling it, but no, it wasn't blow. cook it in the basement then move it at a show, then grab the microphone and everybody yelled 'hey-oh'.
meanwhile, the video starts playing BET college radio and a van packed full of niggas with a blunt in their hand, and one in their ear - you know what i'm saying. but, i kept your number in my old phone. got a new chip flip with the roam roam. so it took me a minute to retrieve seven digits, but i promised i would call you when i got home. but, when i got home i never did. by the time i did, heard that you had a kid by some nigga in Decatur who replied 'see you later' when he got the good news..that life shit.
now, I'm nineteen with a Cadillac. my nigga had a Lex with the gold pack, got a plaque but i'm living with my pop pop so i got glock and a low jack. you kinda fast for that fella in class who used to draw and never said much, cause half of what he saw was so far from that place you wanna be.
are you starting to gather what I'm getting at? now, if i'm losing you, tell me then i'll double back. but keep in mind, at the time 'keep it real' was the phrase. silly once said now, but those were the days when spring break and Daytona and Freakniks made you wanna drop out of college and never go back..move to the south, but that ain't a Kodak moment. on went myself and Big Boi - well you knew him as Twan. that's right you were around before this shit begun. ..when Twan had a daughter and sort of was made to mature before the first tour.
we hit the road like Jack - laughed and cried, and drived it back with some Yak. girls used to say, 'y'all talk funny, y'all from the islands?' and i'd laugh and they just keep smiling. 'no, i'm from Atlanta baby, he from Savannah, maybe. we should hook up and get tore up and then lay down, hey. we got to go because the bus is pulling out in 30 minutes.' she's playing tennis - disturbing the tenants. 15-love, fit like glove. description is like 15 doves in a jacuzzi catching the Holy Ghost. making one woozy in the head and comatose, agree?
enough about me, how's about you? how's the lil' kid? she was about 2 the last time we spoke..i hadn't smoked or took a shot of drink cause i'd start the 2nd album off on another note. now, that note threw some niggas in the hood off, but see, i'd balled out, and before i fall out i'd slow my 'Lac down to a nice speed. the brain is that fried egg - i might need new direction, was apparent. i was a child looking at the floor staring. so changing my style was like release for the primitive beast. yes i was on the rise, yeast was the street. to make bread - never primary concern. just to hop on these beats and wait my turn.
i'd meet Muslims, ganstas, bitches, Rastas, and macaroni niggas - imposters. so on a trip to New York on some beeswax i get invited to a club where MCs at, and on stage is a singer with some thing on her head. similar to the turban that i covered up my dreds with - which o was rocking at the time. when i was going through them phases trying to find anything that seemed real in the world. still searching, but i started liking this girl. now you know her as Erykah. we're young, in love, in short we had fun. no regrets no abortion, had a son by the name of Seven - and he's five. by the time i do this mix, he'll probably be six - you do the arithmetic. ..me do the language arts. y'all stand against the wall blindfolded, me throw the darts to poke you in the heart and take you from the start to one luxury transportation and a Marta card, or either when your girlfriend that went to Mays
Momma or her Daddy let her borrow the Benz because she's smart. or maybe if your neighbor does you a huge favor and he sells you that rabbit that's been sitting in his yard. you fix it up, you trick it out, you give it rims, you give it bump. you give it all your time because that's all you can think about.

..and that's as far as i got.

editorial

'an ambition: to share our passion for the best fashion design with those who themselves want to stand out and find the 'other fashion alternative'. the idea: to draw attention to skill and invention, to the quintessentially modern, the avant-garde. the result: Tranoï Magazine. a fashion magazine that tracks the changing mood and reflects the transformations of society. our vision: to be always looking a season ahead - at Spring/Summer in the autumn and Autumn/Winter in the spring - with stylish writing and photography to ignite the imagination. our strength: being the one and only magazine to do it! our arguments: portraits of important and influential figures in the fashion world; emerging talents put under the spotlight; explorations of studios and exhibitions; a social approach to the phenomena of fashion; the poetry of the senses.. to thrill. to live. a world tour: Tranoï Magazine is available to the general public on the first day of Paris Fashion Week, in March and October for women's fashion, January and July for men's. the proof: this, the seventh issue of Tranoï Magazine, to be enjoyed today, without inhibitions.'

Michele Lamy, p4:
Matisse once said that 'Black is a colour in itself that summarises and consumes all others.' what do you think?
yes, of course, i love black. but for me real colour also includes the earth colours, crushed mustards.
when you buy clothes by Rick Owens, you're entering into a relationship with the material, with time; the silks, the jerseys, the cottons, the cashmeres amy be very fine or very thick, fragile or protective, but they have to deal with time, with light, with the body. Rick Owens says, 'my clothes are my autobiography, they have the calm elegance to which i aspire and the wounds i have inflicted on the way. they are an expression of tenderness, and of a competitive ego. they are an idealisation of adolescence and of its inevitable defeat.' clothing is a space of life and expression, and it is created architecturally. you were saying, 'Rick Owens is an environment, a house, furniture.' the names of the colours he gives his clothes, 'dust', 'dark brown', 'dark shadow', they all tell their own story. what do you think of the relationship to the elements reflected in that?
i think its all about time, and i don't like being over-aware of time, i don't like it when things look new. for me its not a question of fashion but a question of movement. its all very well saying this is how it is this season and now its going to change, but i'm with Rick on this. for me, a women isn't like that, she's telling a story of her own.
what is your medium, what is your nature of your contribution to Rick's designs, for example?
at first, it was very simple, i got rid of all the hems, things like that, that look neat and new. you see, what's important is the English butler side, relaxed elegance, you don't care, you slop about a bit..in Rick Owens there's this fluidity, trousers become shorts, clothes are draped. i don't like things that are permanent, which means that things have stopped. i like clothes to be living. i am a completely Rick Owens women.
your favourite flower?
white lilies. flowers have got to be white. that's what Rick and i think. except hortensias can be any blue they like..

Azzedine Alaïa, p10:
in another life, he'd be a gardener. 'i would be sweeping the paths in the gardens of Versailles, gathering the leaves. i'd be utterly alone, with a view of the palace at its best before me, and i would idly imagine the women in their finery.. i see them, magnificiently, majestically descendign the steps outside. one day, i'd dress them for a tremendous masked ball, terribly eighteenth century. another, i'd punish them by not making them dresses, just attending their matters horticultural and disappearing into the royal kitchen garden.'

- Tranoï Magazine, Woman Spring/Summer 2011 - Paris no.7

a benevolent stranger

'i would like to see how clothes look on a beautiful body, but somehow this has been lost. when i was a kid, it was all about Cindy Crawford, Tyra Banks, Claudia Schiffer, Christie Brinkley and Elle Macpherson. these women really have aspirational bodies - slim, toned and well-proportined - and none of them look like they just got out of hospital. the only catwalk that regularly has aspirational bodies these days is Victoria's Secret's' - LeanneH

'in this discussion the extremes always come up. from a health economics perspective, obesity has a far larger social cost than eating disorders. that is not to say the latter issue is not important or shouldn't be discussed or addressed, but i do believe it is somewhat a red herring. women in the media are on part of a complex problem, but the complexity is rarely discusses or even acknowledged. to blame the media is a one-dimensional approach.' - Fly

'just as we don't censor films to make sure they don't show any dangerous behavious, i don't think fashion should be "censored", but it should, in the same way that films go through a process of being rated and edited, and be more aware of its impact on socity.' - TakeV

'there's a big difference between striving to look one's best and being made to feel that anything less is not acceptable.. people should have the confidence to realise they are fine just the way they are, but i think it would also be constructive to help people find this confidence.' - Miss Melba

'i don't see anything wrong with wanting to be the best looking version of yourself, and by this i don't mean stick thin. i'm no advocate for skinny models but i honestly think that, for example, a pair of skinny jeans will look better on a tall, slim model than some person who is [short] with massive thighs.' - P!inkg!rl

'the biggest problem is not that magazines make us feel bad about ourselves (and this shouldn't be a debate of thin versus curvy), its the message we keep getting sent that as women, the most important thing about us is the way we look. or that if we're not attractive or attractive in a certain way, we're not worth anything. i don't believe that for a second.' - Tazzie961

'clothes do look better on skinny beautiful women, or rather, tall women with a body in proportion to itself. clothes just hang better on these very beautiful, and very rarely occurring body shapes. i, like most people, am in the mid-range on the bell curve of beauty, and i am okay with that. i think a big part of maturing is becoming okay with that despite the images in magazines. is everyone supposed to become mediocre so the rest of us feel better?' - Occy

'the blame should not be taken solely by the fashion magazines. a lot of these problems arise while children are still young and i think parents need to take much more responsibility than they seem to. but magazines have a vital role to play in the remaking of body image.' - Phoebeme

- The Great Debate p234-7, Vogue Australia October 2010



i cannot stop listening to the John Steel Singers' 'Your Favourite Perversion' (0:00 - 2:14 ).

am i really the only one who consciously breathes quietly and suppresses loud waterbottle slurping suction action, for the aural sake of others?

'mega-churches have inspired thousands of Christian worshippers to gather within vast, postmodern architectural spaces across America. Megalithic in size, these corporate structures, converted Hilton hotels and restored theatres are transformed every Sunday into halls of prayer, with performative rituals and multimedia spectacles. most definitions of the mega-church require that a minimum of 2000 worshippers attend weekend services for the building to attain 'Mega Church' status.

Joe Johnson is specifically photographing the empty interior architecture and sanctuary spaces where worship is performed. he uses the descriptive power of photography to construct a personal vocabulary with which he can communicate what it is about a subject that interests him. Johnson tends to gravitate towards subjects that have inherent tension and mystery. with the Mega Churches project, an interesting poing of tension lies in a secular treatment of contemporary religious practice within Mega Churches.

this body of work attempts to reveal the mechanics of creating faith by capturing wires, computers, light bulbs and cords that are used to construct on-stage mysteries for the faithful. the rawness of the abandoned mega-space and the eerie familiarity of its commerical fixtures questions the intention and the business of faith in the 21st century.'
- YVI Magazine #4 Relgion and Rituals









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'i wouldn't say that i'm eccentric, but i woud say i'm a maximalist. while i can appreciate the beauty of a nice clean line, its not really what gets me going personally.' - Clare Press

a good relationship can go a long way / i was in Baghdad when you were in your Dad's bag

below are some sections from the Business of Fashion site. i get daily email updates from it and i absolutely love it. its so interesting and, i think, necessary to know what is going on in the financial / behind-the-scenes side of the industry (if you are going to follow fashn, that is).
its a little like the double degree that i am applying for at university. i don't see why in the world you would apply for the single degree - when the dual is offered..ANY job in the industry - even if it is highly (or even at least slightly) creative (i.e. designing, buying, PR..) requires a really strong business knowledge to back it up - you cannot and will not succeed otherwise.

'running a fashion business means that packing boxes at 2am, steaming clothes over and over again, and pouring through receipts with an Accountant will become part of your routine. you will likely spend less than 10% of your time designing, while the rest of the time you will be managing production, sending clothes to magazines, dealing with suppliers who want their money (now!), begging Anna Wintour’s assistants to grant you a meeting, managing your employees while hoping they don’t fall ill, and trying to eat and bathe in between. on top of all that, you have to worry about making enough money to declare some kind of dividend from the business for all your hard work.

starting any kind of business require tenacity, endurance and dedication. setting up a fashion business is all the more challenging because this is a hyper competitive industry (who doesn’t want to be a fashion designer these days?) and a very complex one as well, even at the smallest of scales. what other kinds of start-up businesses so quickly find themselves with customers and suppliers scattered around the world, requiring so much coordination and organization? managing to get all of your raw materials (fabrics, trims, haberdashery, etc) all to your manufacturer at the same time to start your production and then sending it all out to stores in different corners of the world (each with their own customs procedures) in only 2 months can be a nightmare, even for those with great forward planning and troubleshooting skills. one of the key drivers of success will be your entrepreneurial skills and your commitment to running a business. in order to be successful, you should think of yourself as CEO first, fashion designer second. a CEO is a manger of people, finances and processes. for some people this is an extremely exciting and engaging situation to be in. for others, it is their worst nightmare.

clearly, you won’t be able to do absolutely everything yourself. this is where you need to find other people who believe in you to join your team or provide support in some other way. Doing a self-assessment of your skills and abilities will tell you what gaps you will need to fill in order to make your business work.
apart from mastering the design process, something that some of the smartest designers do next is to find a business partner they can trust, who brings different skills and connections to the table. Often it is a spouse (Patrizio Bertelli is married to Miuccia Prada), sibling (Christopher Kane’s sister Tammy runs the business) or a friend (Marc Jacobs has long time business partner Robert Duffy) who might take on this role. in this way, not only do you have someone to lean on in times of difficulty, you also have a division of roles, which allows you to focus more on the creative aspects of the business.

you will also need to find people in the industry who agree to support you and work with you. you’ll need a PR who will (at least initially) give you his services for almost nothing and a factory that will make your clothes in small quantities. you will also need accountants, lawyers, stylists, photographers, graphic designers, production managers and interns – hopefully all at discounted prices. finally, for most designers who haven’t come into an unexpected windfall inheritance in the millions, starting a business is also a question of finding money.

if there is one crucial thing I recommend that you do before rushing off to start a business, it is to carefully craft your business concept. what is it about your business that will be unique? why will people choose to buy your product over someone else’s? is it the design, the price, the value or the dream that they are buying into?

you will need to think carefully about who you are designing for. it is cliché now, but i almost always ask designers when i first meet them: ‘who are you designing for? and why?’. most of the time, this simple question is met with groans or blank stares or platitudes like, ‘i design for me and my friends’, or ‘a very glamorous woman with lots of money’. this is not enough. when they provide a fluffy answer, it usually indicates that they haven’t spent much time thinking about this critical question. and if they haven’t done so, it makes me wonder exactly who they are thinking of when they are designing. if they don’t have a specific person in mind, then how do they know exactly what that person needs? you need to get into the mind of your customer and understand what motivates them. where do they spend their time and for what occasions will you dress them? what makes them buy a garment? understand their psychology, emotional needs and relationship with clothing. visualise all aspects of their lives and assess how your business can blend into making them even better.

it’s worth pointing out now that not all fashion businesses have to operate at the high end of luxury, although it seems that that is where every designer wants to be. while it may seem ideal to be a ‘luxury’ brand, also remember that some of the most influential fashion businesses are on the high street and in your neighbourhood mall, because they dress thousands of people around the world.
as for your competitors, the better you can describe and understand their products, their style and aesthetic, and their positioning and strategies, the better you will be able to shape your business to stand out from the pack.

in the fashion business you incur many costs up front (designing, sampling, sales efforts) before any of your revenues even come in. if you can, you should have a trained financial or accounting professional (a friend, family member or other contact) to help you with this section.
in reality, you will make spending decisions every single day, how ever small.

success is rarely accidental. sure, we all benefit from some good luck from time to time, but real success can only come through hard work and good planning. for this, a business plan is critical. it is the document that helps you decide what to do, and just as importantly, what not to do. anyone who has set up a new business knows that when you are looking for investors, employees, suppliers, office space, banking services, professional advisors and everything else that you need, you have to tell people about your business and its aims. when you have spent the necessary time in crafting a business plan, you will be able to be more clearly articulate with what you business is all about.

before sharing the nitty-gritty details of your company with anyone, you should request that they sign an NDA, or non-disclosure agreement, which legally restricts the other party from sharing your confidential company information with anyone else.

creating large, unfocused sample collections with very expensive fabrics can be a death knell for a young fashion company. not only will you spend a fortune on developing a set of samples, you may have also created a collection that could never sell at retail because it would be far too expensive.'

Skins S01E04
Chris Miles: 'do you want to hear about the best day of my life? i'd pissed myself by accident. they'd had us sitting down for trying to get out..like to leave the room..but this kid kept blocking me, stopping me leaving, he was playing a game or something. ..so i told him, right, that he was a dickhead, and that he's gonna get out of my way, dickhead, and then the whole place went quiet cos i'd said 'dickhead'. and then they was all laughing, everyone, and i couldn't work out if it was cos i'd swore or if they'd seen that my shorts were wet, so i tried to cover my shorts with my hands, right, but that meant they all definitely noticed and then there was more laughing. but, yeah, Peter, my brother, he was youngest-ever sixer or something. they're the ones in charge, sixers. he could do all the knots, him. him and Dad would practise. he loved it. anyway, he stands up, yeah, sixer, and, they all liked him, he takes my hand, and took me to the toilet. and then he had me take my shorts off, and then he cleaned me up. and then he took off his shorts and put them on me. and then, he kissed me on the cheek, and took my hand, and we both went out there. him just in his pants. no-one laughed. ..best day of my life.'

weird how this is basically Acid House in disguise with a bit of guitar. if most of the people who love this listened to House circa 88-93 then they'd be in love

a huge amount of my appreciation of color combinations, proportion, genre mixing and pattern play came from studying any photos I could find of his runway shows (remember, this was pre-Style.com). in a fashion world of huge shouldered alpha women his women were quiet, artistic, gentle and seemed to have a strength of wisdom..
- Scott Schuman

describe your graduate collection: i was in Paris and i started reading about Jerusalem’s Syndrome, where people go on pilgrimage package tours and some of them get so overwhelmed by being there and they get this religious feeling and it turns into a psychosis. there’s a whole list of syndromes like taking their bedsheets, going out looking biblical and preaching. i found that really lovely and it’s complicated because they call it a syndrome but who are we to say they’re not having a wonderful time.
if you weren’t a fashion designer who would you be?: maybe a monk? i fantasise a lot about being a housewife, cooking and cleaning but to a higher level.
i come from a fine art family background and when i chose fashion they were really mad as they thought it was not a serious art but now they’re really supportive.
describe the moment you realised you wanted to be a fashion designer?:when i was young, and went to weddings, i really loved wedding dresses and always wanted to make them more beautiful.
if you could go back in time and experience any fashion moment, what would it be?: i really like tidy and feminine clothes so i'd go back to the 50s.
where do you see yourself in ten years time?: i haven't really thought about it! i'd love to be involved in textiles.
- Luke Brooks - Fashion Knitwear

i've been so excited about this for a while. i love getting recognised for my work and not what i wear, as its what I'm most proud of.
- Hayley Hughes

i’ve been doing this half-tucked shirt thing a lot lately. it always takes me ages to get it just right. all this talk of tucking in shirts reminds me of this old commercial on tv where a bunch of guys talked about different ways they tucked in their shirts. there was the full tuck, casual half tuck, and the quarter tuck.
- Camille Rushanaedy

it's human nature-- [...] one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. i think the following rules will cover most cases:
i. never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. never us a long word where a short one will do.
iii. if it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
vi. break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
- Orwell, 1946

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menswear, rings, white/cream/tan colours, odd pairings, finding the perfect white semi sheer t-shirt, layer shades of grey, invest in a classic coat, with futuristic high backs, wear your thigh high socks over sheer tights, layer slips under dresses and skirts and let them peek out, i want a large raincoat too, built-in sleeves tied around the waist, and summer camp too with the bungee cords and backpack buckles on the waist and tye dye, capes!, granny-ish booties, socks socks socks, drapery, grandpa steez, dad pants, what they'll be wearing in grunge country this Fall, odd earrings, slouch, 100% supersoft silk, short, loose straight fit, raw hems, asymmetric and with drapes, camp counselor sandals, wool, monochrome, updating the classics, wear them with slicked-back hair, sew crop top/s, white or skin-coloured or pearl sequins, 'give time to make your art' - on tee = ?, tee - 'karl who?', woooo rope tee,

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Ramona’s not a waitress
she’s got flesh and skin and bones
she fills your cup, and you fill hers
cos at work she is at home
yes she may be a robot
but she’s more human for it
she knows to love the things she does
happy without more shit

i don't get what is wrong with discovering this song cause of that film... you don't need a reason to like a song, if you like it, you like it, if you want to be a Nazi about i'm pretty sure you're just some sad virgin
- Youtube, three weeks ago

in 2009, Scarlett Johansson covered Buckley’s ‘Last Goodbye’ for the soundtrack of He’s Just Not That Into You, PJ Harvey knew him personally and in the song ‘Memphis’, she takes lines from the song on his unfinished album, ‘Morning Theft’, and in her own words reflects on Buckley’s death: ‘in Memphis…die suddenly, at a wonderful age, we’re ready to go.’ Rufus Wainwright, whos career had barely started when he met Buckley, wrote ‘Memphis Skyline’ in tribute to him, singing ‘then came Hallelujah sounding like Ophelia, for me in my room living, turn back and you will stay, under the Memphis Skyline.’ Wainwright has also recorded his own version of ‘Hallelujah’, which appears on the soundtrack for the movie Shrek. Duncan Sheik also wrote and recorded the song ‘A Body Goes Down’, from his 1998 album ‘Humming’ in response to Buckley’s Death. Steve Adey wrote a song tribute entitled ‘Mississippi’ on his 2006 album All Things Real. the song contains the lyrics ‘Until the morning thief steals the humming of the Lord’ - a reference to Buckley’s song Morning Theft. Willie Nile’s On the Road to Calvary from his 1999 album Beautiful Wreck of the World was written as a tribute to JB. Juliana Hafield has written two songs related to her grieving for JB, ‘ Trying Not to Think About it’ on her EP Please Do Not Disturb and Until Tomorrow on Beautiful Creature.
Thom Yorke saw JB live during the recording sessions of the band’s second album The Bends. he claimed that Buckley’s performances had a direct impact on his vocal delivery in Fake Plastic Trees. Chris Cornell, wrote a tribute song entitled Wave Goodbye on his first solo album Euphoria Morning. 2007 marked the 10 year anniversary of JB’s death. his life and music were celebrated globally in May and June of that year with tributes in Australia, Canada, England, France, Iceland, Israel, Ireland, Maceconia, Portugal, and the US. many of his family members attended the various tribute concerts across the globe, some of which they helped organise.

this is a classic. i first heard this when i was hitch hiking in New Zealand when i was 19. i'm 54 now,,, oh my! i've seen some good concerts through my years,, Led Zep a couple of times, Elvis in Vegas in 70, Bowie in LA in 73, The Who in 72, Jefferson Airplane in 70, Jethro Tull a couple of times in the early 70s..some good music back then.
..we met when we were almost young.. Marianne was Leonard's first love. she was a Norwegian girl.

re Dappled Cities - The Price: i reckon i heard this song on the radio about fifty million times and every single time i heard it i found something new, something unexpected, something i hadn't heard before. they are adventurous and irreverent and intelligent songwriters who seem to have this magically never-ending packet of tim tams but instead of tim tams it's ideas and instead of being magically never-ending it's just because they are really talented. you know what i mean?

re Bon Iver: i love the self awareness in the line, 'this is not the sound of a new man or crispy realisation.'

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i reckon the mother travelled back through the portal and she is the only person who doesn't grieve like the others after her son's death at the end. i think the English and Science teachers also were involved in this whole time travel thing, since they knew things like Cellar Door that would only reveal itself later in the film. great movie. get the DVD and watch the deleted scenes, they change a lot.
ok, first of all, none of you have gotten it completely right. if you bother to go to the webpage and poke around, you will find out about the Living Receiver, The Manipulated Dead, Manipulated Living, etc.. it's all in the book, "The Philosophy of Time Travel".
yes, they have made an awesome flash site that explains 95% of it if you watch the movie, go to the webpage, watch the movie again, and visit the webpage again. (most of this explaination is from my knowledge of the book combined with the movie and previous discussions i've had, please feel free to add on or correct as needed. i do quote the book specifically several times without quotation marks.)

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some of my own words for a change..:

ignore the song and just read these lyrics and reflect upon how bloody good they truly are: 'lets dance to Joy Division and celebrate the irony that everything is going wrong, but we're so happy.'

- at my old work, Wednesday was 'cleaning shelves day'
- foreign $, buskers, other's book collections,
- you sat next to me in the school hall and from that day on i woke up just to see you smile.
- i've had lavendar icecream at a lavender farm.
- oh clothing by Gail Sorronda & Therese Rawsthorne, you are gaspworthy in person (i hope the shop assistants didn't hear me)

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i guess it is weird though, if you think about something for long enough it's like you're already working towards it, from the moment you thought of it, and then it takes on this natural progression on its own and before you even know it, you don’t even realise where you are because you don’t track every step that took you there. it kind of just happens? its never like 'oh wow, you’re here', because subconsciously, you’ve always been working towards it.
- Gail Reid
XX
describe your ideal world. it would definitely be bi-polar! and everyone would be on their own time! time would become an artificial construct and as everyone might already know, i’m always fighting the compulsion to meet my own time so ideally in a Utopian sense, there would be no concept of time. it would also be a bit fucked up like a Kubrick film, and a little bit David Lynch, but primarily it would be like something called a resource-based society where i would vanquish all monetary systems and instead you would exchange your talents so everyone would be working towards an actualisation of realising one's self, no paper-shufflers - just creative potential.
so, like a world of creative anarchy? yeah but creativity can mean a lot of things, so as long as you are evolving as a human being and not fighting the system, because in my world there would be no systems in place. oh! and i’m crazy about Zeitgeist! Zeitgeist 2 is the one with the resource-based society - you should Google it and totally post it on Pedestrian! [Ed Note: as you wish Gail.]
- Gail Reid

inspired by Yohji Yamamoto and Courreges early on, she began selling accessories to different shops as a hobby while she was studying, on top of her jobs in various retail stores and freelance styling. 'i used to get a buzz from sourcing materials, the creative process and finding out what different people responded to,' she says.
that buzz turned into a full-blown passion, and escalated when she won the Mercedez-Benz Start-Up Award with her graduate collection in 2005, which allowed her to show at Australian Fashion Week for the first time. fast track nearly five years later and Gail can’t imagine her life without her label.
'there’s a misconception that is there is limited opportunities in the industry,' says Gail. 'if you’re willing to work hard, be proactive and persistent and do it for the right reasons, you will create your own opportunities.'

trying to find corporate wear amongst my regular wardrobe & monitoring seasonal changes

this year i have had a secret theory that if i don't set out to buy any corporate wear (i.e. only work with what i already own, rather than buying any work-specific clothing) that there is no chance that i will be staying in an admin job for life. ..in a way of saying to myself that if i don't make any serious decisions regarding my line of work, then it will only be a temporary life filler, though if i go out of my way to buy things for work then i am settling down into it for good.
i think.



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this morning i was going through my box of lovely things that people have written to me over the years..i culled some of the rubbish from years gone by, laughed, grinned and cried.
some things to throw out after posting here (imagine 13/14 year old excessively bubble-print handwriting):
Thurs 9pm (LOL)
hey rachel! what have you been up to? im watching the biggest loser! JOY..lol! we haven't wrote a letter for ages n i love getting ur letterz! LOL they are so hot! i tink i just love writing letters! lol oh n i didnt get 2 keep your last letter cos it got wet! :( so i had to throw it out! :( lol :) so how were ya holidays mine were good! i just done the same ol same! which u no is movyz, sleepovers, shopin n that! oh n i went 2 seaforth for a few dayz! omg..where have you been lately! oh..have you been @ band camp? cool! i tink you were..lol..i duno! if ya went..was it fun? hope so! oh i cut out the pic in the paper of you n ___! itz so hot! LOL just jokin! but i kept it! lol :) hu ya lovin? im goin out wit ___ but ya might tink his gross! lol we been going out 2 dys! lol please write bak! love ya xoxo
(so insulting, and not even consistent with the forced spelling. i'd only kept it up until now for the painful / surreal factor)

(note the following has Xs at the bottom of question marks rather than the regular dots)
hay rachy
omg how r u? me juz cruisin these days. so tell me hu u lovin? u no how BRB gotta fly love ___ ps i will do ya a betta one 2nite promiz!
(the 'how' rather than 'who' is intentional in my case)

hey gorjus! sorry i haven't wrote back 4 a few dayz but ive been busy! lol! :) so wat are u up 2 on the holidayz? ill prob just be hanging wit friendz and my bestie (___) frm Airlie Beach might be coming up n we might (well prob will be_ going 2 seaforth! lol (theres nufin funy but yea) :) so r u lovin neone? i duno if i am! cos ___ (do u no him?) well he asked me out! n yea i thought he was kinda hot..but i sed maybe! n then i found out he stil had a gf in gr8 but he was gna dump her! but she found out he asked me out! n then there was some jerry springer sh*t there! lol so itz all messed up! n last friday night ___ was trying 2 get me n ___ 2 go out! but it neva happened ! lol :) hehe :) so do u have msn? i tink u gave me yours but slak 2 find it..lol..but mine is elmo___@___ so elmo___@___ hotty! sory i sed it agan but the first one was abit messed up! lol :) we shuld so do something on the holidays ay! well my num 49___ if ya dont already have it n my mob number is disabled ! lol :) but mum buying me new mob on thurs/friday this week! YAY :) lol its gna be a flipflop but wont have a camera :( sory my writing is mesy by the way! lol :) well i'll cya later! pls write back b4 skool ends & pls ring me! love ___ xoxo

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the following was a flyer in an end-of-senior-year 'stress kit' that i received from Bond university:
'dear Rachel, it may be hard to think of the big picture at the moment with final exams stressing you ou and life decisions looming. this is a small care package to help you get through the final year 12 stretch. inside you will find peppermint tea to calm your nerves, a box of smarties because they say you are what you eat, a pen to write down your ambitions, a stress ball to ease exam tension, sunflower seeds to encourage you to get outside for some fresh air, and a party blower - you'll know when its time to use this.
and remember, when it all seems like too much, be sure to keep perspective. whether you see yourself as an international diplomant, self-made entrepeneur, or defeding the rights of others, every individual has the potential to achieve something extraordinary.
i'm here if you have an questions about your future career.
best of luck.'

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the following get me through any weather:
Amy Winehouse - Tears Dry on their Own, He Can Only Hold Her
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round and Round
Band of Horses - No-one's Gonna Love You
Bloc Party - One More Chance
Bluejuice - Head of the Hawk
Blur - Out of Time
Calvin Harris - I'm Not Alone, (& dubstep remix), The Rain
City and Colour - Sleeping Sickness, Waiting
Cold War Kids - Audience, We Used to Vacation, Hange Me Up to Dry
Coldplay - Amsterdam
Crowded House - Don't Dream its Over
Dan Kelly - Down to my Soul (Paul Kelly cover)
The Decemberists - O Valencia
Dispatch - The General
Echo and the Bunnymen - The Killing Moon
Editors - When Anger Shows
Elbow - The Bones of You
Elliott Smith - I Didn't Understand, Pitseleh
Elvis Perkins - Shampoo
Enter Shikari - Adieu
Good Old War - Coney Island
Grizzly Bear - Ready, Able
Gypsy and the Cat - The Piper's Song
Iron & Wine - Boy with a Coin
Jeff Buckley - Lover, You Should've Come Over
Joan as Police Woman - The Ride
Kings of Leon - Closer
Local Natives - Cubism Dream
The Mars Volta - Eriatarka
Mumford and Sons - Dust Bowl Dance
Okkervil River - Starry Stairs, On Tour with Zykos, Lost Coastlines
OneRepublic - Apologise (original / slower version, and i can't bring myself to spell 'apologise' with a Z)
Paul Dempsey - Your Lovin' is on My Mind (Paul Kelly cover)
Radiohead - 15 Step, All I Need, Reckoner
Robyn - Handle Me
Santogold - Creator
The Smiths - I Know Its Over
Snowden - Anti-Anti (Treasure Fingers remix)
Something for Kate - White, Reverse Soundtrack, Jerry Stand Up, Seasick
Spoon - The Underdog, The Way We Get By
Tears for Fears - Head over Heels
The Temper Trap - Sweet Disposition
Tim and Jean - Come Around
Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work (Ted and Francis remix)
White Lies - Death (Chase and Status remix)
Who Made Who - Space for Rent