Bumped into little pink lady Alis yesterday whilst shooting in Bethnal Green – the following is one of her most recent recent projects.
Our “getting out of the studio and going to things more” plans didn’t manage to get us as far as this event so we’ll have to make do with writing about it instead. Unfortunately the London show was only on for two days before it set off on it’s world tour.
Using the New Era 59Fifty as a blank canvas, creatives worldwide were invited to put their mark on the cap, customising it without restriction. With a final award of a 10K bursary to further their careers, 10 entries from each of the eight countries involved were selected to go on the travelling exhibition.
Ten finalists were selected from the UK including East London Photographer Alis Pelleschi, who’s had work published in Vice, Super Super, Nylon and i-D. Her creation summed up in her own words – “Disney Princess, Bradford, Pink Mania, Bradford Bulls, Taurus, fake gold, tacky pink gem phone cases, cyber warrior expolsion”. Nuff said. If you want the full strawberry scoop and a look at the other entries check it out on the New Era Introducing website.
I’ve been a fan of 3D nail-art since visiting Tokyo a couple of years back. It’s kind of like icing a cake only it’s your nails. I’ve never actually iced a cake but I’ve made Disco Biscuits so that’s probably close enough.
Whilst in Guangzhou in southern China we found a little nail shop opposite our hotel and so in the spirt of “now or never” I went with know and got some 3D smilies and bows which are all hand crafted in acrylic by the manicurist.
The girl who did my nails had neon tips which were pretty cool and her friend who taught me how to count to 10 in Chinese had the little blingers below. I’ve since forgotten how to count to ten in Chinese.
Right beside our hotel we had Guangzhou’s answer to Emporio Armani – Amor Nini. Dead posh.
Just looking back over catwalks and I’m really in love with Burberry SS12. Just really cleverl in terms of direction. The African prints are great, there’s a nod to street style and also it’s wintery which is great because I really struggle with Summer as a season from a clothing point of view – I’m a pale celt and we always look best swathed in fabric and pelts. Yes this is potentially problematic since we have a label built around shorts but I wear mine in winter with leopard print and opaque tights so I’ve made it my own. Luckily one half of the business loves Summer as she’s Australian so it’s all balanceandzen.com.
Wrong on so many levels but kinda right on a few too. Telly at the Regent Street launch today. By our reckoning she’s about 372 but who cares when you look like that. Grow old disgracefully – amazing.
MBT standing for Masai Barefoot technology, was developed back in the 90’s based on the principle that the Masai tribe in Africa experience little or no joint and back pain as a result of walking barefoot. The basic concept was to build a shoe that cushioned from the hard concrete walkways of western life. In the UK they’re mostly associated with yummy mummies and weightloss.
With Buffalo trainers making a massive come-back at this trend seems like a natural progression with the added bonus of firming ur butt. We saw load of girls wearing them on our travels, including the chicks below at Liger Store, one of our stockists.
Other looks we liked:
Personal favorite, neon Nike’s also seen in Air Max 1.
Chinese model of the moment Sui He features in Chinese Vogue November 2011. This season has also seen her grace the front covers of W and V magazine as well as walking in Lanvin, Acne, Tom Ford, Dolce & Gabanna, Ralph Laurena and Prabal Gurang’s SS2012 shows. To be honest I’m a bit over the whole apache print look but I quite like the culture mash and 80’s working girl thing going on in this shoot.
We’re big fans of under-butt with side-tit coming up a close second. One of the search terms for traffic to our blog is actually side-tit and we’re on the first page if you Google it. Therefore we jumped with joy at news of INSA’s Girls on Bikes which features front-tit, back-butt, side-tit, mesh-tit AND under-butt all on bikes in front of INSA’s work. Following his recent exhibition in Hong Kong(we actually saw some of his work on the street when we were there last week) this show sees return to 18 Hewitt Street where you’ll also find one of his wall murals.
The event opens tonight and runs until the 20th of November.
Obviously it won’t actually look animated although it might depending on who the drink sponsor is.
I’m not entirely sure if the above is true but it’s certainly the best vintage jewellery collection I’ve ever seen and I’ve been a jewellery buyer and designer for a few years now. I LOVE jewels and I like things that sparkle but I NEVER wear pink and I’m not really a girly girl. I’ve always been into bling and my taste in jewellery ranges from £1 creole hoops from Dalston market to Vintage Chanel, semi-precious stones and diamonds. I think it’s totally acceptable to wear all together.
My first job in London was as an assistant Jewellery buyer. I was assisant to a black-clad fiery red headed lady called Carol who was responsible for maxing out my credit card(when someone else is splashing out at Neimann Marcus, New York you kind of get swept along despite your measly salary, for the record it’s still maxed out and for the record I’m still not responsible). During New York and Paris fashion weeks we’d visit showrooms in Paris and New York and try on great big whoppers of pieces by designers such as Lanvin, Dior, Gerard Yosca and Philippe Ferandis name but a few. It opened my eyes to statement jewellery which has doubtlessly had a massive impact on what I now design and my career direction in general.
You seldom find a store with a museum-curated collection but whilst out on our Sydney meander we chanced upon the jewellery mecca that is Harlequin. Harlequin is, in their own words, “a store sized treasure chest” and I can vouch for that. In this treasure chest we found the following….
Sterling silver rings by contemporary Melbourne based designer William Griffiths:
These are gargoyles, how cool is that?
Andy and Blondie by Parisian plexi-glass brand Yazbukey:
Vintage Chanel, all of it:
Harlequin Market vintage-inspired ear-candy:
Harlequin Market collaborations with contemporary designers such a David Mandell:
I’ve not been able to blog for a few days becuase in China I haven’t been able to get access to Wordpress, Facebook and Twitter due to strict censorship laws. We’re in a pub in the train station in Guangzhou, it’s 7pm, our train’s at ten, they’re playing Chinese boybands, we’re drinking Heineken and there’s Cod Roe Cream Soup Bacteria on the menu which I might order with some fries. I thought I’d try to access Wordpress as we’re near Hong Kong so I might be able to get in(Kath just reminded me that we’re actually not any nearer to Hong Kong we’re just in a train station but it seems to have worked so I’m sticking with my theory).
Major backlog of blog posts so you’ve got a time-lapse of about a week on this but we’ve just been designing AW12, getting inspiration for SS12, delivered AW11 and travelled through 3 time zones and two seasons from Autumn in Europe to Summer in Australia so time as a general concept is completely irrelevant. First up Sydney.
Two highlights from the two day Sydney leg of the journey, one of which was Ksubi. I know about Ksubi primarily because of Kath. They’re a massive cult brand in Australia set up by some surfers who started off selling from their garage. We only had a one day smash and grab visit to Melbourne but we wandered into their store to find an array of amazing one-off customised pieces. Obvs this area is of interest to us becuase we have a Remade brand. The girls told us all the pieces had been created by their resident artist Paulie in one of their Syndey stores.
Next day Sydney, checked into our hotel. We had to sign a disclaimer saying that we wouldn’t take drugs in the room, bring large parties back, make noise or trash the place – always a good sign. I’m sure you can pay by the hour in that place but it was beside a pub so Kath was happy. Turns out it was perfectly acceptable unlike that place in Hull our intern booked us with the crack heads on the corner and the inbred receptionist. This was lucky as I’m a fussy bitch and I made the booking which would have been awkward as I reguarly say things like “I don’t do bad hotels”. I don’t though.
All the stores in the Paddington area in Sydney(where we were staying) have decked patios out the back where you can just hang out and be warm and stuff so we when we chanced upon the Ksubi store on our walkabout we rambled out the back to find a raggedy haired dude all like “hey” and we’re like “you must be Paulie”. As designers and business owners we’ve always wanted to have someone on our team who just gets paid to do cool shit and Paulie is that person for Ksubi.
We asked if we could take a few pictures but he was busy moving disorganised piles into organised piles and generally just moving things into other places – we tidy our studio in a very similar fashion. We said we’d drop back the next day to meet him, his side-kick Emma and head of press Gina in the newly spic and span studio.
We hung out for a few hours, leaning on worktables and hanging off clothing rails, taking pictures and having general chit-chat that went something like this…..
-Paulie’s spent his whole childhood doodling in a similar fashion to what he’s now paid to do as a grown up. He studied print at Uni, I think he dropped out and then toyed with the idea of becoming a baggage handler before being snapped up by Ksubi to do cool shit.
-His friend found a massive fruit bat hanging from a sign-post on the way home one night that’s now resident in his freezer waiting to be taxidermied.
-We have a taxidermy bat called Cadwallader(who was in Batman) who we found in an air vent when we moved studio with his lower half missing Dahmer style.
-My favorite chocolate bar is Butterfinger(it’s not it’s actually a Walnut Whip or a Fry’s chocolate cream- I lied – but my favorite in Australia is a Butterfinger which I’ve been informed is not even Australian, still stands though).
-Paulie’s not into chocolate bars preferring slurpies from 7 Eleven.
-Indonesia’s cool for sourcing things.
-We have similar taste in other blogs NoDiscount and Slutever being ones we rate.
-We all like ripping, shredding, studding and are generally good a fucking things up in similar fashion although Paulie’s take on things is different to ours which is of great interest to us.
- we’ve all ended up with bleached things hung off our balconies and all over our bathrooms in the run up to a big order.
-one of the people present knew how to hotwire laundromat washing machines from their days as Uni, we didn’t learn how but I think this is something we need to know, would increase our profit margins dramatically.
-Emma has her own label which I’ll also blog about in due course.
It’s always cool meeting other people doing similar things in a same same but different kind of way – the spray cans brought us back to our roots – Remade was born when Lane Crawford in HK approached us to do spray painted ombre animal prints, we spent several days on our hands and knees spray painting 200 skirts. Not that much has changed – we have a table now though.
