So whilst googling such matters as above we stumbled upon this….

We stand on our dogs all the time but we never apologise. Maybe this explains why my dog has an eating disorder and problems with posession.

We’ve decided to take a sabbatical for AW12 so we won’t be showing anything on this label in Feb. We need to catch up with ourselves and give our main line the attention we need to become a proper global brand. Everything has grown really quickly, really organically and in order to give everything the chance it deserves we needed to re-focus for this season, do everything properly and give ourselves time to grow both as designers and business people.

I wanted to shoot a Lookbook out of our standard bleak warehouse settings and yellow just seemed like a good colour to bring the bright to the collection. The collection was inspired by luxe-sports future-mermaids and we use dip-dyed hair, white leather, opalite and hematite pyramids, swarovski crystal orbs, mesh, liquid jersey, lycra and mesh. In case you were wondering what SS12 Looked like, here it is…

Following up on their award winning Numbers In Action video the boys next-door, Us Design, hook up with Wiley again to get us all back in the gym with their Boom Blast video – if Wiley can do it so can we right? (especially when ur lifting air).

Wiley
Boom Blast (Big Dada)
Director: Us
Prod co: A+
DoP: Ben Magahy
Producer: Liz Kessler
Production Company: A+ (Academy Plus)
Editor: Ed Cheeseman @ Final Cut
Colourist: Ned Al-Astrabadi @ Smoke & Mirrors
Commissioner: Jamie Collinson
Watch: here

GIFS via promonews

Doppelgangaz
Likin these two boys for their nostalgic early nineties sound. The gruesome twosome Matter ov Fact and EP hail from parts unknown. They cite brothel trips, moonshine and hard drugs as the insipration for their current album Loan Sharks and if you look close you can see them swiggin on rubbing alchohol in their videos. Performing in cloaks they call their similarly turned-out followers sharks and sharkettes. Their sound is ghostly, eerie and slightly haunting. The house used in the video below has an suitably interesting history – Wikipedia. All very spooky.

It’s refreshing to see two talented MCs/producers take things back roots with everything looking so over-produced at the moment.

2NE1
We’ve had our eye on these girls since we learnt about the scene on a visit to Korea a couple of years back. Dressing in designers like Jeremy Scott, KTZ and JCDC these girls are as known for their fashion sense as their sound. Their collaboration with Jeremy Scott was released in Dec 2012 and it’s pretty well known in the K Pop twittosphere that Will I am has been working on a project with these Korean bubble-pop chicksters. There’s been much speculation around the release date many thinking end of 2012. With fashion designers such as Meadham Kirchoff spearheading cute this spring now seems like the right time for K-pop to explode cartoon stylee.

Azaelia Banks
Wrote about her a few weeks ago and yes everyone knows about her already now but still….

Iggy Izaelea
Also wrote about her but can’t get enough of her bossy australian rhymes.

Yasmin
Yasmin wears a lot of our stuff so obviously we’re biased but we think this tune’s got that an eclectic carnival sound that’s sure to get you moving or swiggin some red stripe at the very least. Due to be release in bleak mid January by Ministry of sound on the 15th. Produced by drum and bass legend Shy FX, the tune also guest stars one of our favorite female performers MsDynamite(she used our mirror in one of her videos so we’re kinda connected now). Random fact – You wouldn’t know from her singing voice bu Yasmin’s got a lovely dulcet scottish accent.

Clement Marfo and the Frontline
A vibrant mix of soul, ska, rock, reggae and grime, Celement Marfo and the Frontline are a seven piece urban collective. In the last year they’ve played support to Plan B, Rizzle Kicks and Florence and the Machine and have also been announced by MTV as their first of brand new for 2012. Headed up by charismatic front man Clement Marfo this high octane “mini-army” put a huge amount of effort into their live shows with 2 keyboards, 1 bass, 2 guitars and drums and one super mouthy man.

Azari & III
Another band championing nostalgic sounds, these guys from the dance room in the revival club. They played Annie Mac presents with Azaelia banks listed above at the start of December. The good news is that their first live London show is at Heaven on the 2nd of February just as we’ll all be coming off our detoxes. YES!

Action Bronson
Of Albanian decent this roundy New York rapper is another one channeling #nostalgia – felt it about time I threw a # in there since I’ve mentioned that word three times in this post. It’s trending. He used to be a fire-flame chef in a gourmet restaurant in New York so he raps quite a lot about food and enjoys eating it too – we see him buying salami and havin the craic with some old dude in the opening scenes of his video Shiraz below. He gave up cooking to become a rapper. It’s all pretty pared-back and lazy video included. The video’s kind of endearing – my favorite part is the end where the wino bird says she hasn’t had sex in 21 years – WOW!

xxM

To mark the launch of the styles we developed with cult rock n roll shoe label Underground we decided to shoot a series of animated GIFs. Starring two of our favorite BITCHY girls, model Lauren Smith(who you’ll recognise from our online store) and stylist Laura Chatterton we were inspired by the general idea of hanging around, something which a lot of London is doing at present due to the shortage of jobs – that and also just looking hot in a bleak winter landscape.

We work with local boy Alex de Mora for all our website photography so this time we took things out of the studio and called in the help of illustrator Izabella Wilk on the GIFS.

We kept things pretty simple with very gentle movement to lend a creepy quality to the images which seemed fitting for a brand known for creepers. We also like to challenge standard Christmas homepages since I pretty much banned all those Christmas cliche words like glitter, sparkle, twinkle, glitz, jingle from the studio – when I say pretty much I mean if anyone utters them they’ll be silenced. That doesn’t mean I dislike Chrismas though, Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas” is my favorite Christmas song ever and I spent all day Saturday trawling Dalston to find really atrocious decorations for my hideous white disco tree.

Other intersting facts about the shoot
-I really wanted to make a hideous jacket out of fake fur(the kind that gatecrasher kids make leg-warmers out of) that I’m now rather in love with. We cut the pattern for the fake fur jacket on the day and stapled it together.
-Laura’s lips are pink glitter(obviously I didn’t use this word when discussing the look as it wouldn’t really work if I was silenced)
-The girls almost froze but that’s the price you have to pay sometimes when you’re really good looking.
-it’s really hard to find good walls in East London that haven’t been tagged. You just can’t really use a tagged wall in a shoot without looking like a really naff Urban brand.
-Izabella is also called Dawid Gainsbour Wolf, Bellla Azi(note the 3 ls) and also Zuzanna Koppala depending on what e-mail account she’s using. I had to e-mail her to ask her what her actual name is despite having known her since the summer.
-if u’d like to see both models in person you can spot them on the odd night working in the Haggerston too, they’re very very professional bar girls.

Please ONLY apply if you are the following exact size:

Must be UK size 10
Measurements;
Bust – 84cm
Waist – 70cm
Hips – 98cm
Height – 170cm
Work would be on a casual basis, roughly 1/2 times a month for 2/3 hours at a time.
Rate is negotiable depending on experience.
Based in Hackney
If you’re interested please contact info@bitchingandjunkfood.com with your photo and measurements putting ‘FIT MODEL’ in subject box.

Possibly the best flyer I’ve seen in a long time not just because the chick’s naked – if that painting’s for sale I think I want it. This is for the PV of Once Upon a Wintertime at our studio building Netil House’s sister studios in Hackney Downs. There’s a big three day event happening this weekend and we’re going to be running the sample sale part of it.

This evening sees our favorite stylist Miss Jacqueline White debut her Dazzle collection at our favorite event space 18 Hewitt Street, headquarters of our favorite mail-out Protein. Her collection is also shot by our favorite(ok one of them) photographer Diego Indraccolo who we’ve also worked with on our own shoots.

I talked through her ideas for the collection with Jacqueline quite some time ago so it’s great to see all her work come to fruition. The collection is based on Norman Wilkinsons dazzle painting technique which was used to camouflage ships by distorting the the silhouette, dead clevs no? Apart from the camo references Dazzle pretty much sums up Jacqueline’s personality so it’s a quite fitting name for her collection. Jack’s also recruited a little army of local creative girls from the music and fashion worlds to model the collection. Bitchy Girls will be at the event supporting this eve. Here’s our favorite shots from the lookbook:

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.

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.

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.

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:

…and Larry Vrba

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.

First rule of BITCH club…..don’t plan to “outfit build” whilst drinking. You end up with waaaay too much excess baggage – emotional would be fine as you can carry that around in your head. I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about denim. How many pairs of BITCHY shorts does it take to make a 3 week trip? About 5 more than we packed. That’s two to wear and 5 excess. This + Chico Babies + Red Frogs(the crack of Jellie sweets) that Kath’s mum gave us in Brisbane = 16KG excess x $15 per kilo works out as wearing a lot of clothing Jhonny 40 coats style(Irish TV programme reference, Google it). Oh yeah, you can also add a pair of Jeffrey Campbell wedges and another pair of Senso shoes that look like every other shoe in my wardrobe into that. Underground also need to devise some hollow creepers(not baggage friendly at all).BOOM!