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.
So I know I told everyone we know that we’d blog every step of the way but that was a total lie becuase as my good friend Jenny pointed out last night I haven’t actually blogged anything since the 8th of October. I don’t know if that’s true or not and I can’t be arsed opening another window as I’m writing this but you can see for yourself if you look directly below this post.
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!
We’re on the countdown to our big world tour – ok well it’s not the world but it kind of feels that way by comparison with the little Hackney-Dalston 236 bus route bubble I live in. Kath lives in Clapton which is a bit more exotic. Next Tuesday sees us fly to Brisbane to catch up with our Australian agent, Badass Bitch that she is, followed by a whip round Sydney and Melbourne to visit stockists before we hit China and HK for R+D(research and development) – very little R+R on this trip although we’ll be lying on a beach on the gold coast making our pallor slightly less pale and thinking up new ideas for B + J.
So I thought I’d do a little post on Ponystep covers – actually nothing to do with out trip apart from the fact that Dame Edna(possibly Australia’s most famous exports alongside Kylie, Danni, Barbeques and Fosters(I’m allowed take the piss, Kath’s Australian, I’m Irish you can’t imagine the shit I get)) on the cover and Donatella Versace shot by Alice Hawkins and Miles Aldrige respectively,two of my favorite photographers. Elivira’s shot by Matt Irwin who’s also cool but not necessarily a favorite. The covers are from issue No2 available from Dover Street Market and other slick retailers.
As a fashion designer it’s proving increasingly difficult to write this blog. Come second week of September we start planning AW2012(oh shit just realised that’s next week). We just finished shooting TWO WEEKS SS12 yesterday and we’re pretty damn happy although we’re a month behind. As it stands I gotta hold onto a lot of the things I’d love to write about on the blog because they’re precious so you’ll really only ever see little slivers of the bigger picture here.
Sometimes it’s interesting to just sit back and look at images and really not let external factors draw you to anything. When you’re not actually looking for inspiration for something in particular it’s amazing what you can discover about yourself. My wardrobe is a sea of black with one little section that’s full of sequings, col, vintage versace. Anyway, at the moment my brain is just liking things like this…..Next week it could just be a big black square but that very much depends on what I get up to this weekend.
I am aware that I am blogging a load of fillers at the moment and nothing really to do with fashion. I don’t really have enough space in my head to be doing anything cerebral on the blog so I’m just going to blog a bit of random nonsense. There’s a dog fancy dress contest in my local park on Saturday and I was thinking of entering Pepsi(I don’t know where I’m going to find the time to make her an outfit) but I think this Darth Vader suit would look great on her. I was also thinking I could dress her up as Catwoman.
Pepsi the poor helpless creature that can’t talk back in question…..
