Moustache

It’s quite a different take on the recent androgyny trend, and it’s not the most conventional make-up choice for a magazine cover I must admit, but then, when has Christy Turlington ever played by the book?

Christy covers the new issue styled in a crisp white shirt, straw hat, and delicate, drawn-on mustache. And lo: Fashion folk continue to enjoy fake facial hair on pretty ladies, but I suspect this is just a way to distinguish Christy's contemporary covers from her old-school ones. She's really made it big now. 

Despite the moustache that has been drawn on her face and having recently turned 43 year olds, she still looks every bit as gorgeous and feminine as ever, which just goes to show the power of a true original 90s supermodel.

MARC SS12

The half-shaven haired Alice joins Erik Andersson in the new campaign for Marc by Marc Jacobs’s SS12, which was photographed by Jacobs' long-time collaborator, Juergen Teller. Known for being a bit quirky and alternative, one image show Alice and Erik sitting comfortably in mismatching chairs with Alice wearing a sleeveless red dress, a black clutch and a pair of red and black ankle strap shoes. While the second image sees them standing to face the camera with Alice wearing some cool shades, a black top, green skirt and with a pouch style bag slung over her wrist.

Some beautiful 70′s inspired shots packed with colour blocking, prints and brights. I'm a fan.

Beckham 4 Bazaar

For the May 2012 issue of Harpers Bazaar, dedicated to celebrating all that is great about Britain’s idiosyncratic cultural royalty, Victoria Beckham makes a fitting cover Queen. Shot in L.A by Camilla Akrans in that Prada SS12 bodysuit the fashion set just can’t seem to fold away, Akrans describes Victoria as ‘an absolute sweetheart’. The super mother, business woman and fashion icon talks to Bazaar about juggling her roles as fashion designer and super mum to three growing boys and new baby daughter Harper Seven, how she feels about her body and what it’s like to go to bed with David Beckham.

My favourite thing about the cover is the subtle tweaking to the Harper's typeface. Font fans will know that the brand traditionally uses the distinctive angular H&FJ Didot type, but for May's floral summertime cover look the nameplate incorporates a number of cute flourishes. It’s more whimsical and a lot more Summery. I don’t think it’s a permanent fixture but it’s definitely making this issue more of a ‘collectable’ one - it's a tiny detail but one I love.

Denim Project

The Denim Jacket has long been accorded the status of an iconic piece of clothing - from James Dean to Marilyn Monroe, those indelible in the memory of black and white images are part of film culture. Topman is set to launch its Denim Jacket Project on April 5, with a line-up of re-imagined versions of the blue-dyed classic. The retailer has signed up five designers and devoted its own Topman Design team to the project in order to come up with six new takes of the style. Four of the invited designers hail from the UK – Oliver Spencer, Lou Dalton, Katie Eary and Shaun Samson – while Mark McNairy brings a New York spin to the proceedings. Spencer has created a navy denim biker, while both Dalton and Eary have chosen to stick to the classic slim lined four pocket shape and wash it down to varying degrees. Dalton’s French seamed bright light blue adds an Eighties’ spin, while Eary’s comes with a detachable collar, gold finish metalwork and an animal print lining.

Samson’s version plays with tradition to fuse an unexpected sports mesh back to the denim front. McNairy’s dark dry navy version follows a similarly cut and shut technique, but one that demands a closer look as the raw denim is used to create a classic jacket line on the wearer’s left half and a blank, shirt-style design on the left. Topman Design’s remix is similarly playful, using the workwear silhouette and rendering it with an all-over polka dot print.

Getting shit off her chest

For her latest single, Fuck Up The Fun, Azealia Banks takes on the hype machine that helped create her. Aided by Diplo’s D-Block-inspired marching band snares, Banks’ rapid-fire, hookless but precise flow mostly avoids the sexual olympics she’s been known for, instead taking to task YouTube celebrities, haters, and everyone and anyone in between. As the song ends, Banks’ rhymes devolve into a spoken word puddle. “Fuck Up The Fun” isn’t the sort of track that’s going to win Azealia any new fans, but as two and a half minutes of high-energy spitballing, it couldn’t be any better. 

It's still unknown whether the track will feature on the rapper's debut album 'Broke With Expensive Taste', which is due for release in September. My guess is, no.

Afraid of Fashion

Many mentalists end up in asylums, others manage to slip through the bars, escape and become fashion designers. This, I assume, is the real reason why the majority of people in the fashion industry are skeletal. This does not, however, mean the fashion industry deserves the bad rep it has been permanently tarnished with. I think it’s time we all made friends with fashion.

First and foremost, any multi-billion pound industry inspired by lunatics who survive off caffeine and class A’s deserves to be heartily celebrated: they’re running financial circles around every economist in Europe. They must be doing something right. I struggle to even open an email after a heavy night: John Galliano was pissed and high for two decades yet still wowed the most influential players in one of the largest industries in the world whilst helping to define possibly the most fantastically tacky sartorial era so far, even if he did end up outing himself as a racist Nazi and falling from grace in a cloud of coke and pinstripes and feathers…

I can understand how from the outside it all seems horribly pretentious and bizarre but even Queen Vivienne herself  doesn’t really expect you to wear head to toe PVC just because the ‘next big thing’ new designer chose to send twelve doped up models down a runway looking like extras from a Britney video circa 1999. Besides, if that is a look you fancy rocking then you can buy far cheaper alternatives from a range of X-rated sites which will gladly infest your C drive with a plethora of viruses and, should you spend over £25 on an entirely wipe clean two piece, will throw in an appreciative tube of courtesy lube too, which is always a nice gesture (it baffles me why Sainsbury’s haven’t tried this tactic yet – what the fuck are nectar points..?)

I can understand that the eye watering price points of high end fashion don’t do much to help the cause. When you see a dress that costs more than a deposit of a two bed semi sashaying down the catwalk  hanging off a starved Russian sixteen year old it can be hard to see where the credibility is hiding under all that fabric, but in much in the same way that I can enjoy watching films without bursting a blood vessel in outrage over the how  far-fetched it is that Tom Cruise can still run like a Duracell bunny and Harrison Ford can still move (at all) I’m able to take it with a hefty pinch of salt and happily indulge in the fantasy.

Of course there will always be unsavoury aspects to an industry which revolves around the way we look, but judging each other is a human condition which cannot be cured simply by choosing the most dull-as-arse shoes possible in the M&S sale. Look at Kate Middleton: she’s worked her dull duchess derriere off to ensure she’s dressed as inoffensively as possible, and is now worshipped by every bland-as-soup woman in the country, taking pride of place next to Jamie Oliver at the altar of annoying British people whom such plebs idolise because they think ‘they must be just like me and you’. They’re not like us. In fact I have no doubt Jamie bathes in his own branded elderflower presse and uses fifty quid casserole dishes embossed with his logo as makeshift bedpans to take midnight shits in just because he’s Jamie Fucking Oliver and is far too tired from being a superhero who rescues kids from dodgy school burgers to bother walking to the toilet at night.

Well, the high priestesses of the fashion world are not like us civilians either. Indeed, those who choose to indulge will have no reservations about spending hundreds, thousands even on a mammoth ball of fur to place on their head like a feral cat escaping a flood, but to steal a phrase from the fash-pack themselves; isn’t it all just bloody fabulous?!

Normal life can be balls. We trudge around trying not to dress too slutty for the office and avoiding wearing anything bright enough to get us mistaken as extras from 80’s musicals on the tube, but perhaps if more people embraced the absolute lunacy of high fashion, even just a tad, then the world would be nothing but a brighter, more entertaining place.

DAKOTA IN WONDERLAND

Dakota Fanning is shot by Cedric Buchet modeling a quirky look on the cover for Wonderland magazine‘s April/May issue wearing Emporio Armani. The mouse crawling out of her straw hat is such an adorable finishing touch! I can't wait to see the accompanying editorial.

Team GB

Team GB released the kit designed by Stella McCartney last Thursday, that the British Olympians will be sporting at this summer’s Games to be held in London.

Produced by Adidas, the kit features a spin on the Union Jack, rendered blue and white and wrapped around the bodice. The kit has received a negative reaction on social media networks with many commenting that the kit does not feature enough red and even some suggesting that the kit looks more Scottish than British. I'm a fan.

You get what you pay for

If you've ever wondered why a Chanel black tweed jacket costs several thousands of pounds, here are your answers on a postcard, well, a 2 minute long video. The French fashion house has just released a short video which shows a team of ultra-skilled seamstresses at work on one of the iconic pieces. After you finish the clip, you might want to consider how most of your possessions were likely made: by underpaid and overworked people operating large machines inside a large and oppresively ugly factory, in a country notorious for its human rights abuses. Chanel might be pricey, but its evident that their commitment to handcrafting makes a however-many-thousand pound jacket seem like an absolute steal.

“You do know Tim! He’s such a character”

In my humble opinion, nothing is more irritating than people who are referred to by other people as ‘a character’. “You do know Tim! He’s such a character” The minute I hear that, my brain thinks ‘Cunt. Tim is a cunt’. ‘He’s a character’; what does that even mean? Turns out that Tim is the kind of ‘character’ who likes to do amusing things with his cock in public places. Normally he’d be branded either a nonce or a sex pest, but it would seem that dangling your disappointing penis in other people’s drinks when they’re not looking and shouting ‘sausage!’ is entirely acceptable. It’s not. 

As far as I can see, the world is divided into two kinds of ‘character’; the irritating and the truly mental. Living in a small town in Essex that's historical claim to fame is that it’s inhabitants are affectionately known as ‘chavs’ on account of the fact they spend the day getting drunk and shit in public, you can’t walk more than fifty yards without coming across an absolute lunatic.

I have no problem with these people because I suppose they genuinely are characters; they just don’t care, or they can’t help their behaviour. There’s no attempt to make themselves more interesting by adopting false ‘wacky’ behaviour to promote a talking point. Take my old work friend Lauren, for example. A perfectly normal, middle-class girl in her early twenties. Pass her a bottle; retard. ‘Oh look at Lauren, isn’t she a character?’; no, no she isn’t. She’s a fatuous wanker with deluded presumptions of her own physical attributes and a severe complex about her boyfriend leaving her for a girl with bigger false tits than hers. 

I wouldn’t call her a character. A character indicates a rounded three dimensional person created within some kind of media; Rocky or James Bond for example. Why should I be subjected to Lauren behaving like a massive twat and forgive her as ‘quirky’? Quirky usually means straightforwardly annoying, or trying too hard to be different. 

The closest I’ve ever come to a character in the real sense of the word is a man who used to live in my town called Andy. Andy's a middle-aged man with long curly, very few teeth and no conversation apart from ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’. It was predominantly the role of the Neighbourhood Watch to keep him away from washing the windows of local business' when he hadn't been asked to. He also used to throw dog shit at the youths who would take the piss out of him. I miss Andy.

So please, please don’t ever tell me that I simply must meet your friend because he/she is a ‘character’. Will my unwillingness to join in make me a victim of my own bitterness? ‘Oh you must meet William, he’s so miserable and abusive, SUCH a character’. Oh, fuck off.

Gaultier gets the Blottière treatment

OUT magazine pulls it out the bag again, this time for their new design-focused issue cover featuring Diet Coke’s new creative director, Jean Paul Gaultier photographed by Damien Blottière. He discusses his history in the industry, his healthy eating habits and how he plans to spend his 60th birthday next month, "crying in bed." 

Check out the feature interview, L’Enfant Eternel, on OUT.com.

Alice 4 Chanel Boy Spring '12

After several peeks at the Chanel Boy spring/summer 2012 campaign starring Alice Dellal, we finally get to see the official campaign images. Staying true to Dellal's alternative style, Karl Lagerfeld has still poshed up the British model a tiny bit in this latest campaign to promote Chanel's collection of Boy handbags. Alice’s signature half-shaved head is still visible, her hair was made more feminine and romantic (to inject some of the true essence of Chanel into the campaign) with the use of some gorgeous hair accessories such as an oversized black bow and a pearl head-piece

The campaign Photographed by Lagerfeld himself was captured inside a decadent-looking room. Alice was photographed sitting on top of a set of antique drawers and writing desk, standing against a table setting, and laying across a chaise lounge. The campaign offers the perfect balance of edgy femininity, which I personally think is what the Boy Chanel handbag range is all about. The full Chanel campaign also includes a short film. Lagerfeld strikes again.

Fred and his brand new cock

I don’t know why I watch Embarrassing Bodies. It’s not that I’m squeamish, it’s more that the choice of phrasing has a lot to answer for my dislike. Words like ‘oozy’ and ‘puss-filled’ do not endear me to Lee’s spotty scrotum, nor do they make me sympathetic to Gary’s watery shits which he’s been self-treating with Currys from the Indian take-away? Curry!? Soft cunt. ‘There’s no shame, we’re all the same’; I even have a problem with the strap-line for Embarrassing Bodies, mainly that the programme content doesn’t illustrate the sentiment. I don’t have a penis that looks like a mop head, I don’t have anal warts, spots on my arse or a weeping wound on my leg that prompts my friends to ask, ‘what’s that smell?’ whenever I get too close. So no, we aren't all the same, actually.

I just can't same to get my head around the concept, the people featured have suffered for twenty or thirty years, too ashamed and embarrassed to visit their normal GP. So obviously it makes perfect sense that they are so relieved when Dr. Christian and the annoyingly cheerily named Dr. Pixie turn up in town with their mobile surgery to film it all for national TV. My favourite recent episode featured a man called Fred. Fred actually had a cock as bent as a roundabout, which had been pissing upwards for about three years. The bad news was that he'd need surgery, the worse news being he’d ‘probably lose some length’ from his already minuscule cock in the operation process; fortunately, this didn’t seem to bother Fred, who quite understandably seemed more concerned of the prospect of his cock eventually meeting itself at the base.

Fittingly perhaps, the show ended with Fred and his brand new cock. ‘Are you getting better erections now?’ asked an intrigued Dr. Christian. ‘Well, it’s funny you should ask that’, replied Fred, his eyes gleaming with emotion. ‘I woke up at half two the other morning with a great stonker, so I took a picture and brought it to show you’. And there it was, in all it's glory. Made me proud to be British, and he'd only lost a centimetre and a half. What a terrific end to Fred's tale. I can’t wait until next week’s episode. Still, I’ve always got the Embarrassing Bodies website to visit if I start getting a bit fidgety in anticipation; it’s really great, you can type in any symptom and it’ll diagnose your problem straight away with photo illustrations. It’s like a hypochondriac, porn addicts dream. 

Tube Wankers

Since never actually bothering to take a lesson, I still can't drive. Having scared the shit out of myself by attempting to drive my aunts car around a lorry park – which involved driving the wrong way around and backwards, almost reversing into someone in an almost rather large and empty car park – I did begin to consider whether driving really was for me. It’s not that I’m inept, it’s that I panic. I set foot in the drivers seat, and immediately my brain goes, 'Fuck. Fuck! Which peddle? Which peddle? WHICH FUCKING PEDDLE?’, and then I do the stupidest thing imaginable… I don’t take my time and think about it, I put my foot down and almost plough into innocent strangers. 

So I’m resigned to getting on the tube now. I travel from Essex to London, sometimes five times a week, and there are at least four inevitable certainties about this journey that affect me with varying degrees of sadness and horror.

Someone will have a flaky pasty

Like rats in London, in Essex you’re never more than six foot away from someone scoffing a pasty and dropping buttery flakes down their shiny chin. It’s not that I have a problem with people eating, it’s just that they’re so noisy. Because it’s an early morning train, the pasty is usually hot, piping a doggy foody smell around the carriage; but more importantly, the heat means the perpetrator has to use the paper bag to eat with. So not only is there that stomach-churning smell, there’s also the soundscape of rustling and slurping.

The Oddball 

Last week a very dapper looking gent boarded the train, smiling away to himself. He set his trilby down beside himself, laid out his Independent and put his briefcase by his feet. He then turned to me in a conspiratorial manner, and said; ‘I hope you don’t mind, but do you want to see what I’ve got in my bag?’. He was so polite that I just couldn’t say no. So he laid the briefcase out on the table, undoing the catches with what I can only describe as an attempt at extended tension. He unfurled layers of brown greaseproof paper, lovingly folding them back. He reached in. He pulled out a fucking trout. A trout. ‘I caught her yesterday’, he said. ‘Look at the colours’. And what’s odder and most awkward is that I didn’t feel I could move for the next hour because we’d struck up a 'commuter’s relationship.'

The Ticket Inspectors

Not content with wearing an expression of disgust that looks like their nose is too near their own arse, they’re fucking rude with it.

The social etiquette of looking

I always trip up on this one. Some commuters are able to stare quite openly and without embarrassment. Some adopt the ‘I’m looking through the window but I’m really looking at your reflection in the reflection of my window’ tactic, which is clever. Often you’ll find the ‘sly eye dart’, which is perturbing in its sneakiness but marginally better than the ‘between seat peek’.

Maybe my New Year resolution should be to bite the bullet and learn how to drive, perhaps I just need to take some lessons and stop being such a fanny. But I know that’s not going to happen. When, after having it explained to you 100 times over, you still can't identify the brake and accelerator, it’s maybe regrettably time to shelve the nodding dog and accept I'm going to be a tube wanker for the rest of my days.

Karl's i-D

With the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee almost upon us, i-D Magazine has taken the time to celebrate with a series of regal covers for Spring. So, who better to cover than king of fashion, Karl Lagerfeld. Karl seems to be everywhere lately. I started the day seeing him ‘driving’ a car in Elle France and now here he is on the cover i-D's Royalty Issue. The cover, shot by Karl himself, features him wearing his signature shades with a white eyepatch over his eye in keeping with the magazine's tradition of having its cover star wink for the issue cover. 

“The most important thing you should know about me, is that everything you’re told by others is not necessarily the truth.”

Lagerfeld is just one of nine cover stars for this issue, all of who will be unveiled in coming weeks. 

MADEON X LABRINTH

... By David Austin

Madeon and Labrinth have virtually joined forces on this brand-new mash up of Madeon's current hit track "Icarus" and Labrinth's new single "Last Time" which has been masterfully produced by mash up artist David Austin. Austin took Madeon's shiny instrumental and layered it with Labrinth's processed vocal to create a potent new brew of electrifying dancefloor funk. Very nicely done, if I do say so. These two new young men of pop definitely have excellent vocal chemistry, which makes me wonder what greatness would be created if they would really hit the studio together. Fingers crossed.

ROCK(ED) ME, BABY

Melanie C
02 Academy, London, March 1st

It’s usually pretty straightforward to spot where the really big success stories and bigger fails will lie. But sometimes people slip through the net or go masked by their past career ventures.  You know that over-used phrase ‘You wouldn’t know a good thing if it smacked you in the face'? Well yeah, meet Melanie C.  
 
Last Thursday I was given the chance to experience her live, I was afforded the opportunity to examine her melodies and lyrics at close quarters at a pretty small intimate gig at the 02 Academy and the bottom line is, they're good, really good. Much to my surprise, I was actually pretty blown away.  

The lights dim, the crowd screams and the first notes of ‘Rock Me’ signal what would be the start of an evening spent watching lots of very limp-wristed men hurling themselves at the stage and fighting for fleeting glances from Melanie. What left me most surprised was her stunning stage presence, energy and the way Melanie kept the crowd stimulated by the 90 minute set. After a mind blowing opener, we were treated to 'Yeh Yeh Yeh', 'Weak', 'Northern Star' and 'Never Be The Same Again'. Whether I recognized the song or not, there wasn't a dull moment. Proceedings were then slowed down for a stunning intimate arrangement of 'Reason'. This was ensued by 'One by One', which Mel told she had co-wrote with James Walsh from Starsailor. Melanie picked up her acoustic guitar, in advance jestingly apologising to any guitar players in the audience and went on to play it for an alluring, personal performance of 'Burn'. The contemporary rock synthesized with pure pop performance of 'Beautiful Intentions' that followed was by far the highlight of the show for me, the eery stage patrolling and head whipping made for a great performance of one of my favourite Mel C songs. She’s no dancer, really, but she works for it, every sassy stage-crossing march stomped into the floor and head bang was given her all. Mel sat tight in rock chick mode, continuing the show with a high-energy performance of 'Go'. 

We were also met with ‘Too Soon’, a brand new unreleased song, on first listen, I wasn't blown away but I'll look forward to hearing the studio version when and if released. Mel then slowed things down and decelerated the show with two beautiful performances of 'Drown' and 'Next Best Superstar', which smartly alleviated the show into her arguably most successful hit 'When You're Gone', on which she was accompanied by her guitarist to take over duties from Bryan Adams of who the song was originally recorded with. Subconsciously knowing the show wasn't far from ending, I savoured every moment of her first-rate final performances of 'Think About It' and 'Stupid Game'. By the time ‘I Turn To You' arrived and was met with utter euphoria, Mel was cracking a wide-eyed smile and looked reluctant to let the 90-minute set be over with, but unfortunately that did see the end to the show and the crowd fled the academy, with everybody on a massive high and still floating, me included albeit slightly saddened that she hadn't played my favourite song 'Be The One'. 

All-round a great evening and one of the best gigs I've been to in a long while, only downside, I'll never forgive the 02 Academy charging £5 for a pint of cider. Fucking madness.

Photos taken using Lomography Diana Mini

Pierre Balmain AW12

The both impossibly good looking Melissa Stasiuk and Adrien Sahores front Pierre Balmain’s AW12 look book and fashion film inspired by late 1950′s/early 60′s European film. In the film, Stasiuk and Sahores can be seen performing a mating ritual set to the haunting sounds of Bruno Alexiu’s “Romy". Smart and beautifully tailored all the while keeping a cool punk/rock feel. I'm actually fizzing. Love.

Les Essentiels

The Dior Homme Les Essentiels collection is basically Dior Homme’s answer to a basics line. They've taken to creating the simple likes of wide-brimmed hats, trench coats, jackets and t-shirts and will be gradually releasing some different versions of these classic cuts. Dior Homme will roll out a Blue collection, Havana line, Jacket collection and a variety of accessories and tops. A perfect diverse array of luxurious clothing.

Real Fantasies

Prada's spring/summer 2012 collection is the stuff of fantasies and now the fashion house release a second video celebrating in all it's greatness.

A strange, arty companion to the proper spring ad campaign, which of course, was also amazing., ‘Real Fantasies’ takes you on a dreamlike adventure, told through a sequence of 100% handmade collages. The film shows us into the fantastical, nostalgic realms beyond fashion with kooky references to golfing, hot-rodding and board games. 

A palimpsest of photography, graphics and text that pulls the viewer into a realm of hyper reality. Love.