Category Archives: Subculture

The Reading List: Punk Press…

08 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by in Art, Fashion, Inspiration, Subculture, The Reading List

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

20130508-192656.jpg

…Rebel Rock in the Underground Press, 1968-1980, compiled by Vincent Berniére and Marcel Primois.

Punk Press, much like punk style, doesn’t demand reading, but it does demand intense, concentrated looking. Really look at it. Get into all the cracks and crevices. Weed out the dirt and the anger. Look at how easy it can be to get something out of almost nothing.

Comprising full page facsimiles of the most noted international punk magazines and ‘zines, Punk Press is a must for anyone even remotely interested in the genuine aesthetic and NOT what everyone was wearing at the little ol’ Met Ball (mostly boring – though props go to Giovanna Battaglia and her safety pin crown).

It’s the best in punk style, music and art, with the famous (Linder Sterling’s provocative Buzzcocks collages) to the slightly obscure (Loulou Picasso’s Soviet nods for French magazine series Libération) featuring.

A friend and I spent a few hours looking through the pages and dreaming about how we could make our own ‘zine. You can take that as a good sign – I rarely get inspired to actually ‘do’ something unless pizza or red wine is the end result. Such is the impact of Punk Press, or indeed, the punk presses at large.

20130508-192635.jpg

20130508-192717.jpg

20130508-192740.jpg

20130508-192800.jpg

20130508-192820.jpg

Punk Press is published by Abrams and is out now.

Licentiate Column 25/4/13: Thinking About Tattoos

02 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Inspiration, Licentiate Columns, Subculture

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about various things. This is good because a) if I didn’t, then the space where this column usually goes would be occupied by a picture of me shrugging and b) if I didn’t have any brain activity, I would most likely be a dead person – and I’ve heard that’s not much fun.

This week’s thought space has been disproportionately concerned with tattoos. Tattoos have been around for thousands of years, existing in almost as many social contexts. Only recently has the tattoo been floated as a fashion statement, despite that fact that only clothes and tattoos are specifically designed to be worn on the body.

Is a tattoo a valid fashion statement? My first reaction is no. When it comes down to it, fashion is fleeting and temporary; it exists in a series of moments, preserved only when there is a pen or a camera around to capture it. A tattoo is much more personal – and much more permanent.

I’ve been thinking about getting one particular tattoo for about five years. It’s a book illustration, very small and very personal. I know where I want it to go. I know who I want to do it.

I can never find the motivation to book it.

People wear clothes to express who they are, but tattoos express the essence of a person. While an outfit says a lot about a person’s occupation, values, likes, dislikes and social status, the tattoo tells a story often burdened with feeling (I am now remembering, shamefully, asking a man I had just met what his tattoo meant, only to have him dissolve into tears over the death of a loved one).

A tattoo is a personal statement, not a fashion statement. It’s a shame that the underlying reason people give for not liking the tattoos on other people is because ‘it looks cheap’. It’s an amazing world we live in, when we are raised not to judge people on how they naturally look, but make blithe assumptions of a lack of class when we consider a change in look that a person has planned his or herself.

A tattoo is ownership. It is a person assuming autonomy over her body. Because tattoos are so personal, they transcend notions of class or taste. A tattoo belongs only to the person whose skin bear its marks. A person who passes judgement on the tattoos of others passes it in an invalid way. It won’t hold up in court.

A good friend of mine has been itching to get a tattoo on her chest. On first telling me this, my face immediately scrunched up into confusion and distaste. ‘Why would anyone want to do that?’ I wondered.

Then, of course, I realised that it didn’t really matter. Not my chest, not my place to stick my oar in. Ink will not change a person. The mark that can do that, you can’t see on the skin.

Licentiate Column 18/04/13: Vintage and Local

19 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Subculture

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

pause

Looking out at Pause Play Vintage

You wouldn’t want to be a small business owner at the best of times, but then again, this isn’t really the best of times we’re having. Businesses are closing left, right, centre and left and right of centre. The youth are draining away, using their creativity and liberal use of graft in other countries, and the news shows multiple accounts of boarded up buildings as a kind of shorthand in every report that involves the word ‘revenue’, ‘emigration’ or ‘rural’.

It’s funny really. Recently, there was a news report on my hometown, Tralee. It showed the boards, the shops (or lack thereof) and the depressed Yoof. Gotta love that depressed Yoof.

And yet. Three new businesses have opened in Tralee this week. One of them is a vintage clothing shop called Pause Play Vintage, in which I am typing this while the owner Dominique goes out to buy some lunch. I don’t work here, by the way. I just nipped in to have a look and ended up staying for a few hours chatting. It’s one of those idiosyncratic shops that one only finds in a small town, in a fog of community that rarely settles on larger bodies. Of course, the big temptation to this shop is the fact that there are clothes in it. I also may really be annoying Dominique by commandeering her laptop and getting bun crumbs all over the keyboard.

Vintage first became a worldwide phenomenon when Julia Roberts turned up to the Oscars in a vintage Valentino dress to collect her Best Actress gong for Erin Brockovich. In the simple black gown with white accents, Roberts took on a columnar, statuesque form herself. Between that and Kate Moss (and what more is there to say about Kate and vintage?) it has taken over with a force that can carpet towns best known for their Penney’s substance abuse problems.

It really is a lovely store – and again, I don’t work here or have any affiliations with the shop – all whitewashed freshness, taxidermy and candy-coloured stock; a virtually perfect mix of unselfconscious kitsch and cool.

We need more shops like this in Ireland. Scratch that, we need more shops like this in Cork. If you are in Cork city and in need of some vintage loving, I heartily encourage you to check out Miss Daisy Blue in The English Market and Mercury Goes Retrograde, which is just at the back of the Savoy Centre. Both are small businesses powered by love, knowledge, hard work and some seriously amazing vintage stock.

Support local businesses if you can. Support local fashion if you can. It is such an important thing to get involved with your community. At least see it like this; you couldn’t stroll into Debenham’s and borrow the manager’s laptop, only to have your writing efforts rewarded with a freshly-baked bun. Think about it.

Licentiate Column 11/04/13: The Music Muse

11 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Licentiate Columns, Subculture

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s an interesting – but not that interesting – thing to note that most people’s style icons are women and men who don’t actually work in the fashion industry. Think about it – who admires the personal style of fashion designers? Do women want to emulate Vivienne Westwood’s ‘tights with no knickers’ sartorial approach? Or Donatella Versace’s ‘platinum blonde hair atop a chain smoking leathery visage’ look? We don’t admire their style. We admire their talent.

The creative industry most conducive to admiration and copycat-ism is the music industry. To want to look like a writer is to want to look like you fell headfirst into a skip. To want to look like a film star is to want to look totally homogenous and inoffensive. To look like a musician is also to look like you fell into a skip to an extent, but a skip out the back of The Coolest Store In The World.

Musicians; they just get it. Successful musicians know, and are sometimes saddened by this, that image plays the most vital part in getting yourself noticed. Image is everything. It is sadly most definitely the case with the majority of young female singers. However, it is nice to see how many female artists now subvert the conventional cute’n’sexy kitten look for something garish, weird, intimidating or slightly smelly – all of which, not encouragingly, can still translate to short, tight and sparkly under a different guise.

It’s with this in mind that we turn to Saint Laurent Paris. The rebranded French fashion house, once called Yves Saint Laurent, is now headed by designer Hedi Slimane. Slimane has a habit of using musicians as muses. His first advertising campaign is no different but still manages to buck the trend for the marriage of fashion and music – the campaign features Marilyn Manson, not-a-household-name Ariel Pink, Courtney Love and Kim Gordon, bassist and guitarist for Sonic Youth.

Both the women featured in the campaign are of a certain age (in Gordon’s case, over fifty) and they look great. They look even better than the average model despite – or in my opinion, because of – their age. Grunge fans will know Love for more than just her ripped babydolls and smeared makeup aesthetic, while as well as a musician Gordon has become the understated style icon for fans of understated cool (Chloe Sevigny and Sofia Coppola both modeled for her clothing line, X-Girl, when it debuted in the early Nineties).

From MIA to The Dumdum Girls to Florence to Kim Gordon, what makes musicians so cool? I don’t think it’s the music; I think that it’s because they don’t care too much. Musicians who have the weight of stylists and record companies behind them never look too well. We just need to watch an episode of The Big Reunion to remember that.

Andy Warhol at The Mac

09 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by in Art, Film, Subculture

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Family trips are a rare thing. With two siblings not living in the same area as the rest of the family, it can be tricky to get together. When we do meet up, it’s usually six hours in the car, followed by food, followed by food coma. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Last weekend the family went to Belfast. Highlights included food in Made in Belfast and Alley Cat, the cheapy cheap euro to sterling rate in Topshop and the Andy Warhol retrospective in The Mac, to which I dragged my mother and little brother – in his case a little literal dragging was needed.

The Mac is a lovely arts venue, but to call this a retrospective is a bit of a misnomer – there just aren’t enough major works in too small a space to make it a real reflection of the prolific Warhol. It’s really more of a sampling. However, the exhibition is totally free, so if you’re in the area before the 28th of April, when the exhibition ends, it’s more than worth a look. They’ve got great merchandise too (she said, sipping tea from her new Warhol cow print mug).

20130409-100256.jpg

20130409-100323.jpg

20130409-100419.jpg

20130409-100437.jpg

20130409-100500.jpg

20130409-100543.jpg

20130409-100613.jpg

20130409-100642.jpg

20130409-100704.jpg

20130409-100723.jpg

20130409-100801.jpg

20130409-100820.jpg

The Face of Modern Street Style

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Subculture, Film

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

TAKE MY PICTURE from GARAGE Magazine on Vimeo.

Have you seen Take My Picture yet? If not, take nine minutes out of your evening and watch it – it’s very illuminating.

Featuring Tim Blanks, Tommy Ton and Susie Bubble, this Garage Magazine-commissioned mini-doc explores the street style phenomenon as it exists today.

Regardless of whether you think street style is the modern runway or a load of old hooey (or, like me, you think it’s a bit of both) there’s a new insight to be gleaned after watching this.

And at least if you don’t learn anything, you’ll get to see Anna Dello Russo briskly walking in circles for Tommy Ton’s benefit. More entertaining than it sounds, I promise.

The Reading List: The Language of Clothes

01 Friday Mar 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Subculture, The Reading List

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

Well, well, well.

For the first time in, well, ever I don’t have a new book to review. So, this is the perfect opportunity to showcase a few books in my collection that aren’t particularly new or popular. As voted by Facebook friends, this is The Language of Clothes by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alison Lurie.

20130301-180046.jpg

Before we start, have a think. What do your clothes say about you? If you don’t know, then Alison Lurie is about to tell you.

The subtitle to this book is The Definitive Guide to People-Watching Through the Ages and that, basically, is what it is. As it was published in 1981, the book is a little bit outdated and doesn’t really take into account how fluid and easy identity-hopping would become with modern day dressing. It is, however, a very enlightening read for anyone interested in semiotics, clothes or general people skills.

The book is split into sections dealing with clothing and age, clothing and signals, clothing and time, place, sex, gender, status, opinion, pattern, sex… Almost everything that can be read into a person’s outfit is read into.

By no means the last word on how clothes are a communication tool, The Language of Clothes is very comprehensive. The outdated and (even by 1980s standards) ignorant language is quite off-putting. ‘Blacks’, ‘queers’ and ‘retards’ are casually dropped in, transvestism is confused with transgender and there is one interesting mention of a ‘coolie hat’.

Just what is a ‘coolie hat’? Actually, don’t tell me. It might make me sad.

20130301-180212.jpg

20130301-180057.jpg

20130301-180109.jpg

20130301-180116.jpg

20130301-180155.jpg

20130301-180232.jpg

20130301-180247.jpg

Licentiate Column: Kill Your Idols – Or Dress Like Them

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Licentiate Columns, Subculture

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , ,

via

As I type this, one of my friends is having a Beyonce-themed birthday party. There’s a Beyonce cake, Beyonce masks and even a party guest dressed as Jay-Z, aka Mr. Beyonce. The cake is an impressive edifice; a card Beyonce dances on a totally edible stage with a totally edible backdrop. It’s pretty darn cool.

I’m not typing this at the party, by that way. That would be a bit weird. I’m in a totally different part of the country, thinking a bit about hero worship and trying to get rid of the mental image of several grown women, all dressed like Beyonce – one from the ‘Videophone’ video, another from ‘Single Ladies’ and so on – dancing around the place in cardboard Beyonce masks. I’m not trying to get rid of that mental image because I hate to think of my friends having fun (which I don’t, I swear a bit unconvincingly), it’s just the identical masks, the repetition, the anonymity that gets me. In my head it’s a bit like an Aphex Twin video, albeit a very glamorous and cake-filled one.*

There are many things to like about Beyonce. She’s one of the thankfully ever-growing list of female musicians that women look up to for more than just their singing abilities. People love Beyonce because she seems perfect even in her imperfections. Adele is her mirror twin, with fans finding a refuge in the many emotional false turns she takes in her songs. Lady Gaga is much-loved for her envelope-pushing outfit choices, as well as her bravery in risking a serious case of toxoplasmosis from wearing that meat dress.

Oh, and they sing good.

At some stage in our lives, we want to become our idols. It’s a bit odd, really. We admire their interior qualities, like their eloquence or political ideology or total lack of shame, but somehow this translates to dressing just like them, seriously or for fun. Many women want to act like Kesha at festivals (including that whole ‘I can’t find a loo so I’ll just pee on the side of the road’ thing), so they dress up in ripped short shorts and put feathers in their hair and roll around in dirt and glitter, or at least I – sorry, they – thought that was mud. And glitter.

I’m rewinding back in time to 1996, when I was adamant that I was the Posh Spice in our small group of neighbourhood friends. I was a brunette with a sharp bob, my dad had a nice car back then and I was a habitual frowner. The evidence was irrefutable. However, I got shouted down by the others, who were all brunettes of a certain hue, and I had to be Baby Spice.

It’s almost twenty years later, and I have got over not being Victoria Beckham. Unlike other pop icons, I can now buy her clothes and, unlike other pop icons with clothing lines, her creations don’t make my eyeballs want to melt right out of their sockets.

Kill your idols? Don’t bother. Dress like them instead.

* I don’t really think your birthday party was like an Aphex Twin video, Friend.

The Reading List – Muses: Women Who Inspire

18 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Art, Inspiration, Photography, Subculture, The Reading List

≈ Leave a Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

20130208-180620.jpg

Muses: Women Who Inspire is a lavish coffee table book, published by Flammarion, all about the romantic muse. ‘Romance’ is definitely the watchword – almost all of the muses in this book were engaged sexually with their masters (for want of a much better word). The modern muse is disregarded – Edie Sedgewick for her drug use, Grace Jones for her perceived lack of longevity and Kate Miss for, well, just being Kate Moss. The woman in this book cover a period of roughly 100 years, from about 1850 to 1950, from the Countess Castiglioni (who, both hearteningly and pathetically, was her own muse) to Giulietta Masina, the sprite-like wife of Federico Fellini.
20130208-180728.jpg

20130208-180944.jpg

This rather large hardback is stuffed to the gills with women, some you have heard of, some who are a whisker away from relegation to the purgatory of obscurity. The selections are wide-ranging from art to literature to film to photography and often quite illuminating, but the treatment of said muses is interesting.

In quite a lot of the profiles, we don’t learn how the women directly influenced the artists – unless it is quite obvious (Salvador Dali using his wife Gala as a model, for example). The women are related to in terms of their influence and not their personality, which is unfortunate. Photographer Lee Miller’s life after her affair with Man Ray is referred to only in a cursory way, which is surprising as that period of her life was the one in which she would make the biggest impact on the world. Rather worryingly, Lewis Carroll’s disputed paedophilia is treated in almost apologetic terms in Alice Liddell’s profile, saying in one breath that his behaviour was dubious and in the next that “one should steer clear of judging a personality that was undeniably complex, paradoxical and disarming”.

The real strength of this book is the layout as well as the selection of muses. A rich and diverse amount of photographs and artworks as well as a rich and diverse group of women are masterfully showcased. The scandals, the heartbreaks, the subtle manipulation – it’s all here. If you like a shot of scandal with your history, you’ll enjoy this book.

20130208-181223.jpg

20130208-181436.jpg

Muses: Women Who Inspire is published by Flammarion and is available in all good bookshops.

Feeling A-mused

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Inspiration, Subculture

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The very, very loose theme for the blog this week (bear with me, I’m trying something out) is ‘Muses’. On Thursday, the Cork Independent column explores fashion muses and on Friday there will be a muse-themed book review.

It’s all go here, so it is.

Today, I asked my readers and friends who their muses were via Facebook and the results were hearteningly diverse. Bear in mind that a muse is a person who inspires you so much that you can enter into a collaborative relationship with him or her. They don’t just change your look; a muse can change the way you create.

Elizabeth Morrow

Have to say it’s an American blogger called Elizabeth Morrow from Delightfully Tacky… she’s never trying to be too chic and always seems to have that cute appeal…

- Rhona Nolan, graphic designer, blogger and editor of Felt

Florence by Elizabeth Bruneau

Florence and the Machine forever and always. It’s the big, clashing rings and cuffs. If she didn’t have it weighing her down she’d float away…

- Fiona White, DJ

Chloe Sevigny in Interview Magazine, May 2006

Daphne Guinness, Chloe Sevigny, Karl Lagerfeld (if I were a man I’d dress exactly like him!), and Taylor Tomasi Hill are some of my fashion muses. All very different looks and aesthetics but all very consistent in their personal style and not influenced by trends.

- Alexandra Donald, DJ and writer

Pennsylvania Dutch in the Susquehanna by Allen Mowery

Edith Sitwell, Peter O’Brien and the Amish community.

- Eilis Boyle, fashion designer

The Golden Girls were eventlually cleared of charges relating to crimes against fashion…

The Golden Girls, Advanced Style blog and Hilary Devey. Yes they all know how to rock the shit out of a good cardi and shoulder pads, but I love them for wearing what they want and not giving a crap!

- Una O’Boyle, co-editor of Tabitha Magazine

Cover shoot for Aladdin Insane, 1973 by Brian Duffy

David Bowie. From Ziggy Stardust to the Thin White Duke, he understood the idea of creating a persona through clothing better than anyone! And looks dapper now.

- Carol Conway, milliner and blogger

Beautiful Stevie. Know the photographer? Let me know in the comments.

A mix of Stevie Nicks, Kate Moss & Sophia Amoruso of Nasty Gal also, for inspiration and drive.

- Sinead Lally, owner of Cotton Face Vintage

Patti Smith by Robert Mapplethorpe

Absolutely in love with Patti Smith, from the way she dresses to the way she creates her art, her poetry, singing and the way that she speaks about/aproaches life. She is one of the most inspirational women ever and the world could do with taking a leaf out of her book.

- Ciuin Tracey, Photographer

I am my own muse. I am inspired by individuality and the drive that I have for for being me. (If I had to choose, I’d say Patti Smith) I totally agree, she’s a rebel.

- Jaime L. Peterson

And last, but by no means least…

Vintage (and heavily watermarked) Blathnaid with an almost hirstute Dara O’Briain

Bláthnaid Ní Chofaigh. The be all and end all.

- Louise Bruton, writer and fellow Fanny smartarse.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,344 other followers