Tag Archives: magazine spreads

Felt

28 Monday May 2012

Posted by in Fashion, Photography, The Reading List

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I draw a lot on my family for inspiration, my grandmother in particular.  I don’t really know why.  I suppose she was just an inspiring kind of person.  She was really nice and generous and funny and stylish.  She taught me the fine art of thrifting.  She was also totally bonkers (something which has definitely been passed down through the generations).  I loved her a lot and I still think about her very often.  I’m not going to stop writing about her anytime soon.  Maybe never.

Recently, Rhona Nolan of Rose Tinted Uncertainty asked me to contribute an article towards her final year project at college called ‘Imitation of Man’.  Naturally, I thought of my slacks-wearing Nan.  I think it may be one of the best things I’ve ever written.  I am immensely proud of it and I love the layout, which is inspired by the text.  You can read the rest of Felt Magazine here.  Go on, click it.  I’ll wait here.

Ten outfits, ten days

18 Friday Nov 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Outfit Posts

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Or even better, ‘The Ten Faces of Sarah’ – squinty face, angry face, sunglasses face, insane face, hard boiled face, slightly groggy face, tired face, happy face, puzzled face and why the hell am I striking this stupid pose face.

Against my better judgement, I’m going to start doing intermittent outfit posts from now on.  It does seem a bit odd that even though I write about personal style, I never post any of mine up (extreme fear of identity theft, not being the owner of modelly good looks and the fact that I spent most of my time in pajamas and novelty tees are major factors).  So, with the help of photog Margaret, you may be seeing more of my mug around this here web page.

These ten outfits are part of the Fashion Diary that I was kindly asked to do for U Magazine a few months.  Full outfit credits to follow.
Mac – Uniqlo, Shirt worn as a dress – ASOS, Jeans – Topshop, Shoes – Nicholas Kirkwood (can’t walk in them, don’t care).
MAc – Uniqlo, Top – Gap, Jeans – Zara, Shoes – Converse, Bag – Cambridge Satchel Company
Sunglasses – Ray Bans, everything else – vintage
Bomber – Laura Lees Label, Tee – c/o Plain White T Shite, Cargo pants – Penneys, Customised Nike Air Max
Dress and shoes – vintage (dress is from Old Age on Etsy – seriously one of the best shops for sixties dresses online, hands down)
Shirt – Penneys, Dress – Sonia Rykiel for H&M (best collab ever), Shoes – Irregular Choice, Bracelet – shop in Sicily
Shirt – boyfriend’s, slip worn as a top – vintage, Jeans – Topshop, Necklace – Girlprops in NY
Jacket and trousers – Penneys, Fur collar – vintage, SHeep top – Vero Moda, Shoes – River Island
Tux jacket – Topshop, Dress – vintage, from Miss Daisy Blue, Shoes – Aldo
Sweater – Calvin Klein Men, Maxi dress – Rare, Shoes – Terry de Havilland

What Would Isabella Blow Do?

15 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Photography, The Reading List

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After last night’s Isabella Blow post, I picked up the copy of ‘Isabella Blow: A Life In Fashion‘ that I had bought and immediately put on my bookshelf to gather dust and started to read. And read.  Until 7am, when I finished the book and fell into a nice, long comasleep.  It’s the best Blow biography I’ve read – almost surprising that she died a handful of years ago and already three biographies of her have been released, with a major exhibition of her wardrobe in the works.

This is a rather roundabout way of saying that I’ve had the superstylist on the brain lately.  It’s odd, because I only ever pick up a book on her when I’m sick, the last time when I had food poisoning over Christmas (fun for everyone involved) and now, a weeklong stint in bed with a knee ailment (annoying, but still nowhere near as bad as food poisoning), doing that RICE thing.

And this is an even more roundabout way of saying that I saw these editorials today and I think that she would have liked them – if you’ll allow me to make some conjecture about a woman I never met and will never know.

Medieval ostentation and a highland fling shot by Chris Nicholls and styled by Fiona Green for Flare. (via)

Bright colours and unharmonic dischord by Steven Meisel (styled by Carlyne Cerf de Dudzeele) for Vogue Italia. (via)

Well Looky Lou, I’m in U!

16 Tuesday Aug 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Photography

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Look Ma, I'm famous!

Today is a good day. It’s a good day for lots of reasons (nice blue sky, birds are singing, I’m feeling unusually productive and a lunchtime catch up with Dawn is on the cards) but I’m especially excited because this here blogger is in the newest issue of U Magazine! *faints*

The Fashion Diary was the product of a lot of thought and consideration and couldn’t have happened without my friends Alan, Hayret and Jo, who took the pictures.  Thanks guys.  You’re the best.

I was quite nervous at the prospect of having ten pictures taken of me, especially pictures showcasing my style.  There are lots of reasons.

  1. I work from home and anyone who does that knows that the typical work uniform is a pair of pajamas covered in crumbs/an old t-shirt and sleep shorts/boyfriend’s huge ratty Spurs jersey and baggy leggings with hole in the crotch.  Not exactly magazine material (not the kind of magazine I’d want to read anyway)
  2. I’m not a personal style blogger.  I would like to be, but the last time I did an outfit post, I recieved a comment telling me that I ‘ruined all fashion’.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I’m a gorgon or anything, but when I do an outfit post, I want to do a really, really good one – so that comment knocked me a little bit (I know that’s pretty pathetic, I’m not asking for sympathy nor do I actually think that I ruin all fashion).
  3. I don’t think I’m very photogenic.  This is tied up into point 2.
  4. Before I started taking photos, I couldn’t really sum up what my style was in a couple of sentences.  I like all sorts of things.  I like suits.  I like vintage. I like black.  I love bright colours.  I love crochets and knits and leather trousers and Missoni type patterns and geometric shapes and leopard print and tweed and stripes and polka dots and crisp white shirts and PVC and lace-up ankle boots.  I love Audrey Hepburn and Anna Piaggi equally, even though their styles couldn’t be more opposed.  It was hard to pin a common thread down, which made picking outfits very difficult.

But I finally came to a conclusion about my personal style, which has been two decades in the making.  I like (deep breath) – classic pieces with a twist.  I also love mixing up colours and textures.  GROUND-BREAKING STUFF.

Seriously though, I can’t believe that it took me so long just to think of that.  Typical.

I think I might start doing regular outfit posts from now on.  What do you think?  Good idea?  Bad idea?

An outtake - this was taken one outfit and about eleventy billion crap, frustrating photos in. The final product was definitely worth it.

Major thanks to Aisling and Deanna at U for having me. You guys…

Wallis Simpson on Film: Madonna’s W.E. in Vanity Fair

14 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Film, Photography

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As a person who is fascinated by Wallis Simpson (I’ve blogged about her here), it was with some degree of collar tugging and teeth grinding that I learned about Madonna’s intention to film her life as a biopic, W.E.

I don’t hope that this film will win Oscars, or propel it’s stars to fame, or even get many positive films. I just don’t want it to be total pants. A someone who likes Madonna’s music but isn’t too clued-in on her film making activities, I think that’s a realistic hope.

If this photo feature in this month’s Vanity Fair is anything to go by, then the film will be visually stunning, which is no bad thing. The costumes for W.E. were designed by Arianne Phillips (she of the terminally stylish, Tom Ford-helmed A Single Man) and draws on decades of Simpson’s couture consumption.






Photographer: Tom Munro for Vanity Fair. Photos via Fashionising

Oh, Amy.

31 Sunday Jul 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Inspiration, Photography, Subculture

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Isabeli Fontana as Amy Winehouse for French Vogue, February 2008.
Styled by Emmanuelle Alt, shot by Peter Lindbergh.

This shoot was part of Vogue’s Bad Girls issue and was published at the zenith of Winehouse’s bloodstained ballet shoe tabloid breakdown. I wonder if it’s done in bad taste, but I also know that French Vogue love their bad girls and especially love women who just don’t give a fuck (something Amy once shouted during Bono’s Grammy acceptance speech) – the same issue has another shoot of Natasha Poly as Anna Nicole Smith (!) so the tongue is plainly planted well in cheek.

I’m not very good at commemorating people, terrible at commemorating people I didn’t even know – so there’s nothing really for me to say except that I was a huge Winehouse fan. I’m sad that she’s gone and every time I listen to one of her songs now and feel that her voice could be my voice, that she’s singing out everyone’s primordial cry of loss, that her songs relate to everyone’s hurt, I’m tinged that little bit more with sadness.

Here is a much better article about Amy Winehouse, written by Alexis Petridis for The Guardian. Click to read.

The Mondrian Dress

22 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by in Art, Fashion

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It’s all about fashion in relation to art this week.  We’ve done Bernini and Rodarte, Madame Gres and sculpture.  I might as well round out the week with a little bit of YSL and Piet Mondrian.  No more art for a while then, I promise.*

A page from a Met catalogue (I think, correct me if I'm wrong)

Sylvie Fleury - Untitled (Mondrian Dress), 1993

The Mondrian dress, one on Yves Saint Laurent’s earlier triumphs (in 1965) has been imitated and disseminated since it’s inception.  Art has been turned into a dress, which is turned back into art (see Sylvie Fleury’s picture above).  Even Lady Gaga is in on the act, constructing an overwrought metaphor for fashion as one big Mondrian dress in her first column for V Magazine.  Read it here.**

Since buying a sewing machine, I’ve been looking and looking for a vintage YSL pattern by Simplicity, but it’s incredibly hard to find.  This woman made a dress out of a pillowcase and placemats, something I have to try very soon.

Failing that, a DIY project is definitely in the works.  Maybe I could paint a car…

From Nathan Manire on flickr

*probably not.  Well, maybe.

** Lady Gaga’s column needs a whole post of it’s own, though I’m torn between being really critical or really laudatory, which ultimately ends up being really, really confusing.  At the very least it’s the best celeb fashion column I’ve ever read, which is, unfortunately, not saying much.

Related #3: Do it like a Dude

27 Friday May 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Photography, Subculture

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Yesterday’s post dealt with women who dress like men, or don’t (Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, I’m a-looking at you) to assert their power.

But where there are Queens, there are Kings…

And where there is power, there is also subservience…

So, to veer insanely from one end of a spectrum to another, here are some pictures of women who dress like men to show their love for a man.  Like a king.  The King, in fact.

These photos were taken by Grey Villet in 1957 for TIME Magazine.  They show a day in the life of Susan Hull, who has decided to take the plunge and get an Elvis-style pompadour, joining the thousand strong ranks of girls and women in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who love Elvis so much that they want to look like him.

If you want to put it in a modern context, imagine thousands of femme Justin Beiber fans, all with the same, super feathery, peekaboo, come-hither (but not too close, I’m a good Christian) hair*.  Just for the love of the Biebs.  Have you shuddered?  Has an icy cold finger of revulsion crawled down your back?  Good, let’s look at the pictures.

All captions from the original article (because they’re hilarious)

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Susan Hull looks apprehensive as beautician prepare to form lock into Presley sidecurl
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IN NEW GLORY: Nancy Hull happily shows off Presley cut.  Beautician who created style stresses convenience for girls who like swimming without caps.
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CONFRONTING FATHER outside the beauty shop.  Susan Hull (left) and her sister Nancy, 20, display haircuts.  He was noncommital about new style.
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COMFORTING MOTHER, Susan promises not to have her brown hair dyed black.  After showing cut to family, she gave ponytail to 4-year old brother.
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CONVINCING SWEETHEART, Susan explains her coiffure to her beau Lew Potter in Motorcycle shop.  At first he threatened to break their next date.
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CLIPPED GALLERY sits for a group portrait in Didgson’s beauty shop.  The sideburns are standard but the number of stray locks on foreheads is optional

Read the original article here.

*Lesbians who look like Justin Beiber notwithstanding.  The Lesbiebers are awesome.

Some things are better in black and white…

02 Monday May 2011

Posted by in Inspiration, Photography

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>…like film noirs, for example.  Imagine The Big Sleep in Technicolour. Oh no no no.

With pattern, black and white can sometimes have a higher visual impact than the full prismatic experience.  Black and white are two absolute opposites.  One could not be more different than the other.  It’s the ultimate contrast.

Even better than black and white patterns are black and white patterns that are shot in black and white.  Excuse me if I’m getting too Brechtian here.  Case in point - these pictures, taken by Nina Leen for the March 1958 issue of Life.

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Source: Life Photo Archive

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This photo is unrelated, but I love the monochromatic goodness the picture adds.  I wonder what colour Barbara Streisland and Marlene Dietrich’s suits were in real life?

If you wear a ringer, you’re Indie Rock. Period."

28 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by in Fashion, Inspiration, Subculture

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>

Wise words, Daisy von Furth, wise words.

X-girl is the sister to Japanese label X-Large and, as I type, is only available in Japan. In 1994, when the label was launched, the brands directors were Daisy Von Furth and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth *cue fangirl squeee*

While is lasted in it’s RIOT GRRRL format, it was pretty darn cool. With all the clean lines and simple tailoring, it reminds me of a no boys-allowed Fred Perry.

X Girl editorial for Vice Magazine

Did you notice a very young Spike Jonze and Sofia Coppola in the video? And Chloe Sevigny was their original fit model. ANDandand and and… *fades into silence*

EDIT – While we’re on the subject of music in fashion, you can watch a video of myself and Dawn of Skinni Peach talking about fashion in music with our playlist on the Teen RTE (think Irish BBC) website .  The video will be on the website for a week, so have a click and see what we like!  You’ll get to see me move and speak (a bit like an Irish Daria Morgendorffer) and display abysmal posture.  What an incentive.

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