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Licentiate Column 11/04/13: The Music Muse

11 Thursday Apr 2013

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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.

Licentiate Column 21/03/13: Blogging, Why Bother?

21 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in Fashion, Inspiration, Licentiate Columns

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It was July 2011. I just returned from a holiday with my family on the Amalfi coast, which was amazing, and suffered a bout of (not so amazing) food poisoning. The aforementioned food poisoning precipitated the kind of existential crisis that can only happen when you stare life right in the toilet bowl and hug the cool, blue Mediterranean tiles that you wish you had in your own bathroom.

My second existential crisis that week came about as we flew home, going through the kind of severe turbulence that makes an otherwise sturdy machine seem about as fortified as an empty can of Pepsi.

The first patch of turbulence was scary. The second was stomach-bubbling, I-wish-I-had-a-bible terrifying.

So, as the plane rolled around in patches of grey cloud, I alternated between praying (no atheists in foxholes and all that) and coming to terms with the fact that I had no direction whatsoever career-wise. This is unfortunate, because I had wanted to be a journalist since seeing April O’Neal prance around and be generally inept in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a wee one.

The plane landed, obviously, I got off and kissed the tarmac. Washing bits of sticky black grit out of the burnt pockmarks in my face in the airport bathroom, I decided to pay proper attention to my fashion blog. It was, at that time, about the only good thing I had going for me. I also realised that I could have dedicated more time to world peace, but there’s not very much I can do about that now. The airport can make a person go funny.

I’ve had no regrets. Starting a blog has given me so much, made me learn more about fashion as well as web design, pr and marketing and has led to every good job opportunity I have ever had – including this one.

Do you love fashion? Do you want to work in the fashion industry? Do you want to make friends with the same interests as you? Start a blog.

Why blog? Well, if you must ask:

  1. Experience doesn’t matter. All you need is a bit of enthusiasm and a Photobucket account. Which is nice.
  2. You’ll meet new people Blogging encourages community feeling and a discourse between people with mutual hobbies and interests. It’s like going to summer camp to make friends, except the DIY bracelets are cooler and you can keep your pajamas on all day if you like.
  3. Blogs are immediate. Think of fashion blog aggregate sites like Bloglovin’ as the ticker on Sky Sports, but with shoes instead of ash clouds.
  4. Blogging involves a lot of writing, but it’s nothing like journalism. Good journalism is based on getting your point across in the quickest, most entertaining way possible. Blogging, not so much. You can ramble on and talk about whatever you want, which is great. Throw in the odd spelling mistake if you like. You’re worth it.
  5. You get to share what you love and find out what other people love too – like a creepy fashion voyeur.
  6. Reading other people’s blogs and blogging yourself will help to draw inspiration, to really think about personal style or what style means to you. It’s something worth thinking about.

Licentiate Column 14/03/12: Who Run The World?

20 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Beyonce KNOWS.

At time of writing this column (March 8th 2013 – fast fashion doesn’t apply in journalism, you know) it is International Women’s Day. For those who are opposed to such a thing, take a deep breath, then exhale. By the time you read this, International Men’s Year will have safely resumed and we women will go back to listening to Beyonce songs in private, like the Dutch and Belgians listening to the BBC World Service in their attics circa 1943.

The fashion industry can puzzle the most staunch of feminists. It’s a mind-boggler, a bamboozler. It’s an industry led overwhelmingly by women in all its facets, but that barely seems to count. A smart, stylish and very enlightened colleague of mine recently referred to the fashion and beauty section of every magazine or newspaper as the pink ghetto – it’s a place where smart women’s writing is dumped when editor’s can’t think of a better place to put it. In some magazines, that’s a definite reality. But, a ghetto? Really? Do I work in the ghetto? Does what I do disenfranchise women?

I don’t even like pink. Even that’s a bit disingenuous though – I am typing this while wearing pink pajama bottoms as I wait for my black shorts to dry on the radiator.

Does fashion empower women? It’s a tricky one. It’s a bit like asking if books empower women. The right books will, but the wrong ones can make idiots of the best of us. It’s really up to the consumer to decide for herself.

Now that corsets are no longer de rigeur, the empowering effects of fashion are much more apparent – and manipulable. As long as people have opinions and the ability to create, it will never be perfect. Nothing is ever perfect, save for art and the math equations you learned for the Junior Cert. Fashion will never be fully feminist or misogynist as long as there are two people around to disagree on the subject.

Let’s look at the figures, shall we? The majority of fashion designer are women. That’s pretty good, isn’t it? It’s rare than women will lead the way in a creative path in any industry. The majority of garment workers are women. That’s pretty cool as well. Ah. Wait, no, it isn’t very cool really. An awful lot of garment workers actually work in sweatshops, in subhuman conditions for long hours with very little pay. The majority of CEOs, well, that’s an interesting one. The majority of fashion CEOs are men.

Women in first world countries often forget that women are actually not equal to men in personal, economic or social terms. Due to the ongoing debates about abortion rights, Ireland has been in the unusual position of being a developed country that is also a birthplace to a new boom in feminism and activism. The debate will rage on. Let’s hope that, for the sake of women everywhere, it spreads further out than from the confines of my pink ghetto.

The Face of Modern Street Style

19 Tuesday Mar 2013

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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.

Licentiate Column 07/03/13: Model Worship and My Big Fat Head

07 Thursday Mar 2013

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The 90′s supers are even less amused with the size zeros than I am. Pic by Roxanne Lowit.

Does anyone here remember the first wave of Model Mania? It’s the early nineties and Naomi, Cindy, Christy, Linda and the other one are rolling around in a tastefully lit, tastelessly draped room, lip synching to George Michael’s ‘Freedom’. Naomi and Mike Tyson, as a new and weird power couple, do a shoot for American Vogue in front of hundreds of people. Cindy brings out a make-up manual. Christy develops emphysema and, as a consequence, gets into yoga. She brings out a line of yoga and pilates workout clothes. Naomi will continue to throw phones at her assistants’ heads and accept blood diamonds from dictators long after it stops being stylish to do so.

What’s the difference between that wave and the current one? The models are much, much slimmer now. Where models were then expected to be a size eight or even *gasp* a ten (just the tall ones though), many models now are expected to be a six or even a four. For a bit of context, a size four, the fabled US size zero, means that your waist must have a circumference of no more than twenty-two inches.

My head has a circumference of twenty-two and a half inches, and no Superbrain am I. I am, however, smart enough to know that such a measurement is not healthy if you are a woman standing more than five feet ten inches in bare feet, nor is it a particularly achievable thing to look up to. I’m also getting a bit worried about whether I have a fat head or not.

From Cara D to Lea T, women are worshipping models. And why not? They’re all so beautiful and oddly-proportioned; they look like they’ve been manufactured by a group of mad scientists, possibly in the region of Doctor Moreau’s island (I hear that it’s also a great place to get a tan).

In models of this generation, the weird quirk is celebrated. We love eyebrows with no arches, gaps in teeth and protruding eyes. They’re still beautiful, but their beauty encourages more of a fascinated, museum-appropriate stare. People look at models like specimens rather than people. Perhaps this is the natural progression. If so, you wouldn’t be castigated for losing a little more faith in the human race.

The quirkiness and the slimness – that causes worry for women who remember models before heroin chic became, well, chic. It’s far too easy to put the blame squarely for the skyrocketing incidences of eating disorders on the modern model. The psychologies of anorexia and bulimia are much more nuanced and sinister than that. It’s a subject that bears further scrutiny despite the large amount of research that has already been done.

Even my (actually, normal-sized head) can comprehend that.

Kelly Reemtsen – Pretty Dresses, Power Tools

19 Tuesday Feb 2013

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Do you listen to podcasts?

I definitely do. I don’t listen to fashion podcasts. If such a thing existed, I would, but fashion is so visually powerful that podcasting seldom does it justice*. I listen to history podcasts instead. Judge me if you like. Go on, go full pelt with the slings and arrows.

Since I started writing for a woman’s website and exploring what it really means to be a woman with all those funny chest lumps and diminished human rights in Ireland today (“Yeah, it’s funny how you become more feminist when you break up with a boyfriend”, says my sister to me – either totally missing the point or cutting dangerously close to the truth), I’ve started listening to the great Stuff Mom Never Told You podcast.

Are you interested in women’s thingies? You should listen to that, so.

They also have a Tumblr. I found these paintings by Kelly Reemtsen there. They’re a deft but sinister juxtaposition of masculine vs. feminine. I quite like the flat block colours and the simple lines of the dresses. It must make braining an unsuspecting person with a huge spanner so much easier – that might just be me though.

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*That being said, there’s definitely a market for a great fashion podcast.

Licentiate Column 24/01/12: Me Dress Sexy One Day

24 Thursday Jan 2013

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Adorable-lil-Kittens-cute-kittens-9781743-670-578

The search phrase ‘dress sexy’ brought up too many depressing options so here’s a picture of a kitten that looks like Ed Sheeran instead.

I’ve been single for almost a year. For a serial monogamist like myself, it’s an interesting, if slightly alien feeling. I feel as if I should throw a party – but, then again, ‘party of one’ has been the leitmotif of my 2012. There’s no point in dragging it out into 2013.

It also seems pointless to divide progress and setbacks in as arbitrary a timeframe as a year. Why should the last day in December mark the end of one regimen and the start of another? And why (I shout at no-one in particular) should the start of a new regimen be marked by the coldest month of the year?

It’s bloody freezing. I want nothing more than to stay in bed, slurping Ovaltine and developing an insulating layer of blubber while the vibrations caused by my younger sister as she pounds on the treadmill directly below send me to a reassuring sleepytime.

Being single is a positive thing. It has taught me the wonder of mid-heeled shoes and t-shirt dresses as well as the wonder of sleeping smack bang in the middle of a king-sized bed, surrounded by books yet to be read.

However, like my secondary school math skills, both my flirting and sexy dressing skills have atrophied. Gone are the plunging v-necks and pencil skirts. The last time I wore a pair of high heels was in May. As I type this, I am disturbed by that discovery. I love heels and pencil skirts and plunging v-necks. I make no bones about this love or how ridiculous it is to reduce women to ‘slutty’ stereotypes on the basis of how much skin they choose to reveal, bobble-fleshed, into the cruel January air. It’s all a matter of choice and consent.

I suppose I started really thinking about sexy dressing today, when I described a denim shirt with pictures of Bart Simpson all over it as a ‘man magnet’ on my Facebook profile. Of course, the only men who would be attracted to such a shirt would be either ten years old or still living in the nineties, which would make me either a time traveller or a paedo. I am neither, by the way.

So, why, if I love sexy stuff, did I stop wearing it? When did I stop with the sexy? It’s a question a lot of women ask themselves as a new regime begins – it’s also a question women ask as we commence the rather annoying march towards Valentines Day. Bring on Lent, I say.

There are many reasons we do this, and none of them have anything to do with ‘letting go’ or whatever new phrase glossy magazines have invented to make women feel bad about themselves. They are the following: 1) It’s too cold. 2) I’m not very interested in looking sexy at the moment. 3) I deliberately dress like this to deflect unwanted attention. 4) Binding clothes are uncomfortable. 5) High heels are sore. 6) I’m doing a Sarah Silverman and am only slovenly in order to properly wow people with my designer clobber at awards ceremonies.

I’m going with reason No.6.

Licentiate Column 10/01/13: The Vintage Sessions

10 Thursday Jan 2013

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This is a tale of two (vintage) cities. One is our capital, the other is a different shade outside of The Pale – so to speak. In the past six years, Cork has experienced a surge in interest in vintage clothing, accessories and homewares. Dublin, on the other hand, has been in dealing in vintage ever since Homo Erectus picked up a second-hand bison fur and ,“Hmm, this might be worth a few nuts and berries”.

It was with that slightly odd mental picture in mind that I emailed Irene and Ruth (no last names please, they’re like Prince and Madonna), the organisers of Dublin’s Vintage Sessions, in the tentative hopes of getting a press pass and seeing the masters in their natural environment. They emailed back, asking if I could speak at a panel talk on the relevance of vintage clothing in modern Ireland. I couldn’t say no. Actually, I could, but that would have been rude – and like most columnists I welcome any chance to hit people over the head repeatedly with my opinions.

On December the 6th, I rolled up to a stately-looking Georgian house on South William Street, the epicentre of all things fashion in Dublin. All four floors of the building were devoted to some aspect of the vintage industry. Vendors from all over Ireland (including Cork’s own Elsa and Gogo) were touting the best of their Christmas stock, women were having victory rolls and cat-eyeliner flicks administered in the hair and beauty sections and sparkling pink cocktails in teacups were being passed around willy-nilly.

The top floor was my domain, not just because that’s where the toilet was, but also because it was home to the fashion talks – a programme of interesting and illuminating discussions were planned for throughout the day. Especially enjoyable was the talk on forgotten Irish icons presented by co-organiser Ruth (Griffin, by the way), although it was unnerving to note how many of them left the country for much greener pastures.

It was a cover-all-bases vintage event; commerce, discussion, beautification, community. Nothing has been done quite on this scale in Cork, where the onus is often on selling – vintage fairs are markets as opposed to all-inclusive ‘events’. Vintage Sessions co-organiser Irene (O’Brien, just in case you were wondering) expressed a love for Le Chat Noir, Cork-based organisers of beautifully-executed, well-considered vintage fairs. I concur with this evaluation.

And yet. Vintage is a movement that comes in gradual stages. First, it’s a cult pastime, done only by a few people. Then, it’s mainstream commerce. Finally, it becomes a community, a melding of the previous two stages. Cork has yet to reach this community stage – something I’m sure many vintage vendors would argue against. What shapes this community aspect is the buyer, not the seller.

In Cork, there has been no such event quite like The Vintage Sessions, in which fifteen euro buys you a makeover, a photoshoot, panel talks and all the sparking stuff you can handle as well as the opportunity to buy clothes. For many people (who don’t make their living selling vintage), vintage is an omniscient way of life not just pinned down to the clothes they wear. While I love vintage fairs, I would love to see more ‘events’ running concurrently.

I realise that the following is a statement that may result in having eggs thrown at me, but maybe we could learn something from Dublin. Maybe.

The Last Licentiate Column of ’12, but the First of ’13

01 Tuesday Jan 2013

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I googled ‘depressing new year’ and this is what I got. Via tumblr.

2012 was an interesting year. If you have a Facebook account, you can see the highlights, a seemingly-random assortment of pictures and statuses that made up a homogenised version of what has not been the best year for anyone. My ‘highlights’ were uniformly depressing – breaking up with a long-term boyfriend, leaving the city I loved, getting a dream job that turned out distinctly nightmarish and moving back home with my parents. Needless to say, I didn’t click the ‘share’ button (which is pretty much redundant anyway as I’m sharing everything with you now).

What Facebook didn’t tell me was that 2012 would be the year I started listening to Lauren Laverne on BBC6 Music. Laverne, a British DJ, is funny, erudite and unsurprisingly, very stylish. Her most recent fashion column in The Observer told women searching for festive Christmas Clothing to wear something stretchy (for all the food you’ll be eating) and red (for obvious reasons). It’s pragmatic dressing at its best.

Really, who would I be to tell you what to wear on Christmas Day? Wear your pajamas if you want. Eat your dinner in the nip if that tickles your giblets (just be careful where you put that gravy boat). Christmas isn’t about clothes – unless you get a Topshop voucher in your stocking.

Instead, let’s look back on the year that gave us Raf Simons’ first couture outing for Dior, the rise of the Irish fashion designer and the start of Kate Middleton baby bump mania. Are we done yet? Good.

Who know what 2013 will bring? If the Mayans were indeed predicting an apocalypse, then nothing will happen. We’ll all be dead and I can stop worrying about whether I should go to the Twelve Pubs of Christmas still wearing my pajamas and if I have spinach in my teeth (and I always do). Here are my predictions for 2013.

Lena Dunham will become an unlikely style icon. The creator of ‘Girls’ has been proclaimed the voice of my generation. Soon, she will be the face of my generation, thanks to her very cute elfin crop and bordering on weird taste in clothes. She recently turned up at an event wearing only a large shirt. No trousers. I smell a trend. At least, I think that’s what I smell.

The ankle will become the new erogenous zone. We will all be rolling up our trousers and displaying a bit of shapely flesh, Victorian-style. I’ve been writing fashion for a few years now and I only get more surprised by how sheeplike people get in the face of a new trend with each passing day. However, this is probably the most sensible micro-trend I’ve yet heard of. Ankles will be sexy. At least we’re not looking to the midriff anymore.

We’ll all become a bit smarter about shopping. Clothes maketh the man, or so said Polonius. Then again, Polonius died a fairly sticky death and people are becoming much more clued-in about what their clothing choices say about them without the help of Shakespeare. Thanks to the proliferation of information on the internet, people are learning more about ethical clothing, feminism in style and how it’s ok to dress a little bit weird. Self-expression will become a little more evident. 2013 is going to be an interesting year.

ADDENDUM:  Peplums can f**k right off.

Licentiate Column 13/12/12: The Curse of the Christmas Jumper

13 Thursday Dec 2012

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This is me the last time I wore a Christmas jumper. Note 1) the lack of tinsel and 2) How drunk I am not.

Christmas is not a time for class and tact. Goodwill to all men perhaps, but a rough-hewn version of goodwill, all mince-pies and Twelve Pubs of Christmas, not cocktails and canapes and elongated vowels (“Merry Christmas, daaaahling!”).

Perhaps that’s why the Christmas Jumper has become so popular. It’s well on its way to becoming one of those festive staples that is done ironically at first, but after a few pints of mulled wine, becomes an excuse to act like a total and utter ass. How unrefined.

I may be biased. Last night I spent a much-anticipated few hours with a group of fellow female writers in Dublin. The company was great, the monster nachos I ate were also excellent and the two pubs were well-chosen hangouts. However, the last late bar we went into was typical of those often block-booked for office Christmas parties. You know the kind of party; peppered with Sexy Santas and men wearing well-pressed suit trousers and cheap Christmas jumpers from Penneys.

The Christmas jumper is a justification for acting like a complete and utter prat. A person looks ridiculous, so it is obviously becoming to act ridiculously as well. If it’s something as inoffensive as skanking like a loon, a person can be forgiven. If, however, you wish to project your Christmas cheer onto others in the form of vomit, word or otherwise, I’d advise you to get your act together. It’s a long way from here to New Year’s Eve and mass-produced holiday woollens, like a person’s liver, can burn out very quickly from overuse.

Clothing can be used to express many vital things – your job, your personality, your preferences in terms of almost everything. A Christmas Jumper in a pub, in my experience, expresses the following – “I will invade your personal space in the name of holiday fun, then I’ll get offended when you assert your boundaries by talking loudly to your friends about Mooncups and period pain. Finally, when I cop on that you don’t want to entertain me, I will tell you that you have undefined but incredibly serious ‘issues’, which will piss you off so much that you’ll just have to go away for a bit”.

Men of Ireland (just the obnoxious ones) – let not your Christmas Jumpers define you. You too can pop on a funny hat and a red pullover with a penguin on it without becoming a tiresome boor. I believe in you.

The Christmas Jumper needs to be rehabilitated. We need to go back to the days of unironic, begrudging jumper wearing. Think Colin Firth as Mark Darcy at the turkey curry buffet in Bridget Jones’ Diary, not Colin Firth in Fever Pitch.

Just in case you were wondering, I do own a Christmas Jumper. It has a picture of Garfield wearing a Santa hat, saying something very pessimistic. If the jumper fits, I say wear it.

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