Breton striped top: A.P.C.
Black trousers: COS
Loafers: Topshop
4 Apr 2012
3 Apr 2012
Awashed with sunshine at Battersea Car Boot Sale
Having lived in London for the last three years, I have been meaning to explore all the hidden gems this bustling city has to offer. When I think of how little of London I have seen, I feel ashamed. I know the bus route to and from my house and university like the back of my hand, but outside of that, I have pitifully little knowledge as a London local to share.
Two Sundays ago, I had a rare break from the heaping piles of university work. My boyfriend and I decided to explore somewhere new in London and opened up Time Out London's best car boot sale recommendations. I was completely sold on Battersea Car Boot Sale for its selection of vintage designer glad rags - The Time out reviewer purportedly left with a Givenchy skirt suit during a mid-afternoon hunt! - and off we jollily galloped like a gaggle of school children.
It was not hard to find. But then again, boyfriend served well as a satellite navigation system. I, on the other hand, am hopeless - if you plonk me down a couple of hundred metres away from my house, there is a high probability that I will get hopelessly lost. (Don't get me wrong, I can read maps until the cows come home. But the map-less me is lost for a general sense of orientation.)
We were greeted by a highly entertaining old-fashioned mouth-off between two old ladies, who I presume laid eyes upon the same item, in an all not-too-friendly slander exchange. People's mothers and childhoods were brought up, damn gurls! After the initial hilariousness, we did some serious sifting while the afternoon sun shined gloriously over us. Some serious haggling was done by the boyfriend, who wrangled a Minolta 35mm film camera and a silver jubilee cup for a grand total of £2. I had less luck with a zip-lock bag full of vintage photographs. The seller goes to house auctions and collects bundles and bundles of old black and white photographs of nameless and dateless people. He mixes them together and separates handfuls into zip-lock food bags for sale. He was literally selling people's memories, how fascinating! In my bundle, there was a letter written in 1942, from a man to his lover and many wallet sized family vacation photographs. I had done a project at university to do with the disruption of time and space of photographs to create a new narrative, and these photos seemed fitting for a continuation of this project.
Not long into browsing I began noticing some fabulously dressed attendees. I had been used to perusing car boot sales with my parents while growing up, where stylish sale go-ers were not a fixture on the menu. I particularly liked what the lady in the first picture was wearing. She was toting a mix of rocker chic and beach glamour, finished off with her dip-dyed sun-bleached hair, which seemed particularly fitting for a sunny day such as that Sunday. Her cute dog amongst her stylish cast-offs made the scene all that more adorable. Not far down the row, there was another stylish lady, who was selling her wares with her boyfriend. Her all-black biker get-up of a leather jacket over boycon separates were fabulous, but it was her pop of colour red chunky heels had me dazzled. Of course, there were also the mandatory art students, who were out in force in their vintage garbs.
No Givenchy skirt suit, but plenty of Louis Vuitton monogram bags, the authenticity of some I was highly dubious of. Hilarious items of the day included a "penis pokey book", which was an illustrated book with a hole in the centre, with which you interacted with your male genitalia I presumed - we did not flick through to find out what the story lines were; and 70's vintage porn magazines (below), or as the seller insisted, "female art". The magazines were so out of time with our current taste in female naked beauty that I thought about buying them for an ongoing project I am planning with the re-contextualisation of photographs. But the seller insisted on fiver a magazine, jokes!
In the end I walked away with a Minolta AL-F 35mm film camera and a bag of vintage photographs, while the boyfriend scored amongst other things a Nintendo Game Boy for a barginous £20.
You should go, not for the fashion wares, but for the sunshine, happy smiling people (some of whom were incredibly fashionable) and the odd old film camera or jubilee mug you never thought you needed.
Battersea Car Boot Sale, Battersea Park School, Battersea Park Road, London SW11 5AP. Open Sundays noon-5pm, public entry 50p after 1.30pm. Closed for Christmas, Easter and public holidays, see website for more information.
Two Sundays ago, I had a rare break from the heaping piles of university work. My boyfriend and I decided to explore somewhere new in London and opened up Time Out London's best car boot sale recommendations. I was completely sold on Battersea Car Boot Sale for its selection of vintage designer glad rags - The Time out reviewer purportedly left with a Givenchy skirt suit during a mid-afternoon hunt! - and off we jollily galloped like a gaggle of school children.
It was not hard to find. But then again, boyfriend served well as a satellite navigation system. I, on the other hand, am hopeless - if you plonk me down a couple of hundred metres away from my house, there is a high probability that I will get hopelessly lost. (Don't get me wrong, I can read maps until the cows come home. But the map-less me is lost for a general sense of orientation.)
We were greeted by a highly entertaining old-fashioned mouth-off between two old ladies, who I presume laid eyes upon the same item, in an all not-too-friendly slander exchange. People's mothers and childhoods were brought up, damn gurls! After the initial hilariousness, we did some serious sifting while the afternoon sun shined gloriously over us. Some serious haggling was done by the boyfriend, who wrangled a Minolta 35mm film camera and a silver jubilee cup for a grand total of £2. I had less luck with a zip-lock bag full of vintage photographs. The seller goes to house auctions and collects bundles and bundles of old black and white photographs of nameless and dateless people. He mixes them together and separates handfuls into zip-lock food bags for sale. He was literally selling people's memories, how fascinating! In my bundle, there was a letter written in 1942, from a man to his lover and many wallet sized family vacation photographs. I had done a project at university to do with the disruption of time and space of photographs to create a new narrative, and these photos seemed fitting for a continuation of this project.
Not long into browsing I began noticing some fabulously dressed attendees. I had been used to perusing car boot sales with my parents while growing up, where stylish sale go-ers were not a fixture on the menu. I particularly liked what the lady in the first picture was wearing. She was toting a mix of rocker chic and beach glamour, finished off with her dip-dyed sun-bleached hair, which seemed particularly fitting for a sunny day such as that Sunday. Her cute dog amongst her stylish cast-offs made the scene all that more adorable. Not far down the row, there was another stylish lady, who was selling her wares with her boyfriend. Her all-black biker get-up of a leather jacket over boycon separates were fabulous, but it was her pop of colour red chunky heels had me dazzled. Of course, there were also the mandatory art students, who were out in force in their vintage garbs.
No Givenchy skirt suit, but plenty of Louis Vuitton monogram bags, the authenticity of some I was highly dubious of. Hilarious items of the day included a "penis pokey book", which was an illustrated book with a hole in the centre, with which you interacted with your male genitalia I presumed - we did not flick through to find out what the story lines were; and 70's vintage porn magazines (below), or as the seller insisted, "female art". The magazines were so out of time with our current taste in female naked beauty that I thought about buying them for an ongoing project I am planning with the re-contextualisation of photographs. But the seller insisted on fiver a magazine, jokes!
In the end I walked away with a Minolta AL-F 35mm film camera and a bag of vintage photographs, while the boyfriend scored amongst other things a Nintendo Game Boy for a barginous £20.
You should go, not for the fashion wares, but for the sunshine, happy smiling people (some of whom were incredibly fashionable) and the odd old film camera or jubilee mug you never thought you needed.
Battersea Car Boot Sale, Battersea Park School, Battersea Park Road, London SW11 5AP. Open Sundays noon-5pm, public entry 50p after 1.30pm. Closed for Christmas, Easter and public holidays, see website for more information.
26 Mar 2012
London fashion week memories...
At last I get around to sharing my photos from this London Fashion Week just gone by! This season, I only had one day, so to break with the usual habit of popping by Somerset House, I decided to see what the action was like at the Topshop Showspace. The venue was beautifully set by the river, across from the nearly-completed Shard. At sunset, the river bank was picturesque, and little neon and pattern-clashing fashion birds added the accent. I didn't get many terribly good photos (I was too shy on that particular day!), but I'll let what I have speak for themselves.
(I also met the lovely Alice Point. Here she is pictured in her bright neon hat in the last picture.)
11 Mar 2012
Peter Jensen co-hosts film screening in Bethnal Green, London
Peter Jensen is co-hosting a film screening evening, followed by an audience Q&A session, in London with fashion film website Test, on the 15th of March between 7-10pm at the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green. The designer known for his cute and kitsch aesthetic will be following in the footsteps of Roksanda Ilincic and Richard Nicoll as he takes part in the ninth monthly film screening by Test. Every month, Test invites a guest presenter to screen a film which has been a source of inspiration. This time, Jensen has chosen the 1987 British sex comedy drama "Rita, Sue and Bob Too!", which is set in 1980s working class Yorkshire life, but is simultaneously serious and light-hearted. Jensen said, 'I don't think I have ever laughed so much in my life. It had a profound effect on my life as it was really the final decision for me to move to and live in England.'
Later on, the audience will have the opportunity to inquisitively pry into the creative brain of Jensen in a Q&A style session. One intimately pleasant evening for the bargainous price of a pint of lager and chips, I know I prefer to be with Jensen than being in a dingy pub in a dark corner somewhere. Tickets are a fiver and bookable here.
See you there dolls!
(Photos thanks to Kris Atomic)
2 Mar 2012
JACQUEMUS - L'USINE / FACTORY
It started with the name - l'usine - which I instantly took a liking to having written an essay in French in my second year at university all about the death of Haute Couture, which I suggested started in the 60's in the l'usines of prêt-à-porter. Of course, I didn't even believe at the time of writing that Haute Couture was dying. But the essay was meant to be phrased like a two-sided debate, and I wanted to use every opportunity I had to write outside of my discipline of biochemistry to write about my love for fashion.
Fast forward to the present day, I first came across these images of Jacquemus' L'usine some time ago on Jeanne Damas' blog (French IT-girl of the blogosphere phenomenon who models in the campaign). Since then, these images have blown up over the internet in a huge way and have done their rounds of all the blogs (Susie Bubble wrote about it a month ago). So I guess this makes me a slow snail..
It's not so much the clothes of 21-year-old Simon Porte Jacquemus that I'm enthused by, as much as the irreverent mood, the image, the lifestyle and the nonchalant young French girls with their wonderfully messy hair just so that Jacquemus is selling, which has me enraptured.
But whatever the reason behind the love of Jacquemus, clearly I am not alone. Dead Fleurette, one of my favourite bloggers who writes about classic and minimalistic dressing, shared recently a review of SMUG magazine #5. Inside there is an interview with Jacquemus, who refers to his clothes as uniform and himself as a minimalist. I'm not sure how much I would agree with that his clothes are uniform and minimalistic. Sure I see references to the 90's minimalism that has recently enjoyed popularity again with Raf Simons at Jil Sander and Phoebe Philo at Céline. But more I see 80's-90's Japanese avant-garde like Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo in the slightly oversized and un-tailored jumpers and coats.
But foremost of all, I wanted to share with you these images, the overall package of Jacquemus A/W 11 which also for me is the highlight. Being also an avid lover of photography, sometimes fashion and photography combined present the perfect concoction for me. This is the case with Jacquemus - the images are the perfect mix of bleakness and insouciance. They are going to fuel many more of my daydreams for sure.
(More here, photographs from jacquemus.com)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)