Around The Table

>> This should have gone up yesterday and some of you may have seen Grazia Daily's ickle videos of a few of us Brit bloggers being filmed saying some ridiculous things (speaking for myself here...) on a Flip camera but how to begin... well err... basically Arcadia organised a 'round table' dinner party of bloggers and print journalists to connect the two together.

Not that we are different species that need interbreeding but I did find it quite novel that a brand like Arcadia felt it necessary to do some intermediary connections especially as they weren't really pushing any product per se.  Tbe gist of it is that they well and truly don't see why there should be any conflict between the bloggers and 'print' journalists and in the name of 'integration', they thought they'd throw a wee get together.  

So who woz der... the list included Paula Reed, editor style director* of Grazia, Clare Coulson of Harper's Bazaar, Claudia Croft from The Sunday Times' Style, David Lamb of GW and also the newly-wed Melanie Rickey of Grazia who really crosses over between both print and blog also popped in.  Bloggers included myself, Steve of Style Salvage, Disneyrollergirl, Laetitia of Mademoiselle Robot, Liberty London Girl, Kristin of The Clothes Whisper and Yvan of Facehunter as official photographer.  

We, zee bloggers basically knew most of each other and whilst it was good to have a catch-up natter, the whole point was 'integration'.  Of course,Monster Beats Miles Davis Tribut, I have spoken with parties from the 'other side' before,coach bags on sale, but this time round I personally got sat next to Susan Riley, deputy editor** of Stylist magazine (Stylist is a UK-based free publication - if you do know of it, don't you just look forward to it on Thurs...?  I do...) who hadn't heard of my blog.  We wound up chatting about the free publication model and we sort of ended up concluding that in a way, blogs and the free pubs model were quite similar in many ways.  Connection.  Made.  So apparently we can all be in the same room together without making out like we're Montagues and Capulets (except there are no star-crossed lovers... maybe Melanie Rickey encompasses that couple...).  

Of course, for the most part, it is a silly myth perpetuated by catty news pieces that there is an animosity between online and print.  I'm not saying that genuine mistrust or dislike doesn't exist either.  Perhaps all of that was well hidden and politely tucked away on the night.  Whether it exists or doesn't exist, events like this are certainly most welcome.  You can luck out a dinner party and go home with a good connection with someone or perhaps awkward silence will prevail.  What I'm really saying with that cheesy metaphor, is that a few more 'round tables' like these can only really help the two different practitioners of their media relate to one another.  If it doesn't happen, then you've had some yummy food and your tummy is full (hmmm...check out some food porn on my new Snappetite food journal...).  No biggie.  I'll take tender lamb chops any day...   

Alright, it being Arcadia, perhaps there was a bit of subtle prodding.  I promise his will be of interest to the majority of you guys though.  Perhaps some of you have seen the new Topshop website design, which is also applied to other Arcadia brand sites.  Apparently only 20% of peeps can see it as it's in soft launch period.  Basically it makes for a cleaner,discount coach handbags, clearer and prettier shopping experience.  We browsed about the sites on iPads and iMacs.  Pretty pretty...  

 

Not really related to the event as it was on the wall of the Ivy Club already... but hey the sentiment is there...

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Apologies - I just amended the titles... post-Eurostar posting ain't good enough...

Come into the Light

I'm feeling rather good about the fact that my right thumb has started cramping up.  Why?  A few of the designers at Tokyo Fashion Week have ditched the conventional catwalk lighting norms in favour of ambiance which has meant that my thumb has been going mad on the ISO dial on my camera,Monster Beats Turbine, switching it up constantly to cope with the lighting fluctuations.  Cramped hand it is and I'm perfectly content seeing as the spectacle of the shows were definitely enhanced by their whimsical lighting decisions.

First up was Johan Ku, who is an oddity at MBTF in that he's from Taiwan and based in London and yet he expressed a desire to show at Tokyo Fashion Week and was successful upon application.  Geeeeeee whiz and people told me JFW was supposedly a closeted and closed affair.  He was welcomed with open arms and didn't disappoint by choosing to base his collection around the triptastic film Enter the Void, set in a pyschedelic Tokyo.  For those that have a weak constitution,discount coach bags, avoid the film at all costs.  I came out of the cinema feeling like someone had stuck their fingers in my brain and swirled them around a bit.  I'm now somewhat glad I did watch it as Ku's knits, made out of special yarns that glowed in the dark, made all the more sense with that dissolute and neon-lit Tokyo backdrop in my head.  The on and off darkness was therefore what made my ISO dial go from one end to the other, back and forth and made for some freaky shots.  The knits themselves have been reduced in chunkiness from Ku's previous collections,cheap beats by dre solo, judging from his website.  They were supported by leggings and jersey skirts but it was mainly about the textural chunky-yarn tops and voluminous dresses with their extra-terrestrial glowing property.  Long may there be other 'outsider' forces at Tokyo Fashion Week...

Christian Dada's show plunged us straight into darkness but the dramatic spots also made for some ISO dial tinkering.  This was only Masanori Morikawa second show for his label Christian Dada but the anticipation in the crowd coupled with the beginning of the show gave me a flashback of a 'Gareth Pugh Tingle' - a feeling that I felt in the early days of Gareth Pugh's career in London where the start of the show (thanks to Matthew Stone's soundtrack) sent tingly shivers up my back, something that sadly doesn't occur often enough these days.  The comparison stops there seeing as the aesthetic of Morikawa's collection can't really be linked with Pugh's, save for the use of a giant box obscuring the model completely.  This seemed to stem from the idea of protecting the Dada creature - be it with animal skulls, spines running up dresses, thorny branches or quite literally a cage that seemed much more positive in person, than it sounds.  Morikawa's vision didn't become fully reveal itself until the very last instance when a woman in white came out with a train of branches, strangely serene.  The label Christian Dada seems to be one of the new generation of designers in Tokyo that are content with exploring visual impact to the max before figuring out mapped-out wearability and the newly branded Tokyo Fashion Week could certainly do with a double dose of this vision for coming seasons to build up the week's newfound profile.    

VAG Lowdown

I'm Stockholm-ing at the moment but I had to finish up all the VAG talk (I know some of us who have a juvenile streak will continually read that as something else other than an acronym...it s'ok...).  I haven't read too many reviews though the general consensus I got from Twitter seems to be a positive one.  I didn't go down for the weekend so I am judging it by the limited day I was down there for - trying to see everything, speak to people and get a 'feel' for it.  I can't speak for the music side of things either given to me, the line-up wasn't very interesting and whilst billed with 'music' as part of it, I think VAG was sold more on atmosphere and components rather than it being a 'serious' mus fest... how else do you explain why The Feeling were there...

One of the questions that floated around beforehand was whether it was possible to organise a proper vintage festival that covers five decades - 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s - to please the everyman as well as the vintage enthusiast.  I got the feeling that perhaps the latter's wishlist for a festival might not have been satisfied but then I would say a vintage everyman festival isn't such a bad thing to get sniffy about. 

The definition of 'vintage' seems to be hard to pin down these days and is thrown around probably in more contexts than it needs to be.  That said, I believe there are people who practise a rather rigourous and strict version of 'vintage' where lifestyle and dress from certain periods go hand in hand and so you have people who retrogaze in groups, cliques and clubs.  50s rockabilly parties, 40s tea dances, 20s flapper parties... the springing up of these sort of events seem to have given rise to the sort of hardcore vintage enthusiasts that, quite rightly, a reader on the previous post compared to the likes of Japanese cosplay.  This is of course no bad thing even if it isn't something I favour for myself.  But then a weird sort of snobbery starts creeping into it all though which perhaps for me takes the fun out of 'vintage'.  Attitudes such as "Oh THAT isn't vintage!" or feeling like they have one up on you because they're head to toe in vintage and you happen to have slipped in a little something from Topshop.  Or you're not wearing a 50s dress in the way that it should be worn.  A vintage lifestyle hardcorist already sowed the seeds of doubt into VAG because in essence, it wasn't a festival that would suit their specific needs. 

Criticisms of VAG such as "Oh it's not authentic..." or "It's not in the spirit of TRUE vintage" have me baffled as to their own definitions of these words.  It isn't a small, boutique, specific festival attuned to a certain decade so in reality, it was inevitable that you had the aforementioned hardcorists coming to odds with such a large-scale festival.  Yes, there was a cheese factor.  Yes, there were plenty of gimmicks.  Yes, there were flaws in the grade of vintage being sold on site.  But it got people to at least be enthusiastic about the whole affair.  They may have been playing dress up for the day but perhaps they might dabble a bit more in vintage buying in the future?  What is wrong with a general festival that caters to the vintage dabblers, non-vintage coverts (and there were a few of those too...) and people who wanted a fun day out that weren't perhaps 100% knowledgeable about Dior New Look-style dresses, nylon stockings and go-go dresses.   

I suppose this relates to how I feel about vintage myself... I love sourcing pieces that stand out on their own, as a piece, not because they have been propped up by a certain decade but because the design has merit to it.  Is that 'authentic'?  Is that the spirit of TRUE vintage?  I'm not sure but I'm a consumer of vintage of sorts and if non-converts came along to the festival only to fall in love with a few pieces, I see no reason to begrudge them for playing 'dress-up' for the day or for not being vintage purists.      

Still, I wouldn't say VAG was without its faults.  I don't mind the elaborate sets that felt like you were walking in a theme park as I had no pretenses about it being anything other than a money spinner... I don't even begrudge the organisers for wanting to go big on its first 'proper' debut (they had a trial festival last year I believe?).

So good old John Lewis popped up with all its reliable homewares and haberdashery gussied up with a slightly twee style... no problemo with a jazzed up haberdashery at all on the festival 'high street'...

The context is further honed in with these Celia Birtwell for John Lewis designs...

Dr Martens were there to do some customisation with a guy doing some intensely detailed engraving on matte leather docs... again no problemo...

70s style curry house?  Again, kitschy goodness even if was probably a rip-off curry... but then again, wouldn't that be authentic in a weird/odd way?

Alright, Oxfam, remade to their 1948 shop fit... with sadly 2010 prices that were hiked to the hills...£55 for a jacket I tells ya... still their presence on the 'high street' makes some semblance of sense...

The fashion workshop was pretty popular with people sitting down to machines and getting their heads down with knitting and crochet...

Cath Kidston...again... fit for a vaguely vintage-themed high street that the masses would identify with...

Kenwood food demonstration van... hmmm... you start asking why?  As with the Veuve Clicquot champagne lounge, the ICW watch house...

Then a 'photo studio' sponsored by Primark... *thud*  Simply asking "Why?" doesn't quite suffice...I liked the idea of incorporating sponsors in creative ways but having Primark there was just a big anomaly for me...

Then to the side strips of stalls where vintage, crafters and other indie joints were asked to participate... now,coach handbags, there''s also been some talk of some shady dealings with regards to the organisers charging exorbitant amounts for people to pitch up and sell.  Amelia's Magazine has a few tales to tell.  If I took it all at face value, then I do think the organisers have missed a trick by being 'elitist' with their charges especially since those that sell a 'mass' amount of vintage may not necessarily be selling amazing wares.  Some people who I've seen at the Battersea vintage fairs for instance weren't present with their perhaps more 'niche' vintage pieces.  I therefore apologise if I don't have a huge amount of photos of clothes... if I'm honest, I a) wasn't on the hunt for pieces considering I'm clearing out my wardrobe and b) a lot of it wasn't making me gawp in awe either. 

I did however love that Reem Alasadi was selling her reclaimed/remade vintage pieces...

I found the bric-a-brac/antiques/junk stalls a bit more interesting...nearly took home this book about the history of the snuff shop but instead bought some frames and a beautiful book of photos...

A familiar face was to be found at Supermarket Sarah's mini-stall...

Denim jacket by Sovereign Realm from Junk Shop in Manchester...

A bit of the 90s crept in with these Kangol loafers that people had at school...

The aspects I found more interesting, outside of the shopping were the talks that were being held... not nearly as oversubscribed or popular as the music/fashion catwalk events...

The family aspect was also quite rooted into the festival with fairgrounds, fake beaches and a Butlins tent...

I liked the bits on the outskirts of the festival such as mini campaigns for the The Twentieth Century Society who I really support with its endeavours to save heritage buildings...

Or the fun-themed tribute to Leigh Bowery or the dress-up photo booths...

I didn't get to check out the glamping side of things but those with show stopping caravans definitely looked at home...

Like I said in the post before, it was a broad audience and it seemed to me that there seems nothing wrong with using vintage as a platform for an everyman-pleasing festival though there's food for thought in all aspects of the festival that could make it heaps better.  If a niches need to be catered for with something more low-key, less showy and more specific, then VAG couldn't possibly fulfill it.  I suppose I had no pretenses about what VAG would be like given the scale that the website seemed to indicate the whole time but I suppose there are those that will forever grapple with vintage and everything attached to it as a lifestyle (in clothes and in 'spirit') as a sacred ground that shouldn't perhaps be tampered with.  Sadly with my new threads, inauthentic me is not one of them...

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