Luke Worrall by Kai Z Feng

ANTI FASHION

Despite being told that ‘barriers have been broken down’ and SHIT! ‘plus size models’ are allowed to be seen outside of maternity catalogues, does anybody else feel that fashion is still just, well, skinny little white girls wandering around looking pissed off, shrugging around their lithe little skeletal frames some item of couture you’re certain you’ve already seen in various forms on and off the catwalk for the past 50 years?? After scanning many MANY fashion blogs and websites in search of something interesting to post, this is the conclusion I have come to:

I feel like I have already seen all these designs, photo shoots and by far the most dreadful – the artistic abomination that is the fashion illustration, so many times that they all blur together across the sallow skin and heroin bruises of the models they centre on.

One designer who I still have faith in creatively (other than Tavi Gevinson and the repetitive but always perceptive and quality-conscious Sartorialist) is Vivienne Westwood, partly because she throws her own image all over her stuff despite being neither young, thin or beautiful. She is however, inspiring – and more, continues to inspire.



Unlike the self proclaimed 'anti-model' Tony Ward (his understanding of ‘anti’ translating to ‘tattoos,’ ‘beard’ and ‘erection’), Westwood’s anti-fashion has always had wide cultural appeal and relevance. In the Early Seventies she virtually invented the rebellious aesthetic of punk, hanging onto Sex Pistols’ manager Malcom McClaren’s arm while selling her outrageous clothes inspired by bikers and prostitutes in his King’s Road boutique, Let it Rock. In the Eighties she again went anti-fashion with her Mini-Crini range, which basically did everything Eighties women’s fashion didn’t – being feminine and with a historical influence, as apposed to ripping off Maggie Thatcher or any Yuppie banker with a filofax and adding a couple of extra inches to the already bulging shoulder padding.

The Mini Crini Collection

A few months ago she was on the Jonathan Ross Show saying one of the best statements I have heard from the mouth of a designer in recent years:

"Take something ugly and wear it until it is beautiful."

INCREDIBLE! Her do-it-yourself attitude is so refreshing in such an elite, throwaway industry as fashion. She also pleaded with consumers to stop buying what the high street tells them is fashionable and to concentrate on thinking and playing with their own individual style. These should be the standard ideas of any great designer, I hear you cry, but they’re not. I was so happy, gleeful almost, to hear that when they brought out the appalling Sex and the City movie (I’m not even going to mention the sequel), that she stormed out of the London premiere after ten minutes, publicly denouncing the fashion as being frumpy and boring. Possibly because the designers were only in it for the money at this stage…?

Just in case there was any doubt

Has culture become so diverse in the past hundred years that we have done everything that can be done, created everything that can be created, rebelled against everything and so have no other conclusion than to wander into Topman and out again in a checked shirt and black skinny jeans? I don’t think so – I think people are JUST NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH. Now, I know this sounds like a complete rant, and, yes, it is not just Westwood who prevents me from freaking out about a globalised culture brimming with every influence on the planet yet is ironically bleached out to one, monochromatic aesthetic. I also love the work of Hussein Chayalan, who, a couple of years back had a great retrospective of work at the Design Museum. And Alexander McQueen, who I really think was a genius, reworking even such overused themes as Imperial Baroque so that it became original and interesting, appearing new because behind it is a brilliant aesthetic and culturally-engaged mind.

Hussein Chayalan

Hussein Chalayan

Alexander McQueen

There is the question of art for art’s sake, but perhaps there should also be the question of anti-art for anti-art’s sake? Without a devil’s advocate we would never have had movements like Modernism (or subsequently Postmodernism), which means we would have no Virginia Woolf, no James Joyce, no Hemmingway, no Orwell, no Dior, no punk (an consequently rocker, emo, scene – whatever), no Gaga, no Janelle Monae, no Westwood and no McQueen. Which means this blog would be completely redundant and our world would be totally dull.

So here’s my suggestion; if you think of doing something, anything at all – just do the exact opposite. You might get something better.

Kings of Bacongo

These incredibly colourful dandies may not look out of place strutting up and down the boulevards of Paris or Milan, yet instead they are the most recent followers in a long line of Congolese aesthetes. Inhabiting the small shanty town suburb of Brazzaville in West Congo, garbed up in lurid bowler hats, suits, spats and ties, wielding cigars and a nonchalant attitude, the 'sapeurs' strut their stuff. Their outfits sometimes cost as much as a years wages, but make them famous in the local vicinity, often invited to weddings or public events and paid for the privilege. The style originates back to the time of the French and Belgium occupation, when the upper classes of the locals mixed and inter-married with the occupiers, going off to study in Paris and subsequently bringing back the French flare for dapper suits and perfectly matching accessories - albeit in slightly un-Parisian colours.



I saw photos of them at the World Press Photo Award at the Southbank Centre (which unfortunately finished on the 5th December 2010). But these images are available in Gentleman of Bacongo by Italian photographer Daniele Tamagni, all of which I completely adore, partly because the contrasts are so striking. I feel like I should get out of my trackies and step up my game - no one's got swagger like the Bacongo Gentleman's fame.






And if you just can't get enough of the Congolese Gents, then check out this video over at NOWNESS.

I'm like, well in tune with modern culture and stuff

I've never really written an article about fashion before but here is one, in it's entirety. You can also read it in Fi Magazine or hang out over on their page here. Fi (Fashion Insider) is a relatively new London based fashion magazines which you can purchase at various fantastic London book shops. Details on the website or over at their blog.

It's not just fashion, it's recycling. All contemporary bases covered. And there's pictures.

The Spring Fling
Retro Glamour straight out of the Closet

In an attempt to hasten the advent of Spring I have recently forced myself into the epic task of going through all my old clothes and giving the most awful pieces to a charity shop. As it turns out, such wonders as a pair of red checked punk trousers, complete with a myriad of zips and Korn stickers, that a sixteen-year-old me bodged together (predominantly with safety pins), end up going in the bin – it seeming more charitable not to share them with the world.

Inevitably I begin to reminisce about what trends I used to find desirable, and now, deplorable. What’s a bit scary is that some of the undeniably grotesque 1990’s errors would now cost thirty quid or so in a vintage shop. Is no one else terrified that their nostalgically remembered childhood puffa jackets are now branded as ‘retro,’ a word which instantly makes you feel aged by twenty years? I cannot help but feel that this is all happening too soon.

Of course, as soon as I have got rid of these clothes with the triumphant exclamation of ‘SICK! Why did I buy that?’ I have the unquenchable urge to instantly go shopping for some more: clothes that will make a statement about the person I now am, propelling me towards success in 2010. However, my wallet doesn’t agree. And, given the economic and ecological climate it would seem prudent to re-use what we already have available instead of buying more shoddy, sweat-shop crafted items. This leads me to my parents’ wardrobe, where I decide to do a bit more Spring-cleaning.


My parents are great collectors, or as my father says, ‘hoarders.’ Regardless of name it does mean that they have a surprising array of antiquated clothing marvels. Some of the garments I come across are made from fabrics that don’t exist any more, whereas others look as if they come from another world altogether. There are 1960’s dresses in vibrant graphic prints, skinny Mod ties made of something called Terylene and several fur coats from the 1940’s. The beauty of these items is how well they’ve lasted and how enduringly stylish they are. Before mass production made clothing cheap and disposable, people would buy clothes thoughtfully made and designed to last. Inside jackets and hats I find ‘Made In England’ printed, a mark of fairness and authenticity that is so seldom seen in modern high street clothing. Some even state the town where they were manufactured by a local company that now no longer exists.

My finds are eclectic to say the least, but with a little bit of adapting and imagination they are suddenly very interesting, individual garments. This culmination of deliberately clashing, culturally reminiscent concepts, are rather popular in fashion at the moment. It is evident that Lady GaGa has done her bit in successfully reinventing the Dynasty look with the re-emergence of vast shoulder pads, sequinned dresses and 70’s Charlie Angel’s-style body suits. Although she would then team this with baroque teacups and Kermit the Frog dolls – a truly post-modern icon indeed. The 2010 Spring/ Summer catwalks have been favouring whites and beiges. Lacoste’s heavily inspired retro tennis collection at New York Fashion Week could be almost identically replicated from my parents’ and grand parents’ cast-offs.


On her blog ‘Style Rookie,’ the thirteen-year-old fashion darling (and my personal favourite aesthetics commentator), Tavi, has been creatively adapting her parents’ clothes since she started the now famous web page a couple of years ago. She mixes her father’s cast off socks and jumpers with charity shop finds and designer gifts to create interesting and chic pieces of reclaimed and innovative style. She is a collector of cool ideas. And if she can’t find them, she’ll make them. Perhaps, given the times in which we live, this is a more moral attitude to fashion, and, dare I say it, a more engaging and intelligent one. When we reconsider what we do, we are forced to think about it, as if it is new again, bringing back excitement to old ideas – as well as old clothes.

So, while doing your Spring-clean for new looks this season, my advice is to do it the Tavi way. Who knows, you might make-do-and-mend yourself something as surprisingly stylish as my parents’ wardrobe.


If you're a blogger and you haven't heard of Tavi or the Sartorialist then you should be ashamed of yourself.