Oh, to be so happy and free!

I’m sure many of you watched Panorama: Primark: On the Rack last night.

I like when I go into a shop and there is signage about the shop’s ethical policies. I want to believe them but I have this nagging feeling …it’s too good to be true feeling…I should know better. In my head it’s just common knowledge that cheap garments equal some kind of exploitation. I’ve had nothing to prove it - this was just a something I taught from a very young age. I’ve always felt people should be paid what the job is worth to you, not the least amount you can get them to do it for - that’s a mentality that I hate. Anyway I think when people read the signs in shops about ethical labour policies they want to trust the retailer. It’s easier and if it’s a policy it must be true and it puts our mind at ease. Even if on some level we know or can’t believe that a top only costs a fiver; the shop has a policy, so it must be OK. After a programme like Panorama it’s all most impossible to for us the consumer to claim ignorance. What will retailers have to do to gain consumer trust?

Check out:
Ethical Trading Initiative
War on Want

Update: Primark Speaks Out
Primark director Breege O’Donoghue speaks out: watch the video at www.ethicalprimark.com

A very cool video from about 10 years ago, directed by one of the coolest photographers ever: Andrea Giacobbe, represented by Art Department.

How cool is this - The Feeling’s second album ‘Join With Us’, has entered the UK album charts at Number One!

Last night The Feeling played at the Porchester Hall. It’s beautiful location: it has an old world opulence of days gone by, with dark red velvet curtains, lots of English oak and walnut, and ten huge crystal chandeliers hang from the ceiling. It’s quite an impressive building and it’s the type of place one would expect The Feeling to play! Of course Dan look magnificent in his white ruffle shirt - it suited the place perfectly!

The images that I took are during sound check and after the show. During the show I’m too busy enjoying the music and dancing around then to take picture, so if you’d like to see more images check out Front Rows, Pits and Pavements’!

I thought the first series of Skins was great. I liked that you knew it’s British just because of the style of clothes and the way the characters wore them. Cassie (played by Hannah Murray) was one of my favourite dressers; she wore lots of vintage looking dresses and knitwear. I also loved the way she said “Oh wow”.

I’m not sure that Skins will influence fashion the way Gossip Girl does, but it will be interesting to see if strives to influence fashion.

The second series air in February! What will they wear?

There are many fabulous dinner parties at Zandra Rhodes’ penthouse, so what makes this one any more special? Well, it was filmed by photographer Ben Charles Edwards for Glass Loves! The dinner features Zandra and the dinner party discussion is led by Natt Weller, a musician/club promoter. The guests are: Marios Schwab, Piers Atkinson (who I adore), artist Andrew Logan, Bishi and several other interesting characters. I’m not really sure what it’s all about but since I like Piers I’m willing to find out!

Previews online today, January 7th!

Best steel drum version of a Christmas carol ever! The Ebony Steelband Trust was playing on Oxford Street in London during the Christmas eve shopping craziness - so festive!

Merry Christmas!

Starting this weekend, Season 6 of Sex and The City will be playing again, on the Paramount Comedy Channel in the UK.

Ever wonder what all the designers are that they’re wearing? Well, HBO’s website has the fashion credits on their website. It’s pretty complete, especially later in the series, although some of the credits from the first season are missing - there aren’t even any fashion credits for episode 1 (!) but it’s a fun way to watch anyways…well, if you’re fashion-obsessed!

Just in case you haven’t seen it already, here’s the trailer for the upcoming Sex and the City movie, to be released May 30, 2008:

A few weeks ago I styled The Feeling’s video for their upcoming single “I Thought It Was Over”. It was wonderful working with them again (I styled the video for Rose as well) - they have a great sense of style (…and Paul’s dog is the cutest dog you’ll ever see)!

Above is the album artwork for “Join With Us”! It’s going to be released Feb 18th.

Channel 4 has the exclusive first showing of the video this weekend ! It will be shown Saturday night (ok technically Sunday) at 12:25 AM and then again Sunday Dec 23rd in the afternoon at 1:15 PM.

They’ve posted a 60-second clip of “I Thought It Was Over” on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/thefeeling

…and the fabulous blog me-me-me.tv has a preview of the single’s artwork as well!

Raise your Hands

I styled this video quite a while back for Artcha and I just saw it on youtube for the first time! How fun! The video & song “Raise your Hands ” is quite upbeat and happy - you might not think the shoot day was like that but it actually was! The video was shot at a super hip club called The Lost Society. Most of the people were friends of Artcha or friends of friends so everyone really wanted the day to be a success. It felt like a party; everyone was really happy to be there and worked so hard.
I love working on a video and then seeing the final edit. We set up the food fight; we had so many cakes and éclairs and of course lots of whipped cream. In addition to dressing all the leads in the video, I think there were over 30 extras and several dancers to dress. Fortunately, I had several fashion assistants that helped out on the day: it’s so important to have a good team - it makes a huge difference!

Saturday Dec 15th 2007, 6pm: I was on my way to Harriet’s Muse in Kingly Court on Carnaby St. here in London (to pick up some clothes for a photo shoot), and all of a sudden I realized I was being followed by 20 Santas! Hm, I thought, that’s odd…
I went into Harriet’s Muse, and soon we heard A LOT of noise coming from outside, so we looked out and there 200+ santas show up as a flash mob! They were generally jolly (and drunk) and well-behaved. They hung around for about 30 minutes chanting and partying, and then dispersed to all the pubs around Carnaby Street!

We managed to shoot our very own video of a flash mob - enjoy! Merry Xmas!

Fashion Made Fair

Io Takemura is one of my assistants and she’s all about anything & everything eco-friendly, ethical, recyclable and all things sustainable. Here are two of her videos:

“Fast Fashion”.

“Slow Fashion”

This video is about Swinging London in the ’60s. What I love about the video is that it captures a fashionable side of London that still exists today and it’s what makes people like me want to live here!

I found it on a great site: www.retrotogo.com!

[source]

A great song from Flight of the Conchords, which is a hilarious new HBO series starring 2 Kiwi comedians, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement.

It takes a lot of power to make a video!!

I had a really great week as I was styling The Feeling for their next video. Of course I can’t tell you anything about it, except that the band looks great! The video is out next year so I’ll keep you posted.

I love going to costume houses and going through all the rails. I’m doing some prep work looking for some items for an upcoming video shoot for The Feeling!

These don’t even look like hats; they just look like huge ornaments or crazy big flowers but actually they’re hats. Some of these hats were used in the film Titanic! How cool is that!

Louis Vuitton won their lawsuit regarding the Britney Spears’ 2005 video for “Do Something” for the use of Louis Vuitton’s “Cherry Blossoms” design on the dashboard of the Hummer in the video. Britney Spears herself wasn’t found guilty, but Sony BMG and MTV Online were ordered to stop broadcasting the video, and were fined 80,000 euros (USD$117,000).

First of all, let me just say it again: counterfeits and fakes are just wrong. A big question for fashion and prop stylists is what can and can’t you use in a video or advertising? If Britney was carrying an authentic Louis Vuitton bag in a video would that be ok? It’s all about marketing and product placement.

Unfortunately the red swimsuit Gwen wears reminds me of Special K commercials but I do like the final outfit as I love her high waisted shorts!
I don’t like most perfume commercials as they seem to adhere to a different aesthetic than most advertising: they’re a bit too self indulgent for my taste. I love perfume ads that tell a story, like the ads featuring Estella Warren for Channel No.5: