A Child of the Jago

A child of the Jago, Holborn



My mother is a self-confessed hoarder and I’m pretty certain she’s given me the deadly gene too.

Growing up in a house full of nit-bits, with rosettes from my mother’s horse riding days hung proudly in the hallway, my great grandfather’s army cap on display in the living room and more frameless mirrors and dusty hard back books than our modest four-bed could really house, family trips usually involved visits to antique auctions and craft fairs to source items for “That piece of wall by the bathroom”. I’m sure it was when my mother found E-bay to fuel her guilty pleasure that my father filed for divorce.
A child of the Jago, modestly situated in the trendy quarters of Shoreditch, would be (and will be) a favourite haunt of my mother’s and any other past-decade-memorabilia-enthusiast’s.
Searching through the items for purchase, like I did as a child at Scout jumble-sales, feels like trawling through a treasure chest full of archived antiques or rummaging through forgotten items in a bohemian’s attic.

Every item evoking a sudden case of day-dreaming.

I start thinking about that empty corner of my new-Northern-Line-flat’s living room and it’s invaded with my mother and father arguing, “One person’s junk is another person’s treasure” my mother repeats, a fitting ethos for A Child of the Jago.

Victorious Victoriana

A/W Trend: Victoriana Blouses

Fashion is notoriously nostalgic, and this season is no exception, with designers taking a trip down memory lane to 1835 England. The romantic Victoriana trend is high on drama this time round, with chin-grazing collars, floor-trailing skirts and beautiful billowing shirt sleeves, all of which can be dressed down for the office or given a spunky edge with attitude-ridden accessories. While most of us contend with the daily hassles of crowded calenders and too little time, it’s nice to inject a little romance back into our lives. But as the saying goes, “less is more”, and this season wardrobe basic, the blouse is back. It's autumn's most versatile piece, and no doubt will be your best buy all season.

On the catwalk, designer’s soft spots were seduced by old romantic novels and photographs, with Victorian nuances putting a fragile accent on a normally androgynous basic. Stefano Pilati at Yves Saint Laurent created silk shirts, with early Victorian style sleeves, strong buttoned-down collars and delicate pin tucking. He overturned the fragility by putting his gang in strong femme fatale black bobs and dominatrix style patent booties. Likewise at Givenchy, the collection had a dark, romantic and faintly goth aesthetic, with the blouse varying in design from frothy blouses in chiffons to crisp white tuxedo-style shirts. For those with a fear of frill, there were fuss-free options at Prada and Moschino. With ornate deep cuff blouses at Prada and at Moschino, pinafores over shirts made way for vivid imagery of Victorian school children.

In a season that has embraced proper grown-up clothes, the kind of functional stuff we call “investment dressing”, look to the blouse for encompassing the deadly combination of power and femininity and dig deep for classic items from Vivienne Westwood and Burberry Prorsum.

Walter Interview Published

Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent will forever be a french legend, a modest master of design and the man who gave women power after Coco Chanel gave them freedom.
1/8/1936 - 1/6/2008

Miss Bush

The name ‘Bush’ may not automatically conjure up thoughts about high fashion, but 23 year-old Lauren Bush (niece of President George Bush) has been bringing a touch of class to the family name for years.



The party girl who graces only the hottest of parties in the states, has recently changed her ways and thrown herself head first into designing for charity FEED- which raises money and awareness for world hunger. Not looking to reap monetarily from the expansion of her portfolio, she’s designed reusable cotton totes and t-shirts stamped with a simple ‘FEED’ logo.
Even without the feed the world feel good factor, cotton bags look stylish and are eco friendly, making them bang on trend for this season: everyone from designer to high street is producing cotton bags as an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic bags
As a vogue cover girl, it is refreshing to see model Lauren swapping luxury leather handbags for a simple tote- becoming an eco-warrier with dignity and pride at public functions.

Designer Alert!

The Os Os design duo, made up of nostalgic-darlings Bethany Santos and Carly Franks, are my favourite find as of late. They create wonderfully whimsical garments, which combine second-to-none craftsmanship and innovative silhouettes with vintage prints, embroideries and buttons. With each piece made by hand, this label harbours so much love and individuality that you really couldn't ask for much more. Like a little girl lost in her mother’s wardrobe, I simply cannot decide what I want to try on first.

Os Os can be found at Urban Outfitters.

Slinky Sunbeam Interview

BOY-ABOUT-TOWN SLINKY SUNBEAM loves his band, loves his buddies and loves to dabble in a bitta Tom Foolery. He’s always papped out dancing ‘round town with the hottest hipsters, playing gigs to gaggles of frantic fans and leaving a Hansel and Gretal-esque trail of mischief wherever his little legs take him. Slinky is the new kiD on the block, a ruffled mess of indie-pop and tabloid fame.
Oh and most of the time he’s naked too. Bufftingz!



Slinky Sunbeam is living testament to the power of media stunts. Having been handpicked as one of Matt Irwin’s muses for Uniqlo’s A/W 2008/9 campaign and scoring himself billboard fame as the face of Nokia earlier this year. Besides the incessant call for his pearly whites in front of the camera, Slinky’s MySpace page has garnered over 4,000 ‘friends’, his social life has swollen with a number of celeb pals eager to party and his band, ‘The More Assured’, saw their latest single ‘You Do It Pretty Well/I Wanna Be A Sex Offender’ sell out on the day of release. So is it just then, his one meat and two veg naked exposure that has scored slinky and co. fame? “I hope not” Slinky says as he settles down to talk,”‘I just tend to have a lot of wardrobe malfunctions in front of cameras!”

At least for the time being, Slinky’s fully clothed, as we sit in Hackney’s Victoria Park on a hot April afternoon. He’s sporting a rather spectacular array of coloured clothes. A green tank top scrolled across with ‘No, I do not want a free London Lite’, is just one of the humourous homemade creations Slinky’s renowned for wearing “See my t-shirt? It’s great. If you don’t want a free paper you can just show the vender your chest and not mutter a word!” he says with a perma-fixed toothy grin. Straight away it is clear why he’s so popular right now amongst London’s party darlings. He bubbles with a distinct humility as he divulges excerpts from ‘Slinky: what lies beneath the It-boy branding’

“I’m definitely not an IT-boy,” Slinky says, widening his eyes, “The Guardian dubbed me ‘a cocksure rich kid’, but I grew up on two estates and a tower black. I’ve made a lot of sacrifices to get where I am today.”

Slinky’s cute-as-you-like mush first attracted attention with the growing fan base of his indie pop band, fronted by Al “Your Pal”. The quartet, who are signed to London based label ‘What?! Records’, threw themselves headfirst into the grimy dives of the London club circuit back in 2005. Today they sing odes to the hypocrisy of tabloid Britain and its taboos of youngsters in a frantic, sugary pop style. They are to your ears what your favourite shoes are to yours feet and they are a big hit with the teen market up and down the country. “Bands that appeal to over-18s don’t sell records- unless they’ve got a massive team behind them. We sold out our last single in a day- that’s the teens. They’re more appreciative”.

In three years, the band has gone from 50 person back-street pub gigs to playing alongside the Fratellis at the infamous Ibiza Rocks, as well as recently working with Razorlight producer John Fortis on their debut album, due for release later in the year.
“After gigs I’d hang out with the fans, do magic tricks, because I really like magic and after a while I decided to try and make official merchandise for the band because everyone kept commenting on my home-made clothes” He says pointing to his Katharine Hamnett inspired t-shirt.

Determined to keep the fans rolling in, Slinky decided to take his DIY creations and his housemate-cum-sidekick Al onto the streets of London and straight into the media eye.

“Last year Al and I did a couple of naughty things,” Slinky says biting on his index finger. “Firstly I had a horrible wardrobe malfunction whilst stood next to Peaches Geldof, which led to naked pictures of me in the free London papers. Have you seen it,” he asks, and when I nod I have to ask, WHY? the extreme male grooming going on in the downstairs department. Slinky says, “Just for fun I brought Veet the hair removal cream just to see what it would feel like and it’s wicked. My friends are always telling me to keep my hands out of my pants!” Slinky continues, “The second thing we did was Al’s idea. We decided we should give Russell Brand an Oscar for best Amy Winehouse look-a-like ‘07”. The fitting place for such a cheeky stunt, was the world Premiere of St. Trinians in Leicester Square and ex-estate boy, Slinky, was lifted, almost overnight, to lucrative tabloid property, his exploits receiving some wanted and lots of unwanted media attention. “Lots of people criticised us, but I don’t know why more bands don’t pull stunts like that! It’s merely harmless fun”

Becoming something of a celebrity, Slinky’s found himself knee-deep in a whole hoard of opportunities to show off his other talents. He’s the newest fixture at the offices of SuperSuper magazine, writing a hilariously funny, mumble-jumble of nonsense, which with hindsight is the handiwork of nothing less than a creative writing connoisseur. “A few issues ago SuperSuper magazine spent 24 hours with me for a feature for the magazine and I got chatting to Namalee (co-founder) over coffee. She said I was funny and peculiar thing and asked me to have a go at writing a television review for the next issue. It was fun, I love to write and I chose to do my review on ‘the episode of Brookside where someone gets buried under the patio’.” Now he’s progressed onto writing for his own double page ‘the wonderful life of Slinky Sunbeam’, where he has the freedom to write whatever he so desires to.
“For next month’s issue I’m toying with the idea of either doing a board game that can be cut out and stuck on card with squares reading things such as ‘Go back 5 spaces Camden has burnt down or a page called ‘the Tudor Buzz’ which would be a 16th century parody of the London Paper’s middle pages.”

Slinky tells me he writes everything down, from funny phrases he’s heard on the bus to new words he’s found in his Oxford English dictionary. “I have been doing creative writing since school, just for my own pleasure. I keep a diary with exaggerated truths,” he says sniggering, “I fill an A4 notebook in a week,” he says, as I start to imagine every inch of Slinky’s flat piled high with thousands of dusty handwritten diaries and lumberjacks working soley to serve Slinky’s writing addiction. “They’re all recycled paper notebooks,” Slinky assures me. “One day I’d like to write a novel, and you’ll be able to choose an ending like those Goosebumps books,” he says.

Besides putting pen to paper and needle to thread, Slinky’s also been involved in acting, band management, radio show presenting as well as being continuously credited for his eclectic fashion sense. Total grunge with a bit of Where’s Wolly, you only need to glimpse the American apparel headbands, customised skinny’s and wonderful array of graffiti-ed tank tops, to know that Slinky is a stylists pipedream. Edgy, energetic, a little rough around the edges yet handsome enough to dazzle in front of the camera. He’s appeared in a H&M brochure for being “a new fashion icon” as well as his modelling for the reinvented brand Uniqlo and Nokia and I have a feeling he’s gunna be scouted for a lot more.

Despite being catapulted in to the limelight, Slinky still has his feet very much on the ground. “People assume that I’m really arrogant,” Slinky says, but it’s not the case with him at all. Slinky Sunbeam’s a nice guy. A really nice guy. A newer, nicer seed of London’s young socialite breed.

Walter Van Beirendonck Interview

With knuckle-duster-rings adorning every finger, a ‘Mitchell brother’ thuggish hairdo and a girth which almost matches his height, Walter Van Beirendonck looks like a force not to be reckoned with. One of the legendary Antwerp six, Belgian designer Beirendonck has captured the hearts of avant-garde dressers for two decades, creating outlandish collections which makes Kawakubo’s Comme des Garcons designs look plainer than Jane.



Beirendoncks’s A/W 2008/9 collection ‘Skin King’ explores his fetish for futuristic evolution and ‘Second Life’ by combining a mismatch of floral pussy bow blouses; pom-pom emblazoned snooded knits; kaleidoscopic-tailoring and garish metal headwear. Sure to be creating synaesthesia ridden pieces for niche-hungry dressers for years to come, Walter says he can only hope his visionary collections remain as renowned as they are today. It is without a doubt the time-line of fashion would be incomplete without his ‘from the heart’ contribution.





As the omnipresent figure of rave, softly-spoken Beirendonck said ‘Music and fashion will always have strong links’. The powerful connection began for him in the ‘70s when he first saw and heard David Bowie. ‘It was then, in my teenage years, that I realised how you can create and evolve identity through clothes’ . Bowie’s mercurial clothing, from one-arm spandex ensembles in the Ziggy years to the ankle-grazing Savile Row suits he wears nowadays, inspired Beirendonck to create chameleonic clothing which portrays the mood of the music he loves.
Beriendonck’s smiley’s which have become synonymous with nu rave and techno, was his first flirtation with music and designing. ‘The nu rave and techno kids liked my sense, my smileys’ and today his design ideas stem from his adoration of electro music, whilst inspiring a young generation of similar minded clothes connoisseurs such as Cassette Playa’s Carrie Mundane and Boston’s Pratt Institute graduate, Jeremy Scott.

As well as the task of keeping his label afloat, Beirendonck is the head of fashion at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts where he spends time teaching, motivating and fostering strong bonds with his students and interns. ‘We don’t try to train people in the same way,’ Walter says, ‘We try to motivate students from the 1st year to develop a signature style.’ Asked if has any favourite designers, Beirendonck is quick to support his protegees ‘Raf Simons who interned with me for 2 years. I always remain loyal to those closest, and I absolutely love what he is doing!’ He also says he has a lot of respect for German avant-garde designer Bernanrd Willhelm and anti-fashion designer Rei Kawakubo. He goes on to say ‘there are many designers I have no respect for, I don't have time for copycats.'

So forgive me for my first impressions: he’s the Shrek of Antwerp, a humble creative genius, he’s the wacky professor, Walter Van Beirendonck.

Mooka Kinney Interview

Most women will admit to having a subversive side. But at the end of the day, very few can deny that we love to wear something uncompromisingly pretty. Hankering to trade in that androgynous look of the past few seasons, live-in best friends and now business partners Rachel Antonoff and Alison Lewis have created Mooka Kinney, a label fit for the modern Alice as she prances through her wonderland.



It was back in 2005, that the two creative’s met, but it was their love for alternative music that initially made them inseparable. “I had a room for rent in my New York apartment, and Alison and I had a mutual friend that knew Ali needed a new place to live, I was heavily into underground singer Joanna Newsom, Alison came in and was like ‘Is that Newsom playing?’, I knew we were destined!”.

It was two years after the girls initially bonded over Newsom, that they decided to start making clothes recalls Rachel, “The two of us loved vintage dresses- that was another of our shared things, and we started to talk about how we wished there were dresses that were more vintage-like that were mass-marketed.” Alison continues, “We kept talking, and realised we should quit the talking and get on with it. So we literally just got our shit together- and that was like a year ago.” Despite the lack of formal fashion training, the pair learnt about princess seams and empire waists by dissecting their favourite finds from vintage stores, and with help from a friend in the textile business they began to make a selection of sample dresses whilst spreading the name Mooka Kinney amongst the numerous connections Rachel made as a former Fashion PR girl.

Two years, a collection at Barney’s and two shows at New York Fashion Week later, Mooka Kinney’s super-coy aesthetic and sublime silhouettes, which summon the inner-child out to play, have dressed famous faces, like songstresses Lily Allen and Zooey Deschanel as well as fashion mogul Lily Donaldson and the fateful artist who brought the girls together- Joanna Newsom. “Newsom wears our dresses”, says Rachel, “We couldn’t have hoped for a bigger achievement”.

Alison’s favourite dress from their three collections so far, ‘Narnia’, plays homage to her favourite make belief land as a youngster, but Rachel says she prefers the ultra-girly dresses that can be “injected with attitude” through her preference for wearing cowboy boots and bluntly cut bangs. She continues, “Sometimes when I’m wearing MK, I feel like the bad-ass older sister in ‘The Wonder Years’ or a school girl in the ‘60s who would get caught smoking in the bathroom, time and time again”.

So what does the future hold for these girls, for whom Mooka Kinney was only a year ago, just a fun side project? “It’s literally like waking up in someone else’s life every day”, says Rachel, “We obviously hope the success for MK continues, but if it was all cut short tomorrow, we could still relish in the fact we dressed our idol!”

1 Skull = Mad(e)

Long-limbed, English-Rose, Alexa Chung has gone all Eco-friendly on us, unveiling a lovely bones jewellery collection for fair-trade company Made. With skull motifs emblazoning gold and silver chains, her stylish hand and resplendent imagination has really made this environmentally friendly company one to keep your peepers on.





Grungy but flirty, statement and stylish, yes and please!!

Footwear Lookbook

Not only do stilettos medically improve stuff in the bedroom, they make even the stumpiest of legs long and slender whilst injecting the owner with that "I'm hot, you're not attitude". So there is surely no girl who would pass up the chance for a pair of these bad boys?!- My favourite footwear this season, I love love love


Balenciaga


Versace




Chloe






Giambattista Valli


Givenchy


Yves Saint Laurent


Alexander Mcqueen


Burberry Prorsum


Donna Karen








Gucci


Dolce & Gabbana


Jil Sander


Dior

The Olsens put pen to paper

With forty video-titles, sophisticated high-end fashion line, ‘The Row’ and a multi-million dollar merchandising business under their belts; beloved acting, modelling and fashion moguls the Olsen twins continue their formidable assault on the world - by turning their hand to literature and releasing a coffee table book named ‘Inspiration’.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen estimated to have a net worth of $150 million each, have described their latest endeavour as “Celebrating the most interesting, challenging and creative people we know”. The stylish duo who are icons universally have handpicked high profile characters such as French shoe designer Christian Louboutin, actress Lauren Hutton and photographer Terry Richardson to contribute. Mary-Kate said, “We have interviewed the people who have inspired us, with the hope they will inspire and teach others”, and with a wide variety of never-before-seen photographs of the sisters, together with exclusive personal interviews, I predict a sell-out of this tome before it’s even hit the shelves.

Sophomore NYC

Chrissie Miller and Madeleine von Froomer are a force not to be reckoned with. The collective who have churned out effortlessly cool Sophomore NYC, have made even avant-garde dressers reconsider how subtly tweaked classic items can be shit hot.

Obviously recognising the enormous success simple street wear label, American Apparel has been enjoying, SNYC has jumped on the bandwagon with its quirky takes on wardrobe basics. With a sensual look book reminiscent of the 1995 film 'Kids' and with its beatnik '70s flare (the fashion world’s favourite era this season), I have no doubt this collection is going to have worldwide dominance!

A/W 2008/9 lovelies

House Of Holland
Nostalgic of Vivienne Westwood's Highland collection, House of Holland revived punk's synonymous tartan but in last season's trend for lots of purple. Aggy's impromptu eye patch will surely become a fashion must-have alongside Holland's fetish for everything Scottish



The flirty ra-ra skirt carries through the rockabilly vibe from S/S 2008



Henry knows just what a girl wants- a little black dress, plenty of gold and Coco Rocha!






Jeremy Scott
Never one for understatement, Scott's latest collection takes fabulously constructed dresses and turns them into living room peripherals. I particularly love the Rolls Royce body con number and despite not being a fan of prints, I wouldn't mind a Jeremy Scott book shelf in my wardrobe.










Lanvin
I'm not sure what I liked more about this collection- the monochrome palette (I love black), the disgustingly Ab-Fab use of fur and leather or Alber Elbaz's dimensions! A little too conservative for my wardrobe right now, but fast-forward a decade, and this power-laden collection will be all I crave










Betsy Johnson
My favourite collection of the season- A big rocker/hippy/80's leotardic romp! The je nais ce quoi which many of the collections this season lacked, Betsy Johnson made up for in bucket loads











I loveeee.