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JOAN JULIET BUCK SPEAKS OUT ON THAT US VOGUE ASMA AL-ASSAD PROFILE

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

We're used to glossy magazine profiles being overly gushing, heaping praise upon their subjects. Usually, that's fine. But we all knew it wasn't OK for US Vogue to print an interview with the First Lady of Syria, Asma Al-Assad, which was entitled "A Rose in the Desert". And so it went on, painting  an image of a glamorous, modern woman which was totally at odds with the atrocities which were being committed in the name of her husband's government. The piece was published in the March 2011 issue, just as the Arab Spring was erupting and the full force of Assad's regime became apparent. You can see why Vogue sent their star writer and former editor of French Vogue, Joan Juliet Buck on the assignment- at the time, there was little well-publicised evidence of the cruelty the Syrian president was willing to subject on his people. What was bafflingly, obviously wrong was for them to go ahead and print the piece given what Buck experienced while she was in Syria (according to her explanation) as well as the events which unfolded across the Arab world in the intervening months.

The "glamorous" Assads- image from thedailybeast.com
Now, Buck has been released from her contract at US Vogue (which took the original piece off its website) and seems to have been made the scapegoat for the scandal which has dogged the title. Now, she has decided to write the piece she should have written in the first place by way of explanation. We all love fashion, culture and reading about people who are aspirational but before all that we have basic values which we hope the publications we read shares and uphold. Let's hope US Vogue has learnt its lesson.

Joan Juliet Buck- the former Editor of French Vogue who wrote the Asma Al-Assad profile (image from lapin-amore.blogspot.com)
Here's the first page of Buck's explanation, you can read the whole article here on The Daily Beast:

"Late in the afternoon of Dec. 1, 2010, I got a call from a features editor atVogue. She asked if I wanted to go to Syria to interview the first lady, Asma al-Assad.

“Absolutely not,” I said. “I don’t want to meet the Assads, and they don’t want to meet a Jew.”

The editor explained that the first lady was young, good-looking, and had never given an interview. Vogue had been trying to get to her for two years. Now she’d hired a PR firm, and they must have pushed her to agree.

“Send a political journalist,” I said.

“We don’t want any politics, none at all,” said the editor, “and she only wants to talk about culture, antiquities, and museums. You like museums. You like culture. She wants to talk to you. You’d leave in a week.”

A week: clearly my name was last on a list of writers that the first lady had rejected because they knew nothing about Mesopotamia. I didn’t consider the possibility that the other writers had rejected the first lady.

“Let me think about it,” I said. I had written four cover stories that year, three about young actresses and one about a supermodel who had just become a mother. This assignment was more exciting, and when else would I get to see the ruins of Palmyra?

I looked up Asma al-Assad. Born Asma Akhras in London in 1975 to a Syrian cardiologist, Fawaz Akhras, and his diplomat wife, Sahar Otri. Straightforward trajectory. School: Queen’s College. University: King’s College. Husband: president of Syria.

Syria. The name itself sounded sinister, like syringe, or hiss. My notions about the country were formed by the British Museum: the head of Gudea, king of Lagash, treasures from Ur, Mesopotamia, Sumer, Assyria, and Babylon—all of which had occupied what is now Syria. Both Aleppo and Damascus had been continuously inhabited for more than five millennia. This was where civilization was born, 6,000 years ago.

I knew the country’s more recent past was grim, violent, and secretive. The dictator Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970 and, until his death in 2000, ran the country as cruelly and ruthlessly as his idol Stalin. He was an Alawite; he dealt with a Sunni Muslim Brotherhood uprising in Hama in 1982 by killing 20,000 of its men, women, and children.

Bashar al-Assad looked meek. He’d been studying ophthalmology in London in 1994 when his older brother, the heir to the presidency, died in a car accident. Bashar was brought home, put into a series of military uniforms, and groomed for power. At Hafez’s death, a referendum asked whether the 34-year-old Bashar should become president. There was no other option. He “won.” At first he was perceived as a reformer, but his only reforms were to do with banking.

Under Bashar al-Assad, Syria was still oppressed, but the silence and fear were such that little of the oppression showed, apart from vast numbers of secret police, called Mukhabarat.

Syria and Hizbullah were the suspects in the 2005 car-bomb murder of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus was home base for Hizbullah and Hamas; Syria was close to Iran. But these alliances also made Syria a viable interlocutor for the West, even a potential conduit to peace in the Middle East. In December 2010, Obama had just named a new ambassador, the first since George W. Bush had broken off diplomatic relations in 2005.

In 2010 Syria’s status oscillated between untrustworthy rogue state and new cool place. A long 2008 piece on Damascus in the British Condé Nast Travellerdescribed its increasing hipness. It was the Soviet Union with hummus and water pipes. In the worldview of fashion magazines, Syria was a forbidden kingdom, full of silks, essences, palaces, and ruins, run by a modern president and an attractive, young first lady. Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry had visited, as well as Sting, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Francis Coppola.

It was also a Pandora’s box.

Syria was a dictatorship, which was the default mode throughout the region. Bruce Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a veteran of 30 years in the CIA, says: “Until a year ago, every Arab state was a police state—some cruel, some not so cruel.”... READ MORE HERE






My Instagram photo diary


One of my favorite apps is Instagram and I use
it all the time, every day.
Here's a little photo diary of the past week in my life :)
You can follow me on Instagram HERE!

                               such a gorgeous car was parked in the city center!  



Kippo frozen yoghurt ( super delicious )




quite much like myself :D 



my little daughter and my sister



finally we had some proper beach weather!




Yo! frozen yoghurt ( I have froyo mania :)




Visiting domestic ZOO




OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONY: THE FASHION INSPIRATIONS

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Wasn't the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday night brilliant? We were madly tweeting throughout the whole extravaganza and were so happy to see that the evening's costume designer Suttirat Anne Larlarb had commissioned NEWGEN designers Nasir Mazhar, Michael Van Der Ham and Christopher Shannon to create costumes for 350 dancers in the section which celebrated British music and culture- their studios are a stone's throw away from the Olympic park so it was a fitting nod to East London talent. 
Dancers at the Olympic Opening Ceremony in costumes by young Lodnon designers (image from vogue.co.uk)

A sketch of one of the dresses Michael Van Der Ham created
for the opening ceremony (image from vogue.co.uk)
The most diverse costumes of the night came from the athletes as they processed, nation by nation, into the Olympic stadium in a pageant which took almost two hours to unfold. There were some absolute howlers (hello Germany and Sweden) while most of the African nations looked completely magnificent. Our beady eyes noticed that a number of countries were wearing outfits not so very dissimilar to catwalk looks from recent seasons, so we've had some fun this morning...

COOK ISLANDS

The Cook Islands' batik prints, floral wreaths and leis were so cheerful but also reminded of a certain Mr Saunders' (who dressed Emeli Sandé for her rendition of Abide with Me) Spring/ Summer collection.


Jonathan Saunders SS12 (image from catwalking.com)

CUBA

The best outfits were those in the brightest colours and Cuba certainly delivered with their lemon blazers. As it happens, yellow has been a dominating hue in the latest Resort collections, with Valentino doing a particularly lovely version. 


Valentino Resort '13 (image from style.com)

GUYANA

The team from Guyana went for top-to-toe tailoring in their country colours. The whole look is coincidentally akin to Marc Jacobs Resort  collection.


Marc Jacobs Resort '13 (image from style.com)

LESOTHO

Ombré is such a massive trend right now that it's even spread to the remote African region of Lesotho, a favourite destination of Prince Harry's. The whole thing began on the Louis Vuitton SS12 catwalk. 


Louis Vuitton SS12 (image from catwalking.com)

MEXICO

The procession of Mexican athletes was a riot of eye popping colours and patterns. We know that Carven's Guillaume Henry took a "round the world" approach to his SS12 collection and this zig zag print is very Mexican. 


Carven SS12 (image from catwalking.com)
ESTONIA

There's a growing trend for plastering the name of your brand across your chest- see Kenzo and ACNE Resort. Estonia decided to do the same of Friday night.


Kenzo Resort '13 (image from style.com)

POLAND

Poland's female athletes went for a graphic floral pencil skirt to pep up their all white outfits. There's a not dissimilar piece in Preen's Resort offering.

Preen Resort '13 (image from style.com)
TEAM GB

Danny Boyle took us through a whole catalogue of very British things in his opening ceremony, from Mr Bean to Queen. He obviously couldn't find anywhere to slot in the national hero that is Jimmy Saville so Next, who were enlisted to design Team GB's outfits for the night, took it upon themselves to reference him in the tracksuits they made. We also noted the gold underarm patches which perhaps alluded to our gold medal ambitions, sweating gold already?
Team GB (image from Team GB's Facebook page)

Jimmy Saville works the high shine shell suit (image from digitalbungalow.co.uk)
Unless otherwise stated, all images of athletes are from USA Today and Zimbio

Visit Helsinki, Finland - Seurasaari


This is a new section on my blog! I've been living in
Helsinki for over 4 years now and I surely can call it
my home. This city gave me everything that not one
did before. I love my city, so I would like to let you
know more about the place where I live and which
places one should visit when staying here.

Let's start with SEURASAARI open air museum. Last weekend
me and my little family went to Seurasaari for the first time.
It's an open air museum located on the green island just
a few kilometers away from the Helsinki city center.
It's easy reachable by car, bus, tram, bike or foot.

Seurasaari represents traditional Finnish way of life displayed
in cottages, farmsteads and manors of the past 4 centuries
that have been relocated from all over Finland.

I would suggest you to spare at least 2 hours to make a
complete tour of this open air museum. There're so many
things to see, the air is so fresh, trees are so green and
the local animals such as swans, squirrels, ducks and ravens
are amazing to look at :)


















One Gigantic hat or death by hats? You decide!


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Here are (almost) all of my spring vintage hats. 
There are many representations from each of the following decades: 1920's - 1960's.
Clementine wanted to have fun too!



I created this post as guest post for Ashley Ording of Fancy Fine.
You Can read her kind words here and more (Im sure lovely) guest posts here


Outfit details:

Playsuit: 1950s pastel plaid...has matching built in bloomers!!!!
Hat: Late 1940s sun hat with a man riding a bicycle, a horse, a donkey, pineapples, 
you name it, its on this hat!
Shoes: I added my own satin ribbons to topshop shoes
Lipstick: Illamasqua
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