FEAL JOINS TUMBLR!

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

You're going to be noticing a few changes in the next few months here at FEAL- most notably, we're going to be moving onto our very own website, rather than the blogspot. We've been poring through all the FashEd's photography books for inspiration whenever we have a spare moment . We were so in love with so many of the images that we decided it was high time we got around to sharing our favourites with all of you tumblr-aholics out there.

We've made a start today- this week is all about the 1930s but every week we'll have a new theme as well as a constant stream of anything we're loving right now. We hope you like!

Today's favourite from Lillian Bassman

GRAZIA LEADS THE WAY WITH 'AUGMENTED REALITY' 3D ISSUE

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Doesn't it feel as if we’re living in a world which bares more than a passing resemblance to Blade Runner / Minority Report / one of those other sci-fi films in which technology is disarmingly advanced? 2010 is apparently the future - even our magazines are coming to life for goodness’ sake!

Last summer Dazed and Confused stuck a pair of cardboard glasses to the cover (you know the kind - one red lens, one green lens. Seriously retro 3D eyewear) and proclaimed that inside lay ‘Fashion That Touches You!’

Nicola Formichetti styled Marios Schwab’s AW09 3D inspired collection, and the shoot jumped right off the page. But even that seems old hat compared to this week’s pioneering issue of Grazia - the 'walk-in talking' issue.

Hot on the heels of trendsetting POP Magazine, team Grazia wanted to be the first women's glossy to employ Augmented Reality - technology that allows the consumer to interact with virtual content. Readers can use their web-cam (or iPhone) to scan the black and white icons and bring the features to life.

Florence Welch serenades us, the Fashion Chart rotates, and the fashion editors give us the low down on their picks for the season ahead. We can even switch them and twirl them to our hearts delight with a mere movement of our hand - as I am with the lovely Charlie Miller below.

Very fun and original. Bravo Grazia, bravo!

The incredible Augmented Reality issue of POP is also out now.

 It's bound to be a collector's item in a few years time!

FEELING THE NOWNESS OF LIFE

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Thanks to the fashion junior who has had hours of fun/research surfing the web while I toiled in Paris, the website NOWNESS is on my radar. It has just been added to the blogroll. I clicked on it this morning to manifest a visual break from the catwalk collections I have been viewing for days on end at Catwalking and Style. And to reinforce the fact I have FINISHED my edit of the AW10 collections - my homework after the shows are over. On NOWNESS I saw this photograph of the Dubai skyline by Iwan Baan and it made me gasp and feel a sense of wonder and awe at the possibilities of life and work and dreams. Wanted to share that with y'all. Have a great day.

http://www.nowness.com/

 We found this interview with Kamel Ouadi from NOWNESS on Businessoffashion.com (a permanent fixture on our Google Readers) published just before its launch. His eloquent explanation tells you all you need to know about the site of the moment:

'NOWNESS will inspire and turn you on to the latest developments on fashion and culture in a highly curated and thoughtful way. NOWNESS is about carrying a moment in time with you. It sums up a certain feeling when you get a moment of inspiration that lives in your imagination during the day.'

'This site will be about the art of living and involve luxury well beyond product categories. It will inform and inspire. It will bring excitement to the everyday. And, it will feature only exclusive content — a key factor distinguishing it from other luxury websites. It will be an inspirational and experiential site.'

'The site is about inspiring people. It’s also about personalisation of luxury inspiration. A “Love/Don’t Love” button allows users to interact with the content. The impulse to love will drive recommended content to the user, the impulse to love will also tell us how people are responding to the experience.'

'The site is dedicated to collaborating with the world’s foremost designers, creatives and thinkers in the luxury industry. Visitors can enjoy featured work by leading artists such as Wong Kar-Wai, Patti Smith, Lucien Freud, Francesco Vezzoli, Rodarte, Raf Simons, John Galliano for Dior, and Nick Cave.' 

IS THE INTERNET ENABLING 'STYLE THEFT' ON A GLOBAL SCALE?

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

'The Internet does for fashion what the mircowave does for food'

 Take a look at this very trendy older gentleman shot by Scott 'The Sartorialist' Schulman. Judging by his clothes where would you guess he is from? Paris? Florence? New York? Milan maybe? Let's be honest, he could reside in any stylish city in the western world (Apart from London. The weather is a bit too sunny and the gentleman a little too jovial to be London). 

This was the analogy Ben Beaumont-Thomas of Bad Idea Magazine used to introduce 'Fashion's Microchic Shake-Up' - a talk held in the basement of Shoreditch's The Book Club. He wanted to demonstrate the profound affect the internet - street-style blogs, social networking and all that jazz - has on the way we dress. Welcome to the age of 'Microchic'; the global homogenisation of hyper-personal style.

Phew big words! Maybe it's best we stick to Ben's street style example for simplicity's sake. On the first day of London Fashion Week I was stopped by WGSN who wanted to photograph me in this outfit:

(Velvet Jacket: vintage, Leather Jacket by Topshop, Bag: Jimmy Choo for H&M, Trousers by French Connection, Shoes by Office)

 For those who are not familiar with WGSN, it's a trend forecasting website. The world's biggest fashion brands subscribe for a hefty yearly fee and in return they get a constant stream of information and inspiration to feed their creative vision (this kind of explains why all designers seem to miraculously agree on the trends each season). 

One of the resources they provide is street style reportage. One individual's style might inspire a designer who then shows, for example, patterned satin trousers in their next collection. Those trousers are then copied by high street stores, and eventually feed back down to the consumer on the street. It's one big marvelous cycle! This tool also means that a t-shirt worn in a Tokyo club could be emulated by Topshop and end up on a Londoner's back within a matter of weeks. Virtually instantaneous global style!

Street style blogs have a knack of celebrating subjects with a flair for individualistic or slightly unusual dressing (like our trendy older gentleman above). Our access to these sites allows us to cherry-pick influences from the wardrobes of stylish people across the world - establishing a uniform of global cool which is visible from Copenhagen to Sydney. 

The second part of the talk enlisted the help of Iris Ben Davis (CEO of Style Shake - a site which allows shoppers to design their clothes from scratch), Helen Brown (founder of Catwalk Genius - where fashion fans can buy shares in the businesses of new designers they love), and Ruth Marshall-Johnson (senior editor of WGSN). These are three women who are very much in the business of Microchic and their predictions for the future of fashion pretty much pickled my brain...

Style Shake has made bespoke available to the masses, and even more significantly it has made bespoke affordable (mainly because, Iris told us, being online keeps overheads ultra low). So what does this mean for bricks and mortar stores? Will online bespoke businesses eradicate fast fashion? Or will our penchant for social shopping prevail?

The panel's coverage of the latest technologies was also beyond interesting. Augmented Reality will let us 'try on' clothing virtually with the use of our humble webcams. 3D printers will allow us to 'print' out our purchases (I don't quite understand this. Get on to Wikipedia for a more articulate explanation), and 3D body scanners will ensure our bespoke designs fit perfectly. Apparently software is even being developed with will allow us to virtually 'feel' the material - emulating the tactile experience many of us value as part of the shopping experience.

Super fascinating (if a little mind boggling) right?


Pic credits: TheSartorialist, Fashion156.com

THE ISSUE OF THE DAY IS STILL THE PERVADING PRESENCE OF BLOGGERS AT THE SHOWS

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

 As I may have mentioned, I recently joined Twitter. Whilst I can grasp the simple task of a Facebook status style tweet, I haven't yet mastered the twitpic or the direct message etc, so have been attempting to pick it up by reading the tweets of the people I follow. In the last couple of hours there has been much discussion (mainly amongst the well known bloggers) over this article from The Global Herald.

Yet again the editors versus bloggers debate is being wheeled out with the latter being described as 'awkwardly dressed pseudo-fashionable young things who were pushing themselves towards the free press patisserie with aplomb'. Sigh. Like many teenage girls who aspire to inhabit the world of fashion journalism I never fantasised about writing online. I fell in love with the tangible aspects of the magazine. The smell of the pages, the cool smoothness of the cover, the weight of the printed product, which seemed to denote substance and knowledge of subject. But things change. The first time I meet the Fashion Editor at Large she told me ‘print is shrinking. Online is now the future’ – And just like that I knew I had to embrace a new medium for my passions. Whether bloggers carry clout in the industry is no longer debateable – they’re usurping front row seats at Dior couture right from under the noses of seasoned fashion journalists – but just how erudite and relevant their opinions are seems to be a constant point of contention. 

Maybe the reason the so-called ‘Tavi backlash’ has been ignited is because, whilst we all enjoy her insightful musings, some of her harsher critics simply believe she is not qualified to write for POP and schmooze back-stage at the Paris couture shows. In their view it’s all about knowing one’s place in the fashion pecking-order, or as Robin Scott says 'There is a food chain at work here, and those with dot blogspot or dot wordpress in their domain name should know that they are at the bottom of it.' 

But seriously, what about our very own Fashion Editor at Large and other seasoned writers who take up blogging? It adds a whole new dimension to the blogosphere. 

Scott does make some important points - some print journalists who take an anti bloggers stance need to understand that 'the very blogs they deride ... are read by far more – literally millions more – people than their own articles will ever be'. We need to address the issue of space at fashion Week in terms of the quality of the attendee's output as well as quantity of readers they draw. It's a complex task. 

Do you know what the most widely read magazine in the UK is? Take a Break. Yes Take a Break! It gets almost one million readers per issue, sells two copies every second and is the 4th biggest selling magazine in the world! It has a far far greater number of readers than say Vogue or ELLE, which fall near the bottom of the pile in terms of monthly sales. Sometimes things surprise you. Blogs are extremely widely read, and the well written ones are extraordinarily influential. 

All the nay-sayers have to eventually accept that things move on, and that print and online can co-exist. Way back in the day photographers were banned from catwalk shows and journalists had to be a dab hand at sketching the collections. Now we have Tavi, Bryan Boy, Suzie Bubble et al bridging the gap between mere mortals and the ethereal people of fashion society with their commentary.  It’s progression, and that is what this industry is all about.

Pic credit: tardeotemprano.net

TECH-CESSORIES FOR FASHION WEEK

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Hopefully the Fashion Editor at Large and I will both know how to mobile blog by Friday (in fact we are just this second trying to teach ourselves). If not I'll have no choice but to drag my chunky Toshiba PC (a cheap emergency purchase after my last computer was stolen from my empty house during Nottinghill Carnival) from show to show in a disgracefully ugly laptop bag. Please god don't let it come to that!

In an ideal world I would be carrying one of these:

 

YSL, Downtown Laptop Case, $1795

  

Mulberry Bayswater Sleeve £349.95

Aspinal, London Ladies Laptop Bag, £375  

  

Mulberry Daria Tote Laptop Bag, £599  

Fendi Laptop Sleeve, £255 

Credits: apple.com, net-a-porter.com

THE DIGITAL FASHION REVOLUTION

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

I remember when I first got a laptop,  it was darn heavy. My first mobile phone was weighty. And dial-up Internet access was so slow I used to want to bang my head against the wall of my very 90s loft apartment in De Beauvoir road that my girlfriend Sonja used to whitewash from top to bottom every six months. Maybe it was all that white that drove me mad? ANYWAY.  Today I was reminded of those moments of technology frustration when I sat down to watch the Rodarte show live streamed from New York via Showstudio.com about an hour ago.

At first it was all good, and my tea-time interlude was accompanied by a nice strong cuppa and M&S jaffa cakes. Then Sarah Mower texted to say she couldn't get a picture. While feeling all smug that I could see Anna and Grace taking their seats and Kirsten Dunst being interviewed, the lights went down for the show and...the screen went black, and however hard I clicked and closed and re-opened the browser it remained resolutely dark. That was the end of that then. I'll probably be able to watch it later, but it won't be THE SAME. Grrr.

This rant precludes what I was intending to write about in this post, namely the digital revolution taking place in fashion and the explosion in fashion film as the medium of the future for designers to express their work and ideas. London Fashion Week has an entirely new arm this season. There is a digital space where designers can show films; Hussein Chalayan is doing one, as are Boudicca and newcomer Craig Lawrence. Hussein is calling me tomorow to tell me more about his film, so I will update then.

Over at the British Fashion Council there is a bunch of dedicated people making this digital thing happen, one of them is Clara Mercer. "The digital fashion revoution has been happening naturally; London is the worlds innovation capital, and we are the first of the global fashion weeks to have a dedicated digital space. Fashion has embraced online, and we're taking it to the world." she says. I'm looking forward to seeing how some of our most visual designers make use of the fashion film medium. Its something that excites me much. And also makes me think of McQueen again, and his unforgettable last show - Showstudio's brave and brilliant livestreaming try-out session. Lucky that I was there.

Fingers crossed for LFW. It's only a revolution when it WORKS!

http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/digitalschedule (to find out how you can get involved with fashion's digital revolution)
http://live.showstudio.com/ (for Rodarte)

REVENGE ON THE FASHION WANNABE'S

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

There is much fuss being made in the corridors of power in fashion about un-schooled interlopers crashing the scene. And there is a back atcha element to the exchange too, as bloggers get het up about fashion editors getting het up about them.

The online fuss that came out of fashion blogger Tavi's head bow obscuring the view of my colleague Paula Reed of Grazia made me realise that there is some genuine animosity towards fashion professionals from the fashion writers in the blogosphere. WHY???  I can't fathom it. We trained, earned ourselves jobs in fashion, carry them out professionally and are doing our jobs when we attend shows. We also promote fashion bloggers, read them, and support them. In my case I've become a fashion blogger too! What IS the problem?

So, I had to laugh at the gall of these two muppets, opps, I mean two posh prep school kiddies whose attempt to foil New York Fashion Week by hacking databases and putting themselves into the seating plans of major New York fashion shows got foiled.

I have to hand it to Becca Shumlin and Remy Renzullo (above), though, their ticket request letter was pure (misguided, yet twistedly correct in its structure) genius!

Hi [redacted],

This is Remy Renzullo, requesting an invitation for Alexandre Herchcovitch's Fall/Winter 2010 show. I work as a freelance stylist, currently working with the future first lady, Deborah Shumlin, of Vermont for the campaign trail and hopefully elected office. More information can be found here: http://www.shumlinforgovernor.com. In addition I have been signed on to contribute to a new fashion magazine, FUTURE. I would love to have seats or standing if available for myself and Rebecca Shumlin, the magazine's editor-in-chief and daughter of the future governor and, myself. Please let me know if this will be possible.

Thanks so much for your time,

Remy Renzullo

Read the full, hilarious story from Gawker here. Then worry that the future of fashion could be in the hands of the Remy's and Becca's of this world, and with PR's who want to give show tickets to people with those kind of credentials!



Photo credit: Getty Images.

WILL FASHION BLOGGERS CHANGE THE WORLD?

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

On Fashionblogs from Mary Scherpe on Vimeo.

Thanks to BryanBoy's ever on it nature, today I happened across this fascinating dialogue between Suzy Menkes and Mary Scherpe from Stil In Berlin, the German street photography blog. Apart from Sarah Mower, who embraced the Internet medium as early as 2000 by writing her catwalk show reviews online for Style.com, Suzy Menkes is the fashion doyenne who closely examines the changing nature of fashion's relationship with the online universe, and also accurately communicates it to the world at large. Her story on Balmain vs Balenciaga, writtern during the SS10 r-t-w collections, was just brilliant. Rumour has it that Anna Wintour has banned the word blog from being uttered in her presence. I think this story could be true, but only because she doesn't like the sound of the word itself. I can relate to that. Obviously I love blogging. But three of them on a Sunday the week before the end of January can only mean one thing - I had better stop procrastinating and  DARN WELL DO MY TAX RETURN.  

BLIPPY AND THE LUXURY SOCIETY - THE FUTURE OF FASHION NETWORKING?

Posted by the Fashion Junior at Large

Fashion went crazy for online media last year. We had bloggers sitting shoulder to shoulder with Anna Wintour on the front row, labels striving to build their online reputation (as exemplified by Burberry’s Sartorialist-style Art of the Trench website), and designers ‘tweeting’ to legions of the devoted. So what’s next?

Well, in 2010 a new breed of social networking site has emerged. One that, unlike say Facebook, provides a format that seems specifically tailored to the fashion industry. 

One example is Blippy – the Twitter style website that automatically updates your status every time you use your registered bank card, or ‘social card’ as it’s known. For example: ‘Esme Benjamin spent £1550 at Chanel’ (Now that would be a purchase worth blipping about. As things stand it’s more likely to read ‘Esme Benjamin spent £4.50 at Tesco Express’). It’s basically an ode to that very naughties philosophy ‘you are what you buy’;  a textbook example of conspicuous consumption if ever there was one.

 

Positioning itself as Blippy’s polar opposite is The Luxury Society. A social networking site co-created and edited by businessoffashion.com’s Imran Amed where, as the name denotes, those who work in luxury industries can hobnob and trade ideas in an exclusive virtual environment. The website is closed to non-members (when you count top execs from the world’s most desirable brands among your members it’s important to keep the riffraff out). Click through and you’ll be greeted by a sleek grey log-in page with a small golden key symbol. It’s the virtual equivalent of passing a fashion week after-show party that you are not invited to.

Both sites are in the beta (invite only) stage at the moment, but they are certainly interesting ideas, no? On one side you’ve got a social-networking website encouraging you to share your spending habits, on the other you’ve got one promoting secrecy and exclusivity. If Blippy and The Luxury Society are indicative of the future for fashion and social networking we’re in for a fascinating and innovative 2010.

Picture credits:
"I Shop Therefore I Am' courtesy of Barbara Kruger
Blippy courtesy of paulstamatiou.com 
Luxury Society courtesy of blog.halogennetwork.com

IF YOU ARE VISITING AFTER READING TODAY'S TELEGRAPH....

Click here for my fur story.
And to read more about Sarah Mower, click here!

WHAT WAS IT LIKE AT THE 90'S SHOPPE?

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

So did the Nineties shop at Selfridges live up to yesterday's stroll down memory lane? Well it gave me a lot of food for thought.

Today I met with the lovely Lucy Willis and Linda Hewson, the two curators of the shop for tea and we chatted about how the idea came about.

"We wanted to kick off the new decade with something provocative and nostalgic," says Linda Hewson. "A lot of people who lived through the decade as adults actually remember very little about the Nineties. Maybe they were having too good a time."

"There was a lot of laughter when we first got the product list through, " says Lucy Willis. "We had opened the criteria right up, so each buying department had their bit."

It's true that what you get in the store is a bit of everything. Classic books of the decade - for me the ultimate was Trainspotting - old magazines, CDs. Spice Girls AND Nirvana? I noted. "They were as important as each other in their own way" says Linda. For me it was Massive Attack and Nirvana all the way.

Also on sale are CD Walkmans, a bit of Damien Hirst YBA merch, limited edition T-Shirts from 90's club night WORK IT (which I hear is the best party in London right now), make up, perfume, sunglasses and clothes. Cue CK One, Thierry Mugler 'Angel' and Mac cosmetics.

My favourite aspect from a fashion point of view was seeing a cardigan from a 1994 collection by Marc Jacobs (Official Grunge if you please) supplied by Rellik on one side of the room, and then the kind of beige Acrylic Grandad cardian with "woven" leather buttons for £15 from Beyond Retro on the other side of the room. The very kind of piece that inspired Marc to do Grunge in the first place.  There is also some great Alaia tailoring, some Pam Hogg, a precisely tailored black Comme jacket with a split through the ribcage, and a Perspex Chanel link belt - but be quick. Everything supplied by Rellik is one off. Sadly NO Helmut Lang there today.

I got magazine collection envy when I saw the below. I collect magazines but lost HALF of my 90's collection - precious copies of The Face and Blitz - when a flat-share I had in Stoke Newington went wrong and I was locked out by my Bi-Polar flat-mate. As a die-hard fan of the youthful beauty of Kate Moss I might be back for the below set of covers. But will I ever regain the June 1990 cover of The Face featuring Kate that I used to treasure?

I will sign off tonight by showing you the products I am most likely to buy from this shop; namely the limited edition T-Shirts from the girls behind WORK IT. And here they are!

Oh and a big thankyou to Linda and Lucy who gave this blogger a good time. What fun they had creating this shop!

That's Lil Kim on the left; a crop top that says Work IT in the middle (not for me) and Biggie Smalls on the right. May he RIP.

The 90's are Vintage shop at Selfridges is open until 31 January with new stock arriving every week until its over.

CHUFFED WITH SELF TODAY

Posted by the Fashion Editor at Large


Last night at the Campaign Media Awards in London Grazia was given an award for the best campaign in the media and home shopping category. Triple yay! What did we win for? The fact that just over a year ago we moved the entire magazine - desks, computers, phones - to a pop-up office in Westfield, and actually created an issue from there. People thought we were mad, (we are) but it was a brilliant, exciting and ground-breaking project and the entire team worked their buns off.  It was a huge group effort - and though I am truly crap at logistics, I have my good points, and one of them is that I came up with the idea to do it in the first place!  This is where I can allow myself a little nod of satisfaction. And maybe a little jig around my office. Oh sod it, I'm gonna do a Jensen Button and spray Champagne around. But think I will save that for the Team Grazia Christmas party....

MY VISIONAIRE LOVE THING

posted by the Fashion Editor at Large

I love Visionaire. Have loved it since day one. I even own a couple. I have the one with a scrap of Madonna's dress in it, which was curated by Mario Testino, but I CANNOT FIND IT! I just looked through my entire bookcase (essentially a room of my house) and it's not there.  I have a storage nook at the flat I rent out, so I'm heading down there later to rummage. Luckily, my Visionaire with the Diana Vreeland Memos is in place on my shelf. DV is one of my all time heroines. I have read her autobiography ten times; even seen the play of it. And her Memo's are inspirational, not to mention her book Allure which can give me back my fashion editor at large mojo when I feel depleted. ANYWAY. A friend of mine in New York alerted me to the new Visionaire 2010 which is an electronic calendar with 52 curators selecting one artists' work for each day of the year. Some of the curators are Natalie Portman, James Franco, Mary-Kate Olsen and Marc Jacobs. I love it, and want it. It would be the most perfect Christmas present to self, and when this blog launches all proper like in January with an office, and our very own email addresses on fashioneditoratlarge.com Visionaire 2010 will be the perfect desk accessory.

For any like minded readers NOW is the time to make your order, especially if you live in the UK, as delivery times are three to six weeks, so I am ordering mine today from http://www.visionaireworld.com/

I'm pretty happy knowing my Vreeland Memos Visionaire is safe and well and living on my bookshelf!