Moodboard: All Givenchy Errything

Seeing as summer is refusing to come out to play, sweaters have been on my mind. Mostly the Givenchy ones. Givenchy everything most of the time, but particularly the sweaters from the Autumn Winter 13 collection. Bambi, shark skulls, flaming tamborines, pin up girls, fallen angels, fire paisley…Ricardo’s crew know how to mix print to make images that are playful, dark, sexy and oh-so-wearable. It’s grunge’s older, better dressed sister. A bit mischievous, a bit John Stezaker, a bit collegiate sweatshirt and a little bit record sleeve art. Perfect for weather that’s not quite cashmere cold, but not jacket only warm either. All donations gratefully received. A flaming tambourine for crying out loud!

Links: peony, zepplin, clash, new order, shark , statue, statue, statue, box o disney, Rembrant Rembrant Rembrant, flaming skull, tiger, medals, medals

 

 

Resolve. And dresses.

New Years Resolutions are a load of yak. Unless they actually work. Then that’s cool. Maybe it’s yak to think we’ll instantly change into new, awesome-r beta-versions of ourselves, but maybe it’s cool to assess where we are in our lives and make some tweaks. Woah, I’m getting deep. Anyway, seeing as this blog began off the back of a resolution, it seems fitting that I share with you what I have up my sleeve for the coming 365…

1. Wear more dresses. Be a real girl.

Wearing your personality and wearing what you are interested in can be two very different things. What I mean is, people often react to you based on what you wear, not your personality. So while you (I) think studded leather everything with all the rings that will fit on your hands is something you (I) like to look at and therefore wear, you are (I am) not a bad ass biker with a massive chopper and a knife up my sleeve. Problem. So, I have endeavoured to stop scaring the living bejeezus out of people and am socially experimenting with wearing dresses. Although I’m convinced part of me must like it when people are surprised that I’m not a total witch, I am curious to see the difference in how I am perceived by looking a little less terrifying…

The real girl thing is a bigger problem. My 80′s and 90′s lo-fi upbringing makes me reticent to any kind of preening, pouting, swooning and stropping and all the fandango that surrounds being a REAL GIRL. That whole modern-feminist-minimal-independent-kinda-alt-kinda-grungy-don’t-really-care-that-much-and-I-don’ t-even-have-the-time-anyway-because-I-have-other-goals-in-my-life attitude I have going on makes me pretty much adverse to the whole thing, actually. However. I have been watching a load of old films and I’m just plain old jealous of all those real girls and their real girl ways. And sure, nearly all of them are terrible role models propped up by their times to perpetuate the notion of woman in the home and woman as object, and yada yada yada…but damn they look good. I wanna look that good. Like a real girl. Like Audrey, or Bette, of Faye, or Ginger. Or Marilyn. A girl can dream.

So while I am more than likely going to fail miserably at being a REAL GIRL, I shall make steps towards it by wearing frocks. And when they look like this, that’s gonna be easy peasy.

Top Row: Balenciaga, APC, Balmain. Middle Row: Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Valentino Bottom Row: Roberto Cavalli, Thakoon Addition, Proenza Schouler. Images via Style.com and vogue.com

Top Row: Just Cavalli, Just Cavalli, Holly Fulton. Middle Row: Dries Van Noten. Bottom Row: Theysken’s Theory, Celine.

All images via style.com

Fashion (bitch) flowers

I spend half my life raging at flowers. Proper rage, ruing them, cursing the petal-y feckers and all their petals and funny shapes that often makes drawing them a pain in the kaboose. Luckily, they have a certain magic that keeps me from wanting to vomit all over them when I’m not doing textiles. Good work, flower magic. Good work flowers, being all petal-y and pretty. There was a discussion in the studio recently about favourites and I mentioned peonies as a forerunner for best one. They were deemed “fashion” flowers, in the way girls are deemed “fashion” – the “bitch” is silent, like the k in know. And the w, actually, now that I think about it…Anyway, bite me, they are gorgeous. And while we’re at it, if we’re talking fashion flowers, eh, like, everyone knows that chrysanthemums are the it flower for SS13, as seen all over Gucci and just about everywhere else. Pssssshhhhhhh.

Also, there are no real losers in this game. Flowers are pretty. End of.

link, link, link, link, link, link, link

link, link, link

See?!

Gucci, Etro & Dries Van Noten, Spring Summer 2013. All images via Style.com

Exhibition: Tim Walker

 

Given that this exhibiton has been open for a month, this is nothing that hasn’t been said before probably a million times and more eloquently and definitely more ebulliently.  However. Tim Walker’s exhibition in Somerset House is a must see in my book because….

He is dead good at colour – pink and blue are his thing. He like totally owns them. Like the way Jeurgen is a bit yellow. Cool colours, cold, dream like and a bit weird.

His use of light is also great. It is his own, and though much copied, rarely equalled. It’s fresh, but stifled. Diffused isn’t the right way of describing it, it’s like a dead sort of floating thing. I guess dreamlike, which is good, because that what he goes for most of the time, like a weird film full of broken dolly models or something. That’s it, his work is cinematic, not just two dimensional, but really visceral and imaginative and evocative. Yeah.

Walker really goes for exaggeration. He likes hammering his point home, making everything larger than life. Scale is for emphasis with him, like block caps “this is really important”. Again with the dreams thing I guess. Sometimes it might be fun if that was possible in real life. Like you know when you are really hungry and you want a MASSIVE sandwich??  But then I guess it would suck if you were really afraid of something and it was gigantic because it was a big deal…hmmmm. Digression aside, his scale plays with his love of fantasy and creating dreamy scenes. And he totally rocks it.
Anyway. He’s great. And the images are great. In fact, the only thing that wasn’t great were the little stickers accompanying the work – they looked so last minute and out of place (the typeface didn’t even match the blurb on the walls – morto). But that’s me being pedantic. Here are some of my favourite bits, snapped on my iPhone.

 

 

 

 

 

Trend Watch: Plaid

While I’ve been very bad at blogging for quite some time now I’ve been pretty productive elsewhere in my life. Here’s one of the moodboards I’ve been working from in the studio. Check, plaid, tartan. Whatever you wanna call it. It’s not newsworthy that grunge is back  - even Look magazine is all over that shit. It is also arguable that plaid is not, in fact, back because it never really went away…it’s just more that it has been promoted…While print is having a maximal moment, a plaid is a simpler more minimal way of doing it. Loud without being fussy. This season’s plaids are in fresh new colours, as well as referencing classic 90′s styles. What I like about plaid for Spring Summer 2013 is the combinations of print and textures, á la Dries with the florals and the mettalics. Or Richard Chai Love with the washed out, painterly thing. And if all else fails, just throw on a mini kilt and matching jacket and look like a total Betty, as per Cher in Clueless. Way cool.

Plaid Moodboard

Put a Dragon on it.

Dragons are the new tigers. If you don’t believe me, I refer you to Dries Van Noten’s AW12/13 collection. If you still don’t believe me, well, fine. But I’m telling you. Dragons rule.

Guilty Pleasure: Cavalli

I have a bit of a sick feeling in my stomach saying this. I think I love Cavalli now. I don’t know whether they changed or whether I changed but something has gone awry somewhere and now I can’t get enough. It has been creeping up on me for the past few seasons, pleated animals, awesome baroques, tropicals, more animals. And those baseball hats. If someone sees my good taste lying around will they drop it back to me please. Thanks.

 

 

 

 

Roberto Cavalli Resort 2013

 

 

 

Just Cavalli Resort 2013

All images via Style.com

And Another Thing – Swimwear, Feminism and Body Issues

Last week, I paid horribly for the fact that I am going on holiday. Post tropical illness injection (needles, ew), I had to go bikini shopping* on Oxford Street. It. Was. Horrifying. I felt attacked by swarms and swarms of crappy, tacky, badly made beach attire without even one or two things in the middle that were acceptable. And the more everywhere was peddling the same crap the more I got annoyed. It wasn’t just that this season’s swimwear is not my style, it’s that they are in no way practical, functional, or fit for purpose. It got my inner feminist working overdrive, and not so much because of the horrible frills, trims and tack-central shapes and colours but rather because every bloody bikini and swimsuit is padded here or a bit tucked there. By the time I had reached Marble Arch I was properly enraged, with feminism steaming out of my ears.

Terrifying Frilly Swimwear From The Highstreet

WHAT is with the assumption that girls with small to medium boobs want giant knockers and therefore everything must be padded? Now ladies, if you’ve got a good rack, props. I ain’t hatin’, celebrate those boobies! My point is though, why can’t us ittybittytitty girls celebrate too? I am comfortable with the size of my chest. I don’t want it to be any bigger, especially as a result of a bikini or a bra that pushes (pun intended) the idea that I need big boobs to be womanly. No, I don’t.

It’s the same point I am always trying to make – that women are all different sizes and shapes and that so long as you are healthy you should be happy in yourself and society should leave you be the way you are. I don’t want a weird tummy tuck swimsuit. I don’t want my bikini to look like a wonderbra. Fair enough if you do, but it is a seriously depressing state of affairs when buyers won’t even entertain the notion that women are comfortable with themselves. Of all the masses of swimwear that I saw, there was maybe less than 1% that was just simple, unenhanced, the way nature intended. This was not an unconscious decision, the high street seems to have decided that women are not good enough as they are and therefore need all this padding. You know what, it might even be true, but it is not up to some buyer to decide that for me, so I shall be heading to sportsdirect.com and buying a Speedo. And, if I had loadsa cash, these.

Mara Hoffman SS12 from Asos

ASOS Digital Beach Scene Cut Out Bandeau swimsuit SS12

Wildfox swimsuit from Asos SS12

Emma Cook One Piece Digital Print Swimsuit from Asos SS12

Mara Hoffman Print One Piece Swimsuit SS12 Net-a-Porter

We Are Handsome Digital Print One Piece from Net-a-Porter SS12

Yves Saint Laurent One Piece Swimsuit from Net-a-Porter SS12

images via net-a-porter and asos.com

*Yes, yes I know…first world problems…

Time to say goodbye….to my wardrobe

You want a piece of me? Now it’s possible!! I am currently selling off a bunch of stuff on eBay, mostly things that I keep meaning to wear but then never do. It’s mostly American Apparel, and rarely worn – as I have mentioned on several occasions I have a wardrobe bursting with AA clothes, when I start rotating it can take months before I rewear something (first world problems….).

So, if you fancy a bargain, have a gander at my listings. There’s disco pants, and all sorts!

Happy bidding.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/iamjanealexandra/m.html?item=130704995936&sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p3984.m1586.l2649&_trksid=p4340.l2562

Images via americanapparel.net

Summer lovin’

So it’s really warm in London. Like, proper hot. On the tube, in the studio, walking around. I have spent the last week trying to balance wearing the least amount possible to not roast (I’m Irish, I’m not used to the heat!) and wearing enough work-appropriate clothes to not get fired for indecency. Here’s what I came up with today. My Nike basketball tank is one of my new favourite things, I got it in Brixton for £1. Win.

Not such a win is taking pictures in the morning – note to self: next time, check the light before you take photos. Idiot :/

Top, Nike, thrifted; Skirt & Shorts, American Apparel; Sandals, H&M