THE BRIT FASH AWARDS!

Not good at dressng up for the red carpet, so I did it my way. LOL.

A gorgeous drapey Vivienne Westwood gown with scarily high splits, my vintage MA1 jacket customised with Louis Vuitton patches from Kim Jones...

My 1960s tiara

And a genius 'packet of crisps' evening bag by Anya Hindmarch 

My highlights were being on Topman's table with all our lovely boys up for emerging menswear, Simone Rocha scooping best emerging womenswear award, Miuccia, Marc and Donatella (just for coming), and Edie Campbell's mullet, outfit and speech where she thanked her pet, Dolly...

Brilliant Suzy Menkes got the standing ovation she deserved, as did Terry and Tricia from i-D. Christopher Kane sweetly thanked his sis Tammy and baby niece Bonnie when he finally won Designer of the Year (about bloody time). 

Congratulations everyone!! A very FUN night xx

LOVING LOVE ISSUE NINE

Excuse me!!! Look how gorgeous our new issue is!! 

Inside are very many inspiring treats. Here are just a couple of my favourites...

A lovely intimate unfashiony shoot with Cara Delevingne sat around at home with her Mum and drumming. Cara is a drumming fanatic like my hero Animal from the Muppets. (OMG imagine if one day they were to do a duet together. OMG!!!)

From the same shoot - Edie Campbell changing a lightbulb, locked out her flat, and pulling manic faces on the M40. Love this so much! 

Ahhh look it's Kate Moss wearing flowers, a dragon fly and stockings. Such pretty curves. Words by Angela Carter.

Legendary sixties icon Peggy Moffitt larking around on set like a teenager. Uhhhmazing.

 Hot artist/hilarious person Phoebe Collings-James. Gorgeous.

Superbubbly Abbey Clancey and the gang in lovely Liverpool. Hiya!!

Funkyoffish fashion starlet Ashley Williams. Yes babe!

Edie rocking long curls. Oh so wrongly right. 

Edie in seventies Blue Peter dancing mode. Perfection!!

Hollie-May Saker. That face!

Most of all THIS: Cara manically air-drumming/dancing/cross eyed rapping along to Azealia's 1991, with Three Musketeer hair, wearing a strange outfit by Anthony 'Fred' Symonds. Everything colliding in comic wonkiness yet looking stunning. Katie Grand renaming her DOGTANIAN and me getting the really bad giggles. 

Oh hi Katie!

That was a really fun issue. Thank you for that!!

OH HI JANUARY!!

Umm....whose idea was it to do London menswear shows the first week of January ie we are practically still in our pjs cos it's Boxing Day?? Please can we not do that again. It gave us CRAZY FACE.

Anyway, London's menswear was pretty awesome, and a personal highlight for me was Martine Rose who I love. 

She plays with references, fabrics, cuts, cleverly remixing them into something new and disorientating. The stripped back presentation format in an awkward venue only added to the intensity. It was lyrical, experimental and brilliant. 

The press release said the collection was inspired by ancient sovereignty and Jamaica's Rasta community where the art of dressing is to elevate status not through material riches, through attitude, detail, ritual. But she was giving me more on top - Northern Soul, Acid House, Dancehall, Punk, all colliding. And the casting and styling? OMG. 

Martine's freestyle approach kind of reminds me of the way the Wild Bunch (pre-Massive Attack) used to put their sets together. I grew up on their music at street parties and sneaking into the Dug Out club where their brilliantly selected tunes and samples collided with whoever was chatting on the mic.....

It takes a certain knowledge, appreciation, confidence and sensitivity to mash stuff up and create newness. Controlled chaos. The finest hot mess. 

Most love for Martine. And for Horace Andy's vocals on my favourite track from an album that still sounds epic after all these years...

EDDIE!!!

I love a young artist called Eddie Peake. Here he is, wearing a denim 'Snowdon lll' Acne shirt with some nice gathers in the shoulder seam and fullness in the sleeve.

It reminded me how much I like those sort of shirts Elvis used to wear, especially the blue velvet one his mum made that he wore to play Tupelo, Mississippi. Aka the shirt to end all shirts.

After discovering Eddie's work at Sadie Coles gallery this Spring, I interviewed him for Love magazine. He was incredible. Solve Sundsbo shot him naked while we threw buckets of Peptobismol coloured pink milk at him. Pure joy.

Anyway, recently I asked him if he'd like to make some tshirts for the Studio Voltaire project and luckily he said YES and made 3 special artworks. The day I went to collect the artworks at his studio inside the Royal Academy I shook with happiness. I love them!!!

We've printed them onto tshirts which you can buy for just £30 and all money goes to Studio Voltaire which is a brilliant project to support artists. This is how Spartacus Chetwynd who just won the Turner prize (yaay!) described them: 

“Studio Voltaire is in Clapham, William Wilberforce used to live in Clapham, I'd like to have met him. And I'd like to have known Lavender Hill when Lavender was grown there... But at least I have witnessed the amazing goings on at Studio Voltaire... a veritable hotbed of outrageous, ground breaking, inventive art!'”

You don't have to go to Clapham, you can order them online here, or even better visit their pop up shop at 17a Adams Row, Mayfair. It's full of delights and you might even find some of the artists like Julie Verhoeven playing shopgirl for the day. FUN!!

I've been away for a while...

Here's an Ed Ruscha picture I find so beautiful I look at it at least a few times a day...

And here's a beautiful Richard Nicoll SS13 jumper I pre-ordered. The aqua reminds me of the colour of the Carribean sea.. 

Until it arrives, I'll be wearing this jumper from his new menswear collection; an equally dreamy colourblocked blue on blue affair...

Anything and everything blue seems to remind me of the beach these days...

..must get some Carribean sun back in my life. It's been a while.

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it aint going away" Elvis Presley

CONGRATULATIONS BETH...♥ ♥

Please raise your glasses to my truly B-R-I-L-L-I-A-N-T right-hand girl & co-pilot in crime Beth...she's leaving at Christmas to have a baba!!!

I'm totally thrilled for her (and gutted to lose her!!!)

So, I'm looking to hire Beth's 'twin' (ha ha)...and soon!! Although we have a laugh in the office, I gotta warn you - the position is waaay more graft than glamour, fashion frills are few and far between. Basically, you'll need to be massively organised, with an insatiable apetite for hardcore admin and number crunching budgets. Here's a rough outline of what Beth does:

Manage cashflow/funding budgets and deadlines for Fashion East/MAN/Menswear Installations.

Liaise with accountant. Write funding reports.

Organise panel meetings to select new designers.

Work with our designers to help them produce their shows / installations.

Keep Fashion East website updated.

 

Write press releases and liase with key fashion press.

Liase with photography/film crews to document our shows.

Manage design/print/mail out of show invites & oversee seating plan.

Recruit and manage a small team of interns and petty cash.

IF YOU'RE UP FOR IT, PLEASE SEND YOUR CV to applications@fashioneast.co.uk

PS we are also looking for new interns too!

PARIS...ALL ABOUT LOVE...

This was the sight that greeted us when we arrived at Tania Fares Paris home for a private dinner to celebrate Sarah's MBE. Candels were being lit in the dining room of her family home, which has been lovingly restored to its 17th century glory. I felt like I was in a Visconti movie. One of the most enchanting, romantic places I've ever been...

I love Sarah off duty. She was all smiles (even if she probably had about 10 reviews to write later that night) with Ben Kirchhoff, Richard Nicoll, Louise Gray, Michael van der ham, Mary Katranzou, Erdem, and Patrick from E Tautz (who it turned out makes suits for Tania's uncle. Small world)...

Another place I got obsessed with this trip was my local bakery, really cheap and run down..but a million miles from Greggs Bethnal Green Road...

It wasnt all fancy though, I also loved hanging out at the Irish Bar, watching the French noisily lose football matches on the big screen, having beer n chips for dinner with Maarten van der Horst. Nous sommes doomed. Mais oui.

Really great to hang out in the showrooms with the designers and the buying teams who actually buy into our British designers, such as the ever gorgeous Rachel Morgans from Asos...looking supercute in House of Jazz for Lulu & Co...

And in between buyers appointments, having time to catch up properly with friends. Here's Roks, Rich and Baby Mia in our local bistro...

..and here's our favourite bar maid...the sweetest girl in Paris..with the best jumper...