Size zero, who's to blame?

Last week I attended an evening of debate surrounding the topic of size in the fashion industry. Held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and focussed around the ‘Real People Catwalk’ it was an interesting event to attend with industry insiders such as Hilary Alexander making up the panel.

The 'Real People Catwalk' was the idea of Elaine Foster-Gandey founder of Designer Sales UK (DSUK). This is the second event Elaine has hosted, the first being at one of the five DSUK sample sales she holds per year at the Truman Brewery in Shoreditch http://designersales.co.uk/.

Elaine uses her customers as models and although they didn't have size or age in common they all had one thing- personality! they were loving that catwalk and weren't afraid to show it!

Although I wasn't convinced on the styling of the show, particularly the models who I feel were not made to look at their best I tried not to let that take me away from the issue. However, I feel if a fashion show is to be taken seriously and put into context with the larger sense of the fashion world it needs to be meticulous in it's execution or risks more hurdles to face in the long run.

Following the show there was a debate from a panel including Hilary Alexander Fashion Director of The Telegraph, Eleni Renton of ethical model agency Leni's Model Management, Elaine Foster-Gandey of DSUK and writer Dariush Alavi.


The debate threw up some interesting points and I found I took a lot from the session.

Hilary pointed out that it is the clothes that are the main focus of a catwalk, the models are not supposed to be registered as the designers emphasis wants to be on the fabrics, cuts, styles not necessarily on the personality of the model.

An audience comment was that the catwalk is condemned too much when it is the wider media scrutiny from celebrity obsessed titles such as Heat that consistently point out the weaknesses in public figures, with no one ever accepted as getting it right. People are either too fat or too skinny. It is these ideals that are increasingly being cemented in our society by the growing number of celebrity fodder magazines clogging up the racks.

Eleni of Leni’s Model Management spoke a lot of sense throughout the debate. She pointed out that it is not about seeing size 20 people on the catwalk it is simply about the image being portrayed as a healthy aspirational one. We all want to see beautiful creatures walking down the runway or in our magazines, and a size 20 just as equally as a size 0 is not aspirational to most people.

For more information on the panelists visit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion
http://www.lenismodels.com/
http://dariushalavi.com/

Desperately Seeking Madonna

I happened to switch on to Desperately Seeking Susan whilst browsing the numerous brain-numbing shows on my freeview box and I settled on the 80's easy watching flick starring Madonna and Patricia Arquette.

Now I know it is a shockingly bad film but I swore my allegiance to Madonna many, many years ago and seeing the positive in most of her work you have to appreciate the outfits in the movie.

It inspired me to route through the archives and watch some of the Virgin Tour from 1985. Flashbacks of me dancing around my living room to an audience consisting of my mum, dad, nan, grandad and other close family- you can't beat a captive audience!

Britney, Lady Ga Ga, you can keep the imitations. As with everything, I'd rather have the original....

Spring 10 over and out

As the last fashion party champagne cork pops in Paris it signals the end of another season. Hundreds of shows, thousands of photographs and millions spent in the respective capital cities on copious amounts of champagne, cocktails and whatever else took the fashion packs fancy.

New York seems a world away as the fashion week trail blazed on to London, Milan and Paris.

London's 25th anniversary fashion week was celebrated by the return of Burberry and Matthew Williamson as well as a well documented visit from fashion's all seeing eye Anna Wintour.

Wading through the collections has been much less tedious thanks to video footage of the catwalks. The frantic clicking from one image to the next has been replaced by being able to see the fluidity and movement of the clothes and experience the pace and atmosphere of the collections in a much more 'real' sense. As seen below in the impressive Givenchy collection covered by Style.com.

Sunny day's plus Vivienne Westwood make me happy!

Now after the Armageddon of a day we had yesterday (day's which often make me consider emigrating) I was pleased to wake up to a clear blue sky. After residing myself last night that it would not stop raining solidly for at least 5 months I had a spring in my step and skipped (well alright walked briskly) off to work in the knowledge that the sun was shining.

At the moment I am helping to organise a fashion party for the end of October. Today I had the hard job of picking one Vivienne Westwood frock, from the many beautifully crafted pieces, to feature on the night. It will be displayed on the evening alongside other iconic British brands such as Matthew Williamson and Burberry.

Now the dilemma I have is what to wear to a British Fashion party that will be inundated with fashion insiders flaunting their fashion know-how.

Well I have two weeks to decide so my eyes are peeled for an outfit fit to wear alongside Westwood and Williamson..let the shopping challenge commence!

Making an entrance...

Anyone with me on this look?..no?..ohh alright then..Ghetto Chic I'm rocking it this season. Now I realise this is not quite how a metallic trend should ever be worn and before anymore of my fashion cred' goes out the window I must point out this was in relation to the 90's extravaganza birthday I attended on Saturday (see previous post for lowdown!)

Now I do like to get into the swing of things as you can see and the party was fab, although I must admit I felt a tad over dressed on initial entrance. My friend hadn't filled me with confidence when an incoming text read "are you nearly here, only a few people have made an effort!" as I was en route in my metallic gold outfit and gravity defying chav jewellery. Oh well 'never knowingly under-dressed' I strolled on in and headed to the dance floor as soon as you could say 'running man'.

Partied until the early hours. I have to say hi-top trainers definitely do have their merits on a night out, can't see me making a habit of it though, an entrance just isn't the same in a pair of flat shoes that make my feet look 3 times bigger!

Anyway 90's party weekend over and time to head back to the future, 2009 beckons... well kind of, I'm not giving up my stonewashed denim anytime soon. :)