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<Wednesday, 3rd March 2010>
An army marches on its stomach
feed me
eat me
<Wednesday, 24th February 2010>
London Fashion Week Autumn/Winter 2010
This week i've been photographing and videoing backstage at the catwalk shows at London Fashion Week.
I love the guts of the backstage and production far more than the clothes on show. Some of those i saw were pretty appauling.
Below you can see the work of hairdresser-turned-fashion-designer Charlie Le Mindu, followed by stills from a video performance by fashion designer Craig Armstrong, next followed by jewellery by RCA textile student Marie Parsons for meswear designer Stefán Orschel-Read, and finally some random frontstage catwalk action showing some of the people who breath life & death into the shows.
Expert opinion shifts gravity.
This year New York & London Fashion Week could both be accessed from afar by live streamed video of the official 'on-schedule' catwalk shows.
The London 'off-schedule' also took to the airwaves, with On|Off TV producing fast turn-around 'video on demand', and the Vauxhall Fashion Scout blog including daily catwalk illustrations, show reports, documentary photography and catwalk pictures. The Fashion156 blog further added to the fast relay of information, showing some great photos and show reports updated regularly. Together with an endless stream of minute-by-minute Facebook commentary, links and status updates, the whole experience of New York and London Fashion Weeks became opened up to public scrutiny in a way it never has been, and an activity witnessed better from a gods-eye digital view by everyone, rather than only enjoyed by a select VIP few on the ground stuck in the thick of it all.
The Times Newspaper in London ran an interesting article on Tuesday 23rd February under the headline 'As bloggers blag the best seats, are they the future for fashion- or liggers with laptops?', in which the old-guard of seasoned newspaper and magazine journalists seemed a little sniffy and indignant that their comfortable front row seating was feeling a little squeezed, with the sudden influx of a new breed of hungry small-hipped young bloggers.
I'd say the more comfortable viewpoint might be being enjoyed at a far greater distance from the seating plan. Perhaps at home in the bath with a cup of tea and laptop. The games changing, the goldrush to the shows might not be where the real talent is best appreciated or engaged with.
My London Fashion Week TOP TEN SHOWS:
1. Iris Van Herpen
2. Central Saint Martins - Lilly Heine and Shao-Yen Chen
3. Chris Kane
4. Louise Goldin
5. Michael Van der Ham at Fashion East
6. Future Classics
7. Erdem
8. Jonathan Saunders
9. Bora Aksu
10. Pringle
Best Film Presentations: Little Shillpa and Georgie Harding.
A logo by any other name
i was quite excited when i woke up this morning to learn that i'd become the new Ambassador for Lancome,
only to then find out it's Julia Roberts.
That women has never once redelivered any post . . .
Freddie Cubed
Royal College of Art February 2010, Professor Clare Johnson, Freddie Robins & i, photographed by Visiting Professor Karen Nicol
<Wednesday, 19th February 2010>
Valentine 2010
watch the video: http://julianand.blip.tv/file/3215917
Heroes & Anti-Heroes
I'm going to be quite honest with you and say that the news of Alexander McQueen's death touched a nerve and sank in pretty slowly and deeply.
I'd been thinking about suicide myself. Not planning it, but entertaining the idea, i'd been imagining the possibility of writing pieces of code into this website which would allow me to continue releasing new posts weekly each Wednesday from beyond the grave. I figured i could launch 13 posts in 13 weeks before some hacker decided to put the site out of its vainglorious misery.
Am i serious? Well only in that death is a recurring theme to a lot of creative people, if you're open minded to the possibilities of life, then where do we draw the lines between the two? Why censor what should or shouldn't be imagined, pondered or researched, i'm certainly not scared to look death in the eye, to draw the lines forward or back, or tweak its nose.
After my mum died i thought about suicide a lot, but luckily i came through the other side, and now just think about the technicalities of keeping this website going when i'm eventually no more. I guess i'm practical. I think about such things when i go running along the seafront at night. I think about everything. It's important to not leave anything out.
So when i heard the shock news that Alexander McQueen had killed himself it brought me back from that black watery edge with quite a jolt. Perhaps it even saved me, had i been at-all serious in the first place.
The news of his death unfolding, by text message, Facebook status updates, online news stories, television and newspapers reports, made me think a lot about the connections between us, between everyone in fashion who felt the gravitational push or pull of McQueen's influence, whether you love his work or hate it.
I didn't know the guy personally, i'd never even shook his hand, i'd been around him a few times at fashion shows and events, and sat behind him once in the second row as his assistant fed him lit cigarettes, but we never actually met. We just occupied similar times and spaces.
My very first show in September 1998 consisted of sending out hundreds of hand-made invitations to a pretend fashion show, a non-existent event with a date and time specifically chosen to clash directly with the Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 1999 catwalk show. No venue was specified on the invitation.
Back then off-schedule shows often clashed with the on-schedule, but nobody would ever be foolish or mad enough to run up against the might of McQueen, it would be commercial suicide. So he became my first target at London Fashion Week to aim at.
It was an amusing wind-up at the time, but i was serious when i imagined the collision course i aspired to meet.
I wrote in 2002 after offloading my fashion label on eBay: " nothing nothing began from a bedroom in my mum and dads house in Worthing, in 1998. Back then i didn't have enough money to show my work to press and buyers, so i started sending out hundreds of fashion show invites to non-existent events...I was interested in the idea of 'Concurrence': that i was doing something creatively experimental at 'exactly the same moment in time as the most important fashion designer in the world'. It's just that nobody knew or cared, because i didn't show anything. Showing 'nothing' seemed the right and proper place to begin."
For two seasons i sent out fake invitations, as i readied myself to show. Then finally as i arrived in London Fashion Week with my first real show, McQueen suddenly and unexpectedly left, instead showing his Spring/Summer 2000 show in New York. His absence resonated through LFW leaving the press clutching at straws to find suitable replacements for the spotlight. I became drawn into this vaccuum. Back then the new designers showing at LFW were pigeonholed as being either the 'New McQueen' or the 'New Hussein'. I preferred to NOT be labelled the later, but McQueen shoes were far too large for a penniless designer to walk in.
By Autumn/Winter 2002 McQueen had completely abandoned London for Paris Fashion Week, never to show at LFW again. I often felt his absence, and had recently pondered whether the global Recession might dislodge him from Paris Fashion Week. If anyone could blow London Fashion Week into new shape it would have been McQueen's homecoming. I just imagined he'd come back to show, not to die. It is such a wasted opportunity.
In Spring/Summer 2002 i launched a new label called JULIAN AND with a collection entitled 'Heroes & Anti-Heroes'. It featured the embroidered and printed faces of VIP designers, editors and buyers whom i either loved or hated. It was my opportunity to turn the tables on my industry audience and put them all under scrutiny. I wouldn't however reveal which ones i liked or disliked, because this heightened the intrigue and caused more controversy. There was one exception: the British designer John Flett, who i really looked up to when i was a student, who died unexpectedly at the age of 27 whilst i was studying on the 1st year of my Fashion BA degree in 1991.
McQueen face appeared on 4 garments. It goes without saying that his inclusion was out of real admiration.
I'm sure he had better collections left still inside him.
He's one of the few designers i would have loved to cut for.
He's a sort of hero to me, but also an anti-hero, because he leaves far too soon having won many battles but not the enduring war.
His young age makes me worry that students will be encouraged to take an early dive rather than fight to the bitter end. And that is the real tragedy of this story.
Goodbye McQueen, RIP. I feel your absence and it strengthens my resolve.
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Alexander McQueen
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John Flett
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Invitation to a non-existent show.
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<Wednesday, 10th February 2010>
As the London Fashion Week circus triumphantly comes to town before fucking off to Milan, i'll be writing a bit about who i think is actually deserving of the attention, and who ought to have the most money and adoration thrown at them.
I'll be seeing a few of my favorite designers shows, standing as far back as i can to get a proper view of the proceedings, videoing, meeting people behind the scenes, and taking backstage pictures of designers in trauma... some of which i'll share with you here.
I've looked through all the various on&off schedule show timetables, deconstructed them, resolved time clashes between opposing shows, and seperated the chaff from the wheat without flinching, and put together my own personal timetable to London Fashion Week, which will be my trail.
You are welcome to join me on my journey, cross pathways, and share this guide.
So here's the good stuff:
Because not all shows are worth seeing.
Click here to download a printable PDF version of the 'Push Comes To Shove' LFW Guide.
I know i'm sometimes a lecturer, and therefore older than some of the people i meet and talk to, and part of the educational establishment.
But i wish just sometimes that i was seen as human, just like you, with feelings and emotions, sensitivities and insecurities,
and you could talk to me confidently like an equal, swap stories and ask how i'm feeling today, and what i'm up to in real life,
what i'm doing later tonight and if i fancy hooking up or going out dancing, and what sorts of things make me laugh or cry or feel sick.
I'd like to feel i meant something to you, otherwise what's the point to our relationship and my teaching you. We're just all going through the motions.
Blood, sweat, and tears.
When i make garments i manipulate the cloth by hand as i join together seams,
working with the fabrics natural drape and easing seamlines evenly so they fit.
I sew in bursts and rhythms, using the under-teeth and knee pedal to walk/run the fabric through the machine, fingering the fabric carefully beneath the needles tip.
I understand the the tolerance of each fabric, the subtleties of easing and stretching, pivoting and topstitching.
Then i use my hands again to press the seams open, using the moisture from my finger tips or a licked thumb, ironing cautiously, steaming only when absolutely necessary, and sometimes using a damp cloth to protect the seams from heat shine. Some seams i open purely by hand, rather than using heat, instead scoring them open with my thumb nail like creasing paper, and i know which seams require no pressing at all, which open naturally on their own when the garment is hung overnight, and allowed to drop, settle and relax.
My hands and fingers are all over my womens garments. I touch every inch of them, my DNA is everywhere, sewing isn't something i prefer to delegate, it is part of the cutting, part of the design, and if i do work with other machinists, i need them to understand and be able to demonstrate to them the high level of finish necessary, and how much of their hand skills will be treasured in each garment.
<Wednesday, 3rd February 2010>
No such thing as complex.
I know this might sound absurd and the consequences horrific
but i have this strange feeling Chaos Theory is up to mischief within my head
restructuring atoms is naughty combinations and improbable patterns
and that there is a clockwork wind-up galaxy or a glass paperweight the size of an orange
slowly growing inside my brain like a tumor
Soon there won't be any room left for me.
You'll be kicking yourself
you didn't forsee it
the inevitable
the reality of the situation
the stark staringly obvious
crashing in out of nowhere
turning the world upside down
inside out back to front
undermining all presupositions
making us re-question everything,,,,,
because we didnt want to
because we believed everything was fine
that everything would always be the same for ever
that nothing would ever change to this extent
that nothing could possibly hurt or divide us
that there was no life possible beyond the here&now
these moments together encountered
the passing of time, places, projects and people
we simply didnt anticipate life being so absurdly changed
the jail crumbling open,
and the eastend landsliding into the west.
next>>
All garments, video, graphics, websites and text are copyrighted to Julian Roberts (c) 2009. A lot of the images assembled above came from Google or somewhere, and are the copyright of their original owner. But their assembly together is very much my own doing, it's difficult to say really where creative ownership begins & ends, i'm certainly not averse to creative trespass. So no reproduction without permission, unless you're feeling subversive, punk.