JoJo

LFW ACCESSORIES: Joanna Cave’s Timeless AW12 Collection

jojo — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:12:46 +0000

While jewellery hunting at London Fashion Week’s Feb 2012 Exhibition, we came across some beautifully detailed pieces our jewellery box craves. Inspired by and dedicated to the working women of India, Joanna Cave’s timeless AW12 collection captures sun kissed jewellery that is perfect for adding an elegant touch to your look. From golden sun rays to a breath taking sunset, the pieces extravagant colour’s are attention grabbing and name calling.

Whether it be the bold Anuva rings or Aarti earrings, the pieces are a cross of intricacy and simplicity. Designed to the minute detail, Joanna Cave’s collection is the epitome of enduring femininity.

Have a look at the pieces below:

Aarti

Anuva Rings

Atma GP

Gayatri GP

Hansika R

Janani GP

Jyoti

Krupa

Lakshmi R

Madhu GP

Mallika

Nalini GP

Nilaya R

Saheli GP

Saraswati Bangles

Shanti GP

Yasmina

Yogita

To view Joanna’s SS12 and previous collections or have a look at her stockists, visit her website on www.joannacave.com

DESIGNER INTERVIEW: MARTYNA DARGIEWICZ

Holly Hobkirk — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:00:10 +0000

TO VIEW MORE WORK BY HOLLY HOBKIRK, GO TO http://www.hollyhobkirk.com

In celebration of London College of Fashion‘s recent MA Showtime, we’ve spoken to a few of the designers showcasing in the event. First up is Digital Fashion graduate Martyna DArgiewicz, who launches her brand, Theory of Everything, this Spring.

Firstly, could you explain a bit about your background?

My parents are both actors so I was brought up spending a lot of my time in changing rooms, make up rooms and costume departments – it was there that the love for dressing up was injected into me. I could spend hours pretending I’m someone else. Later on in life I became fascinated by what people wear and what it says about them. Thinking back on my theatre days, for me fashion was just a costume you wore in public. I still believe it to be true. I decided to study fashion in Scotland at Heriot Watt University mostly because I fell in love with Scotland whilst working on the Edinburgh Fringe Festivals. It was the best decision I could ever make – Heriot Watt was fantastic, with the best resources for a designer in the making I have ever seen. Living in a small town in the Scottish Borders meant that there were no distractions to the creative process; life was cheap and cheerful but full of challenges. Living away from London meant difficulties in access to good fabrics – that’s how my adventure with digital prints began.

What was it that drew you particularly toward Digital Fashion?

During university I became very involved in digital print – the ability to have complete control over my collection without having to rely on supplied fabrics was incredible. I decided to do the Digital Fashion course because I recognize the path fashion is taking – more and more amazing resources are becoming available to the designers and I wanted to be a part of this innovatory wave. With 3D designs, digital pattern making and body scanning, the industry will soon undergo a complete face lift. That’s what MA Digital Fashion at University of the Arts was designed to prepare me for.

What sort of woman do you have in mind when designing?

The Theory of Everything woman is a young professional, setting off on a new path of an exciting career. She needs fashionable clothing that’s easy to take care of, dress up and down and is travel friendly. She wants colorful pieces that reflect her vibrant personality. Theory of Everything finds solutions for these needs.

All of your work seems to have a very bright, energetic feel. Is this a continuing theme we can expect to see in future collections?

Yes, I am very passionate about colour in fashion. I believe the environment we live in and the colours we surround ourselves with have a huge impact on our mood. The more colour we have in our life the better we feel and the easier it is to face everyday challenges. Colour is also a very powerful tool in communicating our feelings and bringing confidence into our life. I think there’s not enough of it in the British streets – we see it in the shops but somehow it doesn’t filter into everyday life. I would like to change that.

Your latest collection features iPhone and Blackberry covers, what was it that led you to include them?

The idea behind T.of.E is to create a unified brand of various products all tied together with an easily recognizable print identity. The T.of.E customer is a busy, modern woman – she lives on the go and wants to maintain her style wherever she goes. A Smart Phone is the ‘it’ accessory of today’s world, so it needs to be included in a brand like T.of.E. Laptop covers and Kindle stickers will come next!

What can we expect to see from Theory of Everything in the future?

For now the company will focus on very limited edition products like the iPhone and Blackberry covers available at the moment – we will see portable speakers and vinyl stickers for laptops and iPods amongst others. Later limited editions of garments will also be available – never more than 50 items of each style and often much less then that. Each purchase will be supplied with a certificate of authenticity stating the series number and signed by me. With the credit crunch and issues of sustainability fashion has to take a turn for the better – T.of.E answers this with an ethos of limited edition, collectible items, beautifully crafted and crated as eco friendly as possible. I want to make sure that what you get is unique and precious – not a ‘throw away’ fashion item but a treasure you keep for a long time.

NEXT WEEK: Roisin McAtamaney on how Microsoft helped her collection

Visit Martyna’s site at http://www.fashiontofe.co.uk and get your hands on her iPhone and Blackberry covers here http://www.fashiontofe.bigcartel.com/

[IMAGE CREDIT (TOP) Ivan Andriets (BELOW) Alex Robertson]

Fashion East at LFW

Abigail Binns — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:54:16 +0000

Fashion East hits London Fashion Week like a storm with three very unique looks all made to perfection.

First to hit the runway was the romantic look with pastel blues and whites with the occasional pink floral print. Silk shirts and pretty plaits suggests femininity but when combined with a blazer it creates mystery and confusion with the contradiction of the masculine structure.

Next up was the return of the 80’s grunge with mucky shades of green and black. The model’s hair were put in a centre parting and made to look wet and greasy. Trousers were ripped, tops were backless and trainers were teamed with socks making the homeless look fashionable.

The show ended on a glamorous note with shimmery pink trousers, fluffy up-dos, fur, leather and knits – it appears that casual is now clean and glam.

Fashion East is a non-profit initiative established by the Old Truman Brewery in 2000 to help emerging young designers through the difficult early stages of their career, receiving sponsorship funding from Topshop, TOPMAN and The London Development Agency.

Three womenswear and three menswear designers each year get the chance to present a catwalk collection to international press and buyers at London Fashion Week.

Previous successes include Richard Nicholl, Holly Fulton, Jonathan Saunders, House of Holland, Gareth Pugh, Marios Schwab, Louise Goldin, Roksanda Ilincic and Meadham Kirchhoff.

Take a look at the collections from the latest talent below.

Burberry Prorsum Womenswear AW12 Runway

jojo — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:41:37 +0000

The Burberry Prorsum Womenswear Autumn/Winter 2012 Show shot from London on Monday 20 Feb 2012.

Wonderfully British, elegance at its best.

British Fashion Council Appoint Alexa Chung as Young Style Ambassador

jojo — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:43:09 +0000

TV presenter-turned-fashionista Alexa Chung has been appointed as the British Fashion Council’s (BFC) Young Style Ambassador.

The two time winner of the Vodafone British Style Award has not only represented the ‘London style’ with grace, she has rapidly grown into an international style icon.

Having hit the front cover of Vogue, Elle and Harper’s Bazaar in addition to being a muse and brand ambassador for numerous fashion houses, it was only a matter of time until she got swooped up by the BFC.

The BFC have reported that as a new ambassador, Chung will attend key events on the organisation’s annual calender, including London Fashion Week, the British Fashion Awards, LONDON show ROOMS and events for Fashion 2012, the BFC’s cultural platform of fashion events during the Olympics.

Alexa Chung said:

“I always name London first when asked which city in the world has the best style. There’s something so inherently rebellious about how people naturally style themselves. Brits aren’t afraid to experiment or take risks with how they look, perhaps that’s why London has always been home to the most dynamic and daring designers in the world. I adore fashion and am proud that it’s now officially my job to champion those London designers both new and established that inspire me so much.”

Caroline Rush, CEO of the British Fashion Council, added

“We’re delighted to announce this role for Alexa. She is hugely influential in both the fashion industry and to the wider public, who have voted her as winner of the British Style Award at the British Fashion Awards for two years running.”

Source: British Fashion Council

Victoria’s Secret Label Kate Upton as Page 3 Girl

jojo — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:45:09 +0000

With the fashion industry’s highest earning supermodels having made their international break through after landing a cover shot for Sports Illustrated much loved swimsuit issue, we couldn’t help but wonder whether 19 year old Kate Upton was set to follow her predecessors footsteps.

Though Upton may be labelled as today’s IT girl, employer of some of the most beautiful women in fashion, Victoria’s Secrets, believe she is nothing special.

Despite having modeled for the brand just last year, Victoria’s Secret runway show casting director Sophia Neophitou said Upton would “never” be used for their shows.

Sophia told the New York Times that her look is:

“too obvious. She’s like a Page 3 girl. She’s like a footballer’s wife, with the too-blonde hair and that kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.”

Yikes!

Jessie J Performs Acoustic Cover of Rihanna’s We Found Love

jojo — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:48:49 +0000

Jessie J recently performed an acoustic cover of Rihanna’s smash hit We Found Love.

Watch her Radio 1 Live Lounge performance:

Karlie Kloss Models for the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN Scheme

jojo — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:23:18 +0000

Karlie Kloss is the model for ‘NEWGEN//TEN’, Nick Knight’s fashion film celebrating a decade of high-street giant Topshop sponsoring the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN scheme. Bringing together the very best of ten years of talent, this fashion film showcases exceptional garments from the one-off collections created for Topshop by some of the greatest of Great British fashion

Definition of Success: Katie Price and Boris Johnson’s Sister Coin In

Tangers — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:27:50 +0000

In 2009 a rather acrimonious, and highly publicised divorce led to the dissolution of a global brand, of popular renown: Now the devoted students of ITV and tabloid gossip find their ‘workload’ doubled as they rush to consume more knowledge of the now separate and ever-developing biographies of ‘Katie and Peter.’ We watched this well-publicised and heavily speculated process of marital mitosis develop on our television screens and in the magazines stalls of every newsagent and supermarket -there was never any need to pay for the story, one could, perhaps ironically piece together the collective cover stories to form the jig-sawed narrative of destruction. The spawn of such, is the on-going life-source of ITV2, which ruthlessly and doggedly pursues fake breasts, teeth, hair, nails and smiles in what can only be seen as an attempt to create the, 21st century, post-modern, multi-faceted, equivalent of Frankenstein’s monster, whose ambitions and ‘dreams of virtue, of fame, and of enjoyment’, became a nightmare of self-ruination and tormented souls. Gossip and debate still abounds the two parties and their subsequent relationships, as they play, or are played off, against each other. With a social networking sites joining the means by which news is gathered, there is no escape from the the public arena for Katie Price and Peter Andre: the hounds of tabloid journalism will forever be nipping at their heels.

800 years previously, there was a similar rupture of great cultural significance. Retreating from the ‘hostile townsmen’ in the previously peaceful, reflective spires of Oxford, some scholars were forced to seek solace in Cambridge. And so was the divorce of academic relations between two great institutions played-out. It is a rivalry that, like Katie and Peter’s, has withstood the test of time and is still strongly perceived today. Until now I had assumed the two incidents, and previously singular institutions, as mutually exclusive. That was, however, until ‘Katie and Peter’ ‘did ‘Oxbridge’. In October 2011 Katie Price won a landslide victory in a debate against Rachel Johnson, Editor of ‘The Lady’, and sister to perpetual school-boy Tory, and London mayor, Boris. Two widely recognised siblings, apparently, both in their ‘own right’. Along a similar vein, and in what many have labelled as a copy cat publicity tactic, Andre gave an ‘inspirational’ speech on ‘how to achieve your dreams and follow your ambitions’, to the students at Oxford’s union. But whilst Andre spoke of his own ambition, and experiences as a man, Price’s speech was a part of a feminist debate, in which Johnson and her team mate (Daily Mail columnist) Liz Jones argued that female “success” must always come second to maternal duties. Proud of her achievements, Price regaled how as a single mother she has developed an entrepreneurial empire ranging from children’s literature, to horsing accessories and a television franchise. On the surface, then, she seems to have it all, financial success and children. Whoop! Go her!

Price opposed the house’s motion that ‘the only limit to female success is female ambition’, or rather lack of it. But is the woman previously known as ‘Jordon’, really an example of self-driven female ambition and success? One may revel in imagining Price’s fabulously hybrid manner of address, both camp, and harshly course, with which she asserted:

There is no such thing as can’t, because I can

An inspirational statement for anyone to remember, and one which may, in years to come, have a page of its own in one of those quaint, and not-quite-pointless miniscule publications. You know the ones? Plunging into the ever-murkying depths of cultural history, they are a pick – a – mix of cherished micro -philosophies, which, upon opening, assault the psyche with much confusion and indecision as to which promises the best remedy for the moment at hand. The sugar gems of these are often by the most obscure and presently forgotten figures. Is this the fate of Katie? Here lies the problem: having having found her fame and fortune, through the artificial transformation of her body, and ogling gaze of many a man, is she to be a creation which, like Frankenstein’s creature, is to float into obscurity, as Amys Willerton and Childes, et al pursue similar ambitions, because, due to the media and cosmetics, “they can”.

With her example of Wonder Woman-esque lifestyle management, Price won the debate 400 to 90. She was proof that female success is not necessarily limited by maternity and domesticity, as Johnson and Jones argued. Having tried out marriage, she is an independent woman, no longer in need of a husband. She is a success in her own right. Or is she?

Lets be brutally honest, Price wouldn’t be where she is today, without the surgeons who quite literally made her, and the tabloid readership whose gaze defined her. She has never been talked about by these papers as a ‘woman’, or anything other than ‘Jordan’, the ‘glamour model/girl/beauty. Even following an attempt to lose this entirely constructed identity, and reclaim ‘Katie’, she has been dogged by ‘Jordan’, who had no history, no back story of personal ambition and development, but existed only temporarily, an almost fantastic (to some) vision, before being disposed of by Price when she realised the damage this monster had reeked on her reputation. Only since her appearance in the hallowed corridors has KP come to be referred in popular press as a ‘business woman’, and ‘mother of three’.

Likewise, Rachel Johnson’s defining prefix seems to be ‘younger sister of Boris Johnson’, with a passing reference to her editorship of ‘England’s longest running weekly’. As for Peter, interestingly, his success appears to be suffixed to Katie’s: he is Katie Price’s ex. Before their romantic dalliance in an Australian jungle, he was fading into obscurity, his only memorable quote being ‘mysterious girl I wanna get close to you’; unlikely to make it it to publication.

But isn’t success subjective, who are either Price, Johnson, or Andre to define success, over anyone else? Aside from the apocalyptic prophesies of those who believe the increasingly realised fecundity of the human race threatens our future existence, parenthood is just as acceptable a vocation as any other. Just as Price is proud of her achievements, so too is Andre`, and rightly so. If anything is to be drawn from these two appearances it is that achievement and ambition are very subjective ideas. It is not just women who feel the calls of nature to raise and nurture children: I know a young man who upon being asked what he wanted to be when he was older answered, without hesitation, ‘a daddy’, to which ensued many ooohs and ahhhhhs before the more sincere enquiry, ‘is that it?’ ‘Yes, and maybe a policeman/fireman/ambulance driver’, or any other of the public service roles held in such high esteem in childhood. But first he wanted to be a daddy. So there it is, its not just women and girls who apparently limit their ambitions for parenthood, perhaps its also the calling of some disgustingly feminine men and boys. With both parties in the Cambridge debate focusing on financial, business success in what the Union’s Chair called a ‘very masculine world’, it is clear that the ambition these women were talking of was that within business: an ambition to attain what men do. Germaine Greer, however, offers a new understanding of female and feminist success. In a recent talk on Feminism and Fun, she proclaimed, ‘I don’t want to be equal to men: I don’t want to be stuck in meetings and offices!’. So maybe, success is not so subject to suppressed ambition, but of different and diverse standards and goals.

Halestorm Tease Upcoming LP with Here’s To Us

Michaela Fulton — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:06:04 +0000

An American rock band formed in Pennsylvania, Halestorm certainly are becoming a driving force in the modern rock scene. Featuring the front woman, Lzzy Hale and her brother (drummer), they’ve formed a band that is soon to become huge after their self titled album “Halestorm”, released in 2009, managed to reach number 4 on the US Hard Rock chart, selling more than 300,000 copies in the USA.

Now, 3 years later and after continuous teasing over the bands new LP, we finally have an official taster of what the new album, “The Strange Case Of…”, will entail. Their recently released EP, “Hello, It’s Mz Hyde” gives us just the preview we need to tantalize our ears and make us want more.

Taking us away from the typical male dominated sound hard rock frequently serves, Lzzy Hale’s refreshing voice of sheer power and rawness made the EP a must listen for all you rockstars.

Though “Hello, It’s Mz Hyde” is admittedly more mainstream than their previous LP, the diverse EP still features the edgy and husky sound we initially fell in love with.

Listen to our favourite track from the EP below – Here’s To Us.

(Click here to download the EP)