Age Ain't Nothing But a Number.

I was reading The Guardian this morning and came across this brilliant article about a 70 year old DJ - Mamy Rock (a.k.a. Ruth Flowers) - who is becoming a Euro sensation on the decks. She's apparently hoping to take her DJ-ing back to the UK - as at the moment she's relatively unknown here. So watch out for her rocking out at Ministry of Sound! I'm blogging about this to show that if you have talent and passion for something - nothing can restrict you. I think what she's doing is inspirational to older people who've lost their confidence to follow their dreams. Read the article - I've hyperlinked it above (image from The Guardian).

where has jamie lidell gone?

I love Jamie Lidell. I know it hasn't been that long since he last released - but even his last record was quite under the radar for someone who I think is brilliance personified (although he did win the best pop/rock album in the Independent Music Awards for his last album, JIM). His voice is like rapturous husky velvet - entwining through his soulful melodies and funk inspired pop sounds. He's just amazing. I can't handle it. I haven't heard this Lenny Kravitz/Otis Redding/ridiculously good style anywhere else in current music. So come on Jamie - release something immediately, if not sooner. and stop dancing like you do in Little Bit of Feel Good x

Jen's Spotify Playlist of Amazingness

Yesterday I thought it would be a lovely idea to share an incredibly Spotify playlist with the readers of Hit The Floor. It consists of horrendously amazing 80s music - lightly punctuated with a few 70s beasts and some borderline 1990 tracks. As I said in my article - Where I come from, there used to be a late night radio show on the local radio station, called 'The Wind Down Zone' - that's right people - The Wind Down Zone. So - as I articulated - I used to frequently 'wind down' to the soothing tones of 80s power ballads. -- During the day they didn't disappoint either, with a vast plethora of 80s classics. It really was quite something - and has shaped my adult music taste. Or at least one section of it. So link on the hyperlink up above - and you can access the play list and have some fun with arguably the most amazing songs on earth. You can also have a look at Hit The Floor - watch out for some cool interviews I'm doing in the near future. Peace Out.

Buying Luxury Fashion in the Recession (2009).

Throughout the summer months, I slaved away completing a research project for my Masters, which looked into how people justify buying (debatably) unnecessary luxury fashion brands in the recession.

Since the credit crunch cast an unwelcome cloud over our spending, we’ve all had to cut back in one way or another. Some of us have vowed to ration our cocktail consumption; others have forgone their summer break. A wide number of leisure sectors have noted an inevitable decrease in sales; however the luxury fashion industry has experienced sustained and even rising profits since the recession hit.

The power of the fashion world is globally palpable, and this is a continuously increasing entity. A prime example comes from the online luxury fashion store Net-a-Porter, which has doubled in size annually since it opened in 2000. It has been seen that 2009, arguably the lowest trough of this recession, has kept on trend. According to the BrandZ Top 100 most valuable global brands, fashion labels Hermes, Gucci and Rolex are still experiencing brand value growth in double figures. Other reports show that Burberry has seen an increase of 12% in sales of the first quarter of this financial year and Mulberry’s sales are up 21%. The discrepancy here is obvious. Our purse strings are being forcibly tightened due to the current economic climate; however the purse that these strings are attached to is a brand new patent Miu Miu.

I studied vast amounts of literature that outlined possible motivations to buy luxury brands. Generally these fitted into three categories: individual motivations (including purchasing for pleasure and hedonism and purchasing to communicate one’s character), functional motivations (including purchasing for higher quality and uniqueness) and social motivations (purchasing for ostentatious reasons). From carrying out detailed research in the luxury fashion industry and consumer views, I predicted that both individual and functional motivations would be considerably more powerful than social motivations in the credit crunch as buying overtly flashy and expensive fashion goods is now being deemed ‘distasteful’.

I surveyed over a hundred people across twenty two countries, all of whom still regularly purchase luxury fashion brands. My results were as expected. Functional dimensions were found to be key motivations to purchase luxury fashion brands in the recession, with high quality being the most prominent motive, and the ‘individual’ motivation of buying for hedonistic reasons was still present. It appears that buying luxury fashion brands to be showy and ostentatious have been banished, with people caring less about what others think. The current design and marketing activities of concerned brands mirrors my findings, by enhancing functional and individual/experiential benefits and deleting anything pretentious.

My study infers that the meaning of luxury now holds a utilitarian definition of high quality and value, getting better produce for your money, which would validate why people are still purchasing luxury fashion brands in the recession. However, perusing the ever-busy Selfridges last week started to get me thinking. As much as it may be true that luxury fashion brands use better fabrics with more flattering cuts, is this really the reason we buy them? No one would admit to purchasing something because of how it made others view them, or because wearing an expensive brand communicated something positive about them, but I’m speculative that our love of buying designer labels has much more to do with a deluxe desire and the connotations of pricey fashion labels. I think people may be justifying their spending by saying it’s due to high quality and durability, but personally I think we buy designer for what it means, and our ‘rational’ justifications are to diminish the guilt we feel every time we dismissively pin up our gas bill, reach for our gorgeous-couldn’t-live-without Burberry trench and make a sharp exit.

dirty diana.

I'm going out for a snapping sesh with my photo buddy Chrissy and so I have decided to invest in a Diana. As much as I love my SLR I want to get a bit more lo-fi and vintage. It's meant to have some pretty cool effects from the light exposure and general poor quality of the camera. I want to capture some virgin suicide type shots --- and no I don't mean photographing a load of virgins with their heads in ovens --- I love the airy dazed look in that film. Anyway - I shall post the results when I'm done.

In other news -- I'm listening to these today:

wanna party?

Look what I bought! This is a House of Holland collaboration with Pretty Polly - which I'm sure you're aware of. Love all the tights in this range but these are just AMAZE!!!

I got them off ASOS - alongside a few other gems. Quite ironic really - as I'm barely leaving the house at the moment. So not really partying - but when I do they will make an appearance! I love the playful nature of these HoH's designs - I can completely see why my BFF Darren is in love with Henry Holland ;-)

prim. winter 2010.

Prim Magazine Winter 2010 Preview

prim. is now a quarterly publication - and the Winter 2010 issue is available to purchase online and in a range of stores worldwide from 30th Jan. The London stockists are:

Drury News (Drury Lane)

Newsmart (Drury Lane)

Williams (Tottenham Court Road)

Newsstand (Marlborough Street)

Capital News (Tottenham Court Road)

West One News (Foley Street)

Goodge News (Goodge Street)

Patkins (Rathbone Place)

Rippons (Dean Street)

Wardour News (Wardour Street)

Good News (Berwick Street)

Regent News (Beak Street)

Marshall News (Marshall Street)

Rococo (Elgin Crescent)

Camden News (Camden High Street)

Charlotte Street News (Charlotte Street)

Rivington News (Rivington Street)

Diptesh (Leonard Street)

Keshwani (Regents Park Road)

Above is a preview of the issue - with 150 (half) of the pages - including half of my interview with New York fashion label, Vena Cava on page 135.

true city iphone app

As you can see on my side bar - I am now part of the Vice Blogging Network - which I'm very very pleased about! So - I thought I'd tell you about a cool collaboration Vice are doing with Nike - an i-Phone app called 'True City'. The app provides a unique and continuous urban guide to six European cities (London, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Amsterdam, and Barcelona), with suggestions on the latest venues, events and product launches sourced by Vice and Nike city insiders who are very much on the pulse of what and where's hot. The app utilises revolutionary i-Phone technology providing geo-tagged content in a real-time environment - making the app current and progressive.

The app also provides the additional benefit of social interaction and the chance to upload your own content. There is even the possibility of becoming a Nike insider yourself if your your cultural tidbits of the city's happenings impress the True City community. This app is a great opportunity for trend setters to communicate hidden treasures found in the multitude of possibilities that these six buzzing cities hold. So if you have an i-Phone and want knowledge on the latest additions to the ever increasing world of popular culture - download the app for free and help make the hidden visible. For information on the app, watch the video below.

HIT THE FLOOR MAGAZINE

Sadly, Vexed has now closed - but Chris, Kiff and I are starting a new site called Hit The Floor which will be launching very soon! We'll be getting some great features and interviews up from the offset - so stay tuned!!

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Fat Freddy's Drop.

I'm on an interviewing beast at the moment for a new site called Hit The Floor (coming soon...) and I have just done an email interview with the sax player (Chopper Reedz) from the incredible Fat Freddy's Drop... they use that wah wah pedal like it's a porno. I seriously love their amalgamation of reggae, soul, jazz, sex and general amazingness. I first got into FFD about 2 years ago through a boy I liked. I find that I learn a lot about music and new bands through boys - sometimes it's all they're good for! When I publish the interview I'll put up the link. Get excited. I know I am.

Carrie Bradshaw: My most important person of the noughties.

By the time the new millennium approached, I’d been watching the American sitcom, ‘Sex and the City’ for a year. It was such a fresh concept for television, something that finally displayed the somewhat guilty pleasures and aspirations of women. They covered topics we only divulge with our inner circle, they liberated us by being honest, outspoken and completely outrageous. Carrie Bradshaw, the focal character of Sex and the City, spearheaded all possible connotations of the show.

First and foremost, she was at the forefront of decedent fashion – resulting in a cultish frenzy amongst women globally. Suddenly, Manolo Blahnik, Dolce & Gabbana and a plethora of other designer labels became intensely desired. It’s not Carrie’s expensive taste that makes me view her as imperative to this decade (although this could explain the state of the economy if people have taken heed); it is her ability to be individual through her style. Carrie Bradshaw was always herself and always original in the clothes she wore, giving confidence to others to do the same. Fashion is about creativity and self expression; and as a character she gave inspiration to all and communicated the liberty of being yourself.

As is evident in the show’s title, another regular topic covered was sex. Sex, love and relationships. The show accurately pinpointed the new wave of the decade: the end of romance. Instead of wining and dining and wooing, we’d entered an age of nailing and bailing. Sexual freedom reached a new stratum in the noughties, and although I don’t personally feel that this is something to be celebrated, the show tackled a common occurrence in society. I always admired Carrie’s desire to fall in all-consuming, powerfully infinite love. Her quest to find Mr. Right was both amusing and relatable. It was a comfort to know that all women go through woes with their romantic life – and although her decisions may not always be wise or advisable to follow, it was reassuring to know that even the most luxurious of women have the same problems.

Carrie Bradshaw is also an apt symbol of female independence. Living alone, having a lucrative career and being a strong single female. She has been a positive role model (minus the smoking, casual sex and shoe addiction) for women – to demonstrate that you can go it alone and be successful. Female independence has progressed greatly throughout the noughties with an increase of single mums, career women and a consequent decrease in ‘needing’ a man. One of the most memorable quotes for me was in the last ever episode, “the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself.” I find this a realisation, as I know I often forget the merit of autonomy.

Carrie Bradshaw has become an iconic character of the decade. She has been a virtual companion, experiencing the things that all women go through, giving comfort and a sense of light hearted humour to all who watched her. Finally, women have their own MOTD, their own Top Gear – in the form of lustful gratification, designer labels, the beauty of independence and a cosmopolitan to wash it all down with. Watching the show was a welcomed escapism, taking women to their wildest fantisies of the high life yet holding morals that were universally applicable. Carrie Bradshaw not only brought refuge and reassurance to women, she also aided the show to cover everything in relevance in the noughties. Through this decade she has entertained, supported and been absolutely fabulous till the end.

Oh lord, won't you buy me some Louise goldins?

Oh Lord, won't you buy me some Louise Goldins. My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,So OH LORD, won't you buy me some Lousie Goldins?! (PLEASE)

Wah Nails.

I came across WAH Magazine on Twitter, and saw they do nails... WAH Nails... amazing nails!!!! Honestly, I've never seen anything quite like them! They are so incredibly gorgeous and I can't believe they can do such intricate details on such small surfaces. These girls are so so talented!! I am going to go as a birthday treat to myself, definitely. I'll get leopard without a shadow of a doubt.

Toro Y Moi.

This guy has been deemed 'one to watch' for 2010 and I completely agree. He's amazing. Toro Y Moi A.K.A. Chaz Bundick is lead singer of 'The Heist and The Accomplice' but is currently doing this solo project - which consists of two records that will be released this year, the first being released in February. His style is symptomatic of Daft Punk, with obvious influences of mellow 70s tunes. I love it. I've been asked to do something on him so I shall inform when it is published.

Thierry Blancpain.

Nice new Swiss graphic designer - Thierry Blancpain - caught my eye recently. Very edgey, nice fonts and I love his layouts. Raw and real - very 'Skins' in my eyes - I really like that urbanised visual layout format. If that makes sense. I've included the two images above because I think that it shows his diversity of style. NICE.

Glee.

I just had to do a post about how much I enjoyed Glee last night. I watched the pilot ep when it was on - and enjoyed it even more last night. It's the type of thing I could watch all day every day - it's absolutely hilarious with great songs. Me and my bff are obsessed and there's enough eye candy to go round too!

happy 2010!

Happy New Year!!

I hope you are all (...if anyone reads this?) suitably rotund after all of the festivities. I know I am.

I recently had two articles published with Se7en Magazine - one about the past year in music and one about acts to look out for in 2010

I purposefully picked acts that hadn't really been covered by the more established publications. I'm very excited about Jessica Cornish (Jessie J) and Julian Perretta for 2010, especially.

Looking at what the big guns have said - I am excited too. Daisy Dares You is absolutely brilliant and I urge you to have a listen: