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.