Sass & Bide SS13 at London Fashion Week | Stay Strong Stay Sparkly

Aussie label (and favourite of SJP) Sass & Bide returned to London Fashion Week last night with a bit of a sparkly bang.

Sarah-Jane Clarke and Heidi Middleton gave us a lesson in aggressive tailoring and shiny-shiny power dressing with their ‘Loveshady’ collection – us and a celeb-packed Front Row which included Twiggy, Lara Bohinc and Kelly Rowland.

Jourdan Dunn looked stunning in this floor-length “liquid metal” dress and androgynous souls found inspiration in Sass & Bide’s tuxedo shapes with sexy cut outs for SS13. In a collection that was largely monochrome and metallic, there were a few looks with a burst of bright orange peeping through which was reminiscent of Sass & Bide’s more colourful SS12 collection; they skipped AW this year.

Accessories were kept to a minimum – to let the clothes do the talking – apart from a flash of gold belt and gold floral statement necklaces that dripped down the models in amongst black tux jackets and fitted dresses.

The Sass & Bide SS13 press release for ‘Loveshady’ describes some of the looks as creating ‘a shell of amour’ with diamante and metal details, rows of sequins and sharp silhouettes. We got the impression that the Sass & Bide Loveshady lady wouldn’t suffer any bad manners or nonsense from anyone and probably wouldn’t think twice about kicking up a fuss in those lace up heels. A confident – but still ultra-feminine – collection.

Watch the full catwalk show video and view more catwalk images on the BFC’s official London Fashion Week profile of Sass & Bide.

Categorising your life (with the help of Georges Perec)

Could you name every pair of shoes you’ve ever owned? Or describe every house you’ve ever lived in? Monitoring your fitness regime, weight loss progress or productivity is on the verge of becoming a global addiction thanks to easy-to-build and easy-to-download apps. But a much more exciting exercise is categorising your life into less obvious lists and frameworks. Hair styles, maybe. Or what transport you have used to get to work/school. Or a list of every toaster you’ve toasted with.

In Georges Perec’s Species of Spaces, (1974) the French writer-artist takes as his subject material things, space and our relationship with them. He starts from his bed and expands to the entire world (by way of investigations into the room, the apartment, the apartment building, the street, the neighbourhood, the city etc).

When he’s still in bed (so to speak), he thinks about trying to name every single bed he’s ever slept in – including hotels and friends’ houses – which seems a pretty daunting task. But why shouldn’t we try? When we study art, we categorise painters into movements, museums classify objects into time periods and uses. And scientists are always making sure they’ve locked down the relationships between stars or plants or fish or particles.

Categorising our own lives, based on our ownership of material things or our experiences, could be pretty useful – though I wouldn’t recommend publishing these lists to the world (as that could cause new lows of Life Competition between so-called friends). This would be a completely private investigation – because only you will be able to decipher the data you collect.

Material things matter. Good furniture or just the right lighting can give you the peace of mind to complete a project or relax in your own home. The shoes you wear can alter a day or night out (for better or worse). And, as Perec points out, even public objects like traffic lights and lampposts serve a very specific and important purpose that we often take for granted. So next time you’re lazing around in bed or doing nothing but shopping all weekend, have a few Perec quotes to hand and you’ll be able to fend off most criticism that comes your way.

London Fashion Week SS13 – a Style and Then Some preview

The glamour. The anticipation. The excitement… Of sending out catwalk show request after catwalk show request for London Fashion Week.

Yes while you may still be picking apart February’s shows for Autumn/Winter inspiration, the prep for LFW SS13 is already upon us. In fact we’ve already had our first invite in the post. So we thought we’d put together this little guide to give you an idea of what fashion madness to expect this time around.

London Fashion Week SS13: Schedule and Shows

This season’s shows run from Friday 14th September to Tuesday 18th September 2012, in and around Somerset House and the Freemason’s Hall in Covent Garden. You can see the full (provisional) schedule here so you can plan when to check Twitter and S&TS coverage for your favourite designers.

Friday is the best day for street style gawking so if you get a chance, have a peek inside the Somerset House courtyard – you don’t need a pass. As the days pass, less and less theatrical outfits show up – so opening day is an essential if you want a taste of Fashion Week.

London Fashion Week SS13: Labels coming to London

After Burberry Prorsum kick-started the trend of showing in London a few seasons back, there’s a whole host of big names taking time to visit our little capital with their wares. Preen by Thornton Bregazzi is ditching New York for London, rag & bone is holding an exclusive presentation in its flagship Sloane Square shop and Moschino Cheap & Chic is staying put too.

London Fashion Week SS13: New Fashion Talent

Fashion East is a good starting point for new, breaking designers: this year the line-up includes the debut collection of Claire Barrow (who has created pieces for Joseph and impressed Rihanna), the knitwear maestro from Hong Kong Ryan Lo and the very exciting Maarten van der Horst who’s showing for the third time and already has a Topshop capsule collection under his belt.

Speaking of Topshop, the NEWGEN winners for SS13 have also been announced: they include S&TS favourites Michael van der Ham and Christopher Raeburn as well as Simone Rocha, J.W. Anderson and some new talent showing at the exhibition including Sophia Webster, Huishan Zhang and Palmer/Harding.

And if that wasn’t enough, we’ll be working Vauxhall Fashion Scout and trawling the exhibition for fresh labels and designers come London Fashion Week. Let us know any tips via Twitter on @style_thensome.

I want to be a part-time Retronaut when I grow up

Next time you have a few hours to kill – I imagine between the hours of midnight and two – take a look at Retronaut. It’s a eye-widening photo archive of pop culture and oddball snippets from history that says the past is a foreign country and Retronaut is your passport.

The obligatory famous/sexy femmes shot are there, like colour photographs of Brigitte Bardot at Cannes (1953) and before and after pin-up girl shots from the 1950s. But there’s also some fascinating stuff that seems to make up the B-movie of the last century or so. Some of my favourites include the selection of The Beatles waiting to cross Abbey Road in 1969, Jimi Hendrix meeting Mr Spock in 1968 and famous American architects dressing up as their iconic buildings in 1931.

Elsewhere, you can run into all sorts of painstakingly crafted pieces of work that might nudge some inspiration out of you: a steampunk Pinochio or  a 200 year old French love letter, found in the arm of a chair in Gloucestershire.

Still, in my headline I said I want to be a part time Retronaut didn’t I? Having recently watched Woody Allen’s very sentimental and silly Midnight in Paris I’ve been thinking about what time period would have suited me best. The 40s or 50s maybe for the fashion. Or the 60s and 70s for the freewheeling hippie vibe and seeing all that amazing music live. But as Gil realizes he quite likes antibiotics, despite his love of 1920s literary Paris in the film, I’d caution against becoming too obsessed with retro and vintage culture.

Here’s ten things I love about right now:

1. Contact lenses 2. Skype 3. The whole world being one flight away 4. The pill 5. Wes Anderson 6. Festivals with alt-rock/indie AND dance music 7. Magazines (and blogs) 8. Women having as much freedom as they’ve ever had 9. Hackers 10. People who stay mysterious in the face of the big web giants

Drawing me, drawing you: hellohead at CARGO

I can’t think of anything braver for an illustrator than agreeing to do the portrait of another illustrator. But that’s what the hellohead charity exhibition at CARGO, Rivington Street (this Wednesday 22nd August) demands so that’s what these courageous souls have done.

On Wednesday, Rosie Shorter and Lucy Joy’s night of face related fun will run from 6pm till late and include live portrait drawing in two minutes, a pop up shop and an interactive set plus a silent auction of all the prints from the portrait-swap. All the money raised will go to the National Autistic Society and some of the portraits on display will come from NAS artists. And on Thursday, Style & Then Some favourite Zeena Shah will be running a screen printing and art workshop with Bread Collective for children with autism and Asperger’s from 11am to 2pm.

Over 60 illustrators and designers are taking part – you can see the names and work of some of the artists in the above image, from the hellohead site. If you fancy sticking your head into the exhibition (sorry) or noseying around some of the work online (OK, I’ll stop), you can find out more at the hellohead website or the event’s Facebook page. Style & Then Some will be there getting our face painted so we’ll post some snaps up afterwards.

Does your correspondence deserve a wider audience?

I am having something of a letters revolution this week. First of all, Sophie Caldecott wrote me a lovely, long letter from Oxford, taking up the responsibility of sending me my first non-financial bit of post at my new flat (apart from birthday cards).

And then today I discovered (via the web section of the newly relaunched, and excellent Geek magazine) this incredible archive of letters, memos, faxes and other bits of paper: Letters of Note.

There’s something about getting your thoughts and feelings down on paper, especially now, that requires a lot more care and attention than banging out an email or sending a text message. After reading Sophie’s letter, I tried to think of the last few I had received or sent. The list included a letter from my ex boyfriend for me to open when I arrived in Asia to mooch around for four months, notes to and from an old flatmate and an explanation of what I had been doing since a wonderful charity gave me a small loan towards my journalism studies.

Letters of Note, edited by Shaun Usher, has considerably more interesting examples amongst its 804 posts – a letter from Winston Churchill’s wife telling him to lighten up, another from an emancipated slave from Ohio in 1865 to his old master and a handwritten note from Up and Monsters Inc director Pete Docter on Pixar not finishing films.

A Letters of Note book will be published this November – it’s available for pre-order at £30 for a cloth-bound hardback and would make a lovely limited edition gift. The book will apparently feature examples Usher has held back from uploading online and also include a letter from Hunter S. Thompson starting ‘Listen you lazy bitch’ which was addressed to a film executive but removed from the site.

Some thoughts on the Olympics Opening Ceremony 2012

Me: Ending on Hey Jude was a disappointment and it just goes to show that middle-aged, white men still rule this country. That said, the amount of silliness, eccentricity and charm that Danny Boyle managed to squash into a ceremony which also delivered beautiful visual sequence upon beautiful visual sequence really made the evening.

My highlights included the children bouncing on the trampoline hospital beds with monsters of literature surrounding them, huge towers rising up out of the set to destroy the countryside landscape and bring on the Industrial Revolution and the Arctic Monkeys singing Come Together while winged, glow-in-the-dark cyclists circled the stadium. Magic, and we genuinely didn’t know what to expect next.

Ai Weiwei (Chinese artist): He compared the 2012 Olympic Ceremony to the spectacular opener at the last Games. “Beijing’s Olympics were very grand – the government … was trying to create an image.” In contrast, “this was about Great Britain; it didn’t pretend it was trying to have a global appeal. Because Great Britain has self confidence.” More on The Guardian.

The rest of the world: Brazilians got nervous about staging the Olympics in Rio, the French weren’t impressed and an Italian commentator said Boyle was “as unpredictable” as the people of Great Britain.

A journalist in Zimbabwe did have a point though, he said: “OK Britain, we see you flaunting your history. Where’s the bit in which you invade, loot, kill and plunder?” More on The Guardian.

Thomas Heatherwick (designer of the Olympic Cauldron made up of 204 copper petals): “It seemed that if we could have these 204 very small, humble objects but then in them coming together have a moment where they all rise and rear out of the centre of the stadium… And the idea is that at the end of the Games this cauldron will dismantle itself.”

Heatherwick is currently showing at the V&A until 30 September and an exhibit about the Olympic Cauldron is being added this weekend. More on The Telegraph including a video on his inspiration.

A day out at the Auction House

I am very bad at auctions – I arrive too late to properly scope out the gems then forget how much my upper limit is when bidding. I know this because I recently spent an hour or two at a General Sale held by Cape’s Dunn, an auctioneers in Manchester where my mother works.

I came away empty handed but still had fun bidding for a medieval ring and a tripod wash basin after fawning over an onyx cigarette box that was almost nice enough to make me contemplate taking up smoking. There were a few trinkets and ornaments and a great set of Carl Zeiss binoculars in a scruffed up leather case.

Cape’s Dunn also hold Fine Art sales and have an amazing treasure trove of jewellery and paintings in the back. My next move: finding an auction house in London with the same incredible furniture prices so I can give Ikea a miss for once.

Summer Recipe | How to make houmous from scratch

And now to a guest post from the woman who has made some of the finest foods to ever pass through Style & Then Some’s lips, Aisling Lavelle. Finally she sets down some of her wisdom in blog form, starting with homemade houmous.

There is clearly a time and a place for shop-bought houmous, but it’s not in this lifetime you’ll find me buying in what has to be one of the best health:taste ratio snacks in the world.  Chick peas are so self-righteously healthy that you can eat houmous by the bucketful and not feel bad about it.

As with all dishes that go back centuries, there are countless recipes to be drawn upon. Felicity Cloake recently wrote a ‘How to cook the perfect….’ on houmous, which was very informative but far too fussy for anyone with a passing hankering for the Middle-Eastern delicacy.

Recipes should act as a springboard for your own tastes: they should demonstrate the basic elements required, and allow enough flexibility for you to fiddle about with the results until they suit you.  It seems I’m not alone either, as foodies-du-jour Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Dan Lepard regularly champion learning a few key steps before adding your own twists to their dishes.  I hope this recipe will allow you to do just that while keeping washing up to a minimum.



Ingredients:

1 can chick peas, drained and rinsed well

Juice of 1 lemon

1 clove of garlic roughly chopped (a fairly chunky clove – about the size of a broad bean, but again, you can tinker later on)

1 heaped teaspoon tahini (substitute with peanut butter if you can’t find tahini, or doubt whether you want it kicking around in the cupboard after houmous-gate)

1 tbsp olive oil

Pinch o’ salt

Water



1. Bung all the ingredients except the water in a mini-blender or food processor and blitz.

2. Add water, about a tablespoon at a time, and keep whizzing until you get the consistency that you know and love.

3. Check the salt levels – add more if you fancy

4. Transfer to a bowl and pour over a drizzle of olive oil

5. Choose a suitable vehicle with which to transport the houmous to your mouth.  I prefer chunks of a Pide, which is a large, flatish, focaccia-esque Turkish loaf, but if you can’t get one then pitta will do.



Now for the adjustments!  Remember that bit about fiddling?

Here’s my favourite variation:

1tsp ground cumin (grind it yourself, if you know what’s good for you)

1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp chilli powder

A few sprigs of coriander (I will admit here that I tend to just keep a bag of coriander in the freezer.  There.  I said it.)

Add these ingredients to the ‘original’ houmous and you will have a serious party going.

Obviously for the non-spicy eaters you can just save some of the ‘naked’ houmous for them. You can put it at the back of the room where all the vegetarians are hiding.

Don’t forget to wash it down with something sensible – my wine-savvy friend Hugo Read recommends either Paul Blanck Alsace Auxerrois 2008 (available at Waitrose for about ￡13.50) or a Cederberg or Morgenhof chenin blanc costing ￡8.95 and ￡11.95 respectively (also from Waitrose) .

And of course, please leave a comment to share your own versions!

HOWE make music for a lost generation and they’re looking at you, kids

I went along to the launch of HOWE’s Bolt from the Blue EP launch at the Hoxton Underbelly this week and found a band who can’t sit still musically and are wonderful for it. Every track in the set, including the three excellent offerings posted on SoundCloud and some new tunes, mixed things up no end. HOWE kept their audience hanging on every sudden change in tempo or wondering where that bluesy outro came from.

With Niall Lavelle (of Gentleman’s Dub Club fame) on drums, Ben Hayes on bass and Eric Brünjes on guitar it’s frontman Ralph Brünjes – who prances around on stage like a mad alternative-rock fairy – who will catch your eye in HOWE’s live shows. He’s easy on the ears too, as are the accessible but witty lyrics and jangly guitars.

Hand over your email address at HOWE’s sign-up page to get news from this quietly confident quartet or make plans to bob your head at one of their upcoming gigs at Motherbar in Old Street (11th July) and The Troubadour (2nd August). And before the first track is out, your left foot will no doubt join the fray to show some appreciation for HOWE’s lithe and lively melodies.

Image from wearehowe.com

Style & Then Some’s Best of Graduate Fashion Week 2012

Get to know these names now and we promise it won’t be long before they’re climbing up the ranks in the biggest fashion houses or storming London Fashion Week with their own independent labels. We are of course talking about this year’s fresh-faced fashion graduates who tore up Earls Court this week: here’s some of our favourites.

Joanna Pybus at GFW 2012

Joanna Pybus, University of East London
At Graduate Fashion Week, we like to play a little game when we’re watching the shows. We try to guess who we think each graduate’s favourite fashion designers are. Looking at Joanna Pybus’s collection, we’d plump for Marc Jacobs, Giles Deacon and gone-into-administration-but-not-forgotten Luella Bartley. Why? Because her designs possess the same mix of 1960′s shapes, stripes, ladylike whimsy, and, cartoon eyeball graphics that those three designers also favour. And we mean that as nothing but a compliment. Pybus said she wanted to bring ‘an awkward feeling of humour, absurdity and the bizarre,’ and that she did. But she managed to paint that picture against a backdrop of infinitely wearable jersey tunics, felted wool cocoon dresses and one heck of a Jackie O-worthy pink and red skirt suit.

Helen Butcher at GFW 2012

Helen Butcher, University of East London
Still playing our ‘who’s her favourite designer?’ game, we’d have to go for Mary Katrantzou this time. Helen Butcher’s graphic monochrome motifs, like the faces of skyscrapers rendered straight on to the front of short, sassy silk dresses, brought to mind the Katrantzou’s trompe l’oeuil style. Again, this is a serious compliment, and not a comparison we make lightly. As well as her art deco photoprints (courtesty of artist David Ballinger), Butcher’s other major forte with this collection lay in how she struck a neat balance between the girly (flippy chiffon hems, hints of raspberry pink) and the gamine – boxy cropped jackets and baggy pants. No wonder she cites Coco Chanel as a reference point. A swishy, va-va-voom gown rounded off this consummate collection.

Claire Acton, University of Central Lancashire
Perhaps it was purely coincidental, but the pop art references were coming thick and fast as the first half dozen graduates’ collections hit the catwalk at the UCLan show on Sunday. Head and shoulders above the rest was Claire Acton, with her clothes seeming to owe more to hairdressing that they did to fashion. Fabric was cut into three cape-wigs in acid yellow, orange and black, and strewn with oversized hair clips, to frame faces that were printed on the front of tunics, thereby turning models into veritable wig blocks. Those hair clips reappeared in their hundreds, multicoloured and covering the entirety of a skirt and the bottom half of a minidress. For us, this is the perfect kind of graduate collection. It may not be the sort of thing you’d expect to see on anyone without Anna Dello Russo-like levels of fashion courage, but it shows great creativity, not to mention a GSOH. On a day when you’re competing with sometimes 20 other collections at a time it’s hard to stand out, but if you can do that by making people laugh (in a good way – there are always some laughably disastrous grad collections) you’re on to a winner.

Kellie Fountain at GFW 2012

Kellie Fountain, Northumbria University
Bowing down at the altar of Miu Miu, Kellie Fountain showed a wonderfully wearable collection of autumnal oranges, mustards and blues and adorable plane motifs. If you watched Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom recently and hankered after a 60s dress (as we did), these pieces will sate your appetite for ultra-feminine and playful ensembles. The washed-out rainbow coloured brogues were a delightful finishing touch and as the graduate herself puts it: this is “the true tale of [the character Ginger's] hidden personality, telling her story through textured print and detail.” Simply swinging.

Natalie O’Hare, University of Salford
Offering a more understated elegance than many of her classmates, Natalie O’Hare’s soft tailoring and colours that wouldn’t look out of place on a Celine or Chloe model were a big hit with the Style & Then Some team. She mixed gold, sequinned tulle, wool, cashmere and silk like a pro but kept things (literally) edgy with geometric shapes. We’ll place our order for the final floor-length coat now please Natalie. You can see her whole collection (amongst others) in the University of Salford finale video above.

Now that Graduate Fashion Week has wrapped up, we’ll update our ‘Best Of’ with more names from the Gala shows. Let us know below which other graduates caught your eye this week.

Catwalk reviews by Katie Wright, Sophie Cha.

All images: Faraz Pourreza-Jorshari. See more at Boomson.com and click the images to enlarge our GFW 2012 gallery.

Joanna Pybus at GFW 2012

Joanna Pybus at GFW 2012

Joanna Pybus at GFW 2012

Helene Butcher at GFW 2012

Helen Butcher at GFW 2012

Claire Acton at GFW 2012

Kellie Fountain, Northumbria University

Kellie Fountain at GFW 2012

Kellie Fountain at GFW 2012

Kellie Fountain at GFW 2012

Fashion Will Save Us – Catalytic Clothing

Fashion can save many things from helping you to pull off an interview to persuading legions of women to part with their cash for charity or care about the environment just because Vivienne said so.

And it looks like fashion’s latest mission is air quality. Conde NastTraveller just gave an Innovation and Design award (in the Sustainability category) to Catalytic Clothing, a project between fashion designer/ LCF Professor Helen Storey and university Professor/scientist Anthony Ryan.

The Catalytic Clothing products – like the dress above – use the surface area of the clothes to purify the air around us. It works like this: the fabric is treated with nano-titania (very small particles of titanium dioxide) and this then works as a catalyst to speed up the process of converting pollution in the air to harmless particles. All that good work and they don’t look too shabby either.

‘Field of Jeans’ is currently being exhibited at the Danish Design Centre in Copenhagen plus another Catalytic Clothing project ‘Herself’ is showing until August in Dubai.

Watch the Catalytic Clothing video or find out more about their plans on the website.

In defence of renting in London

Flat hunting in London, not as fun as it sounds

Please don’t think this is a defence of landlords in London; it isn’t. They want to squeeze every last penny out of renters in the capital and that will never change.

The reasons landlords are the villains right now is that the cost of renting has gone up again (2.4% UK average, 4.5% in London) and the figures comparing London to the rest of the country make anyone paying to live here (like me) look plain stupid. For instance, London households apparently spend 71% of their salaries on rent, according to a FindaProperty.com Index published this week – the average net wage in London is £36k and £24k of that goes on rent.

When I first moved to London in 2006 I thought a wise ratio to stick to would be to spend 2/5ths of my income on putting a roof over my head. But that was back when I thought rents would stay about £100 a week per person and before I discovered council tax, paying full price at the cinema and Zone 1-6 travelcards.

So renting in London seems like a mad thing to do. But it isn’t. Firstly, think about why people come to London (or stay here) in the first place – a place at a prestigious university, a once-in-a-lifetime graduate scheme or – in my case – the whole damn industry. Yes, you could live in some random part of the UK for a fraction of the price, save up and buy a house there but for education, inspiration and careers London has a lot going for it.

Then there’s the culture, the history and the people. Even if rent saps all your money in the capital, that’s not going to stop you visiting some of the world’s greatest museums and galleries for free, nipping over to Buckingham Palace or finding cheap bars and markets. In a week where I was supposed to saving money, I still accidentally ended up in a Caribbean restaurant in Brixton, at a reading at the ICA and in a basement bar not far from Oxford Street.

So what if I’ve spent over £25,000 on renting in London since my first year at university here? I’m a city girl and as a journalist I need to be in the thick of it or else I’m not much use to anyone. I’d spend the same amount in New York or Tokyo and I honestly believe my interests and awareness would be much narrower had I not moved here. Renting also means you are independent from a) your parents and b) a man who’s richer/ older/ more successful than you and wants you to move into his house. That’s pretty valuable.

Five Signs You’re Getting Too Old for Heels

1. You keep your Jimmy Choos/ Kurt Geigers in the box.
If all your purchases end up in a shoe shrine, never to see the light of day, you know you’re too old for heels. Any self-respecting teenager buying their first statement shoe would scuff those bad boys within hours of handing over the money.

2. You’d rather eat the latest issue of Vogue than trade shoe collections with Daphne Guinness
Heels can turn you into a power woman but flats are the best way to play it cool – dress down trend-heavy outfits with flats and you’ll feel a lot less self-conscious making your big entrance.

And you get to tsk tsk at Daphne Guinness for clinging to banisters as she teeters around in ever more ridiculous shoes. Just think what that poor woman’s feet must look like.

3. Your toes are a wreck from wearing “simple” black Havianas to parties when everyone else is in stilettos
Summer’s a great time to give up heels – or maybe just vow to stick to wedges wherever possible. I’m also a big fan of wearing black raffia sandals on nights out.

OK, they’re basically little better than flip flops but you can wear them with everything. Good for: the beach, the park and running across cobbles looking smug.

4. Those Sunday morning knee grazes are starting to annoy you
It used to be funny wobbling into gutters and twisting ankles on the stairs. But according to some (no doubt) pretty unscientific research quoted in Avril Mair’s latest Beauty Extremist in Elle magazine, 40% of women admit to having had accidents because of their heels.

What does the ordinary fashion ed do then? Simple, wear heels when you know you’re getting a cab to and from wherever you’re going and sit down a lot when you’re in them.

Blue brocade pool flats, Christopher Kane SS12

5. You like ‘haute casual’ footwear like these Christopher Kane abominations
If a talented British designer combines comfort with well, flowers it must be fashionable right? Wrong – but do use this kind of design to your advantage when you’re championing the merits of flats to the Amazon in the 5 inchers towering above you. Acceptably stylish flat shoes include ballet pumps, brogues, leather sandals and even plastic jelly shoes when combined with high fashion underwater-themed outfits. But not these.

Main image: Faraz Pourreza-Jorshari

OUR DEMONSTRATION at GNM Gallery, King’s Place | Art and activism

OUR DEMONSTRATION is a exhibition project on the theme of art and protest that’s been a year in the making and we’re getting really excited about it – mainly because we know one of the curators, CSM student Miranda Booth. 

You can see the results of all their hard work at the GNM gallery at King’s Place – expect everything from Guardian archive photography, chewing gum art (see the poster above) and a riot in a jam jar i.e. a miniature recreation of student protests.

Those asked to participate works on creative resistance vary from unknown talent to more established, contemporary artists and all of this takes places in the foyer of the newspaper’s offices in King’s Cross, London.

The exhibition’s private view is this Thursday evening and it runs until 3rd May.

Boris vs Ken (and the rest) | The London Mayoral elections 2012

City Hall, Tower Bridge

This is a post for everyone who cares a tiny bit but not too much about the election of the new London Mayor on May 3rd.

Maybe you’ve not lived in London that long and aren’t planning to stick around. Or you’re in your mid-twenties and haven’t been able to shake that allergy to politics.

WHY BOTHER
These are the people who set tube, train and bus fares (groan), how much council tax you pay (run away and hide) and whether in a few years’ time we’ll be able to say that Peckham used to be pretty rough but not so much any more.

It’d also be pretty nice to justify the wince-inducing rent we pay by making sure London is still one of the most interesting cities in the world to live in. The next mayor will have to create jobs, sort out housing problems and stop those riots happening again.

Boris Johnson, current Mayor of London

WHO TO VOTE FOR
Take 45 minutes out to watch the Newsnight hustings, presented by Jeremy Paxman, before you do anything.

Boris gets attacked by the three other main candidates, Ken comes across as more than a little untrustworthy, Brian Paddick seems obsessed with crime and policing (that’s his background) and Jenny Jones barely gets to speak – I don’t think she’s got a chance.

Yes Boris is a Tory and Ken’s Labour but unlike in a general election, this is less about parties and more about who you reckon is going to spend the capital’s money most wisely.

Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London

Transport
Ken’s promises to use a TFL surplus to save people who live in Zones 1 and 2 £1000 over four years and people in Zone 6 £1700 sound lovely – I pay £150-£180 a month in travel – but also a bit unbelievable. If there’s money sitting around to cut fares, it seems TFL would have done this already.

I liked Jenny Jones’ idea to increase the congestion charge – central London would feel much more cosmopolitan with less cars around and it’s a great way of raising money and “saving the environment”.

Brian Paddick’s One Hour Bus Ticket is also a winner – if you don’t have a travelcard, it’s annoying that you can change tube for one journey, but not buses.

Jenny Jones, Green Party Mayoral candidate

Housing and Jobs
In March, Boris announced a £41m London Growth Fund that is supposed to create jobs and housing and which businesses can apply for. So whoever becomes Mayor this year will no doubt see some positive stories come out of this investment.

Many of the candidates are promising the same thing for housing – creating more of it (11,000 from Boris’ count) and tackling rogue landlords.

Ken reckons he can save people £600 a year through an all-London not for profit lettings agency – but again this seems too good to be true, no Mayor will be able to curb the rises in rent when people will pay thousands of pounds a week for a flat. I do like the sound of Ken’s bulk energy buying scheme to save us money on electricity bills though, if he can pull it off.

Brian Paddick, Lib Dem Mayoral candidate

Crime
Crime is down 9% now from when Boris was elected and there’s 1000 more police on London streets – which looks pretty good until you remember how many people decided to go out and loot last summer.

Brian Paddick, a former deputy Commissioner in the Metropolitan Police would most likely be the best man for the job here but I’m worried he’s a bit of a one trick pony and, in (an admittedly naive) theory, if the next Mayor improves jobs and housing for Londoners, crime will go down.

Find out more at Brian Paddick’s campaign website, Back Boris 2012, Ken’s Better Off with Ken site and Jenny Jones for London.

HOW TO VOTE
Register to vote with the Electoral Commission here. Once you’ve done that sit back till May 3rd.

Everything you need to know about voting for the Mayor and the London Assembly on the day, you can find on the London Elects how to vote page. It’s pretty simple stuff, I’m sure we can all manage.

City Hall image credit: Faraz Pourreza-Jorshari (Boom Son).

What’s stopping you cycling? Tips and tricks for girls who bike

Pendleton Somerby Hybrid Bike £280

Bikes may be all very well on the PPQ catwalk but most girls I know wouldn’t dream of riding one to and from work, the wonderful Katie Wright excluded. Obviously there’s the vanity issue – boys hop in and out of the shower at work after a cycle in no time but wet or non-straightened hair everyday might not appeal to us.

But if we can get over this, what else is stopping us? I thought about why I’ve never cycled regularly – I’m not talking about occasionally jumping on a Boris bike or cycling around towns you visit when on holiday. I mean investing in a bike, getting some exercise and saving money.

First up, maybe you don’t like the look of the fixie bikes all the boys have got. You don’t have to settle for a creaky, old fashioned model with a basket on the front. Check out the Victoria Pendleton designed bikes that went on sale a few days ago (above) – they look pretty and they’re lightweight and easy to ride.

Cateye EL22/TL150 Bike Light Set £36

Then there’s safety. If you live in a big city like London, use TFL or a cycling website or app (there’s tons of free ones available) to find routes that don’t involve big, bus filled roads. And if you’re planning to bike after dark, get your hands on a set of bike lights like these Cateye ones below.

And finally, you want to make your new commute as pain-free as possible, so I loved the idea of this Real Comfort Bike Saddle that’s got infinitely more padding than standard saddles to keep your derriere happy for longer bike rides.

One more thing – don’t pedal when drunk, it’s not pretty and S&TS especially recommends not trying to cycle through Underground barriers when under the influence. You will not win.

Real Comfort Bike Saddle £25

EVENTS | Emilio Cavallini Risque Business party Or How to look sexy taking your tights off

Sexy as they may look with a bodycon mini and heels, tights are a pain to take on and off while still looking like a sophisticated temptress. Step up Emilio Cavallini firstly for giving men the same problem to deal with once they fall in love with their “mantyhose” and for putting on a model masterclass on getting in and out of sexy hosiery.

For AW12, Cavallini’s inspiration was pin-up Betty Page and the result is a gorgeous collection of vampish, monochrome designs with a hint of colourful polka dots thrown in for good measure. Then there’s the line of unisex tights that men can also wear – look out for these attention-seeking designs on an East London street near you sometime soon.

Party DJs Eliza Doolittle and Jameela Jamil both turned up in Emilio Cavallini tights as did Paloma Faith and male supermodel Tyson Beckford plus Dudley O’Shaughnessy was also spotted in Sketch that night (more on the amazing venue in an upcoming post).

Sarah Howe – Private Lives at the Foundry Gallery // Strike a pose, there’s nothing to it

Style & Then Some is having a little outing on Thursday evening to a private view at the Foundry Gallery in Chelsea (if they let us in the borough looking like we do). And it’s not for just any young, talented photographer that we would make the trek – we can’t wait to see Sarah Howe’s shots of burlesque dancers posing in their own homes, after hours.

Sarah went to New York with her co-conspirator in photography Magnus Arrevad after they won a competition but couldn’t afford to go over to see their work. Instead, they made a pact to go and create something new. “It just so happened that on the night before we left we met a New Yorker in London named Joe who was heading home,” she says. “We met up the following evening at one of the burlesque shows he produced in Brooklyn.”

The exhibition which runs from 26th March to 10th May is titled Private Lives in part because Sarah wanted to capture the stage personas of the women brought back into their personal spaces. Sarah is interested in “the way people construct their identities. In burlesque this is obviously exaggerated and extended.”

And the dancers themselves? Hands up if you’re surprised that they made for interesting subjects. “I was really blown away by all the girls. They were driven, creative and strong women. Jenny (pictured) was one of the most thought provoking acts but they all held down nine to five jobs, made their own costumes and performed at night,” she says.

Private Lives is Sarah’s first solo show and after taking the exhibition to the US, she’s on the lookout for artists to collaborate with. The exhibition at the Foundry Gallery is free entry but you can buy one of the gorgeous exhibition guides, designed by graphic designer Tom Peet, with images and quotes for £3.

See more details on the Facebook page for the Private View this Thursday 22nd March.

Jeremy Deller review // Joy in People at the Hayward

Valerie's Snack Bar (2009)

Jeremy Deller is pretty demanding. As part of ‘Joy in People’, a survey of the Turner Prize-winning artist’s work showing at the Hayward until May 13th, Deller and the exhibition’s curator, Ralph Rugoff, expect you to nosy around in his teenage bedroom cupboards, walk blindly through a Stuart Hughes mural of an open mouth and sit down for a cup of tea in Valerie’s Snack Bar.

Then again, that’s nothing compared to building a float to parade around Manchester as part of Deller’s procession during the International Festival in 2009. Or restaging the Battle of Orgreave, a clash between miners and riot police under Thatcher, with 1000 other people – sixteen years after the event.

The films and audio slideshow of Deller talking through some of these works – Beyond the White Walls –  only serve to remind visitors to the Hayward that we weren’t part of the original work. But you just have to get over this or you won’t enjoy Deller’s stories. He’s modest, engaging and funny as he talks about his lack of a formal education in art and his interactions with all sorts of groups and individuals in the UK and, with a burnt-out Iraqi car in tow, across America.

The smaller projects that made me smile the most were The Uses of Literacy – in which Deller asked fans of the Manic Street Preachers who felt educated by the band to make art inspired by their music and recommendations – and Middle Class Posse, a series of hand signals that Deller came up with to allow gangs of Radio 4-loving, tea-with-one-sugar drinking people to communicate secretly.

His work is like a series of flashmobs with heart – the thrill comes from being part of a short-lived or publicity-shy event but the difference is Deller tackles subjects that matter, if even just to one community.

And although this is a retrospective, Deller ain’t dead just yet. Something tells me there will be a lot more volunteers from the Middle Class Posse rushing to sign up for his next “work of art” if the queues at the Hayward were anything to go by.

All images show installation views of Jeremy Deller: Joy in People at the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre. Click to enlarge – if you don’t join in, Deller won’t be happy at all. All works courtesy the artist. Photos: Linda Nylind

So Many Ways to Hurt You (The Life & Times of Adrian Street, 2010)

Valerie’s Snack Bar (2009)

The History of the World (1997)

Open Bedroom (1993)

It Is What It Is (2009)