It doesn’t take much to make me feel stupid. Trying to find the words to describe the debut album of Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti at 4AD is just one of many examples I could give you. To me, ‘Before Today’ sounds like an album that Kevin Barnes could be recording if he loved goth bands more than funk ones. Or like the cold wave genre entering a multicoloured psychedelic stage instead of glazing at it's own depression. Don’t mind my threadbare examples; this is the album that will make it onto every interesting top 10 of the year and you don’t wanna miss it.
I can't resist (probably overpriced) basics-with-a-twist. My wardrobe, full of T by Wang, Oak, Bassike and yes, American Apparel is proof of this; and since in Australia, a new favourite has emerged in the form of Nathan Smith. His selection of supersoft tees, tanks and dresses have sucked me into buying multiples of a number of styles in different colourways. You just can't go wrong with these though! Addictively and endlessly wearable - and not in actual fact, overpriced in the slightlest - Nathan Smith is the way forward for your wardrobe.
I don’t think any series will treat teenagers the same way that Freaks and Geeks did almost 10 years ago. Although relying on every teen American cliché they could, this series was the closest thing to reality you could get whilst still being something fun and interesting to watch – cause, you know, life is boring. With bands like The Who, The Clash and XTC being either part of episodes or the soundtrack, this 80’s based cult show was short-lived (only 18 episodes), but long enough to enrich the careers of some young actors (i.e. James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel, Busy Philipps and, erm, Linda Cardellini) and is greatly missed. Can we have a movie about them meeting again in the 00’s?
Once, a friend of mine wanted to take me to this 'cheap Chinese restaurant', situated in the heart of Liberdade, a Japanese neighborhood in São Paulo. When we got there the place was packed, but because it looked cheesy and kinda poor, I didn't want to wait it out. It took another friend for me to go back there and fall in love with it. Now, every time the mood for some freshly made noodles (you can watch the chief making the noodle dough through a window) framed in some horribly painted pink walls takes me, I go for Rong He. Did I mention the food is also incredibly generous and cheap?
The ultimate in peeping tom into other, cooler, more fashionable, richer, quirkier and more-hipster-than-thou lives is Todd Selby's The Selby. Having previously been an internet only voyeur's dream, Todd has just last month released The Selby Is In Your Place, a coffee table tome full of twee drawings, colourful interiors and people showering. Half of the images in the books are favourites from the website and the other is stuff he hasn't published online yet. So go check it out, maybe buy it if you can to make your crappy coffee table in your crappy apartment that little bit cooler with pictures of someone else's cool stuff.
Monday // July 12, 2010 at 17:38 // filed under Music // Fashion
Hiya Charlie Darling
photograph by Manu Valcarce
Charlie Le Mindu has well and truly 'arrived' too many times in his ridonkulously young career to list them all. Anyhooz, this is just a quick update to let you all know, just in case you happen to be in London this coming weekend and have some spare dough, Charlie is going to be popping up with a luxury salon at one of London's coolest and cutting edge boutique/gallery concept stores; Machine-A.
Did you note his new barber chair? Black leather and white snake skin. Can't get any more lux or Le Mindu than that really.
Price list is as follows:
Girrrls - cut and style £100 / style £65
Bwoys – cut and style £65 / style £40
Give ELLA@MACHINE-A.COM an email to book an appointment...spaces are limited, so crack them piggy banks and scrape them pennies.
Whilst you're doing that, check out this clip by Japan's Ayumi Hamasaki who worked a whole lot of Le Mindu (as well as other amazing things) in this sexy little choon, 'Sexy Little Things':
Wednesday // May 12, 2010 at 12:40 // filed under Music
A still from the upcoming video
I like Uffie. What you see is what you get (under
many layers of vocoder of course), but so far there are two things that I'm hating on: she's the one to blame for Ke$ha;
and this new single 'ADD SUV'. But nothing that we can't overlook; I mean, we
just need to ignore Ke$ha some more until she goes away. And as for 'ADD
SUV' I think we may have just found what to do with it thanks to Armand Van Helden.
Duck Sauce's other half throws away the entire synthetic
single and played only with Uffie's robotic vocals. Enter Pharrell Williams and his delicious rap lines on a new field - the house
music field. The beats, the disco influence and the effects make the song not
only hyper, but also one of the best things to ever come out with Uffie's voice on it. The lesson here is: no song is helpless when you've got a classic producer
behind a computer. Lesson learned and approved!
Everytime I see something new from Charlie Le Mindu, I can't help but say 'this is his best work yet' or something to that effect. For the last three seasons of his participation in London Fashion Week, he's blown us all away with the artistry and plain ridonkulousness of his creations.
This season though, Charlie has shown something more mature; more sophisticated, and in his own words, more French (or, a little English guard-esque as it were below - but of a much more sexy and fashionable variety, of course). Blonds, brunettes and even redheads were out this season, instead Charlie made his girls out in silky, inky black locks.
The lovely Grace Joel was in attendance for me and this is what she had to say:
East London’s club kids were up early, as London Fashion Week kicked off with Charlie Le Mindu’s extravaganza. With the energetic and amazingly dressed audience - their own hair coloured, sprayed and shaved to perfection - watched Charlie’s ever more impressive hair cascading from wigs, hair pieces and capes showed his unique skill and creativity. Shiny black manes covered crucifixes, fabergé eggs and black lacquered roses, all having been given Charlie’s magic touch. It was thrilling and filled the void that Gareth Pugh left when he packed up for Paris. It was an upbeat, optimistic start to the week, with the youth, creativity and optimism that London Fashion Week is all about!
*LAAARGGH* amazing. Below is the Fabergé egg all tricked out in Swarovski crystals (who get heavily involved with many designers' work), and hair so black and straight, all y'all light haired girls who be permed and waved out will kill yourselves for these locks that are dead straight and shiny-as-the-damn-crystals.
In a development on the rat-pelt 'hijab' Charlie did in his first season, this time round he's gone from ratty to foxy, YES YES that be bonafide fox ladies and gents, blinged up with blue Swarovski crystals in their eyes.
Luxurious, excessive and utterly fabulous (don't you die for the bag too? By Charlotte Hardwick).
Here check it, On | Off's video of the show, and a gallery of all the amazing looks below that - sick soundtrack by Kap Bambino of course:
Monday // November 30, 2009 at 00:00 // filed under Music // Fashion
Charlie in the studio, East London
photograph by yours truly
By now you've all been sickeningly fascinated/sucked in/unwillingly riveted by the Lady Gagz video. Not surprisingly at all, a number of Charlie Le Mindu pieces have found their way onto the newly nosed Gaga; least of which crowns the top of thatMcQueen ensemble she werks in the middle of the clip.
Forget the shoes (for a second) and check the hair!
In the meantime, Charlie has been named Fudge's Hair Ambassador (whatever that means), amongst styling hair for various hot bands video clips as well as his cut and style residency at Tatty Devine's Brick Lane shop.
In the midst of this update, I hit him up for 5 tracks he's been listening to lately, and here's what he hit me back with:
1 Kap Bambino : Batcaves 2 Winona Carr : Please Mr Jailer 3 Pizza Kids : We Like Pizza 4 Lady Gaga : Bad Romance 5 Peaches : Mommy Complex 6 ( bonus track ) : Suicide : Ghost Rider
Watch out for a Charlie Le Mindu cover of Winona Carr's 'Please Mr Jailer' - little do y'all know, that another lesser known talent of Charlie's is that he yodels. Yes, he yodel-odelays. And rather well, actually.
Charlie Le Mindu's latest collection was above and beyond the most creative and boundary pushing collection that showed at London Fashion Week - fact.
Just check it below and you'll see what I mean.
Here are two of my favourite looks from the show below, including the bags that we told you about earlier made by the uber talented Gabriella Marina Gonzalez. Latex body suits by House of Harlot
And here you go again, the latest catwalk mix that the ever amazing Kap Bambino duo did for the show:
Tuesday // September 29, 2009 at 13:15 // filed under Fashion // Art
Margiela's mask
FRANKEN-FASHWAN! What a delightfully dark and of course, inevitably beautiful-to-look-at concept. It's the theme of the latest issue of Dazed and Confused, where they roped in a bunch of designers like McQueen, Gareth Pugh, Margiela, Chalayan, Cavalli and Castelbajac to make masks for them (cue me seething with jealousy).
Anyway, as a part of this issue, director Alex Turvey made a short film that was screened at the British Film Institute, which included everyone's favourite hair artiste Charlie Le Mindu being commissioned to make wigs exclusively for the film. Menacingly beautiful, dark and not a little surreal, with contributions of props by MADE and clothes by Nathan Jenden, Rupert Sanderson, Hannah Marshall, Louise Goldin and Manjit Deu and a soundtrack by Benjamin John Power of Fuck Buttons, how could it NOT be amazing?
Frankenfashion
Check some pics of the mask project editorial below:
Monday // September 14, 2009 at 13:10 // filed under Music // Fashion
Charlie Le Mindu
With New York Fashion Week in full swing (we'll do a wrap up of our fave shows after it's done and dusted), we're down to the final days in the countdown to London's anniversary edition.
Yes yes, it's been six months already since the last one and Charlie Le Mindu is gearing up once more to present his sophomore collection. This year's collection is based on the concept of Birds of Paradise, and it's going to be called 'Girls of Paradise'.
In the studio/salon
French electronic thrash duo Kap Bambino (click the link for the interview and last season's catwalk mix for Charlie Le Mindu) are in charge of the soundtrack once more and I'll be backstage yelling at the models again - and I'm telling you, the collection is shaping up to be even more jaw dropping than last season's show. Definitely one to watch!!! Stay tuned for exclusive backstage pics of the show as well as runway shots...
Dropping in on Charlie Le Mindu working on his collection for the upcoming London Fashion Week, ogling the pieces and wishing I was blonde, I met the fresh Central St Martins Womenswear Graduate, the extensively named Gabriella Marina Gonzalez, who had a couple of pairs of the ridonkulous shoes she made for her collection with her.
Shoes for the Emotionally Dispossessed (and strong of ankle)
Made of suede and mock croc patent leather, these insane platforms - which are 7inches in the back and 4inches in the front!! - with an uber square toe remind me of a Harajuku bondage girl on steroids. These babies make a grrrrrl TALLLLLLL.
Her graduate collection, named 'Clothing for the Emotionally Dispossessed' is based on the fact that for her, London is an ocean of people who've come from small towns, who were obviously too big for their pond. Gabi told me that:
"There is an over abundance of talent and people here who are here based on the fame and fortune London promises. The reality check comes when people realise the illusion of this, and that they need to get off their high horses and look into themselves and their art and take the fame aspect out of it; to personally and emotionally get involved with work, because there are too many people here for the same superficial reasons. Emotional dispossesion I guess, is the jaded feeling you get of being here because its very easy to lose your vision."
Gabi is in charge of the realisation of some pieces in Charlie Le Mindu's show. TRUSSSSST watch this space. Mad skillz ahoy.
