My dear friends Jessie Brinton and Margot Bowman (bravo on that first from St Martins Margot!), have rejigged, rebranded and reinvigorated Esthetica into something quite, quite beautiful. I feel proud to be a part of the new world order.
The Sex Pistols were cited as the voice of the underground: daring to swear on national TV, wearing safety pins and gobbing at the audience, they were the 70’s merry pranksters, hell-bent on pogo-ing their anger into our expletive-shocked consciousness: a reaction to the death of hippie free love and the shell-shocked dawn of Thatcherism. But look again, weren’t they styled to within an inch of their Westwood tees and Malcolm McLaren graphics; the World’s End refrain to punk’s politically angry throes: more boy band hype than voice of a generation? Perhaps their svengali, Malcolm McLaren was a precursor of Simon Cowell; perhaps the Pistols were nothing more than a manufactured by-product of a maestro on the make.
However, the vital difference is that they celebrated their teenage angst: a half-arsed career, spiralled by bad management and indolence, where shock was the common denominator, they didn’t care who realised how disgusted with the state of the nation they were, indeed I’d argue it’s this for which they are remembered more than their music; while the country waved Union Jacks to celebrate the Silver Jubilee, they dared to ask whether this really was a load of old bollocks…
A generation ago, in 1981, while the world was brimming with excitement over the romance of a Royal Wedding, in a parallel to today: Diana, a teenage virginal shy bride, who blushed into her fringe, the fascinating innocent, was held aloft with our expectations and collective gasps of adoration. We all bought into the myth, millions watched the spectacle and believed in the fairy tale. Sadly, like all fairy tales it had its dark flip side. Perhaps if we had been a little less naïve and more astute, we might have woken up from the fantasy earlier, to realise, that like all mythologised stories, there is always a rite of passage, a big bad wolf, a witch and a sacrifice. A virgin bride, an older, diffident man who loved another, the innocent, yet aristocratic nursery worker who was bound to grow up and ask questions, the institution of royalty; it is only now with hindsight perhaps that we can see what a recipe for disaster this truly was.
While most of us were fluttering flags at street parties, or watching fireworks explode in red, white and blue celebration, there were already the hints of the anger at Thatcherism’s divisiveness to come. That summer saw the Brixton riots: London literally was burning, people who had lived and worked in this country for over a generation, were no longer simply happy to bow down to institutionalised racism, they took to the streets and dared to answer back.
To come were the Miners’ Strike, the Poll Tax Riots, the St Pauls, Toxteth, Hansworth and Tottenham Riots. While it was the era of yuppy, meritocratic materialism: a glossy sense of grab-it-now excess, where we were told that we too could work hard and reap the benefits, that if our prime minister was a shop keeper’s daughter, we too could rise to the top of the pile through hard work and endurance and even buy our own council house at a heavy discount to gain entrance into the exalted realm of the home owning middle classes. There was the insistent drum beat of the angered anti-voice, those who questioned Tebbit and Thatcher’s political framework, the dawn of a time when Britain morphed from manufacturing global force to banking pleasure isle and dared to fight back.
So what has changed in the past 30 years?
Well, again we are about to celebrate the flag flutterings of another royal wedding: this time not to Diana the hunted, but to Kate the middle class, a proto-icon of discreet taste and astute acceptance, who, let’s hope, is more protected, loved and aware of precisely what the contract she has entered into is.
Again, too, we have a Conservative (albeit in coalition) government, again we are in recession and again we really ought to be angry. Ought to be…
But are we really? Personally I am furious! I am appalled that the cabinet is made up of the over-privileged and under-qualified; I am disgusted that they are closing schools, libraries, crèches, charities, hospitals and public sector jobs; I am shocked that they propose university fees which will prohibit the majority of students from leaving without a debt so epic they will never be able to pay it back. When Winston Churchill was asked to make cuts in the arts after WWII, his response was that the arts were what they fought for and if you cut these, what you had fought for was worthless.
I never thought that there would be a government worse than Thatcher. I loathed her with the venom of my youth: despising her glib, controlled platitudes. Where I too woke up from the seductive dream of the Blairite New Labour’s Cool Britannia, horrified at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least I felt that my sense of Britain was echoed back in the Labour government’s Thatcherism-lite appropriation of social conscience socialism. One where the state of the nation was tied into a world order of equality and democracy, however hard that might be to implement in reality.
Perhaps as one of the last of the meritocratic generations: a product of a grammar school and the first in my family to go to a university, I was a Thatcher’s child. Certainly I grew up believing that I too could and would do whatever I wanted, if I worked hard, possibly doubly hard than those from a more privileged background, who maintained their sense of collar-up entitlement, but against whom I knew I could play career poker and win the game.
The fashion industry I entered as an assistant stylist was a fascinating secret world and I was intoxicated by its perfume. I worked for the Fashion Editor Anna Cockburn, doyenne of a style called ‘grunge’ (but so much more), who challenged the style status quo, with work which allowed the raw, the beautiful and the damned their place; a fragile voice made strong, which meant fresh air, ruffling the feathers of fashion’s establishment (who else would call in Ann Summers which was then mistaken for Helmut Lang by colleagues at a Vogue shoot?), while we partied to Nirvana and rave and believed love was the way to break down the class barrier.
So here we are 30 years on from 1981 in 2011: another Royal Wedding about to entrance us with the dream of a good girl made good princess; another Tory government telling us they are in this too, while George Osborne, the trust fund tax exile, pushes through a budget so draconian, a generation of children will be tied into debt.
While the 1980’s had the Falkland’s War: a battle for a place which sounded Scottish, but which was actually closer to the South Pole; we have wars of so many fronts, that the war on terror seems an endless, expensive sacrifice.
While the 80’s had the poll tax riots, now they are about to make squatting illegal; while students then lost the right to claim benefits, now they are tied into a £60,000+ debt per BA degree; while then we had Section 28, last month Philip Sallon was seriously attacked while walking in Piccadilly, yet curiously there is no CCTV of the event; while then we saw the closure of mines and factories, of any possibility of Britain maintaining an industrial autonomy, now we sit back while the bankers foreclose on our debt, yet issue themselves with bonuses akin to Third World economies.
Am I alone in thinking the world has turned topsy-turvy???
Am I alone in thinking the world needs to wake up??
Am I alone in wondering why people aren’t taking to the streets?
Am I alone in wondering where is the voice of the counter-culture?
Am I alone in thinking that Lady Gaga and her glossy, veneered ilk are not enough of a reaction and wondering where fashion’s politically expletive voice is in all this?
Am I alone in disbelieving that what we have now is worse than what we had?
Am I alone?
Words by Tamara Cincik
http://vagabondiana.blogspot.com/
My friend Ellie is a writer for magazines as glorious as Lula and Elle. She recently gave birth to Doris Donne and true Cockney, and like me (and Natasha) a Scorpio. See below for her recent interview with me for her gorgeous blog, which allows her free-rein for any uncommissioned musings and is a glorious read.
This was going to be a short visual post; a few questions to Tamara on dressing Bat for Lashes lady-lark Natasha Khan for the Brit Awards, but I took a u-turn when Tamara, an eternal piece of passion cake, sent over a feast festooned with references. I love references, the short summaries of what gets people going. As I’ve said before, anyone with a passionality is interesting to uncover. So instead of cutting out anything ‘non-Natasha,’ I wanted more of Tamara’s take on anything. Her gypsies, 1960′s acid trips and Anne Boleyn. Some more boxes to tick soon. I’ll leave you to do the same.
Tamara’s take on …
… dressing Natasha for the Brits
I wanted it to feel and look like tarnished Hollywood. Natasha [left] had a book about the Hollywood designer Valentina [above] who would go to premieres in the 1940′s looking amazing; so utterly glamorous! I wanted Natasha to look like her own version of this: beyond any trends, dancing to her own rhythm and not at all looking like a generic pop star.
Natasha is very strong on accessories and knows what she likes: she wanted to have the gold sequin bow hat made, which I thought looked adorable and slightly off – which is always cool! And she loves Pamela Love’s jewellery, so we called that in and to be honest that was her choice, but I thought it was totally gorgeous and through pawing over Pamela’s jewellery it is clear she was right!
Jackie Tyson created the rainbow eyelash Natasha wore for the Brits and does her make-up for lots of red carpet events. However Natasha is amazing at make-up and lots of photos you see of her on TV or at festivals, she has created the looks herself.
… enhancing an existing stylish ‘flair’ rather than controlling it
It’s vital to work with Natasha in a collaborative dialogue. Image and style are intrinsic to her, as is how she feels – you can hear in her music that she works from an emotional, uncompromising place and she constantly works at this on all level. We send references back-and-forth and discuss ideas and images and then hone these into a total look design. I’ve recently worked on her tour outfits (she is currently in South America with Coldplay) and for this, I sent her a whole ream of designs and ideas and then we edited them and added her ideas in to create a bunch of looks for her to wear on stage.
… why even stylish stars needs stylists
Natasha has great ideas about how to dress and what to wear, she is very clear about how she likes to look and feel. For me, her style is more individual and quirkily iconic, rather than following fashion trends religiously and I celebrate that. Working with me as her stylist allows me to oversee that side of things for her more easily; she can trust my judgement and I always make sure she is involved and updated. I can access the labels, tailors or pr’s as of course I already know so many people through my other styling work, so in a way I can feed ideas and information through and then we can collaborate without her being bogged down with the admin-side.
…the importance of style in determining the success of a musician today
It’s vital: the world is so media-savvy that unless someone is the new Neil Diamond or Seasick Steve, I think it is kind of key.
… her life ambitions
I always thought I would grow up and become a gypsy, and travel about with my hair catchi
ng warmth in it’s curls and wearing broderie anglaise on tanned olive skin, barefoot. Then I did that. Or I thought I would live in Paris with a talented artist. Then I did that too. Then I decided it was time to grow up and become a serious careerist, so now I spend my day playing with clothes, and my summers growing vegetables at our allotment and my evenings reading Tudor history in the bath for hours, trying to work out why Henry V111 seems to have murdered everyone he loved. I find the fashion farce hard to take seriously and the regime of work and self-discipline hard to commit to after years of wriggling out of any form of control. [Tamara, above, on her 'festival of love'-themed wedding day. No wriggling out of that one.]
… her life guru
Ram Dass is a spiritual teacher from the States who harks back to the time of Ken Kesey
and Timothy Leary. He was an academic who took acid in those early Ivy League tests in the 1960′s and the trip totally changed his life: he dropped out of his professorship and began working with the counter-culture leaders of the era. From this he went to India and renounced his material life and lived with his guru for many years, before coming back to the west to teach.
He became one of the first westerners to go to India and try to reason with his life in a non-materialistic way, so his message is totally approachable and yet intelligent, marrying these worlds, yet there is something very Californian-meets-Woody Allen about his delivery, which I enjoy. Totally mesmerised by The Merry Pranksters as a teenager, I did all I could to recreate that life: going to India at 19, falling in love with a San Franciscan biker who taught Tibetan monks English while his mother read tarot back in Berkeley, and later being a huge part of the squat rave scene here and in Goa. Although there is the potential for his work to sound like the naffest kind of psychobabble, he is so intelligent that somehow brilliantly in the ease, there is genius.
… her inspiration
Stylist Karen Binns has this way of engaging with the world and her work which I find utterly captivating: she was a part of 1980′s New York and there is this, combined with 1920′s black cultural glamour-meet- classic Hollywood fantasia and I love it. Through her work you see how fashion is an escape and a message.
starting point for dreamtime travels: I would oscillate between her, Elizabeth 1 and Mary Queen of Scots as a child at the French court – all very Tudor-specific! Anne was clearly highly intelligent; she grew up in the Burgundian court where women were expected to be well-educated and witty. She brought this finesse back with her from France and through her, England changed religion, changing it’s course forever from medieval to early modern. Anne was stylish in that I love her French hood and ‘b’ chain ensemble. I’ve recently read two books on her and it’s fascinating how each author has their own perspective about what is true and thereby we can see what is true is always subjective.
Princess Tamara [above] with her own prince in their own ‘Pink Tower.’
KTZ SHOW: SUBTERRANEAN GLITTERBALLS, STOMPING KIDS AND STONKING LOOKS!..BY TAMARA CINCIK
marjan and sacha walk the walk
Dear Shaded Viewers,
Marjan and Sacha are old dear friends of mine, hours spent discussing silhouettes and windows in their soho shop kokon to zai. I worked with Marjan, styling his beautiful own label and have supported them through shoots and loved wearing his clothes for many years.
KTZ was their reaction to the underground colorful music scene: it hit the nu rave scene a few years back running, with overgrown joggers in mad techno prints, sexy skintight lycra dresses with neon embellishments and cyberzorg boots.
Marjan’s own label meanwhile, has always been slightly whimsical, romantic and in touch with a base note of dark macedonian gypsy earthy glamour, which I adore.
The KTZ show last night felt like a marriage of the two: skintight black catsuits, with copper body hugging beads and cut out knees, walked out ahead of Zoe dressed in a purple holographic huge puffa, with mini printed jogger shorts. Every detail was well considered and thought through: from the embossed socks, the over the knee square toed lace up sex boots, to the giant bauble necklaces. Then there were huge over capelets made from silver beads, knee length hooded woollen shawls in tightknit grey.
This was a collection of pieces which unify the london aesthetic: Bodymap body con-style with their own unique well designed flavour of fun, design and desirability.
Well done
Dean dj’ed the night to it’s pumping conclusion as as I sat back to enjoy the scene, I admit I did feel a little like a mother in a Jane Austen novel, seated at the ball, watching the next generation feel the groove…
Later,
Tamara
POSTED BY DIANE PERNET AT 01:23 PM | PERMALINK
Michael from Blow had warned me that this was the most requested ticket on his roster of
shows this Fashion Week, so to get there early, which given they worked on 13 shows this
week, told me everything i needed to know: get there early! anyone who knows me, knows
this is a rare event in itself; luckily jeremy picked me up in the astra gypsy wagon from
Nazir’s show, where I had been so proud of what Anna (my ex assistant ‘Dolly’) Trevelyan
and Sam Voltage had achieved.
Heading East, Jeremy pointed out that in football terms last night was the ultimate
hotdate: the final of the Championships League, so we popped into the local Owl and the
Pussycat for a beer (him), juice (me) and football update,(0-0) when we left.
Marching through the throng at Beach Blanket Babylon, suddenly I knew what Berlin in the
1920′s must have felt like – the party at the end of the world and the finale of time ( a
huge inspiration for me aesthetically) – and now with the current climate, perhaps even
more relevant.
A visual overload of trannies in cocktail gowns, grannies dressed as Dracula, boys led on
chains and matriarchs in lingerie; glitterball fractals of decadence and revellery hit my
retina in every corner. Jeremy perhaps wondered why he had left the football, but I knew
that this is where the real action was. The stories from the audience fascinated me:
trannie gold medallist Jeanie D with 2 teeth and a spider on his head, Russella with her
glittery Dorothy shoe red lips, Pia naked save some masking tape and a peach fur coat, as
one glamazon told me, we’re a long way from Kansas now…
Jacquie Soliman from Agent Provocateur pronounced this the show we have been waiting for
and in a way she is right: one which announces London’s more underground, underbelly,
intent and content.
We’ll never be Paris, we aren’t couturiers, by showing in the Eastend, Johnny drew on
London’s sleazily Victorian past: opium dens and decadence, sexual freedom and dark
corners and translated these into rock and roll punk undeniable English freewheeling
beauty. A masked duo danced on the bar top, while the shows freely chaotic madness
unfolded: beautiful chiffon grey dresses, Betsy in a cape throwing roses and tarot cards
at the floor, boys in underwear, girls in jewels, Tamer swaying his hips in russet tones.
Patrick Wolff and Jodie Harsh sashayed from the floor onto the catwalk: the audience
became the show, we are all free, we are all theatre, we are all angels. Johnny would
say something like this and I am inclined to agree.
I said to Tamsin and Jessie, I am not sure Jeremy knows what to make of this, it’s
outside his frame of reference, Tamsin (a leading climate change activist) pointed out
that a lot of people want to be here; I replied, ‘Exactly, just as they did in Berlin.’
We laughed, we know, surely it’s better to enjoy the circus, celebrate the chaos, the
painful freedom of these random moments of madness, while the ship sinks, we may as well
enjoy the tunes of the band as we drown?..
Tamara Cincik – words
Jeremy Fusco – photos
www.houseofblueeyes.com
Seems like ladies have always enjoyed a bitch'n'stitch!..
Here is a piece I just wrote for the online green glossy magazine ‘Style Will Save Us’.
New years’ resolutions: so well-meaning, so hard to keep…
After enjoying the Christmas Craftacular fair hosted by Bust magazine in December, perusing the cute handcrafted gifts on sale: from embroidered brooches to knitted hand grenades; all to a DJ soundtrack of feel-good disco, I was inspired to use my Uncle Anthony’s John Lewis Xmas gift voucher to buy needles, a knitting book and 12 balls of grey wool.
My intention was clear: I have the allotment, I have the bike, I make my own hand creams and potions, I am keeping health food stores in credit crunch credit, but now there was another skill I needed to add to my list of DIY ticked boxes.
Knitting on your own is fun. I felt like my Nana, chilling, whilst knitting with one eye on the holiday season roster of film epics; but as I learnt when I went along to the Stitch ‘n’ Bitch event at the Royal Festival Hall, knitting with others is even better.
It was a rather bracing walk across Embankment Bridge and felt very
pleased with myself that I had made it along and not bottled out. 175
other knitters clearly felt the same!
It was such a lovely, nurturing way to spend an evening: there were novices and experts from punkette students and office workers, to glamazons and grandmas. Some taking advantage of the 2 for 1 cocktail deal, sipped colourful concoctions whilst sharing skills and smiles, pouring over patterns and needles.
Newcomers, like myself, were made to feel very welcome and could choose between an impromptu masterclass or joining the round table of knitters all happy to chat, ready to include you into the merry band.
With the ‘make do and mend’ mentality being all the more resonant in these economically challenging times, the message of coming together
as an ad hoc community and enjoying making something special and
unique for ourselves, seems the most pleasurable, yet modern way to spend an evening.
TAMARA CINCIK is a fashion stylist, writer and ‘style faculty expert’ at the fabulous new School of Life.
Quintessentially Knotty Click on the image to read.
Dazed Digital Cultural DNA Top 10
1 1978 ‘The House That Sailed Away’ by Pat Hutchins (1975)
I loved this book so much that I must have read it about 18 times! It tells the story of a family whose house during a rainstorm detaches itself from it’s terrace in Hampstead, sails down Rosslyn Hill and after an epic journey, shores up on a desert island. The characters are hilarious: grandma is a lush and a kleptomaniac flirt: terrified of the shark who follows the house, eyeing her up hungrily though the basement window; mum is an apparently beatific anorexic; while dad in the spirit of tom from ‘The Good Life’, revels in the new challenges of life at sea: fixing, mending with a fine line in mother-in-law jokes.
On the island they find two friends of Grandma’s: castaways from a shipwrecked OAP booze cruise and together ward off cannibals, pirates, returning to England as heroes as they save the crown jewels.
The idea of travelling with your home really appealed to me. Years later I did just that: buying a ford transit for £450 with my ex boyfriend Ben, we lived on the road. With a herb garden on the dashboard, a handmade bed and a kelim carpet on the floor; it might have looked like a generic white van, but inside it was home.
Hampstead is only 15 miles away from where I grew up on a council estate in Watford, but as a child it felt exotic in its moneyed security. Driving home after Sundays in London, I’d peer out of Dad’s embarrassingly flash E-Type Jaguar at the roads leading from Rosslyn Hill, hoping to catch sight of Willow Road, the street the house pulls itself away from and once I did. This pleased me, as though somehow it made those fictional possibilities a reality, that from the most ordinary the extraordinary could happen.
My styling work comes from this place: where the most mundane can be magical; the most surreal ideas come from a very ordinary starting point, creating a magical story which is believable and therefore touches us all.
2 ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush (1978)
‘Top of the Pops’ was a weekly Thursday treat at my house. One night a barefooted girl with saucer eyes, a virginal Victoriana-a-go-go outfit and Nefertiti arm gestures stared back from the screen, wildly wailing for a lost love. I was mesmerised: who was this Heathcliff and what had he done to her to make her so desperate?
Luckily BBC2 showed a series of the book not long afterwards, which Mum as a treat let me stay up late for. This, combined with the children’s abridged version, answered my questions and fed my obsession.
My relationship with Cathy changes: as a girl I didn’t understand why she would want a man like Heathcliff; as a 20 year old studying the book for my English degree at UCL, whilst living with a man I didn’t feel passionately about, I didn’t understand why she would ever leave him. The story always seems to touch me; even the 1939 sanitised version with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier had me in tears when I watched it again last September.
The belief that huge, overwhelming love is rare, but not always good for us; that we can love the most inappropriate people and that there are consequences to our choices, Kate Bush was that first hint of what I know now to be true: there is always a price.
3 2006-now: Grey Nike Jogging Pants.
I took up jogging last year as an upbeat antidote to years of yoga. Running around Regent’s Park, fuelled on chocolate to speed up the rush, I felt like Rocky: shifting from loser to champion, as I became more disciplined, more agile and aware of my breath.
Jogging meant a new wardrobe, I bought a pair of grey jogging pants, finally rebelling from my Mum?s dictate that sweatpants are common. When sportswear first hit style central Watford, while the rest of my class squeezed themselves into skin-tight velour and sweatshirt fabric (and mostly looking hideous) I wasn’t allowed a pair. Did I feel I’d missed out? No, why hide behind the mass identikit Suburban attempt at Brooklyn street-style when I could play with clothes my way?
In Camden, where I live, joggers are the foundation of a kind of uniform. Girls wear them with a harsh ponytail, tight t’shirt and chains; boys add hoodies and boxfresh white trainers. Combined with a space enveloping shoulder sway shuffling walk, this is a kind of class defining style war. Not so much u and non-u, as jog and non-jog?
These are the things I have learnt from jogging:
1 that I can do it ( I was the slowest runner in my year at school ? ha, not any more!)
2 that it makes my legs look better
3 I can eat chocolate and not feel guilty
4 in jogging pants I am visible and invisible to different kinds of people.
4 1977: Rod Stewart ‘Sailing’.
In 1977 my dad in his infinite wisdom spent the money they’d saved to buy a house on an e type jaguar. I can remember my grandparents: poppa in a flat cap and sheepskin jacket combo coming to look at it in the car park opposite the salon; clearly mum had rallied the cavalry. Dad was very excited, showing off the red leather interior, explaining the engine to a silent audience. It’s at this point, I always maintain I’d have divorced him, Dad’s response is to laugh: ‘we were young!’ ‘Yes darling, I was young?,’ I reply, ‘I was 7?’
That August we drove to Turkey: Dad could show off his beautiful wife, me, the car; the family could believe it was worth leaving home for all this. I was cramped in the back next to boxes of presents for the village: it was sticky, hot, and horrid. Mum took up smoking again, we went through one border with her in tears, and in Germany the police mistook us for the Baader Meinhof gang. I’d stare longingly at camper vans, dreaming of more space, more logic, and air-con.
Mum had brought one cassette with her, a Rod Stewart compilation, light relief to Dad’s Turkish folk music. ‘Sailing’ became our anthem, past perfect Austrian wooden houses, through communist concrete Bulgarian cities. Easy to remember, perfect to put our own versions to: ‘This is boring, I am boiling, I am dying?’
5 1978 ‘Black Narcissus’ (1947)
At school periodically we’d queue up for our lice inspection by matron. One afternoon they took me aside to quietly tell me I had the telltale signs of head lice eggs. I was mortified: my parents owned a salon; this could be dire for trade. I was even more perturbed when Mum told me that Nana had cut off her hair when she’d got lice as a girl – but not to worry – she’d not do that to me! Armed with the stinky shampoo, the torture chamber lice comb and the sense of going into battle, Mum painstakingly went through my hair picking out the eggs: it took hours. Late night TV was the only foreseeable treat in this indignity, through my hair, neck aching, ‘Black Narcissus’ came on. What should have been really boring suddenly became the best treat ever. In the most beautiful Technicolor, India came alive for me, who cares if it was really a suburban garden in Surrey combined with Alfred Junge’s backdrops? I was entranced.
Cries of ‘Sister Ruth, Sister Ruth!’ became a family joke; her red dress hot desire possibly went over my head (I think I thought how could she compete with Deborah Kerr anyway? Stupid woman!).
That night was the start of two love affairs, which carried me through into my twenties: -
India: I don’t care that my first view of India was a film shot entirely in England, that half the cast had gone to RADA, it felt and feels entirely authentic to me. As authentic to me as my literal experience of India was: equally as magical, equally as lurid. You fall in love with a feeling.
Powell and Pressburger: I went on to write my finals dissertation on their films. Their world of flawed innocent love affairs, redheads, arcane mysticism and fallen morality captivated me that night and has held me ever since.
6: 1989: ‘Dirt’ by The Stooges (1970)
The only society I joined during Fresher’s week at UCL was the Psychedelic Society.
This was the period of the first incarnation of my Sicilian widow wardrobe: 60′s black cocktail dresses, worn with lace-up boots, velvet boleros and a silver nose ring. As term progressed the skirts got shorter, added to this was a hat bought at ‘Planet Alice’ on Portobello Road, which I?d have to hold up each time I crossed the street, as it nearly caused several accidents due to peripheral blindness on my part from it’s brim.
I saw so many bands in that first year: from Nirvana to Dinosaur Jr, from the Lemonheads to Spaceman Three; had I failed at college, I could have made a glittering career as a groupie, so knowledgeable was I about waah-waah’s, Chelsea boots and (my particular penchant) bass players.
But it is ‘Dirt’ by The Stooges that is my anthem for that year; it predates all those bands, all those pretty boys by a generation, yet it still sounds utterly modern.
Iggy’s simple sentences: taunt with howls and taut derisiveness. You never know whether his hates you, is seducing you, or fucking you. Precisely like those boys I was surrounded by then; except he was so much more: more crazy, more flawed, more brilliant, just more.
I’d play this song repeatedly in my room in halls, God knows what the other tenants thought; none ever complained, perhaps they were too scared, perhaps they felt it too, or perhaps in that hat I just couldn’t see them.
7 1993-1996: DJ Tsuyoshi
If you asked me to name you the music I danced to at techno parties around the world, I’d draw a total blank; this memorable time in my life, had an utterly forgettable soundtrack. Leaving my boyfriend on a whim I called love, I ran away to meet the latest soul mate in India, only to end up in Goa. I was not dressed for Goa; I was dressed for India. Enhanced by a trip that only a chosen few were in fact medieval; while others sported neon lycra in fractal patterns, I went barefoot in floor length skirts, black and sari tops, with colours vibrating their essential deeper meaning to me.
Bike rides at night took us to secret party destinations, flagged by fluro painted trees, lit by oil lamps, music pulsating into the forest. Secret, but somehow everyone knew: the chai mamas already set up, each with their mats tribe of dissolute wasters to pet, feed and cash in on. The police already bribed. At dawn the sacred cows would entrance the dance floor with the best costumes. The music was a ceaseless flow of techno; I longed for disco, for anything without that repetitive drone. I may have been dancing to techno; but I was hearing soul. Now when I hear techno my body beats me to the rhythm, still the speaker girl, my right leg kicks out, head swaying, I am in the beat before I wake up to myself, laughing.
Sunset parties, full moon parties, squat parties – there’ve been a lot of parties! Tsuyoshi’s is the only name I’ve been able to remember; so what can I recall? Well, he was mellow, didn?t talk much, had a nice girlfriend, was entrusted with our trip, our night and was consistent. I’ve listened to him play for days in several countries and that’s it…
8 2004-now: ‘Boudoir’ eau de parfum by Vivienne Westwood.
When I first wore ‘Boudoir’ at least 4 people would tell me that I smelt nice on each outing. This reception pleased me, so it became my signature scent. The first perfume I wore was ‘Eau de Gucci’; aged 16, it saw me through early kisses, church hall dances and adolescent crushes. Wearing it made me feel adult: it gave me an aura, it gave me an allure. The anti-hero of Patrick Suskind’s ‘Perfume’ has no smell and thus is unlovable. His quest for love unites with his intense sense of aloneness, as he destroys, murders and catalogues to create the perfect blend. Personally I disliked the book, but the idea that we are haunted by fragrance is a resonant one.
An ex-lover wore ‘Comme 2′ and though he was not the great love, whenever I smell it on someone, I’m thrown back into that moment, that desire. On other men, their armpit, enveloping my face: slightly sweaty with an undercurrent of beer, exertion and warmth, has felt like home, utterly magnetic. I wear ‘Boudoir’ because I like its blend of rich tones and velvety scents; but equally because I enjoy the reflection it sends back to me from others. Who doesn’t want to be told they smell good, that they’re desirable? Without it I feel naked, my own scent laid bare and that is private. ‘Boudoir’ is then also my armour, my protection.
9 1988-now: Ecover cream cleaner
My first taste of alternative living was aged 17 when I went to visit a boyfriend’s family at the Camphill Rudolph Steiner community outside Aberdeen. After the epic 12-hour bus ride from London, I entered the doors of the large house where his parents were ?houseparent? and immediately noticing it smelt different, entered a different world. Communal meals of the most indigestible food were blessed before eating: lumpy porridge, soggy bowls of brown rice, inedible stews – you needed religion to be able to eat them I thought. I was so starving I lost weight (perfect I thought); eventually eating pies from the local shop to assuage my hunger. Washing up was a ritual taking hours, doors were unlocked, and money of no value as everything was bought by Mario’s mother from the Steiner shop. Cupboards revealed cavernous stockpiled provisions of pulses, muesli and Ecover products. I’d entered an alternate reality. Ecover was new and news to me: products that didn’t harm the earth, which were biodegradable; that smelt nice naturally and did the job. It seemed so clever, so simple; like a lot of what I learnt from my trips to those Camphill communities.
10 1995-now: Blackberry – T mobile
When I came back from travelling in the van, Mum announced she was buying me a mobile phone: ‘So you can be contactable.’ My hippy friends (the same ones who now have at least one) all mocked me, as I’d step on tip-toes or go near the window to get better reception; I was in the company of drug-dealers and yuppies, the only other people I knew had a mobile number. It was deeply temperamental: it didn’t like Muswell Hill, most of Bristol, or coastal areas. But it loved Camden where I live and I relished the freedom it gave me: the sense that I could be on top of things, without being tied to a landline. I could still go off for trips in my truck and pitch for a job – perfection!
My Blackberry is an extension of that: this summer on a boat off the Turkish coastline, I was emailed for a job, able to respond promptly and days later was poolside at the Istanbul Hilton being paid to sunbathe, while using my Blackberry to approve the next job.
Fear of not being reachable seems to be a modern drug: watch how many people in the street are grabbing hold of their phone: the fix of the next call, hustle, row or inane conversation holds us all in it’s sway. But I have lived with nothing: with no phone, no mobile, Jesus, even no shoes and this to me seems to be the happy medium: to be reachable, but able to screen my calls; to be in touch, but know who is there.
Wig Magazine Fashion Forecast
I live in Camden, as a teenager I’d trawl the market wearing my favourite outfit: think a black and white op-art jumper, black corduroy mini skirt, lace up chunky Victoriana boots, shawl collared dinner jacket, snood, ribbed tights, hundreds of bangles and the hugest pair of costume jewellery earrings. Lunch was spaghetti bolognaise with Diet Coke at ‘The Goodfare’ on Parkway. While my taste in cuisine may have changed, ‘The Goodfare’ remains gloriously unaltered: it’s Technicolor Venetian mural and glamorously bouffant head waiter, my Italian Elvis, both still vibrant, if a little frayed around the edges. Kirsty Mccoll sung of Presley working down her chip shop; I like to believe that his Mediterranean doppelganger lives on, serving cappuccinos and chat in a corner of North London.
Saturday job money then university grant funded this sartorial second hand love affair: one which seems to have been the most constant source of pleasure through several relationships, a couple of decades and numerous homes. Here my passion for vintage clothes began: Victorian jackets, tartan minis, 1960′s cocktail dresses, cropped leather jackets, mod skirts, utility wear, costume jewellery and high waisted skinny trousers. These pieces, many of them still loved and worn, feel so perfectly stylish and utterly covetable; they tie in perfectly with this season’s collections and hint at the silhouettes and moods of the catwalk.
Christopher Kane’s girl felt distinctly Camden Goth: russet toned crushed velvet a’ line mini dresses strode out next to soft leather rocker twin-sets of button down jackets and mini swing skirts. Politics and fashion is not an easy mix, yet using shows as a springboard for review, comment and expression, several designers created urban warriors, whose outfits combined veils with cool combat gear. At Bora Aksu this season, Bora used custom-made armoury pieces to accessorise the show.
La Petite Salope had their debut show off schedule during London Fashion Week this season. Known for dresses which hug the body in all the right places, making you feel glam and effortlessly cool, this show was a celebration of the coquette: flirty French music guided the models as they bounced down the catwalk in a capsule collection of perfect cocktail dresses. The muted palette of blacks, greys and dark green, worn with red seamed black stockings was refreshingly simple. Flattering tulip shapes, chiffon dresses and matching velvet coats, ideal for hot dates or fancy parties.
Alexander McQueen’s show, might have met with mixed reviews, but it was my Paris highlight. I bow down at the altar of his talent to fuse cool with couture, creating women I fear, admire and aspire to be. Charlotte Tilbury’s make up, with Cleopatra kohl rimmed eyes and neon shades was again a celebration of rock goth-fabulous; while Eugene Soulieman’s hair took graphic blunt fringes, mixed with Rapunzel locks and insect shaped buns, to create a look which was at once space age, yet warrior woman: familiar to my Camden muso local, yet terrifyingly new. Girls strode out in a star formation, criss-crossing in outfits of skin-tight leather trousers, egg shaped dresses and padded coats; which at once hugged the body, whilst redefining its shape. As the finale music sang out Nina Simone’s ‘I put a spell on you’, the stage lit up with a neon red pentangle and I knew that yes, this season McQueen had.
Isabella Blow his long-time muse, a woman I remember from my internship at Vogue cajoling him to realise his dream, when he was just another St Martin’s graduate with big dreams, a helpful mother and strapped for cash, would be proud of this show. As clever, and open as she was apparently eccentric; Isabella once described the Sir John Soanes museum to me as ‘sexy’. She had the vision to celebrate the new, the bold and the fabulous. This show was all those things. He’s come such a long way and it is thanks to Isabella’s eccentric eye and Medici-like patronage that talent such as McQueen’s, or Philip Treacy, has flourished. Her unmissable presence at shows and belief in nurturing talent, art and design will be sorely missed in a sea of normality calling itself fashion. The world is a duller place without her and sadly shows will be a blander place without her.
My condolences to her family and the hope that her vibrancy, colour and wit will be remembered and survive in shows to come.
Allotment writing for Guardian Online: click on the links
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/jun/16/workandcareers.gardens
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/allotment/2008/02/my_friends_helen_and_marks.html
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/allotment/2007/12/in_a_further_installment_of.html
Purple Magazine Q&A with Natasha Khan a.k.a Bat For Lashes
Natasha Khan is a beauty, she has the makings of a muse: a woman whose face,
conversation, body or lovemaking inspires the creative talents of a Picasso or a
Balenciaga. But this is the new millenium and Natasha is herself the artist, moulding
these dreams to create her own body of work. Harpischords and hip-hop, Medieval and
modern musical forms, collide in rhythmic harmony through her band ‘Bat for Lashes’ new
album. Dreamscapes which draw the listener into a new world, like Alice tumbling down
into the rabbit’s hole, we awaken into a whole new world of kingdoms and quests where
it’s a woman’s voice who utters the battle cry.
1 Tamara: By using dreams as an influence on your songwriting you’re allowing your
personal totems and symbolism to become motifs in the songs. The lyrics sound quite
haunting, yet also haunted.
Do dreams become nightmares do you think? Or is it just a question of how you look at
them?
Natasha: I think that if you’re in touch with your subconscious there are elements which
are always considered positive. In dreams there are no rules or logical explanations.
the beautiful things are in the invisible. Everything is an illusion; the reality of
what you’ve been drawing on in dreams comes out much later but it is always coming from
a real place.
For my last album i was channelling dreams, and I see looking back at them now, that
these relate to issues from that time in my life. This changes for everybody. When I
delve into my dreams, like the one I had of Joan of Arc which I used for my first album,
she is very symbolic archetypally to all of us, we all draw on an ancestral and
historical reservoir, but at the time I dreamt those things, I felt the responsibility of
the work I was about to undertake.
Learning lessons from our subconscious is a constant process, now I am learning a new
lesson as I am at a different stage; as creativity is a spiritual journey, it’s only
after the event that you can understand the lessons. Transformation means moving on.
2 Tamara: I saw you playing at the ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ festival which Devendra
Banhart hosted last year. Do you guys hang out, share ideas and enjoy a cup of tea? Is
it like the 60′s Californian folk scene, all sharing influences, ideas and ideals?
Natasha: My work is definitely not folk. It draws from eclectic influences, such as
hip-hop, Medieval, Kate Bush and The Cure. Musically it is separate, but spiritually I
am connected to that scene; Devendra is like an older brother, he is very championing
of friend’s talent. It feels like an extended family, a community of bands such as
Spleen, Espers, which is effortless and real.
3 Tamara: Do you think that magic is everywhere? Did you feel that growing up in Watford
(like me-North London suburbia)? Your recent video for ‘What’s a girl to do’ for
instance, has that suburban Donnie Darko bmx bike riding teen dream vibe, yet then the
weird couple and the animal heads leap straight out of an Angela Carter novel.
Natasha: The leafy suburban mundane routine bored me, so I’d escape to Rickmansworth
lakes and and watch the full moon and bats coming out. Then I related these to religious
subjective influences, like in the film ‘The Virgin Suicides’. Gaston Bachelard said:
‘The house is a shelter for dreaming’; and I feel that growing up in the suburbia did
give me hours to dream, as it was a shelter for my cocoon to make the discovery of magic
within the small microcosm I lived in. I had hours to dream and create through escapism,
this trained my imagination to be strong. Too much stimulation overwhelms me, I need
nature and quietness to connect.
4 Tamara: I wonder how conscious you were of being mixed race as a child? And if so, was
that easy or difficult? I ask because as you know, I come from the same hometown and am
also from two cultures. Though I am older, I experienced a degree of racism, which adds
a layer of isolation, which then leads to dreaming…
Natasha: I can agree with that. when I was younger I was gawky and not cool. I suffered
from a bit of racism, or what kids use against one another which is different. so I
developed humour and became a bit of a joker at school.
Having mixed race parents means I grew up in a world of extremes with constant cultural
conflict. As a child there was a constant pull: which parent do you side with, because
you can understand both points of view? It does cause pain and it did lead to me
escaping for time on my own; but I see the positives in this, now I can identify with
lots of people and I have an eclectic taste, such as in music, listening to Dad’s tabla
and sitar music or Mum’s cheesy Fleetwood Mack songs and appreciating them both. There
is a pain in being fragmented, but I have drawn on this and see that there is no right
or wrong, no limits.
5 Tamara: Remember I described that Turkish word ‘huzun‘ to you – it means an enjoyment
of a melancholic memory from the past – kind of loving the pain, the sadness? You said
that’s me and my work. To those who are perhaps more light-hearted, would you explain
what you mean?
Natasha: laughs. I love that word! Definitely there’s a magical element from childhood,
and what I call the hoodie 80′s films, like ET; but it’s not necessarily self-pity, it’s
more seeing a beauty in the darkness. When you strip back what it is to be human, it’s
terrifying and beautiful. I love to dance and enjoy being happy; but at the moment, I’d
say it’s the root of my influence, definitely on this album. I don’t think you ever
forget those moments from childhood, there’s an absolute beauty in the terror of stepping
out from childhood.
6 Tamara: You also create the artwork for your record sleeves, why? What does it mean to
you?
Natasha: When I was little, I played music but it was only in my foundation year at
college that I combined music with visual art. I see music and art as twins, it is
important to me to create a world which I am inhabiting in any given album. In the
record contract I said that I want control visually and musically to how I look and the
artwork. I need to give justice to the totality of the universe I am creating. I’m
happy to open up to other people’s expertise, but I need to see that it is a part of the
overall image of the world I have created at that given time and for that particular
project.
The music is like my children, I have a responsibilty to protect it.
7 Tamara: Where would you like to go next?
Natasha: I am quite superstitious, so I don’t want to open up too much to upset
them(sic). But as I become more confident, I see the productions as becoming more
theatrical. I am in the process of recording a new album which is exploring this, in
terms of performing and being theatrical.
