A week of whining and waiting will now cease. The camera replacement has arrived! Hurrah! Here comes the deluge of outfit photos that I've been itching to do, that will have you wishing the camera never arrived.
These images have already done the rounds and Bjork x Dazed & Confused covers aren't exactly a novelty but this 200th issue of Dazed, painted and photographed by Sam Falls and styled by Kate England really has gone into the stratospheric charts of Top Magazine Covers. The pairing of artist/photographer Falls with England's out of this world styling also will make the cover and accompanying feature a permanent presence on my desktop for a good while yet. The combination of painting and photography in editorials isn't always a successful fusion but in this case, the strokes of paint and pastels only serve to elevate Bjork's aura without obscuring the clothes that include vintage Paco Rabanne and a custom bodysuit by YSL.
At Pitti in Flornece, I also snapped the bright blue cuffs of Tommy Ton's khaki trousers, which he had painted himself and when combined with the painted antics of Falls, had me thinking that a bit of masking tape and careful painting would be an easy DIY trick. I took a cue from Balenciaga's S/S 10 palette and fabric choice and found an old linen skirt as my victim...
I found normal fabric paint to be a bit too runny and 'inky' for the fabric so I ended up mixing up acrylic paint with fabric paint medium to get the right consistency. Plus it's well fun picking the acrylic paint bits off brushes like I used to do with dried up PVA glue. I had a few masking tape mishaps where the paint had seeped through but I just neatened it up by going over it again with more masking tape to make the painted sections slightly wider/bigger. Any accidental splotches on the linen also made it easier to scrape off when dry because of the plastic properties of the acrylic. After sealing the paint with an iron and a piece of paper, the colour is suppoedly fully locked in. We'll see after a few wears whether there are any embarassing incidents where I sit down in a fancy restaurant and leave a streak of orange and blue as a little present for the establishment.
It helps that I've somehow picked out co-ordinating bits and pieces that collectively remind me of some of my favourite printed things - airmail envelopes and stationery and old Penguin classics. The Oxford blue of an Uniqlo shirt, the Smythson bright leather goods and a glint of orange in the Karen Walker sunnies all conveniently convene to send this skirt well on its way to getting me out of this trans-seasonal rut.
(Worn with Issey Miyake Pleats Please orange shirt, Uniqlo blue Oxford shirt, G.H.O.S.T. necklace, Karen Walker sunglasses from Gargyle, Monki belt, Nicholas Kirkwood shoes for UNIQLooks)
