Style Bubble

Advanced Style in London

After a weekend of saluting THE Queen of advanced style (how can you fault that sheer breadth of monochromatic pastel get-ups), it seemed fitting that Ari Seth Cohen should roll into town to celebrate his queens of Advanced Style with the launch of his book.  Nowness got together with Ari to throw quite a bash in New York, where understandably the turnout consisted of many of his subjects as Ari mostly shoots in New York.  I tend to associate Advanced Style with Ari roaming the streets finding Upper East Side doyennes or madcap Soho/Chelsea characters but interestingly enough, the cover of the book is actually graced by a Londoner, an ex-model named Gitte Lee.  

Last night, Ari got together with a few of his favourite London ladies to do a book signing and event at Mary's Shop at House of Fraser.  It was actually my first time there so I had a bit of a nosy around (very good space in comparison to the rest of House of Fraser... *ouch*) and I couldn't really stay for long so I quickly got a few snaps including this one sweet one of Ari wearing a Bernstock Speirs bunny cap and Thelma Speirs herself (DJ for the night).  

The book itself is a pleasing hardback A-5-ish sized tome containing a selection of all of Ari's top shots with a few quotes from the ladies themselves as well as an interview between Dita Von Teese and Ilona Royce Smithkin, one of Ari's star subjects and I believe oldest subjects at the grand age of 90.  I've come to take Advanced Style for granted over the years as it's settled in to become one of the streetstyle top guns but I forget how specific a niche this is, finding and shooting stylish women over a certain age and eking out their stories and getting to know them as people.  The blog and the book has built up a veritable compedium of characters, whose clothes are an expression of who they are, what they've experienced and what they've done in life.  I'm very much excited at the prospect of (should I be so lucky and live that long...) Susie Bubble style at an 8.0 stage of development, preferably with a wise and sagely mentality.  

P.S. Advanced Style, the documentary could very well happen as the project on Kickstarter is nearing its end goal of funding.  Only $300 to go until it hits the $35,000 project target.  I've pledged my support.  Go on - give a little and make it happen... 

Formerly Known as...

>> This isn't my arm or ear doing a fine job of modelling all this enamel jewellery.  As if I could ever get my nails into perfect rounded square tip formation and of course, I don't have pierced ears as longtime Style Bubble readers will know.  This is in fact Linlee Allen modelling all of this Nora Kogan, formerly known as St Kilda enamel jewellery, namely their signature Man Ray lip cuff.  Linlee is a multi-tasking sorceress who can do PR, consulting, write for the likes of New York Times, W magazine and V and still find time to think up brilliant ways of arranging lip cuffs into awesome colour formations.  Linlee was based in Los Angeles but has recently relocated back to her hometown Melbourne and luckily, I got to snap her arms, fingers and ear during MBFWA in Sydney.  Given that I'm a stickler for accurate Googling, I thought I'd be all pedantic and mumsy and inform y'all that St Kilda jewellery (which comes up most in Google) is now called Nora Kogan jewellery.  I believe there used to be two separate lines where Nora split out her enamel and fine jewellery work but now it all comes under one big Nora Kogan umbrella.  You'll probably have seen the Man Ray cuffs popping up every now and again (that's down to Linlee's clever product placement action) but I didn't realise the enamel extended to teensy tiny rings and earrings too.  More is more is definitely the way to go with Kogan's enamel pieces, after seeing the way it's loaded up on Linlee here. 

Upjazzled

You think with a swarm of world class street stylers descended upon Sydney for Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Australia, I would have stepped aside and just let Candice, Tommy, Phil, Nam and Natalie do their sweet sweet snappy thing.  I'll be kicking off coverage with mammoth piccy posts from the shows but first up, something a little on the unexpected side.

I saw Lisa Twomey backstage at the Romance was Born show (more about that later) and then met her later on outside the tents.  Lisa happened to be wearing a splendidly eye-catching coat, one that I initially thought was upcycled by someone else but turned out to be adorned and decorated by herself.  In a few brief words, I got the gist that she was a painter, happened to be interning at Romance was Born and made a lot of clothing herself, using her own collection of antique and vintage bits and pieces.  A further bit of nosy Googling made me hap onto Lisa's blog.  It sound a little bit creepy to say "I discovered Lisa blah blah blah" but I did love the idea of coming to MBFWA and discovering that beyond the catwalks, something quite vibrant, wholly tangible and defiantly untainted was going on in this girl's style and work.  

Hailing from Canberra, Lisa has been painting murals and participating in group exhibitions and makes clothes that are vehicles for her hoarding tendency.  "I really like carrying my favourite things around with me all the time and my bag was too full.  So I would sew trinkets and bits of old beautiful fabric and lace and beading, which my nana gave me onto the clothes, make the pockets big enough for books, sew secrets into the pockets and try and construct the whole thing pretty much out of recycled junk."

For want of a better word, Lisa T's clothes, which are available on a site called Out Clothes, could be classified as upcycling or to be even more gauche, it's upjazzling.  However, when Lisa takes garments and encrusts them until they're heavy with studs, gemstones, beading, lace, old fabric and roughens up the texture with haphazard embroidery and quilting, you can barely recognise the foundation garment on which she began to work on.  It goes without saying that trying to throw about theme-based words like gypsy or folk does her work no justice.  Instead, it's an undefinable mish mash that blends a ton of things together.  When Grimes came on as the soundtrack for the Romance was Born show today, I felt like Clare Boucher's voice could have easily been embedded into Lisa T's clothes. 

Delving into this stranger on the street and her work also gave m an excuse to connect her approach with Hiromi Tango's work, which I saw at the wonderful "Contemporary Australia: Women" exhibition at the QAGOMA in Brisbane on Friday.  Tango, a Japanese-born, Brisbane-based artist created two site specific installations, X chromosome and Pistil, for the gallery, showcasing a whole host of "women's work" associated materials and techniques.  Craft paper, wool, flowers, sweet wrappers, soft toys, notes, letters - anything with a perceived "girliness" intertwine with each other to form a DNA double helix shape as well as a long rectangular glass display of much the same but neon-lit with Hotel Hiromi.  Like Tango, Lisa T is probably well on her way towards becoming someone that isn't afraid to embrace the multi-displinary - "I paint, I draw, I make, I do" - and whilst Tango may knowingly be overwhelming viewers with kitsch, just as Lisa T is throwing out perceived "ethnic" vibes out there with her clothes, it's clear both have something a lot more to say than just mere aesthetic prettiness.