British Style Bloggers

PACKIN'

IllusClaire — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:45:32 +0100

Festivals, huh?

I don't have much festival experience, to be honest, because I find the idea of being trapped in a compound with a bunch of drunk people in wellingtons pissing up the walls leaves a little to be desired. And it's not like you need me to tell you how to dress, right? Even if you haven't seen any of the 'festival style' article every newspaper or magazine prints around the end of May every year, your average basic advice is: dress up like Noel Fielding. And leave your bra straps visible if you have them.

So my personal perspective on festivals come from the one time I went to V with a couple of friends in.. year ten? Here is what happened:

I threw up (in the car) after eating a nectarine, which made my vomit a sort of neon orange colour
At one point, a pair of knickers fell out of my bag. We were watching Athlete; I found myself slightly interested in how not-embarrassed I was.
This:

When in doubt? Front!
Maybe I'm sheltered? Yeah, I'm not ashamed. But I swear, I'm not making it up about the hat
..And I saw Elvis Costello play. That was neat.

This year my only pangs are in the direction of Reading - my sister's going, and Gogol Bordello are playing, and that makes me want to choke a little bit I guess. Oh well! Trade-off's fine.

But that's me. And you're you! And presumably, you're considering - or definitely - off to the fields for a bit of fest this (or a future) summer. So let's think about what you need, and how to make it look better.

Thesite.org's tips on festival camping safety says "Keep your stuff to yourself:
Carry your cash, cards etc. with you at all times and never leave anything valuable in your tent. When you're asleep you might want to split your cash between two different secret spots - just in case one gets broken into.
I'm not going to say "bum-bags". Because those are pretty gross, most of the time. I am going to say "pouchbelts".

I use one whenever I go out because it makes me feel like a badass and keeps my hands free - which are the kinds of things that are useful, in super-social three day weekends. Look at these, all on etsy; these are flippin' rad. Click'em to check prices!

So Batgirl 2!

You can also hook your brolly on your belt if you take a curve-handled one.

Go forth and festify, citizen readers!

Dress Your Mind

IllusClaire — Fri, 14 May 2010 18:58:11 +0100

This month's brief: KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON - revision month. Tips for people under the yoke of academic study.

So what do I know about revision? Nothing, that's what - if I knew about revision, I'd have a job and a house. This left me at what seemed a minor creative disadvantage, this month.

Then again, I do know about being at home. And then again, this is a style-fashion blog. So what do you need from me? You need clothes-related calm-keeping. And that, I can give you!

It was my mother's birthday on St Patrick's day, this year (like every year), and (like every year) I had no idea what to give her! She's tricky. So you start at the start - what does the giftee do with their days? In the case of my mum, she teaches all day, and then she comes home and researches and plans for teaching in her office. But she gets cold - she ends up spending all day with her dressing gown or outdoor coat on over her clothes. Which really doesn't breed a comfortable attitude, for hard work or a quiet mind.

Etsy time! I got online and put in a search for a housecoat. Here she is work-ready, now - she's a part of the daytime world, and a part of the indoor world too:

Houseclothes have pretty much vanished from the average wardrobe, I'd posit. Watch something set in the fifties and you'll see housecoats and housedresses. Watch urban-based sixties and seventies films or shows and you'll probably see kaftans and velvety houseclothes. But by the time you're up to the eighties and onwards, "loungewear" (things you wouldn't wear outside) has pretty much become jersey and spandex, or sportswear. Things that actually, are perfectly socially acceptable to wear outside. Especially now.

That is what you, as a person actively revising or studying, want to avoid. Avoid avoid avoid!

If you have trouble, when you need to get down to it and work, you want to wear things that you wouldn't feel OK sleeping, or getting ready to sleep, in. Dressing gowns? Out! Pyjamas, oversized t-shirts? Out! You don't want to feel chillaxed. You don't want to feel sleepy or lazy. You need to feel ready, and capable, and Dressed For The Day. You need to feel prepared.

But you also don't want to be ready to go out. If you're dressed in a way that would not invite comment if you popped out to the shops, or went to the park, or went to roam around with friends for a bit - then you're encouraging yourself to do those things. And if you are doing those things, or thinking of those things, then you are not revising!

Revision dressing, then, might be taken in three basic directions: "classic loungewear"; "wacky experimentalism"; or "take luxury where you can find it".

All of these pictures bar the couple that are of me (the last pair in the first section) are of garments available from Corina Corina in Warwick; owner Ella was kind enough to let me invade her shop for a while last gloomy Saturday!

Classic Loungewear

Here we're talking clothes that were actually designed to be worn in-house only, OR clothes that are loose and comfortable against the body and currently off-trend. Some of these, like the Kaftans and smocks, are quite possibly still relevant to your everyday wardrobe - things you'd be perfectly alright with wearing outside. If this is the case.. pick a different category!

Personally when I wear designated houseclothes, I feel serene. I am where I am meant to be ("in the house"), and I feel comfortable, because these items were designed, specifically, to be no kind of hindrance to a person going about daily chores or catching up on correspondence.

Housedress on left: 60s vintage, via etsy, a birthday present from my gent; Kaftan on right: 70s vintage from an antique mall near Buxton

Wacky Experimentation

Please note here - I'm talking from the P.O.V. of the 'normal'. Just adjust the volume, to suit your individual lifestance. If this doesn't look unusual to you, please don't think I'm calling your tastes messed up or strung out! It doesn't look that weird to me, either.

Things that aren't technically "houseclothes", but which would make people, in an average British town, raise an eyebrow at you. I know, aren't people rude? But in exam season, it's probably best to keep sartorial experimentation to private hours.. because having people yell at you is neither calming nor focus-enabling. No, really. Don't bother being brave, just now. You need to concentrate.

These are good choices because they're fun, and fun is an antidote to soul-crushing anxieties such as "Oh man, what if I fail everything and die". They're creative expression at a time when it seems like your sole purpose is to be a fact-retaining machine, a repository for other people's discoveries. Did I mention I hated and was poor at revision?

Don't forget that WE houseclothes can also be physically practical - keeping your hair under control when your head is getting closer and closer to the textbook, when you haven't showered for days because you NEED THOSE EXTRA MINUTES.. yeah. Try out head wraps and bandannas! If you wear them already, step it up and opt for something bigger, brighter, or involving more knotting.

Take Luxury Where You Can Find It

If you're in school, or college or University, or.. well, if you are a member of society and answer to society's expectations, you probably have an outfits worth of occasional wear. Evening wear. Posh togs. And when do you wear it?

How wonderful is the back of this 70s dress? SO WONDERFUL.

When I was in sixth form I skipped the prom, but I did go to my friends' joint birthday party. This required a dress. Not a cotton dress or a daydress or a sundress; a fancy dress, with beading and velvet ribbon. In my life, I have worn this dress out once: to that party. That is a gosh darn waste of fabric! If you have a dress or evening suit, or if you see a dress or evening suit and you love it, there is no reason why you should experience the joy of wearing it on nights dictated by the ebb and flow of your high-class social life.

If you have an item, you can wear that item. You can wear it to read notes on the scandals of Popes through the sixteenth century. You can wear it to organise your folder of Mondrian postcards. You can wear it with sequined shoes to make yourself a bracing cup of tea before diving back into what exactly the billboard meant in the Great Gatsby. If the dress is wonderful, it will make you feel wonderful - and feeling wonderful is conducive to a lack of stress and a belief in one's abilities. These are things that are important, when one's life is at a junction.

Good luck, readers! I bet you'll do great.

Claire's Birthday Column: Style Icon

IllusClaire — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:20:07 +0100

It's Vivienne Westwood!

Our April theme is STYLE ICONS; all of us columnists are having to ponder (or I guess for some of us, it's an easy choice?) who influences our style most. It's right there at the top of our homepage! For me, that's a pretty hard question, really. I don't let anyone influence my style the most - for one thing I don't really know of anyone who's shaped like me and more importantly, when I let anyone reign over my wardrobe-thoughts for too long I start to get itchy. It's not MY style any more.

The question for me is, who makes me feel the most validated when I follow my own ornery path? Vivienne Westwood, that is who.

It's true she's said some weird-ass things which make me roll my eyes,

Feminists wish women to seem like men. They're not men.

And that, in 2007 at least, she was speaking out as pro-Tory which is less than ideal to me. But since I was a wee piglet lying on my belly every Sunday night, soaking in the Clothes Show and the base-level knowledge that just as Raphael is my Favourite Ninja Turtle so Vivienne Westwood is "My Favourite Designer", I have been willing to bend where usually my fan-principles hold hard.

She's the mother of "the punk look", fergoodnessakes. I don't care how many punkhearts don't need safety pins and tartan to rock hard! Punk fashion sings to me.

There are endless debates (or discussions, really) about the difference between style and fashion; the consensus is generally that fashion moves and style matures. Style is the unfathomable you-ness, right? What you bring to the fashion. So a style icon has to have a themness about hirself..

I decided early on that I wasn't going to do a VW retrospective or a fact-based ream of praise because.. you're reading this online and she's a huge name and brand. You can find stuff like that out easily. Plus, I'm not talking in terms of "I buy her clothes and that means that she has influenced my style, because.. I don't. I don't have enough money to buy from her new, and I've never come across anything second-hand. Style icon; influence; Your Style - that's the brief. I wanted to give a tiny tour of how VW has had a so-called influence (I really couldn't say if she's changed me, or if I've just consistently enjoyed the existence of her work because her zest naturally appeals to me) on things I actually wear, rather than objects of hers which have themselves inspired me. You see what I mean?

Here's a season manifesto she wrote in 2008:

And here she is on Jonathan Ross recently, talking about saving the rainforests and the planet and admiring Prince Charles and LOOKING AMAZING.

"And if you're in the country, then you have to learn the names of all the flowers - I know them all cos I was born in the country."

"If you don't have depth you don't understand the world you live in"

"My duty, is to understand the world I live in.. because understanding it, then you can help the world."

This is why Vivienne Westwood is "my favourite". Her public image (personality/clothes hybrid) is about pro-activity and just DOING IT - creativity in motion. DIY and really really caring. She is.. cheeky soul? Look at that penis with wings, back up on the manifesto! Her website is called Active Resistance.

The following: Things I (love to) wear, captioned with the names of the flowers in-shot (learn them!), rounded up with the relevant September '08 manifesto line reference or quotation, and explanation. This is how Dame Westwood is my Style Icon: she is pro-worldsaving, and tells me I am right to dress how I do. Thanks, lady!

Pansies (red), Primulas (yellow), Tulips (leafy)

"Kerchiefs worn as knickers... or tied up as a bag" VW kerchief, which I have worn in both these ways.

Violets

I didn't do anything at the Queen, whom I admire.
"Badges (preferably with political slogans)" Well there is no slogan, and this is technically a charm not a badge, but - I am pro-queen and pro-royal in general. Does this (and that below) not proclaim it?

Tritelia

Daffodil, Chaenomeles / Ornamental Quince (red)

"Your old favourites - there is status in wearing your favourites over + over until they grow old (patina) or fall apart." This isn't an old jacket, but it's a favourite and it is certainly falling apart. WOOOOO TOPSHOP! I dig it, though, holes and all, and I'm not going to throw it away just because it's disintegrating. Wasteful, no? Holes mean patches, and patches mean "Badges (preferably with political[maybe not political-political] slogans)".

Wallflower, Tulips

"[as above]" This kilt is moth-eaten as all heck. But it's my name-tartan. And kilts put me in mind of the whole punk thing again.. so O VW, once again you're on my side.

Violets, Anemone Blanda

"[as above]" Apparently this kind of pleather doesn't age well? But pink plastic houndstooth kilt-skirts don't come along every day. I'm going to wear this untill it falls off. Vivienne Westwood told me to. Vicariously.

Spuuuuurge / Euphorbia (green)

"[as above]"This was a gift when I was thirteen. I'm twenty-three (today!), so this is ten years old and going strong. Old favourite, old favourite, when will you grow your patina?

Snakeshead Fritillary / Fritillaria Meliagris

"[as above]" So I have a lot for this "old stuff's still good" point, but I wanted to get all the flower names in. And this one has darning. Darning's good to learn. I bet my Style Icon does agree!

Aubrieta

I don't feel comfortable defending my clothes. But if you've got the money to afford them, then buy something from me. Just don't buy too much The kerchief was my first VW item. I felt kind of silly about being as joyful as I was to open it, but.. your heroines are your heroines. These shoes were the second, and they give me just as much squee. Anglomania + Melissa, post-season sale through YOOX. They make me happy. That makes me motivated.

Tulip "Persian Pearl"

It's just a visual association re:attitude. Active resistance! Wooargh!

You know (hopefully) that I'm all for 'fashion activism' and that BSB have embraced the idea of it too. So I think.. you can probably all share a little, in this pedestal-raising?

They use "Words and Pictures" to teach kids how to read and write and live - don't forget to keep on, at that.

IllusClaire — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 16:55:05 +0000

As you might have noticed from some of my previous posts here and on my own blog, I am a firm believe in the power of fiction. I've never had trouble understanding religious people despite not being an adherent to organised religion because I see in people studying and learning from, for traditionally British example, the Bible because that is exactly (or parallel-zactly) what I get out of the "genre" fiction that I like. I get morals, and lessons, and examples, and counter-examples, and reassurance, and guidance, and role models, and plenty of satan-alternatives from what I read and watch and listen to. This is not meant to trivialise organised or traditionally derived religion, at all - what I'm trying to do is to impress how seriously I take storytelling and art (which, basically, I look at in the same way) in general. I was looking at the cover of the MOOMIN complete collection volume two hardback the other day, and thinking just how amazingly excellent and powerful I find the characters, and noticing to myself "wow, Tove Jansson really didn't try to make her characters 'pretty', did she? I so admire her for that. It makes them.. even more wonderful". If they were pretty-pretty floaty drawings, they wouldn't be "Tove Jansson's Moomins" art.

This is common to a lot of the art that I really, really like. Paula Rego (above; possibly my very favourite) is interested in "the beautiful grotesque", and her work has strongly informed her son-in-law Ron Mueck. Frans Hals caught my eye in school with the Malle Babbe, Jester with a Lute and his "Gipsy Girl", all of which are about "the human face in action". The face in action is not what's asked for, in terms of "beauty". Is it? Claire Nelson's recent guest post circled this, too. The assumption is that you have to become an A-lister before people are willing to pay for pictures of your laughter, if it isn't in a specialised shoot.

Anyway, what I'm driving at is that art and fiction are great, great healers. Not only does art make the traditionally "ugly" (or just "not-beautiful" look wonderful, fiction makes it impossible to deny that the personality within a body is what really, truly, lastingly makes it shine. Having people to identify with who have great, unbelievable adventures helps make things OK. How many times have we heard Amy compare her hair to Hermione's? (Not complaining!) How much buzz was there about the Princess and the Frog, because now there would be a black Disney Princess and that would count? We talk about the media giving unrealistic body image standards, and we celebrate seeing more plus size models, and we know why: because seeing is believing, or at least a start at it. This is my advice: if you feel bad about yourself in any way, use fiction and art to combat it. Fashion comes under that heading, sure, but so do a lot of other things. Write a short story, silly if you like, about a girl with a great big arse. Make her life AWESOME, or make her big behind the thing that ends up saving the day, or just write a story about a girl, and know that while her derriere is large, that is neither the beginning nor the end of what makes her wonderful. Get out some coloured pencils and spend an hour or two doing detailed, better-and-better drawings of your "so weird" thumbs that you usually try to hide. Make a one-page comics about why the delicate, reactive skin on your face is actually kind of cool..

Don't go into street caricature territory. You aren't Lisa Simpson, and even if you're into chasing boys on roller-skates I bet you look just dandy doing it. Just draw what you see (what you REALLY see), or write the respect that you'd like. From yourself, and from others. If you really don't feel you can face what you think are your "worst points", or if you're just feeling in general "today/in this picture, I am just not having a good face day"? Within this week, drop a comment here, or email me your photo, and I'll do you an informal portrait. Maybe you can appreciate yourself when the only other choice is to say "I kind of hate the picture you drew of me.."? IT'S A CHALLENGE.

Traditional Media isn't obsolete! Entirely.

IllusClaire — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 20:46:44 +0000

I'm heading up the activism & existing campaigns section of Positive Body Image Season here at BISB. I'm putting together a great long list of links to other people's established positivity campaigns, but in the meanwhile I'd like to head a course to positive old media (as in: TV and film) representations of complex body image issues.

Of course, that's pretty hard, because if mainstream media promoted that sort of thing the world wouldn't be in quite the state that it is. I swear, I'm an optimist! But I'm a future-orientated optimist; I'm not going to pretend that 'our' track record is "not as bad as all that".

So what I'm ACTUALLY going to do right here right now is highlight some existing media that doesn't necessarily come out swinging and singing the praises of normal, beautiful people but which points uncompromisingly at the problems caused by stringent beauty ideals and the enormous value put on the shallowest of judgments. Watch them, show them to people, and maybe, maybe, these hang-ups will start to dissolve.

What am I saying? Of course they will! Most of my dragons have been slain by thoughtful fiction. Trufax.

Pick one:

Since watching Oldboy (trailer), Save the Green Planet (trailer) and The Host (trailer) It's become a habit of mine to periodically search "korean movie trailer" on youtube and see which gems turn up. Last go, I stumbled across Beautiful.. whose trailer took my heart and squeezed it. Take a look.

In summary, the film is about a woman who is near-empirically (guess what) "Beautiful". And whilst that's nice in a vacuum, in the context of her life it causes her to be seen as extreme competition and fair game for uncouth comments and behaviour such as stalking. Eventually, one of them rapes her, and blames her and 'her beauty' for his actions. She decides that she needs to become "un-beautiful", and from there.. her life unravels further and further. With a little help from her 'friends'.

This doesn't sound like a happy film. It does look like a good one, though - it's an angle on beauty standards, misogyny (which, oh yes, is all tied up with mainstream body image issues), and the enormous control they can wield over people's real lives. Not a straight-up everywoman story, but not fantasy; touching enough nerves that I certainly can't ignore the truth of its message: in life, you have to be stronger than the expected average because there is too much at stake to allow these prejudices and assumptions and value judgements - that we apply to people every day - to remain unexamined. Don't be the lowest common denominator. Unchallenged beauty standards ruin lives (to greater or lesser degrees).

Body image is about identity, after all. There's no reason to attack someone for being who they are.

Incidentally, the Beautiful (or 아름답다, or Areumdapta) trailer reminded me of this: reading Jezebel last month, I came across this article, which talks about Mauritanian girl-children being force-fed, partly through torture, to make them fat enough to be desirable to prospective husbands. By their mothers. Oh, the many joys of patriarchy and human fallibility! Let us count them. And then destroy them.

Pick two:

Confession: I've never seen the movie Taxi Driver. But something within it is one of my favourite film happenings. I've never seen the film I'm talking about, but I have seen Heat Guy J. Heat Guy is an animated series of the type that looks basic and archetypal on the cover, seems weird and maybe a little bad in the first episode or two, and by the end is an enormous, glowing ball of visible inspirations re-mixed and originally worked into a brilliant, moving whole. The 'happening' I am talking about, the one from Taxi Driver, is shown on-screen in Heat Guy and seems to be effectively lifted from the film to the series. When I first saw it I had no idea about this and I loved it; it was a perfect moment for the show and the character. Now I know it's pinched, I may like it even more.

The happening is: a character shaves his hair into a mohawk to ready himself for a task looming ahead. Wikipedia suggests that the act of shaving isn't shown in the film (if this is wrong, let me know!), so here's the trailer. The difference is far towards the end.

Unfortunately I can't find Heat Guy's the shaving scene on youtube.. these stills will have to suffice.

[..hahaha I just realised i havent added these yet. Give me til tomorrow evening!]

I like this scene so much because it speaks to me and is straightforwardly plain: sometimes, a body needs to be a certain way to express the emotions that are boiling your soul. It doesn't matter if you're a big tuff gruff man, it doesn't matter if you're anything. If a person looks a certain way it may be necessary for them at that time - who are we to judge? The world requires an awful lot of conformity and compliancy sometimes and it should chill out.

I must point out here that having shaved head-sides does not mean that a person is going to shoot somebody, though. That is the metaphorical part - "doing a murder" = "slaying one's own demons" - in this analogue. For a real life example, when I moved back home after uni and started spending my days doing only housework and cooking, I did this to my hair:

I needed something jagged to balance the sudden domesticity. Taxi Driver and Heat Guy J remind us in a roundabout way that if you think someone looks weird, what you're actually noticing is that they just aren't you, but a real person all of their own.

Pick three:

Dawn French on Big Women. Degrees of fatness are the first, most obvious point when it comes to "Positive Body Image" themes. All that negativity that results from "obesity" being mistaken for and becoming interchangable with "ill health". We all know that prejudice against "fat people" is a hot topic, and I'm sure there's not much I could reasonably say on this subject that hasn't been said far better. The first part is here, but the whole thing is up on youtube. I found it really interesting, food for a lot of thought, and I think you might too.

This one, actually, is directly about beauty requirements (specifically in the UK). "Why should we have to starve to be seen as beautiful?" It's really interesting to see the fashion industry professionals talking about the "problems" with using bigger ladies in shoots. Because their words are so weedy. One guy thinks that "women today" don't have cellulite. HAHAHAHAA

This documentary was made in the 90s, as far as I can tell, but it hasn't stopped being relevant. I don't know that I need to say much here, because Ms French is directly addressing the facts rather than telling a story that includes them, but I will warn you that a couple of times she disses thin ladies and I don't want to be hearing any discussion of how that is "just as bad". It's not nice, but it isn't just as bad as going booooo fatties.

Also, watch right to the end of part five. It's worth it!

Here are a couple of links to read ahead of the Big Activism List, if you find yourself inclined towards a dislike of people with a larger bodily circumference that yourself: two

Pick four:

Chris Rock's Good hair. I had no idea what a weave was until the end of last year, when this documentary and Tyra Banks' weave-less TV appearances were dissected on Jezebel (I go there a lot). I had a vague idea of some of the base issues surrounding hair and race from 4thletter's David Brothers' posts on the matter (read those they are so good), but being white in a white-majority village in a white-majority country (never having had a black classmate, even) I had no push to realise that there is apparently a WORLD of intricacy and psychology involved in hairstyling. Again, I'm not sure I need/get to comment here. This is a documentary so it'll SAY what it wants to tell you, and really, what can I add? Even if you know the ins and outs of all this already, watching this might be cathartic. If you have no idea about various standards of hair, why keep yourself ignorant? Do you want to treasure the possibility of saying something crashingly insensitive some day?

Even if none of the body image angles in this post apply to you - say, you identify as an averagely attractive size ten east-asian who likes mainstream trends - I dare you to watch all of these and experience no new thoughts! Or any new empathy.

And aren't consideration and empathy requirements preceeding change of standards?

Expect your regularly-scheduled Florrie-post on the 13th! Get well soon, Florrie!