Tattoos & Nudes - Lula Magazine

After picking a trend for Spring/Summer 2010, we then had to style and shoot a three page spread for a magazine of our choice. Me and my partner chose "Lula" and our trend was nudes and tattoos, inspired by Rodarte and Chanel. 

Fashion Moment - Festivals

This piece was written in my first year. We were asked to pick a moment in time and write about it from a fashion perspective - based on Colin McDowell's column "Fashion Moment."
Festivals are very strange things. But then again, when 800,000 people gather in a remote field over a three day period, mayhem is bound to occur. The modern concept of a festival seems to be over priced tickets, world famous bands and poor weather, all experienced whilst being highly intoxicated on a variety of substances. However, their origins can be traced back to 1500 B.C., where in India local festivals were celebrated in honour of their village’s ‘devis’ (goddesses). Folk would put on their best clothes, sing, dance and feast; it provided a break from the monotony of daily chores.

In 1969, Woodstock music festival shook the globe with its enormous crowd, nudity and obvious drug usage, and where it went, others followed. Raves of the Eighties and Nineties mirrored the idea of wearing minimal, but bizarre, clothing whilst leaping around to overpowering music.

Nowadays, the summer months hold host to a huge range of festivals all over the UK and continents beyond, and although the music has changed, the same attitudes remain. At festivals there are, thankfully, no mirrors. Thus, there are no rules – yes, you can wear a mankini with trainers and no one will think anything of it, just as you can wear PVC leggings and high heeled boots a la Kate Moss. Festivals have become places to be seen, no longer home to the counter culture of misunderstood youth, but a place where you’re just as likely to spot a family as a celebrity. The fashion is as diverse as the crowds; the mundane juxtaposed with the elevated. Brandon Flowers performed at Glastonbury in a gold lame, diamond encrusted suit to topless girls and face painted men. As people swan round in false eyelashes, feather boas and pen stained limbs, others adopt a more reserved approach in Hunter wellingtons and Barbour waxed jackets. It seems anything goes, and in an era where everything has been done before, it could be said this multifaceted ideology has translated into the minds of current designers and onto the runways. Take Giles Deacon’s Spring 2009 catwalk where models were adorned with giant Pac man helmets and beautifully cut dresses. Hussein Chalayan created an LED and Swarovski crystal dress for his Autumn Winter 2007/8 show that was ultimately a wearable video screen. Woman of the moment Lady GaGa is constantly making headlines with her outrageous ensembles constructed by her own Haus of GaGa that push the boundaries of grotesque and obscene.

There is something in the air at a festival that cannot be sold; something that allows people to look remarkably chic wearing nothing but their own skin. Outfits may be haphazard and consist mainly of stolen goods, but it is the beauty of freedom and lack of judgement that’s important. Aesthetically this is rather distasteful, ugly even, but as Peter York said “the more escapism the better” and frankly, in this climate, who are we to argue.