Dossier by Gabriela Cambero

MA14 FASHION JOURNALISM LCF 1

HIYA !

elcome to Dossier – a printed platform hosting a selection of work from this year’s MA Journalism cohort at London College of Fashion. Over the next 63 pages you will find a selection of final project material – a snippet of the work to which we’ve dedicated the best part of the last year. Born out of personal interest or intrigue by a specific theme or market, the work allows for a whole host of subject matter to run through the pages of Dossier. From Annachiara Biondi’s piece about the Autumn Equinox ritual on page 20, Carlotta Minderhout and Chloe Bauwen’s discussion about relationships with boobs on page 10, to Sassy Barlow’s interview with Moschino collector Seth, (page 32). Each of us delved into our chosen area and developed a level of expertise. It’s been a tough but rewarding process. Now we’d like to share it with you. We hope that you can get a sense of the enthusiasm that went into putting our projects together. Iranzu Baker & Gabriela Cambero Thank you Andrew Tucker Nilgin Yusuf All content and photographs were used/produced for student projects and should therefore not be reproduced. This newspaper has been created for the MA14 student exhibition held at Victoria House in February 2014. Design: Melanie Dagher

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3 ER 201 DECEMB E.COM 1 // ISSUE IVIA-MAGAZIN WWW.OL

A SELECTION OF SOME OF OUR MA PROJECT COVERS

CONTENTS 5- LET’S MINCE IN MINSK 6- KING APPAREL 8- BACK TO SCHOOL 10- BOOB TALK 14- BREAKING THE TABOO 16- BOHEMIAN SPIRIT 17- ABORTION : THE WORD THAT TERRIFIES 18- CHEESE PLEASE 20- AUTUMN EQUINOX 24- SIMON COSTIN

28- LUCKY 7 32- SETH AND HIS MOSCHINO 36- EL SUENO DE FRIDA 42- SOPHY ROBSON 44- FINE GAUGE 50- WHEN PUNK MET POLITICS 52- WALKING 54- THE LONG WINDED LADY 56- THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX 58- THE WORLD OF BEAUTY PAGEANTS 62-GUNNAR GARFORS 3

“ALL THE MORE I WISH TO SEE IN THOSE BLOSSOMS AT DAWN THE FACE OF A GOD” MATSUO BASHO (1644-1694)

PHOTOGRAPHER : LOLA SWAN

LET’S MINCE IN MINSK

Visit

BY IEVA ZUBAVICIUTE

Of course, there are several reasons why Belarusian fashion designers struggle to break through. First off, they have to overcome financial and geopolitical obstacles - you need a visa to go anywhere, and the country isn’t as financially stable as one would wish. Secondly, the fashion industry in Belarus is to some extent regulated by governmental institutions. For example, the three biggest clothing brands (Milavitsa, Kamvol, Slavianka) belong to the government owned conglomerate Bellegprom. To make matters worse, without the financial support schemes such as NEWGEN provide for their UK counterparts, local independent fashion designers struggle to reach international markets, let alone access the fabrics to make a decent collection. Lastly, despite our own implied fashion seniority in the West, designers look east to Moscow rather than Milan and little English is spoken domestically - making the reality of attending or showing in the major fashion cities almost impossible. Although the level of sophistication on the catwalks of Minsk came as a pleasant surprise, particularly to someone steeped in the prejudice that Belarusian style was all cleavage and diamante, the shopping was unfortunately the opposite. I did discover brands such as Mango and Emporio Armani during my four day sojourn, but these were outweighed by inexpensive tat – making me realise that this was where the all the missing bling and cheap jersey dresses had come to die. Nonetheless I loved Minsk and MSK – its grandeur, its guts and the fact that, given the right encouragement and access, some of the designers could flourish outside the borders of this secretive country. As I joined the shopping convoy back to neighbouring Lithuania (the capital Vilnius is like a huge post-Soviet Westfield for Belarusian shoppers) I realised that Minsk means business. It’s cooler and quirkier than I ever thought possible, and one day will surprise us with a fashion culture that lacks the cynicism of our own.

A BELARUSIAN FASHION ODYSSEY

www.minskfashionweek.com

hen speaking about Minsk, Latin terms for size and proportion come to mind.The first impression of the Belarusian capital is urbem magnum – huge buildings, enormous public spaces (concert halls, theatres, parks, circuses, governmental buildings), larger-than-life bronze statues, wide roads, and labyrinthine subways. Everything is grand in Minsk – well, almost. On the other hand, there’s nothing enormous about MSK (Minsk Fashion Week). I had a chance to visit this mysterious event during October of 2013. Out of 12 collections I saw on the catwalk, just a handful seemed connected to Western European fashion trends, making me wonder if the country’s fashion culture was just hopelessly out of step with our own, or refreshingly unspoiled by Celine copies and Miley Cyrus undercuts. Overall, Belarusian fashion designers prefer to be likeable. Unlike the poker faced audiences of Paris and Milan, Minsk felt more like a friendly get-together in a village hall, albeit with more Botox and fur than your local parish council. Surprisingly, many designers demonstrated their liberal thinking (or maybe rebellious nature) by involving a transgendered model in their fashion shows – a long haired boy with beautiful legs, always presenting womenswear and sashaying in true RuPaul fashion. And as for the clothes? Grunge is alive and well in Minsk, as are asymmetric skirts, a touch of Eighties Japonisme and the inevitable nod towards the Babushkas of Russian folklore. What’s more, even with my own jaded fashion palate, I’d wear quite a lot of it.

ieva@fashionbloc.co.uk

KING APPAREL BY GINGER CLARK PHOTOGRAPHER : KARL AXON Model: Jake White @ FM London Styling: Ginger Clark Grooming: Suze Smethurst

A LABEL THAT SPECIALISES PRIMARILY IN HEADWEAR, KING APPAREL WAS THE FIRST BRAND IN THE UK TO WORK WITH SPORTSWEAR GIANT NEW ERA. HAVING CO-FOUNDED THE LABEL WITH PAUL LINTON, TIM HOAD IS ONE HALF OF THE STRATFORD-BASED STREETWEAR BRAND. HERE HE TALKS TO GINGER CLARK ABOUT SNOWBOARDING, PLAN B AND SURVIVING THE RECESSION. 6

Business

It’s a good dynamic – we’re a small team but we work well together. HEADWEAR IS VERY SPECIFIC – HOW DO YOU MAKE EACH COLLECTION DIFFERENT AND EXCITING? The first thing is about your approach to any garment, whether it’s headwear, a T-shirt or a crew. You’ve got to look at it as a canvas and how you can make that canvas unique: in terms of the hat, it gives you more options than a T-shirt. You can do anything on the bill for example – it’s got a topside and an underside where you can change the fabrics or colours. Then, on the rear you can have a leather strap, a snapback or buckles… YOUR PHILOSOPHY HAS ALWAYS BEEN NEVER TO MAKE MORE THAN 300 OF EACH GARMENT – WHY IS THIS SO IMPORTANT TO YOU? When we first started, we always use to see these brands who’d claim to be making a series in of limited when I know for a fact that they made thousands: it was all bullshit. So we decided to always work to a factory’s minimum and to not go over that. If the style works, we just change the design slightly or do some sort of modification on it.That way it keeps things exclusive which is really crucial to our customer base.

YOU’VE JUST HIT TEN YEARS OLD – HOW DOES THAT FEEL? It’s good and we’re going to have a party later on this year to celebrate. We’re one of the more established streetwear brands in the UK now, a little bit by default because some of big guys went into administration during the recession. In that respect it’s quite pleasing to be around for ten years: to have stayed relevant is quite a tough thing. YOU USED TO BE A PROFESSIONAL SNOW-BOARDER – DID IT FEEL LIKE A NATURAL TRANSITION TO SET UP YOUR OWN CLOTHING BRAND? Snowboarding is quite a creative pursuit because it’s an individual thing and you’re always looking for new tricks and examining your environment in a completely different way to everyone else. So it was a matter of taking one creative pursuit and transitioning it into something else that is equally creative. I’d do snowboarding seasons, then come back over here to work on the brand but it got to a stage where King Apparel got increasingly busy and it became more important to me as well. WHERE DID THE NAME COME FROM? I think there were several factors – the main factor was just a single syllable, really easy to associate with something and obviously it kind of represented our British heritage and the history of our monarchy. I think we’ve transcended the name now – if you’re talking about clothing you don’t think of Prince William, you think of us KING APPAREL IS A JOINT VENTURE BETWEEN YOU AND PAUL LINTON – WHAT’S THE WORK DYNAMIC LIKE BETWEEN YOU BOTH? When we were first started we were a two-man team so we literally did everything together: designing the collections, the research, production trips, marketing, chasing money up, doing the sales. Over time we’ve separated the things out a little bit but we both still get involved in every aspect of the business.

YOU’VE WORKED AND COLLABORATED WITH A WHOLE RANGE OF OTHER BRANDS – WHAT DOES THIS BRING TO THE LABEL? When I was snowboarding a lot of the successful brands grew off the back of clever marketing and really good teams. I felt we could apply that concept to clothing in the city and, for me, the most obvious way of doing that was to associate ourselves with music artists and skateboarders. That’s how we ended up hooking up with Plastician before he blew up, or helping Plan B for his pilot on Ill Manors. It was about finding people who we thought had a lot of potential so we ran with them in different magazines, pushed their mixtapes and got them out to a wider audience. Those guys have now moved on, so for us it’s now about trying to find more up-to-date newcomers. YOU’VE GRADUALLY BEEN EXPANDING THE LABEL ON AN INTERNATIONAL LEVEL – DO YOU FEEL THAT BEING A BRITISH BRAND SETS YOU APART, IF AT ALL? Definitely in the US. We learnt a load of harsh lessons and expensive ones with the recession – we had to retract and restructure what we were doing and we did a good job. We’re making big investments to penetrate other markets and over the course of this year we’ve been making inroads stateside.The guys over there know their shit, they really do – and when they see good quality, heritage and something that no one else has got, they are on it straight away. WHAT’S NEXT? I think basically just to continue on the trajectory we’re on at the moment. Streetwear is oversaturated right now – it’s in danger of eating itself. We’ve been around a lot longer than most guys on the scene and we want to use our knowledge, expertise and experience to make sure we’re always ten steps ahead of the next brand. www.king-apparel.com

v.r.clark@live.com

Gratuitious Nudity

A NEW NEW A DEFINITION DEFINITION OF THE THE BUM BUM OF BAG BAG

jsquared.a@gmail.com 9

Serena // Isabelle

Kelly // Nienke

BOOB TALK

Frie // Hannah

BY CARLOTTA MINDERHOUT / CHLOÉ BAUWENS

BOOBS, TITS, BREASTS, BAZONGAS, BOSOMS, MOSQUITO BITES, CANS, RACK, MELONS, HOOTERS, JUGS, KNOCKERS, TITTIES… THEY COME IN ALL SHAPES AND SIZES AND HAVE A 100 DIFFERENT NAMES, BUT WHATEVER YOU PREFER CALLING THEM; EACH AND EVERY WOMAN HAS A PAIR. WE ASKED SIX CONFIDENT YOUNG WOMEN TO GET INTIMATE WITH US AND TO SHARE THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR BOOBS. carlotta_minderhout@hotmail.com / cb.bauwens@gmail.com 10

My Body

BOOBS UNITED KINGDOM: SERENA (19, 34F), ISABELLE (20, 34B) UK BRA SIZE SERENA: “I think I was around 10 years old when my boobs started showing. In Dubai the rumour was that when it’s hot your boobs grow faster, so that kind of freaked me out at the time. I didn’t wear a bra until I had a B-cup because my mum told me to wear a sports bra, but then my friends told me I was doing it all wrong. That’s when I started feeling comfortable with them. I still hate sport bras though, when I go running I even wear two of them or my breasts bounce all over the place.” ISABELLE: “Although mine are quite small, I was one of the first girls in my class to get boobs. I remember when I was 10, I used to look in the mirror after a shower and jump to see if they moved. As soon as I had them I started wearing a sports bra like you did, but I would go and do cartwheels on the fields with a loose top so boys could see I had breasts (laughs), at 10, can you imagine? I was flaunting them, it was terrible actually.” SERENA: “I didn’t have to flaunt them, they did that for themselves.” While Serena portrays the poster girl of someone blessed with a full bosom, both agree that big boobs come with a series of stereotypes. ISABELLE: “Big boobs can be so ‘in your face’ and it makes it difficult for a guy to look beyond them I think. I really like being flat chested.” SERENA: “True, they just have the connotation of porn stars and strippers or girls that work at Hooters. I feel like every girl says that she wants big boobs because they think that guys notice that first, but you can’t wear low-cut tops, they get in the way when you hug someone, they cause back problems… This is just my point of view but I’m someone who has always had to live with having big boobs. All women from my mum’s side of the family have smaller breasts so they don’t get where I get it from. If it were possible I’d prefer a ‘normal’ size. I don’t want them this big. A B-cup or a C would be perfect.” ISABELLE: “When I was younger I wanted to have a pretty lovely rack but now I really like mine. I couldn’t imagine having bigger breasts because I’m so short and I don’t like wearing bras.” SERENA: “They would look weird on you proportion wise.You are so petite.” When you think about boobs, there’s one thing that we all associate them with immediately: lingerie shopping. While this can be a fun experience for some, for Serena, it’s a real adventure. SERENA: “I made peace with my boobs, but when I’ll have kids they are going to get even bigger. Where will I buy a bra then? Marks & Spencer is the only place I can find lingerie that fits.” ISABELLE: “Maybe custom made is the way to go. Or a hammock, just kidding of course. I only wear a bra on a bra-day. For me it is boringly easy to find them though, I’d love to experience the adventure you are going through.” SERENA: “You don’t want that trust me. I’m even wearing a minimiser now so it makes them look smaller than they actually are. That’s one bra I definitely love.” Apart from bras and cup sizes, there’s one last issue that’s on women’s minds when it comes to boobs. Breast cancer. ISABELLE: “It’s something I’m very worried about. It freaks me out. I check them every so often, but I’m not sure if I’m doing it right. Maybe I need to look up a tutorial or something. Or ask a guy. How do you feel a girl up?” SERENA: “Not a lot of people are aware of that fact that men can get breast cancer as well. My dad had it. It’s a disease I’m very familiar with, but I don’t check myself yet. The doctor said it doesn’t pass from father to daughter, but if my mum had it – God forbid – then I would be checking myself already. I’m not too worried though. I’m hoping a healthy lifestyle is the way to go.”

BOOBS BELGIUM: FRIE (23, 95D), HANNAH (24, 75B) EUROPEAN BRA SIZE

FRIE: “When I was younger I would receive the occasional shout out of something on the lines of ‘hey you, with the big tits’. They were mostly drunks, but it has happened to me more than once. Not just young guys, even men of around 50 or older see no offence in denigrating me like that. That’s one of the reasons why I sometimes think I shouldn’t wear a certain piece of clothing. I know I’ll get a remark if I do.” HANNAH: “That’s the thing that’s so stupid in men. I personally love a woman with bigger boobs who is showing a bit of cleavage. At least then it’s filled. I once bought a dress for a wedding; it was so pretty, with a draped V-neck. But I had to buy a push-up bra to go with it. The way it was draped, my own boobs were invisible without a little help.” Both of the girls agree clothing racks nowadays offer as much for big as for small boobs. It just depends on what you want to wear and feel comfortable in. Something for which both Hannah and Frie take their bosom size into account. HANNAH: “The push-up bra helps, but I still think there are a lot of clothes out there that are nicer on women with a bit more to show. I like my body though. There are loads of girls with small boobs wishing they had a bit more there, but I love them. They might be small but it’s not as if they are nonexistent.” FRIE: “I’m happy with mine as well. I do however take them into account when deciding what to wear. I was interning once with a dress I got from H&M, not provocative at all, but I got a comment about it, saying that my cleavage was too revealing and offensive… After that I wore things with a collar or turtleneck because I got the feeling that everything I had in my closet was too sexy.” Dressing to your body type is something all women do, but we also have to embrace the way we look. For everyone the most difficult time for this is puberty. HANNAH: “I paid a lot more attention to my boobs back in high school than I do now. All of my friends, their boobs kept on growing and mine just stopped (laughs). Then I thought, Shit, but as it turns out my boobs kept growing longer than I first thought. They didn’t stop at 16, they are bigger now then they were then.You can spot them.” FRIE:“I never paid a lot of attention to the way I looked when I was growing up. So I guess I never even noticed mine were bigger than my classmates’. In the last year of high school I suddenly started putting an effort into my appearance and I noticed that they were an advantage and that they were nicer if I wore something fitting. But I’d never use them to get a drink faster in a bar or something like that. I’d even find it offensive if I saw another girl do that.” Loving and accepting yourself and the way you look is key but having a boyfriend who can’t keep his hands off them might do the trick as well. FRIE: “My boyfriend is very happy with me and the my boobs. If it were up to him to decide their size I think they would even be bigger (laughs).” HANNAH: “Mine thinks they’re lovely as well. Maybe it’s also because of him that I’m so confident about them. There are men who consider big breasts as something really important and of course he’ll look around when someone with huge ones walks past – what man doesn’t? But he always tells me how pretty mine are.”

‘‘I also have this weird habit of holding my left breast when I’m sitting down, so they just get that little bit of extra attention they deserve’’ Kelly, 22

BOOBS HOLLAND: NIENKE (25, 70D), KELLY (22, 70B) INTERNATIONAL BRA SIZE KELLY: “My girlfriends in high school used to have way bigger boobs than I did and when we would go clubbing I felt less sexy than my friends. I guess at the time I thought guys were more into big boobs and I used to think mine made me less attractive.” NIENKE: “With me it was just the other way around. I got my boobs at quite an early age and all my friends were still flat when I was already shopping for bras. So I would always wear big jumpers to hide them, I felt different and uncomfortable. I think that when you’re younger you’re just really insecure about your body, but at some point you just realise that it’s OK the way it is.” Even though they are proud of their looks and boyfriends have never complained, having plastic surgery done is something both girls have considered. NIENKE: “I would like to lift them. But only after I have had children and have gone through breast feeding which is why it all starts hanging in the first place.” KELLY: “I would like to have a cup size bigger. I don’t necessarily want to have watermelons, just a nice handful. My boyfriend would think I am crazy though if I would get something done.” NIENKE: “I think it also depends on wether they suit your body type. Somebody I know used to have an AA cup, but body wise she was quite chubby, so it didn’t make sense. She now has a small C cup and it just fits her.” Big boobs, small boobs, it doesn’t really matter. But how do you dress accordingly? NIENKE: “I don’t really hide my breasts, but I do dress in such a way that they are not too obvious. Not that I am embarrassed or anything, but I wouldn’t accentuate them more. But I guess that’s just what I’m like.” KELLY: “I often wear high closed tops, because it makes them look bigger. If I wear a low cut top, I always wear a push-up underneath, which is not always a great idea. Once I went to the gay parade in Amsterdam and thought: why not try a maximizer for once? A maximizer is a bra that gives your breasts an extreme push up, so you really go a full cup bigger. Everybody that saw pictures of that day asked me how come I had such big boobs. Even my mum said they looked huge. So it’s funny to see that people do notice if you change something about your breasts.” You would think with all the different body shapes women of today have, finding a bra that fits you while still making you feel sexy shouldn’t be a problem anymore. But the girls prove the opposite. NIENKE: “I have a 70D, which is a size that is mostly sold out. Quite a lot of women actually have this size, but not enough for the shops to have them in stock. So your choice is to go to a more expensive shop, or you are stuck with those horrible white granny bras. H&M sells some cute ones but they give me zero support, so I’d rather spend a bit more money and have everything in the right place.” KELLY: “Funny enough those H&M bras are the only ones that fit me.When I go to other shops they are too wide at the top or they’re not pre-shaped enough, making me look super flat or as if I’m not wearing a bra at all. When I’m at H&M I know exactly what size I have and what fits me.” But wearing a good-fitting bra is not the only thing for having happy boobs. Giving them a bit of TLC is important too. NIENKE: “I check them for breast cancer once a month and I scrub them with the rest of my body.” KELLY: “I check them for cancer too and moisturise them every day. But I also have this weird habit of holding my left breast when I’m sitting down, so they just get that little bit of extra attention they deserve.”

My Body

“LOVE YOUR BOOBS” PHOTOGRAPHER : RICARDO RAMOS.

BREAKING THE TABOO BY AMANDA LANGE

Carina.amanda.lange@gmail.com 14

Mi Cuerpo AMANDA LANGE QUESTIONS WHY HISPANIC WOMEN IN THE US HAVE A HIGHER INCIDENCE OF STDS THAN THEIR WHITE COUNTERPARTS

t is hard to imagine how at this point in time, ignorance can still be the main cause of teenage pregnancy and the spread of STDs amongst us women.The truth is, that the gap between men and women in our community is still huge, and whether it is due to religion, beliefs or lack of common knowledge, women within the Hispanic community are still more vulnerable to these social problems than their American sisters. Hispanics account for 21% of the total cases of HIV in the United States, however they account for only 17% of the total population. In relation to other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) Hispanics are two to three times more likely than white Americans to have chlamydia, syphilis or gonorrhea. But why? Being part of low socio-economic groups is the number one reason. Hispanics are less likely than Americans to receive care and treatment for these diseases.This is caused by the high rate of Hispanics who lack health Insurance. By the end of 2011 in the US, 30% of Hispanics lacked health coverage, rising to 39% for the under 25s. The number one cause of HIV infection amongst Hispanic men is unprotected sex with other men.To explain this, we can use what we commonly refer to as “machismo”. Machismo is the cultural belief amongst the Latin American community that men should have a dominant role in society. Based on this idea, the use of condoms is perceived as a sign of subordination, and despite men being homosexual or bisexual, they might not accept being labeled as such and will therefore not take the precautions needed when engaging in intercourse. When speaking about women, the implications are very different. A lot of us are not aware of the fact that women, and especially young women, are more susceptible than men to sexually transmitted diseases due to the anatomy of our reproductive system. Because of this, these diseases are also more likely to remain undetected in women, increasing their risk of cervical cancer and pelvic inflammatory disease due to delayed treatment. Eighty-six percent of Hispanic women diagnosed with HIV have acquired the virus due to heterosexual contact and the rest due to injected drug use. In an interview with Michelle Herrera Mulligan, journalist and Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan for Latinas, she explains the restrictions that Hispanic women experience when speaking about their sexuality – Herrera believes Hispanic women think and speak about sex in a very different way from Americans. Our cultural concepts of male and female and the fact that religion is such an important factor in our community have created taboos around these subjects,“Many Hispanic women fear the risk of physical or emotional abuse or withdrawal of financial support when raising the topic of condom use with their partners, therefore increasing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases,” she says. Hispanic integration into the American culture has mixed consequences regarding the level of STD awareness amongst Hispanics. Acculturation has increased the level of communication amongst partners and openness to discuss sexually related subjects which might have been undisclosed within Hispanic families in the past. On the other hand, greater exposure to the media and a less censored lifestyle have promoted and facilitated the use of drugs, especially amongst young people. Alcohol and drug abuse are directly linked to unsafe sexual behavior and poor judgment. According to the JAMA Internal Medicine Institute in Chicago, Hispanics who are more acculturated have a higher risk of injecting drugs and having several sexual partners. There are many existing initiatives at a local and national level that have been created to improve sexual communication amongst Hispanics and to encourage healthprotective behaviors amongst them.The National Latino AIDS Awareness Day is held on 15 October to bring people from different Hispanic communities together and increase awareness about HIV infections. And the “Among Women” program is a local initiative to encourage safe sexual environments within Hispanic homes, empowering women to promote social change within their communities. Promoting knowledge is the best tool against the spread of STDs amongst Hispanics and increases the likelihood of seeking care for those affected. National AIDS Helpline: 0800 567 123

«Hispanics account for 21% of the total cases of HIV in the USA yet account for only 17% of the total population»

A BOHEMIAN SPIRIT BY NOUR AL KOUATLI

RIYADH’S ANSWER TO BROWN’S FOCUS.

aison BO-M, pronouced Bohème, was pioneered by Faris and Layla Al Sheri, a dynamic Saudi couple who believe that niche retail is thriving as a reaction against the globalization of shopping. The purpose of the store was to launch a new path for creativity, by promoting local talents and offering an innovative platform for fashion, art and design. The name conveys the Bohemian Parisian lifestyle where young artists, known as “Les Bobos” are living a free life set apart from the rigid rules of society.This liberal lifestyle has inspired Faris and Layla to make it the theme of their concept store – allowing emerging artists and designers to follow their passions, exhibit their sklls and expose their works free of cultural boundaries. The concept store offers a wide range of products from contemporary fashion and accessories to design objects, luxury goods, perfumes, books and homewares. The aim is to allow customers to feel at home, hang around in comfort and think freely. The house is considered to be an atelier in constant evolution, where the old always meets the new and where art and fashion cross pollinate. Focusing on creativity, both artists and designers’ collaborations are put under the spotlight over three floors. The boutique particularly encourages international exposure for Saudi fashion talents and promotes their traditional handicraft skills. By

encouraging talents and contemporary local designers to showcase their work, Maison BO-M has cleverly gained an important recognition in both the local fashion and art scenes. Every year, the Themar Ramadan exhbition runs over two-and-a-half-months during the summer at the Maison BO-M in Riyadh. This exhibition projects a traditional atmosphere and puts customers into a very “Khaleeji” frame of mind, while showcasing more than 25 designers and artists from across the Middle East. The aim of this exhibition is to showcase products that only revolve around the central theme of the holy month of Ramadan. Themar Ramadan showcases an exclusive pick of Middle Eastern fashion brands including Qumar 14, Anfal Designs, Nazeeka, Code 8, Vestiti, Chador, Turban Addict, Mira Sadi Design Jewelry, Cushions Maze Design from Kuwait, Zayan Dresses from Dubai and L’Artisan du Liban from Lebanon along with locally sourced homewares and interior design accessories. Soon, Maison BO-M is planning to open its own restaurant featuring homemade comfort foods on the menu. www.maisonbo-m.com

n.kouatli@gmail.com

Mere Sarira

ABORTION: THE WORD THAT TERRIFIES DELHI BORN NITYA UPPAL DISCUSSES ONE OF INDIA’S LAST TABOOS

t is a monthly ritual for girls everywhere. According to your dependable menstrual calender app, you’re supposed to be well into the period days. Even a tinge of a stomach cramp gets you rushing to the bathroom to check if you’ve finally got it.The thought of a possible pregnancy makes you so nauseous that you quickly convince yourself just to ignore it and keep busy. It’s also around the same time that your Google search history reads, ‘How can I make my period come faster?’ which is right above, ‘early signs of pregnancy’. When you tell the boy that you’re worried, he stutters and stumbles, clearly torn between the need to comfort you and run away as fast as he can. Meanwhile, girlfriends reassure you that they’ve been through the scare many times and everything is always okay; no tears, no abortions, nothing messy. You will definitely get your period and like every other month and get on with your life. But what do you do when everything doesn’t go as smoothly? Growing up in a culture where parents can barely have an honest conversation about sex with their children, getting pregnant is every Indian girl’s worst nightmare. Since having a child out of wedlock is taboo, any slips which result in pregnancy can only mean one thing - Abortion. And the most grievous problem for any girl who even considers abortion, is dealing with the shame associated with it. How has it come to a situation where we’re indulgent in sharing information about our sexual exploits, but when sex results in a pregnancy it turns the previously garrulous mute? Why is the entire incident treated like a tragedy? With the march of modern feminism, the message of making abortion socially acceptable should be printed in bold on all our protest placards. Latika Ahuja*, a 25-year-old psychologist recounts, “I was 19 when it happened, barely a few years back, but it feels like a lifetime ago. Even though I knew we had been careless, my first reaction was disbelief. I couldn’t believe that it had happened to me. With barely any help from my then-boyfriend, I got in touch with gynecologists and abortion clinics on my own. My parents are supportive of my every decision, but they could never know that.” Similarly, Anandita Saboo*, a 28-year-old copywriter said, “I mustered up the courage and told my parents, but they insisted that I get married to my boyfriend. It was exactly like the movie Kya Kehna and just like in the film; my boyfriend was

a brat who refused to take responsibility.There was no way I was going to spend the rest of my life regretting. It didn’t have to end like a Bollywood film. I worked with a counselor and stopped thinking of it as the one big mistake of my life.” Akaashi Malhotra, a 23-year-old student had a fresher approach - “One of my closest friends in college got pregnant in second-year. Like we did with everything else, our group of friends went through this one as a family. To keep her spirits up, we decided that we would make the episode anything but depressing. We went for the doctor’s appointment as a group of four. We let judging frowns be answered by our optimism and cheery smiles. We were there to help her recover, day and night, like we would if she was down with any other illness. Even today, we speak about it openly and are proud that we handled it so well.” Unlike citizens of many other countries, Indian girls can legally choose to get an abortion. Clinics and medication are easily accessible – if fact, sometimes a bit too easily. The stigma attached to unmarried pregnancies leads young girls to make rash decisions.The abortion pill, Mifepristone, became available as an overthe-counter drug in 2002. With the ability to be able to buy everything online, young girls are opting for them without consulting a doctor.These medicines are strong, and have side effects that include haemorrhage, sepsis and perforation. Under immense pressure to terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible, girls fail to understand the need for the tests and check-ups that precede taking such heavy medication. The pill may be convenient, but its use requires supervision and control. Caitlin Moran, a columnist for Britain’s The Times, wrote in her book, How to be a Woman, about her decision to abort her third child. She described in detail the series of emotions she went through. She loved being a mother to her two daughters, but she couldn’t go through it for the third time. She isn’t the only famous name who has spoken up about her experience. Writer Nora Ephron, actress Joan Collins, singer Anni DiFranco, comedian Chelsea Handler, and talk show host Whoppi Goldberg have all publically spoken about their decisions to get abortions. Sadly, there are no Indian names on that list. Hopefully the day isn’t far when we girls decide to speak freely about the experiences that have changed us, without shame or regret. Sharing and acknowledging the feeling of loss and guilt is the first step in creating a healthy supportive zone. *Names have been changed.

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AUTUMN EQUINOX MEET THE DRUIDS OF PRIMROSE HILL

BY ANNACHIARA BIONDI

PHOTOS : YINING HE 20

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t might seem impossible to find something that can still wake Londoners from their distinctive indifference, used as they are to counter-cultures, diversity and individual originality, but the view of more than twenty hooded druids gathering at Primrose Hill on a Sunday morning certainly proves to be an exception. Indeed, the annual celebration of the Autumn Equinox organised by the Loose Association of Druids always manages to attract a spontaneous and well-assorted crowd including passers-by, runners taking a rest, and giggling children, watching with a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment. Nevertheless, the ceremony and its participants proceed quietly, almost unaware of the staring audience, elegantly completing the ritual gestures and formulas. The Primrose Hill Autumn Equinox, or Alban Elued in druidry, is usually held on the Sunday nearest the twenty-third of September and is open to anyone, whether to watch the ritual or to spiritually participate in it. During the ceremony, which starts at one o’clock at the top of the hill, the assembly of druids, which is called a ‘grove’, forms a wide circle and performs a series of ritual gestures, including passing around a horn full of cider, putting fruit and leaves on the ground and reading aloud the oracle cards, which contain concepts on druidry and advice for the lives of the participants. After the ceremony the druids form a long line and slowly walk back to Hawthorne Grove, where the festivity is celebrated with food and drinks. Alban Elued is the second and concluding harvest festival in the druidic eightfold wheel of the year, which includes the four solar festivities, Solstices and Equinoxes, and the four lunar festivities connected to rural life and livestock. All eight festivities are observed by modern druids and are considered essential moments in which to disengage from daily routine and reconnect with nature, honouring its life cycle and generous gifts. In particular the Autumn Equinox, which marks the end of harvest time, is considered an important moment to share the last products of the earth and thank her for her generosity. The practice of putting fruit, flowers and leaves on the ground and pouring cider before consuming it during the ceremony is a way of showing gratitude to her, giving back some of the products she has offered. The Autumn Equinox is also the time of year when druids reflect upon personal failures, draw conclusions on past achievements. Consequently, not only giving thanks for what has been received, but finding the inner strength to face life’s struggles and accepting faults and shortcomings are the themes at the centre of the oracle cards. Considering that Alban Elued is the last festival in the druid wheel of the year, which starts again with Samhain, the time of death and rebirth, it is easy to understand its constant invitation to this reflection and self-analysis, the same process that some people face approaching New Year’s Eve. In other parts of the ritual it is possible to find reference to more general druidic motives, such as the call for peace through the Gorsedd Prayer and the celebration of the three druidic freedoms: thought, speech and association. When observing the rite on Primrose Hill, one experiences a rare feeling of peace and detachment from reality – it seems to travel out of time as you witness gestures and movements which belong to another era. If the emotional impact is undoubtedly strong, its rationalisation in the definition of what constitutes modern druidry – its beliefs, precepts and practices – is not an easy

task. When looking at its origins, how it has developed from the ancient druids of the Iron Age and how much it has in common with that tradition, one can see reality becoming so perfectly intertwined with myth, erroneous historical reconstructions and forgery, that it is difficult, almost impossible, to separate them. Due to the lack of evidence regarding the Celtic people, which, being part of a mainly vernacular culture, did not produce any written account, their history has been particularly exposed to rewritings and interpretations, transmitted through the worlds of other peoples, mainly the Greeks, to whom the Celts were barbarians, and the Romans, to whom they were enemies to be conquered. These partially reliable sources tell us that the druids were members of one of the social classes in which the Celtic tribes of Britain and Gaul (roughly modern France) were divided. Their functions included the preservation and transmission of knowledge, the administration of justice, together with the chief tribe, and the supervision of religious rituals. The ancient texts highlight their high influence on the life of the tribe they belonged to and occasionally infer a connection between them and the practice of magic and human sacrifices, mainly to discredit the Celtic tribes as savages in need of civilisation. Furthermore, all the other notions that have formed our common image of druids, including their various depictions as wise bearded sages in white robes, defenders of Britain’s independence from the Romans through violent rebellions and cruel executors of human sacrifices, have been proved to be the product of the Romanticisation of druidry started around the beginning of the sixteenth century. Druids were firstly used in the shaping of the national identities of, respectively, Germany, France and Great Britain, where they were depicted as pious and extremely erudite philosophers, proto-Christian sages and fervent patriots. At the same time, many of the druid orders and associations still existing today were founded by scholars and enthusiasts, often using forged texts to prove their continuity with the ancient druids. Nowadays, with much of the historical core of modern druidry having been discredited, including the connection with the stone circles and much of its own rituals, druids have been forced to face fundamental problems regarding their practice, their history and their beliefs. Some have consequently completely refused to accept the romanticisation, founding their practice only on the sources that can be considered trustworthy, while others have started considering druidry as a modern invention, highly inspired by the ancient druids, but born from the romanticisation of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This ambivalence of thought shows one of the central concepts of contemporary druidry: the acceptance of everyone’s opinions, beliefs and experiences without judgement in ‘perfect tolerance and perfect equality’. The movement, which is not considered by everyone to be a religion, is mainly a celebration of nature and our ancestors, a faith or a philosophy in which coexists a mixture of different gods, concepts of deity and beliefs. Despite the unresolved debate on its origin, druidry today lives in harmony with its mixture of myth and reality and, considering its remarkable openness and high respect for diversity and individuality, proves to be strikingly modern. (Excerpt taken from Totem: an introduction to British Folklore by Annachiara Biondi).

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Annachiara.biondi@hotmail.com 23

Straw Jack taken from Annachiara Biondiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book Totem

PHOTOGRAPHY: YINING HE

Tradition

SIMON COSTIN BY IRANZU BAKER

SET DESIGNER AND ART DIRECTOR SIMON COSTIN IS MORE READILY RECOGNISED FOR HIS SPECTACULAR WORK IN FASHION. BUT HE’S A MAN OF MANY TALENTS. FOCUSSING ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PROJECT CLOSE TO HIS HEART, SIMON IS IN THE PROCESS OF FINDING A HOME FOR THE MUSEUM OF BRITISH FOLKLORE. THINGS ARE MOVING ALONG FAST. HE’S JUST BEEN APPOINTED THE DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT – YET ANOTHER MILESTONE TOWARDS HIS DREAM OF HOUSING AN EXTENSIVE COLLECTION OF BRITISH FOLKLORE ALL UNDER ONE ROOF.

nergetic, insightful and generous; you depart a meeting with Simon Costin feeling inspired and upbeat. His track record is impressive. He’s designed jewellery, directed film projects, curated exhibitions and created strange and wonderful sub-worlds for editorial shoots and catwalk shows. Working with some of the most accomplished names in fashion photography and design including Paolo Roversi,Tim Walker and Alexander McQueen, Simon has been a part of some of the most memorable moments in fashion history over the past 30 years. Despite his outstanding professional achievements, he had long desired to found a museum based on a cultural aspect he feels most strongly about – the celebration and preservation of British folklore traditions. In the summer of 2009, Simon decided he couldn’t wait any longer and set up a travelling cabinet of folk curiosity in a caravan. He toured folk festivals up and down the UK spreading the word to folk lovers and held an all-singing, all-dancing launch party in London with fashion ‘folk.’ We talk to Simon about his recent appointment at the Museum of Witchcraft, his earliest museum memory and talking to objects. IRANZU: WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR FAVOURITE FOLKLORE MUSEUM OBJECT IS? SIMON: It’s difficult to say because each new object that’s donated or gifted to us becomes my favourite. Recently we’ve been gifted a selection of jig dolls. These are wooden or sometimes metal articulated figures, around 35 cm – 12 in. – in height. Street entertainers would often use them when they busked with music. They’re also called dancing dolls, busker’s puppets, loggers, jiggers or Mr or Mrs Jollyboy. They also crop up in the USA, Canada, Australia and all over Europe. Older versions dating back to the 16th century were known as Poupées à la Planchette or Marionettes à la Planchette.These were operated by a horizontal string attached to the musician’s leg and as he or she moved, the doll would appear to dance on a board on the ground. We now have seven figures in our collection and each has its own unique character. IRANZU: YOU WERE RECENTLY APPOINTED AS THE NEW DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM OF WITCHCRAFT FOLLOWING THE PREVIOUS DIRECTOR, GRAHAM KING’S RETIREMENT AND HIS GIFTING OF THE COLLECTION TO THE MUSEUM OF BRITISH FOLKLORE. IT’S EARLY DAYS BUT HOW HAS THAT BEEN SO FAR? CAN YOU TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOUR FUTURE PLANS?

iranzubaker@gmail.com 25

and I’m very excited by how it can be expanded upon and developed. Regarding any future plans, for the time being the museum will remain exactly the same and be run in Boscastle in Cornwall for at least the next five years. During this time we plan to assess how the collection could be expanded and whether or not it should remain in there.What might work is that it becomes a sister museum for the main Museum of British Folklore.We would also like to look at the possibility of touring exhibitions during the time the Museum of Witchcraft is closed for the winter months.This could open up the material to new audiences, which for us would be very important. In the short term we are currently advertising for a manager to run the museum on a day-to-day basis during the summer opening period. Graham King was such an incredible force behind the museum; it will be very hard to find someone to fill his shoes. We have, however, had a huge number of responses to the adverts so we are hopeful that somebody will come forward to fulfil that role.

in the slot, a small vignette or miniature room would come to life. A haunted bedroom, an executioner’s dungeon or lovers canoodling by the seaside. The scariest thing of all was a laughing sailor which would rock back and forth with his eyes rolling, while a taped hysterical laugh blared from the speakers. It terrified and fascinated me at the same time. The memory of that museum and the passion of its owner have stayed with me all this time.

IRANZU: YOU WENT ON A TOUR AROUND FOLK FESTIVALS IN THE UK TO PROMOTE YOUR IDEA OF THE MUSEUM OF BRITISH FOLKLORE IN 2009. CAN YOU TALK TO ME ABOUT THE COLLECTION OF FOLK ARTIFACTS YOU TOOK WITH YOU? WHAT ARE YOUR PERSONAL THOUGHTS ON AMULETS? DO YOU CARRY ANY AROUND WITH YOU?

SIMON: I suppose I prefer the more cabinet of curiosity approach.Things such as faded worn toys, ventriloquist dummies, masks, waxworks, anatomical studies, taxidermy, automata and hundreds and hundreds of books all jostle for space in my crowded home.

SIMON: The tour caravan contained a wide variety of objects ranging from a fairground carousel horse head to representations of the Green Man, Punch and Judy puppets, a Jig Doll in the shape of a sailor with ‘HMS Costin’ on his cap, horse brasses and many examples of contemporary art that we commissioned for the tour. There weren’t really any charms as such, although somebody did give us a string of hag stones to hang on the door for good luck. I never wear jewellery or even a watch as I’m too clumsy and lose things, so an amulet would never be on the cards, sadly, as it’s bound to disappear. I have carried around objects which I’ve found and bring back certain memories but that’s about it really. IRANZU: IN WHAT WAY DO YOU THINK GROWING UP AROUND ANTIQUES HAS INFORMED YOUR CAREER, PARTICULARLY YOUR WORK AS A SET DESIGNER AND CURATOR - YOU MUST HAVE BEEN SURROUNDED BY BEAUTIFUL OBJECTS AT HOME? SIMON: I suppose having antique dealers as parents has had a certain influence. They taught me about the history of objects, their uses and why people interact with them in the way they do. I have since become interested in the way that the most humble of objects can be imbued with magical significance, such as an old kitchen knife becoming a witch’s Athame for instance. As a child I loved to watch the way my mother would arrange objects in the house and the various relationships between them and how these relationships would change with time and rearrangement. All these ideas come into play with museum practice of course. IRANZU: WHAT’S YOUR EARLIEST MEMORY OF VISITING A MUSEUM? SIMON:When I was on holiday with my family aged around seven, they took me to a tiny museum somewhere in Cornwall. They think it was in St. Ives but I’ve been back to find it and if it was ever there, it no longer exists. The owner had a mane of black hair, like Kate Bush, I thought at the time, and smelt strongly of patchouli oil. I think it was mainly a museum of toys and they had a fascinating collection of coin-operated, penny slot machines. Once you placed your penny

IRANZU: DO YOU OWN ANY OTHER COLLECTIONS ASIDE FROM FOLK OBJECTS? SIMON:The main thing my objects have in common is a certain quirky darkness. IRANZU: ARE THEY FOCUSSED OR DO YOU PREFER MORE OF A CABINET OF CURIOSITY APPROACH TO COLLECTING?

IRANZU: IN AN INTERVIEW YOU SAID THAT THE OBJECTS AROUND YOU INSPIRE YOUR CREATIVITY AND THAT IF YOU WERE IN A WHITE BOX IT WOULD KILL YOU COMPLETELY. DO YOU ALSO FIND COMFORT IN THINGS? SIMON: It might sound odd to say but if I’ve been away for a while and I come home, I usually walk around the house saying hello to everything again! Certain objects become friends. There’s always a period of adjustment when a new object enters the house. Where an item is positioned and the relationship that it strikes up with the objects surrounding it is always of interest to me. As we all know from museums, objects take on different roles once placed within a museum. Divorced from their usual context, they can be read in many different ways. Put an object in a dark space and you will come to it in a completely different way to one placed in a light room for example. As for comfort being gained from objects, I absolutely agree, but comfort is only one of the many things you can gain from an object. IRANZU: WHAT’S THE NEXT PROJECT YOU HAVE PLANNED AND ARE MOST EXCITED ABOUT? SIMON: The museum project is all consuming these days and my passion for it grows and grows each day. Currently we are beginning the big push towards the capital funding needed to construct the building itself. We are launching a Friends scheme in London, New York and Los Angeles in the spring of 2014. So much will depend on how much money we can raise as to how quickly we can move forward with everything. You may not think that the current time of recession would be the easiest time to be launching a major museum project, but there are currently more wealthy people than there have ever been. And wealthy people are often interested in giving to new and interesting cultural projects. All I can do at this stage is to keep everything crossed. We are also launching an online exhibition platform called ‘21st-Century Folk Culture.’ The aim is to examine contemporary folkloric expression, things such as ghost bikes for example.These are bicycles chained to railings, usually next to a place where a cyclist was killed and they are a form of wayside shrine, which people have constructed ever since there have been roads. We are inviting various curators and practitioners to contribute work which will then be uploaded every two months on a new website. Something to look out for in 2014.

Tradition

Photograph by Tim Walker, courtesy of Simon Costin.

SIMON COSTIN SHARES SIX OF HIS MOST MEMORABLE CAREER MOMENTS 1. I once designed a ball in a beautiful Palazzo in Florence, which was based on the original telling of the Cinderella story, which is quite dark. Each of the 14 rooms we used showed a different aspect of the story. One room had bowls of blood and knives as a reference to the way the stepmother enticed her daughters to cut off their toes and heels in order to fit the glass slipper to their foot. When guests arrived they were shown into the cellars instead of being allowed to attend the party happening above. Eventually a concealed wall drew across to reveal a staircase festooned with thousands and thousands of flowers and a performer singing an aria from the opera ‘La Cenerentola.’ A beautiful early 18th-century corridor was completely forested with trees and a long, long table was covered in every conceivable fruit of the forest but all made from chocolate. Mushrooms, sprigs of berries, nuts and acorns – everything made in chocolate. 2. A few years ago I designed a party for H&M who had brought out a range of clothing with the Parisian designer Sonia Rykiel. It was an imagining of Paris but inside the Grand Palais. It was the largest budget I have ever worked with. Part of the evening was a fashion show conducted on moving floats, each of them very different from the next. We had indoor fireworks, fairground rides, oysters and endless gallons of champagne and it really was a night to remember. 3. In contrast to that I had a commission to design a vision of Dickensian London made entirely out of cardboard boxes for the Museum of London. It was a

great commission and I really enjoyed making it, along with my trusty team of assistants. 4. Other highlights would be doing the mad early shows for Alexander McQueen and then later for Antonio Berardi in Milan.Working with Gareth Pugh is always a pleasure and quite a challenge due to budgetary restrictions. It can be just as interesting working with very little money as it is working with a larger budget. 5. Another person I work alongside quite often is Tim Walker. I did the sets for Tim’s first ever shoot for Vogue Italia over ten years ago and have worked with him ever since. 6. Last year I was asked to design an installation for a department store in Moscow. Finding out that the store was built on top of the old flower market, I decided to let the flowers reclaim the space. The project was called 107 Flowers, and hidden all over the store were various installations ranging from the very small to the absolutely enormous.The central atrium of the building contained three 14 m-high giant purple orchids. The set construction team from the Russian Bolshoi Ballet company built them for me. www.museumofbritishfolklore.com

BLUE BY GINGER CLARK

PHOTOGRAPHY JEFF BOUDREAU

Grooming is Louise Dartford at Stella Creatives Dan Muldoon at nevs 28

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SETH AND HIS MOSCHINO BY SASSY BARLOW Images courtesy of Seth Bradley

one7style began back in early 2007 as a humble blog covering my exploits. It started with getting up at 5am so me and a friend could make it to car boot sales in Surrey and Kent. At that time we were buying art deco reproduction and selling it on eBay, and as time went by we started to look more for clothing. We struck gold when we discovered a huge collection of florescent Looney Toons painter hats from the early 90s. Made famous by renowned hat maker Dorfman Pacific, they had characters on them like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck that proved to be popular. We sold them to many different shops in Central London, and due to the success it made me think about turning it into a real business. I approached the Princes Trust for funding and after 6 months of working on a grueling business plan I was granted a start up loan, but by that time my friend had left to pursue other things.The business remained small up until about 2009 when I decided to step it up a gear and set up a pop up shop on the top floor of a pub in Islington. Not long after the first event was approached by an eyewear company to representthe vintage side of their business, that ended with me setting up a showroom in Shoreditch. From there I was working alongside a number of high profile clients who would wear clothing and accessories I had sourced in film, television and live performances - so that was great for PR. After 2 years of having a showroom in Shoreditch I went into a shop together with my eyewear supplier on Redchurch Street, but not long after that I had moved to New York to pursue other things. I still collect today and Zone7Style is still running online as a visual archive. My obsessive nature is what spurred me on to collect interesting prints, as I was always obsessed by detail right from a young age. I can remember a handful of the things I was immersed in as a child cruise ships, skyscrapers and cars. If there was something to collect, I would collect it. My bedroom walls were entirely covered with flyers that came from Rough Trade records in Portobello Road, where I used to spend a lot of my time. The shoe obsession came from the first time I saw a Nike Air Max shoe back in 1994, in a Littlewoods catalogue no less! It is hard to pin point my inspiration sources as I’ve been moved by so many different things throughout my life. It sounds cliché but I’ve always been inspired by people who choose not to follow the rules.Interesting artists, designers, architects and musicians are always a motivation. I never was one to accept what people put in front of me, so I have never watched much television and if I’m honest I do still try to keep my distance from popular culture. Having said that, there is real comfort to be found in the familiar realm of conventionalism. London has been one of my biggest inspirations throughout my life,The Notting Hill Carnival was a great and exciting introduction into West Indian culture and that shaped my youth. Over time my collecting habits have got a lot more refined, so I am currently focusing on cutting back and stripping away the excess. When I first moved to New York I spent weeks clearing out boxes of stuff, it was surprising how much

I had accumulated. Now I’m left with the pieces that really mean something to me and I know it would be really hard for me if I ever had to let them go. I still like to focus on collecting Best Company from Italy and Ralph Lauren is also a label I can’t resist. There are also a few holes in my Missoni Sport graphic tee collection that I’d like to fill. Of course my initial clients when selling the Looney Toons hats were around the 18-25 bracket, but at the time the New Rave scene was well underway. After that chapter the customer base was broad, through focusing in on colourful prints and different accessories and brands that appealed to all age groups. I am particularly interested in Moschino prints, and wrote about them substantially on the Zone7Style blog. I have always thought Franco Moschino was a pioneer, his print archive is one of the greatest in the world in terms of that loud ‘poppy’ style. He took everyday common objects and plastered them over stylish shirts and jeans. The fact that there was always an underlying political message behind his clothing is something that I am intrigued by. The last piece I bought was a Cheap & Chic shirt with a print of what looks like a Moroccan street seller all over it. Every piece is different and interesting.

HOW DO THINGS DIFFER IN NEW YORK TO LONDON? They are both very different indeed, with ‘football casual’ defining Europe while hip hop dominated in the States. Now I think it’s all blended together, but I do find that the British consumer continues to be a little more refined than your average American; Basketball and Baseball are so influential out here. I remember when I was in New York back in 1996 my cousin gave me a pile of snapback hats. It was something new to me as hadn’t really paid any attention to them before then. I recently attended the annual Lo-Life BBQ in East New York, which is an annual gathering of Original Lo-Lifes and Lo-heads (collectors of Ralph Lauren Polo). It was amazing to finally meet some of the pioneers of the movement. We did the usual posing for group photos and had a good time. Lo-Life culture has changed but it has strong roots in NYC and the movement continues to grow globally. Collecting still has an important place in culture today because as time has gone on and the accessibility of information has become instantaneous, many things that were less known 10 years ago are now at theforefront of fashion. Original movements began without the aid of technology, and instead were shaped by the surroundings and people involved; they reflected lifestyle and raw culture. We’ve all had to really step up our game to dig deeper into the vaults of the unknown and to bring products to the table that not many people are familiar with, while staying within the realms of relevance. I think timelessness is a key factor, and various fashions continue to stand the test of time. Collectors celebrate the different elements of fashion and keep it alive in a time that is dominated by technology and fast paced fashion. There is a lot to be learnt by the past and it continues to inspire.

sassybarlow@live.com

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EL SUENO DE FRIDA BY GABRIELA CAMBERO / AMANDA LANGE PHOTOGRAPHY RICARDO RAMOS

Stylist Juan Carlos Plasencia Makeup Claudia Gami単o Hair Manuel Oliva Model Alejandra Infante 36

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SOPHY ROBSON NAIL ARTIST BY EVA DOMIJIAN

ondon-based Sophy Robson is fashion’s coolest nail girl. Coming from the hip-hop industry where ostentatious talons are the norm, she set on a mission to bring nail art into the refined world of fashion. Since then, her designs have graced the pages of Vogue, W, Vanity Fair, Elle and i-D, campaigns for Tom Ford, Céline, Giorgio Armani, Jil Sander, Missoni, and even London 2012 Olympians. If fashion imagemakers once frowned upon nails that weren’t dark red or neutral because «it was going to be ghetto and cheapify the look», now it seems they can’t get enough. Robson’s transition into nail art was «a simple case of economics». In 1998, the birth of her daughter put a stop to her nightly DJ lifestyle. Pondering what to do instead, she looked at becoming a make-up artist and saw that she would have to work as an apprentice for a couple of years before earning any money. «It just wasn’t viable for me. I enrolled at my local college and studied beauty therapy. I quickly determined that if you started as a nail tech, which meant that you could do acrylic, fibreglass and gel nails, you would be paid double what the starting pay for beauty therapist was.» That year at Olympia, Britain’s leading trade show for beauty professionals, Robson noticed two things: there was a lot of money exchanging hands and there was no one like her. «I’ve always had a hustler streak, so I felt I could really

get somewhere doing this.» One of the beauty salons that exhibited at Olympia was recruiting and she landed her first job as a manicurist. «You need to learn the basics of how to look after a nail and treat it, which starts at college. Then it’s just mastering your polish and brushes and having full control over what you’re using. Once you’ve got that, you can pretty much do anything.» Anything, in her case, was making it in the fashion industry, a rather conservative place when it came to nail art. To prove that nails could be made into an accessory and complement the overall look, Robson painted simple designs on her own nails, hoping to be allowed to replicate them in editorials. «At this point I was very much at the mercy of the art directors. They could easily scrap your work or it wouldn’t be lit very well in the picture.» She was making a good living in fashion when her business took off even further with social media. In 2008, she started a blog, writing about nail trends and sharing pictures of her designs. «It was just simple things like slanted nails, chevrons on the edge of the nail, different colours, clouds, nothing wacky.» Soon Robson’s designs were being copied all over the world. The online nail art community has exploded in recent years thanks to nail polish’s relatively inexpensive price and endless creative potential. Beautiful nails are now one of the most popular topics on image-oriented social media platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram. «I started this thing called Nail Porn, which was meant as a joke. Everyone just tags #nailporn on their pictures now.» Parallel to the success of her blog, Robson began doing nails at catwalk shows in London and Paris. She was among the first to claim it as creative work; before, it was a sly way for beauty brands to become associated with a designer. Nude nail polish was a standard at shows in order not to distract attention from

Sophy Robson’s custommade nail designs

Beauty

WHAT IS YOUR MOST EMOTIONALLY IMPORTANT PIECE OF CLOTHING? I had a house fire in 2005 and I lost my entire wardrobe. I love all my clothes, but I don’t get attached to them, probably because of that reason. clothes. It was because of quirky nail art, however, that designers who were not important enough to be featured in runway reports started taking over beauty pages. «Then it just became extremely competitive, people trying to undercut you.» Robson has now cut down on catwalk shows, focusing on a few key ones such as Topshop, Henry Holland, Jasper Conran and Rihanna for River Island, partially because of background politics. «Some people pay designers now to get their brand used at the show. Quite frankly, I’m not prepared to do that.» For her, catwalk shows are much more frantic than editorial and salon work because she seldom has helpers. «It’s so hard to get a finesse look on nail art with that many models under that much time pressure.» On catwalk, nails might be of secondary importance in relation to clothes, but on photoshoots, Robson has more freedom creating a character. «It’s like, would this person have her nails done? Sometimes no, she wouldn’t. So I’ll go, ‘I don’t think we need to do anything on this.’» Sometimes the character will require a nonstandard procedure that goes beyond polishing, such as putting dirt on their nails or making them look crooked. Robson says the most challenging and simultaneously rewarding part of her job is the dynamic between creatives. «I come from a salon background. When you work in a salon, the client is always right. In the fashion industry, people don’t really have that mentality. They’re like, ‘I’m always right’. You get this clash of egos.» The people with whom her ego is usually perfectly aligned are makeup artists Val Garland, Illamasqua’s Alex Box, former Chanel make-up creative director Peter Philips and stylist Jane How. «I just like people that have strong ideas, even if they’re a bit nuts. Nails are very intimate, so you get close to people. I think that’s a real privilege.» WHAT IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT FASHION MOMENT? The first time I did the Louis Vuitton show in Paris was major. I didn’t sleep. They didn’t want to see a single smudged nail. I was working to that kind of standard anyway, but for them to actually spell it out to me, it was double pressure.When I got home to London, I went on Style.com and checked every single nail on the enlarger.

WHO IS YOUR BIGGEST FASHION INFLUENCE? It’s got to be Kate Moss. I think she’s influenced every girl of a certain age - even now, probably. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FASHION AND STYLE? Style never goes out of fashion. If you look at all the great style icons, they wear things that become fashion. IN TERMS OF FASHION, WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE HISTORICAL PERIOD? I love the late sixties, early seventies. The structured and synthetic hair, the eyelashes, the pastel lipstick, the neoprene dresses ... WHAT INSPIRES YOU? Things catch my eyes. Art, bags, shoes, accessories, movies ... Fabric has to be a big thing for me. I’m privileged to see a lot of it on shoots in the backstage. Is there a fashion item, contemporary or historic, that you’d like to own? A Louis Vuitton custom-made vanity case with neon pink stripes to carry my nail kit around. HOW DO YOU THINK FASHION WILL EVOLVE IN THE FUTURE? Everything is becoming so accessible and instant. I’d love to see it go back to more individual again. WHAT ROLE DOES FASHION PLAY IN OUR SOCIETY? It’s making decisions. «I need to buy that because I’ve seen the advert and I want to own a piece of it.» I find that quite fascinating in a sinister way. IF YOU WEREN’T IN FASHION, WHAT FIELD WOULD YOU BE IN? I dread to think! Fashion saved me; it’s given me a great life, I feel happy with what I’m doing.

eva@dressful.com

FINE GAUGE BY LISA MCCANN PHOTOGRAPHER: IRINGO DEMETER

Stylist: Lisa McCann Model: Theo, Oxygen Models Male grooming: Lauren Reynolds

2lisa@eircom.net 47

WHEN PUNK MET POLITICS BY MARIA GUIHEN

Politics

FREE PUSSY RIOT!!!

he all female punk rock group Pussy Riot was formed in August 2011 out of a shared desire to speak out against Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a number of government policies being passed at the time that the members felt were highly discriminative towards women, such as restrictions being placed on abortions. Made up of a variable membership of around 15 women (usually 10 perform and 5 do the behind the scenes work such as filming and editing), they stage unauthorised provocative guerilla performances in public Russian locations, with lyrics focusing on feminism, LGBT rights, and opposition to the policies of Putin.The performances, which the women describe as ‘two minute performances of art and pure protest’, are then edited into music videos and posted online, where they are freely available for downloading.

OH WAIT... THEY ARE.

Until recently the identity of the members has always been completely anonymous – they have nicknames such as Cat, Seraph,Terminator and Blondie, and their faces are kept hidden with brightly coloured balaclavas. One thing they certainly do share with us, however, is their opinions, which apparently range from anarchist to liberal left. What unites the women is feminism, anti-authoritarianism and a strong opposition to Putin,‘What we have in common is impudence, politically loaded lyrics, the importance of feminist discourse and a non-standard female image.’ Stating their inspirations as feminist icons Emmiline Pankhurst, Shulamith Firestone and Kate Millett, and female punk rock groups Angelic Upstarts, Cockney Rejects and Bikini Kill, the group insists they’re open to recruits with limited musical talent, ‘You don’t have to sing very well. It’s punk.You just scream a lot.’ The screams didn’t go unheard as Pussy Riot began to gain a dedicated and rapidly rising online following, that is, until they were very abruptly put a stop to in February 2012. On 21st February 2012, five members of the group staged a performance on the soleas of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the savior, this time making a stand against the Orthodox Church leader because of the support he showed Putin during his election campaign. Two thirds into the performance they were stopped by church security officials and thrown out, but as always, it was turned into a music video and posted online that evening, with the title ‘Punk Prayer – Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!’ However, the group had clearly gone too far in the eyes of the Russian law this time, as six weeks later on 3rd March 2012, two of the performers, revealed as Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested and charged with hooliganism. A third member,Yekaterina Samutsevich, was later arrested and charged with the same offence on 16th March. The other two women who performed reportedly fled the country not long after. The three women were eventually convicted of hooliganism motivated by racial hatred, and each sentenced to two years imprisonment. On 10th October following an appeal, Samutsevich’s sentence was suspended and she was freed on probation, the other two women - who were apparently more heavily involved with Pussy Riot were imprisoned until December 2013 when they were finally released under an amnesty law. The trial and sentence attracted a considerable amount of attention and criticism, particularly in the West. The Guardian interviewed the accused band members via their lawyer, revealing Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church orchestrated the case, “The trial was built in a way that we couldn’t defend ourselves. They didn’t listen to us. We could have sat downstairs, where you wait until you’re taken to the courtroom, and not gone in at all and everything would have gone the same way”.The case was adopted by a number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International. More than 100 famous musicians have joined a worldwide call for the women to be released, including Sir Paul McCartney, Madonna, The Red Hot Chili Peppers,Yoko Ono, Sting, Die Antwoord,The Chemical Brothers and Adele. Madonna gave a controversial speech in favour of releasing the women at her most recent Moscow performance, with the words ‘Pussy Riot’ emblazoned on her body throughout the whole concert. Public opinion in Russia was generally less sympathetic however, and Putin himself stated that the women ‘undermined the moral foundations of the nation’ and that they ‘got what they deserved’.

mariaguihen@hotmail.com 51

WALKING PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOANA TUBAL STYLING BY ANA ROSADO AND DIANA ÁGUAMEL

THE LONGWINDED LADY BY LISA MCCANN

Photograph by Patrick Redmond

Poster shot for «Talk of the Town», the play written by Emma Donoghue about Maeve Brennan in Dublin

Women

A FORGOTTEN IRISH WRITER FOR THE NEW YORKER IN THE 50S AND 60S

“

The Long-winded Lady”, she called herself. She is the girl credited as the inspiration behind Breakfast at Tiffany’s Holly Golightly. Sophisticated, stylish and witty, Maeve Brennan wrote engaging pieces first for Harper’s Bazaar and then for the New Yorker in the 50s and 60s, moving among the most envied in New York City. She flitted from hotel to hotel, never quite settling anywhere. She had secret affairs with work colleagues, her good looks and sharp wit intriguing the men around her. She was known as much for her eccentricities as for her talent as a writer. “She was a real gypsy, going from apartment to apartment, hotel to hotel,” her biographer Angel Bourke noted.“She never grew up.” She had an elusive quality, which added to her allure. “She’d be absolutely charming---then she’d be gone.” Her Talk of the Town column for the New Yorker was special. She had an ability to see true beauty in the mundane. Ordinary people, ordinary encounters.This was what interested her. She tiptoed around the city, listening and watching. Alert, and always elegant. In her author’s note that prefaces The Long-Winded Lady, Maeve writes, “Somebody said, “We are real only in moments of kindness.” Moments of kindness, moments of recognitionif there is a difference, it is a faint one. I think the Long-winded Lady is real when she writes, here, about some of the sights she saw in the city she loves.” Maeve was compassionate and felt things strongly. She could capture a moment and describe it in a simple but beautiful way. She once watched a “shabby, tall man with red eyes” try to decide between canned soup and alcohol. Such a simple and irrelevant moment in her life and yet she found it profound. “I mean to say that the impulse toward good involved choice, and is complicated, and the impulse toward bad is hideously simple and easy, and I feel sorry for that poor tall red-eyed man.” Maeve may have been a gifted writer and the life of the party but she lived quite a solitary existence. In 1954, She married the New Yorker’s managing director, an alcoholic womanizer called St. Clair McKelway but this ended in disaster. By the late 1960s, the vibrant, elegant girl in black vanished and she gradually became mentally ill and unable even to write. She slept in the ladies bathroom at the New Yorker, disheveled and unspeaking. Her good friend and mentor William Maxwell spoke of it, “Many men and women found Maeve charming, and she was true friend, but there wasn’t much you could do to save her from herself.” In the 1980s she disappeared completely and was admitted to Lawrence nursing home in New York. She died of a heart attack in 1993, aged 76. “I hoped the woman who died on the street had had a nice day. I don’t know what I didn’t hope for her. I hoped she had no one belonging to her who loved her enough to grieve for years, to cry all their lives over the thought of her lying there like that.” From The Long-Winded Lady.

2lisa@eircom.net 55

BY LAURA HASTINGS

Images courtesy of Syd Moore

THE ONLY WAY IS ESSEX

FANCY A CASE OF THE WILLIES? LET SYD MOORE`S CREEPY ESSEX TALES SEND A SHIVER UP YOUR SPINE

y two hour interview over lunch with Syd Moore often devolved into two history buffs passionately discussing the events of 500 years ago.We discussed American tv series American Horror Story, the works of Edgar Allan Poe, and Hammer horror movies at length. It’s clear from the beginning that we share an obsession with the horror genre. I am thrilled to have met the author who has re-worked the ghost story into a feminist tale, and who is committed to overturning the stereotype of the Essex girl. We begin by talking about her third novel, entitled The Sacrifice. Syd hopes to have it completed within the week of when we meet, great news for the legion of fans she has accumulated. We discuss the topic of the novel, which has moved on from the Essex witch trials. Moore mentions that she was heavily influenced by the 1973 film The Wicker Man for her latest work. The book is set on a remote island where things are more sinister than they seem. Moore confesses that writing this was a very different process from her first two. It

follows the story of an anchoress who is walled up and left to die as a religious sacrifice. Moore has again delved into history and is bringing attention to a forgotten phenomenon. Young girls or boys in the 12th century, anchoresses and anchorites, would be given up to the church in times of crop failures or other perceived acts of a vengeful God.This was a practice that was carried out almost worldwide. Moore was stepping away from her previous formula with this topic. “I think that one of my problems with this book is that, with the other two I was really driven about setting the record straight, getting the other side of the story out, getting the stories of these women out, and with this one I haven’t really got that urgency.” Both of Syd’s previous novels, Witch Hunt and The Drowning Pool, were based around women in the present day discovering a connection with women who were executed as witches in 17th century Essex, a long forgotten episode in history.

Books

After finding great success within her genre I was surprised to hear that she would not be returning to the subject, at least for the minute. Moore explained that she becomes so involved in the research she sometimes needs to separate herself from it. “All that kind of stuff is really hard. Emotionally it’s quite exhausting. I wanted to have a break from all of that. When I was researching Witch Hunt it was a very dark period of time for me. I had to shut off from it because it’s just excruciating to read some of the testimonies, to go through what happened, this building sense of outrage. I wanted to give it a rest, which I don’t think my publishers really wanted, but you need to look after yourself.” It is obvious from her writing that Syd invests emotionally in her characters, drawing on her own life experiences and expertise to create female protagonists with empathy and courage. Her books stand out from a slew of horror writers due to these characters. When combining fiction with history an author runs the risk of over dramatizing situations and creating characters which don’t quite ring true, Moore avoids this due to her obvious dedication to highlighting the injustice done to these women. In her first two novels the main characters are visited by ghosts of the witches. At first they seem terrifying and as though they wish to do harm, but as the novels develop it becomes clear that they have come to help. Moore takes the view that these women have not become embittered from their experience of being persecuted, they simply want to prevent it happening again. Throughout the interview two topics are consistently present- feminism and horror. The two might not seem like the most obvious companions, but Syd describes herself as an activist feminist which she credits with giving her the impetus to write the largely forgotten story of the women executed as witches. “A lot of this filters in to an urgency that I have to address the gender inequalities in this country and globally. The witch hunts are still going on today. In Kenya it’s old women, in Nigeria it’s young children of both sexes. Papua New Guinea are having terrible witch hunts at the moment, and they are mostly women as well.” Moore advocates support for Stepping Stones, a charity which supports the rights of children, especially those accused of witchcraft, in Nigeria. In her work humanity is restored to these women who were demonized by a patriarchal and angry society. Moore guides the reader to identify with the witches by exploring their lives: “A fifteen year old pauper, isolated from her mother, questioned by a higher ranking gentlemen, frightened, alone, damned; either Rebecca’s instinct for survival kicked in or perhaps she was tortured into confessing or Hopkins’ authority induced her to please him.Whatever occurred in that interview, something changed in the girl and soon her tale took on a more sensational tone as the Witchfinder retold her confession.” Here, Moore recounts the tragic true tale of Rebecca West, forced by the Witchfinder to testify against her own mother, condemning her to death. Alongside her writing on the plight of the witches, Syd has been making efforts to have the women commemorated in Essex by erecting a monument in their memory, unfortunately she has received little support. “I did actually apply for funding to the Arts Council and I got turned down for it. They said they didn’t feel there was a demand for it. It is something I would really like to do, but this time I think I’ll try and do it virtually, create a website as opposed to a physical monument. I did look into trying to get a pardon [for the witches] but it’s impossible basically. You have to get the Queen to grant a pardon, and each woman would have to be pardoned individually, and it’s just not going to happen.” The reason for the lack of interest today can most likely be attributed to the fact that not many people are aware of the scale of the trials and the number of women who were targeted and murdered. It is estimated that around 300 women were killed in Essex and Sussex between 1644 and 1646 when Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General, was on his rampage to clear the country of women he deemed as evil. It seems incredible that this dark time is not better known today, when the Salem witch trials in the U.S for instance are

widely known of. Syd attributes this to the background against which the trials happened. “The time of the Matthew Hopkins witch hysteria was also the Civil War so terrible things happened and people were really quite brutalized. The Civil War was so bloody and affected everybody so women being hanged here and there wasn’t something that traumatized people at all. People remember the name Matthew Hopkins- the Witchfinder General, but no one remembers the names of the victims.” Syd is keen to mention that she will return to the theme of witchcraft for her fourth book. Moore is proud to mention that she has always been an activist. “I’ve always been a marcher since I was a student. Poll tax, miners, anti- apartheid, I’ve always tried to be active.” Female stereotypes were holding back women in general. Super Strumps is a project she co- founded which aims to reclaim and dispel these stereotypes. The game is based around childhood favourite card game Top Trumps and takes a tongue- in- cheek look at what these stereotypes mean, celebrating female qualities instead of denigrating them. The different stereotypes included are given points out of 100 for four different qualities; nurture, strength, independence, and resourcefulness.The Essex girl, for instance, scores 85 for resourcefulness, but only 35 for nurture. Born and bred in Southend- on- Sea, the Essex girl image is something Syd is very familiar with. It is an issue that pervades her writing as well as her work with Super Strumps. In Witch Hunt, her main character Sadie is a journalist writing a series of articles on the history of the Essex girl. Moore mentions that the stereotype is something she has come up against for her whole life, and what else could an activist do but try to change the situation for the better. Syd spent some time lecturing at a sixth form college in Essex where she heard reports from her students that quite often at an interview for university, the interviewer would begin with a simple “Oh, you’re an Essex girl?”, a question loaded with connotations. “Seventeen year olds being put in that situation, they want to interview well, they want to get a position on the course. How do you answer that? Do you object to the stereotype in which case you start by pissing off the interviewer, or do you just laugh? They don’t want to jeopardize their chances. It’s not fair, these girls are not on a level playing field because we still have this stereotype.” Super Strumps really hits the nail on the head as far as female stereotypes are concerned. Every woman has at some point been compared to one of these roles, whether it be the bimbo, the career woman, or the gold digger. Moore, along with co- creator Heidi Wigmore, have come up with a light hearted way of celebrating feminism, not an easy task. Moore is constantly contriving new ideas and projects which support a more positive attitude towards feminism. Her latest project along with Wigmore is to tackle the reasoning behind anti- women attitudes in popular TV and book series Game of Thrones. This will hopefully be debuted at the Women of the World festival in March 2014. “We’re hoping to do a dressing up event where we will have fantasy costumes, props, breast plates, skirts, a huge wardrobe of amazing pieces.Women come in and dress up, and they give their new persona a name. And we ask what are your qualities? Women can create these characters themselves, and we want to ask them what they want from the fantasy genre.” By taking these women out of their comfort zone, Moore expects to see attitudes of warrior women, as opposed to the simpering creatures often found in Game of Thrones. Not content with stopping at this however, Moore intends to use this event as a starting point in creating a fantasy genre TV series which features strong female characters. Having read all of George R.R Martin’s Game of Thrones series, I am inclined to cheer when I realise that someone else has realized that women do not need to be second class citizens in literature. I don’t believe that most people would be able to manage the number of projects which she is currently taking on, but then again Syd Moore isn’t most people.

laura.hastings22@gmail.com

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALI KEPENEK, PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANT: ANDRE TITCOMBE 58

THE WORLD OF BEAUTY PAGEANTS

Theory

BY ADAM FLETCHER “WE’RE GOING TO TURN THIS ONE [GRACIE] INTO A LADY, A REAL LADY…A PAGEANT QUEEN. BUT IT’S NOT GOING TO BE EASY.” VICTOR MELLING, MISS CONGENIALITY “I’M NOT GONNA PARADE AROUND IN A SWIMSUIT LIKE SOME AIRHEAD BIMBO THAT GOES BY THE NAME OF, WHAT, GRACIE LOU FREEBUSH AND ALL SHE WANTS IS WORLD PEACE” GRACIE HART, MISS CONGENIALITY

hese lines are extracted from a scene in the movie Miss Congeniality, where beauty pageant coach Victor Melling is attempting to persuade Gracie Hart, an FBI agent, that she must go undercover in the Miss United States beauty pageant to prevent a bombing attack. In this very short passage, one can learn many of the concerns, themes and subjects that surround the world of beauty pageants. Victor Melling illustrates that beauty pageants are crucial when constructing a feminine identity; Gracie’s participation in the Miss United States pageant will send her down the right path to complete femininity. Note Victor’s use of the words “a real lady”. Gracie is then showered with hours of free beauty treatments from manicures, pedicures, brow and lash tinting, waxing, teeth whitening, facials, makeup, perm waving, more facials and laser resurfacing. After the use of these products, she then immediately assumes her full role as a female, walking with her chin up, thrusting her hips forward and talking softly and elegantly. Apparenty, it is through beauty pageants that individuals are able to understand their own sense of identity and position in society. Victor’s use of descriptors help to demonstrate this, he initially refers to Gracie as “this one” (implying no identity) and then refers to her as “a lady” (indicating a gain of identity). Upon becoming part of a group, like a beauty pageant, one feels actively included in a subculture and attains a sense of belonging. Girls that contest in them experience feelings of belonging, not only with the other contestants, but also with the wider pageant community. Author Joan Jacobs Brumberg sees that there is a need for subcultures that are specifically for girls, such as the natural style beauty pageants, now more than ever, because “our current environment is toxic for adolescent girls because of the anxieties it creates about the developing female body and sexuality…The body projects that absorb the attention of

girls threaten their mental and physical health” (Greenfield, 2002:xi). Pageants in Britain aim to demonstrate that the highest forms of female perfection concern the brain as well as the body, such as the ambassadorial responsibilities placed on a Miss World winner for the succeeding year. Victor’s inclusion and repetition of the word “lady” also recalls the idea of the coming of age theme, as well reinforcing its presence. Beauty pageants are a way to start the transition from child to adult. Many competitors begin from an early age—almost seventy per cent of all applicants are children; some are aged under one year old. Mother-to-be Jenny Oliver even entered her unborn child into a pageant. Thus, The Regal Miss Pageant contest has a category for girls aged from birth to eighteen. Ironically, the modern pageant ‘herself’ can be seen as coming of age; she is a relatively new debutante, just over one hundred years old. Pageants have only just started to become popular in Europe within the last ten years. In China and India, they only really took off in 2003, with the arrival of Miss World. Gracie’s response shows that pageants are something deeply embedded in American culture.The very name Gracie Lou Freebush is all American-sounding with the double-barrelled and hypocoristic forenames. In 1940, Max Factor, Jr. (dubbed as Hollywood’s beauty authority) created a prototype of the ultimate pageant queen, called the All American Face. It was based on the iconic actress Mary Parker, with her bouncy golden hair tied in plaid bows, fair-skin and big blue eyes – she perfectly represented the ideal and desired norm. Professor A. Walton Litz claims that pageants are so successful in American culture because of the “‘thinness’ of American life, its lack of a rich and complex social texture.The pageant is a natural reflection of their intense but isolated experiences” (Allen, 1981:24). So, Americans in a sense could have created the beauty competition to investigate their own sense of identity, their national character, and their

relationships to one another and to the rest of the world. As Jessica Tucker, the reigning Miss Louisiana, puts it: “We prime the boys for soccer and baseball, and our daughters for pageants” (Chenes, 2010:20). Consequently, America is still the region with the most beauty competitions, with over 3,500 contests per annum ranging anywhere from Miss Chicken Drumsticks, Miss Hawaii, Miss South Dakota to the glitzy Miss America and Miss USA. Some Americans go as far as saying that the winner of the beauty pageant is “the ideal young woman in America” (Alter, 1997:7). However, if the beauty pageant is so quintessentially American, what place could it possibly hold in the British imagination? THE RETURN OF THE PAGEANT ‘Pageant mania seems to have broken out worldwide as the new and developing countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and parts of Europe recognise the advantages of enhancing their national profile’ (Chenes, 2010:60). There is an increasing interest being paid to the pageant industry in all aspects, particularly in the United Kingdom. For example, in August 2013 the first ever pet skunk beauty pageant was hosted in Birmingham, with categories that included best dressed, best male, best female, best tail and best nose. In a similar way, five years ago, child beauty pageants were non-existent in the UK but there are currently close to thirty, with thousands of girls participating every year. However, pageants still remain a strange, unfamiliar and unknown territory for many of us. The very idea of having women, skunks or children parade around on a stage in outlandish outfits while their bodies are closely assessed could be a pretty strange concept for many of us to comprehend. If one ever accidentally stumbled across the bizarre judging methods employed at the Miss LA pageants (like the Marilyn Monroe cut-outs and paper bags over the head), the rather disturbing eye-isolating masks used at the Miss Lovely Eyes contest or the unusual pageant sponsors such as the Zion Meat Company, Lobster King or The Diaper Service, this strangeness can be taken to a whole different level. The chief reason for pageants being so unfamiliar is that they are now extremely private affairs. In 1971 the British public were invited into the pageant world when Miss Great Britain was first televised. Author Keith Lovegrove recounts a time when his “family would sit religiously in front of the television to view

the annual spectacle that was Miss Great Britain…At that time, the televised beauty contest was a popular family show…By the late 1970s, the contentious issue had become the beauty contest itself, which was highlighted by a series of public protests” (Lovegrove, 2002:7). This caused the pageant to completely “disappear from mainstream [British] TV” (Lovegrove, 2002:7). As one knows, a disappearance from television leads to a disappearance from public consciousness. Hence, writer Rita Silvan questions their mere presence: ‘I didn’t even realise beauty pageants still existed’ (Lovegrove, 2002:7). Since the 1970s, non-pageant goers have been kept at arm’s length from their community. As pageant expert Jane Treays puts it: “only parents, mainly mothers attend. No outsiders are allowed in. Girls often perform to judges, their mothers and empty seats” (Treays, 2008:24min).There is still much negativity surrounding the pageant today, forcing it to still conceal itself further from public viewing. British writer Kim Lunman believes that “beauty pageants are outdated and serve no positive social role, it is time they come to an end” (Chenes, 2010:53). Artist and director Morten Traavik suggests that there is something diabolically supernatural and grotesque about pageants “the criticism so far has been [that] beauty contests are the work of the devil and should be banished in any possible form or shape or colour” (Chenes, 2010:69).This chorus of criticism was ignited by the terrible story of JonBenét Ramsey. Since then, pageants, specifically child pageants, have “been an easy target” (Anderson, 2009:6). Accordingly, there is a lack of information available concerning beauty contests. A simple online search for the phrase ‘beauty pageant’ provides over 30,600,000 results, of which most is negative criticism. For instance, the top three results are the articles ‘Parents Rail Against Vulgarity of Children’s Beauty Pageants’ in the Moscow Times, ‘Francesca Harper Mocks Beauty Shows’ in the New York Times and ‘5 reasons child pageants are bad for kids’ in The Province. Try entering the words ‘beauty pageants UK’ into the search box of a search engine. Outcome? It might as well say “no results found.” We are bombarded with images of extremely young American girls from the Darling Dolls of America high-glitz pageants. Pageants in Britain, it seems, have almost become unmappable and can only be found if one knows where to where to find them. Journalist Mark Schwed confirms this, stating that; “In politically correct Britain, beauty contests are a backstreet industry.” (Chenes, 2010:40). With this in mind, what then is a beauty pageant? Is it as obscure as we are led to believe? Are British pageants

Theory

too veiled an area to penetrate? Is there even any information out there? A beauty pageant, also known as a beauty contest, is quite simply a competition that is centred chiefly on the outer beauty of the contestants. Participants are also judged on components that are not part of their physical appearance, such as their personality, talent, confidence and interview skills. However, Scaglia contests this, writing that “unattractive contestants are unlikely to win, no matter how talented, poised, intelligent, educated [or] socially conscious they are” (Scaglia, 2010:5). Whatever the answer, the winner of a beauty pageant is referred to as a beauty queen and is crowned with an official title, a tiara and anything from: scholarships, a mobile phone, cash, sashes, robes, trophies, a modelling contract, clothes, a cruise holiday, makeup, a bouquet of red roses, a subscription to Pageantry magazine and personal training. A child beauty pageant, however, refers to a beauty competition for competitors aged from 0 to 18 years old. Children are able to compete from the moment they are able to sit up on their own. With the exception of Serena Naomi Laris, who is just four weeks old and competes in the California Kisses Beauty Pageants. Competitions are divided into many different rounds, ranging from casual wear, summer wear, evening wear, swimwear, sportswear or western wear. The makeup, costumes and hairstyles in child beauty pageants tend to be more extravagant and decorative than what can be found in adult pageants. Many of the dresses are custom made to measurements and are individually handcrafted. Each contestant has approximately two hours appearance time in the pageant, with roughly 180 seconds for the talent part of the competition and 120 seconds for the modelling round. Children’s pageants are also different from adult pageants in that they crown a queen for every age group (0-5, 6-11, 12-16, 17 and over) in addition to awards for the Grande Supreme and Mini Supreme Queen. This is to ensure that children do not experience dissatisfaction with their bodies, or any other long-term effects from competing. Thus, they do not follow an elimination-style procedure, which was wrongly portrayed in the film Little Miss Sunshine. THE LAWS OF BEAUTY Traditionally, beauty pageants are still viewed by many as competitions solely for naturally born women whom are aged between eighteen and twenty-seven years old. It is crucial that all contestants have never been married before or bore a child, as “she must represent the highest ideals…the type of woman we need…[someone] ready for homemaking and motherhood” (Savage, 1998:33). Former pageant queen Raymonde Allain represented just this. She recounts when “People talked to me endlessly about my virginal hair. ‘Your features revealed virginal beauty and your smile revealed virginal beauty.’ My virginity had become

part of it” (Savage, 1998:29). If Allain or any of the other contestants were found “going out without their chaperones…speaking to young people in the town [or] smoking cigarettes” then they could not be seen as not representing the highest ideals, or performing in ways that are associated with womanhood, and therefore must face the consequences: elimination (Savage, 1998:29). Failure to comply (even after winning) could also mean handing over your title or crown. Such as Jenna Talackova, who was disqualified from the grand finals of the Miss Universe Canada pageant in 2012 after judges found out that she was a transgender woman. Despite undergoing reassignment surgery, and pageant organisers viewing her as a ‘real girl’, as she is not a ‘naturally born female’ she was forced to leave (http://lindaikeji.blogspot.co.uk). In a similar way, Vanessa Williams was made to hand over her Miss America crown in 1984 after nude pictures of her were found in Penthouse magazine. Even though the pictures were taken years prior to being in the pageant and she did not consent to the pictures being taken of her. There are a wide variety of beauty pageants that have arisen over the years, some of which follow the stringent rules of traditional beauty pageants and others that have formulated their own set of laws. The diversity of pageants is so vast that even pageants in the same county or state operate independently with their own separate rules. The Miss America and Mrs World pageants, for example, are specifically aimed at women who are not married, but it does not matter if they have or have not had children.The Miss Fat pageant caters to plus size women only (women who wear size 12 or larger), there are no marital requirements and marks for physical appearance only count towards 10 per cent of the total score. The Mr World beauty pageant is only open to men. The Miss Landmine contest involves competing against women of different ages and martial status, the only requirement is that they must have been injured by a land mine. The prison pageant in Siberia is open to women of any age, race or colour, but the main rules are that you belong to that prison and your costume should be hand made from everyday objects, such as bin liners, plastic flowers, glitter and paper. Except for the rules and regulations that govern children’s education, beauty competitions remain comparatively uncontrolled affairs. They, in a sense, exist independently from the rest of society. As child labour means to employ a child at often and sustained labour (not including household tasks or school work), children’s beauty pageants are not deemed as places of employment. This is due to the fact that the children are not seen as technically working, so they still remain free from child labour laws. As there are no two pageants with the same rules, it would be extremely difficult when even attempting to compile laws that would encompass all pageants.

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GUNNAR GARFORS BY MASSIEL MANCEBO Photos courtesy of Gunnar Garfors

MASSIEL MANCEBO MEETS NORWEGIAN GUNNAR GARFORS, THE YOUNGEST HOBBY TRAVELLER TO HAVE VISITED ALMOST 200 COUNTRIES MM: SO, 198 COUNTRIES, THAT’S ONE AMAZING THING TO SAY YOU’VE DONE IN LIFE. HOW DID YOU GET STARTED? GG: I had done a bit of traveling around Europe when I was younger, but it was nothing major. I think it all really began around 2003 or 2004, going to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, that’s when it really started. I loved the experience so much that I decided I would go to all the ‘stan’ countries with my brother.There were no tourists there and we were made really welcome and people were genuinely interested in us. MM: SO WHERE CAN YOU SAY YOU’VE BEEN IN THE LAST FIVE MONTHS? GG: I’ve been to Norway, Germany, the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, I’ve been to the U.S, Hawaii. I was in Tonga, I was in Samoa, I was in Fiji, Kiribati… MM: IS IT PRONOUNCED ‘KEEREE-BAH-TEE’ OR ‘KEEREEBAS’? GG: It’s spelled as Kiribati but it’s pronounced as ‘Keere-bas’, because they don’t have the letter ‘s’ in their language.They have the sound of ‘s’ but not the letter so to write it down they use ‘ti’. MM: WOW, YOU LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERYDAY, I WOULD HAVE KEPT CALLING THAT PLACE KIRIBATI ALL MY LIFE. GG: Oh, yeah, I know, I had done that forever. There are only about 50,000 people

there. I was at a bar and ended up meeting the president’s son-in-law! then afterwards I was in Tuvalu, Cape Verde, Britain, and France.Then I went to Colombia but I haven’t really traveled this summer because I had almost no holiday left. MM: RIGHT, THIS BRINGS ME ON TO MY NEXT QUESTION. WHAT WERE SOME OF YOUR GREATEST CHALLENGES IN COMPLETING THIS GOAL OF VISITING ALL COUNTRIES? GG:, I struggled getting to some countries visa-wise. I guess that’s the biggest challenge I had. Of course, money wise too. I’m not wealthy, I just have a normal job, you know? So of course I had to prioritize,.In 2000 I bought a cheap flat in Oslo before the market went crazy. I live cheaply. I don’t have any kids , no girlfriend, no dog, and I don’t have a car which costs a lot of money in Norway. MM: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE MOST LIFE CHANGING PLACES YOU’VE VISITED, I’M SURE THERE ARE SO MANY, BUT IF YOU COULD MAYBE NARROW IT DOWN TO LIKE, FIVE… GG:Well, the thing is that there are so many amazing places out there, that it’s a very unfair question. If you asked me for the top location, I couldn’t answer, however, I can give you some amazing places, but I still can’t rate them.Turkmenistan is one of the ‘stan’ countries, it’s usually referred to being the second most ‘crazy’ country in the world after North Korea. MM: I DID READ ABOUT THAT- IT SOUNDS INCREDIBLE GG: In Turkmenistan you have this place, it’s called the ‘Gates to Hell’; it’s a big hole in the desert, and a three to four hour drive from Ashgabat, the capital. It’s 130 metres deep, and the flames are just coming up from the ground because there’s a natural gas emission. It’s been burning since the 70s I think. It’s in the middle of the desert, nothing happens, no other lights, and it’s just amazing, almost no people go there. So we went there, stayed in a tent and even when we were camped 500 metres away from the crater, you could still hear the fire burning.

Travel MM: I THINK NORWAY AND NEW ZEALAND ARE THE MOST NATURALLY BEAUTIFUL COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD. GG: A lot of people say that New Zealand is similar to Norway, but on a much smaller scale. Norway is much wilder and much bigger as well, and there’s more of it. But I do agree New Zealand is fantastic too. I’m quite biased. I also love Iceland, again it’s the scenery, the hot springs, the geysers. Also, it’s an island in the middle of the Atlantic and it has a lot of volcanoes. MM: DID YOU SEE ANY ICELANDIC HORSES BY ANY CHANCE? GG: Oh wow yes, they are so nice. It’s so wild there, and the Icelandic people really know how to party. I would also add Madagascar to my top list of countries. We have seven continents obviously, but a lot of people refer to Madagascar as continent number eight, simply because you have so much wildlife, so many plants and so many animals you don’t have anywhere else in the world.You have everything there except good roads. It’s funny because you’ve got four-wheel drives of course, and there are really bad potholes, and then you have the village kids living in the wilderness who put sand into the potholes for a little loose change. I could also mention the least visited country in the world, Nauru. But it’s just weird because no one lives there and only 200 visitors go there every year. Bhutan is also amazing, it’s got to be the most Buddhist country in the world. Buddhist figures, statues, Buddhist paintings, and of course the monasteries. The ‘Tiger’s Nest’ is incredible - It’s like a monastery in the depths of very steep mountains; you have to walk through this tiny space in the cliffs to get there. It’s incredible. MM: SO WHICH PLACE HAS BEEN THE MOST CHALLENGING AND DIFFICULT TO VISIT IN GENERAL? GG:Well, any country with a war of course -that goes without saying- is hard to visit, and can be dangerous. And for women, you can’t go to Saudi Arabia unless you have a work permit, or you are travelling with your husband, or your father, or your son. You need to travel with a man. MM: ARE YOU SERIOUS? SO NO WOMAN CAN GO TO SAUDI ARABIA ALONE? GG: Not unless you are there for work and have your work permit. For example there, as a woman, you can’t drive a car, it’s really so strict. So of course, you would have trouble getting into Saudi Arabia as a woman. Saudi Arabia is one of the worst countries to get to visit even as a man, unless you’re a Muslim, of course, then you go there as part of the Haj to Mecca. At the moment you wouldn’t really want to go to Syria. Mind you, you always have war zones, and areas where there are a lot of kidnappings, but it’s never an entire country.You have to do a little research.You can’t really blame people for not going to these places. The only thing that’s ever heard about Afghanistan in the media is wars and grenades and stuff. MM: WAS THERE EVER A MOMENT IN YOUR TRAVELS WHEN YOU FELT GENUINELY UNSAFE AND POSSIBLY EVEN AFRAID? GG: Somalia, that was a little bit sketchy. I went to the consulate in London when I was going to get my visa, and when I told them I was going to Somalia they asked me, “why? – you’ll probably get killed” MM: WELL, HERE’S ANOTHER ONE: WHAT ABOUT A VERY LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT? SOMETHING THAT YOU FEEL MADE YOU A DIFFERENT PERSON? GG: That’s a deep question, I don’t know if I have a good answer for that. I mean I’ve seen so much of the bad stuff as well, but what I really hate are the way people manipulate beggars to get money.. China and India are the worst places for this, because if they just beg with a normal kid, they get nothing , but if the kid looks really awful they get more sympathy and consequently more money, and so a cottage industry begins. That is just one of the saddest things I see, they’re so shortsighted that they just want money for rice for that day, and you damage the kid forever.That is so sad, it’s awful. MM: IS THERE A PLACE YOU CONSIDER YOUR HOME 100 PERCENT? GG: It’s Naustdal, my village which translates as ‘boat shed valley.’ There are 15,000 people and that’s proper home. My mom lives there, my dad, my brother and two sisters as well.That’s where I grew up, but otherwise home is where my backpack is. Home can be Oslo, yesterday it was Bogota. MM: WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST CHALLENGING COUNTRY FOR FEMALE TRAVELLERS?

GG: Well, again I’d say Saudi Arabia, at least to get into. But otherwise it would be some of the Middle Eastern countries, and potentially India due to the recent rise in sex crimes.What I don’t like is that, in the Middle East women are often looked down upon, I don’t like that hierarchy. Also, women have to wear those burkas in very hot weather, I had one on for two or three minutes and I freaked out,. MM: WHAT WOULD YOUR BEST ADVICE BE FOR FEMALES WHO WANT TO SEE THE WORLD? GG: Just do it! Travel. People travel too little and it’s about widening your horizons. Don’t go where everyone else goes, go somewhere else, if you want to go to places you’re a bit fearful about going to… well, travel together, two or three of you, a few girls, or even with a male friend.The thing is to widen your horizons, go somewhere your best friend doesn’t go. Don’t go to the Bahamas, or Mexico; go and be a little more adventurous. MM: SO I’M GOING TO MENTION A FEW WORDS, AND YOU’RE GOING TO GIVE ME THE FIRST COUNTRY THAT COMES TO MIND. MM: PARTY? GG: I’d have to say Seoul, Korea. MM: RELAXING? GG: Mmm… I’m horrible with relaxing but if you go to Kiribati, you have no choice MM: ROMANTIC? GG: Ah… that’s a good one. I would say Madagascar actually, of course you have the resorts if you’re into that sort of thing, but there’s so much more to see. I would never say the Maldives or the Seychelles, because they have resorts and not much else.. MM: ADVENTURE. GG: New Zealand. MM: MYSTERY? GG: I was going to say London really… because you have Sherlock Holmes and haunted houses on virtually every corner but I’d actually say Romania, Dracula country… you have those old castles in Transylvania. MM: SPIRITUAL? GG: I’m not very into that, but It’s got to be Bhutan; some of those shrines were truly amazing. MM: LAST BUT NOT LEAST, THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON LEARNED ON YOUR TRAVELS? GG: Don’t only listen to media reports - the most important thing is that deep down people everywhere are friendly, and want to welcome you. People are people wherever they are. There are kids in Somalia to and they grow up to be perfectly normal adults, but people don’t think about that, they just say it’s dangerous. So take the plunge and enjoy yourself.

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GOODBYE !

PHOTOGRAPHER : LOLA SWAN