SO ? WHERE FASHION GETS CREATIVE Spring/Summer 2010 £5.00
®
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY
www.somag.co.uk
FRED BUTLER
The brightest star of accessory design
Perishable hats
EVERYDAY OBJECTS
THE SEASON’S HOTTEST TRENDS
Design your own accessories
Catwalk looks to create at home
6 D-I-Y Projects
contents
SO ?
spring/summer 2010
D-I-Y
12 Cloudy Water
A bleach printed bolero
14 Silver Linings
Make your own cloud print tee
34 Fringe Benefits
How to dazzle with a pair of shoulder pads
36 Hand Bags from Glad Rags
From cheap jacket to cool shopper
39 Bobble Knits
Add some texture to your knitting
FASHION
24 Hard Wear
17 The Art of Dressmaking
Powerful customisations. Photographs by Simon Lyle Ritchie
Q&A with performance artist, Kirstie Macleod
48 For One Night Only
Talks about modern millinery
Disposable fashion for your head. Photographs by Rebecca Coleman
58 Everyday Objects Make do and mend with everything and anything. Photographs by Elena Pirogova
INTERVIEWS
10 Laura Mackness
The Central Saint Martin’s Graduate talks all things surreal
44 Piers Atkinson
53 Best in Show
A look at SHOWstudio’s Design Downloads
56 Fred Butler
The colourful accessories designer speaks to Naomi Attwood about her work
70 The Generation Game
Sarah de Gruchy talks to her Granny Wright about passing on the crafts of knit and crochet
66 Origami Necklace
Make this statement accessory
FEATURES 4 D-I-Why?
Rebecca Coleman contemplates why we should bother to do it ourselves
20 Power Games
Focusing on the return of power dressing
22 Deconstruction of a Garment The Blazer We take a look at the inner workings of this wardrobe staple
40 Sweet Charity
Oxfam’s D-I-Y mission
REGULARS 2 Contributors
See whose been creating this season
6 SO ? What #001 - Surrealism
The feel and look of our first trend
9 Moodboard
Your surreal shopping list
16 SO ? Yours #001 18 Arts & Crafts
What’s hot right now in the world of make.
19 SO ? What #002 - Power
The thinking behind our second trend
38 SO ? Yours #002 43 SO ? What #003 - Mad Hatters
The thinking behind our third trend
52 SO ? Yours #003 54 SO ? What #004 - Origami
The feel and look of our fourth trend
68 SO ? What #004 COVER LOOK Ariana wears T-shirt, customised by stylist, vintage cropped tux and jeans. Photography by Simon Lyle Ritchie. Styling by Rebecca Coleman.
editor’s letter
“Hard Wear”: New face, Ariana, wears customised fashion in the shoot on page 24.
i
t all started with an idea back in January 2008. So many of my friends and I seemed to be making or customising our own clothes – it was almost epidemic. However, when I popped down to my local newsagents in search of a magazine to inspire my sewing, I was met with a very miserable prospect. It was a choice between a crafty one my granny might read or your everyday fashion titles. I thought why can’t we mix the two together and SO ? was born, at least in principle. Now after months of pin pricks, sweat and tears, the first issue of SO ? is here. We’re celebrating all that’s great in the world of fashion crafts, drawing inspiration for all kinds of projects from the catwalk. This season it’s all about surrealism, power, mad hatters and origami. Each ‘SO ? What’ section is designed to take you through a trend, from interviews with relevant designers to inspirational photo shoots and sewing projects. I hope that the first fashion story (“Hard Wear”, on page 24), shot by Simon Lyle Ritchie, will enthuse you to utilise safety pins, studs and shoulder pads in the name of all that is new and creative. It’s a bit of a homage to Balmain, Hannah Marshall and all those who’ve been championing a powerful look for Spring/Summer. The second shoot is a bit more creative. Inspired by my meeting with milliner, Piers Atkinson, (interview on page 42) it’s a fun piece about using whatever you have to hand to make stunning, disposable hats. And, the third, shot by Elena Pirogova, is also about using your imagination to make everyday objects, from playing cards to parcel rosettes, into something special. All the accessories are big and bold, something that designer, Fred Butler (interviewed on page 34) is a master of. All the features and shoots are designed to provide exciting and innovative ideas for your own projects. Lets face it, when the finances of the world have taken such a seismic jolt; we all need to be a little more inventive and hands-on with our sense of style.
REBECCA COLEMAN (editor-in-chief)
“Everyday Objects”: Inventive use of recycled goods provides accessorising inspiration on page 60.
Mad Hatters: Piers Atkinson talks to me about designing headwear on page 42. Our photoshoot “For One Night Only” on page 46, below left, was inspired by mental millinery.
Learn how to make this origami necklace on page 68.
SO ?
WHAT
#001
SURREALISM
THE SURREALIST MANIFESTO
written by Andre Breton in 1924, was the bible for anyone involved in this world of wit and wonder. It decreed that dreams and fanciful thoughts should be harnessed in the name of creativity. These artful pioneers thought that te world was a better, or maybe simply more interesting, place when seen from upside down or in a nightmare where everything melts like time. Surrealist artists became quite intrigued by the possibilities of the sewing machine and its symbolism as a tool of femininity. They were fascinated by the concept that it might be able to produce not just women’s clothes but the woman as a whole. Perhaps they imagined they could create the perfect girl, a bit like those kids in Weird Science. -6-
SO ? WHAT L U E L L A
HOW TO WEAR IT:
H O U S E O F
A S H I S H
•
BE BRAVE - THIS LOOK MUST BE WORN WITH CONFIDENCE.
•
ACCESSORIES ARE A GOOD WAY TO ADD A SURREALIST TWIST TO A CONSERVATIVE OUTFIT.
•
SEQUINS ADD AN EXTRA DIMENSION TO THE LOOK.
H O L L A N D
G A R E T H V I K T O R
P U G H
& R O L F
#001 THE LOOK
Hard Wear
HARD WEAR is all about toughening up your clothes with shoulder pads and adornments or metal studs and safety pins. This shoot is all about inspiring you to customise clothes you already have in your wardrobe with quick D-I-Y projects, which will add glamour to even the most outdated items. Get down to your nearest haberdashers and get padded, fringed and studded up.
PHOTOGRAPHY by SIMON LYLE RITCHIE STYLING by REBECCA COLEMAN
Ariana wears vintage Vivienne Westwood top, customised by stylist with patterned shoulderpads and spray painted leggings.
Ariana wears Zara jacket, customised by stylist with two kinds of white curtain fringing and a corsage made from a zip and beads. Next page: Ariana wears vintage jacket customised using safety pins on shoulders and lapel.
Previous page: Ariana wears top customised with metal studs and acid-washed denim shorts. Opposite page: Ariana wears Vero Moda blouse with embellished and fringed shoulder-pads. Learn how to make these for yourself on page 36..
This page: Ariana wears bolero from D-I-Y project #001 with vintage harem pants and cuff made by stylist from a scrap of jersey. Opposite page: Ariana wears vintage jeans and jacket with T-shirt customised using safety pins.
SO ? INTERVIEW
Interview
PIERS ATKINSON Text by Rebecca Coleman & Photography by Simon Lyle Ritchie
Thoroughly modern Milliner and all round creative buff, Piers Atkinson, is a man with his fingers in many pies. As well as making decidedly avante-garde hats, he’s been editor of London Fashion Week paper, The Daily Rubbish, judged Alternative Miss World and once lived with Zandra Rhodes. Rebecca Coleman caught up with him at his East London home to talk about his inspirations and getting his hats in Vogue.
Arriving at Piers Atkinson’s East London residence, a typical Victorian terrace on a peaceful, tree-lined street in Hackney, I have no idea what to expect on the inside. I’ve seen the hats created by the tenant and I wonder if life imitates art. On entering the house I’m not disappointed. It’s the wonderfully eclectic mix of styles I’d hoped for. Atkinson is talking through some designs he’s working on for the artist Seb Patane, with one of his ‘girls’, Crystal. “The girls really saved my bacon this season,” he tells me. He has three girls who come in to help him with making collections. “I like to work with a sense of humour,” Atkinson explains, “I want it to be fun and celebratory, so that could be anything from being very fabulous to absurd. That’s why I love making my sample hats, but then when you have to make twenty of something...that’s when these girls come in, Crystal, Yoshika and Louise, they’re brilliant.” It’s the apparent sense of humour that goes into his hats that make them so appealing. From pompom Mickey Mouse ears to Barbie dolls clamouring for space on an Alice band, there’s an obvious lack of pretension in Atkinson’s work. His latest collection is called ‘Sex on the Brain’. No prizes for guessing what this one’s inspired by. But, the starting point, the method behind the madness if you will, is an interesting one, “I read somewhere a story that Victorian gentlemen had erotic paintings on the silk linings of their top hats,”Atkinson tells me, “and it just made me think of the term ‘sex on the brain’ and I quite liked the idea that if you make a sexy hat that’s literally sex on the brain.” Piers Atkinson in his eclectic living room
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However, unlike their Dickensian counterparts, those who sport Piers Atkinson headgear have to have a bit more pluck. Enough to confidently sport a pearl encrusted ejaculation on their bonse – which could be quite a tricky thing to pull off. Atkinson assures me that he has a certain kind of woman in mind when he comes up with such creations. “When I’m imagining who’s going to wear a hat, I think of strong, powerful, eccentric, wilful women. No compromise kind of girls. Generally Virgos.” When I subsequently inform him that I’m a Virgo, he enigmatically comments, “Look out!” The strong characters he’s referring to include women like Zandra Rhodes. Shortly after moving to London to work on Alternative Miss World with Andrew Logan, Atkinson’s landlord sold the flat he was renting and gave him a couple of weeks to move out, “I was just nattering to Andrew about my predicament because we would chat a lot and he said, ‘well what about talking to Zandra?’ who I’d met a couple of times at his parties. So I called her up and she was like, ‘Oh yes’”. And so, just like that, in about 1995 Atkinson moved in with Rhodes, “I was thinking, oh God this is going to be intense and crazy and it was. But I also thought this is surely a once a lifetime opportunity to live with a legend.” You can certainly see her influence on his work, “Zandra completely changed the way I felt about colour. By the time I’d been through the Zandra machine and spat out the other end I was happy to play with my paints.” However, Rhodes wasn’t the first strong female influence on Atkinson’s creative drive. His mother was a milliner and his Grandmother the artist and writer, Lesley Gordon, “I had these three very inspirational
women – my Grandma, who was a very creative thinker; my Mum, who was great with her hands and a brilliant maker; and my sister, who’s a wit and a beauty. I think as a family we all bounced of each other.” With an upbringing like that, you can see why his hats appeal to women who like to dress creatively; they’ve been worn by sartorially assertive celebrities like Lady GaGa, Lily Allen and VV Brown. “I’m not very good with celebrities,” Atkinson admits, but he was extremely excited at being featured in British Vogue. As well as the famous picture of Cate Blanchett sporting some Mickey Mouse ears back in 2008, a piece he created with neon tubes, photographed by Nick Knight on Jourdan Dunn secured him his first Vogue spread. “I couldn’t believe this fabulous picture with Jourdan wearing a Galliano couture gown, styled by Kate Phelan. It was all fabulous.” He tells me that he picked up his copy in Dalston Sainsbury’s, “I got a bit overwhelmed in the Matalan car park out back.” At this point, he did what any good English boy would do and called his mother, who informed him that she’d once had a hat photographed by David Bailey on the cover of Vogue, “I found a copy online and gave it to her for Christmas,” he tells me, “so that’s inspired me as much as anything to get a hat on the cover of Vogue. We’ll see.” I’m eager to know if he now sees it as a competition, “Mum’s always slightly disparaging about my hats. ‘Has a needle been anywhere near this collection?’ That’s always her comment.” It seems a Vogue cover would be both a professional and personal triumph. Atkinson’s mother took a much more traditional approach to millinery. He explains the amazing dexterity that goes into blocking and covering, “I’m completely
Piers’ house is filled with his creations and inspirational objet d’art.
Piers likes to work on the kitchen table, where his mother often did her work when he was a child.
impatient. I could never do that. I do kind of like little niggly bits but you’ve just got to be so neat and so careful.” Atkinson obviously learnt some invaluable skills from his mother and he now feels that it’s incredibly important to pass crafts down through generations. He teaches fashion illustration at London College of Fashion, “I very much enjoy the response I get from my students when we chat about ideas,” he explains. But, the main reason Atkinson wants to pass on his skills is more to do with ensuring that people stay productive in our increasingly vapid lives of celebrity and YouTube. “You have to absorb stuff, but also produce stuff. Otherwise, presumably you just become more and more passive.” Given Atkinson’s background, he also feels that it’s a priceless commodity to be able to learn from friends and family and surround yourself with creative people. Indeed, Atkinson is very fond of collaborations. He has recently worked with fashion designer Ashish, designer and hair aficionado Charlie le Mindu and performance artist Ryan Styles. Of his collaboration with Styles in particular, he says, “I was totally inspired by Ryan to do pom-poms and I could have just rocked ahead and done it, but he’s a friend of mine so I wanted to say, ‘let’s do this together’ and I think it’s worked well for both of us.” He’s also got the thumbs-up from fellow milliner Stephen Jones, who chose some Piers Atkinson hats to feature in his exhibition at the V&A museum last year. He recounts this as one of his most pivotal fashion moments so far. “It was fantastic to see my hats in the V&A and to have that support from Stephen Jones, who is just a fantastic man and a fantastic milliner.” Atkinson’s apparent enthusiasm to share his creativity, spurs me to consider what he might advise
some young upstart, who wants to have a bash at millinery. “Should I tell them not to?” he jokes, “So they don’t become business competitors”. Amongst many pearls of wisdom, he asserts that the great thing about hats is, “they don’t need to fit in the same way that a shoe or jacket has to. They’re little sculptures that sit on top, so they’re kind of frivolous, which is why I quite like them.” Atkinson suggests fascinators and Alice bands as good starting points for the budding designer, “You don’t have to worry too much,” he explains, “and it can just be a dinky little thing, so that might be a good starting point.” Taking inspiration from Atkinson’s conglomerate constructions, found objects seem a good place to start for those needing a revelation in what to adorn a hat base with. He also suggests that putting together a look book once you’ve made a selection of creative pieces is a worthwhile and stimulating venture; “it’s an object, it’s got all the hats in it, it’s got the photography, the model, the make-up and the words as well.” This might well be Atkinson’s favourite part of the creative process. So, what’s next on his to do list? “I’m working on my new collection,” he explains, “It’s all about murder next season, very Autumn/Winter. I have the idea to shoot it on my sister, Lucy.” I for one can’t wait to see how my new favourite milliner interprets a bit of homicidal mystery. One thing you can be sure of, is it won’t be your run of the mill take on the subject and you probably won’t see the Queen in one of his designs. But, for anyone with a tongue-in-cheek attitude to dressing up, Piers Atkinson creations should be on your must-have list. Go to, www.piersatkinson.com for more information & stockists.
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For One Night Only....
Don these epicurean wearables for one night only. This really is ‘disposable fashion’ at its best.
I can’t believe it’s not Butler! Words by Naomi Attwood
Above right: Fred at London Fashion Week. Below: Fred shows off her colourful sense of style.
Attempting to replicate any of Fred Butler’s intricate accessories at home would be rather ambitious, but she shares her handy hints with NAOMI ATTWOOD nevertheless . . .
P
erched on a chair in her pre- her own label, which she exhibits at dictably colourful, though London Fashion Week, supported by perfectly orderly and neat the TOPSHOP New Gen initiative. Looking at her designs, like the studio Fred Butler ponders each question before an- multi coloured dodecahedron necklacswering with her soft voice and su- es worn by electro pop star Elly Jackson per expressive manicured hands. of La Roux in the video for Bulletproof When it comes to craft, Fred or her ‘heliocentric’ flying saucer like Butler certainly knows her onions, head pieces, they seem intricate and from studying fashion design at Brigh- beautiful, but don’t really have a handton University, to becoming a props made aesthetic. There are no wobbly stylist’s assistant (to Shona Heath, one lines or cute imperfections, they are of the most impor‘Fred Butler PONDERS each futuristic, sleek and tant set designers question before answering with flawless. “I once had to ask an assistant to in the business) to her SOFT VOICE and super redo some circles [to commisgetting sions as a props expressive MANICURED hands.’ make into an accesstylist in her own right (for magazines sory] because I don’t like things to look like DAZED and commercial jobs like like they are made by anyone, they have the window displays for Selfridges) to look as if they have just ‘appeared’”.To to making the odd bespoke accessory glance at the finished article, it is often for shoots which then turned into a difficult to believe just how much work, full time enterprise and the birth of and how many processes have gone into
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SO ? INTERVIEW each one. Like a magician who’ll never of people now wear second hand reveal his secrets, Fred puts in hours of things, whereas before it was much handiwork into perfecting 3D designs odder, something that only students then crafting each component by hand. and artists would do. Most of the Although Fred might seem clothes that I have made myself are like a prime candidate to contribute really second hand items that I have to a publication on dressmaking and altered. For example a dress I found customising, she openly admits that and converted the skirt into trousers she doesn’t have time to make her own for a jumpsuit, or a huge jumper I took clothes although does wear her own ac- in and turned back to front”. cessories and prototypes. Fred’s style When asked for any tips for is a mixture of avant-garde designers would be seamstresses and makers, like As Four and Scott Ramsay Kyle, she advises “I’d say buy craft books, vintage finds, and each outfit always because they are much easier to follow composed from a single colour. “A lot than normal sewing patterns, also do of my friends make their own clothes – some research into the best places to although for them ‘Most of the CLOTHES that I have buy fabric, othit’s more a case MADE myself are really SECOND erwise it’ll cost of wearing their you a fortune. HAND items that I have ALTERED’ Look out for own designs as most of my friends work in fashion”. remnants stores, markets, places off She agrees that handicraft is the beaten track. I like Dalston Mills becoming more popular these days, in London and also Brighton Market”. but sees it as related to the resurgence Considering how closely good designin popularity of vintage and second ers, like magicians, - guard their trade hand clothes. “I think due to Kate secrets, that must surely class as an Moss and her vintage wardrobe; loads exclusive. Thanks Fred!
Bottom right: A picture from Fred’s A/W 08 lookbook for the collection, ‘Dodecahedron Collision’.
Above: Fred models one of her own designs. Right: a headpiece from Fred’s S/S 09 collection ‘Dahlia Fantasia’.
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Above: A headpiece from Fred’s S/S 09 lookbook for the collection, ‘Dahlia Fantasia’.
D-i-Y #004 ORigami necklace
GATHER
YOUR
GOODS:
Lightweight fabric such as cotton or linen; needle and thread; iron; scissors; measuring tape; thin ribbon; glue.
SO ? HARD RATING: INTERMEDIATE (This necklace is quite intricate)
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STEP #001: Cut out ten squares (18cm x 18cm). Fold in half and press. Fold in half again and press. Fold each corner into the centre and tack down.
STEP #002: Turn the square over and again fold each corner into the centre to form a smaller square. Tack each point into place.
STEP #003: Turn the square over again and repeat step #002. Once you have all your squares complete, arrange them to form a decorative pattern. Hand stitch the squares in place by tacking at the corners.
STEP #004: Attach some thin ribbon to the back of the highest sqares either with glue or hand-stitching. You have a unique necklace that’s ready-to-wear.
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