BRIGHTON FASHION WEEK
TALKS
Nathan Gregg
Nathan Gregg
Vanessa Austin Locke, editor of the Brighton Fashion Week blog, website and social media, introduces her new column I’m often asked, by people with a hint of a sneer and a twinkle of intellectual superiority in their eye, why fashion matters. I reply that fashion is a statement of identity and an important element of our psychology in terms of self-expression. Fashion has helped us come out of the closet, free women from slavery, admit our desires and protest our rage at injustice. It highlights playful sides of our personality, it showcases our darkness and it inspires us. Our wardrobes should be an ever-changing moodboard that is the co-star of our life. This week my strong belief in the legitimacy of fashion as a deeply personal art form has been strengthened by an article in Vogue by writer Rana Kabbani, on the significance of kohl. I missed my stop on the train because of this article, which pays homage to the symbolic socio-historical use of eyeliner and a woman’s relationship to it. I encourage you to go and read it and, would the subject not prevent it, I might suggest that it would bring a tear to your eye. Fashion? Shallow? Not so. Brighton Fashion Week is an event with depth of soul that knows that fashion is about more than clothes. We embrace the many different sides of fashion’s personality and we welcome diversity. I feel very lucky to work alongside my colleague and dear friend, director Liz Bishop. In a world filled with seemingly stony grotesques she has shone with integrity time and time again and the proof of this lies in her devoted team and the open, energetic and highly creative atmosphere that has built Brighton Fashion Week from the ground up.
This year Brighton Fashion Week will run from the 31st of May to the 5th of June and will include a Ready to Wear Show, a Couture Show, a Theatrical Show and a Charity Concert amongst many other events and parties. The journey is already beginning online, where our team of dedicated daily bloggers bring you their pick from the brightest and best and where you can interact and get involved with this most special event. Over the next few months I’ll be taking you through the highs and lows of our journey towards Brighton Fashion Week and attempting to inspire you with titbits from my own fashion palette, locally, nationally and internationally. Until next time, Vanessa Austin Locke
Contact Vanessa: Vanessa@brightonfashionweek.com Follow Vanessa on Twitter: @VnessEnvy www.brightonfashionweek.co.uk Follow Brighton Fashion Week on Twitter: @BFW2011 Facebook: www.facebook.com/BrightonFashionWeek
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