Credit: Matteo Bucciol

• Matteo’s Website
• Matteo’s Flickr

Untitled - Nick Pironio

I am a photographer, Nick Pironio, and I live in a little bungalow located in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. My days are spent witnessing the off-color birth of a major city with my craft giving me access into every pocket in this new universe. / Nick Pironio

Nick Pironio (1982) is a fine art documentary photographer based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Before working in North Carolina, he worked as a photographer at the Hanover Evening Sun, The Monroe Evening News and the Fayetteville Observer. After his time at the Observer, Nick had a short stint as the personal photographer during the John Edwards for President Campaign in 2008. Since then Nick has worked on projects documenting a developing denim company, Raleigh Denim, portraits on Urban Chickens, an exploration of a barbershop college’s colorful students and on commissions, most recently for the NC Biotechnology Center. Nick has been published in countless national and international publications.

• Nick Pironio’s site

Image by Hannah Nagle

My name’s Hannah and I’m an 18 year old  photographer.

• Hannah’s website

Dress 1 Roisin McAtamney

Hailing from Scotland where she has studied fashion and textiles for over 8 years, Roisin is highly skilled and dedicated designer. With a keen eye for colour and textures, she is always creating new and exciting clothes and fabrics.

Having just completed her Masters at London College of Fashion, Roisin is currently working as a freelance swatch designer and seeking to get her foot in the door of some well renowned fashion houses.

In her final MA Collection Roisin has incorporated custom made Microsoft Tags, which are a version of scannable barcodes. Each garment in her collection has its own unique code and when scanned with the Microsoft Tag Reader App, a short fashion video of the piece will appear and play on the mobile device.

• View Roisin’s Final MA Collection

Part of a collection of photographs taken by British photographer, Rosaline Shahnavaz

Rosaline is a British photographer living and working in London. She is currently studying BA Photography at London College of Communication alongside interning at magazine Dazed and Confused. Rosaline’s work shifts between the borders of Fine Art and Editorial photography. Featured by the likes of ‘ArtReview’, ‘The List Pritchard Agency’, and online zines: ‘Girls on Film’ and ‘Boys on Film’, her work has also been presented in many exhibitions across London.

• Check out Rosaline’s website

In a room at LCF there is a white wall, calico laid out on the floor and a table with three chairs, three notebooks and three glasses of water. I’m hid in the corner… not all that inconspicuously in blue fake fur and green hair. First the judges, ahem- tutors enter and take their seats. In the room next door there are about thirty models being scrambled and egged into garments- unfinished zippers are pinned by sweaty palmed students and with double sided tape and a prayer the first collection is sent into our room.

One by one for the rest of today and the rest of tomorrow nervous MA students will send in their line ups to be viewed by the tutors for the first time. All of the research and pattern cutting and steaming and long hours puzzling over shoulder pads with technicians now manifests in 10-12 garments per student. These are the bones of the final MA collections… the fashion vision that will appear polished and effortless and walk the V&A runway in two months, before dictating the direction of fashion. Let’s just say right now there’s more meat on the bones in some cases, and two months suddenly seems extremely close.

Each look is scrutinised. Remove that snood. Number 3 go to number 9. Number 6 take off that skirt. Shuffled like a deck of cards. Some go smoother than others- but then you get the impression that the ones most messed with where coats are swapped and things unbuttoned and rebuttoned and unbuttoned and rebuttoned are the ones that will be taking their glory lap on the catwalk… pressed and fitted within an inch of their life. A girl whose collection comes in with one look topped off with a blue grey furry hat (like a Persian cat curled on top of the models head) – is asked to make the hat  in four different colours for all the other outfits- gulp. Expensive. It’s a fascinating insight to how much work goes into those collections, and the final show itself. Like going to the shows in London or Paris certain stories start to emerge and I wonder which ones Darren Cabon (the MA Director) will want to spotlight in the press show. How to show the quieter, more technical work alongside the showier loudmouth collections (of which there are a few! So exciting…)

The clothes today look how the models look when they turn up at a shoot. Definitely beautiful- but after a coffee and an hour of hair and make up you know they’ll be proper corkers. I can’t really give much away other than to say the show is definitely going to be a special one. As it’s Christmas I’ll give you 5 little clues to some of the collections and what you’ve got to look forward to: tapestry, printed neoprene, Military, embossed rubber and a gold jumpsuit.

Happy Holidays P&P’ers

CILLA

Here in the UK, Cilla is as famous as the Queen. Her Majesty of Merseyside, Ms. Black is northern royalty and for decades has set an immaculate standard of self respect and preservation, kept by many Northern women of a certain age. Personally I think she’s better turned out than the Queen. Cilla’s not shy of a sequin or two (she knows when the cameras are on she needs to turn up the razzle dazzle!) but it’s not just for showbiz appointments and TV appearances she gets dolled up. She was on HRT-fest Loose Women the other week camping it up explaining how even to take the binbags out, she has to get fully “Cilla-d up.” Cilla-d up means polished head to toe: nails, hair, face, heels and a freshly dry cleaned and pressed trouser suit. She probably doesn’t get the beaded boleros and fur trimmed collars out for the neighbours but I wouldn’t put it past her.

What’s this? Surprise Surprise! Picture if you will a Cilla sandwich. Lounging on a cream leather sofa between the pillars of showbiz homosexuality- Dale Winton and Paul O Grady, Cilla flicks through a copy of the Kays catalogue whilst her royal court sip M&S Bucks Fizz and bitch about Fern’s gastric band. Cilla is radiant: stiletto slippers on the tufted wilton; a sugared almond between two satsumas (do you think she puts a Morrisons bag down for Dale to sit on so his spray tan doesn’t rub off on the chair?) Imagine her in her carpeted bathroom: champagne suite, corner bath with a Jacuzzi setting and glass shelf lined with industrial sized bottles of white label hairspray; in the corner sit boxes of stockpiled Movida hair dye in ‘Randy Rust.’ That trademark cherry Whoosh is Cilla’s crowning glory and she sure as hell doesn’t leave it in the hands of a salon. When the Kays catalogue isn’t hitting the spot, Cilla gets driven into town and has the Mercedes wait outside Bon Marche. She’s a perfect 12 and buys up rails of those trousers suits all the colours of a box of Quality Street.

At 6am when all the other loose women arrive at the TV studio, with limp hair and bags under their eyes like oversized Mulberry Mabels; Cilla is the only one who steps out of her chauffer driven car- full face painted, hair set and blown. Always ready for action, always ready for the camera. She is pure class. She has been in the industry for 100 years: one Gabor court shoe in the past and one in the now. You never read a scandal about Cilla… When Cilla’s gone, that’s it. She’s the sole survivor of a time before Celebrity Big Brother and knickerless cab exits… a showbiz relic suspended in aspic– whose popularity will never wane. Long Live Cilla Black. JW

PETE

These days Pete Burns looks a bit like a funhouse mirror’s reflection of Katie Price. Whether you love or loathe his plastic face, things weren’t always this way. In 1928 after an astonishing dream sent from the other side, Carl Jung proclaimed “Liverpool is the pool of life. It makes to live.” In 1959, the cosmic powers aligned and Pete Burns was brought screaming into the world. His screaming carried on through to the late seventies when he walked the streets of Liverpool an alien. Dressed like no other human, in a constantly changing evolution of personal style so severe he could bring the city to a standstill. Cheap PVC and sexshop chic with too much make up, Vivienne Westwood head to toe, teddy boy from out of space or Hindu Goddess in heels on the cobbles… you couldn’t characterize or explain Burns or his style.

A friend of P&P; Deborah De La Burk was a Liverpudlian speed freak party girl the same time as Burns emerged from his family nest (almost like Helen of Troy- an otherworldly creature hatched out on an egg fully formed and realized… the mythical scouse beauty born by the waters of the river Mersey, the painted face that inspired a thousand freaks.) “I remember the first time I saw him he had shaved all of his hair off and was painted yellow head to toe.” Burns worked in the alternative music shop Probe Records, a counter culture melting pot not just selling hard-to-come-by vinyl, but a meeting spot for Liverpool’s fizzing musical underground. His presence behind the till was terrifying to customers, and he kept the riff raff out. “People were so scared of him” Deborah reminisces. “He could just walk into shops and take things. Nobody dared stop him. That’s probably how he could afford to dress how he did- he just stole it all!”

Burns and his gang of otherworldly misfits (including “Big In Japan”’s shaved headed fierce frontwoman Jayne Casey and “Frankie goes to Hollywood”’s aggressively ‘out’ Holly Johnson) congregated around Matthew Street, and a club called Eric’s. Rumoured to be built on ancient ley lines, Matthew Street has always held a supernatural magnetism for talented freaks. It’s here a statue of Carl Jung sits. It’s here I, a 15 year old go-go dancer wearing nothing other than gold shorts, platform boots and a layer of PVA-d glitter, would flock to in the spirit of my hero Pete.

Pete Burns went through bands like he went though looks, eventually forming the gothic and glamorous “Nightmares in Wax.” By 1980 “Nightmares in Wax” had become “Dead or Alive” and in 1985 Burns became a global icon when the band released their greatest hit “You Spin Me ‘Round (like a record).” At this point Burns had a great crimped mass of hair and wore a patch on one eye, gold and silver eyeshadows on the other. Before the liquid plastic was pumped into his face he possessed the most arresting natural beauty, but it seems one as creative and magical as Pete Burns can’t settle for just one face. His experiments in silicone are the extension of a life of constant stylistic reworking. Some people have too much inside they need to get out and express. Although now the world looks on in horror – it’s no different to how they used to line the streets, mouths agape, just to watch him walk to work. He’s been brave enough to take his beauty to the extreme. Perhaps just as then, Pete holds the secrets we just can’t understand yet. JW

JARVIS

Back in the early 1990s, I had a squeeze who worked for Warp Records in Sheffield. Charlie was unlike the other stocky, shaven headed techno staff. A whisper of a man with Jesus hair and the occasional beard, he drove a racing green Mini Metro and lived in a bedsit. He introduced me to The Stooges and pornography, he took me to indie gigs and paid for my drinks. I thought he was the only man to look good in corduroys, until I saw Pulp one night at The Leadmill. Jarvis held himself like some 18th century Parisian homosexual, elbows cocked and stringy fingers flailing. A vision in velvet, he whipped the crowd into a socialist frenzy: men and women alike struggling to deal with deep visceral longings, unable to explain their origins. With his trademark polarised glasses seductively sliding towards the tip of his nose, like a renegade librarian ready to pounce, this pallid skinned Sheffield lyricist had us all gasping for more. Famed for his long collared shirts and blazer combo, he took the key elements of a quintessential geography teacher and made it look more like Yves Saint Laurent, during his days with Dior back in the 1950s. Playful combinations of Help the Aged and luxury togs kept us all guessing, especially when we found out he’d bagged himself a French fiancé with a double barrel surname – not bad for a bloke from the Don Valley! He pulled together scuffed Kickers and tweeds in several shades of brown: guaranteed fashion jihad for the average man, but for Cocker au contraire. Rumour has it he once performed Stephen Hawking style in wheelchair, after falling out of a window during a botched Spider-Man impression. It was stunts like these (not to mention the Michael Jackson stage invasion) that made Jarvis a national treasure. With an accent sexier than Bryan Ferry after a night on the tiles, he exudes a suave, sophisticated long-limbed charm. An ambassador for polyester and amicable divorce settlements, he’s like a wicker hamper crammed with Stilton and Claret– only getting better with age. LC

IAN

I’ve always been a sucker for mildly anorexic dark haired dudes with legs like pipecleaners and a penchant for Bukowski. I love a slice of deep inner turmoil, coupled with a generous dollop of emotional baggage and a sprinkling of unwashed jeans. Enter Ian Kevin Curtis, Joy Division frontman and Northern Epileptic.

With so few photographs in circulation, one has to adopt a forensic approach to get closer to the meaning of those sartorial choices. Were those pleat fronted trousers taking him from day to night? Were the sweat patches deliberate? Remember, this was the 1970s and glam rock was the order of the day. We had stadiums full to the rafters – creaking under the weight of Elton John fans, clapping along to his sexually frustrated piano rock. Grown men in platforms. Men in make-up. Men with perms. Curtis, on the other hand, must have looked like an office junior who’d nipped outside for a sneaky fag when he came on stage. Who else could retain credibility with a haircut normally reserved for IT technicians and mentalists? Shaving off your sideburns in an era when Fleetwood Mac were rocking some serious lamb chops was a truly avant-garde manoeuvre. His colour palette mirrored his outlook on life – a true smorgasbord of funereal tones: morbid charcoals, murky bottle greens and bleak midnight blues.

His clothes, like his music, paved the way for new phase of working class minimalism. Intelligent, heartfelt lyrics: clean lines, block colour and slender cuts. Army surplus and high street formal wear hung from his whippet like frame with a delicacy and charm guaranteed to give Hedi Slimane a lifetime of wet dreams. He jittered and jerked onstage, incorrectly medicated and misunderstood, going deodorant- less when Coldplay were still in fucking nappies. Topping yourself at 23 gives a whole new meaning to the holy-grail known as the capsule wardrobe. You’d be insane not to feel a slight twinge of jealousy looking at his deft choice of separates. With his chiseled cheekbones and greasy barbershop crop, he somehow managed to give an air of self assured panache to going tie-less, with a fully buttoned shirt and a pair of half mast pensioner slacks. A beanpole scallywag with attitude and integrity. Curtis really was the perfect clotheshorse. LC

DAVID

Sunbathing toy boys sipping Cola in the nude, the silent Californian heat weighing heavy on pert butt cheeks. Toasted six packs cooling off in the pool, surrounded by pastel landscapes and faded palm trees – a far cry from the back streets of Bradford. Forget the smocks of the renaissance, Hockney perfected his world class craft in paint splattered Jack Purcell’s and washed out rugby shirts. Those thick rimmed overgrown Milky Bar Kid glasses, a remnant of his RCA years, stand in sharp contrast to the peroxide Studio 54 mop top. He took sports casual to dizzy new heights, with washed out watercolour sweatshirts and oversized chinos in a myriad of bleached Crayola colours. Forget the slickness of the Ivy League, he wore them cinched up high like a granddad strolling across the promenades of the Yorkshire coast. The fearless attitude to colour transcends his art, with each outfit a perfectly blended rainbow of primary shades – colour blocking on canvas and in life.

Lounging nonchalantly on a dusky pink armchair and footrest combo, Juergen Teller recently captured Hockney at his home in Bridlington. The acid brights may have been relegated, and the tight white tee-shirts replaced with a flat cap, but he’s still got his finger on the i-pad. As he lays staring into the middle distance, immaculate midnight blue suit and oxblood loafers, covered in ash from his smoking cigarette, he still looks every inch the playboy of pop-art. LC

RITA

Like most beatniks, I spent my youth slamming doors and pretending to read Sartre. Tushingham went one better by shagging a Nigerian sailor and shacking up with a closet homosexual. She burst onto our screens in 1961, when she played the part of a gauche schoolgirl in Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste Of Honey. The film’s significance shouldn’t be underestimated – it was the first true exposé of working class Northern life, the birth of kitchen sink realism. Unlike the dolly birds around her, she’d opted for a grittier take on the archetypal Liverpudlian beauty regime, preferring to leave the lipstick and hairspray at home. Hers was an unconventional beauty – with eyes like soulful saucers and a conk that’d make Adrien Brody proud, she was the first significant face of the British New Wave.

During Rita’s first fizzy showbiz years, she’d regularly don one of those nauseating newsboy caps that so many 1960s female dinosaurs still wear (think Lulu). Thankfully it wasn’t forever, and as the decade got into full swing we saw more of her utilitarian trademark bob, as black as the bricks on the smog ridden streets she came from. Free of frills she taken a paired down route on the road to monochrome chic, swinging pea coats with oversized buttons topped off with a Princess Margaret style headscarf. Home knitted cardigans and pencil skirts with stocking free sparrow legs poking out from underneath. Feet clad in kitten heels with points sharper than Miuccia Prada’s pencils and a smile wider than the river Mersey. LC

BET

Bet Lynch is not a drag queen, but many drag superstars have been born from working class living rooms tuned into Coronation Street. Small boys in brown living rooms, starved of glamour, would watch wide eyed as the peroxide blonde pulled pints and ruled the Rovers Return pub decked head to toe in leopard print; the same wide eyes that would one day be painted in blue eyeshadow and framed with false lashes. Although Bet looked like a cross dresser, her character was born from reality. In creating Bet Lynch the producers of Coronation Street took inspiration right from the streets of Salford (specifically the market, from where a lot of Bet’s ensembles were sourced.) All of Bet’s wardrobe, no matter how extreme it seemed, was bought on the wages of a Rovers Return barmaid. For those of you who have never seen Bet Lynch, she was quite the sight. A bombshell in earrings that would make Pat Butcher wince and Liberace blush. Layers of pink pearlescent lipstick, thick panstick,

and eyeshadow that could be seen from space – Bet’s look was always topped with her crowning glory: a bleached white beehive surrounded with stiff set curls, towering above the other residents of Weatherfield- a lorra lorra laquer went into that ‘do. “Oh knock it off sunshine, I’ve got tights older than you” she’d slur, fag in hand, cocktail in the other. Bet Lynch was an unruly woman- a tart with a heart, who sadly always ended up with her heart broken. This is why we loved her. No matter how vulgar she was, there was so much humanity showing through the cracks in her foundation. JW

HILDA

Moving on from one of Corrie’s most glamorous girls, next on our list is another of The Street’s bolshie women. Hilda Ogden was Weatherfield’s most notorious busybody; a long suffering working class battleaxe who was a cleaning lady by trade and professional gossip. Her look is perhaps the most iconic of all our northern heroes: hair in three rollers, a neatly knotted headscarf and always always wearing her famous floral pinny. It’s a look that came from factory workers who would put their hair in curlers so it wouldn’t get caught in the machinery (and also so they would always be ready to let their hair down for a date after work.) Hilda never did seem to let her hair down though. She was always working, always struggling to put dinner on the table, always nagging her husband and in the rare moments she wasn’t running around cleaning up after people she was twitching her net curtains spying on the neighbours. Although she was an outrageous gossip with a shrill voice in a poll taken in 1982 she came out the 4th most popular person in the UK (after the Queen, the Queen Mother and Princess Diana.)

Hilda Ogden embodies northern working class style. Although common as muck her signature look is incredibly chic in its simplicity. It has inspired artists and designers and every few seasons we see little Hilda’s stomping down the runway. Funny for a woman who never even owned a handbag- preferring to simply use the pocket of her pinny. Hilda also never wore a stitch of make up. In fact she looked a little like a defrosting chicken. JW

Published in Pigeons & Peacocks Issue 4: “Kiss The Future”

Very sadly, earlier this year one of P&P’s heroes passed away. Poly Styrene – the beautiful frontwoman of ’77 punk group X-Ray Spex. We published this tribute to her in issue 4, but we want as many people to know about Poly as possible…

Poly Styrene on the cover of Smash Hits

Oh Poly…you brace-faced doll. Ruler of the Riot Grrrls, Plastic Punk Princess of Pop. Warrior in Woolworths. I had been listening, and enjoying all the classic boy punk stuff. The been-to-Borstal sound… testosterone loaded guitar thrashing and little-boys-pretending-to- be-macho shouting. It sort of matched how I felt, but it was a bit like when you find a jumper in a charity shop that you think is exactly what you want, you put it on and it’s a bit disappointing, itchy and even though you know it doesn’t look that great you persevere with bloody-minded determinedness… that was how I wore boy punk. I really didn’t want to be a poser, and I did get it, it just didn’t answer all the questions I had at fifteen years old.
I bought a Live at the Roxy compilation reduced to £1 from Music Zone – a discount CD and video franchise up North. All my usual suspects were on it – Sham… Buzzcocks… Damned. It was a really hot summer and I put it on mega fuzzy loud when my parents were out and enjoyed the faster more fucked up versions of the punk sing along songs I already knew. Just wearing my underpants and left-over eye pencil (in ‘Prunella’ – half sweated down my face) I collapsed onto my bed to the closing white noise of I think it was an Adverts song. Clammy and hungry I was flat on my back when the crackle of the next song began, and I heard her voice
for the first time. “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard…” The next one and a half minutes were so violently blissful it felt like a succubus had taken hold of my wriggling teen frame. Jerking and twitching to the mad saxophone backed track, it all happened so fast.

X-ray Spex were the first thing I ever found that fitted… In Poly I immediately found what I had been looking for so urgently. All the pretentious books I had read and all the CDs I had thought I should buy could be thrown in the bin. Part of the reason I could never properly relax around the boy punk stuff, even though I was into it… it’s those white, angry working class boys (and posh white boys pretending to be working class) who I’d spent a life loathing for their bullying and idiot nature. Was I meant to now surrender to those boys who were the types who would snicker about me on the bus, or throw stones at me on the sausage bridge? Part of me knew that the only thing separating the boys in Sham from the gangs of scallies on every corner of Widnes were leather jackets and monkey boots. I wasn’t willing to pledge subcultural alliance.
Then Poly barges in… an angry girl… mixed race… train track braces on her teeth and NOT POSH or cushioned by any kind of cultural privileges: all this and dressed like Bon Marche at the Nuremburg Rally. In my fantasies I see her wearing a neon yellow version of the SS uniform, kicking the shit out of Hitler and Lacoste clad scallies – pulling sticks of dynamite out of a granny handbag and shoving them down the throats of fascists and misogynists, kicking people in the balls with Ferragamos spray painted rancid green.
From the moment I heard Poly for the first time things changed. To begin with there was the SOUND. Smart, poppy, punky… like the Ramones who I loved but less dumb, much real-er and more vital. Poly ended up being my signpost into Riot Grrrl and a whole other maze of musical brilliance; but no matter how much I loved a good angsty bus ride with Kat Bjelland groaning in my ears, or stamping my customized converse to Rebel Girl, nothing really stirred the same fire in my belly as X-Ray Spex. As obsessive misfit teens did in the days before Google (well to be honest – it wasn’t but I was just not interested in the whole internet thing. My only super highway surfing had been around Angel-Fire Wiccan webrings – copying and pasting incantations into my word-art decorated digital Book of Shadows…) I took to Probe records and bought everything they had by the Spex. I quizzed everybody I could on this elusive Queen of the Underworld. Good Golly Miss Poly.
Poly has been by my side constantly- a cultural skeleton key, allowing me into other worlds. A translator facilitating my understanding of different art forms and cultural earthquakes. She’s been my pair of heart-rimmed sunglasses – making the world take on more magical colour and form.
Poly’s impact on the world will never fade. Like a Styrofoam cup that will never return to the ground, she’ll always be here reminding us to be noisy and make change and wear odd socks. Non Recyclable Plastic.

Words John William

Louis Vuitton SS11 illustrated by Deborah Jameson

After Rodarte SS11, I did my usual round of gauging opinion by asking a well-known Hong Kong fashion journalist what she thought and she said “I don’t think Chinese people will wear that” motioning to the neck to illustrate the high necks that had appeared on the dresses; resembling cheongsam collars. I, on the other hand was too dazzled by the Mulleavy sisters’ newly softened approach to notice any Chinoiserie notes of the collection that may or may not be Chinese women’s tastes.

Then just under a month later, Louis Vuitton closed the SS11 season of shows with a parade of glamped-up Chinese razz-ma-tazz femmes, rife with Mandarin collars, cheongsam-style dresses with thigh high splits, embroidery of bamboo, orchids and pandas – everything that conjured up a glamourized vision of an ‘exotic’ Chinese costume, filtered down from 1930s Shanghai straight to the 1970s where a laviscious intent lies beneath the clothes. From there, a more straightforward link to China, as the looming economic superpower and spending heavyweight was presented for us to speculate upon. Some reviewers interpreted the collection as an appeal to this market, which to me seems too generalistic a statement, and certainly contradicts what the journalist said about Rodarte.

To be fair, Rodarte’s collection in contrast to Louis Vuitton only really nods to Chinese detailing whilst retaining their usual mish mash of influences (an ode to emotive 70s suburbia-derived textures and a girlish naivete). I therefore only use Rodarte as a starting point to my query.

After fashion month, I’ve been bashing my head about the presence of an Asian aesthetic in some of the collections this season, specifically looking to Louis Vuitton, a collection that references some clichés that perhaps might not sit all that well with actual Chinese women. My opinion is but one of over a billion and my perspective as a British Born Chinese person is even more warped in that generally speaking, there exists a love hate relationship with ethnic heritage on varying levels when growing up in a country that’s biologically not your own. Previously I’ve stated that I have trouble wearing Chinese traditional dress as a rule of thumb, stopped by the gut feeling that I don’t really wish to wear my ethnicity on my sleeve as well as being in fear of looking like a waitress in a dodgy restaurant or a roleplay actor in a theme park. That said, traditional dress, when abstracted, reflected, refracted and dissected can have positive results, and in truth, I love both Rodarte and Louis Vuitton’s collections. However beyond my wanton sartorial desires, I really wanted to find out whether presenting a Chinese aesthetic would indeed appeal to the Chinese, when there were these insider signs telling me that Chinese women would find it hard to accept or wear certain looks from the collection: either becasue of detachment to the shackles of old fashioned traditional dress or just a lack of desire to look overtly Chinese.

Sarah Rutson, fashion buying director at Lane Crawford of Hong Kong who has a great insight into the shifts of buying patterns within mainland China and Hong Kong says “China customers are not wanting to buy looks that are obviously ‘China Doll’ as the reality is it is too close to home and costume -y. The Chinese customer loves colour and embraces lux rich fabrics and with a brand like Louis Vuitton they will embrace certain looks because of colour, print and fabrics, not because it is a reworked cheong sam. I remember when Tom Ford did his last YSL collection – the world loved it and I looked at the YSL representative for the China region and it was not the happiest face I’ve seen.” By this admission, the term ‘China Doll’, which peppers Rutson’s comments, is deemed to be a symbolic image that is entrenched as something of a turn-off. Even if I don’t necessarily know what it means I sort of understand the negative association. Despite the fact that I thought so much of Louis Vuitton was decorative in all the ways that tickled my fancy, there was something that did trigger off the fear of someone tapping me on the shoulder should I be fortunate enough to be wearing one of the ensembles, going “Suzie Wong wants her dress back.”

Connie Wang, global editor at Refinery 29 who is American Born Chinese hones in on the ‘China Doll’ definition better than I and furthermore, makes an interesting observation that differentiates the feelings of an overseas placed Chinese person to that of someone living in China: “I think that there are some women – especially in Asia – who would find it fun that designers are appealing to Asian sensibilities and are making high-fashion qi paos for them. But for lots of us who want to avoid all those weird connotations that traditional Asian dress signifies in Western cultures (docility, demureness, opium-den-sluttiness, etc), it’s the least appealing thing.” I’m not in favour of making sweeping generalisations but sadly Wang’s point about the stereotype of the docile and demure Chinese woman is most certainly one that still exists.

The differentiation between Chinese people of different backgrounds is also affirmed by, Deuscher Tang, features editor of Numero China who brings up a detachment to traditional Chinese dress by way of the Cultural Revolution in China.          “You must know about the Cultural Revolution in 1960s till 1970s which abandoned all the traditions, which means we totally have no feeling for “tradition”, so I think local women will feel these Chinese traditional dresses on the catwalk are so beyond their life and exotic.” Miuccia Prada’s recent quote given at the recent Prada show in Beijing: “I was told that people do not like being reminded of the past” perhaps therefore referred more to Mao-uniforms than the cheongsams and qi paos.

More Vuitton SS11 illustrated by Deborah Jameson

Still, Tang also goes onto say that the likes of Shanghai Tang have been exporting this aesthetic for years and that it’s a label that does mainly cater to Westerners. If we can’t take anything away other than indifference or mild dislike to ‘China Doll’ looks, then perhaps we can accept a compliment. Peggy Tan, a young designer based in New York, points out that collections such as Louis Vuitton’s could potentially be a show piece cultural nod that indirectly garners sales, if not of the pieces from the catwalk collection themselves. “I am not so sure if Chinese will actually buy and wear those show pieces but it certainly is good PR. I think Chinese people are happy to know that a designer/brand appreciates Chinese culture or that they are ‘Chinese friendly’.”

Tan’s own label Mandarin & General demonstrates the incorporation of Chinese- inspired details that is both subtle and effective and illustrates Chinese-inspired pieces that I personally would wear on a daily basis. “I noticed most of the Chinese inspired designs (including many of Chinese own local brands) focus on the obvious decorative motifs. It is understandable since the designers don’t always have time to really investigate the cultural background and historical trends of Chinese garments (there were many just Qipao along), and those surface treatments make good show pieces and visual statements. The draw back is the results usually feel more like novelty items.

This is also what motivated me to start Mandarin & General. I want to fill that void and create truly modern and wearable clothes that play with the structural and functional details rather than the cliche.”

The bottom line of all of this comes down to singular personal tastes that can’t be swept into neatly boxed-in opinions, but relating this all back to China’s imminent pole position to become the place to make/break profit margins for designers and luxury fashion houses, it’s interesting to momentarily confront this complex relationship with traditional dress that gives a generation of part-time Chinese observers such as myself much to think about when faced with a pivotal and conveniently themed collection such this one by Vuitton. On a more general end note, Rutson’s sums up her thoughts on China as a consumer force that is ever present on the minds of fashion brands and designer as thus… “Understanding that the worlds most important market is China is one thing – I’m sure designers are not naïve enough to think Mainland Chinese want ideas based on their “national” idealized dress from the past. This is not the way to break the market or show an understanding of their needs!” Goes without saying of course…

Published in Pigeons & Peacocks Issue 4: “Kiss The Future”

Photography by Gabriela Antunes

Once the defining feature of a man: the bastion of manliness… the manliest marker of masculinity… the moustache’s moment may have sadly been clippered. It’s the latest in a long line of mens’ classics to be embraced by all manner of douchebags. Last time it was the bow tie (R.I.P 2011) – overly casualised and commodified in that Lynx-scented Urban Outfitters way (like those Joy Division t-shirts with rhinestones or faux distressing and scoop necklines; or all three at once… Unforgivable.) For moustaches, like bow ties, should never, ever be worn with a white plimsole. The moustache has become the cliché of our time. An extra in the Being A Dickhead’s Cool video. It wasn’t always this way…

The possibility of having your very own moustache began around 30000 BC when flint razors were first fashioned, however, it didn’t catch on, and the Cavemen Days were relatively tash-less. The same applied to the Egyptians during 3000 BC, where they were forced to shave off practically all their body hair, although some rulers wore artificial beards (including one queen. That wasn’t the first queen to be seen sporting radical facial hair but more on that in a moment). The oldest portrait showing a shaved man with a moustache is an ancient Iranian horseman from 300 BC. What a trailblazer. It was only during the 1800s that moustaches really became popular, particularly in Europe.

By the 1860s taches were really bang on trend, and demand saw the invention of the moustache cup; a mug with a sort of little shelf inside the rim for your facial
hair to sit on and keep dry. John Lennon used a moustache cup and in James Joyce’s Ulysses Leopold Bloom drinks his tea using one. The moustache enjoyed a golden age at the end of the 19th Century before attitudes started to change and from 1910 men preferred a clean shaven look.

Which leads us to the disco dusted 1970s. A golden age of rugged handsomeness, when full moustaches sprouted back into fashion. It was a time when the moustache took on a subversive, coded power; embraced by a generation of gay men newly liberated (after the 1969 Stonewall Riots) wanting to create a new identity within society, and dissociate themselves from effeminacy. Moustaches became iconic of sociosexual behavioural patterns emerging among gay men (specifically American) who reclassified themselves and aspired to the appearance of working-class Americans (who were worshiped, and in some respects still are; as the ultimate ideal of masculinity.) Body hair was exhibited, haircuts cropped, and moustaches trimmed. Those unable to fathom an impressive strip of “Gay Velcro” (some naughty slang – think about it) obtained stick-ons. This idea of gay lib through rejecting the feminine is pretty reductive now but you can see how in the 1970s it was a strong statement.

David McDiarmid was a Sydney born fashion designer and queer political activist. One of the leading voices during the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, working in graphics, fine art and performance exploring gay subcultures, political, sexual and cultural concerns of Gay Liberation, the utopian urban hedonism of the 1970s and 1980s and the post AIDS queer cultural politics of the 1990s. He originally performed an essay named ‘A Short History of Facial Hair’ in 1993 accompanied by 35mm colour slides, that followed his personal visual journey from hippy to clone, Gay Liberation activist to sexual revolutionary then from hustler to dance floor diva.

One of David McDiarmid's slogan pieces

Photography by Gabriela Antunes

The work represented an emotional and important 20 year period with David using hair, facial hair and specifically his moustache to tell a story that symbolises the experience of a generation of gay men who experienced the horrors of AIDS first hand. ‘A Short History of Facial Hair’ has been adapted into a film by LCF MA Fashion Photography graduate Hermano Silva, retelling McDiarmid’s story in a colourful, light but profound work. The film formed part of an exhibition at the Fashion Space Gallery alongside a series of McDiarmid’s “Rainbow Aphorisms” – a suite of fierce and seductive digital art works created in 1994-5 (just before McDiarmid’s death) emblazoned with camp and politically charged slogans such as “It’s My Party And I’ll Die If I Want To.” The Word- Art style rainbow gradients and trashy typography are shockingly current today and could easily be confused for the hipster creations of a teenage blogger. I think this gives the phrases and slogans and quotes even greater gravity… they are still relevant and perhaps because of the hip irony of their aesthetic; their messages will be read and absorbed by a new audience. Over a cup of tea (no Moustache Cups necessary for us two) Leanne Wierzba, assistant curator for the show explains to me “Facial hair serves as a marker of McDiarmid’s life experiences, and is linked to his own mortality.” When he lost his virginity at 13, he maintained a mod haircut. He became addicted to drugs shortly afterwards. Then in 1962, he founded a drop in centre for gays and lesbians.

He caught gonorrhoea, amongst other infections, and grew a moustache, as well as a beard, to emphasise his identity as a homosexual man living in such a difficult period. When he developed syphilis, he cut off all his hair. It is a sad work but the film and exhibition are actually surprisingly uplifting and celebratory. I ask Leanne if she thinks men are as politically in tune with their facial hair today. “I think that you can see men of a lot of different social groups and demographics sporting it. It was interesting to note that most men who came to the Private View had some form of facial hair!” she laughs.

In our post-modern time people seem to have shaken off the particular gay and political connotations the tache held during McDiarmid’s era. Straight, gay, whatever, young boys are pairing their top lip warmers with chinos, plimsoles and armfuls of fresh tattoos. The moustache has been re- embraced by a new generation for its dated naffness (the reason for so many fashionable revivals: think polyester frocks, 1980s airbrush art t-shirts and our old friend, the mullet). I think blokes are thinking more Keith Lemon/ Rufus Hound when they’re stood in front of the mirror in the morning, willing their facial hair to grow faster. There’s also the ‘Movember’ effect – when guys grow their moustaches each November to raise awareness for Men’s health issues. Although that’s just a bit of charitable fun, like jumping in a bath of baked beans for Comic Relief it goes nicely with McDiarmid’s own story: using his facial hair as a queer symbol of defiance but also in the end to raise awareness for AIDS. Who’d have thought a bit of face fuzz could grow to mean so much?

Reading List
Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion by Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang
Stereotypes, Cognition and Culture by Perry R. Hinton
Gay Macho by Martin P. Levine

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www.fashionspacegallery.com
Fashion Space Gallery
London College of Fashion
20 John Princes Street
W1G 0BJ
Monday–Friday: 10am–6pm Saturday: 10am–4pm