Many extraordinary stories have ordinary beginnings. And life doesn’t get more ordinary than British suburbia. Croydon, in South London, is a bleak concrete tangle of tower blocks, grey office complexes, shopping centres and endless roundabouts.
Not exactly the natural environment in which to nurture a world-class style icon. But it was here that Katherine Ann Moss was born on 16 January 1974.
Of course, everything about Kate Moss defies logic: the global trendsetter who stays at the cutting edge of fashion by wearing vintage clothes from decades ago; the style icon as revered for her scruffy ‘undone glamour’ as she is for her red carpet sophistication; the short, flat-chested, gawky schoolgirl with bandy legs and jagged teeth who became more sought-after than the ultra-beautiful, curvaceous supermodels. Read the rest of this entry »
London Fashion Week and who, exactly, is looking at whom? Inside a venue in Covent Garden, an audience of newspaper fashion writers, glossy magazine stylists and department store buyers are watching a new generation of designers at the Fashion Fringe show, on the lookout for next season’s big trends.
Meanwhile, in the street outside, Yvan Rodic is aiming his small digital Canon camera at a 19-year-old woman with a pudding bowl haircut and very large Ray?Bans. Tomorrow, it is likely that many of those same fashion industry professionals inside will be analysing what young Scarlett Tull was wearing outside, and making a note of the way her scarf is tied and her funny little tapestry shoes.
Rodic, better known by his online moniker, Facehunter, is doing his daily trawl for experimentally dressed, off-beat twentysomethings, whom he photographs here and now on the street, uploading the results the next morning for a daily international audience of around 30,000. In a shrunken red jacket, black bow-tie and glittery ankle-length jeans, the Swiss-born 31-year-old, based in London, looks like just the sort of quirky young thing he’d like to snap himself. Read the rest of this entry »
The two young Royals caused a paparazzi frenzy when they arrived for their front row seats at the show, held in the British Fashion Council Tent at the Natural History Museum, in West Kensington.
The Issa brand, designed by Daniella Helayel, offered a further surprise when supermodel, Naomi Campbell, took to the runway for her first catwalk appearance in London in more than a decade, wearing a white silk jersey kaftan and a massive cleavage necklace in black crystal.
The collection offered flounced peasant smocks, dazzling prints in the Brazilian flag colours of yellow and green and sharp coktail suits in iridescent pink and gold brocade. Read the rest of this entry »
Deafening buzz can indeed translate into improved ratings. At least that looks like the case for The CW’s Gossip Girl — a recent cover subject for Entertainment Weekly — which averaged a series-high 3.7 million viewers last night. That figure was up a half-million viewers over last week and 300,000 eyes over its Sept.
1 season premiere; even more exciting for CW execs, last night’s episode grew a healthy 1 million viewers over the third GG episode from season 1, and helped make the network No. 1 for the night with women 18-34 and adults 18-34. In further good news for The CW, One Tree Hill scored 3.4 million viewers last night, retention of 91 percent out of its GG lead-in.
Apparently, however, scoring an EWwy nomination for Best Actress in a Drama Series wasn’t enough buzz to help Lena Headey’s Fox drama, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, maintain viewership levels for the second episode of its second season. The show scored an average 5.5 million viewers in the overnights, down 800,000 viewers from last week’s season premiere (which was itself off 36 percent from its first-season average of 9.8 million). Read the rest of this entry »
For years it has bravely struggled – in finance if not creativity – as the poor relation to New York, Milan and Paris.
But now, after nurturing and showcasing the talents of British designers such as John Galliano, Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney, the end as we know it is in sight for London Fashion Week.
On Wednesday, industry insiders say, London will lose its battle with New York and is likely to be forced to cut back its duration to just four days.
The move will be disastrous for the credibility of London, which has long fought to establish itself as a fashion capital to be reckoned with, and ultimately the UK fashion industry overall. Read the rest of this entry »
