It's OK for intellectual feminists to like fashion

February 2nd 2013

Happy Chandeleur?

La Chandeleur, 40 days after Christmas, is one of those Catholic celebrations which sexist undertones have been forgotten in the name of good food and togetherness.

Not to be confused with Shrove Tuesday, the beginning of Lent, la Chandeleur commemorates the presentation of Jesus to the Temple, 40 days after his birth, an event described by Luke (1:26) as “Mary’s obedience to the law of God in presenting the Child Jesus in the Temple.”

Forty days is a recurrent time frame in the Bible, and this one is rooted in Jewish tradition. After giving birth to a boy, women couldnt “come into the sanctuary” for 40 days (80 if they’d had a girl), after which they had to go to a temple to be purified.

There likely were practical reasons to this time frame, including the fact that 2000 years ago, without modern medicine, women probably needed 40 days to recover from giving birth.

As for what the Virgin Mary, who’d just given birth to the Son of God, needed purifying for, I’ll leave you to judge.

Fra Angelico, La Présentation de Jésus au Temple (c. 1440)
Présentation au Temple (12th century)
Hans Holbein the Elder, Presentation of Christ at the Temple (1500–01)
Stained glass window at St. Michael’s Cathedral (Toronto), Infant Jesus at the Temple
James Tissot, The Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (La présentation de Jésus au Temple)
Vittore Carpaccio, Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (1510)
Andrea Celesti, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (1710)
Denis Calvaert, Presentation of Jesus in Temple (1614)
Nicolas Pisano, Presentation in the Temple
Painting from the Menologion of Basil II (c. 1000)

Posted at 6:44pm.

January 31st 2013

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In 1997 like today, from US Vogue editor Anna Wintour to the then New Yorker editor Tina Brown, successful female British magazine editors working in the US are cursed to rumours of ambassadorship the moment they get involved in political campaigns.

Judy Bachrach, Tina and Harry Come to America Tina Brown, Harry Evans and the Uses of Power (New York, 2001), p. 256

Posted at 8:36am and tagged with: Anna Wintour, Tina Brown, magazine, politics,.

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According to the tabloids, she [Tina Brown] was destined to become Blair’s ambassador to Washington. But these, alas, had even less substance [than the rumours about her husband Harry Evans joining the Blair government]. “I started that rumour. Absolutely,” Toby Young would later confess. “So they would look bad when it didn’t happen. I completely made it up”.

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January 30th 2013

11 notes |#

The Black Vera Wang

The only West Wing episode to name-check a fashion designer, The Black Vera Wang (season 3, episode 19) is mostly noticeable for setting up the last two acts of the season.

It contains all the tropes of an Aaron Sorkin teleplay: Josh and Donna banter, a staffer getting screwed over for trying to Do The Right Thing (Sam), further proof that the Republicans are evil (Sam), a fictional Middle East country used to discuss America’s real foreign policy issues (Qumar) and CJ’s love life clashing with her role as press secretary.

The episode title comes from a black Vera Wang dress CJ tries on in a department store while helping her niece buy an outfit for junior prom. The dress symbolises both how CJ is attracted to the Secret Service agent in charge of her protection, and reciprocally, and the threat she’s under, which warranted the protection in the first place and means their liaison is not to be.

Posted at 5:32am and tagged with: The West Wing, classy films, TV series,.

January 29th 2013

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Just in time for the launch of her e-commerce website, Victoria Beckham is on the cover of ELLE UK explaining why she hasn’t had it any easier than any other fashion designer:

All these people [fellow fashion designers], they’ve not just been given anything. They’ve worked hard. And I’ve never been given anything either. But I have a good work ethic.

Beckham, the designer, gets the kind of publicity only Beckham, the pop singer, can bring. Although her singing career made it difficult for her to be taken seriously by the industry at the beginning, it has gotten her more mainstream magazine covers than all other British designers together. They might have had the odd Industrie or i-D cover, but Vogue, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar, on both side of the Atlantic and across continents? Never.

I don’t doubt Beckham works hard, and I don’t think she gets enough credit for succeeding in her fashion ambitions, when many celebrities just lend their name to a license.

However, I believe she owes her designer peers, current and aspirational, the intellectual honesty of acknowledging how her time at the Spice Girls and her marriage to David Beckham have helped her.

Being a self-made woman is a more popular angle, but since her being part of the Spice Girls seems to have been on her own merits, rather than who she knew or how she was born, I can’t see what’s wrong with it.

If anything, I’d be more interested in reading that story than yet another famous face setting the record straight on how wrong the public perception of her is.

(Source: ldnfashion.com)

Posted at 5:34am and tagged with: celebrity, ELLE, magazine, interview,.

January 20th 2013

The Snow Fashion Tribes

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Though rare occurrences in London, snowfalls result in a powerful fashion polarisation of the population, between the ones who try their best to ignore it, and the ones who give in to it.

The Man of Power tribe never wears a coat, nor does he wear his scarf around his neck. It merely hangs on his lapels, providing neither warmth, nor protection. For the Man of Power, the snow is merely another way to demonstrate control over all things, including himself and the elements, on his way to taking a bus to the City. He makes me feel cold, in a “what other stupid decision are you going to make today?”, rather than a “let me hug you to warm you up” way. Science should study the Man of Power since he’s also the one in a suit, minus the scarf, in mid-July, while I’m boiling in a flimsy cotton dress. US Presidents on inauguration day are typical examples of Man of Power dressing.

Braving the temperatures alongside the Man of Power are the Winter Negationists. They consider winter a mere construction of the mind. They wish it was summer, they wish they had a ticket in their pocket for a sunny destination (maybe they did, before all planes got grounded) and they dress accordingly in flowery dresses with thin tights, a casual snood the only acknowledgment of the temperature. Male alternative: a hoody over a rock band tee-shirt.

The Warmth Renegade tribe take the concept one step further. It’s not that they wish it was summer, they just consider themselves too cool for coats. This tribe lives exclusively on the front page of The Daily Mail to demonstrate how the once great Britain has fallen down the gutter. I hear Warmth Renegades are also common in Newcastle. They don’t carry a coat in the middle of the night in subzero temperatures, nor do they wear tights, unless as pants, or dresses below mid-thighs.

The Inappropriate Footwear tribe doesn’t believe a couple of snowfalls a year warrant owning anything beyond trainers, possibly a pair of Hunters. Members go around complaining about how wet snow is in a pair of white plimsoles, or how dirty snow is in a pair of white Converses, or how slippery snow is in a pair of 5 inch sandals. The resulting walk looks like my cat testing the snow: damn it’s cold. And wet. Let’s put another paw down. Still cold and wet. Let’s go see if it’s different at the other end of the garden. No? Back to the radiator then.

Giving in to the zeroing temperatures are the Anna Wintour Hopefuls. Like their model, they believe that if fur can keep a Siberian tiger warm, it can keep a Londoner warm. Is it faux fur? It’s the thought that counts.

The Snowman tribe also gives in to the snow. In fact, Snowmen believe half of the fun is wearing a down filled jacket with a raccoon hood, a cashmere jumper, a cotton tee-shirt, leggings, jeans and shearling-lined boots. Not to mention how under all these layers, you can bet there is a thick pair of tights (Fine merino, Wolford, £75) and a heated top (Heattech, Uniqlo, from £9.90). A bit like the Man of Power, the Snowman likes believing that s/he can be stronger that the elements, thanks to a wardrobe filled with appropriate clothes. Considering this particular Snowwoman is on her second cold of the winter, I see at least one flaw in this rationale.

Picture: Brompton Cemetery by Flamenco Sun at Londonist.com

Posted at 4:30pm and tagged with: london,.

January 17th 2013

Blogger Adventure: No Experience at Wandering Minds

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I met Elisa Eymery on my fifth day of living in the UK. I was looking for the infirmary at the French lycée and she happened to know where it was. She was wearing a Nile blue top with jeans and a tonal scarf instead of a belt, which I thought very cool. Nine years on, we’ve been to the same university, lived in the same student halls, hosted a radio show and been on holidays to Cairo together.

Last year, Elisa, freshly returned from a six-months trip to Asia, launched a project she’d been talking about since her student days: Wandering Minds, an online young fashion store stocking emerging, unknown brands sourced during her travels*.

The store has a buddy blog, No Experience, which features the behind-the-scenes of a fashion start-up as well as Elisa’s buying trips. I asked her about the importance of blogging to support an emerging fashion business, on the role of content marketing in generating sales and on her successful partnerships with bloggers.

Why did you decide to title the blog No Experience?

We wanted the name of the blog to reflect another aspect of our identify as a fashion start-up. Our store name, Wandering Minds, reflects the fact that we’re all about travelling and exploring the world to find cool, eclectic pieces.

No Experience emphasises the ‘young start-up’ aspect of our business, which we are quite proud of, although it also comes with challenges. We have no (or at least very little) experience in the fashion industry, or any industry for that matter, as the average age of our team is 25, but that’s not a bad thing. It pushes us to think logically and creatively, and to rely heavily on our instincts as young fashion consumers.

Why was it important for you to have a blog alongside your online store?

In business terms, it is unthinkable for online fashion stores not to have a blog. It allows us to express our personality as a retailer and it inspires trust amongst our potential customers. Trust remains a major issue for unknown brands/stores online, so having a well-developed, up-to-date blog definitely helps establishing confidence.

The blog is split into five sections, Behind-the-scenes being my personal favourite. How do you decide what to post and how do you make sure it stays true to the Wandering Minds ethos?

Behind-the-scenes is also my favourite section, but it is the most difficult to write. We always wanted to talk about the behind-the-scenes of running a fashion start-up, because it is fascinating and not many people write about it. But we’re also trying to portray ourselves as an established company, as we don’t want people to think we don’t know what we’re doing. Everything we do, from photoshoots to our fulfillment process, is on a very low budget. It’s the only way for us to survive as a company, and most people don’t even seem to notice; we get emails from people who seem to think we are a multinational sometimes!

So we’re in a bit of a dilemma at the moment regarding the tone of the blog: do we take a risk and emphasise the ‘home-made’ aspect of Wandering Minds, or do we try and emphasise other aspects unrelated to the start-up life, such as our fashion viewpoint, our sources of inspiration…

You sell an extended selection of products in the store but only feature a few on the blog - how do you choose them?

I used to always add links to our products in our blog posts, but I don’t feel obliged to any more. I try to write about things I really want to write about, so that the tone of the blog doesn’t feel forced or overly commercial. There are other places to do hard selling, and I don’t feel our blog is the right place for that.

That being said, if I write about my style inspiration, whether it’s a style icon or a really cool movie, I sometimes include links and photos of our products that would really work if our reader would want to emulate that style, and for that reason the products that I feature are often my favourite ones.

Have you noticed a link between the products you feature and how well something sells?

No I haven’t. However, I find that people who have first read the blog, and then visited the store, are a lot more committed to browsing the store, as well as finding more about our company and our concept. Our blog visitors spend quite a bit of time on the ‘about us’ page on our store. The blog definitely has been a great way to create a positive bias towards who we are as a company.

Why did you decide to blog on Tumblr?

We really weren’t sure which platform to use at first, but Tumblr seemed the easiest one to customise nicely, as well as having a social element with the dashboard and people being able to follow you very easily.

However we’re increasingly thinking about switching or also having a Wordpress blog, because it also seems like a great platform for people to stumble upon content they might like.

Quite a few bloggers have worn your clothes recently. What role are bloggers playing in the expansion of a recently launched startup like yours?

Bloggers have a huge direct impact on our sales performance. Whatever a blogger wears, their fans will buy! They can become quite angry when a particular item of clothing worn by their favourite blogger sells out, which is quite funny. Blogger collaborations are crucial to the survival of our business, and is also one of the cheapest and most effective way to promote our store.

For prospective customers who hadn’t heard about us through bloggers, it gives us additional credibility since a lot of people visit our press page, where we record the blog posts where we are featured.

How do you see No Experience evolve in 2013?

We need to find the right balance between sharing our start-up experience with our followers and keeping enough distance to be taken seriously.

We also need to write a lot more often, and I’d like to link our newly created Instagram account to our blog, to give a new dimension to the Wandering Minds behind-the-scenes narration.

Another big step for the blog will be the launch of our ‘shop by city’ feature on the store, where shoppers will be able to shop designers from a wide range of cool fashion cities. This new dimension will be accompanied by the creation of city-specific content by local bloggers, which should make for some very interesting and unique points of view to be shared on the blog.

* Full disclosure: I have been involved with the Wandering Minds adventure, in a moral support and at times advisory capacity.

All photos courtesy of Elisa Eymery at Wandering Minds.

Posted at 8:33am and tagged with: blogger adventure, online shopping, blogosphere,.

January 6th 2013

Email Marketing: Avenue 32 helps you keep your 2013 resolutions

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You’re not just buying new clothes, you’re buying a kit which will motivate you to go to the gym, is Avenue 32’s promise this first weekend of 2013.

For any purchase from the Lucas Hugh Activewear range, the multibrand online store offers a complimentary exercise class with Barrecore Chelsea.

Considering most press around New Year’s resolutions focused on how unlikely you are to stick to them, this is smart cross marketing from Avenue 32 and Barrecore Chelsea.

It projects the idea buying clothes is the indispensable first step towards a fitter body, all the more that the email subject line, “Free fitness class with Lucas Hugh purchase”, highlights the sport rather than the clothes.

It also takes the guilt out of buying new, full-price clothes, something which, right after Christmas and in the middle of the sale, isn’t necessarily the best financial decision. Yes, I did just spend £90 on a logo tank top but heh, I got a free workout out of it!

My main issue with the idea would be that limiting the offer to a Chelsea club can be off-putting for the Avenue 32 subscribers who don’t live in London, but their mailing list might be so London-dominated it makes sense.

Posted at 5:00pm and tagged with: email marketing, Brand communication, online shopping,.

December 31st 2012

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Aaron Sorkin and Paul Redford, The West Wing Season 2 Episode 7 The Portland Trip (2000)

This West Wing quote has been on a loop in my head since Newtown restarted the gun control debate.

Posted at 4:00pm and tagged with: Quote on a Monday, The West Wing,.

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Congressman Skinner: You know I never understood why you gun control people don’t all join the NRA. They’ve got two million members. You bring three million to the next meeting, call a vote. All those in favor of tossing guns… bam! Move on.

Josh Lyman: It’s a heck of a strategy, Matt. I’ll bring that up at a meeting.

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December 31st 2012

Sarah Lund’s Career Advice

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* Please note this article contains potential spoilers for all three series of Forbrydelsen.

Having a strong, smart female lead at its heart in Sarah Lund (Sofie Gråbøl) is one of the reasons for the success of Forbrydelsen The Killing. The series is good, the acting first class but the plot lines aren’t groundbreaking, following the traditional codes of thriller writing, especially in series 3 which calls upon plot devices seen in previous installments. Throughout the series, Lund puts her job and search for justice first, to the price of personal sacrifices.

She follows her instinct. Lund is smart but her gut often knows something before her brain can articulate it, and she accepts it. Her extraordinary ability to solve the most complicated cases stems from her gift for linking clues no one else thinks of and her taking her reasoning further than anyone else.

“She’s at peace with herself”. In a March 2011 interview with The Guardian, Sofie Gråbøl explains she picked her Faroe Island sweater because “It tells of a person who doesn’t use her sexuality – that’s a big point. Lund’s so sure of herself she doesn’t have to wear a suit.” She’s smart, she knows it, she’s not afraid of showing it and she doesn’t feel the need to fit in.

She’s unfazed by power. Lund has a gift for working cases linked to powerful Danish men, yet whether she’s dealing with a mayoral candidate (season 1) or a shipping magnate (season 3), she always makes them feel the law is above their influence and millions. To hammer the point home, the Forbrydelsen writers ensure a couple of corrupt policemen feature in the plot.

Her EQ is all over the place. Part of this not caring how she fits in means she doesn’t to show emotions, which puts her at odds with the victim’s parents in series 1. On an EQ-i Model of Emotional Intelligence, she’d rate low on emotional expression, impulse control but high on self-regard, independence and reality testing. Lund’s tendency to run away from feelings is a subplot of series 3, in her dealing with her son, her unfinished love story with her new Special Branch partner and the suggestion she’s still haunted by the death of her partner from series 1 (episode 4).

She disobeys orders and lies to get her way, but only if it’s the right thing to do. Lund’s goal is always the truth, and even though her means are never fully illegal, she often snoops beyond her mandate, particularly when in a war zone (series 2).

She cares little about consequences, in a way only a TV character can. I wouldn’t advocate going for a midnight walk with someone you suspect of being a repeated killer (series 2), or turning up at a morgue if you think a kidnapper might use it as a killing ground (series 3) but it seems to work for her.

She doesn’t know fear, whether it’s the fear of losing people or the fear of her own death.

She sticks to her values, a trait shared by the women in the show at the end of series 3, whether it’s killing a murderer who would otherwise walk free, wanting to reveal dodgy political and police dealings or wishing for more family time.

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: TV series, career, management,.

December 30th 2012

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This needlepoint and lace white Dolce & Gabbana dress is one of my favourite of Autumn/Winter 2012.

First spotted on Emma Stone at the Amazing Spider-Man Spain première, the dress, in its longer runway form, has been doing the fashion editorials round, often styled according to a first degree baroque vibe dictated by the tapestry motive (not to mention the brand collection notes). Australian Vogue went a bit different, going instead for a cow boy background.

Posted at 8:50am and tagged with: which, Emma Stone, celebrity dressing, dream shopping,.