STANDON CALLING

After the disaster that was Bestival (Or mudville as I like to call it!) last year I said I was not going to waste any of my hard earned cash on going to festivals this year. So when my housemates told me about a small boutique festival called Standon Calling in Hertfordshire I was hardly enthusiastic about, but after a little persuasion (It never takes that much with me!) I thought sod it and I'd take my chances with the English summertime. Luckily this time it was not a wash out. In fact it was the best festival I have been to. It maybe small but as we all know its not the size but the quality. It was so nice not having to try and not wet yourself while waiting forever to go to the toilet. It was great to wander off (which I have a tendency to do!) and know that you would find your friends again, but the best bit was getting up close to the bands and really feeling part of it. VV Brown, Paloma Faith, and Friendly Fires were some of the highlights (actually Friendly Fires were a bit crap!). My favourite band though were the Fabulous Penetrators who I've seen before in Catch bar in Hoxton, which was a crazy gig and came away from it with a bruised ankle and nearly their mascot tiger until they caught me and Jade with it! Oophs! Actually they didn't bring the tiger this time because they said that people kept trying to nick it! I drunkenly informed them that, that was me!
What was not so good was getting really drunk on the first night and kissing some guy that looked like a cross between David Essex and a terrorist bomber and ending up with the name FIGHT SNOG due to our feisty exchange. The housemates still keep calling it me and I bloody hate it! To make things worse I realised when sober that I had, had total beer googles when I saw him the next day at the pool (God who was so hairy! Like a bear!) I spent the rest of weekend avoiding him, but he just kept appearing from nowhere, much to amusement of my mates.
Lets get to the most important bit. The festival fashion! Of course I had the loyal Hunter wellies. So I geeked up, in a Where's wally style on the first night and someone stole my lucky hat right off my head but I was too drunk to react. Bastard! Me and that hat have been through a lot together.

Then Saturday was fancy dress day, with the theme being Space!. As mentioned in my previous post I had my supermodel dress which I teamed with a wasp belt which was very Tron like from Topshop and finished it off with silver sequin converse from Primark at the great price of £2 (though I do have the odd guilt trip over child labour!)

The last day I wore my brand new polka dot Dahlia dress which I love so much. Unfortunatley I have realised this is not the best dress to wear in windy conditions, as it blew up and I ended exposing myself to the whole of the festival on a few occassions. At least I was wearing some good knickers!

As for the others Ssam coped very well with her first festival and the her first time in the countryside (This girl has been in England 6 years!). She did have the odd relaspe of wanting CSI and concrete around her, but we will forgive her for that. Though she did say that she will never go into the countryside again!

Alex did very well also, keeping her clothes on for most of the time, apart from the posing in the Christian Dior bather and heels on the jeep and flashing us all, once, much to the horror of the family camping opposite. You see last year she did most of the festival wearing just a bikini and upstaged Jonny Woo during Gay Bingo by streaking across the stage! So all in all, it was the housemates normal behaviour. Bring on Standon again next year.

SUPERMODEL

So the other day my housemate Ssam, asked me if I wanted to go to a vintage sale with her, that a friend was having not far from us in Hackney. It turns out this wasn't any ordinary run of the mill vintage sale. As we walked up the corridor there were suitcases filled with mad, bright and wacky clothes and inside the studio itself there was a rail filled with designer dresses and a table full of shoes and accessories, with names such as Chanel, Phillip Lim and Rodarte. It turns out that the friend is the model Iekeliene Stange. Ssam told me that she is a supermodel and that she gets given most of these items free from designers. Must be such a hard life I thought! Stange herself looked every inch the model, being tall, willowy and very striking with cheek bones to die for. I could of gone mad and brought half her clothes, which were crazy and cool, but I had to limit myself, so I opted to buy one of Miss Stange's more cheaper item's from the suitcases. I got myself a cool 60's silver mini dress which I am going to use for Standon calling festival next weekend.
When I got home I had to look her up and see how big she was. Well lets say I found out she is big! This girl has walked the catwalks for Chanel to Dior (including the most recent Dior show which I was raving about in another post). She has done campaigns from everyone to D&G to Topshop and has worked with the worlds top photographers like Steven Miesel to Jurgen Teller. It also seems she has a bit of a fan club following for her style which is crazy but really fantastic. I love it! The funny thing was as I was browsing I came across a photo of her wearing the dress I brought off her. She has styled it really cool. I'm no supermodel but I hope I will be able to wear it as good as her. Watch out and see what I do with it for Standon! I think I have, my work cut out to keep up with a supermodel!






Miss Stange wearing the silver dress I brought from her.

A VERY STYLISH MUM!

Its funny the way we see our parents. We look at them as these people that always nag us, won't let us do what we want, embarrass you always at the worst time and then there is the main one; that you can never get over the fact that they have wiped your arse! You forget that they were young once like you. I was reminded of this fact this week, as I have been at home in the Warrington. Out of boredom in between doing the rounds of family visits I raided the spare room wardrobe and pulled out two old fashioned, dusty photo albums. Opening them up I became fascinated! I have always been compared to my mum, with relatives at family get togethers, proclaiming loudly, "Oh Lynette! Isn't she just like you!" much to my disdain!
"I'm not like my mother, I'm an individual!" I would shout with teenage anger. Its funny how I hated it back then, but now as I looked through the album, I thought "Yeah! I would love to be like mum. She's hot and stylish!" Mum has always been a woman that has looked after her appearance, but me and her have always differed on style. I think she thinks I'm a bit of a scruffy hippy! Its because I am a bit of a hippy though that I loved her 70's fashions. God! I would love to wear that wardrobe now, especially the high waisted flares (Very Chloe!). So this post is dedicated to my Mum and just so you know, she is still looking great now. Mrs Griffith's rocks!

GOLDEN DIOR

I just love the V&A, for me its the best museum in the world. I could spent hours wandering around it and have seen all the best exhibitions I have ever been to in there: Vivienne Westwood, Kylie, Lee Miller, the list is endless. My very favourite though, was the Golden Age of Couture exhibition about a year and a half ago. It focused on the New look of 1947 up to 1957 and had some of the most amazing gowns I have ever seen in my life.

After that I was hooked with the glamour of that era. It definitely changed my sense of dress too, as after the exhibition I took a turn to becoming more feminine and giving it a bit more glamour when dressing up! If only women dressed like that no days!

So I got great pleasure from Dior's latest Autumn/ Winter Haute Couture show, when I saw the pictures plastered all over the papers recently. Mr Galliano seems to have harked back into the house of Dior's past for inspiration for his latest collection. The show looks like it could be part of Diors legendary New look show. It was even shown in the parlour like setting of the past. God! I love it all. I want it all! I would wear it all everywhere, including Tesco's to do the shopping, even the French knickers. Actually the French knickers would probably be my first choice! Here are the highlights.

OSTRICH EGG!

As a moving in present, our latest housemate, Alex decided that we could eat her ostrich egg that she had been saving for such an occasion! Its not like you can go and buy these eggs down at Tesco's; they are pretty hard to get. Alex got hers from some swanky shop in Chelsea. It actually looked really beautiful in its box and even to touch ( it feels a bit like porcelain). Well it was nice until they started to cook the bloody thing! Anyone who knows me well, will know that I have some funny phobia's of food (Sandwiches probably being the worst!) I'm not very good with eggs either. I can eat them but I have to like the look of them ( there are no rules or guide lines to my food phobia, its just the way it is!) The thing took over an hour in the oven and stank like a big boiled egg would do after that long cooking. Now if you think you open an ostrich egg by knocking the top off with a spoon you would be wrong. Opening one is liking getting into Fort Knox. After the bread knife and the hammer and chisel did not work, Angus proceeded to dress like a terrorist bomber and use the electric saw disk to open it! With much effort and what seemed like forever he managed open it. Looking inside the giant egg, I saw a giant yolk , and with the smell which was now mixed with the odour of burning from the saw, the whole thing made me want to heave! It was that bad i could not look at it and I refused to eat with the rest at the dining table, preferring to eat on my own in the corner. I only went up for celebratory champagne (Couldn't miss that bit!) after I forced them to cover up the remains. The boys told me I was being dramatic to which I told them to piss off! The feeling was so bad that even the next day at work I had bad flashbacks to it that still made me feel sick. So if you are ever having a dinner party with ostrich egg on the menu, don't bother inviting me, I won't be coming!

DANGER! DANGER! HIGH FASHION!

The other morning as I crawled in, after a two day bender my housemate Ssam, got me to agree in my hungover state, to style a fashion shoot for her. It was only later with a clear head that I freaked out and started thinking, I'm not a stylist! I do costume! Actually costume is styling and I was just being scared as usual and not trying to push myself! So after being woken up this morning by the shouting of "Get your arse down here and do clothes!" from Stalin (that's who Ssam turns into on a shoot, be it a small female Korean one!) The clothes were by a new Korean designer called Kang St and were totally amazing! I felt very privileged indeed to be styling such outfits and after my initial anxiety I actually really got into it and loved it! The anxiety I felt in the end was for the safety of our model. As we climbed the stairs to roof terrace I nearly had a heart attack as Ssam had got the bright idea to put the model on a sloping roof. To make things worse she was holding floaty fabric which caught the wind beautifully but nearly took the poor girl with it! Our model the lovely Maike Lundenbach from Next model management was a true pro throughout and never complained once even under the dangerous, cold conditions. Thank God she wasn't an actress we would have never heard the end of it! Actually models are much more nicer than actors to work with. They just get on with it without the drama! Luckily we moved to the lift area after a bit, which was good as my hair was starting to turn grey!
Overall a really great day and Ssam was impressed enough with me to ask if I would like to style again for her. I will jump at the chance. She has also asked me if I would be interested writing a piece for Glass Magazine. Its time I started making a change and do the things I really want to do instead of spending the rest of my life scared of doing them. What do they say, "It is better to regret what you have done, than what you haven't!"









OBSERVATIONS
* I think Ssam needs to take out insurance for future fashion shoots!