MATERIAL GIRL

So I work in costume for TV and film. I often get asked what is it I exactly do? Mmh! I often ask myself the same question! My full title is costume assistant, which basically means I work on set while filming occurs and take all the shit from all the actors and directors! The hours are long and there is a lot of waiting around sometimes, but what I like is the unpredictability of the job and the odd situations you are put in. These include doing checks on the wing of an airplane at south end on sea airport on actresses who were pretending to sunbathe topless on it as the scene was meant to be Spain, but in reality it was a freezing February day in England! Then other day I was dressing an actor who was impersonating Gordon brown dressed in union jack boxers and socks with suspenders in a pool, surrounded by bikini clad beauties and then there is my favourite one is sewing a strap on to an actor as it had broken, while a big horny Alsatian was licking my legs! These are just a few of the weird scenarios that have happened to me while doing this job and believe me: you can't make this stuff up! I could never do an office job, I would go insane! My job suits my personality and you do get to meet incredible people and see some amazing places that I would never have gone to other wise. The most important thing that I do at work though is I know how to have a lot of fun and so do the people I work with and we try and mess around on set as much as possible. Well what do you expect. We are material girls!

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!