FEAL JOINS TUMBLR!

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

You're going to be noticing a few changes in the next few months here at FEAL- most notably, we're going to be moving onto our very own website, rather than the blogspot. We've been poring through all the FashEd's photography books for inspiration whenever we have a spare moment . We were so in love with so many of the images that we decided it was high time we got around to sharing our favourites with all of you tumblr-aholics out there.

We've made a start today- this week is all about the 1930s but every week we'll have a new theme as well as a constant stream of anything we're loving right now. We hope you like!

Today's favourite from Lillian Bassman

GRAZIA LEADS THE WAY WITH 'AUGMENTED REALITY' 3D ISSUE

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

Doesn't it feel as if we’re living in a world which bares more than a passing resemblance to Blade Runner / Minority Report / one of those other sci-fi films in which technology is disarmingly advanced? 2010 is apparently the future - even our magazines are coming to life for goodness’ sake!

Last summer Dazed and Confused stuck a pair of cardboard glasses to the cover (you know the kind - one red lens, one green lens. Seriously retro 3D eyewear) and proclaimed that inside lay ‘Fashion That Touches You!’

Nicola Formichetti styled Marios Schwab’s AW09 3D inspired collection, and the shoot jumped right off the page. But even that seems old hat compared to this week’s pioneering issue of Grazia - the 'walk-in talking' issue.

Hot on the heels of trendsetting POP Magazine, team Grazia wanted to be the first women's glossy to employ Augmented Reality - technology that allows the consumer to interact with virtual content. Readers can use their web-cam (or iPhone) to scan the black and white icons and bring the features to life.

Florence Welch serenades us, the Fashion Chart rotates, and the fashion editors give us the low down on their picks for the season ahead. We can even switch them and twirl them to our hearts delight with a mere movement of our hand - as I am with the lovely Charlie Miller below.

Very fun and original. Bravo Grazia, bravo!

The incredible Augmented Reality issue of POP is also out now.

 It's bound to be a collector's item in a few years time!

FEELING THE NOWNESS OF LIFE

Posted by Fashion Editor at Large

Thanks to the fashion junior who has had hours of fun/research surfing the web while I toiled in Paris, the website NOWNESS is on my radar. It has just been added to the blogroll. I clicked on it this morning to manifest a visual break from the catwalk collections I have been viewing for days on end at Catwalking and Style. And to reinforce the fact I have FINISHED my edit of the AW10 collections - my homework after the shows are over. On NOWNESS I saw this photograph of the Dubai skyline by Iwan Baan and it made me gasp and feel a sense of wonder and awe at the possibilities of life and work and dreams. Wanted to share that with y'all. Have a great day.

http://www.nowness.com/

 We found this interview with Kamel Ouadi from NOWNESS on Businessoffashion.com (a permanent fixture on our Google Readers) published just before its launch. His eloquent explanation tells you all you need to know about the site of the moment:

'NOWNESS will inspire and turn you on to the latest developments on fashion and culture in a highly curated and thoughtful way. NOWNESS is about carrying a moment in time with you. It sums up a certain feeling when you get a moment of inspiration that lives in your imagination during the day.'

'This site will be about the art of living and involve luxury well beyond product categories. It will inform and inspire. It will bring excitement to the everyday. And, it will feature only exclusive content — a key factor distinguishing it from other luxury websites. It will be an inspirational and experiential site.'

'The site is about inspiring people. It’s also about personalisation of luxury inspiration. A “Love/Don’t Love” button allows users to interact with the content. The impulse to love will drive recommended content to the user, the impulse to love will also tell us how people are responding to the experience.'

'The site is dedicated to collaborating with the world’s foremost designers, creatives and thinkers in the luxury industry. Visitors can enjoy featured work by leading artists such as Wong Kar-Wai, Patti Smith, Lucien Freud, Francesco Vezzoli, Rodarte, Raf Simons, John Galliano for Dior, and Nick Cave.' 

IS THE INTERNET ENABLING 'STYLE THEFT' ON A GLOBAL SCALE?

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

'The Internet does for fashion what the mircowave does for food'

 Take a look at this very trendy older gentleman shot by Scott 'The Sartorialist' Schulman. Judging by his clothes where would you guess he is from? Paris? Florence? New York? Milan maybe? Let's be honest, he could reside in any stylish city in the western world (Apart from London. The weather is a bit too sunny and the gentleman a little too jovial to be London). 

This was the analogy Ben Beaumont-Thomas of Bad Idea Magazine used to introduce 'Fashion's Microchic Shake-Up' - a talk held in the basement of Shoreditch's The Book Club. He wanted to demonstrate the profound affect the internet - street-style blogs, social networking and all that jazz - has on the way we dress. Welcome to the age of 'Microchic'; the global homogenisation of hyper-personal style.

Phew big words! Maybe it's best we stick to Ben's street style example for simplicity's sake. On the first day of London Fashion Week I was stopped by WGSN who wanted to photograph me in this outfit:

(Velvet Jacket: vintage, Leather Jacket by Topshop, Bag: Jimmy Choo for H&M, Trousers by French Connection, Shoes by Office)

 For those who are not familiar with WGSN, it's a trend forecasting website. The world's biggest fashion brands subscribe for a hefty yearly fee and in return they get a constant stream of information and inspiration to feed their creative vision (this kind of explains why all designers seem to miraculously agree on the trends each season). 

One of the resources they provide is street style reportage. One individual's style might inspire a designer who then shows, for example, patterned satin trousers in their next collection. Those trousers are then copied by high street stores, and eventually feed back down to the consumer on the street. It's one big marvelous cycle! This tool also means that a t-shirt worn in a Tokyo club could be emulated by Topshop and end up on a Londoner's back within a matter of weeks. Virtually instantaneous global style!

Street style blogs have a knack of celebrating subjects with a flair for individualistic or slightly unusual dressing (like our trendy older gentleman above). Our access to these sites allows us to cherry-pick influences from the wardrobes of stylish people across the world - establishing a uniform of global cool which is visible from Copenhagen to Sydney. 

The second part of the talk enlisted the help of Iris Ben Davis (CEO of Style Shake - a site which allows shoppers to design their clothes from scratch), Helen Brown (founder of Catwalk Genius - where fashion fans can buy shares in the businesses of new designers they love), and Ruth Marshall-Johnson (senior editor of WGSN). These are three women who are very much in the business of Microchic and their predictions for the future of fashion pretty much pickled my brain...

Style Shake has made bespoke available to the masses, and even more significantly it has made bespoke affordable (mainly because, Iris told us, being online keeps overheads ultra low). So what does this mean for bricks and mortar stores? Will online bespoke businesses eradicate fast fashion? Or will our penchant for social shopping prevail?

The panel's coverage of the latest technologies was also beyond interesting. Augmented Reality will let us 'try on' clothing virtually with the use of our humble webcams. 3D printers will allow us to 'print' out our purchases (I don't quite understand this. Get on to Wikipedia for a more articulate explanation), and 3D body scanners will ensure our bespoke designs fit perfectly. Apparently software is even being developed with will allow us to virtually 'feel' the material - emulating the tactile experience many of us value as part of the shopping experience.

Super fascinating (if a little mind boggling) right?


Pic credits: TheSartorialist, Fashion156.com

THE ISSUE OF THE DAY IS STILL THE PERVADING PRESENCE OF BLOGGERS AT THE SHOWS

Posted by Fashion Junior at Large

 As I may have mentioned, I recently joined Twitter. Whilst I can grasp the simple task of a Facebook status style tweet, I haven't yet mastered the twitpic or the direct message etc, so have been attempting to pick it up by reading the tweets of the people I follow. In the last couple of hours there has been much discussion (mainly amongst the well known bloggers) over this article from The Global Herald.

Yet again the editors versus bloggers debate is being wheeled out with the latter being described as 'awkwardly dressed pseudo-fashionable young things who were pushing themselves towards the free press patisserie with aplomb'. Sigh. Like many teenage girls who aspire to inhabit the world of fashion journalism I never fantasised about writing online. I fell in love with the tangible aspects of the magazine. The smell of the pages, the cool smoothness of the cover, the weight of the printed product, which seemed to denote substance and knowledge of subject. But things change. The first time I meet the Fashion Editor at Large she told me ‘print is shrinking. Online is now the future’ – And just like that I knew I had to embrace a new medium for my passions. Whether bloggers carry clout in the industry is no longer debateable – they’re usurping front row seats at Dior couture right from under the noses of seasoned fashion journalists – but just how erudite and relevant their opinions are seems to be a constant point of contention. 

Maybe the reason the so-called ‘Tavi backlash’ has been ignited is because, whilst we all enjoy her insightful musings, some of her harsher critics simply believe she is not qualified to write for POP and schmooze back-stage at the Paris couture shows. In their view it’s all about knowing one’s place in the fashion pecking-order, or as Robin Scott says 'There is a food chain at work here, and those with dot blogspot or dot wordpress in their domain name should know that they are at the bottom of it.' 

But seriously, what about our very own Fashion Editor at Large and other seasoned writers who take up blogging? It adds a whole new dimension to the blogosphere. 

Scott does make some important points - some print journalists who take an anti bloggers stance need to understand that 'the very blogs they deride ... are read by far more – literally millions more – people than their own articles will ever be'. We need to address the issue of space at fashion Week in terms of the quality of the attendee's output as well as quantity of readers they draw. It's a complex task. 

Do you know what the most widely read magazine in the UK is? Take a Break. Yes Take a Break! It gets almost one million readers per issue, sells two copies every second and is the 4th biggest selling magazine in the world! It has a far far greater number of readers than say Vogue or ELLE, which fall near the bottom of the pile in terms of monthly sales. Sometimes things surprise you. Blogs are extremely widely read, and the well written ones are extraordinarily influential. 

All the nay-sayers have to eventually accept that things move on, and that print and online can co-exist. Way back in the day photographers were banned from catwalk shows and journalists had to be a dab hand at sketching the collections. Now we have Tavi, Bryan Boy, Suzie Bubble et al bridging the gap between mere mortals and the ethereal people of fashion society with their commentary.  It’s progression, and that is what this industry is all about.

Pic credit: tardeotemprano.net