Thursday 26 November 2009


This is something I wear a lot at the moment. I bought it for 8 quid in a faulty goods store in Downtown LA last summer.
Both images show a 'red and grey checked hooded zipper cardigan' ..one does so rather obviously, the other most personally and subjectively.

Wednesday 25 November 2009








We might be constantly surrounded by fashion imagery. There's garments on models, on rails, in shelves, as cut-outs in magazines, on the person standing next to you..all somehow embedded in familiar commentary: information on the brand, price, where to get it from, what it will make you feel like, what you should be wearing it with...commentary that even claims to objectify taste ('this stunning dress...'). All of this is concerned with clothing and acquisition. You don't own it yet, but supposedly will be inspired to go out and buy it.

What however happens with garments once they've been bought or given to you? Once they have become part of your wardrobe..part of who you are even?
In a quest to get closer to answering the above I started looking for a sense of myself through the content of my wardrobe.

Saturday 21 November 2009


I mean come on. Yes it is the evil nature of fashion to take all things good, chew them up and spit them out, but this got me staring in dismay. Fashion. Bands. I think I want to date an accountant.

Friday 20 November 2009


I love shoes. Not like that though. I'm counting a modest 12 pairs of my own and none of them have a heel higher than 2inches. Apart from 3 pairs they used belong to somebody else and don't fit properly. My fascination with shoes stems from the fact that they convey an awful lot of information about a person. More subtle yet more revealing than a whole outfit. Have you ever been on a date with somebody where you just couldn't get over the other's bad footwear?

High heels are a blissful topic to discuss..in the wider cultural context of Britain and essentially sociologically in the light of feminism. 'Where women behave like women' said Fanni Niemi-Junkula in a talk recently about her first impression of the UK. Whilst wearing heels is associated with power, I would opt to agree with Desmond Morris when he claims that through our ability to run (or even walk) being weakened, the male's instinct to protect is evoked'. It even became a political topic earlier this year, when at the TUC it was discussed whether heels are appropriate for a day job: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2009/sep/15/unions-debate-high-heels
If women still feel the need to makes themselves physically taller in order to have a voice then I wondered how far we have evolved!? You might just like the colour on yours, like how they make your legs look longer or for them to enhance your posture (what's a supposedly straighter back compared to deformed feet and pain for the rest of your life though?)
..at the end of the day, I am not against killer heels, I just don't think they makes us look too good...these ones don't, surely?

Thursday 12 November 2009

Abandoned Power




Aren't you too just trying to figure out what happened? Is she ok? How did she get home? Barefoot? Carried? On a stretcher? Not home? Fine even?

There is something so beautifully intriguing about abandoned shoes. Shoes don't just get lost, they get left behind. They are somehow inextricibly linked to the street yet when ownerless they couldn't appear more out of place.