Culture, Aesthetics and Fashion Discussion

[softgrey]

interesting kit...i know the name...but i can't place it at the mo'...
i feel like i can see the label though...

 

[clueless]

GODDAMN!!!

Yah...there are a lot of things I would buy more of if I lived somewhere where it were cheaper....I honestly think it's all about importing and tax costs!

 

[clueless]

thanks clueless..i learned a lot from that...about how most people live on the coast and spend on their homes...etc....the different seasons is aloso a good point...but i know there is a thriving fashion indusstry down there...lots of models from ny go down there to work...and there are so many local designers...right?...

and there are some pretty good fashion magazines...oyster is very well-respected here...

Hey, I'm glad you found it informative
I don't actually know much about local designers, apart from Sass & Bide, and I have a few skirts from K-Mart...they have really, really pretty skirts would you believe? (It's differnt from the US K-Mart chain, which is like a grocery store or something right?)
And I didn't know much about models from NY comming here....I really need to brush up don't I!

 

[clueless]

clueless thanks for that - it corresponds with how I found australia. I have an uncle there & I visited it about six years ago. I found it very different from europe. Australian girls have a really different way of dressing - the weather & sport influences are so strong. Ideal body size is also quite different from, say, London or Paris - its a much more athletic place on the whole. I guess quite like California....

agree on the homes thing - some amazing architecture over there (I recall a place called Palm Beach - great houses).

Awesome...which part of Australia did you visit? I have to ask...did you totally hate out accent and not understand it? I hear a lot of people sat that.....*shrugs*
Palm Beach is lovely! We used to have a holiday house there, but it was way too far for us to keep going to to make it worthwhile.....it's also the beach where they film the scenes for popular trashy soap opera, Home & Away....the British seem to love that show for some reason!
Anyway, the body type that always seems to be in magazines is different to a love of the world.....whereas most use that very thin, bony and lanky figure, in Australia, the models are buff,buff,buff! (it's ok, cause the guy models are too )No, there isn't much fat on them either, but they look really sort of 'sporty' and are usually photographed in some sort of outdoor setting, be in the beach, playing sport, and I remember when the whole retro look was in they'd photograph all these cute picnic scenes and stuff.

Sorry I seemed to focus mainly on clothes and shopping and modelling rather that more general stuff, but if you wanna know anything else, of course I'd be happy to brag a little more about my lovely home!

 

[kit]

interesting kit...i know the name...but i can't place it at the mo'...
i feel like i can see the label though...

http://superfuture.com/city/reviews/review.cfm?id=185&lang=EN

Check out his website , it's a revelation .

I'd LOVE to know what his menswear is like . B)

Wonder if Runner has any idea ?

 

[clueless]

Oh, one more thing.....March Australian Vogue has an article about Australian beauty and some perspectives on it, it's not incredible, but still a good read. I wish I could find it online to post it for you guys.....I could type it out for you guys, but honestly, I would probably go blind after a few lines!

 

[clueless]

Hey, I'm glad you found it informative
I don't actually know much about local designers, apart from Sass & Bide, and I have a few skirts from K-Mart...they have really, really pretty skirts would you believe? (It's differnt from the US K-Mart chain, which is like a grocery store or something right?)
And I didn't know much about models from NY comming here....I really need to brush up don't I!

But here is a link to a new discussion on Australian designers, I don't know if you've seen it yet, but it should have comments from people more knowledgeable on Australian designers than me!
http://thefashionspot.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21420

 

[raijin]

Kit, Akira is actually a relatively big name.

He is carried by barneys for women's in the US.

It is all VERY deconstructed stuff..(threads etc).

I think he may have discontinued his mens line.

 

[kit]

Kit, Akira is actually a relatively big name.

He is carried by barneys for women's in the US.

It is all VERY deconstructed stuff..(threads etc).

I think he may have discontinued his mens line.

Thanks for the info .

 

[raijin]

EDIT: I am not sure if barneys still carries him, but I know that Saks does.

 

[runner]

http://superfuture.com/city/reviews/review.cfm?id=185&lang=EN

Check out his website , it's a revelation .

I'd LOVE to know what his menswear is like . B)

Wonder if Runner has any idea ?

sorry kit, I don't know about his present mens.
it seems that they now have Black Label (collection line), Red Label (casual) and Customized Bonds (underwear line).

http://www.firstview.com/alldesigners/AkiraIsogawa.html

 

[kit]

sorry kit, I don't know about his present mens.
it seems that they now have Black Label (collection line), Red Label (casual) and Customized Bonds (underwear line).

http://www.firstview.com/alldesigners/AkiraIsogawa.html

Many thanks for your trouble , runner .

 

[softgrey]

thx kit and runner for the links...now i remember...i have seen this stuff at saks 5th ave and at linda dresner...but didn't know what i was looking at...

it's good...isn't it...?...

 

[fab_fifties_fille]

Well in an attempt to bump this thread back up and keep it going again, I've typed an article up from yesterdays daily mail which I thought was an interesting and rather true French view on British culture, I hope this is on topic, after reading this thread I feel it relates to quite alot of what has been said.

Britain is characterised by ‘Le Binge Drinking’ and appallingly dressed ‘lager louts’ according to a new French guide to the UK. But its author – writer and broadcaster Agnes Catherine Poirier, 32 – claims she loves ‘La Perfide Albion’, her affections nurtured by her admiration of Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and the ‘inimitable accent of Laurence Olivier’. Here her book ‘Les Nouveaux Anglais’ reveals the ‘shortcomings and charms of a great nation’.

SEX
This is where Agnes Poirier is at her most abrasive. The chapter is headed: ‘No Sex Please We’re British’. After all, asks Poirier, how could there not be a sex problem in a country where silicone-enhanced breasts and bottoms are paraded in the popular press ‘without an ounce of eroticism’? ‘Let us be charitable and put ourselves in the place of our poor British friends,’ she says, before pointing out that the Kama Sutra was only legally sold here from 1963 and that Ann Summers chain sells one million sex toys a year. Poirier turns to the subject of David Blunkett and Kimberly Fortier, an affair she dryly summarises as ‘a bachelor minister telling the Press of his passionate affair with a married woman he hopes will get a divorce and marry him instead’. ‘On matters of sex, the British learn only how to laugh – it frightens them, thus the obsession. Sex, this subject of national embarrassment, is present everywhere – for example in the often provocative dress and attitude of women. But to talk of it is out of the question.’ Which explains why ‘sex is nothing to do with love in Britain’. She says, but has been tuned instead into an exercise – ‘like yoga or jogging’.

DRINK
‘Le Binge Drinking’ is ‘the new English illness’, says Poirier. ‘Indeed it is a national sport in practically all the streets of towns across Britain on Friday and Sautrday evenings. Or during the week when people come out of their offices. ‘The concept of Binge Drinking consists of drinking, drinking and drinking up to the point when you’ve forgotten your name.’ Yet drink is not all bad, she concedes: some of Britain’s greatest figures – from Winston Churchill to Richard Burton and most of Britain’s aristocracy, come to mention it – were overfond of a glass.

MONARCHY
As for ‘la Firme’, as Poirier calls our Royal Family, it has become so marginalized that ‘it’s easy to forget that a monarchy governs Britain’. Poirier calls the Queen the ‘little woman who embodies the soul of the nation’, describes the late Queen Mother as being ‘full of gin’ before her death and suggests that British society – including the upper classes – is almost entirely reliant on alcohol. To prover her point, she retells that hoary old anecdote about the Queen Mother once rebuking her daughter, Elizabeth, for having an extra glass of wine at lunchtime. But she still says we love the Royal Family and that most British people consider a ‘republic is an idea for eccentrics, reserved for a handful of readers of The Guardian’.

ROCK AND POP
Here, at least, Britain does get praise. ‘Kings of music, incontestably,’ says the guide, pointing to a fine tradition encompassing The Beatles, Rolling Stones, David Bowie and , rather surprisingly, Cliff Richard. But rockers have lost their edge: ‘The find it harder to revolt against Tony Blair because he is a friend of the stars.’

HUMOUR
Again, we are praised: ‘Without doubt, they are still the funniest,’ says the guide. It’s the British attitude to sex which raises the most laughs. ‘Complicated, tortuous, clumsy – sex is the source of a large part of their humour.’

CLUBBING
To compensate for the British ‘stiff upper lip’ during the day, many Britons turn to nightclubs to re-invent themselves during the night, says Poirier. Lacking the sophistication of Italians or Spaniards, however, the Brits rely on alcopops, soft drugs, or pints of Guinness to get them through the night. ‘Alcohol and drugs are the two “musts” of the British nights,’ she says, commenting on the fact that, even in the middle of winter, women will wear micro-skirts and men T-shirts.

COUNTRYSIDE
The myth of beautiful fields and valleys immortalised by John Constable and other great English romantics is now under serious threat from varied horrors, including Mad Cow Disease, genetic farming, mass car ownership, pollution, and the influx of strangers from the cities and abroad into traditional rural communities. ‘Thirty years ago, British soil nourished the nation. AT present, England chooses mnore andmore to import meat, fruit and vegetables,’ says Poirier.

BREAKFAST
Long viewed by the French as the only decent meal produced by the British, it is now largely to the preserve of ‘tourists hoping to rediscover a cultures that no longer exists’, or expats dreaming of the country they left behind. Eaten by half the population just 50 years ago, the full fry-up of eggs and bacon is now mainly cooked only in ‘Les Greasy Spoons caffs’.

HOOLIGANS
A thoroughly British phenomenon, hooligans have adopted Burberry as their principal fashion label, meaning there are now more designer tartan baseball caps in evidence in Britain than bowler hats. As well as football, other factors which contribute to violence among young men include: ‘Boredom at the weekend, a desire to drink with friends, being at a loose end because of unemployment, and the desire to belong to a group. The matches can be nothing more than an excuse.’

HUGH GRANT
The ‘funny face’ of Grant is described as being a poor substitute for the traditional matinee idols who made English cinema popular all over the world. ‘Theme park films’ like Notting Hill and Four Weddings And A Funeral, moreover, give a totally false picture of British society – rather like the lifestyle pages of The Times, according to the guide.

PETS
‘They are completely mad, the English, with their pets- their four-legged friends,’ says Poirier, adding: ‘It’s not unusual for all the police forces of a town, or of a ragion to be mobilised to go and save a cat or a dog from drowing.’ It points to the use of violence by animal rights protesters, cat perfume, and special mineral water designed especially for hamsters and lizards as examples of a society with an extremely eccentric attitude to animals.

PUBS
Bemoaning the decline of the traditional British boozer, the guide says the vast majority of pubs are now franchises, just like fast-food restaurants. Rather than serving old-fashioned ales and homemade fare, pub grub today comes straight out of the microwave after days in a freezer, while unremarkable wines are the norm. Modern bars are looking for two types of client, says the guide – ‘young BMW drivers and those who drink Pinot Grigio’

QUEUEING
This is perhaps the only national pastime which has stood the test of time. Britons will form a queue at any opportunity. ‘Be polite, join the queue’ is still a national catchphrase.

Taken from the Daily Mail Tuesday April 12th 05

 

[fab_fifties_fille]

I think the drinking thing is so true to England. However I thought the French were pretty obsessed with pets too, cats, dogs... I'm sure I heard as a whole the UK had the worst reputation for animal cruelty...so whether it's because we have more people concerned with such things I'm unsure.

 

[PrinceOfCats]

France has a massive rural population, so they're probably less obessive over pets. When you work in a field shovelling horse...stuff...all day you probably don't want to go home and change the litter tray.

 

[fab_fifties_fille]

I suppose, but then again I used to go horse riding alot, and basically all the people who had horses would have a dog or two with them too (but hey, that might just be England )

 

[softgrey]

thanks for that fff...

there seems to be some truth to those observations...

 

[stilista]

Some truths, lots of generalization and myth.... I wonder if this woman who wrote it is blind to how other see her country?

SEX - France is a nation obsessed with sex. Their movies have to include sex with daughter, sex with mother, sex with stranger, sex at work. Our movies have Hugh Grant, theirs have incest.

DRINK - Go to France, Italy, Spain and there is a problem with the young and alcohol. Contrary to popular belief, their teens are not so well behaved because they were brought up with a glass of vin rouge at dinner. They are as desperate to get absolutely sloshed as our kids are at the weekend. I have seen French kids fights over the last sip in a bottle


PETS - How can a French woman call the English eccentric in their view to animals?!! There's dog poo everywhere on the streets of Paris - it's a big problem there and they love their little dogs more than any nation! As for dog perfume...well, there are whole shops devoted to the stuff, and whole shelves in Sephora. I don't know of a single English person to douse their dog in scent

CLUBBING - we have clubs for young people. They have clubs with separate parts for the kids, for mum, dad and the grandparents. The whole family goes out clubbing in the same car

QUEUEING - at least we do it. Half of Europe seems to think it's ok to 'pretend you don't notice there are 5 people in front of you....amble along....get to the front'. It's like a game for them. I'd rather be civilized and wait my turn, thanks.

HOOLIGANS - they exist everywhere. All over Europe. All over the world. Sadly...Has this woman been to Toulouse? To Marseille?

 

[PrinceOfCats]

Totally agreed on hooligans - rich capitalist scum exist everywhere and where there's sh*t, flies follow...