warhammer-40k-space-marine: azealia banks

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

THE MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF LFW AW12

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

There's a thing called the #lfwtimeline. If you have a look at this hashtag on twitter you'll see that it tells you how late (or not) a show is running. We've worked out that this timeline is perhaps not the most reliable of sources- its default setting for each show is "the XXX show is running 10 minutes late' even though sometimes it is 15 mins and others it's 30 mins. Anyway, when you do manage to be punctual, there's almost always some cool music playing and setting the tone for what you're about to see. And once the show begins, the music has a massive impact on how you start to interpret the collection.

Here are a few of our favourite songs from the week...

Azealia Banks hasn't even released a single yet but that hasn't stopped her becoming a YouTube hit, as well as being enlisted to perform for Karl Lagerfeld. She also appeared at last night's Topshop party, celebrating ten years of NewGen. Her 212 song was heard all week, including at House of Holland, Mulberry and Topshop Unique.

One of the Fashed's favourite tunes at the moment is 'I'm His Girl' by Friends. We heard it at Emilio de la Morena and Felder Felder among others.

In terms of music, last LFW was rather overshadowed by a certain Lana del Rey and her (then) fresh new voice in 'Video Games'. We still heard this song a few times over this season including at Aquascutum. Oh, and in case you hadn't heard by now (where have you been?) then Mulberry have named their new bag, the Del Rey, after the former Lizzie Grant. Plus she rocked up at their show, but we didn't need to tell you that did we?

Meadham Kirchhoff were bound to deliver on the music front, given their obsession with teen girl tunes. Their show closed with Abba's Dancing Queen.

The new Muppets movie is out now. What with Miss Piggy guest editing Grazia, it's hardly surprising it was on the mind of designers. Mulberry closed their show the Ma Na Ma Na song.

Hanna Hanra took charge of the music at Louise Gray. before the show began, she played some Whitney. The show was all about 90s house music, including Work It Girlfriend by Jack and Jill.

Pringle's show took place to the sound of INXS 'Need You Tonight'...

And finally, Marios Schwab's entire show was based on Mahler's Adagietto from Symphony no. 5.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

HELLO AZEALIA BANKS AND YOUR CUTE JUMPER

Posted by Bethan Holt, Fashion Junior at Large

Azealia loves her Mickey jumpers (image from GQ.com)

THE new girl to buzz about is Azealia Banks, who has just topped NME's Cool List. The rapper from Harlem could not be more different from last year's winner Laura Marling, a folksy singer from a sleepy Hampshire village. Azealia Banks is culture's new naughty girl; where last year we hankered after the whimsical, goody two shoes vibes of Marling, that all feels a bit, well, quiet now. Banks is here to shout and swear us into a mad, hopping dance through the streets. And as she demonstrates, there's really just one uniform for that- a Mickey Mouse jumper.

Azealia looks super cute with her plaits, denim cut offs and cartoon tee- like a girl playing out in the summer holidays. Oh, but then she opens her mouth and all kinds of naughty words come out- beware of watching the video if you're a bit sensitive. She told GQ that the reason I, being English, love her song is because it makes me feel like I could have a shouty, sweary strop:

'I think that's a lot of the reason why people relate to it so much, because everybody wants to say, "F*** you!" I think by virtue of English culture being so polite, I feel like there's definitely a part of every English person that just wants to be like, "Aargh!" That's why it's picking up so much over here'

AAARGH exactly! I do think that however many times you want to scream c*nt, it's always that little bit more charming coming from someone with a childish quirk about them. I have to admit, I wouldn't be writing about Azealia if she'd been looking all tough in scary leathers and spikes. Instead, I see her as embodying so many things in the melting pot of mainstream Western culture right now. As the FashEd wrote earlier in the week, everything's got a bit BORING of late so listening to Banks is like turning all that on its head, shaking us awake and saying COME OUT TO PLAY. Her lyrics aren't the most profound ever and revolve quite a bit around sexual innuendo but at least they're challenging and provocative. She's an angry young woman. Her tangled but beautiful music reflects the frenzy felt by so many young people right now. From a fashion perspective, doing all this in a Mickey Mouse t-shirt takes what she's saying to another level. There's so much novelty, childish fashion on its way next year that the only way to do saccharine sweet without veering into vom territory is to add some Banks-ish attitude.

If a Disney jumper doesn't float your boat, a frill sock is a nice nod (image from GQ.COM)

I'm afraid I can't direct you to anywhere where you can purchase Azealia Banks' particular brand of f*ck you attitude but there are lots of Mickey tees about to get you started. Much more fun than a Colin Firth Christmas jumper.