"Where Real Style Goes!" - Mr. Darkwah
Paris, Moscow, New York, Tokyo and London - fashion capitals known for their pristine, prim and proper fashionistas and 'nistos. No doubt, if you decided to walk down London's Sloane Street, or Paris' Champs Elysees (not to mention anywhere in the other fashion capitals listed) you would be wowed by the beautiful understated luxury of rich fabrics, luscious furs and of course, drawn to the beautiful red soles of our high-power fashionistas.
That's all well and good but in all honesty, it does get rather boring. You find that more and more you can predict how people will be dressed because fashion is global and fashion capital have an image to uphold. Sadly, this image is slowly becoming the same image - no variation whatsoever. As a stylist, I seek the oddities in fashion and look to highlight their beauty and individual nature. Granted, beauty is subjective and so something I appreciate, you may think is garbage - I nevertheless aim to find the most fabulously outlandish styles and bring them to the fore!
For every prince, there is a pauper (or ten) and so for every Louboutin-donning fashionista, there is a Saucony-wearing, Skateboard-riding style icon! Want to know where to find them?
That's all well and good but in all honesty, it does get rather boring. You find that more and more you can predict how people will be dressed because fashion is global and fashion capital have an image to uphold. Sadly, this image is slowly becoming the same image - no variation whatsoever. As a stylist, I seek the oddities in fashion and look to highlight their beauty and individual nature. Granted, beauty is subjective and so something I appreciate, you may think is garbage - I nevertheless aim to find the most fabulously outlandish styles and bring them to the fore!
For every prince, there is a pauper (or ten) and so for every Louboutin-donning fashionista, there is a Saucony-wearing, Skateboard-riding style icon! Want to know where to find them?
Unlike Tokyo, Paris, Moscow and New York, you needn't go to one specific area of London to find these people. All you need to do is walk. I found myself stopping constantly as I walked the streets of Ladbroke Grove because someone's sneakers caught my eye. In Brixton, I couldn't help but ask people where they got their studded jackets and their creepers because they were so cool! I can't say I've felt underdressed in my life but I most definitely felt un-stylish next to this lot! My eyes were opened to a new movement. They say the Devil makes work for idle hands but here the results were solely heavenly! Upon asking about the jackets, I was told "I was bored and decided to stud my jacket. Got the studs off e-bay..." Clearly, I'd interrupted the flow of this young man's day but I felt it was well worth it!
Too often we are obsessed with brands and how much something costs. I found, looking at the style around me, that a lot of it was homemade! That wasn't all, though. Looking at the way skaters, "indie" kids and "hipsters" dressed, I realised, though little effort may have gone into it, the results were similar to those of editorials for VIBE magazine featuring Run DMC and the styling of characters like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Jazzy Jeff! Surely they couldn't know about all this? The styling, the brands, the painstaking effort to create a look that would sit well on the cover of a magazine and yet remain accessible to the masses? I thought they didn't but they did!
Too often we are obsessed with brands and how much something costs. I found, looking at the style around me, that a lot of it was homemade! That wasn't all, though. Looking at the way skaters, "indie" kids and "hipsters" dressed, I realised, though little effort may have gone into it, the results were similar to those of editorials for VIBE magazine featuring Run DMC and the styling of characters like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Jazzy Jeff! Surely they couldn't know about all this? The styling, the brands, the painstaking effort to create a look that would sit well on the cover of a magazine and yet remain accessible to the masses? I thought they didn't but they did!
The fact is, we don't need to be in the most expensive neighbourhoods or be in the most expensive clothes to be stylish. It's not what you wear but how you wear it. So if you're looking for real style - look to Brixton Market, Ladbroke Grove and its surrounding skateparks, Brick Lane and the night scene of Soho!
That's where real fashion goes!
Live Beautiful, Stay Vogue!
Ciao Bellissimi!
Mr. Darkwah
X
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"Appreciate the unappreciated" - Ary
Here's a little something I thought I'd share with you. More often than not, we see abandoned spaces as ugly and in need of rejuvenation or demolition rather than appreciating them for their 'alternative' beauty. Just because it's been left alone doesn't mean it can't be beautiful in its own right. Give it a look, then buy the book!
Ary
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"It's not a 'thing', it's a way of life!" - Mr. Darkwah
It's been a while since I last wrote and I apologise for that. I've been battling a serious bout of writer's block and finding new things out about myself and the way I perceive things. Recently, I've been thinking a lot about image and style. GaGa, Lagerfeld, Donatella, Madonna, Andre 3000 all have an image and a definitive style (in the case of GaGa, the style being "expect the unexpected"). Working as a stylist, I have to dress others and find out about them, what their style is and I have to put that forward every time they step out. Whether they are looking to brand themselves and become a 'staple image' or simply to find out about themselves and create a more consistent look - I must know what makes them up.
What I admire most about GaGa and Lagerfeld as well as the other famous names above is that they LIVE their style and are unafraid to become whatever character they create! It's who they are!
I look back at some of the outfits I've worn over the years - as a student when I thought it was 'cool' to wear my jeans low and trainers the size of baby elephants in the style of 'hipsters' and 'gangsta rappers' to the time I thought that the skinnier the jeans, the better the look (right until the point that simply walking was challenging the Titans because my jeans were so tight!) In this busy city, it's hard for us to take time out and think of these things, to think of the image you wish to portray of yourself outside of work when you're relaxing and being yourself; the image that you want that guy or girl who sits on the bus who you've been trying to talk to to see; the image you want to signify you. What is it?
I bet you never thought we would get this deep...
Well, my friend, that image you want to portray comes through in your style so be careful the image you're sending out. Too many times we fall victim to following a trend - what's in this season and how to wear it. That's all well and good but if you're blindly copying mannequins from Armani to Zara, you're never really going to understand what is and isn't you. I took a long, hard look at myself today and asked myself what my style was. Upon deciding, I started to live it. It's all about creating a solid image and making sure that you are one hundred percent comfortable with it.
So tell me, what is your style?
Just one of my musings...
Ciao Belissimi!
Mr. Darkwah
X
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"It seemed, for a while, that admiring beauty had become taboo!" - Mrs. Anne Isaacs to Mr. Darkwah
Skins. Misfits. Shameless. Summers of grungy, dark colours, obscured faces and 'bed hair'. This is what we have seen for the past 2 years in 'fashion'. People seemed to shun all previous ideas of beauty and move into what I like to call, for dramatic purposes of course, the darker realms of themselves and style. It was not until I was conversing with a friend of mine that I came to think of it as disdain or even hatred for admiring beauty.
Once said, I started to realise that it was very true - there was a reluctance that had been growing over the past few years for admiring beauty. Why? In discussion, some seemed to think it was a result of feminism gaining a stronghold on females everywhere and resulting in them not wanting their looks commented upon. This therefore led our beloved females to dress in such a way that their beauty was obscured - hidden so as not to be taken for "beautiful" or "stunning" and more for what they have to offer in substance.
Sounds very much like the beginnings of a psychology student's dissertation on the relationship between females and beauty, doesn't it?
Another set of acquaintances blames it on the ever-growing fear of being politically incorrect. What does political correctness have to do with beauty? If I'm perfectly honest with you (and I am, so don't begin to question that now) I feel this 'hype' around being politically correct is a load of old "hoo-ha"! (I didn't want to be vulgar so chose a colloquial term to express my opinion.) Why do we constantly feel the need to censor everything that comes out of our mouths in conversation to others for fear that we will offend someone else? More so, since when did telling someone that they are beautiful become a rude or offensive act?! Now, should a man comment on a young woman's beauty, however pure his intentions, he is regarded as a lecher for his comment - "Wow, she's very pretty isn't she?" - was lewd and derogatory.
I do not believe that it was only one of the mentioned factors but both, in conjunction that have created this problem. In my opinion, everyone has gone just a little bit 'soft' in becoming so wrapped up in political correctness. I mean, one can't say what they want without giving several disclaimers in a sentence and putting everything into a hypothetical scenario.
Let's try and move away from this, shall we? Beauty exists and so long as it does, there will be those who admire it. However, let us not focus solely on that. People have substance and we should aim to get to know them and how they think to be able to admire their minds as well as their looks.
Ciao Belissimi! (Hopefully that didn't offend any of you... Haha!)
Mr. Darkwah
X
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"It's not what you wear but how you wear it" - Rianna Croxford
It seems that more and more, the high street is being shied away from. This is perfectly understandable as economics teaches that as incomes rise, consumers will move away from the inferior goods that they consumed due to their income to the more superior goods. I feel that although this is one of the fundamental laws in economics that relates to all consumers everywhere, it should not have to be the case in fashion. Of course there will be the move up from New Look to Topshop and from Topshop to AllSaints but when one moves up so high that they feel all they should be wearing is Dolce&Gabbana, Gucci and Prada, it's a little odd - no?
Whenever I tell people I'm a stylist they seem to think that I only work with the large high-end fashion houses and refuse to touch high street. What they forget is that I am a stylist - not a brand promoter. I will go where I need to go to get the job done and this means that the high street option is never closed to me. It has come to my attention that as one walks down Oxford Street (and swiftly finds their way to New Bond Street - excuse the snobbery) there are too many "Gucci" belts and hats around as well as "Ralph Lauren" polos with the ponies on the wrong side or the wrong colour. Dead giveaways of fake merchandise. I used to like to believe that these people, donning the fakes were duped into thinking that they were real. What I didn't realise, however, was that I thought this because access to the brands that they had purchased fakes for was open to me all my life and still is now. It led me to think that there was a problem with wealth distribution (which undoubtedly there is - but I'll leave that to the politicians to sort out, back to fashion.)
I finally settled at the conclusion that they wanted these brands to impress. By wearing Gucci and Ralph Lauren, they were impressing their contemporaries and elevating themselves, I suppose. This, in my opinion, is the problem with people and fashion. One cannot allow the wearing of a brand to speak for oneself. What I mean is that my wearing Gucci or Prada does not make me look better or worse (well, depending on how the outfit is put together it could make you look worse) it is the way I put my outfit together. I have seen people wear clothes bought in a thrift store, taken home and altered by themselves and look better than me and it caused me to think about where I was going wrong in my style. Note that I asked where I was going wrong in my style and not in the brands I was wearing.
Skakespeare wrote that "the apparel oft proclaimeth the man" and this too, is true but remember, it is how you wear it, not just what you wear.
Ciao Belissimi!
Mr. Darkwah
X
