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Cinderella

Sunday, March 4, 2012

This week that imminent question of what I am going to do after I graduate has been plaguing my mind. It’s as if my thoughts are scholastically timed, because today in class, the topic became a discussion as we waited for the fire alarm to stop. All us students and our tutor huddled outside a grand new building with ridiculous art-deco design (seriously, what is that entrance about!) But yes, in my undergraduate studies, it was as if I couldn’t care less. I was adamant that some glorious position would appear out of thin air in a very Cinderella and the golden carriage sort of way. Evidently, the chance to fly to New York City and intern at a Brooklyn newspaper did present itself and it was a joyous occasion, but I have a suspecting fear that it’s not going to happen again.

If an internship position did seem to fall in my lap, I’m not sure that I would take it. I have already carried out three different internships. Yes they were all different, varying in position, length and also country, and I learnt numerous amounts, but I need money. There I said it. I cannot go on working for free, especially after I have already spent a year working full-time and know what it is like to earn a salary. Somehow, probably by stupidity on both mine and Mr Allure’s parts, when we were both earning good money, we still ended up being as skint as we are now at the end of every month. My wages have pretty much halved since going freelance and only working two days a week. Again, that has got to be our own stupidity, or glamorous shopping habits. I digress, the point is I want to go straight into a position. What position it may be, I am unsure of as I do not want to work my way up on a magazine anymore.

I somehow survived a day as a work experience girl at More Magazine, last December. There were 6 of us girls huddled, on the floor. ON THE FLOOR, in the corner, attempting to make sense of the returns and send them on their merry way. I say make sense, because each time, it looked like we might be getting somewhere, a dare-I-say snotty fashion assistant would come and lumber us with more. Now if I wanted to work for More Magazine, I would have sucked it up and done what was expected of me and more. And I would have done it with a smile, but I don’t want to work at More. It really isn’t me. To be honest, there probably are only a handful of titles that I could actually see myself working for. But now I have decided that is not the route for me anyway. This week I have been having glorious day dreams were I somehow meet a publisher and we get talking about my idea for a novel, he laps it up and throws me a book deal with a huge advance and I don’t have to actually get a job. I get to do my favourite thing – write. And make money. Maybe this would be the prince part of my Cinderella story.

So Out of Style

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Yesterday was the start of fashion week. And if you’re on Twitter, you’re either loving the constant updates or wishing you could hide in a cyber cave for a week till all the fashion dies down. I, however, am enjoying finding out about the shows and those that are in attendance. Fashion Week is a time to show the world your creations, to show how you express yourself and what you’re trying to say. But I’m not talking about the designers.

Walking along the Strand heading towards Somerset House, I could spot the attendees a mile off. Their clutch bags, and platform heels – and that was just some of the guys. One guy had decided to turn a pirate hat into a miraculous head-piece by adding a brooch on the left side. He almost pulled it off. I even saw another man with the proverbial grunge attire pair it with an Asian style nose-ring piece of jewellery that attached to his right ear. You can be as outlandish as you want if you have the confidence to pull it off.

No over-the-top head-gear or jewellery for me, I stuck to a plain maroon maxi skirt, mint acne t-shirt and black leather jacket, but was still stopped to be snapped for a street style picture – my initiation into the pack. What was even more glamorous was having my hair blown out at the Toni & Guy pop up blow bar. Although I overheard the man beside me explaining that he had been up for 28 hours and had just flown in from New York that morning. He was also insisting that he didn’t look exhausted, yet. Which is true, he did look serene but he still had a glazed look in his eye. But maybe it had to do with the fact he had just cut the queue, and had a lovely head massage while the assistant washed his hair, but as soon as the announcement that the PPQ show was about to start, panic set in, and the fear that he might miss a show, especially for a reason such as getting his hair done, was too much to handle. He rushed off without even letting the hair stylist show him the back of his head.

If you actually take a moment to read the many, many tweets containing #LFW, you can see that most are not about the design talent, but actually they are the journalists and other fashionistas complaining. Complaining about being too tired, about having to wait to long, about needing coffee or even just an update to tell us they are on the way to show. These tweets started to come into being the night before, as there were a few pre-London Fashion Week presentations to start the whole ordeal off. So the following morning, if you happen to follow me on twitter, you’ll see that I started by saying how excited I am that it’s fashion week. Although, I think that’s really out of style.

PETA’s Anti-Leather Campaign Hits LFW

Friday, February 10, 2012

I’ve been a vegetarian for years now, seven to be exact. Although technically I’m a pescetarian as I eat fish. It’s not that I disagree with the killing of animals I just don’t like meat, although there was a time when apparently I was in a McDonald’s late at night, shouting out for a Big Mac (I never even ate them when I did eat meat!) I tried being a vegan once, but ended up eating too many carbs, so that was thrown out immediately. My diet choices, as you can probably tell, have nothing to do with the welfare of animals – I cook meat, I just don’t eat it. I wear leather and if I saw a beautiful fur coat, I would buy it; I wouldn’t toss it aside for moral reasons. Again, that’s just me. I understand people’s choices and opinions on these matters, but as a student of fashion, someone obsessed with designers, when I see a leather See by Chloe purse, I see a beautifully soft-to-touch accessory I want, which probably costs more money than I can hold in it. What I don’t see is the cow that was killed to make it.

The world of fashion has always been split over the fur debate, but this week I received and email from PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Foundation telling me about the first anti-leather campaign which is being launched ahead of London Fashion Week and has Stella McCartney as its ambassador. They are urging fashionistas to shed not only fur but also leather this London Fashion Week with a viral video exposé of the skins trade, hosted by McCartney. “As a designer, I like to work with fabrics that don’t bleed; that’s why I avoid all animal skins”, says McCartney in the video. She goes on to plea with the fashion obsessed to “please join me in exploring the huge variety of fashionable shoes, belts, purses and wallets that aren’t the product of a cow’s violent death.”

Now I understand that the killing of cows in a cruel way is horrible, but aren’t the battery farms filled with feather-less chickens just as bad? If you are planning on starting an anti-fur campaign I think a target audience of Alexander Wang bags and Christian Louboutin Heel owners is the wrong place to start. These fashion loving individuals, some of whom wear fur, are not going to give up their platform heels and oversized totes because Stella McCartney says so. Unless of course there is the chance they might get a piece from her Autumn/Winter 2012 collection.

I think it’s great to feel this passionate about a cause and to have someone as influential as Stella McCartney backing it. I do hope they raise awareness, but actually being able to turn London Fashion Week against leather might just be too far out of reach. Even for a McCartney.

For more information or to view PETA’s video, please visit PETA.org.uk or click here

Wobbling In Heels

Friday, February 3, 2012

Welcome to my new idea. It’s a weekly column on Notes On Allure called Wobbling In Heels, accurately named due to my platform heels that have aided my signature stomp, but also because I find myself wobbling through life [insert visual image]. But it’s not just me, it’s my friends, my fellow MA students and even my whole generation; I might even go as far as to push it to my culture. Now I can’t hope to define my culture or generation in words, even though I may try, but I can give you all an insight into life as a struggling fashion and lifestyle student, one that would rather splash out on Acne in the Liberty sales and do the weekly shop at Waitrose then give up the pseudo lifestyle and admit I have no money. So this is my weekly space to rant, vent and tell you a little about life as a student, life as aspiring writer and also life, as I know it. Welcome.

I can be a little impulsive. I decided to part-take in a master’s degree one month before applications were due, and three months later I was enrolled on the course. But do not let this impulsiveness fool you. I am also extremely calculated and organised, so much so that I have already started scouring the internet for ideas and positions for when I finish my degree. Let me remind you I graduate at the end of September. It’s now the 3^rd of February. Yes, I know my mother would be so proud, yours might even be too, but the fact is I have found myself this week applying to positions that if lucky enough to be asked to interview, and then fortunate enough to get, I would have to decline because I am still studying, and hell, I’ve paid this much, I am going to finish the course. But here’s the dilemma; you take a MA to get a job, if that job is there now for the taking, don’t you take it? I have friends who graduated the same time as me from their undergraduate course in 2010 and still haven’t found jobs. Brilliant candidates too. But I digress, I have not been offered anything, this is all in my head.

Big, pretentious words have also been filling my head this week. I caught the deadly cold, a virus so strong it actually had the entire office, where I work freelance off sick. And so I started reading my way through the list of Fashion Theory books assigned to us this semester. There was a certain Homer element to the prose; long, confusing at times with big words that I have to admit, sometimes could have been replaced with shorter, more accessible terms. The difference being I loved reading Homer, I was taken to the far off place of my ancestors – I couldn’t put it down. The books I have been reading this week are written by fashion historians and academics that feel they have to write in this almost pompous way to express the fact that fashion is not shallow and an expensive fad that is hard to keep up with, but sophisticated and educated. Fashion is what it is. People love it, others hate it. It makes statements and sells clothes. We do not have to write in a certain exaggerated manner to make people believe there is depth in the subject. Saying that, some of the books I have looked at make valid and significant points, others I have to realise where written in past generations that probably needed to give this view to the rest of the world. Nowadays though, fashion is what you make it, everyone has an opinion. This column over weeks to come will outline mine. What’s yours?

N.O.A

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