What has happened to the designer??!

As London fashion week has just gone, I thought I'd talk about my main love, that is of course; Fashion. Now I am a great lover of the designer and all things designer, especially Louis Vuitton (god bless you Marc Jacobs for your divine tribute to the fab fifties!) and I would love nothing more than to carry a Vivienne Westwood bag on my shoulder or wear a Chanel Dress down to the shops but due to lack of funding of being a student... this isn't happening anytime soon.
   Which leads me onto the subject of my latest entry, in today's world of labels and brands, is Designer losing its individuality and its edge? I currently live in Chatham, most of you know this and as I was walking through the town centre recently, I noticed several ladies sporting Louis Vuitton handbags, we all know the famous design and yes we would all love one, but I was surprised of all places to see them in Chatham, because its not one of the most "up and coming"  towns and definitely isn't known for its designer stores. But it made me think, designer labels such as this, were once for the well off or a special treat for ones self on pay day at the end of the month. Now it seems everyone is wearing designer, be it make up, jewellery, sunglasses or an actual garment.
    I'm not sure if I like this, if its like this it seems to lose its authenticity because it is so accessible, people can now feel part of a certain crowd which they never did before and without having to go out and get a second mortgage! Which of course to these people is a brilliant thing, but to me, I see it as something to strive and work for, when I've bought something from Vivienne Westwood or YSL, I know I've hit the big time, its an achievement. People don't see buying a £20 Dior Lipstick as an achievement, they see it as an essential, why? Because it is simply now affordable.



Is this the next step for designers?



    

This is probably what designers are aiming for, of course the more people that buy their brand, the more known they become, and the more money they earn. Surely though, they would still want to keep their morals and values for clothing, otherwise they would simply become high street. With everyone wearing the latest Prada shoes and carrying this seasons Stella McCartney purse, is this a sign of things to come? They still keep the prices on their garments because of course they use the finest fabrics, so what is it? Do people now have bigger bank balances? Or are designers making themselves more accessible for lower earners by designing for high street stores such as H&M, this of course is another way people can grab themselves a bit of designer for more than half the price and quality.
    I don't know, I'm just as confused as the next girl, has the fashion world gone mad? Only time will tell.
Until next time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Bettina Scarlett styling Miss Dollface Darling

So here I am again, making yet another apology because I've fell behind on my blog! How terrible! I really cant be doing this can I, but as I've just started this one, I have just had a few more light bulbs light up in that little brain of mine so hopefully I'll keep going for a bit! Being back at university really is taking its toll. On my course we've been thrown in the deep end with a creative styling project which is great as over the summer I had a bit more experience in styling a photoshoot for my beautiful friend Dollface Darling.
   If you remember from past posts me and Dollface got on like a house on fire at a photoshoot we did at the East Anglian transport museum so as I was looking for some styling experience I tagged along to a photoshoot her and the delightful Dominic Fenn had at the beginning of September, here are a few of my fave shots! All of which are unedited.

I loved this idea of Dominic taking the photo over Dollface when she is surrounded by sweets

Originally Dollface's idea was a cupcake shoot with her baking cakes etc so when she told me I started researching a few kitsch ideas and as I still worked in my delightful seaside cafe I managed to pick up lots of goodies! including rainbow sticks of rock, windmills, a hulahoop and lollies! So we were going off the subject a bit but I think the images were really successful, Dollface brought a selection of outfits so I picked what went with what including accessories I'd brought along and gave her my thoughts on how she should do her eye make up and hair .

How much can you do with a hula hoop? Well we were limited but Dollface managed to work with it very well and this is one of my favourite shots

I got inspiration for this image from a vintage photograph of the fifties of a lady with a hulahoop, I can't find the image now which has annoyed me because I would of liked to show my references

Final two images with the windmills, the colours worked really well with what Dollface was wearing, I chose well even if I do say so myself!



Name that style... Just call it vintage darling

So here are a few of  peoples gorgeous mug shots I took in and around London and Norwich for part of my creative styling summer project for university, the idea was we had to create some vox pops, be style hunters, take snap shots of any passers by that I caught my eye. Now being into everything 50s I could of easily gone and took photos of any rockin people but I thought no I'm going to give myself a challenge, and boy did I set myself a challenge, because where I'm originally from, Lowestoft, the most easterly point in Britain, the town that gave birth to glam rock band the Darkness, basically a very dreary old town with not a lot going on (can you see why I moved away!) , you're not exactly going to see the next  Alexa Chung wandering the streets!

    Trying to find interesting people to take pictures of in Lowestoft was rather tricky, unless I wanted chav chic or emo edge, I had to get outta town. So after running up to people and making a div of myself here are a few of the people I got some snaps of... Enjoy!

So all a bit different wouldn't you say? It did make me giggle to myself that when I asked each one how they would describe their style, they all said vintage, the question is though vintage what? What decade of vintage? I think its very obvious that vintage is heavily in fashion and people don't like to stick to one decade like me (Which I will admit can limit ideas sometimes!) And I think why not, that's what fashion is all about, experimenting with a bit of everything until you find your own style, so maybe that is why these lovelies found it so difficult to pinpoint what they were, they were still just experimenting!

I still have a good few more to take, I didn't put all of the images I had taken up, just my few favourites, I took all of their names but at the moment the piece of paper with these details on are somewhere in a cardboard box packed away until I move!

Until Next Time

Toodle pip!

xxx