Appreciating The Past, Debbie does..

Long before Chloe thought doubling up on denim would be good, Blondie had it down to a t. or... jacket and jeans.



(Chloe S/S 10, Style.com)


Blondie and her Futuristic Grunge


Taking on the sporty trend without even knowing it.


Sequins and one shoulder..hello Balmain spring/summer 2009!

Bloggamonsta xxx

Appreciating the Past

Hello bloggatrons!

I think I'm going to have to stop apologising for my lack of blogs because it looks like my 5 posts a month could be the limit for a while! I'm afraid at the moment I'm not feeling hugely inspired by anything to really blog about. Maybe it's because of the amount of time I'm spending on my own work. (*I'd like to take "amount of" out of that sentence please.) Don't get me wrong most photoshoots are fantastic and my favourite designers are called that for a reason but finding something hugely original in the 10sies is hard to come by. It got me thinking about the days when the designers ruled the roost and everything was in the name of fashion, was there more originality out there? Probably.

Now that youth culture and street style influence the fashion industry more than the hierarchy of designers itself, we have more wearability and updated versions of last seasons, which is great but I guess looking back to the 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s everything looked so new and fresh! Mary Quant and the mini skirt, Westwood with her punk roots, 1980's power dressing and 1990's Cobain Grunge. I wonder what the 00's will be remembered for? It's a mish mash decade. Britney Spears's midriff; hardly the most breakthrough fashion moment, Kate Moss's heroin chic'ish style (with pete doherty on her arm to give the heroin part proper meaning), Olsen's bag lady chic which I still love, paris hilton, nicole ritchie, I guess this was the decade of the celebrity? Apart from Spear's midriff, Kate moss and the olsen's style are each based on fashion from the past. I wonder have we reached our fashion quota? Is everything from now on reuse, recycle? I'm not complaining, I'd like to live in leggings forever.

Anyway time to appreciate fashion moments from the past!

1960's Mini Skirt


Edie Sedgewick, if only to have been best buddies with Edie... sniff


Sid Vicious, Punk


Bowis as Ziggy


Melanie Griffith, Power dresser in Working Girl.


Grunge


My so called Life, If only Jared Leto would stop putting eye liner on and return to his grunge roots.

Bloggamonsta xx

Camping and the Villagers

Hello my fair bloggatrons!

So it's just a short one, I've been a serial procrastinator all morning and must start work ASAP! I blame it on the Gaurdian, it started me off on the wrong foot with it's fantastic feature on Ms.Jones, comfort set in and then the friggen Kardashians got me. Anyway two episodes later I'm blogging! Still slightly procrastinating but at least this way I'm getting inspired and keeping up to date with up and coming trends? Cough.

Love the eclectic styling of this photoshoot. And the model is FAB. Drooling over the Westwood piece in image three and hello camping bra! LOVE. Jill Sander piece is also b.e.a.utiful (Image 1). Another slight tribal, urban-warrior shoot with a deconstruction element, my favourite.







(Images are from Fashiongonerogue.com)

Oh before I go, I was flicking through the channels last night after watching Girl, Interrupted with m'ladies, and came across The Villagers on Jools Holland! Had an ole youtube today but only one song has been uploaded, I'm waiting eagerly for the rest. Check out this video from an Irish show based around young musicians, the dog howl is featured which is a yeehaw moment. (Although keep in mind when I saw them they were a five piece and the sound was alot better, y'know cos it's not coming from..eh.. a laptop.)


Hope you enjoy!

Bloggamonstaxxx

FabricFunsies

Hello Bloggsters,

I'm back from Landon Landon with 50 metres of fabrics and a bag of trims in tow. My purse feels alot lighter but I'm quite happy with my choices so it could be worse. Y'know like coming home and realising I hate everything? Yes that would be alot worse.
So it was a super short visit for Libster and I but as always the city treated us well. Goldhawke road (fabric street in london, great fabric at affordable prices) was walked for the majority of thursday and then Berwick St/ Oxford St was tackled on friday, then back on the plane to ye ole Emerald Isle on Friday evening. Every penny of my money was spent on fabric so unfortunetly I don't even have a key ring to photograph and post up, it took alot to walk through Oxford St and not venture in. I'm becoming responsible at last!
Here are a few samples from my fabrics which range from Jersey, Lace, Tulle, Dutchess Satin, Silk Twill and Chiffon;


The trims are from MacCulloch & Wallace;

Fell in love with the bronze circle buckle, aswell as my 5 buttons for £1.50.

Kleins;
Beads and rivets; a £1 a bag. I'd buy a bag of stones if it was priced at a £1. I do like these though, they'll be used for something I'm sure.


Although it was all go go go, we did squeeze in a delish vietnamese on thursday night on Kingsland rd with Rory, our fellow fashionisto, where we chatted over vino and then chatted some more in Dreambags Jaguar Shoes with our friend gin! It really couldn't have been better! Squishy couches, dimly lit rooms, music and snuggles; the beeswax. Wish I had more photos to upload for you guys, I'll do better next time.

(Dreambags Jaguar Shoes, Kingsland rd)

Bloggamonsta xxx

P.S. I saw Control for the first time last night with Lobster, now that is worth a blog! Maybe tomorrow...

Bloggamonsta xxx

Jerry Hall and Studio 54

Bloggatrons,

So it's just a short one. Last night I watched The Late Late show which is, for those of you who don't know, Ireland's answer to The Tonight Show except with less glamour and alot less budget. For those of you who do, don't make any hasty remarks until you've sat through a full show, it's good! Anyway, Jerry Hall was on chatting about her days in Studio 54 hanging with the likes of Warhol, Jagger, Grace Jones and it just got me thinking how much I would kill to go back there to experience Studio 54 at it's height! Unfortunetly I can't do that but I can photoshop my face into these images. Jerry Hall looks like such a fox!
How random is the last one though of her and blondie? Slightly.






(Images from Google)
Bloggamonsta xxx

Apologies!

I've been a very bad blogger. Lack of attention for my bloggamonsta blog makes me sad and mad! This will change. It's just been a busy, but exciting, past few weeks. Aswell as teaching the kids and teens of Ireland how to sew and make dresses(I feel it's my duty), I also became a finalist in a national jewellery designer of the year competition which was random since it was only something I entered to dust off my portfolio! It was a really great experience, brilliant production (much bigger than I ever thought it would be) and it opened my eyes to an area I'd probably like to look into more. Anyhu I didn't win, but you know it's not the winning that matters it's the taking part blah blah blah. Ha! Just joking! Or am I? No really I am. Getting my pieces back next week so as soon as I have them I'll take photos and upload. Hopefully Bloggamom will collect them for me as I'll be in London with fair libster buying fabric. Yay!

Other than that, the other aspect thats taking up part of my life is a little fashion adventure me and my two ladies libster and babz like to call the "The Melting Pot." This consists of us three NY wannabe goobs working on our own seperate mini-collections, and getting together with a few other creative goobs to hold an exhibition in the big L(ahem, Limerick) at the end of May. A fashion adventure which we promised ourselves would be a chilled and fun experience of whatever tickled our fancy whether it's a full blown collection, accessories or bits of both. I'm going for the bits of both. *I at least thought "The Melting Pot" sounded semi-original until I typed it into google to find over a million other melting pots! I should've known stealing it off Jay-z would have repercussions.

We've set up a blog to track our progress and ideas and I'll post the address as soon as we actually have stuff up to look at. Hopefully that'll be soon my bloggsters! Libster has already wrote an award-winning introduction.

On the offhand, I had my first car bump on wednesday. It was pretty terrible, the embarrassment that is, the bump was not evident, infact it was more like a dirt scratch. It was in my local supermarket and I was wearing my leopard print jacket and a headscarf (hardly the most inconspicuos) and the few people that were around gave me that "sharp fingernails scratching a chalk board" look. I fucking hate that look! Anyway I survived, left my phone number and nobody called...yet, hopefully they won't. Ever.

Woah longer post than expected! Hope it wasn't too much of snoozefest my dear bloggatrons.

Love Bloggamonsta
xxx

We Still Got the Taste Dancing on our Tongues

Followers!

My life was moved in a pretty dramatic way last night! Yes I know, a powerful statement but it's true. The three banditeers(bloggabro took the place of lobster, sorry lobster) took on the villagers and the wild beasts- A FANTASTIC gig (Caps Lock never lies). T-bag even said it was in his Top 5 best gigs and he's quite hard to please. Bloggabro, who is quite the wild beast stalker, also enjoyed it v.much.

The villagers; a one-man band I've heard little about definitely started the bloggamonsta's night off to a good note. Pun-intended! A guy from Dublin, who reminded me of an elf and a little bit of alex turner. He heavily pronounced all his S's and C's, and did this amazing dog howl in one song. -A highlight for me. His voice was just incredible! The band and him were really tight, it was like they created a wall of sound, with the villager nearly being hit by the guitar a few times in the process.

Note: I don't particularly like using the word "tight", I think it belongs to people who can play instruments, and who know the proper meaning of "tight". For me, tight just means no obvious mistakes and...eh..sounding good.

Wild beasts came on not so long after and were equally as great! I've listened to the album on and off for the last few weeks but after seeing them live it's been on constant replay all day! A sign of how good the gig was I think. The delicous old-hollywood looking main singer with the high pitched voice (kinda reminded me of anthony and the johnsons) was b.e.a.utiful in every sense of the word. The guitartist(who was also jammin) had this elaborate quiff while the bass/singer had a chunky cable knit cardigan that I wanted to steal. I also wanted these;

(Old-Hollywood's shoes.)

And not to leave the drummer out, he was also v.good. Infacto Bloggabro and T.bag thoroughly enjoyed him and mentioned how the sound of the drums get slightly lost in the album production. I kinda understand what they're talking about but the music is still just so out there! The banditeers were chatting on the way home about how whoever discovered them must have thought they struck gold, such an original sound.


For those who would like to give them an ole listen but don't know where to start I would recommend; The Devils Crayon, Two Dancers part1, We Still Got the taste Dancing on our Tongues, Hooting and Howling and the faithful (and the one that got me interested in the first place) All the King's Men. Enjoy my blogsters!

With love, Bloggamonsta xxx

I Heart Cooperative Designs.

Bloggatrons!

It pains me to see only three posts for March. My blog looks so sad and neglected...sniff. But I'm back and I have lots of stuff to write about! Well not lots, but bits and pieces.

London Fashion Week came and went so quickly, I was a little out of breath. I didn't get to write about all the shows I wanted and thats all I wanted to do bloggatrons! But it would've been forced and I would've re-used words like "beautiful" and "textural" alot, so instead of showing everyone how small my vocabulary is I made a mental note of the ones I was going to come back to.
So this is where Co-operative Designs comes in! A label made up of two designers who met in CSM on a MA and what they have created since leaving has been nothing short of inspiring. The traditional use of knitwear and the modern twist they give it with their weird shapes, innovative patterns and a techno hit through colour seem to be the unofficial ethos of the label. S/S 2010 has a tribal feel, which echoes through a few of their earlier collections, but is by far the most obvious of them all. Maybe "tribal" isn't the right word? More urban warrior? Hmmm I think so.



You're limited in what you can do texturally with knit, but they take the obvious and reinvent it! And most importantly, the pieces are so wearable. What I would do for this pompom jumper from A/W 09.


I've only been following since spring/summer 2010 but I've been looking into their small but impressive archive ever since. My favourite collection has to be A/W 10, it's like they've found their comfort zone. The earlier collections have a fun youthful factor but I think A/W 10 is brilliantly executed and has a real high fashion feel of sophisticated edginess- Parisian love will be coming their way if not there already!




(Above images from www.cooperative-designs.com)

I <3 Cooperative Designs.

Bloggamonsta xxx

Foals, Spanish Sahara

Bloggatrons,

I'm sorry about the lack of posts lately. Busy Busy trying to get things done and organised, I'll hopefully be back to normal next week with pics and funny things to say (one can only hope). In the meantime enjoy this doozy; Foals first single off their second album- Total Life Forever. So lovely and chilled, bit of a head/ shoulder mover and v.different from anything on the Antidotes album. Love the video.
Do you have a song that you just wished everyday life would move in slow motion to? Well I have loads (not really sure what that says about me) but this is definitely added to the list!

Hope you enjoy followers!



Bloggamonsta xxx