Prose

Everything has to be Bigger

Prose

Everything has to be Bigger

David Byrne's Big Suit

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As a platform for performance, the stage lends itself ideally to the pushing of sartorial boundaries to entertain an audience, so its no surprise that most ‘fashion moments’ in have occurred in this medium. From Josephine Baker to David Bowie, fashion and the arts share these seminal and nostalgically symbolic images. Novelty and expression are the most important notions of the stage, to amaze and push boundaries for an audience is only the beginnings of successful entertainment.

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Lucifer Rising

Prose

Lucifer Rising

Revisiting Kenneth Anger

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Filmed between 1966 and 1980 by the self-proclaimed Magus of cinema, Kenneth Anger, Lucifer Rising is Anger’s portrait of the love generation, the dawning of a new age and morality. Continuing on from his previous works where fashion becomes a tool of power to conjure a magical sense of being, an invisible and volatile force, Lucifer Rising furthers this exploration crossing through millennia and civilisations.

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The Monochromatic Power of the White Shirt

Prose

The Monochromatic Power of the White Shirt

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The white shirt: a neutral surface and the basis of a man’s wardrobe – according to many-a-style manual. And thus, the white shirt is invariably presented as a garment that serves as the canvas against which the wearer’s individuality will emerge. According to this line of thought, the white shirt focuses and frames the body, while itself receding quietly into the background.

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Fashion and the Moving Image

Prose

Fashion and the Moving Image

Jack Smith's Flaming Creatures

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With the power to transgress social codes and conventions, clothes can reveal themselves as a weapon, a provocation, a liberation; in darker times, repression. From documentaries to features to recordings of performances, this series of films explores fashion’s intimate complicity to the film medium in order to summon power in both contemporary and past times.

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Fierce Fashion

Prose

Fierce Fashion

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Many women have begun to dip into the blog world, penning their own ideas about fashion, beauty and the fashion industry. However, there exists another group of women, who like Stovall are short and curvy and fierce and black, that are taking a grass roots approach to disseminating ideas about the fashion industry.

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BY THE BOOK?

Prose

BY THE BOOK?

CR FASHION BOOK AND THE EDITOR'S NEW MODES

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This month sees the second instalment of former French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld’s new biannual publication, CR Fashion Book. But what exactly is a ‘fashion book’? It’s a slightly heavy-handed concept, but one designed, it seems, to disassociate Roitfeld’s venture from the mere realm of the mass-produced, market-dictated, fashion magazine, exemplified by ex-employer Condé Nast’s multi-national, industry-defining platform.

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The Power of the Logo

Opinion Prose

The Power of the Logo

Collective Distinction and Inconspicuous Consumption

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The power of fashion as a purveyor of possible selves has long been documented and discussed in fashion literature from a plethora of vantage points. Yet with the fashion weeks in full steam around us, I couldn’t help but contemplate this phenomenon; fashion savants in all their glory vying for uniqueness whilst simultaneously maintaining a firm identity as ‘one of the gang’.

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