'J'aime mon Carré!' [i love my scarf] the Hermès pop-up in London

the forgotten

figures from ‘Climate Rush’ show that fewer than 1 in 5 mps are women, less than 1% of the world’s money is controlled by women and yet you can pick up a newspaper, look on the news or listen to the radio, and it's still unlikely that you've heard about black friday. 


on 18/11/2010 women marched outside parliament carrying candles in remembrance of 'black friday' to show their support for 100 years since the mistreatment of the women that protested against the dismissal of a bill that would allow women the vote.

The same day 100 years ago, 300 women marched to Parliament. This was after the then Prime Minister, announced that the Conciliation bill was considered unworthy of parliamentary time. The Conciliation Bill being a promise from the liberal government that women may be able to get closer to equality, and the vote would be given to some women.

 The 1910 demonstration proved less than successful with the suffragettes receiving around 100 arrests, 200 assaults reported and the death of two women. Modern day feminists revisited the same spot outside parliament on 18th, to celebrate 100 years in the progression of equality, and to show there's still people that will fight for it now. the irony being, the lack of media support and publicity goes to show that feminism is still considered taboo. a belief either ignored or mocked. people who fought for egalitarianism should be celebrated, how is it in modern times we're allowing real heroes to be forgotten? we're in danger of letting momentous parts in history pass us by, in 200 years will anyone be stood outside parliament with a candle? 

modern society still shows us gender inequality, our government has liberal influences - an ideology that claims to have equality at the heart of it, but equality of opportunity is still suffocated by the glass ceiling.

feminism for me is the fight for women's freedom. if you want to be a house wife, a judge, a landscape gardener, a surgeon...   then that is your prerogative and you should be considered for that job as a person over a woman. 

this is my tribute to the women who fought for our future, and to the people who are still fighting.

clive head at the national gallery

its not hard to see why this hyperrealist's exhibition has drawn in over 16000 people to the national gallery in the space of 2 mere weeks. ive always found all work surrounding hyperrealism intriguing, a kind of discreet 'fuck you' to technology, able to replicate the same visual allurements of photography with a paintbrush.
the exhibition was far too small for clive head's work. photorealism is one of THE most undermined art movements, i only hope this artist manages to reach the same recognition as avid perfectionist, and fellow photorealist chuck close (pictures below)

'we've removed the ceiling above our dreams, there are no more impossible dreams'

'Everyone was going to mental asylums for inspiration, but I just wanted to make HOT, SEXY clothes' - M WILLIAMSON

‘Tell the truth’, ‘don’t be bullied’ just a couple of pieces of industry advice given to us by fashion writer Colin McDowell. He seemed so sure of the advice he’d just given us, smiling to himself as he finished his sentence. ‘Though, it’s him you ought to be talking to’, he said pointing at the ever-glamorous Matthew Williamson, glowing from the 6 days he’d spent previously in the Maldives.

We had encountered them at a talk led by McDowell about Williamson at the V&A only a few days ago. I spent the night in awe, completely dazzled by my surrounding; from the lecture theatre itself, to the flock of well-dressed people around me. 

We'd made it early - much to Jordan’s relief. The room began to fill, and each seat was slowly taken (we'd tactically taken the centre-left row) the room then became silent with the presence of the people in the front row: fashion folk. Presumably friends of Williamson. my friend turned to me, 'they are beautiful', I agreed. 

There were only a few spaces left vacant on the front row, a man entered one but last: hair slick back, and dressed in a smart tweed knee-length coat. He removed his coat to unveil an expensive tailored suit. He turned to the audience, scanned the crowd and paused as though he was waiting for an applause before facing the front and once again taking his seat. 

Williamson's limelight was definitely not compromised by his audience though, the strangers watched and listened intently to the designers ability to talk so openly about his life. From living happily in Manchester to meeting his partner (- and now business partner) Joseph. The objection of course to sell as many publications of his latest book as possible.

There were hundreds stacked outside the hall, and I'm sure hundreds were sold. I cheerfully bought into the hype, a momentum from my inspirational evening. 

We left absolutely buzzing.

Williamson stopped us on the street to borrow a light, after blowing a cloud of smoke into the air above us he thanked us for our attendance and returned to his friends. Fancy that, Matthew Williamson thanking us for our attendance, not baaaad for a first encounter! 

memoirs of a beatnik

'"what do you suppose happened to all those beatniks?" mused a blonde freshman as she drove me back to San Francisco after my reading at Berkeley last year.
Well sweetie, some of us sold out and became hippies. And some of us managed to preserve our integrity by accepting government grants, or writing pornographic novels. John Wieners is mad and in make-up in Buffalo, Fred Herko walked out a window, Gary Snyder is a Zen priest.
You name it. Or, as my eleven-year-old daughter recently said to me, remembering the early years of her childhood: "I really miss those old days. They were hard, but they were beautiful."
Things now are more like pretty. A New Age, with a bit of the baby fat still showing.


Stay stoned.'

what does 'city' mean to you?

Recently I visited the Truman Brewery, an arts hub in Spitalfields, east London. I found myself wandering around an almost clinical room, bare with only photos hanging on the walls, it was silent and possibly the only way to inhale the wide variation of ideas at the exhibition supporting shootnations.org. 


The organisation encourages youths to participate in creative activities, by way of a photography competition. I was surprised to find myself so taken with this work; admittedly I was expecting nothing more than amateur photography, but I was genuinely surprised by the amount of talent, some of the following pictures really caught my eye..


 

the last picture in particular reinstates the idea that even among all the urbanisation, the city is full of surprise and never lacks resourcefulness. It made me think, what does the city mean to me?- having only recently moved so close to London from a small regency town in the West country - and this is conclusion I came to:

For me the city is filled with atmosphere, more so than with the country. I've always hated the idea of 'escape to the country', I've lived there, it's not that great, and so here's to my escape to the City... The city is full of magic, fuelling the soul with energy and yet obtaining the ability to take it from you again at any second. It never sleeps.
Walking slowly is not an option, because everything goes at 1 million mph and if you dare stand still you will get left behind. I'm not blind to the city's darker side, but with London (and with any city), it's about finding the treasures that lie between the smokestacks.

ceci n'est une blog

there is no better way to document art, culture and fashion through my own eyes than by way of a blog and so here i am debuting 'pass the msg'. I hope to reveal in this blog a different perspective on new, unheard of and generally lesser publicised areas of the creative arts. 


HAPPY READING!