World Poetry Day – everyone’s a poet

Happy World Poetry Day one and all!

This date hadn’t occurred to me until reading the wonderful Lucy Mangan in this week’s Stylist magazine, and though she decries the artform as not for her, even she manages to finish her column with a spontaneous burst of verse. Granted, she is a literary fireball, but in four short funny lines, she nailed a little ditty just like that:

“The boy stood on the burning deck,

His feet were full of blisters.

The flames came up and burned his pants

And now he wears his sister’s.”

Why not have a go today? You can pick anything – the most mundane subjects usually herald the funniest results – and pen a few lines. Share your efforts in the comments below.

I’ve recently rediscovered the sometimes therapeutic benefits of writing verse, which you can check out in the Poetry Please series.

*Image via addletters.com

Dolce & Gabbana’s starry-eyed surprise

When I reached for my default monthly glossy at a newsagent’s last weekend, it wasn’t the alluring doe-eyed Lily Allen that caught my eye so much as what the former popstrel was wearing – enveloped as she was in an utterly divine combination of navy lace and white-star print fabric. Exhibit A:

Being a traditional type who reads a magazine front to back (and supplements first, always), I had yet to discover who devised this luxe creation – until I picked up the latest Grazia where I learned it was indeed the handiwork of D&G.

What Gods. The piece full length (below) is a very civilised below-knee length, devastatingly figure-hugging in all the right places, sleeves that comfortably fall beyond the wrist (always a love of mine) and playfully displaying just a hint of Americana (which, frankly is probably what really sold me).

It then transpired that the rest of their fall collection displayed more than a hint of astronomically inspired prints across pretty much every third look in the collection (my ultimate favourite being the fabulously floaty high-necked maxi – maximum fabric, maximum stars, maximum impact). Basically, if you stood still long enough in their studio last winter, you got showered with stars.

Of all the trends I have seen so far this summer, and now that we move swiftly into autumn (err, where was our British summer exactly?) this is by far my favourite.

So I set about picking out a few stars of the High Street just to see how one could acquire a decent handful of star-dust without paying D&G prices. Well, it turns out we’re spoilt for choice. Click to purchase any of the pieces pulled below.

Cream star print long line vest - River Island - £25

Star Print Bandeau Playsuit - TopShop - £26

Louche Julie Star Print Skirt - Joy - £20.30 (REDUCED from £29)

Jodie Star Print Jumpsuit - Boohoo.com - £20

Scatter Star Scarf - Oasis - £18

All over star print waterfall dress - Therapy at House of Fraser - £31.50 (REDUCED from £45)

All Over Star Tights - Miss Selfridge - £8.50

Shooting Star Wellington Boots - Cath Kidston - £38

Nika Zupanc’s answer to my eternally messy desk

Those who know me in a professional environment will be aware that ‘tidy desk, tidy mind’ is not my guiding principle. Even by @stephbranston‘s standards, it could use a bit of a clean up.

So when browsing this month’s Wallpaper* magazine, imagine my joy at seeing a perfect solution.

Nika Zupanc's 'Homework' desk. 'The proverbial messy desk just became a thing of the past.'

I love it – the stylish way the get rid of all those pesky papers. Use it flat, then lift up the flap to store all the paperwork on the concertina folds that acts as shelving. Then the whole thing folds away, paperwork intact like nothing was ever there. Luxe, tidy and a convenient place to hide away all those store card bills. Perfection.

Shame I’ll need to drop €6,000 to claim one. But if you are in the market for some expensive homework organising, drop by www.nikazupanc.com.

Wallpaper*: Fashion Week by numbers

I’ve been meaning to post this for ages. Well, since Fashion Week actually.

Wallpaper* magazine, that creative authority on all things design, dedicated their whole March issue to the fashion world. Hugely enjoyable it was too, but this double page spread was my favourite (click here for a larger, higher res version):

A few of my favourite highlights:

- 20: pounds of gold glitter dumped on John Galliano during his post-show bow

- 37: pairs of titanium heels trashed minutes before the Lanvin show when it was discovered the models couldn’t walk in them

- 100: %age of RTW on the Prada women’s runway made from cotton only

- 800: hand-painted feather butterflies on a single Alexander McQueen dress

- 1,930: pieces of metal (safety pins, grommets etc.) sewn onto one Balmain skirt

Mercedes-Benz on the runway

Thoughts welcome on the LFW advertising offering from Mercedes-Benz:

I’ve been meaning to post this ad for a while but, if I’m honest I haven’t quite figured out if I think it is freshingly and strikingly simple, or just plain dull.

On first sight, it struck me as a very straightforward concept, that perfectly conveyed the brand partnership between the luxury car dealer and Fashion Week. The runway as a road, M-B as the only vehicle suitable to transport you down it – or, as a metaphor for life’s runway. Thus the glamorous audience feasting on the fashions falling off the runways of London Fashion Week are perfectly poised to see M-B as the only car to be seen dead in this season (or, hopefully a little longer, considering the investment).

I tore it from Stylist and it has sat on my desk ever since. And during that time, I’ve actually grown to be disappointed with it. The simplicity that had first so impressed me – the thought of how easy it would have been to construct and shoot – suddenly struck me as lacking the luxe I expect from an M-B ad. The lighting was so garish, the chairs so basic, the whole set so uninspired.

That infamous YSL quote of fashion fading and style remaining eternal is an interesting one to ponder in this creative context. I would punt that M-B would far rather associate themselves with style than fashion, but ordinarily their sponsorship of Fashion Weeks around the world does this well. But the ad creative above positions the Fashion Week runway at its most stark, most functional and lacking the lustre and style that we so hope to see from the M-B brand.

That said, maybe I’m reading far too much into it. Ads weren’t designed to be analysed, they were designed for instant impact; to convey a message in the time it takes for the eye to process a concept to the brain, and the brain to draw upon all its reserves of previous experience to interpret a message. My instinct liked it, my inner-annalyst did not.

I’d love to hear what you think.

The lives that consumer culture cannot reach

I’m a big fan of The Sunday Times, and in particular their Spectrum section (and not just when it features National Cheerleading Champions). In their own words, Spectrum ‘showcases astonishing photographs from the front line of life over 12 awe-inspiring pages’. True enough.

This weekend, sitting on a sun-drenched Clapham Common on a welcome weekend break from the marketing bubble in which I live my week, I found the images particularly worthy of reflection. The cover feature, which always contains a collection of stunning and astute shots illustrating one central theme, this week concerned itself with ‘Bare Necessities: The lives that consumer culture cannot reach.’

In the feature, we were shown a glimpse of a world beyond everything we know. Imagine a place with no iPhones, no Facebook, no Twitter, no Internet, no TV, no shopping (in the Western sense), no advertising (in the mass-consumer sense) and no commercialisation of absolutely anything.

Pretty difficult, huh.

And yet, as the images below will hopefully show, this world does exist – in fact it is very much a part of our own. Albeit a few thousands of miles away in the Greater Caucasus mountain village of Xinaliq (Khinalug) in Azerbaijan.

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I think why they struck me most was because it actually tore a fairly sharp rift through what I do for a living, and therefore a huge part of who I am (well, maybe it shouldn’t be ‘therefore’, but that’s another issue entirely…)

In the marketing world, we live for commercialism. We live and breathe the brands we work so hard to protect, to grow, to promote – and yet, when it really comes down to it, what does it all mean?

In the end though, everything is relative. World economies are built very differently and comparing my yuppie life in South London with mountain-life in the upper mountainous regions of Azerbaijan is perhaps futile and the two are incomparable. But I do feel it is a comparison that we should nevertheless strive to make occasionally, and can learn from, in order to fully appreciate what the priorities in our lives should be.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do, and in living the life I have I wouldn’t choose to work in any other industry. But it does make you think how different life could be with a markedly different spectrum of experience.

*(Hopefully The Times and talented photographer Rena Effendi will not mind me replicating the images here, but please do check out her whole collection here to see more stunning shots.)

Luxury fashion brands embrace social media

As if it weren’t enough that, according to Times headlines this morning, bloggers are snatching the LFW front row seats right from under the noses of their traditional print counterparts, it seems that the high-end luxury brand marketeers are no longer directing us in store – or even merely online. But to our iPhone apps.

Flicking through the March Vogue, I started to see brand after brand including a call to action within its glossy DPS advertising that promoted online videos, behind-the-scenes exclusive web content and invariably how to download the brand’s iPhone app in order to access all these goodies.

Ralph Lauren:

The luxe oceanic ruffles of Ralph Lauren flow from one page to the next but check out the call to action nestling in the bottom right...

'View the Runway Show and behind-the-scenes video with the Ralph Lauren application on your iPhone or visit RalphLauren.com'

Donna Karan:

Ethereal brush-stroke imagery makes the message in the bottom left barely visible...

But it's there: 'View the System of Dressing on the Donna Karan iPhone application and at DonnaKaran.com'

Fashion advertising is traditionally a work of art. Hours and hours of painstaking designing, casting, styling, photography shoots and post-production go into every double page spread. For said art teams and designers to soil their canvas with a one-line advertisement for the iPhone, it must really mean business. Literally.

Finally it seems, high fashion has accepted that whilst all of their devotees do still subscribe to the monthly fashion Bible, they probably flick through its glossy pages whilst simultaneously checking their emails on their bejewelled iPhone and surfing the internet all at the same time.

I’m both glad and saddened to see luxury branding rapidly becoming fully integrated in this way. It’s both a positive and necessary adaption to the current market and a shame that the artistry I pour over every month has to relinquish its perfection for the sake of sales. But to every budding fashionista out there who is remotely technically savvy, you can bet these guys will now be coming after you from every possible angle.

True love IS bag-shaped

Just a quick post this morning. Continuing the trend of heart shaped creations, the below page of Stylist magazine caught my eye this morning. For no other reason than it was a cool arrangement of imagery that promoted their next issue well – and, well, it’s true: true love is bag-shaped.

(Husbands / boyfriends – Christmas is coming. Take note.)

(c) Stylist magazine

Lady Dior: when literature shapes fashion

I had a feeling my Links of London post wouldn’t be the last LFW ad to grace this blog.

Flipping through the FT‘s fashion special of its weekly portion of riches, How to Spend It last weekend, I was again savouring all the luxury brand creatives as much as (if not more than) the editorial pieces between. Typical marketer I guess.

In the opening spread, the enviable elegance of the magnifique Marion Cotillard seeped from the Dior pages. But this time it was the choice of prop that caught my eye.

© Dior / FT

Granted, the striking red and black contrast of the composition called for a book jacket of the same – peeping out of Cotillard’s arm candy to add a subtle hint of literary culture to her undeniable beauty. But was Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye the only one the stylist could lay her hands on? Or was there something deeper that informed the choice?

I noticed it because Catcher happens to be one of my top three books of all time. The intensely human centre of the narrative has made it one the preeminent novels of the twentieth century. Perhaps the implication is that, like the book, Lady Dior and her purse of choice are truly iconic. So was it chance that the Penguin cover design happened to fit so sharply into Dior’s latest creative?

© Dior / FT

Either which way, the choice was interesting. While high fashion houses like Dior spend hundreds of thousands on advertising creatives inventing a luxury world which its audience buys into (the classic, ‘buy the lifestyle not just the product’), essentially they do need to shift sales. When said product is included in shot, you can bank on every effort having been made to draw your attention to it.

Does the bag have the same presence of focus in the image with the book removed?

Thus, arguably, in this particular composition, Catcher has a greater starring role than Cotillard.

But for those more interested in the bag than its contents, you can snap up the ‘Le 30′ black lambskin leather number with ‘Cannage’ embroidery for a mere £1,550 from Dior.com now. Random fact? The Le 30 range owes its name to the number 30 in Christian Dior’s Avenue de Montaigne address.

My favourite? Well, it has to be the pink really doesn’t it. And just a snip at £1,290:

© Dior.com

When headphones became jewellery

I’ve been loving the flurry of luxury brand advertising dominating the glossy pages of all national newspaper supplements from last weekend onwards, marking the onset of London Fashion Week – or #LFW as Twitter users have re-named it in a hashtag frenzy of fashionista gossip.

No doubt a few more highlights might make the pages of this blog before the week is out, but one particular Links of London ad caught my eye in the Sunday Telegraph’s brilliant ST Fashion. As preposterously be-jewelled neckpieces provided ostentatious frosting to the sharp tailored lines of the suited collections strutting down the runway, Links seemed to be offering something a little different.

So ubiquitous have the dangling ear pieces of ipod headphones become – on school kids and cityworkers alike – that Links has decided to cast them in silver and hang them from a pretty chain. Thus creating a funky of-the-moment statement piece that fuses modern pop culture lifestyle with the striking bold style that we have come to expect from Links’ unique design.

© Links of London/Telegraph Media Group

It took a second look, but in the end it charmed me.