thirst

Okay, I admit it: I drink a lot of water.

Back when I was about 18, I guess, my boyfriend got me hooked on the stuff. I remember standing by the sink at night, and we'd drink THREE WHOLE GLASSES before going to sleep. And ever since, I carry a bottle of tap water wherever I go.

I've noticed that whenever models, actresses, etc, are asked their beauty secrets, they invariably say 'lots of sleep, lots of water'.

But I can be a bit evangelical about it. And since both my mother and husband don't drink nearly enough water, he's coined a new phrase: 'hydro nagging.' Yes, yes, I do understand that the more you drink, the more you're gonna have to pee - but really, you're not fooling Mother Nature if you don't drink water in the hopes that you're not going to pee. That's - in my humble opinion - simply ridiculous.

I did, however, get caught up on the flight out of Miami last week. Soon as they switched off the fasten seat belt sign, I was the first in the loo. (see above). And then, bam, the plane dropped. We hit turbulence. And there I was, butt naked - landed somehow on the closed toilet, thank God - and started getting whipped around the loo, struggling to pull my tights up, open the door, and crawl back to my seat. We then had approximately 4.5 HOURS OF TURBULENCE. The mostly English plane were behaving pretty well, as I was clutching my husband's arm and moaning and being very, let's just say, un-English. He and the guy next to him kept saying things like 'what are the odds of the plane going down' and I was just doing my best not to pee in my pants.

Shot this backstage after the wonderful Maria Grachvogel show on the last day of LFW. More to come. Off to see Lincoln soon. We can't get Sky (long story) so I can't see the Oscars tonight, something I took for granted as a NYer. I was too cool to stay in and watch the Oscars. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got til it's gone.

full circus

When I was a college student, my boyfriend was studying karate, and I started studying with him. He and his brother were black belts - his brother wrote the Karate Kid, based on my boyfriend's story - and we'd watch our Sensai sometime. He was tall, thin, and Japanese. We never saw him working out, not in the way we did. My boyfriend was relentless: he was like a young cat, in his prime: still a kitten in some ways, bouncing and pouncing and honing his craft, pushing himself to new heights of perfection.

Sensai, on the other hand, seemed to metaphorically lounge in the sun. Once in a while, when no one was looking, he'd stretch, do a quick move, relax again. And then, out of the blue, he'd turn into a tiger.

That memory went through my mind this week, at Somerset House. I was long past the point of enjoying 'passing the baton' onto the younger, hungrier bloggers. I was done with the circus. I'd watched something I had so enjoyed in 2009 - the anthropological aspect of street style fashion photography - become, instead, a vehicle to promote people, mainly young women, who wanted to be famous and envied for not doing anything. I was tired of people befriending me so I could be their Bailey. I'm not a Papp, and I was never getting paid. Certainly not the £1000 per photos, as claimed in Suzy Menkes' recent piece in the Times, The Circus of Fashion. And then - when bloggers  you all know and sometimes love - some who acted like my closest friends - started ambushing me and stealing my gigs to get ahead, I decided, enough is enough. I've got enough friends.

And that's when I stopped coming to fashion week.

But it's funny how something comes full circle: coming back now, with the distance of time, I could watch the next generation, with their boundless energy and enthusiasm, and see myself in them. And just like the weather turned miraculously, blindingly brilliant - if cold - I felt a kind of golden something beaming down on me. I didn't shoot much 'street style' - only occasionally asking someone to pose. Like this girl, above. I didn't even get her name.

But it gives me great pleasure, I must admit, to know that I've so honed my skills that nearly every shot I got, I like. It's because I didn't shoot any of the people that seemed to want to be shot. I just - as I did in my early days - simply went for people who seemed nice.

I could post every day for a year with the shots I got in three days. So I'll take it slow. One day at a time.

backstage after bora

This brevity series is really fun. I'm going to take it to the next level and start being mute at social gatherings. Let's see how long THAT one lasts!

Shot at Somerset House after the Bora Aksu show, Day One, 16.09.11. But this is nothing: wait til you see the show!

surprise

Today's the last day of London Fashion Week September 2011 - it's rainy and it's Men's Day and there will be a very end of school term feel in the air, a sweet kind of melancholy, and for most industry insiders, it's off to Milan and Paris, and for me, one last trip to clean out my locker in the photographers' room, then time to sift through my photographs. Like beautiful memories.

As my good friend Jennifer of Style East described it, one's first time at fashion week - for a streetstyle photographer especially - is like being a kid in a sweet shop. And right now, I feel like I've had so much candy I've got a sugar headache. Literally. And while I didn't expect to ever get that heady, I can't believe I'm here feeling that I did at my first time, September 2009, I'm surprised at how much I've really enjoyed this season. My experience is richer now, because I've made so many wonderful friends - bloggers, journalists, young talent starting out, as well as the truly professional, hard working 'industry insiders.' I don't know why I waited this long to be in the fashion world - the REAL fashion people aren't bitchy at all, they're absolutely lovely. And this time, I've finally met some of my virtual friends, like Pearl of Fashion Pearls of Wisdom, and my God, they are all even more lovely than I expected. And I expected a lot.



It's occurred to me that happiness, in any situation, has a direct proportion to expectation. The less I expect from an experience, the more I am pleasantly surprised.

Now I don't know where to begin, what to post on first. Runway shots, but in my style, from the front row? Backstage? Or streetstyle, at and around Somerset House? You tell me.



Shot backstage before Holly Fulton, what they call 'first look.' This was a bit posey, and I used flash - not my usual style, but it's good to mix things up. Maybe for my next post, I"ll show you other shots during this 'first look' process - it's really surreal, all these professional photographers crammed into a hallway, it's hard to get out, and everyone's saying 'look at me' - but it's a wonderful, heady experience. Just before the show begins. And it was such a great show: Holly has such a delightful, unique voice.

back to black

Having never met Amy Winehouse, I can't tell you any anecdotes*, nor take credit for any of the photos in this tribute - apart from doing some painterly things to the last shot in this post. While looking around online for images and youtube videos, I found that most of the images of Amy Winehouse were.. exploitive. Catching her looking bad, out of it... you can do that with anyone, you know. I've shot people and caught them in half blink and they don't look great. For someone who lived her light in the spotlight, it seemed the hunger for her looking her worst was.. oh it's just so sad. The whole thing.

*(But Russell Brand did: and he told it beautifully, here, as just retweeted by a friend).



She was only 27: it seemed she was around so long, and had disappeared from public view for so long, but like other stars who burned brightly, and briefly, she seemed to cram a lot of living into such a short time (did you know that everyone who died young - Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Kobain, Jim Morrison.. ALL 27). We always knew she wouldn't last forever, although we hoped she would - which is perhaps why her vulnerability mixed with her seeming toughness to make something that was so tragic, but also quite beautiful. And her taste in music, her friendship with the brilliant producer Mark Ronson, the musicians she worked with..



It wasn't just her talent: she also had such a strong brand. Was she a style icon? I can't tell. She wasn't a role model, like an Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe or Jackie Kennedy.. but the way she took certain iconic ideas of the Sixties Motown girls.. the big eyeliner, bee hive hair, but it certainly wasn't period dressing. The shorts, tees.. what can I say. She was her own person. The love child of Diana Ross and Billie Holiday. I'd have loved to see her do a remake of Lady Sings the Blues.



My last video for this little tribute is, ironically, from a concert sponsored by our new, current, all time favourite phone company, Vodaphone. We can't sing Vodaphone's praises enough. And it was at Somerset House: home to London Fashion Week. This is what Freja, who uploaded the video, said:

"Amy Winehouse live performance "Back To Black", Vodafone Somerset House, 2007. She was sober, sounded amazing, and this is really impressive and amazing performance. She insert a part of Shangri - Las song "Remember (Walking In The Sand)" during the song, as she often does."



Someone wrote that she said if she died today, she'd be happy. No regrets, coyote.

And I've just discovered: this North London, white, Jewish, middle class girl's birthday was the day after mine.

Rest in Peace, Amy, though I have a hunch you're still giving them hell, wherever you are. In a voice that's a gift from God.

Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011)

holly go lightly

I don't know whether it's the sunshine here in London, or the flowers (this is the most sudden gorgeous spring, it is KILLING ME with gorgeousness) or maybe it's just time passing since recent current global events, but I'm suddenly getting into fashion again. I don't mean I'm IN fashion again (I never was) but I'm INTO it. Oh, never mind. Hopefully you know what I mean. I'm just really excited about my clothes again: wearing bare legs and little socks with flat shoes and little sixties dresses, and the idea of killer heels with bare legs.. just love love love it.



Last night we were watching Zen on DVD (thank God for LoveFilm) and on the bit on the making of the series, Rufus Sewell was talking about his style influences: Cary Grant, North by Northwest, sixties romps, and I started watching Breakfast at Tiffanys. Thinking about how Truman Capote wrote the Holly Golightly character for his sad tragic friend Marilyn Monroe, and how differently the character became when inhabited by Audrey Hepburn.



Which got me started thinking, before I went to sleep last night, about that difference between the Good Girl type (i.e. Hepburn) - the ladylike female - and the naughty, sexy type: the Elizabeth Taylors, the Marilyn Monroes. And then this morning in the Sunday Times Style Section - I wish I could link it for you but I can't- the brilliant Shane Watson wrote her piece on the BGD (Bad Girl's Dress) 'otherwise known as the pulling dress'. She used the see thru number Kate Middleton - our future Queen - wore when she caught Prince Charming's eye. And how the same dress on a different woman might look, uh.. a bit slutty. And how some women can wear anything and make it look like a BGD.



So here, for your viewing pleasure, some of my shots from Holly Fulton's recent A/W 2011 show at Somerset House. Just like I wish I could show you the article, I wish I could show you every shot I took, but that would be a bit obnoxious. So just a few here, a few more tomorrow.. maybe a bit of street style after that, then back to more Holly.. you don't mind, do you?



Hope everyone had a gorgeous weekend. We had a blissful day in the park. There's something about spring that makes me want to cry. All those little yellow daffodils. All the cherry blossoms.

bora bora blue

Okay this is a little confusing: it's Day Two here in London for A/W 2010 (that alone is weird: it's not even spring yet - God only knows what it's like for people living in places like Australia), but I'm still posting Day One. I think I dreamt about the light blue dress in yesterday's post: all know is after three more catwalk shows today, ANd an awards ceremony, and running all over town and meeting more people than I can remember, all I can think about is light blue and fuzzy knit. That's the predominant image in my head, that's the look I want to wear. Soft knits, unravelling, in shades of nude, beige, pink, turquoise, and baby blue.

And I think these girls are just gorgeous. Not a model in the bunch, just civilians.



These were all shot after the Bora show yesterday. I ended up in a general flow that brought me to a kind of outdoor backstage vibe: everyone was just so up after that show, and models & people were coming out of backstage, and we were all kind of hanging around, feeling buoyant.



I suddenly realised that the kind of wall next to me was actually the rack of the clothes in the show. For some reason that blew me away, and I started shooting it. There were some crew guys that I realised were guarding the rack. 'Sorry: am I allowed to shoot this?' I asked. Which sounded funny to me because if it was no secret to see the actual clothes, what harm would it do to photograph them off the girls?

'Would you like me to model them?' asked the guy guarding the clothes. 'Yes, please', said I, but he chickened out (that's a quaint expression!)



Okay, enough chit chat from me. You deserve more shots, and I've already chosen a bunch for you to see next. But it's late, and I need to chill out with a rom com. Something with Jennifer Aniston, I don't even care what. (I shot a bunch of celebrities today: not intentionally, they were just there).

If anyone's in London, btw, don't be shy: come on down! Anyone can get into the Somerset House open area, and they're making the best crepes (savoury & sweet) @ the Lavazza truck, which this year has been traded in for a shiny silver spiffy model. What are you waiting for, a written invitation?

this is not just another love song

Like saving my chocolate Easter Bunny til Thanksgiving (and then, finally relinquishing it only after my mom cajoled me to 'make room in the fridge for the chocolate Turkey'), I've been hoarding this shot from Somerset House since September, for the right day. It was probably before the Ashish show @ fashion week, and I didn't even ask this sweet model for her name. And today is a gift from the gods here in London, unseasonably warm and semi-sunny. As perfect an English day in late October can reasonably hope to get. There must be some compensation somewhere in the world: I bet you somewhere in the Carribean, it's raining.



I've been thinking a lot lately about 'blog power', especially in the fashion world. For example: you know I've been banging on since I started my blog, about this 'underwear as outerwear' phenomenon. Well, sure enough: this Saturday's Telegraph magazine did a whole thing about it. In fact, they used these very words:

'If you thought showing your bra straps was unslightly, prepare to be horrified by next summer's key trend: UNDERWEAR AS OUTERWEAR.'

Now, granted, I didn't copyright the phrase, and there's no way of knowing if the author, Jeremy Farr, read my blog, or if we're just on the same page. But, still.

So I'm wondering: who else out there has noticed that what they're posting is ending up in the press?

I'd love to do an experiment. What if we - as a group - made up a trend. Just a phrase or stupid word, like elephants. 'Elephant grey'. I mean, as Pearl of fashion pearls of wisdom pointed out, someone out there coined 'coatigan' and some other genius came up with 'jeggings'.

We could just make something up. And then we start using it, and, like the Emporer's New Clothes, time how long it takes for a fashion editor to print it. Bit like tracking birds in the wild.

Any suggestions? Winner gets a free Obama Underground tee shirt (click here for image, and story).

and now for something completely different

Dee, from Dublin, at Somerset House. September.

This wasn't remotely what I came here to post: I've got some recent shots which you'll be seeing soon, I promise (once Mr. Dot gets his dinner). But after a few days of grey, I saw this while going thru shots to give to new friends I've met at fashion week, and Dee is one of three wonderful sisters (more on them soon) & I saw this bold burst of black, white (on the background) and pink & thought, Ooh, what fun! And besides, it's springtime for half the planet. Which is so easy for me to forget on a damp grey English day.

Someone mentioned in one of my favourite fashion blog/sites, Red Carpet Fashion Awards (it's such frivolous fun & I can while hours away on it) that the tacky bleached blonde Donatella look is so over. I agree: if one is going to blatantly colour one's hair, these days in London what's catching my eye are stunning shades of red: from orange, to burgundy. (Which is rich, coming from someone who's never so much as highlighted her hair). I'm so not loving the fake yellow bottle blonde - that looks so 20th century to me - but as you've heard me say before, I do like white hot platinum (altho, for Stephanie @ Style Odyssey, I do understand her reasons.)

I love the platinum with Dee's colouring, and beautiful blue eyes. Then again, she'd look just as stunning if she'd dyed it black. I love that 'black Irish' look of blue eyes and black hair (which, according to legend, trickled down from the survivors of the Spanish Armada falling in love with the Irish lasses).

So: is this the end of the Bottled Blonde? Fingers on buzzers please.

hair do: osman or ashish?

@ Somerset House, Day Two. For either the Osman show, or Ashish. Actually, judging by the sleek, slightly rippled effect of the hair dos, I'm guessing Ashish. Osman's do's look all to be topknots.



Actually, I'm sure there's someone out there who knows. Possibly who has even been to one, or both of the shows. I love both their collections. They're so opposite: Osman's so serene, all white and gold and clean and geometric. Ashish, I LOVE his bold colours, black and turquoise and aquamarine blue, crazy pop art patterns and scary studs. And don't even get me started on his shoes!

Which are you: an Osman, or an Ashish girl?

bringing up baby

Perhaps I should explain myself. This is an obscure reference: Cary Grant/Kate Hepburn film. Leopard. Baby.

Oh, never mind. It's just that leopard prints, if you haven't just landed from another planet, are everywhere this season, and I'm sure, wherever in the world you may be while you're reading this, they're where you are, too. And frankly, I'm running out of clever titles to go with them. Leopards, spots, change. Ho hum.

But this is perhaps my favourite leopard look to date, probably because I see a lot of myself in this girl, in her style, and I've got almost the same brogues (or, Oxfords, if you're not British). And, I've been wearing them with black ankle socks a lot, too. And I like the way she agreed to pose, but then looked away. And smiled. Most people, when you ask to shoot them, look right at the camera, and smile, but not always with their eyes. Unless of course they're a professional model, or want to be one. In which case, they absolutely do not smile. Unless, of course, you say something funny.

Anyway, Bringing up Baby is one of my favourite films, because it's so simple & silly & there's no message whatsoever. Apart from the fact that the right guy ends up with the right girl at the end. Just as it should be, in real life.

portrait gallery: leather & louis

Still from Day Two (I've just finished Day Four, so you can just imagine!). All shot @ Somerset House, before the Osman show. I was burning up in a little sleeveless navy dress, bare legs, black ankle socks & heels, so I can just imagine how people were feeing in all that black leather. It was sooo swimming weather!

LFW Day Two: chanel with a twist, for osman

Her name is Drielli, she was modelling in the Osman show on Day Two (Saturday) and she was very shy and very sweet. I love this mix of Chanel cream leather jacket, flirty black skirt, my favourite black gold stud boots (which might possibly be Topshop) and a simple grey tee. She's got the balance spot on. I liked every single shot I got of her, and it's so hard to decide, so I'm posting three.



This is impossible: I've got hundreds, probably over a thousand shots now, and can't go thru them all as I've got to run out the door to meet some friends then back to Somerset House! I'm time releasing some throughout the day, but still, at this rate, it will be Christmas and I still won't have got through Day Two.



You can't imagine what it's like for me: for six months I've done the whole 'hi, can I shoot you for my blog' thing, and here I am, in an enclosed space with people who LOVE getting photographed by strangers! Not the models: for them it's exhausting, they're either rushing TO a show or exhausted from one (plus, it's been really hot & everyone's been over dressed in leather & fur: this looks Chanel) but everyone else - the civilians - they're thrilled to be shot! So I'm like.. I dunno, a fox in a hen house. A cat who got the cream. You pick the cliche, that's me!