Sun May 30th: Rosy Nicholas Interview for FASHION 156

I like to keep this blog as a record for my life like an online diary ........... so I can look back at a comprehensive record of what was going on at that time. A little bit like one of my favourite books "A Chequerd Past" which depicts intimate personal snap shot portraits by Peter Schlesinger of David Hockney's life in the 60's/70's and all his young fresh faced friends that surrounded him........such as Celia Birtwell, Manolo Blahnik, Paloma Picasso etc. Hopefully I am capturing the faces and places of the current movement here so I just want to upload my interviews from FASHION 156 so that I don't lose them. So please bare with me if its repetitive......

With Hockney in mind, here is my first post about Rosy Nicholas...........(please ignore out of date info regarding the live drawing event as it was 2 weeks ago..........hopefully youve been there and got the t-shirt - literally!)

"Rosy Nicholas for The Drawing Club Collection at Lazy Oaf"

Today I made a studio visit to illustrator Rosy Nicholas who resides at The Print Club in Dalston (next door to the omnipresent cool location “MC Motors” which you would have seen in a myriad of music videos, chat shows and fashion spreads at the moment).
I first met Rosy at the club night “Work It” and we have become great friends and collaborators ever since. In addition to locking creative horns with me, Rosy also moonlights for LazyOaf. That relationship was struck up when Rosy spotted sweeties on their stand at a Trade Show and got mutual appreciation back when she waltzed over wearing a strawberry patterned jumper. After a short internship with the Oafers, Rosy took up responsibility for dressing the shop’s windows, making props and occasionally producing small runs of hand made brooches. More recently Rosy’s illustrations have been gracing the front of garments such as the popular bear design featured on this blog last week.
This Thursday, Rosy will be drawing live at a special event to launch the new t-shirt collection “Drawing Club”. Last year, LazyOaf took over an empty space in Kingley Court to hold an open drawing masterclass. Selected illustrations from the spontaneous happening were then used as official designs. 6 artist’s designs will be unveiled on Thursday with other artists attending the event to join the doodling which will form the basis for the next collection……….and so on and so forth into the future.
Here is Rosy wearing her own design, which is a trademark Egyptian style profile. One of Rosy’s greatest hero’s is David Hockney who she sites as a possible influence in her predisposition to prolifically producing faces in profile. Rosy loves Hockney for many reasons from his evident joy of life expressed in his work and dapper dress sense, to his signature palette of blue hues through to his penchant for lots of bottoms, notably naked boys in socks! Rosy’s appreciation for Hockney’s talent stretches across his tenacity in drawing, printing, painting, set and poster design. She reveres him as a master and is touched by how he captured a dreamy era by immortalising his artist friends and the backdrop that surrounded the scene.
It was through her parent’s books of Hockney that she first discovered and embraced this visionary as a muse. Both her mum and dad went to art school and brought her up with encouraging motivation to be creative. Outings to the British Museum, National History Museum and even the Egyptian room at Harrods planted the seed for her fascination in the civilization. Her hand made birthday cards for the family were celebrated and cherished by being framed and hung up. But it was her father’s objective crityc of the works that gave her a real buzz to keep scribbling, as she knew it was genuine apreciation and not sycophantic adulation. Infact even as a little girl, Rosy added rosy cheeks to her portraits which is a recognisable stamp she cannot shake and features in the Pharaoh print she created for Supermarket Sarah.
In addition to education of other masters such as Matisse, Picasso, Gauguin and Bacon, Rosy’s parents were also responsible for giving her the gift of Michael Jackson. Yes that’s right, still to this day Rosy wears the “BAD” t-shirt that her mum had on for the family trip to Wembley to see the prince of pop. I think its fair to say that Rosy has an obsession with everything MJ, which you can see evident here on her studio wall. It could be the Egyptian video for “Do you remember the time” that has also contributed to her other fascination discussed earlier. Rosy jokes that she will only be taking payment for her LazyOaf t-shirts in MJ Dollars.

http://www.rosynicholas.com/

http://www.lazyoaf.co.uk/

To see the brand new Lazy Oaf look book shot by Dan Wilton click here