Mon May 31th: NIKE 78

Paul Jenkin's project Nike 78 has brought together 78 artists to fulfill the following brief:
"Using sport as an inspiration, creatives have been asked to challenge the function of a pair of NIKE shoes".

When I agreed to join in, I asked Paul if it was a case of customizing the trainers to which I had a stern reply that NO it is no ordinary customisation commission but a case of reconsidering the action of the sports shoe............?! This sounded a bit serious to me and quite frankly I am no sportsperson or indeed have any interest in sport. So when I found out Chrissie Abbotts had been approached too, I pitched the idea to her of joining forces. We share a similar silly sense of humour and had alorra lot of lolling working this thing out. We couldn't agree on an idea, so I said "Chrissie, let's just do it " ..........."just do it" being a slogan for Nike...........this was the first of a voyage of puns that poured out of our mouths for the duration of the task. Infact the next one was Chrissie's reply "Lets get this shoe on the road". Est voila, a concept was born.............

"Let's get this shoe on the road"

We integrated remote control cars into our shoes to make them "Wacky Races" style characters. This involved lots of experiments with dismantling, re-wiring and test drives to literally "get the shoe on the road". Having assembled our individual Formula 1 frames, we made use of a sunny afternoon and drew out a chalk race track. Then the fun was over and it was down to the serious job of winning. We filmed the death match that was to follow and Chrissie edited the event to make our final feature film...........

NIKE78 - Fred Butler x Chrissie Abbott | ‘Let’s get this shoe on the road’ from NIKE78 on Vimeo.

Thanks to Robert at Lighthouse Studios for allowing us to go crazy with chalks on his roof and thanks to Sebastian Camilleri for helping us on the day to steer our stellar contestants and shoot this epic feature............

Check out Paul's site to see all artists involved ...........www.nike78.co.uk

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

Sat 29th May: Stephen Doherty Interviewed by Craig Lawrence

Whilst we were blogging for FASHION 156 last week, Craig interviewed illustrator Stevie but due to technical reasons the entry was never uploaded.................so, hey presto, here it is for all to see............with introduction by Craig..........

"Stephan Doherty

Stevie is my rock, if it wasn’t for Stevie I’d be a right mess, more of a mess than I am now! A legend in the making Stevie is one in a million! And he does nice drawings. Oh and he needs a new boyfriend so please take a bit of time out of your day to chat him up on facebook!"



Who are you?
Stephen Doherty

What do you do?
When I’m not busy dropping out of Saint Martins I’m usually drawing/designing. I worked at Gareth Pugh for a while but I’ve been helping out Craig Lawrence for the last couple of years. You might also see me pulling the odd pint down The Joiners.

Where are/did you study?
Central Saint Martins. I’m heading back after the summer.

Why Fashion Design?
I enjoy dressing the body. I chose womenswear because I prefer the fluidity of the female form. I try to explore the figure and even the movement of the body in order to re-address the way I see it.

What would you like to be doing in a couple of years time?
I’d like to be working in my own studio and hopefully having finally graduated.

Has your home town affected your design work?
I don’t think so. I do miss home though. Every now and then I have to jump off the merry-go-round and pop back to Manchester for a sit down and a cup of tea.

Who's your favourite person?
Whoever wants to drop a tonne of money on my head in return for dresses.

What's your favourite dinner?
Ooh, depends. Anything that comes with fresh warm bread. I just woke up hung over with my flatmate and she went and got us Thai food – she’s a genius.

Any bad habits?
Being late – is that a habit? Procrastinating.

If you were a member of Girls Aloud which one would you be?
Ermmm… I think Nadine – doesn’t she live in LA? That’d be nice to try out.

Thurs 27th May: ASVOFF Milano "Lights" lit by Mario Salvucci

Dotted between the vast flat screens were beautiful "Electric Flowers" sculptural light fixtures by jewellery designer Mario Salvucci. Not only are they beautiful objects that function as lamps but they cast magical shadows on their surrounding surfaces..........check out all of Mario's floralicious lights here

Thurs 27th May: ASVOFF Milano "Lights" Series

The "Light" series consists of 26 different 1 minute films from an international selection of directors ranging from established artists such as Sofia Delaporte, Kayt Jones through to emerging talent experimenting with the medium. Here is just a small selection of snapshots that I took whilst circumnavigating the multi screen installation. The exhibition is on until the the end of the month and the films will also be previewed in snippets online either on vogue.it or Diane's site.

(Stills top to bottom: 1-3 "J'ai faim!" Miho Kinomura, 4-5 "LX" Malcolm Pate, 6-7 "Katie Eary" Kathryn Ferguson, 8 "Blind Strobe" Pierre Debusschere

Weds 26th May: Milano Day 2 ASVOFF vs. vogue.it opening

ASVOFF launched its new project "Light" yesterday in Milan in association with vogue.it. Franca Sozzani and Anna Piaggi attended the opening reception for the event to view the 1 minute film project that they have supported. Here are curators Diane Pernet and Antoine Asseraf who commissioned a crop of directors to fulfill the brief and invited them to come together from all the cities across the world to meet each other for the grand unveiling. The "Light series" was latterly opened up and turned into a competition which resulted in 2 winners Zaiba Jabbar and Miho Kinomura..........which you can view here.
I will write more about the actual films tomorrow but firstly here is a proud picture of Elisha Smith Leverock who made the film "Sunshowers" which was used in the trailer and invitation artwork. Elisha was thrilled to finally meet Diane and Antoine after a year or more of email exchanges. We also had an unexpected bonus to bump into Anna Piaggi who I regard as a key inspiration for wearing bonkers clothes with total disregard to interpretation but done for total self satisfaction and happiness. Her necklace was made of jelly like rubber fish and atop her blue Marcel Wave the hat was adorned with dry pasta shapes................I'm guessing its a Stephen Jones number for that witty addition! Perfect for a Milanese outing............if the canapes didn't suffice, she had a little something to hand for later.

Weds 26th May: Milano Day 2 Corso Como

With very limited time in the city, my absolute top priority was to make a pilgrimage to Corso Como. It is something I have only read about and never quite imagined seeing for myself. I was not at all dissapointed. Wow. Obviously "taste" is totally down to personal opinion and individual notions and feelings BUT this place is just the essence of "good taste". From every fixture and fitting to every hand picked product on display, it is ooozing delectable disirability. You want to plant yourself on the mosaic patterned and rose planted roof terrace to bathe in sun beams before stepping downstairs to sit in a Vernor Panton swivvle chair to leaf thru every concievable fashion photography annual or try out some choice records on a perspex turntable. I generally can't be bothed with shoes but this place has re-issue rainbow Ferragamo platforms and Memphis monographs on display between Tabitha Simmons paper boots. Ay, ay, ay, not to mention the accessories section with just the most heavenly pulled together selection of designers that I don't even know............alongside past season's pieces by Bless just incase you missed the projects the first time round. Inbetween all of this is a Margiela floor with "paint by numbers" wallpaper and yet more jewellry that made me go weak at the knees for its surreal simplicity.........necklaces hanging on necklaces, rings mounted on rings, a magnifying glass made from just one side of a pair of glasses..............even a white rug like virgin snow with deer tracks embossed in the pile.
Elisha and I doused ourselves in Diptique and dreamed of the day we might return with some lire to lay down on the concentric circle logo counter. Until then, we just did we know best and took lots of tourist type situational photos of each other infront of the various vantage points. Cest chic.

May 26th: Milano Day 1

Diane kindly invited us to her friend's place for a quiet dinner to welcome us and a few other directors who had flown in from different countries for the event. We visited the office of her architect friend Massimiliano Locatelli and sat around a candlelit table on the terrace. It was quite difficult for me to get outside in the first place as the bookcase wall inside the offices groaned with titles I wanted to wade through. The corridors were strip lighted with neon tubes and a massive circular dinning table was lit with a low hanging shade that was the exact same circumference as the table, echoing its ginormous dimensions.
Here I am being a prize prat perving over my dream car on the walk home - Citreon DS.

In summary, I wouldn't mind a house decked out in Italian interior design and a French automobile to park outside. Hmmmm.

Mon 24 May: Elisha on tour

Elisha Smith Leverock and I have flown to Milan to join Diane Pernet for her ASVOFF vs. Vogue.it
Here is the film Elisha directed for Diane's comission on the theme of "Light" which we shot in Febuary using pieces from my A/W collection featuring special designs by Rosy Nicholas for the project under my name............

For up to date news on the event, check in with Diane here.

Sun 23rd May: Bishi Rocks

Craig and I went down to Brighton with an East End invasion tour.............read more over on the FASHION156 blog tomorrow morning for full details of Matthew Stone and Theo Adams performances............and the train ride with Bistrotheque Moscow Mules..........
But for now, delight in beauty that is Bishi............. having a the ride of her life!