Shadows Of A Sentence.

The customarily exclusive seams of the fashion show are pried apart at London’s Fashion and TextileMuseum. An exhibition from ’catwalk to cover’ penetrates the innovative world of fashion, bringing we, the ordinary to the heart of the runway. This exhibition puts the complex practice of the catwalk under the scrutiny of a microscope.

From whitewashed walls, icons and fashionistas pose in a series of candid portraits, the works of top photographers such as Chris Moore, Matt Lever and Phillip March. The viewer is rushed into a chaotic domain of spot lit images suspended from the ceiling in a semi-transparent state to promote the moment. Look beyond the first and into the next to be transported from show to show quicker than any fashion week schedule. From backstage, front row, to the runway and street style, view a few of the more unexpected moments of the catwalk, as the process of it’s staging appears the subject of this exhibition. Amongst the photographs are ready-to-wear outfits snatched from some of the most prestigious runway shows to create a vibrant and contextual display and evoke the concepts of each individual collection.

This exhibition condenses a full experience from research to creation, from backstage to show, without tampering with creativity or vision. It can successfully beguile a viewer with its presentation of emotion, expression and movement, allowing everyone an envious place in the front row. Catwalk to Cover is a compelling celebration of one of the most ephemeral but nonetheless exciting industries.

The Fashion &Textile Museum, Bermondsey Street. London SE1 3XF

020 7407 8664 (London Bridge Tube Station)

Yours Truly X

Face facts, when discussing the body always go to the top. I’m talking cha-chas chihuahuas, ta-tas and tartugas. People love ‘em, but should you get yourselves some?

Today, she spilled a latte straight down those pair bangles in the doorway of Coffee Republic. As milk foam poured and puddled on her sweater she stooped to what any could presume to be a mess on the floor. But as little less than a drip had got past the now milk adorned mantelpiece, myself and other viewers could conclude, her breasts were too grande for her latte.

She later proceeded to take her breasts out to lunch, where they promptly attracted the attention of almost everybody. Two men veered towards her, well dressed and respectable looking, with eyes like spotlights, “I love them,” one announced, smiling wickedly. She may have the biggest, firmest breasts in sight, but still a plump, jiggling set that obscures the downward vision. “My new breasts are a D cup. They weigh about 23.3 ounces- about the same as a couple of grapefruits,” she informs me. “They get in the way when I drive.” But as a woman who spent her whole life pretending breasts do not matter, only part of her still wants to believe it’s true. She makes all the arguments: “Women should be valued for their selves, not their shelves but at the moment these feel more than mere flesh. They feel like the source of all power.”

The perfectly rounded breast is to some women today what big hair is to the public schoolgirl. More than palm trees or surfboards or stars on Hollywood Boulevard, the breast, specifically the surgically augmented breast has become the city’s icon. Saline or silicone, globelike or teardrop, ta-tas put the la, la in Laaaandan. Jordan, Victoria Beckham and Heidi Montag, six breasts among them, and not one could be found in nature. I joke about it; I’ve even exchanged tips on how to spot the best fake. It’s fast becoming a sport, and women here play it as much as men do.

Everyone can relate to the insecurities of the flat chested woman. What man hasn’t worried about measuring up? However, women are widely ruthless about their bodies that even the genetically fortunate find time to complain. Gwyneth Paltrow recently let slip she hates her backside. Sympathetically, Harper’s Bazaar followed with a nude portrait of the actress with a bronzed bum that looked like it should be put in a museum. But when it comes to beauty ideals and the self-loathing they inspire, breasts seem to stand-alone. Is it time to join the ranks of the well endowed?

Julia Roberts used to be just another pretty woman. Now she’s an Academy Award-winning actress after some dramatic amending, especially to her breasts. “It takes a Village to create that cleavage,” says Vivienne Parr, a proud owner of the sizeable. “They’re like two U-boats preparing to surface.” She recommends someone who would build me some submarines of my own, with warning that “people don’t tag girls with big breasts as rocket scientists. You’re going to look down,” she says, “ and see something you didn’t see before.” I’m counting on it. I want to glimpse how the busty half lives.

I lay eyes on a padded bra, the technology has become outlandish. So has the language. The ‘Sexy Fit’ with removable ‘cookies,’ and the ‘H₂O Smooth Water’ semi cups. ‘Liquid Kiss’ bras, and the ‘Original Oxygen Lift’ with ‘100% natural air’ don’t just make the most of what you’ve got. They treat you as the foundation upon which to add a couple of floors. For a lot of women this terminology is a cause for rejoicing, but a woman who undergoes major-and unnecessary surgery to enlarge her breasts gets what our culture encourages her to want; a Barbie-shaped body and an illusion that will be maintained, with clothes or without. Vivienne confessed: “I’ve never felt comfortable in a padded bra because it seems like the worst kind of lie: one that’s sure to be discovered.” However, those humiliated by the padded bra will find themselves in the minority since being alerted to the fact that many women put fibrefill in the same category as hair gel, mascara, and lipstick. “It’s not about false advertising, it’s about fitting in.

Lucy Bixby, a 37-year-old art teacher from Essex writes about this idea in her recent book, ‘Lessons I Learned from Breast Cancer’. Her relationship with her breasts had to adjust after a mastectomy and reconstruction. “When I dress now I choose sexier clothes, partly because I feel more grown up and partly because I want to celebrate what it is to be alive.” She laughs when I reveal that I am prepared to don a padded bra that will increase my ample front by three cup sizes. “You have to put on a whole new sense of your body, your costume gives you a new place to be, but you have to put on a new head when you put on those big breasts. We create and assume a sense of who we are.”

Is it shocking behaviour to judge people and ourselves purely on physical attributes? Social commentator, Naomi Wolfe claimed, “The idea of physical beauty is a cultural conspiracy aimed at undermining women’s confidence. Every woman born into the world is cast into a global beauty contest without her consent, and all of us are her judges. According to a D1 model scout, you know you’re in the presence of exceptional beauty “when someone walks in the door and you almost can’t breathe. You feel it rather than see it.” Perhaps this accounts for the ornamented descriptions “breath-taking,” “drop-dead gorgeous,” “a knockout” that seem to be on my tail almost too permanently.

On a late afternoon, I am somewhere I thought I would never be-the designer floor of Selfridges. Here among the colourful rails and exorbitant displays is a woman of slightly larger structure than the many miniscule women who frequently float through the fitting rooms. She is fitting her limbs into a Nicole Farhi cashmere coat as I pretend to scour the racks of Vivienne Westwood skirts. Outrageously she dares approach an assistant at Victoria Beckham, straight-backed and smiling, “Does this dress come in a size 14?” I recoil; this girl is not too fat for fashion. Perhaps once snotty assistants would stare at hips as if they were offensive weapons, as high-end clothes were solely suited for rakish silhouettes. And designers apparently unwilling to channel their famous imaginations, their rich creative impulses, on other shapes and sizes. Campaigning for body diversity within the industry Fashion Activist, Caryn Franklin explains how the fashion industry uses the catwalk model to promote their clothes to press and buyers, “they forget that nowadays everyone can see the ‘look’, and with it, implicit pointers about the body. Runways and advertising campaigns filled with thin young women have a huge effect on female self-esteem.” She concludes that designers are not graduating from college with the practise of designing for realistically shaped bodies, “they aren’t conscious of their responsibilities to showcase fashion on a broader range of bodies.” Does the fashion industry even care about bodies, or just the clothes on them?

I take a tour of Net-a-Porter, prepared only to have fears confirmed, where the very concept of difference still ceases to exist. What I actually find would blow a big-bottomed mind. After refreshing the page for verification I see Burberry in a 16. Lanvin, Chloe, Gucci, and McQueen in size 18, and as I scroll through size charts all larger sizes are entirely sold out. “The company has been trailing larger sizes for almost 18 months,” says buying director Holli Rogers. “The market was there. Customers were buying more clothes in larger sizes. In the last year, sales of size 12 and above have risen by 100 per cent as this area of business is of growing significance.” So here I am on Selfridges’ designer floor. A few assistants ignore me, but others embrace me as `I spot 14’s, 16’s, and 18’s on the racks. “Does this dress come in a size 14,” she asks again boldly. The assistant does not even flutter, “Yes madam, of course” like she hears it everyday.

Since the dawn of time, women have sought to preserve the much lusted-after illusions of beauty, youth and perfection. Beauty chasers risk the dangers of overusing wonder potions, magic lotions and rejuvenating serums in days gone, where staying young and beautiful were some of the more dangerous things a person could aspire to. Is surgery still necessary when “things are getting better, People are becoming more open?” Larry Dunstan, London College of Fashion. It’s been referred to as the fountain of youth by those in the business, and chided as quackery by, others.

It isn’t that Carmen Dell’Orefice is a raving optimist, but she does have amazing eyelashes, I said without thinking, they cant possibly be her own, “well they are,” says the woman on my right. “So’s her beard, and she has to pluck it every day.” The haughty posture and fabulously snooty-looking portraits from the fifties by Horst, Avedon, Penn and all the greats was merely the beginning of her success. Dali painted her. Dietrich cleaned her kitchen… Names flutter in every part of her history. But the result of 60 years in fashion is an exhibition celebrating Dell’Orefice, a working woman of 80, a room-stopping beauty; a testament to the indestructibility of good bone structure, a ramrod posture, secretive but generous shots of silicone and self discipline. An 80-year-old model sounds like a fashion oxymoron, like stylish crocs or flattering Spandex. But this style icon proves that working the runway as an octogenarian is not only possible, but just plain fabulous. While many a senior citizen is walking with a cane and others laying under a cosmetic surgery lamp, the agelessly elegant Dell’Orefice continues to strut the runway in her signature white-haired glory, appearing for Galliano in 2000, Hermes in 2004 and Alberta Ferretti this year. To the lesser eternal citizen, she is an awe-inspiring mould-breaker; everything a supermodel should be- imperious and fearless. She underlines the possibility of acceptance in fashion and holds the ability to juxtapose everything that the crude industry screams, between her fingertips. Standing at the Carmen Dell’Orefice exhibition today, I realise that I have something in common with the grey-haired model. Just like the woman who lost all her money to Bernie Madoff, at this rate I’ll be working when I’m 80-years-old too, but I am tearful with thought that unlike Dell’Orefice, I shall not have the line-less face to counter-act it. Her longevity serves to increase the visibility of older women in the media, snubbing the notions of cosmetic enhancement…of course.

Therefore, when Miu Miu put the 14-year-old actress Hailee Steinfeld in its latest ad, I do not understand why many fashion watchers did nothing more than scratch their heads. And Miu Miu is not alone in reaching out to the kids, Chanel, a brand with more history than most, is chasing its future big spenders with gusto. This explains 1pm last Saturday as a pair of well groomed; style conscious young ladies congregate in front of me. The animated nattering about anticipated manicures could be coming from any chic West London thirty-something. “I’m dreading my next wax… its supposed to hurt less if you do it a lot, hairy legs are so gross.” These two girls are nine but I was not surprised, a mere extension to a growing phenomenon that is simply another generation of vanity.

With a fresh coat of lip-gloss, she takes the Chihuahuas out to dinner. I guess twenty-three ounces doesn’t sound too heavy, it’s far less than a litre of Coke… but they look like they are beginning to tire. Like many an aging breast, one is losing its shape slightly, while the other has developed a stubborn wrinkle. Eyes dart to her bosom and register, but remain unfazed. Many have undergone similar transformations now. If they’re thinking about it at all, it is probably just to wonder what took her so long? Lost in observation I nearly miss the tap on my shoulder. I panic at the sight of an old friend, I’m sweating when I blurt out this isn’t really me. What does it say about big breasts that I am embarrassed to be seen with them? I think about push-ups- the exercises, not the bras. I’ve improved at dropping my chest between my arms. Yes, if my chest were bigger, it would be easier for me to touch the ground. The push-ups wouldn’t be any deeper. They would just look that way. She finishes dinner, and passes. Sitting on her mantelpiece is an undetected stain of Bolognese large enough to cover my own penne. I shall stick to doing push-ups the hard way.

Yours Truly X

Shadows Of A Sentence.

Thursday, 2 February 2012

The show that transcends clothing, from catwalk to cover.

Thursday, 19 January 2012

Svelte Susannah

Tuesday, 17 January 2012

♡♡♡ AQUA

I ain't got them cha-chas.

Monday, 7 November 2011