if you would be so kind.

For one of my main projects for this year at uni is to produce a magazine article, sounds easy I know but you have to do EVERYTHING yourself; and i mean everything, from the photographs to the page numbers. It's actually quite fun really, so I'm not complaining.
Our brief was to do this season spring/summer trends and while most people shot off to do nude, or lace or something else really obvious, I chose to do something a little bit different.
I decided to do a modern take on Alice in Wonderland, inspired by the release of the new film. I noted that the main 'beauty secert' if you like, was dark makeup and the main clothing trend was pastels, which to me, almost seemed like a bizarre but yet a wonderful combination of the Tim Burton style with the gothic features and the Disney orginal colours of pastels. It might of just been me being having a crazy fashion faux pas, but I loved the idea and so unfolded my project.
I recently did the photoshoot for the feature and I wanted to share a few of the images with you as really do quite like them, but obviously let me know if you hate them so I can start making drastic rearrangements to my work!

So heres just a few of the pictures that are my favourites.

Apologies for the logos and the rubbish quality but the original files are really big so I thought I'd scale them down for this!
Anyways, I know they aren't great but hopefully for a first year uni student they are alright?

Tim Burton the lastest craze?

Fashion is a tangled web of wonder. There’s something about it that hold’s element of surprise and the unexpected. Each thread, each weave, revealing an innovative, new design startling the hearts of fashionistas, and halting the world into silence as it takes your breath away. It’s this very feeling that crops up every season. As you get comfortable in your seat and stare at the empty catwalk, you have already created a mental picture of the shoes, dresses, shirts and trousers are going to make up the collection. I suppose you begin to believe you have seen it all; believe that you are inside the designers minds, but really you are doing nothing but not believing in fashion. Fashion is ever changing and yet while we all expect the norm season in, season out, fashion always knows how to push the boundaries and bring us something fabulously outrageous. This season is no different it just seems now something else is beginning to shape fashion’s identity; the Cinema.
With the upcoming Tim Burton film, Alice in Wonderland, it’s no wonder the catwalks were over-flowing with pastel and candy colours, oversized bows, doll-like dresses and dramatic makeup. While the Disney original of the film is made up of play-safe pastel colours, Tim Burton is renowned for his quirky approach to theatre and it seems the fashion boat has used this to set sail for spring.
As we waited impatiently for the spring/summer 2010 collections to slander graciously down the catwalk, each journalist, upcoming designer and photographer were thinking the same. A ray of natural and nude faces surrounded by boho hair and dressed in florals were going to be paraded; the usual spring looks. Alas, the silence was electric as Marc Jacobs models appeared with gothic eyes and lips, only to be followed by Luella’s block-colouring eye shadow, throwing out the rule-book and reeling Alice’s one in. The make-up was soon followed by the girly frills of pastel frocks from Valentino, Burberry and Roberto Cavilli to name a few.

It sees the catwalks are not the only place that fashion is gripped by Wonderland. In honour of the film release Stella Mccartney has designed a limited edition necklace and charm bracelet complete with playing cards and a rabbit. It is also rumoured that designers such as Christopher Kane have fallen for Alice’s charm as they create bespoke outfits for her to be displayed at French Department Store, Printemps during Paris Fashion Week.

With thanks to our favourite little white rabbit it’s our chance to have a spring we weren’t expecting. We can keep our beloved eyeliner we have grown to love once more, while ditching the military boots, slipping into a sugar pink sundress and securing bows in our hair. With all the studs, black and leather over winter it’s a relief to our bodies to know we are getting rid of our manly wardrobe and being a little more feminine this season; although with hint of risqué as we attempt our Burton-esque makeup.
It seems odd to me as I shop for my new favourite pieces, that a film has once again shaped our catwalks and caused such an eruption in the fashion world. It began last season with the influx of vampire looks, recognition of the new Twilight film, and now the euphoria of Wonderland, as our stores are lined with lemons, sugars and pastels, shaping our spring, summer trends. Maybe it’s the designers looking at the demand of what the public want. Any girl would love to be Alice, entering a world of sheer madness, not knowing what’s to crop up next, faced with something different every minute. Although, something that sounds almost identical to the tangled web that is fashions own wonderland.
This season, we can kick off our chucky boots, hang up our bushy fur coats and celebrate girly frocks and skirts. As fashions very own looking glass bores down on us, it’s time to embrace a new epidemic; fashion as cinema and Alice’s extremely beautiful wardrobe wonderland. Now, there’s something in fashion we never expected.

SO MUCH LOVE FOR ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

Fashion Through Cinema, Old Lady Style.

Today i was standing in my local newsagents, with the rain outside once again drowning Britain as we know it, just staring at shelf titled ‘Magazines and Newspapers’. Every cover I spy and every headline I read is plastered with Rob’s face or Kristen’s figure, headlines crying out about the new ‘Gothic Glamour’. And standing here aimlessly flicking through Look, I realise the world has gone insane, totally and thoroughly Twilight insane.
I must admit from the moment I saw it, read it, like any other girl I was like a fly caught in a web. An embarrassing, expanding, lust filled web of infatuation. My breath harbouring in my chest for every second I saw him walk on to the screen, to gently stroke her face and spine-chillingly whisper, ‘I love you’. Yet, each time I find myself asking, what is it about vampires that is so outrageously sexy and romantic? Possibly it’s the unknown, the peril, and the mysterious that makes them remarkably beautiful. I didn’t know then, and I certainly still don’t know now; but at that first release of Twilight, the first glimpse of Robert Pattison’s pure snow skin and liquid golden eye’s I became obsessed. Draw in like an umbrella to rain. I had a fiery, burning passion for a film? I had to be kidding myself! I’m the usually the Grinch of the cinema, ready to destroy the sheer thought of a movie night at the slightest mention. Then came Taylor Lautner and I literally dived from my chair, rugby tackled the coffee table, head-butted the vase, and found myself staring face to face with the most stunning man, well boy, after all he is 17, and I was officially in love; in love with Twilight and a 17 year old, devoted to Team Jacob.

With this thought in tow, I stand back, arms crossed and watch, mystified, as thousands of women amble by shielding their Daily Mail from the rain like I would my Marc Jacobs, I realise they all too take a sneaky peek at the talent displayed on the shelf. I actually think in my mental calculation the pages smothered by Twilight are getting more wandering eyes than the top shelf is from the dirty men buying their daily dosage of alcohol and cigarettes. I smile to myself as two ladies, around 70, wobbling slightly on their walking sticks join me at the shelf. I glance down in embarrassment as I realise I am ogling over a half-naked Jacob Black, and try to conjure up a plan to act causal. “Oh my Doris,” I eavesdrop, “Look at this! I remember when Frank used to look like this you know. Back in day, he was quite a stud, especially when he did the saucy strip tease of an evening!” She begins cackling and I bite down on my lip, trying to suppress any squeal of laughter, while attempting to avoid any red lipstick on the teeth disaster. It’s something quite bizarre that even the elderly are mesmerised, intrigued by this cinema phenomenon. The unusual is standing right before me; two pensioners crooning over pictures of the latest teenage craze, picturing their memories. Isn’t it odd, that normality tells us that pensioners despise the young generation and are so naïve as to any development of cinema and technology? Yet here they are now, proving that Twilight has even gripped the elderly between its pointed teeth, making the world truly fanatical.
The un-named lady in the green BHS parker continues; I know this because her label is trying to say hello to me through her grey matted curls. At least it’s only him that’s spotted me. “Look at this girl’s makeup. So much eyeliner, did we wear that much when we were this age?” She asks Doris who just simply shakes her head, completely uninterested. I daringly snap a glance of the picture she was reminiscing too, noticing immediately it was Kristin/Bella; what a surprise, I find myself thinking. Every image and every headline is appealing to everyone, completely destroying any target audience, everything a publication works for with one monstrous blow. At least, I don’t think Vogue ever intended for retired ladies sporting the latest M&S look to be flicking through their pages.

Suddenly comprehending the situation I understood, everything is for Twilight. Again, I was staring at the splashes on every publication, How to get Gothic, Fashion Alert: Black Lace, Black is Back. Was a film really beginning to shape our catwalks? Trying to shake the thought out of mind, thinking only of the absurdness and utter vulgarity of the idea I realise it is true. Fashion has come to a point where designer’s creations and supposed originality has faltered away and collections come from the launch of films and people’s new obsessions. It shocks me to think possibly for once, people have shaped the identity of the catwalk, instead of the catwalk shaping us but I just can’t accept that the creations should originate from a box office.

Frantically scrambling through page after page I notice nothing but velvet, blacks, smouldering eyes and sexy red lips; all vampire traits, confirmation of my fears. Fashion this season was based on a vampire, on a film that appears to have taken over the world and humanity as we know it, leaking into the fashion houses like a virus. Halting, I slam my hand into the page, slightly bewildered at my own reaction. Unsure as to what magazine I am even grasping, all I can do is gawk with eye popping stares as I take in the rows and rows of Twilight t-shirts brandishing slogans of I Love Edward and various other hideous designs. My teeth grimace, similar to that of a vampire most probably, as I think of the embarrassment I feel for these magazines, having so little to publish other than t-shirts made on the internet! Barely noticing the ladies that hit number one for my conversation of the day, still ogling at Jacob, I flew past them in a whirl of outrage, disgusted what I have just witnessed, even more disgusted than the thought of the un-named lady watching her nightly strip-tease. This planet had warped into a globe of insanity for Twilight, not just the fashion and beauty but the people; old ladies even captured by the magic.
Fashion and cinema have gone mental!