GARMSVILLE: July 2009

Archive for July 2009

Forged Identity: In Praise Of Anti-Glamour

Wednesday, 29 July 2009 Comments Off

Last week I clocked a bunch of guys in the Hoxton Hotel. They looked immaculate - Summer trench coats tied tight at the waist, polished pointy shoes, hair freshly cut - everything was picture perfect. And that's where it all seemed to go wrong. It was too neat, too tidy, too precise; they seemed to have taken all the fun and personality out of wearing nice clothes in the desire to get it right.

It reminded me about fledgling New Jersey brand Forged Identity. They have an anti-glamour design ethic. Joe Cassese explained to me what that means.

Anti-glamour is when you’re not afraid to get those new shoes scuffed or dirty or not being embarrassed by a wrinkle in your shirt.

Don’t misinterpret the term as being against glamour, in fact we respect any endeavor to look and feel as good as one can, we take pride in presenting ourselves in how we dress ourselves.

It’s when someone looks like they put a lot of thought into what they are wearing but really didn’t, it’s just how they look all the time.

The glamour we refer to when we say ‘Anti-Glamour’ is Glamour in the service of raw vanity and conceit, rather than in the service of self presentation with a sense of Class.

Partly inspired by films such as A River Runs Through It, Reds, The Wanderers and Once Upon A Time In America, the three partners behind this inspiring independent menswear brand (Kevin Goldstein, Joe Troiano and Joe Cassese) all share a background in construction. Maybe that's why this - the Autumn/Winter 09 Collection - boasts a combination of the understated, the well made and the functional - a perfect antidote to the self-conscious smoothies I'd just seen.

http://forgedidentityclothing.com/

Tea's Up: Pellicci's Cafe

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This cup has nothing to do with Shoreditch Village. It has nothing to do with Upper East London. It's not part of a new private members club or a tea-room-come-art installation by some RCA graduate. It is however one of the coolest things to be launched in the manor this month.

Designed by Dr Mandi Martin with the graphic support of Magpie Studio it's the first in a series of officially approved Pellicci's Cafe merchandise.

Pelliccis's Cafe is a grade two listed, compact space which has remained virtually unchanged for almost a hundred years. With Nev, his sister Anna and cousin Tony serving and with Mama Pellicci in the kitchen, the cafe - according to Time Out and many others- is the home of the best chips in town.

It's always busy and bustling during the lunch hours, full of regular (and often famous) faces and never short of lively banter. The intimacy of the space and the informality of the owners means that all pretence and attitude remains outside - or gets gently and playfully exposed over a lovingly cooked meal.

But it's more than just a slice of authentic East London full of character and friendly personalities. Pellicci's is a magical place with an irresistible warmth; it's possibly one of the few places you'll come across where the word family is defined as a verb and where you're likely to feel genuinely nourished even before you've had your tea.

For those unaware of Pellicci's location, it's in the heart of Bethnal Green - although its regualrs would have you believe that the heart of Bethnal Green is located inside Pellicci's. I'll gladly drink to that.

Pellicci's: 332 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 0AG

Hear We Are Now

Monday, 27 July 2009 Comments Off

The most popular way of listening to music today isn’t the CD, nor is it the radio - it’s the ringtone...that tiny, lo-fi, counter-intuitive sound we hear any number of times a day or night from any number of mobile phones.

My favorite ringtone at the moment belongs to Dom who runs The Cottage Cafe in Hoxton. It’s the music box tune from the film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It sounds both really cool and ominous every time it rings. Best film ever made Dom explains...He certainly wont hear any argument from me. A photographer friend of mine from Holland actually has a ringtone that sounds like a gun being fired, a realistic metallic sound which makes him laugh every time he hears it...It’s the kind of ringtone humour that might not go down too well on a London bus, but seems to have the desired effect in Amsterdam...An upper school teacher I know downloaded the vocal hook to the dance hall classic Ring The Alarm by Tenor Saw for her phone - a reminder of her own, less responsible school days...

Without too much effort the ringtone announces something distinct about us - our own public signature tune. The sound of Grime and UK Funky owe almost as much to the raw unpolished sonic of the ringtone as they do to the gritty inner-city experiences of their Mcs and producers. And while we happily associate these artists with urban (read black) music, that digital sound, which many radio programmers claim to be too unpalatable for mainstream audiences, has - through the mobile - already become a familiar part of everyones sonic landscape.

Unlike the seclusion and anonymity created by our mp3 players, our ringtone brands us in a way that nothing else can, allowing us a level of self-expression which either amplifies or completely contradicts the way we're perceived by the outside world - like gentle piano piece by Debussy coming from the phone of a supposed 'mall-rat' or the ringtone from ‘Serious’ by JME bellowing from the Blackberry of an otherwise nondescript ‘suit'.

With something more akin to a T-shirt or a pair of limited edition sneakers, the ringtone goes further than our favourite band or the most played track on our iPod in reflecting and telling the world what we’re about.

This process goes some way to explaining why we often hear kids playing music aloud on their phones, sitting at the back of the bus or on trains without any apparent consideration for other passengers; they’re self-broadcasting, announcing their taste, projecting their identity and grabbing a momentary slice of celebrity for themselves.

Our own ringtones, cutting through the air with complete disregard for time or place has a similar effect - announcing our presence in an increasingly faceless, monotone world. Maybe, we’re not so different from those kids after all.

My current mobile phone is, I'm informed, one of the cheapest on the market. It cost me £4.99. Its loudest setting is vibrate; I dread to think what that says about me...

NKU: Ralph Lauren 09

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Never Knowingly Underdressed...print ad RalphLa Summer 09 Collection.

Beyond The Ballroom - Sunday 19th July @ Cargo

Friday, 17 July 2009 Comments Off

This Sunday a major one off takes place at Cargo, hosted by Edge 09 (that's me and Paul Bradshaw) and The Barbican. It's a fun packed music event featuring featuring Dj's Gilles Peterson and Snowboy, live bands The Mighty Jeddo and ...and loads more.

Gilles, who has just come back from filming and recording in Cuba will be playing a special new jazz dance set, in the main arch of Cargo in the early part of the evening. We've specifically asked him to include some of the new music he recorded while in Cuba. He and we are looking forward to hearing some of that stuff for the first time in a real club environment.

Snowboy will be playing the kind of jazz dance set you might have heard in the Wag club on a Monday or in Dingwalls on a Sunday way back in the late eighties and nineties. Upful Jazz, Latin and Soul and Funk music you can dance to. We've invited a number of dancers both young and not so young. These are people who can do such amazing things on a dance floor they'd make Flawless stop in their tracks. A sprung dance floor has been installed specially for the occasion and - just like in the old days - jazz dancers get in free.

The Mighty Jeddo are a young six strong group of musicians who play club inspired jazz - 2009 style. It's compulsive stuff mixing jazz and funk you can hear Miles Davis, Defunkt and even The Lounge Lizards alongside a bit of house music within their contemporary soul stew.

Dave Packman's band Dilanga continue the Cuban feel with the kind of live percussion and vocal sound you'd probably hear in Havana street corner - especially if you were rolling with Gilles at the time. They'll be playing a couple of sets through the early part of the day - bring something to bang on and join in.

The Electric Ballroom featured legendary DJ Paul Murphy and an very young (i-d carrying) Gilles Peterson behind the decks. It's one of the clubs, everybody claims to have gone to. Dick Jewel - the man who introduced Horace Andy to Massive Attack (but that's another story) - will be screening for the very first time in London his Jazz Room film. This film is a rare chance experience the moves and the music as it really happened in The Electric Ballroom back in the early eighties - the very roots of the London club scene as we know it.

With a special themed menu available in the Cargo restaurant, there will also be record, art and book stalls - in fact Snowboy will be signing his new book Beyond the Ballroom - The History Of The UK Jazz Dance Scene during the day too (hopefully not during his DJ set however).

The whole thing will be recorded of course - so when everyone says they were there, those who really were can prove it.

Check out Snowboys live interview with Robert Elms later today on BBC Radio London 94.9 FM- around 2pm, before Elms plays his Funky Friday set, no doubt.

Sunday 19th July

Cargo: 83 Rivington Street, Shoreditch

doors opens 3pm - closes midnight

tickets £10

kids allowed until 6.30pm

www.cargo-london.com/event/beyond-the-ballrooma-celebration-of-uk-jazz-dance/

Simon Foxton / When You're A Boy

Wednesday, 15 July 2009 Comments Off

1, 2, 3, 4 / Heaven loves ya / The clouds part for ya / Nothing stands in your way / When you're a boy /

Clothes always fit ya / Life is a pop of the cherry / When you're a boy / When you're a boy / You can wear a uniform /

When you're a boy / Other boys check you out / You get a girl / These are your favourite things / When you're a boy /

Boys / Boys / Boys keep swinging / Boys always work it out! /

Uncage the colours / Unfurl the flag / Luck just kissed you 'hello!' / When you're a boy /

They'll never clone ya / You're always first on the line / When you're a boy /

You can buy a home of your own /

When you're a boy / Learn to drive and everything / You'll get your share /

When you're a boy/ Boys / Boys / Boys keep swinging / Boys always work it out!

lyrics: David Bowie / song: Boys Keep Swinging / story: Strictly, i-D Magazine, 1991 / styling: Simon Foxton / photography: Jason Evans / casting: Edward Enninful / all images: copyright Jason Evans / Simon Foxton, When You're A Boy exhibition @ The Photographers Gallery, July 17th - October 4th; 16-18 Ramillies Street, London W1 / Jason Evans: http://www.thedailynice.com/

Grenson samples: a step too far, a size too small - maybe

Sunday, 12 July 2009 Comments Off

A mate of mine works for the company - said the store salesman in that discreet I'll-let-you-into-a-secret tone. That's all he needed to say. That, and the fact that the shoes in question were a one-off.

On close inspection they could only be samples. They're size eight. They're unfinished. They're the kind shoe which a company has produced but hasn't manufactured. Some of the most interesting shoes you can find are the ones which have failed to progress further than the initial sample stage.

Made by Grenson these shoes share a passing resemblance to the distressed brogues they released this summer, but that's about it. Maybe the company thought they were a leap too far for the brands identity. Perhaps they'll drop a similar style next summer. Or maybe these shoes were part of a collaboration that never happened - the brand has, after all, been working with the likes of Albam, Rag & Bone, Olivia Morris and of course Kurt Geiger of late.

These shoes could even date back to 2004 when the brand re-launched. Designer Tim Little, who joined the company in 2006 has over the past few seasons been pushing the brand into a direction where it can be compared favourably with the likes of Paul Smith, Church's and Trickers. He also seems careful not to scare off the companies core market. Wise man.

These are the kind of shoes you'd imagine racked nicely alongside the patent leather multi-coloured loafers Church's introduced a few years ago - exclusively for the Italian market. Now they're available here too.

Distressed white leather boating shoes - it says on the box. Perfect for now, but maybe not perfect for Grenson - just yet. Ideal for me - as long as I can convince my feet to fit into size eight shoes. Here we go again.

NKU: Fred & Bing

Tuesday, 7 July 2009 Comments Off

Never Knowingly Underdressed...

The Sublime Patrick Hughes

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Tomorrow the Chelsea Arts Club are holding a charity auction and gala garden party. Called Salon du The, a number of artists have been invited to contribute decorated teacups and saucers. Enter Patrick Hughes.

It's no surprise that an artist with a playful eye for colour and contrast should also be a confident garmsman too. Hallowed as the original rainbow man, the work of Patrick Hughes continues to influence subsequent generations of artists, art directors and designers alike - including none other than Dr Mandi Martin.

The surreal and absurdist root of his early colour-rich pieces almost always affords a warmth and humour within their meaning. Romantic and at the same time cool, these works manage to apply an accessible visual language to often complex ideas, exploring Hughes interest in perception, illusion and visual logic.

Since the 90's his work has mainly centred around Reverspectives - creating a sense of three-dimensional motion through the use of pyramid-shaped partitions on single canvases.

A guided tour through his fully functioning Old Street based studio is a privileged opportunity to see the two major periods of Hughes work side by side. While these phases in his creative career seem quite distinct, at their core lies the desire to challenge and play with pre-conception, to surprise - going beyond the viewers gaze and engaging the mind's eye in unexpected ways. What connects the two periods is his continued ability to beguile, to create sublime visual moments - something which most contemporary artists can only dream of.

www.patrickhughes.co.uk

NKU: Sammy Davis Jr

Monday, 6 July 2009 Comments Off

Never Knowingly Underdressed...

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