Fashion Fridays: The New Year Swap

According to Coco Chanel “A woman who has changed her hair is about to change her life”. I swapped my long brown hair for a blonde chop this New Years and by jumping on this ‘clueless’ bandwagon I bought myself a fluffy pink coat and tartan skirt to finish off the look. I may have taken this ‘New Year, new start’ nonsense to the extreme, so here are a few subtle New Year Swaps you fashionista’s should have in mind!

 

SWAP – Long Hair For The Midi

Alexa Chung, Huffingtonpost.co.uk

Gone are those days of long luscious locks, if you really want pull a fashion statement go for a blunt chop. Think Alexa Chung and Suki Waterhouse, use salt spray to have that tousled bed head look or go sleek with straighteners.

 

SWAP – Baggy Parkas For A Boyfriend Tailored Coat

Coat, £89 Topshop.com

I know we are now located in Devon and these storms seem to washing us all the way down Forum Hill but when the weather is nice and crisp, put away that parka and let your shoulders triumph in an oversized Tailored coat. Go a step further by ditching the boring greys and blacks and picking up a pastel coat from the High street. It will brighten up any third year’s Monday morning (Trust me- anything helps!).

 

SWAP – Low Necks For High Necks

High Neck, £22, Asos.com

It’s getting a little chilly and you’ve forgotten your scarf- but do not fear, you have a high neck on! This easy swap not only keeps you nice and toasty but it will definitely transform any look. Add a cute little pendant and put your hair up to show your style off.

 

SWAP – Flats For Platforms

Vagabond, £70, Office, Photo Credit – Sophie Lloyd

 Avoid getting your feet wet by swapping your flats for platforms. Not only can you walk through puddles and satisfy that little child in you but it will also enhance the length of your legs. Think 60’s mod and Spice Girls and stick to block colours. Cut out boots have also been my favourite fashion addition this season, as you can jazz your shoes up with funky little socks.

 

SWAP – Chunky Necklaces For Delicate Pendants

Neclace, £10, Urbanoutfitters.com

It’s all about being minimal around your face with jewellery this season. Gold or silver, just do not go over the top with jewels. Keep it simple by digging out that little pendant your grandmother gave you as a kid and stealing your mothers silver hoops. Of course, this is not the case with your rings. ALWAYS think phoebe from ‘Friends’ when decorating your hands.

 

SWAP – Skinny Jeans For Mom Jeans

Mom Jeans, £75, Americanapparel.net

Skinny jeans have and always will be fashionable but they do get a little tiresome. Swap these for some curve hugging mom jeans. If you have been slacking on the squats this month and are worried that your bum doesn’t look perky enough and your waist isn’t as small as it once was, then mom jeans are an absolute winner. Extremely high-waisted, they rest on the most flattering part of your stomach and then have a slight bagginess to enhance your gorgeous curves.

 

SWAP – Snap Back for The Beanie:

Beanie, Urban Outfitters, £16, Photo Credit – Sophie Lloyd

Now I am not one to go against your choice of hat. I know very well that choosing a hat to suit your face shape can be a tricky situation. However, if you are one of those lucky people who have a face shape that suits all then why not try out the beanie. Borrowing from the 90’s again, however this time from the grunge trend. Team with your mom jeans and chunky boots to really look like you’ve stepped back about 20 years in time.

 

This Week’s Fashion Icon:

CHER FROM CLUELESS

Photo Credit – Thegloss.com

 

Sophie Lloyd, (Check her instagram for more inspiration -Sophiesarahmaylloyd)

Review: The Bling Ring

 Lifestyles of the rich and famous? Katherine Perrington lives vicariously and reviews The Bling Ring, a glitzy and seductive tale about when crime and consumerism meet celebrity.

A superbly entertaining yarn, The Bling Ring is Sofia Coppola’s take on the true story of a group of teens who robbed famous Hollywood houses in 2008-09. It’s fast-paced, focusing at first on Marc Hall (Israel Broussard) and Rebecca Ahn (Katie Chang) as they roam around neighbourhoods stealing from cars and houses as if it’s the done thing to do after school instead of hanging out at the mall.

Image Credit: Business Insider

Soon ‘The Bling Ring’ is formed, with these fashion conscious and morally ambiguous kids targeting celebrities solely for their style (and likelihood of leaving doors unlocked). Though the film appears on the surface as somewhat vacuous, with ample shots of the teens fawning over Chanel and Louis Vutton, its sparkling satire gives us a small glimpse into the celebrity life that many secretly crave but few actually resort to crime to achieve.

That being said, one of my favourite lines has to be from Nicki Moore (Emma Watson) as she ransacks Paris Hilton’s vast clothing collection, exclaiming in a whiny drawl, “Oh my God… it’s Hervé Léger!”.

Paris Hilton’s real house was used for filming allowing us to truly visualise these teens’ fantasy of running around stealing staggeringly expensive goods. More startling is the fact that Paris Hilton did not realise she had been robbed until two  million dollars worth of jewellery had been stolen (how much stuff can one person own?!)

Image Credit: NY Daily News

The film is shot to highlight the superficial and partying nature of the celebrity lifestyle with a hip-hop and dance-heavy soundtrack, alongside shots of the thieving teens dancing in designer gear and taking obnoxious selfies whilst grasping handfuls of stolen cash.

Whilst it is satisfying to watch their comeuppance later in the film, part of me wished for more of the plundering to be shown just so that I could gawp at all the expensive things (and secretly imagine myself with all that gold jewellery). These arrogant kids see the houses they invade as their own personal shopping malls with none of them really aware of the danger until LAPD comes knocking at their doors.

They make it seem so easy; agree on whose style they liked (target houses included Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Megan Fox) and them simply Google their addresses and when they’re out of town – the simplicity makes you wonder why more people don’t try it. Their own greed, carelessness and false bravado eventually lead to their capture proving that you can’t mimic the celebrity lifestyle forever without consequences.

Image Credit: Live For Film

The cynical side of my brain reasons that it can’t harm all of these designer labels to have their products splashed all over this film and on very glamorous looking actors (although I don’t imagine they’d want to inspire a crime spree).

Product placement aside, this film is an addictive viewing experience and worth more than one watch, with memorable scenes from Emma Watson and a praiseworthy performance from the rest of the cast. Overall it is a stunning film by the brilliant director, writer and producer Sofia Coppola leaving me wishing that The Bling Ring had robbed even more houses – purely so I could watch more of their antics on screen.

4/5

Katherine Perrington

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Tribal or terrible?

Photo credits to focus2capture

The Safer Sex Ball is the one event in Exeter that can be guaranteed to generate controversy.
Whether it’s outcry over the outfits or cynicism over its cause, criticism always rises up. Some of it self-righteous, some of it misguided and some of it, well, really quite sensible.

The issue that this article takes to task is this year’s theme: ‘tribal’. The SSB is a fun event and not one to take seriously, but it is worth having a closer look at the theme to see any potential issues.

So, let’s begin by figuring out what ‘tribal’ actually means. A quick Google gives you a decent definition: “Of or characteristic of a tribe or tribes”. So, any outfit at the SSB this year will bepurporting to be representative in some way of a tribe.

The definition of a ‘tribe’ itself is more convoluted but essentially boils down to being a group. However, an analysis of the term in an African social action paper, Pambazuka News, says this: “In the modern West, tribe often implies primitive savagery… stereotypes of primitiveness and conservative backwardness are also linked to images of irrationality and superstition.”

I am not saying ‘tribal’ has to mean something racial or even cultural. Plenty of people have talked about wearing a caveman-type costume to the SSB and some are even going to use their own cultures as costume inspiration, whether being from Wales or from a ‘tribe’ of music-lovers. And that is fine. But when I turn once again to Google, the image results for ‘tribal costume’ are
almost exclusively of non-Western culture.

The problems with this idea of costume as representing a ‘tribe’ are two-fold. Firstly, taking bits and pieces from various cultures (a “Native American” headdress here, a ‘Zulu Warrior’ grass-skirt there) is disrespectful and reductive to that culture. It’s just not cool to ignore the genuine cultural meaning of those items and wear them simply as decoration. It’s not the same as taking various aspects of British culture because, unlike what the BNP might have you believe, Britain has neither been massively subjugated nor repressed. A quick look at history will tell you who has been repressed and a review of the British Empire would be a good place to start.

This brings me to the second half of the issue. If taking bits and pieces of people’s culture is reductive, then lumping them all in together as simply being ‘tribal’ is even worse. It is one thing to simply take inspiration from something, it is another to class a range of varying cultures, societies and people as ‘tribal’ simply because they are not Western and white.

Taking all this into consideration, it is clear that the ‘tribal’ theme has the potential to patronise and reduce non-Western culture to something ‘different’, as well as primitive and backward. We can all see what’s wrong with ‘blackface’, so hopefully we can all see what could be wrong with a largely white, middle-class, privileged group of people parading around in so-called ‘tribal’ costume.

Olivia Luder