LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT: FRED BUTLER

Sherbet orange, jelly green, ice cream pink... Fred Butler's jewellery is made only of yummy colours. This 28 year-old english girl, who started working as a stylist assistant for several magazines, has recently decided to set up her own accessories brand. Her work is extravagant, excessive and hallucinogenic and it seems inspired by simple, innocent objects such as sweets, rainbows and cakes; only they have an acid twist that has made personalities like Patrick wolf and icelandic band Sigur Ros fall for her jewellery. She has actually created some pieces for them to wear on stage.Her summer 09 collection, entitled "Dahlia Fantasia", explores prismatic reflections in metal and space through 12 irresistible pieces.

TO BE (FABULOUS) OR NOT TO BE

That we live in a world full of paradox is no secret to anyone these days. Paradox surrounds us wherever we go, even in the beautiful, fashionable, "chicissime" city of Paris. The city of light is undoubtedly the world´s capital of fashion, and we all have a very concrete image of what a true "Parisienne" looks like... Well, I would say this is almost as clichéd as the image of frenchmen wearing a beret, a moustache and a marinière and carrying a baguette under the arm wherever they go (actually, the baguette bit is perhaps not so untrue). The average parisienne looks more casual in jeans-and-converse than the head-to-toe Chanel, scarlett lips sophisticated femme fatale we all have in mind. But, of course, there are exceptions: about 80% of the people I know in this city work in fashion, and their wardrobes could be labelled everything from "fashionista" to "outrageous" to simply "what-the-hell-are-you-wearing-it-looks-absurd".

The problem with our generation is that we grew up watching Sex and the City until we got to a point where we were completely deluded into believing outfits like these to be normal:

But just try to wear these in the streets of Paris without two or three extra-accessory bodyguards! For a city which saw the light of many innovative fashion trends, it is shocking how many garments are synonym of trouble now: miniskirts mean trouble, décolleté tops mean trouble, high heels mean trouble, furs mean trouble. I used to live in Rue Lepic, behind the Moulin Rouge, where once, in 1947, a mob of furious women attacked a young model wearing the super-new fashion of the time: Christian Dior´s New Look. Sixty years later, girls have to stand mobs of sleazy men following them and saying obscene things to them just because they are wearing a little black dress. Later on I moved to the other side of town, to the gay neighbourhood, the Marais, still in Paris but a completely different planet where comments about girls´ outfits resume to wether their tights match their headgear. The parisian centre of all fashionistas has a life if its own, and I have gone from being ashamed of wearing a pencil skirt down the street to being ashamed of going to the bakery in the morning in my pyjamas (I confess I love to buy my pains aux raisins just wearing a fur coat over some big pyjamas). People in this part of town are always dressed to the nines, Carrie Bradshaw wouldn´t shock in here even in her McQueen "millefeuille" dresses and younger generations of true parisiennes love the shops around here. The problem of course raises when you get into the Metro.

It seems in the last century we have gone from dressing up to dressing down, which is indeed more practical, more democratic and more comfortable. But I still claim for a woman´s right to absurd, excessive, fabulous dressing! After all, I´d rather dress like this
than to break the city´s wonderful architectural and landscape design by wearing infinitely comfortable, totally practical Juicy Couture style clothes like these
So even if my clothes are menaced of being torn apart by angry mobs and even if I have to stand people saying "lovely" things to me as I pass them by (to be honest, the last one is much more likely to happen than the former), I will still go on dressing up, stylishly, ridiculously. Fabulous.

OBSESSIONS: MAKEUP.

It is a well known fact that, in the EU (actually in the whole planet), women are paid less than men for the same jobs. More accurately, in France women earn, as an average, 21% less tan men. I won't discuss the absurdity of this gap right now, since this blog is about fashion and not politics, but this is incredibly unfair; especially because women have a lot of (superficial) expenses exclusive to the feminine sex: waxing, hairdressers and other head gear, beauty treatments, anti-aging creams, anti-aging creams meant for specific zones of the body, scrubs, lotions, potions and...makeup. Have you ever actually calculated your makeup budget? I started calculating mine and stopped in the middle of it: it's just monstruous.

The question is, do we really need makeup? My boyfriend always tells me he likes me best in the morning, when I look all sleepy and don't wear any makeup (those hungover, smudged-mascara mornings don't count); and many girls wear very little makeup. Andy Warhol used to say the most kissable lips were those wearing nothing. He also said Marilyn's lips were not kissable, but photographable. And what a picture she took! Makeup may not be essential to everyday's life, but it helps if you want to become a pop culture icon. So, just in case, I won't stop wearing my fetish lipstick, Mac Pro longwear in "Lasting Lust" (I don't know which I love most, the colour or the name).

Makeup is no different than fashion: you can create your very distinctive look through it. Also, it enhances beauty (that is if you want it to. I love Amy Winehouse, but sometimes I'm not so sure about her ultra-chunky eye-liner. Having said that, it has made her famous wordlwide).

So yes, we love makeup, true; maybe not so surprising since there is an industry that helps us love it even more... It seems makeup ads and absurd products we don't need at all and covet more than anything are everywhere these days (mini lipgloss we can attach to our mobile phones? glittery grass-green liner? chocolate tablet-shaped face powder? Seriously. Is there anything in the world we need less than that? Yet I find myself thinking about buying that Urban Decay glittery grass-green liner). But the industry was just as developped almost a century ago. I've seen some of the Bourjois products of the 20's: they're just as useless as the ones nowadays. And just as lovely and desirable (I actually wonder why they don't do some vintage edition; they would outsell, it would be the only thing girls lack in their "trousse de maquillage").

But does my obsession with makeup make me a "superficial bitch"? There have been many mixed feelings about this throughout history: it is sort of a tradition to think that "ladies pinch their cheeks, whores put blusher on". Otherwise said, to be tasteful, makeup must be discreet. Charles Baudelaire didn't agree on this (well, he also quite liked prostitutes). He even wrote an exquisite short essay entitled "Eloge du Maquillage" ("Le Peintre de la Vie Moderne"), in which he stated that makeup should do what nature didn't do, create an artificial, almost otherworldly sense of beauty. The whole fashion world thinks the same. Most of the iconic fashion photographs of all time feature incredible makeup. Why shouldn't we do the same? Yes, makeup may be one very expensive pleasure, but it makes us dream... It is makeup that transforms David Bowie into the fabulous Ziggy Stardust!

MORE IS MORE

Sorry I haven't been writing for ages; I've been working like crazy and thinking about the direction I wanted the blog to evolve towards... I've come to the conclusion that there are more than enough superficial fashion blogs around, and very few special ones. Fashion is much more than just shopping, brands and names. It's about opinions, culture, society, politics and...revolution. Fashion fascinates me, it annoys me, it makes me dream, it bores me, it makes me hysterical! I think this blog should reflect all that.

So, from now on, expect more interesing texts, more innovative subjects, more transgressive and deep points of view. And probably more humour.

New post very soon! In the meantime, I can't help but being incredibly frivolous and posting a photo of the dress of my dreams. It was designed by Adrian and worn by Hollywood goddess Joan Crawford in the 1932 film "Letty Lynton".

xxx