Brand Of The Week: David Longshaw

A designer who has been on my radar since my first foray into fashion journalism whilst at Amelia’s Magazine, I have followed the career of David Longshaw eagerly - especially in recent seasons - coveting the wonderful accessories made in conjunction with his girlfriend and incidentally SIX Magazine favorite, Kirsty Ward for the past two seasons.

An esteemed illustrator having won the Colin Barnes Drawing Prize in 2005, Longshaw has an unrivalled talent for creating individualist characters that centre in his own narrative stories. Sponsored by Swarovski Elements garments are sculptural, colourful and in short, match Longshaw’s signature to a tee. Longshaw’s work is witty, imaginative, thought-provoking and above all; beautiful. For the first time AW11 sees the designer collaborate on a capsule footwear collection with footwear designer Heather Blake.

The AW11 collection is inspired by the following shirt story:
‘Seriously Rose, I can’t bloody believe it here, they’ve stuck me in the middle of sodding nowhere with these religious nuts who expect me to go to church with them and sit shitting cross stitching by the fire ‘of an eve.’ What do they think it is, the bloody 15thCentury?’ They don’t drink and they don’t f****ing swear. There’s no one my age I’ve met other than one or two who are destined to die virgins unless one of them changes sex and their parents force them in to an arranged marriage to procreate more dull, wierd looking bastards! ‘Don’t even get me started on the sodding birds! It’s supposed to be quiet in the countryside, but every morning at 5am all I get is bloody tweet, tweet, tweet; they even tap on the window- I thought it was someone at the front door at first. It’s a nightmare when you’ve got a hangover. I managed to smuggle in some booze but I’m running low.’ Tora, a wayward girl, gets sent to live with her tea-total, religious, cross stitching, aunt and uncle in the middle of nowhere, to try get her on the straight and narrow. She takes a soft toy named Frank with her, which has a pet shoe and a love of whisky.

Having fallen in love with Longshaw’s forthcoming AW11 collection at the Iroquois press day back in April, I can’t wait to see what VOGUE.com’s ‘Designer to Watch 2011’ and ELLE’s ‘Rising star of 2011’ will have in store

Q&A with Lulu Guinness (written for Freestyle Magazine)

I was lucky enough to be present at a V+A fashion talk between Dolly Jones (of Vogue online) and fashion icon Lulu Guinness. Lulu was very warm, witty and extremely passionate about fashion, she talked about her youth through to her illustrious career as one of the world’s leading handbag designers. After establishing the brand in 1989 Lulu was informed by her keen customer base that they wanted to buy bags that Lulu herself would carry, from this Lulu revolutionised her brand and says of her customers; “People who carry my accessories generally have a little tongue-in-cheek and want to show a bit of personality in the way they dress.”

To continue reading this article go to Freestyle Magazine.