boho-etton: has benetton really gone crustie??

benetton's a/w campaign has hit the tubes with a rainbow brite-fest of crusty-inspired colour and woolen hair-jumper get ups. it looks as if the creatives from their agency have been watching fraggle rock boxsets in between getting psychedelic at glade/in the greenfields! if the models in this pic didn't look so guilelessly happy, i'd have to shield my eyes and run away. it brings me right back to freshers week 1999, when i was doing high street hippy-chic in pink buffalo slippers.

festival fatigue(s)

one of the side effects of a choc-a-block festival season (may---september) is that the packed calendar has given every publication with an inch of 'shopping' column an excuse to write a lazy feature on how to do FESTIVAL "CHIC". said piece will pull together dribs and drabs which look as if they've been scavenged from the bottom of sienna's 'scraps for windowcleaning drawer'.

i'm signed up to all the highstreet e-mailouts (whyyyy? farewell personal data) and so have been getting advice from RIVER ISLAND, urban outfitters, asos (of all places!) on what to buy before i p*ss of (and it p*sse* down) to 'glasto'/v/... - who has ever been to a festival (in this country) and found a sensible reason to wear anything other than knee-high wellington boots? (which is a trend in itself) bejewelled flipflops anyone?

beachwear i can fathom, wedding outfits - i suppose, festival chic - no.

tout est cassé: unravellment chic

your skirt is undone at the back

mum 08:51am

often, one can feel as if everything is unravelling and one's grip on oneself is as tenuous and fragile as a manuscript held together with an elastic band. snap. fall apart. so this morning, hair gone wild and shirt untucked, i was just about holding it together until a man approached me as the train pulled into the station to tell me that my back-sde was exposed. luckily, we could both laugh about it. embarrassedly.

which was so try-hard trend i can't believe i didn't think of it before...

listen:
1. if someone says 'your collar is sticking up' tell them: it's meant to be. i'm doing rockabilly/elvis/rizzo in grease.
2. if someone says 'your zip is open' it depends on which one it is. you don't want everyone checking out your underwear on the way to work, but it's sometimes quite fun to flash some flesh. i have this white indiegirl blouse from topshop that (very inconveniently) has buttons all the way up the back and was in the lift at goodge street station once when a lady said 'excuse me, your top's unbuttoned' and she proceeded to do it up for me in a very motherly, dare i say tender way.

therefore: wearing clothes wrong on purpose=good, being careless: sometimes bad

sack the stylist

special men's fashion issue of STstyle today, featuring a pic of WILL YOUNG!! wearing this! t-shirt in jessica brinton's column! SHOCK! yes i'm in shock. it looks like an orchestra of bubbles/bpitch design, so wondering how will got his hands on it. didn't know he was berlin techno, how sweet. i can see him going down a treat at panorama bar, strike a pose!

owww my ears/this week's coolest coldest headgear

ok, all the geek boys will have their own opinion on which 'noise excluding lughole plugpods' you should buy because, you know they're the major noise-draft excluders. HOWEVER i accidentally discovered these sony headphones when my friend zoe gave me a bunch that she'd nicked from her dad/office a few years ago. the sound is far superior to lil free ipod earphones because they're uh headphones and they're not bulky enough to upset the stuff-space ratio in your bag when you're not using them. the only reason i say this is cos when i was on the 38 bus from angel (not officially the trendiest route in london, but up there nonetheless) this morning, as i took a shifty glance from behind my fringe around at my fellow passengers, no less than 3 within eyeshot were using said peripherals. trend? i think so.

STELLA WAS A DIVER

That try-hard trend accidental experiment in full then...
btw all those paparazzi pics of amy wino in the papers everyday bother me not because of whatever disheveled state she was in at the courthouse-drugdealer-petrolstationcourtyard this morning, but because she never ever has a coat on, just a raggedy lace vest or a skimpy fred perry polo t. i'm so jealous! i hate wearing coats too - i'd much rather just throw on a lil leather jacquette or cape thing, but it's been too cold. how can she get away with it? is her ex-cabbie dad now her on-staff chauffeur or something? that would be so convenient, you'd never need to worry about your stupid heavy coat matching everything else again, never mind the whole cloakroom issue.

"let the bats in my head fly out"

1. bodywarmers: shudder. i was on the number 19 bus to oxford street on thursday and spied the man in the seat in front of me unashamedly wearing a dirty old bodywarmer. shame on him! they are the ugliest garments to ever curse a 'wardrobe'! especially when they've been washed loads of times and go all deflated. YUCK.
2.is the topshop vintage concession the biggest con on oxford street? my current shopping project priority is to find a smashing outfit for nick & phoebe's wedding and i haven't even started to look yet because january is not a month for shopping, nu-uh. anyway, they charge £80 for the kind of polyester granny-rags that no ebayer would have the gall to ask more than 99p (+ p&p) for! it's always been a ripoff, but just keeps getting more and more expensive - you'd have to be really lazy/rich/in object-lust to buy anything in there these days.
3. in much more important news, miss kittin has declared herself a feminist in the cover interview in this month's dj mag - KITTINLOVE. that quote in full:'I've realised that if you're a woman, especially if you're an artist, I think it means that you are a feminist, because you're here to talk about who you are. there is some stuff to talk about being a woman in this world. it's still better to be a man in society.//i was influenced by other powerful girls like electric indigo, who was always politically engaged, and i could never dare compare me to her, she's done such great work and i respect her so much for that. the same for peaches...they took it by the balls and i didn't, for some reason, i shied away from it. i have to be pretty humble with that because i was not more of an activist.'

anna you're a star/anna's got the blues

i have unintentionally dipped a converse-trainerd toe in this season's chief one-off/throwaway trend the STAR. zoom in on battered, charity shop blue canvas, with white U-S-A, U-S-A white laces with lil stars specially bought from office years and years ago. i hope no one thinks im trying to look like kate moss. photo to follow, obv.