PAMFLET IX: ELLES FAIT PARIS EN PRINTEMPS

issue 9 launches at the lock tavern on wednesday 15th october - james did this KWAIIII flyer for us. girl gangs tky style!

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.

sonar, so good (again)

Kittin is high. Kittin is climbing across the decks on all fours, purring 'Rippin Kittin' and there should be fireworks going off in the sky right now above SonarPub she's so hot. The world's finest goth-techno-leopard-print-diva has devised a super-sized laptop solo show this year, but Mademoiselle Caroline could probably play broken records (which, wonderfully, she's done at previous Sonars) and still have us eating from her paws. Favourites from 'Thee Glitz' days right up to the recent 'Batbox' are multiplied and mixed live into stadium-filling, acid house anthems then overladen with those irresistibly accented lyrics. The Sonar press department might have been hyping the 'female factor' on the lineup, but every single year, the very womanly Miss Kittin unofficially headlines the festival and its reputation rides on her tattooed shoulders.

Last year Hamburg label Dial released (whisper it) 'This Bliss', the debut album by emo-minimal deity Pantha du Prince and some divine decisionmaker has put him in the sublime sunrise-slot. His live set is all surface-sparse techno, teetering on the deep side of house. Whatever it's called, this is music to make you go limp, wobble a bit and not recover your senses until several days later. Each shift in tempo or silky new sound in 'Eisbaden' or 'Saturn Strobe' is an exploding star expanding across the galaxy. When 'Florac' builds up then breaks into a mind-blowing sitar-drone apocalypse, it levels this girl to a trembling wreck, crouching on the concrete floor.

By which time the sun's up for non-stop dj/producer/legend Ricardo Villalobos. Since it's Sonar and since he's closing proceedings (for now) he appears to have undergone some kind of photosynthetic transformation in the Barcelona heat. This morning he could be on the terrace at Space, spinning what sounds Balearic house and having a very non-serious-techno time of it, so that when the glittering curtain finally falls he's grinning, hands aloft behind the decks and we're already counting down the days to Sonar09.

i heard a rumour

respect to my fave madonna blog, madonnalicious (and so she is!) who are refusing to report/just plain ignoring the *whisper* divorce rumours... good! no true fan would care to indulge such tabloid-filler when there's the far more important matter of STICKYNSWEET tour rumours to listen to!

you can't knock the hustle

You belong to the city
You belong to the night
In the river of darkness
He's a man of the night

omg jayz jayz JAY-Z!! can't believe he used to be hustling mixtapes with wraps of crack on the streets of NYC! he's SUCH A sweetheart - maybe something to do with beautiful B?

the whole jay-z/glastonbury ordeal ('controversy') has been sooo painful to witness. i don't think this would've been the case if it had been kanye booked in the headline slot - it's less to do with hiphop as a genre, than jay-z's low-visibility over here... even though he made 2 of the biggest hits in years (crazy in love and umbrella?)? i was putting the embarrassment down to the medyah until i watched it last night and witnessed the crowd for myself - only the chicks in the front row knew wtf was going down! no one even seemed to appreciate that utterly cutesome, badass brit-rap that he did 28 minutes in!! bow down mofos! bow tha fuck down!

and i also CAN't BELIEVE that he played 'can i get a OOO-OOO' at glastonbury!! one of my all-time swing-jack tunes ever, 'bounce wit me bounce wit me, uh huh'! yeeeeeeah

*hearts*

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.

auf deutsch, bitte

...which reminds me that i also bought this. i'm going to attempt some kind of small flowchart to describe what was one of the best vogues i've seen in years (it helps that i don't know any german so am just going on the pretty pictures).
supermodel> claudia schiffer> naked> check
photographer> legend> mario testino> blankchequebudget> check
superhero trend> catwoman> fetish> mask> luella S/S08> check
sex> sells> check

and that was just the cover!

the female technover

TECHNOTECHNOTECHNO.
every berlin techno lady, including monika (who doesn't have much of a uk presence as far as i'm aware) is name checked here to preview the ellen and anja albums in the context of their superstar status in the city.

i picked up the second issue of the magazine mentioned in the article, bangbangberlin (LICK MY KUNST asks the cover in (f)lurid pink and yellow) at munich airport on monday - who could resist a neon berlin fanzine written in both german & english? (or the cover) when i flicked through - and what made me hand over 6euros for it - was a review of laurent garnier's night at panoramabar in february. that was the night that net, s-l and i waited in a rainy, typhoony, don't leave the house TORRENTIAL storm outside berghain for an hour and a half. at least. but it was worth it. BBB has fanzine-level writing (from me, a zinegirl who is immune to syntax/grammar), but realzine content. something on stil in berlin - the occasionally updated german streetstyle blog where the stars are definitely on the screen and not behind the camera - why are fashion people so terribly earnest darling? there's also a feature on flyers and the graphic designers who are making BBB's favourite ones in berlin right now. it might sound obvious in an art/club zine, but it works.
hmmm what else? getting a bunch of bpitch people in a photoautomat, that's fun too.

since i won't be moving to the bln any time soon, a subscription might be in order...

tight/fit

around about the end of april, marks and spencer, with their history of genius in retailing, stop selling classic black opaque tights in their stores. this is presumably something to do with 'space' on the 'shopfloor' - they need room for SUMMER picnic grub and cava and wotnot, but it's not particularly practical or customer friendly to just eliminate such a staple, whatever the (british) season anyway. (i'm basing this post on 1 or 2 visits to the store in angel only, but i remember this happening last year too).

but OH, what's this? they still do FOOTLESS TIGHTS. useful, wicked, ta. so i'll be darning my past-it pantyhose to wear with my pretty summer frocks then.

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