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SO ?WHERE FASHION GETS CREATIVE

Spring/Summer 2010 £5.00www.somag.co.uk

FRED BUTLERThe brightest star

of accessory design

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLYPerishablehats

EVERYDAY OBJECTS

Design your own accessoriesTHE SEASON’S

HOTTEST TRENDSCatwalk looks to create at home

6 D-I-Y Projects

contentsspring/summer 2010

FASHION24 Hard WearPowerful customisations. Photographs by Simon Lyle Ritchie

48 For One Night OnlyDisposable fashion for your head. Photographs by Rebecca Coleman

58 Everyday ObjectsMake do and mend with everything and anything. Photographs by Elena Pirogova

17 The Art of DressmakingQ&A with performance artist, Kirstie Macleod

44 Piers AtkinsonTalks about modern millinery

53 Best in ShowA look at SHOWstudio’s Design Downloads

56 Fred ButlerThe colourful accessories designer speaks to Naomi Attwood about her work

70 The Generation GameSarah de Gruchy talks to her Granny Wright about passing on the crafts of knit and crochet

D-I-Y 12 Cloudy WaterA bleach printed bolero

14 Silver LiningsMake your own cloud print tee

34 Fringe Benefi tsHow to dazzle with a pair of shoulder pads

36 Hand Bags from Glad RagsFrom cheap jacket to cool shopper

39 Bobble KnitsAdd some texture to your knitting

66 Origami NecklaceMake this statement accessory

FEATURES4 D-I-Why?Rebecca Coleman con-templates why we should bother to do it ourselves

20 Power GamesFocusing on the return of power dressing

22 Deconstruction of a Garment - The BlazerWe take a look at the inner workings of this wardrobe staple

40 Sweet CharityOxfam’s D-I-Y mission

REGULARS2 ContributorsSee whose been creating this season

6 SO ? What #001 - SurrealismThe feel and look of our fi rst trend

9 MoodboardYour surreal shopping list

16 SO ? Yours #001

18 Arts & CraftsWhat’s hot right now in the world of make.

19 SO ? What #002 - PowerThe thinking behind our second trend

38 SO ? Yours #002

43 SO ? What #003 - Mad HattersThe thinking behind our third trend

52 SO ? Yours #003

54 SO ? What #004 - OrigamiThe feel and look of our fourth trend

68 SO ? What #004

COVER LOOKAriana wears T-shirt, customised by

stylist, vintage cropped tux and jeans.

Photography by Simon Lyle Ritchie.

Styling by Rebecca Coleman.

INTERVIEWS10 Laura MacknessThe Central Saint Martin’s Graduate talks all things surreal

SO ?

t all started with an idea back in January 2008. So many of my friends and I seemed to be mak-ing or customising our own clothes – it was almost epidemic. However, when I popped down to my

local newsagents in search of a magazine to inspire my sewing, I was met with a very miserable prospect. It was a choice between a crafty one my granny might read or your everyday fashion titles. I thought why can’t we mix the two together and SO ? was born, at least in principle.Now after months of pin pricks, sweat and tears, the fi rst issue of SO ? is here. We’re celebrating all that’s great in the world of fashion crafts, drawing inspiration for all kinds of projects from the catwalk. This season it’s all about surrealism, power, mad hatters and origami. Each ‘SO ? What’ section is designed to take you through a trend, from interviews with relevant designers to inspirational photo shoots and sewing projects.I hope that the fi rst fashion story (“Hard Wear”, on page 24), shot by Simon Lyle Ritchie, will enthuse you to utilise safety pins, studs and shoulder pads in the name of all that is new and creative. It’s a bit of a homage to Balmain, Hannah Marshall and all those who’ve been championing a powerful look for Spring/Summer. The second shoot is a bit more creative. Inspired by my meeting with milliner, Piers Atkinson, (interview on page 42) it’s a fun piece about using whatever you have to hand to make stunning, disposable hats. And, the third, shot by Elena Pirogova, is also about us-ing your imagination to make everyday objects, from playing cards to parcel rosettes, into something special. All the accessories are big and bold, something that designer, Fred Butler (interviewed on page 34) is a master of. All the features and shoots are designed to provide exciting and innovative ideas for your own projects. Lets face it, when the fi nances of the world have taken such a seismic jolt; we all need to be a little more inventive and hands-on with our sense of style.

i

editor’s letter

“Everyday Objects”: Inventive use of recycled goods

provides accessoris-ing inspiration on

page 60.

Mad Hatters: Piers Atkinson talks to

me about designing headwear on page 42. Our photoshoot “For One Night Only” on page 46, below left,

was inspired by mental millinery.

“Hard Wear”: New face,

Ariana, wears customised

fashion in the shoot on page

24.

REBECCA COLEMAN (editor-in-chief)

Learn how to make this origami

necklace on page 68.

SO ?WHAT

#001

written by Andre Breton in 1924, was the bible for anyone involved in this world of wit and wonder. It decreed that dreams and fanciful thoughts should be harnessed in the name of creativity. Th ese artful pioneers thought that te world was a better, or maybe simply more interesting, place when seen from upside down or in a nightmare where everything melts like time. Surrealist artists became quite intrigued by the possibilities of the sewing machine and its symbolism as a tool of femininity. Th ey were fascinated by the concept that it might be able to produce not just women’s clothes but the woman as a whole. Perhaps they imagined they could create the perfect girl, a bit like those kids in Weird Science.

THE SURREALIST MANIFESTO

SURREALISM

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WHAT

WHATSO ?

#001 THE LOOK

HOW TO WEAR IT:

BE BRAVE - THIS LOOK MUST BE WORN WITH CONFIDENCE.

ACCESSORIES ARE A GOOD WAY TO ADD A SURREALIST TWIST TO A CONSERVATIVE OUTFIT.

SEQUINS ADD AN EXTRA DIMENSION TO THE LOOK.

•

•

•

ASHISH

VIKTOR

&

ROLF

GARETH

PUGH

HOUSE

OF

HOLLAND

LUELLA

HARD WEAR is all about toughening up your clothes with shoulder pads and adornments or metal studs and safety pins. This shoot is all about inspir-ing you to customise clothes you already have in your wardrobe with quick D-I-Y projects, which will add glamour to even the most outdated items. Get down to your nearest haberdashers and get padded, fringed and studded up.

Hard Wear

PHOTOGRAPHY by SIMON LYLE RITCHIE

STYLING by REBECCA COLEMAN

Ariana wears vintage Vivienne Westwood top, customised by stylist with patterned shoulder-pads and spray painted leggings.

Ariana wears Zara jacket, cus-tomised by stylist with two kinds of white curtain fringing and a corsage made from a zip and beads.

Next page: Ariana wears vintage jacket customised using safety pins on shoulders and lapel.

Previous page: Ariana wears top customised with metal studs and acid-washed denim shorts.

Opposite page: Ariana wears Vero Moda blouse with em-bellished and fringed shoul-der-pads. Learn how to make these for yourself on page 36..

This page: Ariana wears bolero from D-I-Y project #001 with vin-tage harem pants and cuff made by stylist from a scrap of jersey.

Opposite page: Ariana wears vin-tage jeans and jacket with T-shirt customised using safety pins.

InterviewPIERSATKINSONText by Rebecca Coleman & Photography by Simon Lyle Ritchie

Thoroughly modern Milliner and all round creative buff, Piers Atkinson, is a man with his fingers in many pies. As well as making decidedly avante-garde hats, he’s been editor of London Fashion Week paper, The Daily Rubbish, judged Alternative Miss World and once lived with Zandra Rhodes. Rebecca Coleman caught up with him at his East London home to talk about his inspirations and getting his hats in Vogue.

Arriving at Piers Atkinson’s East London residence, a typical Victorian terrace on a peaceful, tree-lined street in Hackney, I have no idea what to expect on the inside. I’ve seen the hats created by the ten-ant and I wonder if life imitates art. On entering the house I’m not disappointed. It’s the wonderfully eclectic mix of styles I’d hoped for. Atkinson is talking through some designs he’s working on for the artist Seb Patane, with one of his ‘girls’, Crystal. “The girls really saved my bacon this season,” he tells me. He has three girls who come in to help him with making collections. “I like to work with a sense of humour,” Atkinson explains, “I want it to be fun and celebratory, so that could be anything from being very fabulous to absurd. That’s why I love making my sample hats, but then when you have to make twenty of something...that’s when these girls come in, Crystal, Yoshika and Louise, they’re brilliant.”It’s the apparent sense of humour that goes into his hats that make them so appealing. From pom-pom Mickey Mouse ears to Barbie dolls clamouring for space on an Alice band, there’s an obvious lack of pretension in Atkinson’s work. His latest collection is called ‘Sex on the Brain’. No prizes for guessing what this one’s inspired by. But, the starting point, the method behind the madness if you will, is an interesting one, “I read somewhere a story that Victorian gentlemen had erotic paintings on the silk linings of their top hats,”Atkinson tells me, “and it just made me think of the term ‘sex on the brain’ and I quite liked the idea that if you make a sexy hat that’s literally sex on the brain.”

Piers Atkinson in his eclectic living room

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INTERVIEWSO ?

However, unlike their Dickensian counterparts, those who sport Piers Atkinson headgear have to have a bit more pluck. Enough to confidently sport a pearl encrusted ejaculation on their bonse – which could be quite a tricky thing to pull off. Atkinson assures me that he has a certain kind of woman in mind when he comes up with such creations. “When I’m imagining who’s going to wear a hat, I think of strong, powerful, eccentric, wilful women. No compromise kind of girls. Generally Virgos.” When I subsequently inform him that I’m a Virgo, he enigmati-cally comments, “Look out!”The strong characters he’s referring to include women like Zandra Rhodes. Shortly after moving to London to work on Alternative Miss World with Andrew Logan, Atkinson’s landlord sold the flat he was renting and gave him a couple of weeks to move out, “I was just nattering to Andrew about my predicament because we would chat a lot and he said, ‘well what about talking to Zandra?’ who I’d met a couple of times at his parties. So I called her up and she was like, ‘Oh yes’”. And so, just like that, in about 1995 Atkinson moved in with Rhodes, “I was thinking, oh God this is going to be intense and crazy and it was. But I also thought this is surely a once a lifetime opportunity to live with a legend.” You can certainly see her influence on his work, “Zandra com-pletely changed the way I felt about colour. By the time I’d been through the Zandra machine and spat out the other end I was happy to play with my paints.”However, Rhodes wasn’t the first strong female influ-ence on Atkinson’s creative drive. His mother was a milliner and his Grandmother the artist and writer, Lesley Gordon, “I had these three very inspirational

women – my Grandma, who was a very creative thinker; my Mum, who was great with her hands and a brilliant maker; and my sister, who’s a wit and a beauty. I think as a family we all bounced of each other.”With an upbringing like that, you can see why his hats appeal to women who like to dress creatively; they’ve been worn by sartorially assertive celebrities like Lady GaGa, Lily Allen and VV Brown. “I’m not very good with celebrities,” Atkinson admits, but he was extremely excited at being featured in British Vogue. As well as the famous picture of Cate Blanchett sporting some Mickey Mouse ears back in 2008, a piece he created with neon tubes, photographed by Nick Knight on Jourdan Dunn secured him his first Vogue spread. “I couldn’t believe this fabulous picture with Jourdan wearing a Galliano couture gown, styled by Kate Phelan. It was all fabu-lous.” He tells me that he picked up his copy in Dalston Sainsbury’s, “I got a bit overwhelmed in the Matalan car park out back.” At this point, he did what any good English boy would do and called his mother, who informed him that she’d once had a hat photographed by David Bailey on the cover of Vogue, “I found a copy online and gave it to her for Christmas,” he tells me, “so that’s inspired me as much as anything to get a hat on the cover of Vogue. We’ll see.” I’m eager to know if he now sees it as a competition, “Mum’s always slightly dis-paraging about my hats. ‘Has a needle been anywhere near this collection?’ That’s always her comment.” It seems a Vogue cover would be both a professional and personal triumph.Atkinson’s mother took a much more traditional ap-proach to millinery. He explains the amazing dexterity that goes into blocking and covering, “I’m completely

Piers’ house is filled with his cre-ations and inspirational objet d’art.

impatient. I could never do that. I do kind of like little niggly bits but you’ve just got to be so neat and so care-ful.” Atkinson obviously learnt some invaluable skills from his mother and he now feels that it’s incredibly important to pass crafts down through generations. He teaches fashion illustration at London College of Fashion, “I very much enjoy the response I get from my students when we chat about ideas,” he explains. But, the main reason Atkinson wants to pass on his skills is more to do with ensuring that people stay productive in our increasingly vapid lives of celebrity and You-Tube. “You have to absorb stuff, but also produce stuff. Otherwise, presumably you just become more and more passive.” Given Atkinson’s background, he also feels that it’s a priceless commodity to be able to learn from friends and family and surround yourself with creative people. Indeed, Atkinson is very fond of collaborations. He has recently worked with fashion designer Ash-ish, designer and hair aficionado Charlie le Mindu and performance artist Ryan Styles. Of his collaboration with Styles in particular, he says, “I was totally inspired by Ryan to do pom-poms and I could have just rocked ahead and done it, but he’s a friend of mine so I wanted to say, ‘let’s do this together’ and I think it’s worked well for both of us.” He’s also got the thumbs-up from fellow milliner Stephen Jones, who chose some Piers Atkinson hats to feature in his exhibition at the V&A museum last year. He recounts this as one of his most pivotal fashion moments so far. “It was fantastic to see my hats in the V&A and to have that support from Ste-phen Jones, who is just a fantastic man and a fantastic milliner.” Atkinson’s apparent enthusiasm to share his creativity, spurs me to consider what he might advise

some young upstart, who wants to have a bash at millinery. “Should I tell them not to?” he jokes, “So they don’t become business competitors”. Amongst many pearls of wisdom, he asserts that the great thing about hats is, “they don’t need to fit in the same way that a shoe or jacket has to. They’re little sculptures that sit on top, so they’re kind of frivolous, which is why I quite like them.” Atkinson suggests fascinators and Alice bands as good starting points for the bud-ding designer, “You don’t have to worry too much,” he explains, “and it can just be a dinky little thing, so that might be a good starting point.” Taking inspiration from Atkinson’s conglomerate constructions, found objects seem a good place to start for those needing a revelation in what to adorn a hat base with. He also suggests that putting together a look book once you’ve made a selection of creative pieces is a worthwhile and stimulating venture; “it’s an object, it’s got all the hats in it, it’s got the photography, the model, the make-up and the words as well.” This might well be Atkinson’s favourite part of the creative process. So, what’s next on his to do list? “I’m work-ing on my new collection,” he explains, “It’s all about murder next season, very Autumn/Winter. I have the idea to shoot it on my sister, Lucy.” I for one can’t wait to see how my new favourite milliner interprets a bit of homicidal mystery. One thing you can be sure of, is it won’t be your run of the mill take on the subject and you probably won’t see the Queen in one of his de-signs. But, for anyone with a tongue-in-cheek attitude to dressing up, Piers Atkinson creations should be on your must-have list.

Go to, www.piersatkinson.com for more information & stockists.

Piers likes to work on the kitchen table, where his mother often did her work when he was a child.

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Don these epicurean wearables for one night only. This really is ‘disposable fashion’ at its best.

For One Night Only....

Words by Naomi Attwood

Attempting to replicate any of Fred Butler’s intricate accessories at home would be rather ambitious, but she shares her handy hints with NAOMI ATTWOOD nevertheless . . .

erched on a chair in her pre-dictably colourful, though perfectly orderly and neat studio Fred Butler ponders each question before an-

swering with her soft voice and su-per expressive manicured hands. When it comes to craft, Fred Butler certainly knows her onions, from studying fashion design at Brigh-ton University, to becoming a props stylist’s assistant (to Shona Heath, one of the most impor-tant set designers in the business) to getting commis-sions as a props stylist in her own right (for magazines like DAZED and commercial jobs like the window displays for Selfridges) to making the odd bespoke accessory for shoots which then turned into a full time enterprise and the birth of

her own label, which she exhibits at London Fashion Week, supported by the TOPSHOP New Gen initiative. Looking at her designs, like the multi coloured dodecahedron necklac-es worn by electro pop star Elly Jackson of La Roux in the video for Bulletproof or her ‘heliocentric’ flying saucer like head pieces, they seem intricate and beautiful, but don’t really have a hand-made aesthetic. There are no wobbly lines or cute imperfections, they are

futuristic, sleek and flawless. “I once had to ask an assistant to redo some circles [to make into an acces-

sory] because I don’t like things to look like they are made by anyone, they have to look as if they have just ‘appeared’”. To glance at the finished article, it is often difficult to believe just how much work, and how many processes have gone into

P‘Fred Butler PONDERS each

question before answering with her SOFT VOICE and super

expressive MANICURED hands.’

I can’t believe it’s not Butler!

Above right: Fred at London Fashion Week.

Below: Fred shows off her colourful sense of style.

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each one. Like a magician who’ll never reveal his secrets, Fred puts in hours of handiwork into perfecting 3D designs then crafting each component by hand. Although Fred might seem like a prime candidate to contribute to a publication on dressmaking and customising, she openly admits that she doesn’t have time to make her own clothes although does wear her own ac-cessories and prototypes. Fred’s style is a mixture of avant-garde designers like As Four and Scott Ramsay Kyle, vintage finds, and each outfit always composed from a single colour. “A lot of my friends make their own clothes – although for them it’s more a case of wearing their own designs as most of my friends work in fashion”. She agrees that handicraft is becoming more popular these days, but sees it as related to the resurgence in popularity of vintage and second hand clothes. “I think due to Kate Moss and her vintage wardrobe; loads

of people now wear second hand things, whereas before it was much odder, something that only students and artists would do. Most of the clothes that I have made myself are really second hand items that I have altered. For example a dress I found and converted the skirt into trousers for a jumpsuit, or a huge jumper I took in and turned back to front”. When asked for any tips for would be seamstresses and makers, she advises “I’d say buy craft books, because they are much easier to follow than normal sewing patterns, also do some research into the best places to

buy fabric, oth-erwise it’ll cost you a fortune. Look out for

remnants stores, markets, places off the beaten track. I like Dalston Mills in London and also Brighton Market”. Considering how closely good design-ers, like magicians, - guard their trade secrets, that must surely class as an exclusive. Thanks Fred!

‘Most of the CLOTHES that I have MADE myself are really SECOND

HAND items that I have ALTERED’

Above: Fred models one of her own designs.

Right: a headpiece from Fred’s S/S 09 collection

‘Dahlia Fantasia’.

Bottom right: A picture from Fred’s A/W 08 look-

book for the collection,

‘Dodecahedron Collision’.

Above: A headpiece from Fred’s S/S 09 lookbook

for the collection, ‘Dahlia Fantasia’.

INTERVIEWSO ?

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D-i-Y #004 ORigami

necklace

GATHER YOUR GOODS:

Lightweight fabric such as

cotton or linen; needle and

thread; iron; scissors; measur-

ing tape; thin ribbon; glue.

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SO ? HARD RATING: INTERMEDIATE (This necklace is quite intricate)

STEP #001: Cut out ten squares (18cm x 18cm). Fold

in half and press. Fold in half again and press. Fold

each corner into the centre and tack down.

STEP #002: Turn the square over and again fold each

corner into the centre to form a smaller square. Tack

each point into place.

STEP #003: Turn the square over again and repeat

step #002. Once you have all your squares complete,

arrange them to form a decorative pattern. Hand

stitch the squares in place by tacking at the corners.

STEP #004: Attach some thin ribbon to the back of

the highest sqares either with glue or hand-stitching.

You have a unique necklace that’s ready-to-wear.

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