Global fashion moment

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Here I am at a coffee table, flicking through Face Hunter (book after the blog) by Yvan Rodic and on page 268, immortalised on someone else's feet, my Sunday Heroes. Global fashion moment. And on to the next page.

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Streetstyle

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Or shame of the week.
Someone misinterpreted the word on the wall.

*Mini interview with the Swap NOT Shop team coming up.

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Any ideas on shaking this desease?

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At the corner of Iroon Politechniou & Omiridou Skilitsi, Piraeus.

Bumped into this mess in the morning, some of it was still there when I drove past it late in the evening. Embarassing and frustrating. If you are a regular reader, you know by now that I have a serious issue with clothes being thrown away like garbage.

Give them to people in need, ship them to Africa, make cleaning towels out of them. But garbage? Then again they may have cost less than trash so why bother...(?)

With tonight's OZON event 4FashionShake themed 'Shake the Disease', I am thinking What About This Disease? Because designers and stores are the smallest part of the ill approach towards fashion, even beyond the borders of this country. The true disease is how us, the consumers perceive what we wear and respond towards it.

Cheap so we can buy more, fast-changing so we can own variety, of poor quality so it can be cheap. Is today's wardrobe tomorrow's garbage?
Are we really ok with it?

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This is not how you recycle clothes

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At my neighbourhood's recycle bin.

Does this look like garbage to you dear neighbours?
At least you chose a symbolic bin to place them next to, the recycling one. I wonder, do you now expect them to come back as a sparkling new coat?

And on this happy note, Swap-Not-Shop goes to Crete.
Check it out you guys with Cretan IPs.
(And you, dear neighbours. This is how you recycle clothes. Blue bins are for glass-tins-paper, ok?)

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Originally fake

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With the Chanel logo's edible version still on the screen from the previous post, here's an interesting follow-up:A top featuring Chanel's CCs, shouting FAKE. Fake Chanel it may be, but it's an original...something. So would it be safe to get the message 'if you can't have the original wear an obvious fake'? Then again, why on earth can't you have an original Chanel if you can afford this**? Interesting confusion going on, just wanted to share.

*currently at the window of Eleins, Piraeus.
**judging from the usual price range of the store, this original-Chanel-fake must cost something close to... an original-Chanel-original.

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Surfing & surfing

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The other day these kids shook the beach with their invention, a surf board dragged by a fishing boat. They were giggling for hours, falling off, stirring the water. Looked like so much fun! Which reminded me...

...about a lifetime ago, I've had a taste in San Sebastian, though the waves were no fishing boat (have never drunk so much sea water -possibly small fish too!- in my life).

Didn't care much about what we wore as long as it took us to the beach. Well, life's got humour: these days surfing to me is being online, posting about clothes.

Where have I put that boogie board I wonder.

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Dog-sitting

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Em... ooops. Here's a problem I'd never come across with my cats. Today I'm dog-sitting my mate's puppy and I thought it was about time she had her first swim. It totally beats me why stray dogs can have all the fun in the world by the sea but vaccinated, trained and supervised dogs are not welcome. At least it wasn't hard to find a quiet, empty beach nearby.
First swim: check.
Good girl.

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Forest for the trees

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Oh, puhrrrlease.
Some Greek glossy's editorial this month is naive if not infuriating.

It describes a Greek fashion blogger's project, the Not Shop Project, which is all about 365 days without shopping. This blogger, woke up one morning and realised she has too many clothes. So many, in fact she could go for a year without shopping and still have enough clothes to wear something different each day. The editorial goes on to say this is some sort of repression, totally unnecessary in financially difficult times like this and that this could potentially harm the local market.

Seriously? For years magazines have been bombarding us with luxury products, some people are working double shifts to pay off their maxed out credit cards, we have been brainwashed to buy quantity rather than quality and you write editorials because one dared to escape? She said she has enough clothes to wear something different every day, hello!? She's done her share of supporting this market for the next 2 years. Leave her alone.

Discrediting her shopping diet won't bring back your fat advertising budgets. And you know who created this monster? You. All these years you never bothered to substantially support local fashion. It all had to be so Milan/London/Paris, it all had to be "Kate Moss". So now what? Let's say how repressed this blogger is. This blogger who felt was a victim of media imposed consumerism. How dare she attempt to escape...

How about dedicating your next editorial to giving balanced shopping tips instead of telling us how repressed we are? And what was that all about telling your readers who travel abroad to refrain from shopping there and go for the Greek importers back home? One will be outside the 'X' french brand store in Paris but will buy the 'X' french brand in Athens? Shopping is no charity as you know. Maybe you should suggest we buy some Greek brands instead?

I'm afraid you can't see the forest for the trees.

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Tachydromos

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issue 532, 08 May 2010
photo: Spiros Staveris
text: Dimitris Papadopoulos
Special thanks to Tachydromos Magazine for having us.

"Independent fashion bloggers are the voice of buyers, whereas fashion editors are the voice of sellers" is what's featured next to my name and indeed this is what I said, word-for-word. By no means does this translate though into "independent fashion bloggers will tell the truth, whereas fashion editors are those devils wearing Prada, on a mission to trap you into buying".

Fashion editors will show you what the companies are selling this season. Someone has to. Indie fashion bloggers will show you which of that they bought/liked and what they did with it. Someone had to. The first one gets paid, the second one pays, the first one acts, the second reacts. Someone always has to.

It's like two different sides of the same coin: 'professional' and 'personal'. Distinction brings balance. That's how I see it.
Other fashion bloggers on Tachydromos today: The Soho Symposium, Fashion Architect, Chloe in the Sky with Diamonds and Life Full of Fashion. However, the bigger picture is fashion blogging and not just us. We are always honoured to be featured, but we only represent rather than dominate. Our side-menus are full of links. If fashion is your thing, start checking them out.

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Your garbage

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This is an ugly post about stuff that used to be pretty.
Strolling around the streets of Pireaus, Gazi and Kifisia the past few months, I came across a lot of scenes like these. Since my camera is always in my handbag, I started documenting the mess and now I have ended up with an impossibly large folder. So you don't need them anymore. But, seriously, is their place in the garbage bin?
Research says that 85% of recyclable clothes are being needlessly thrown out (not my research, GLOBAL research). At the same time that some parts of the world (or this country) are deprived of the absolute necessities, some people throw their clothes and shoes in the garbage bins only to go and buy some more, new and trendy. Which sooner or later will end up in trash too, cause it's fast fashion baby.
Ok, you don't want them. Ok, you won't wear them any more. Fine. But is this the best you could think of? Don't we have any homeless people's shelters you could place them outside from? Couldn't you at least place them somewhere away from dangerously dirty garbage in case someone wants them? They are not furniture you know, you can't just disinfect them.
Yeah, buy more, throw away more, so that giant companies can produce more and then we can all happily burry underneath our pretty garbage. Speaking of companies, you'd better read this.

"During her walks down 35th Street, Ms. Magnus said, it is more common to find destroyed clothing in the H & M trash. On Dec. 7, during an early cold snap, she said, she saw about 20 bags filled with H & M clothing that had been cut up" . (source: The NY Times)

You don't want to buy them? Fine. Nobody gets to wear them. And we will produce more that you'll wonna buy. And garbage grows...
Life in Athens is on her own mission to resist this. She is doing the 'Not Shop Project', documented in her blog, which translates to 365 days of wearing what she already owns. That's right, no shopping, check her out. And don't forget swishing.gr, I am sure when the girls were putting it together, they had all this in mind. It's been said before: "your trash may be someone else's treasure". (google it)
Just think before you throw away.
Some things have got to change.

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Easy tiger:)

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It has recently come to my attention that there are two kinds of blogger souls out there.

BLOGGER SOUL A
1. You start experimenting with your favourite topics and at the same time follow blogs you find interesting.
2. You get inspired by those, you come up with ways to post stuff of interest to you and others, your way.
3. You observe how it all works and soon you start leaving comments to other people, whether to state your support, apply constructive criticism or just to say hello.
4. You are slowly building a network of readers and fellow bloggers who later become your friends. Isn’t it nice to be sharing your thoughts with like-minded people?
5. At some point, a magazine/paper may or may not take notice of you. If they do, great! You get to share what you do with even more people. If they don’t, it’s ok, bloggers link you anyway. You have your own readers and keep focusing on them.

BLOGGER SOUL B
1. You write the most magazine-like topics you can. Sooner or later they’ll notice you. You also follow any blog you come across in hope that they’ll follow back.
2. You rip off other blog layouts and topics, attempt to steal their partners and followers. Only a sucker would start from scratch!
3. You don’t need to observe anything, you know it all. You start leaving hate/intimidation comments to blogs you don’t like, you’ll kick they’re a**, you’re so much better, so much better.
4. You are slowly building a network of nothing, but as long as your followers’ number looks good, it’s all good. You just want to be popular and popular people don’t need friends, just followers right?
5. No magazine/paper gives a fig about you. Clearly they are blind and useless at their jobs. Actually, YOU should be doing their jobs because you are the best. Your cat says so too. And as for those other bloggers they write about, they must be related by blood because they are not half as good as you. You leave more hate comments. There, now you showed them.

Errr...easy tiger:)

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For your eyes only

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I received this comment last night and as I am always honouring my visitors, I took it under serious consideration:

"when u say the clothes reminded you of mq queen you mean that when u see 'red' you think of valentino??? too 80's...if you get a better look ... you just realize that either the lines- shapes or the textures have nothing to do with mq queen..just place the pics next to each other...got it??"*

It refers to the fact that a few people commented about how a certain designer's show at FWA had references to McQueen. Since the suggestion was to place the pictures next to each other, I did, in fact I am posting them here, both McQueen, S/S 10 (from style.com, do go back there for another look at this fantastic collection), you know which one the other was so go back to compare:
Just merge the shapes of the above McQueen dresses, add cleavage - or it won't sell in the sexy, sunny country we live in- and the dress is identical. In fact, when I saw it at that Greek designer's show last week, I felt it was a nice, emotional tribute to the late fashion genius. And so did the entire room.

So here it goes, for your eyes only. Still don't see it? Have them checked.

*And at this point let me say, I was not impressed with the attitude. This is not your back yard. It's mine. Be nice or go home.

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Save the Octopus DElight-DElight

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(continued from previous post) What's the sticker all about? Well sticker protesting, moments before DElight's show. Who's the octopus? His brief existence started off last season backstage at DElight. Apart from providing stress relief to the designers inflating it before their s/s 10 show, it was also meant to add a happy note to the enormous flood outside the shows' hall. (click on image below for Lopi's personal record on the case)
So yellow-fellow was pumped and ready, featuring his pedigree on and all (DElight), and was released on to Technopolis waters. Moments later, Technopolis staff captured it and locked it up in some warehouse. We never saw it again. (mind you, the embarissing part that should disappear from the picture, was clearly not the octopus - exhibit A, below)
The other night, and with DElight's show returning yet for another season, close friend of the duo and octopus welfare activist, K.Dagritzikos organised a sticker protest in remembrance of the DElight-DElight octopus than remains in captivity.
Embracing the protest amongst hundreds of others:
Thalia and Lopi,
MTV's Thodoris Kanellopoulos,
Yes it Does, Sure it Does - Aris, Vaggelis (Aris to me, Vaggelis to everybody else)
High-on-DElight, Global Hipster's Mr L.,
Fashion insider Gourgourini, designer Dimitris Petrou and Global Hipster's Miss T.

Speaking of Global Hipster, see their full report on the matter, here. (Miss T.'s restless & of notable quality camera phone has even captured me, protesting the Rox way - oh, I'm easy to spot)

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AXDW day 1 - Ioannis Guia

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Ok, this is a tough one.
Not because it was not a great show, it was and I am a big fan of Guia's skills and concept applications. This time though he chose a theme which is a bit challenging for the Greek audience: priests attire. Before you scroll down to see what it looked like, let me go for an intro or it won't make sense.

Guia, is a Greek born, France based designer. He shows his collections is Paris Fashion Week as well as that of Milan. I have not been following him too closely, but I was very impressed from his previous AXDW show, where I realised that he uses his Greek heritage as a source of inspiration. And by that, I do not mean the cliché ancient pleats and drapes.

With the Orthodox Easter approaching, he chose to show wearable versions of priest gowns, in a show complete with a soundtrack of hymns mixed with dub house. To get the feeling of what it was like, watch the clip below (or listen to it rather, as the picture is not that great). For the full effect let it go on but if you are not a hymn kind of person, jump to minute 01:15.

AXDW Ioannis Guia, a/w 2010 from Alecca Rox on Vimeo.

I presume that the fake peroxide blonde wigs are there to make a contrast between sin and sacred, which added to the audience's surprise that lead to some whispering of disaproval/questioning. I guess this was not the case when the show took place abroad and had I been there, as an expat, this would make me more nostalgic and proud than troubled.

Any theme-related reservations aside, this was yet another great application of inspiration into a very well constructed and tailoring-strong collection. It's all a question of thinking outside the box and whether one is willing to take it on what they wear.

Final thought , the Greek saying "it's not the gown that makes a priest".

(all photos in this post are by Patricia Munster)

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Where was your shoe made in?

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By now you already know that I am very interested in the made in tags of my clothes and what each purchase means because of that, besides looking good. I admit I was never too picky on this matter with shoes, mainly because when it comes to that, there is only one rule: they have to make my feet happy. Yesterday though, I was choosing a pair of shoes for a very particular shoot and all of a sudden I became very curious on where my final selection was made in:

Topshop

MARNI

Sante

I was (happily) surprised:
a) My affordable Topshop shoes were made in Italy, the queen of shoe makers in my opinion - no wonder they are so comfy and have survived my lifestyle for the last 4 years.
b) MARNI produces locally. You know I support that. (remember this?)
c) Sante produces locally too, in Greece! I thought shoe making had become extinct on this side of the world.

For some reason, now I like them all a bit more.
Do you know where your shoes were made in?

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Getting personal with your clothes

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Which one would you say is the moment that you get most familiar with what you wear? Is it when you buy them? Is it when you wear them? Is it when you handwash them with care? None of the above.

After recent ironing marathon I performed in an effort to beat the stash of crinkled laundry in my room, it hit me: IT'S WHEN YOU IRON THEM. Not only you go through every inch of their existence, get familiar with their fabric (gotta adjust the temperature, if you love them), understand and care for each naughty seam, you inevitably pay attention to the labels too.

Whilst ironing for the first time my favourite tank top by American Apparel, a top I have worn so many times, I was met by a revelation: it's Sebastien Tellier* for American Apparel. How could I have missed that?

For me, it's official: the moment you get most familiar with your clothes, is the moment you personally iron them.

*And since we brought up Tellier, let's pay homage to his 2008 participation in the Eurovision Contest, a move that had everyone talking about bringing cool back to the luke-warm-and-to-some-indifferent music fest. (In the end, it didn't bring cool back scoring just 42 points for France. Was worth a try (?))

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Blogger panel @ Premium, the clip

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On Fashionblogs from Mary Scherpe on Vimeo.

Since the announcement of a bloggers' panel talk at Premium exhibition in Berlin, I've been looking forward to a report of what finally went on. The name of Suzy Menkes amongst other important speakers had me all excited about this. I thought it would be really interesting to see what a print fashion journalism representative of her status has to say on blogs and their place in fashion today. Coming across this clip at IFB was as close as I got, but it's worth watching.

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Who killed the copy cat - II

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-- CONTINUED FROM HERE --

Pictures.
Protect your own:
Your images belong to you and you don’t want to share them without permission. I’m with you but it’s a pickle.

First time I realised my pictures were used by a website without my permission, I was upset, mainly because they did not credit. I did all the legwork, went to the exhibition, shot the image, suffered from blisters later that night. They just downloaded it from my blog whilst sitting on their comfy office chair, no permission asked, no credit given.

So I was advised to register with Creative Commons and feature their warning on my blog. I chose “Some Rights Reserved”, meaning you can use and redistribute my work, provided you credit me and do not alter my content. A reminder of …my work being mine helped a lot.

But some were still not bothered and went on borrowing photos without crediting or linking. I started marking my photos as “Alecca Rox”. It was about the same time that Dreamville started marking hers and I remember we had exchanged comments on how we were trying to protect our work. Later on so did Fashion Paths.

The Soho Symposium, a copy cat victim too, decided to include “soho” in the names of her images in an effort to reference them and track them down. For the purposes of this post I asked her if this system worked but she was not too sure.

I don’t get it. What’s the harm in attributing credits? If one does all the work and I can have it free of charge, the least I can do is show my appreciation and say “thanks” by mentioning them. It's a matter of intellectual property as well as ethics.

You can never fully protect your pictures from this cat. I’d sum up the above experience into the following words of advice:
a) Find out what Creative Commons is and register with it. (make sure you feature their licencing widget)
b) Mark your photos with your name, trademark or username. (warnings are never enough. This will take longer on photoshop but it’s working)
c) Name your photos including your blog name. (however I’d say it’s best to keep the originally named from camera photo too, otherwise it’s gonna be harder to prove it’s yours)

(If you have any other suggestions or experience to share on this, please do so!)

>>Worst case scenario:
You come across one of your photos being used without your permission. Do not panic. 99% of these cases happen because the (copy) cat is too lazy to credit or unaware. With one of my images, I was even told they didn’t know who to credit as they had “borrowed” if from a website which had in turn “borrowed” it from me without mentioning source.

In that case, I had to unofficially prove it was mine by sending them the original link, along with previous and following shots of the subject from my camera. So what do you do if you’re faced with such a scenario?

1. As I said, don’t panic and try not to assume it was intended.
2. Contact the owner or administrator. Chances are they will correct it straight away.
3. Repeat process if the above fails, give them the benefit of the doubt.
4. If they fail to respond and take action in a reasonable amount of time, make it known. Post it, tweet it, warn fellow bloggers.
5. If you are seriously pissed off and your image is being commercially exploited, consult a lawyer. Laws tend to be different on this from country to country, but bottomline is always in favour of the owner.

Webz.gr has a similar story to tell (Greek readers).
Michael Calanan has a similar story to tell (English readers)

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

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Who killed the copy cat - I

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Actually, nobody killed it 'cause she's still at large - otherwise there would be no point for this post. Whether she’s driven by arrogance, ignorance or negligence, here’s how to tame her, whether inside you or at you.

Pictures.
In search of:
So there it is your beautiful text and now all you have to do is spice it up with some photos. It is really tempting to fish some images from google or save them off a blog/ website. But it's wrong.

Photography intellectual rights are no joke and only the owner and licenced parties are allowed to approve their publishing. So where does that leave you? One of the most well-written and enlightening suggestions on which photos to use is this by IFB (use your own*, ask for press photos, use public domain images).

When I don’t use my own* photos, I ask for permission. It only takes four words: May. I. Use. This? And then I credit. It is illegal not to, unless licensed otherwise (Greek law on this). It pays tribute, shows you did your research and have your sources.

*own photos are 100% safe only if the subject is you or your personal belongings. Do your homework on it and read stuff like this. Also, there are technicalities like not being allowed to publish photos of a store window without permission, unless you are somewhere in that picture too, etc.

>>Worst case scenario(s):
You use image from web. Let's say you credit too. Owner comes across the post, doesn’t like it, and:
a) asks you to have it removed (ok)
b) asks you to have it removed and still sues you (a bit over the top?)
c) sues you without notice, because he can (mean?)

(Unless you’re commercially exploiting the photo, that’s quite unlikely. Then again you never know and it always depends on what you "borrowed")

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

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Next fashion show... in court

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The above advert caught up with me at Charles de Gaules airport in Paris. It is cheekily titled "next fashion show... in court" but right below, it features the anything but cheeky message: buy and carry counterfreit and you could end up in prison, paying a fat 300,000.00 euros fine.

That's France for you, sport a "Chanelle" or "Cucci" bag and they'll defend the original brand's trademark in the most memorable way. The fact that France is taking loud action is great news for designers who are concerned with such issues and well, not so great news for... "Cucci" lovers around the globe!

*Speaking of ethics and rights, I am currently cooking a delicious post on online writing.

...................................................................

-Another post on why counterfeit products are not on.

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