_Sibling

Now, ive already blogged info about the incredible knit work of 'Sibling'. But its only recently I have been asked to photograph thier look book, for thier official launch next month - keep posted for further info. Also, below is a great little article on 'Sibling' from Richard Mortimer's (Boombox Creators) new project 'PonyStep' - www. ponystep.com


"Sibling, the brainchild of Joe Bates, Sid Bryan and Cozette McCreery, is ready to give birth to a new type of men’s knitwear, offering the perfect balance of innovation, skill and style and sure to liven up even the dullest of menswear wardrobes.

The brand, born from their ten years of friendship sees McCreery (of BoomBox fame and former creative assistant to Bella Freud) and Bates (lecturer at LCF) provide the stylistic vision with Sid Bryan, now synonymous with knitwear, bringing the technical side to the pieces. R.C.A. trained, Sid has worked with everyone from the high street to high fashion (most recently designing knitwear for Giles and Jonathan Saunders) and is now ready to lend his skills to his own label and satisfy the group’s creative itch.

Sibling for Norton & Sons launched during London Fashion Week with a showcase of cashmere jumbo cable knits and chunky, fur trimmed cardigans. The full range of Sibling will launch mid-March, filling what McCreery sees as, “a void in menswear”. With prices starting at £800, “its traditional ideas taken to extremes. Its us indulging our complimentary vision and ignoring trends” explains Joe.

And for the Sibling client? The trio agree their knitwear isn’t for ‘pedestrians’. Sibling is a challenging and forward thinking visual brand for those with a playful taste in fashion… and of course, a penchant for those things ‘a little bit fabulous’. "

by Michael Linington

_Beautiful Bjork

_Sometimes, well alot of the time, I get quite jelous of young Mr Irwin, well its more the acess im jelous of, he gets to places that you just dont usually get access too - The fashion Archives, the olsens, the LA party set etc. And this is definately one of those moments - backstage at last weeks Bjork gigs.

Whatever.
Great photo though.

_Big Wood Shoes

_Just a little bit more magazine - Gabi and I had alot of fun photographing these insane shoes for the magazine the other afternoon, plus she rocked up in her incredible little jeremy Scott jukebox knit dress - ace dress, ace shoes, ace girl.

fun day xx

_HairySquare

_I just decided to blog this, quite literally becuase im dying right now - my eyes are square, and im having nightmare stresses with printers, but if nothing else - the magazine is looking ace.

I NEED A TEAM OF PEOPLE.
In life.

_Fashion Interior

_I stumbled across these photos in a file on my desktop, I dont remember who they're by, but are really nice. I think more could have been done with the fashion, but the tone of the photos, and look of the room is great.

_Gay Handbook

_'Handbook' is an alternative quarterly for those of us who love the well-endowed. Appealing to the exhibitionist in all of us, it can best be described as "artistically raw, editorially informal and historically black and white."

Mixing vintage 8mm and VHS porn, with interviews, viewer mail-ins and music reviews, I'd say it's Butt Magazine meets Dudetube, with a touch of Falcon Studios. I love a nudie porn-zine and Handbook does not disappoint.

For more on Handbook check out their MySpace page.

_Final Pieces

_So today saw the final parts of the magazine coming together - Still Lives - boring as hell, but I'm really pleased with the results. Above we have two 'slight tasters' of the final shots. White Ceramics, which was suprisingly easy to shoot, and fun, I just love all the differing tones of off white, and then I went onto the books - an absolute nightmare - how the hell does that even work?! I ended up having taken 300 shots of piles of books due to the fact I was never pleased with layout etc. But in the end I think I got there, we'll see.

Right I'm now knackered from dragging all this crap around all day long,
Time for bed.

_Just as she's in town . . .

_I wasn't lucky enough to get tickets for any of the LDN gigs, but all I hear is rave reviews. Apparantly she looks incredible, and sounds even better. I've used it being an excuse to go back into my Bjork loving history, revisiting not only her beautifully eery sound, but also those unreal Album covers, personal favourites being the above 'Greatest hits' and the severely strange black on black 'Medula' cover - both designed by the ever talented M/M Paris. Talking of, check out the cover of the new Arena Homme+ which is also a classic piece of strange M/M design.

_Mr. Lonely

_So I went with a friend to go and see the new Harmony Korrine movie last week - and it was pretty damn good. Not as good as Gummo, but it takes alot to beat a movie with not only an incredible hillbilly soundtrack, but also an albeano Chloe Sevigny. But, never the less, it was good - Celebrity look-a-likes all living in a castle in the highlands of Scotland, linked with strange plane jumping nuns in brazil, all to a soundtrack of African tribal meets French hip hop.

Like most of Korrines movies, it was very strange and slightly confusing yet beautifully influential and heart warming at the same time.

_Valentine

_The Olivetti 'Valentine'
Designed by Ettore Sottsass, this space-age machine, that was built in 1970, can be found in many collections of industrial design.Mechanically, the machine is not fundamentally different from the average machine that was built half a century earlier.
Today, Olivetti is the only Western company still producing manual typewriters.

And, while back in Yorkshire a few weeks ago, I found one in a thrift store for £60.00, and for some strange reason, didn't buy it. Kicking myself now though.

Gutted.

_Batty Boy

_Another small magazine sneak peek here - an incredible Spanish illustrator, who has previously done work for my fanzine, but produced these great pornographic pieces for the magazine, which i photogrpahed on location last week, I will blog further information on him once the Mag launches.

Just had to show a glimse of his incredible talent.

_Palais

_Lovely bit of graphics, lovely tattoo, lovely Gallery. Infact possibly one of my favourite gallery spaces ever - the wierd building, the great curration, the strange coffee shop downstairs, where you can watch all the homeless sleeping against the glass windows, while the Parisian kids skate and tag around them, oh, the the best bit - the two internal shops - great bookshop / cage and the cute, neon lined Andre Boutique, 'BlackBlock'.

Miss Paris.
Must Return ASAP.

_Current Favourite Book: 'Wild Raspberries'

_“I shall never forget the first time that I met Andy Warhol, it was 1959, and he greeted me at the door of his fourth floor walk-up that he shared with his mother Julia Warhola, with a warmth as if we had known each other for years. He was especially fascinated by the fact that I had grown up in Malibu and had lived next door to Myrna Loy. He also loved the fact I collected antique jewellery. I felt we had become new best friends in an instant. We made a lunch date for the following day, and that was how it started. We met at the Palm Court of the Plaza Hotel and after lunch we went immediately to Forty-seventh Street so I could introduce Andy to a couple of my favourite jewellery dealers.

After that first lunch and shopping expedition, it became a regular habit that we would lunch and go shopping. Andy hated the fact that I spent money of clothes and would chide me when a new outfit appeared. In some ways he was terribly practical. The first time he came for dinner at my apartment he brought me a gold vermeil rose from Tiffany. I filled a glass Coke bottle with water and put the rose in. He liked that a lot. It was then that we decided to write a cookbook, a sort of knock-off of the complicated French gourmet books that were so much in vogue in the fifties. We worked all through September and by the middle of October had made one copy. I wrote the recipes, Andy illustrated with his Dr. Martin’s dyes, and Mrs. Warhola did the calligraphy. We wanted all the books to be hand-coloured, so we hired four boys from upstairs to come in and colour every afternoon. Our progress was very slow, and in the end we only made thirty-four full-colour books. The rest had five colour illustrations. We titled the book ‘Wild Raspberries’, after the movie ‘Wild Strawberries’. We found some wonderfully shiny paper for the cover and proceeded downtown to the rabbis who did hand binding. Thus we were publishers.

Now the big question was, who was going to buy our wares? We dragged around a shopping bag filled with these masterpieces, convinced that New York bookstores would ply us with orders. What a disappointment. No one bought any, but we left a few on consignment at Doubleday and Rizzoli. Thus it was left to our friends to take them off our hands and give them away as Christmas presents. Oh well, it was a great fun project, which surely cemented forever my relationship with Andy.”

- Suzie Frankfurt talking on the story behind the ‘Wild Raspberries’ cookbook in 1997.
‘Wild Raspberries’ was re-published by Bulfinch Press in 1997.

<3 NYC

_After posting the below blog, I went searching for NYC photos, and found this - it melted me inside - NYC, this summer, it has to be.

_Satisfaction II

_Upon finishing the below illustration, I decided I needed a felt pen pot, so combined two of my most recent happiest things - My Paris Starbucks city mug (bought at the menswear fashion week shows this February) and all the Sharpies that the Art Directors of Nylon boight me as a joke in NYC last summer, now everytime I look at it, it makes me smile xx

_Grace

_So I needed to get away from the magazine on saturday night, and while watching 'Coming to America' this is the way in which I did it. Stay tuned for the shoot that goes along side this imagery, starring model, Ronx, who some of you may recognise from previous posts and other websites I work for.

_Meanings of Value and Visual Language

_I've been meaning to blog this for the last few weeks - The first time I have ever seen a glossy fashion campaign printed in newspaper - they usually come within the suplements, but in this Guardian, came on the back page - it soemhow seems very vintage, as if harking back to the aesthetics of Manipulator magazine. Yet at the same time asks questions of contemporary culture - as when you lay the complete paper open (second image), it lies front page headlines of human suffering and pain right next to throw away consumer culture.

_Buffalo

_I know I've blogged about it quite a bit before, but I just found this photo that I used as a reference point for something in my iPhoto and it reminded me of how much I admire and respect the work of Ray Petri - So original and groundbreaking, this image comes from the Buffalo book, and was originally shot for for a 1982 'Face' shoot.

_Godzilla

_How great is this 1960's Japanese Godzilla poster - it came free in last weeks Guardian, and I absolutely love it, but cant bring myself to hang it, due to possible damage - It definately needs a nice perspex sheeting frame.

_Puppy

_In reference to the blog below - while walking around my area in the sun, never more have i wanted the dog of my dreams - a blue Italian Greyhound. They grow no taller than 16" and are pretty much the cutest thing in the world, so I got home, made a cup of tea, and am currently searching for breeders in the UK. If anyone knows of any - let me know,

Rob @ rbpmfanzine@hotmail.com

_Brutal

_I was walking back from the printers in the sun this afternoon, and just behind my apartment there is this incredible piece of brutalist Architecture - Its a church, but a very strange looking German one, and in todays sunlight, it just looked like this huge terrifying monolith.

_Muscle Collage

_I found this for sale on ebay - a 1950's beefcake collage - So strange, but amazing.

_New Shoes

-Bit of a strange blog this one, especially to start the day, but its because I've been wearing them today, and they make me smile loads - Ace shoes, especially when worn with pleat front formal trousers in matching pastel colours.

_Neck Lace

Just some shots from a little photographic piece I executed at the begining of the month - a jewellery shoot, for my portfolio. Pretty standard for me - Disposable camera, Cute boi (Petter @ Oxygen), minimal clothing, cute accesories.

_Job done

_Satisfaction

_Just like the above image, there is no reason, at all, for this picture, other than the fact it satisfies me and I want the chair. It may be because it reminds me of a chair of my Grandpas that my Grandma used to keep in the study when i was a kid.

_Fine & Sexy

_No reason for this image, I dont even know the photographer, this picture is just hot, like Jeurgen Teller for YSL meets Terry Richardson for, well, himself.

Great image x

_Foam Heart MIA

_Having just mentioned Miami in my previous blog, I had to put this up - After bringing us paint, balls and play dough the new Sony Advert by Fallon London has just been released, and just like Miami, it makes me glow inside, follow this link to see the full 'Miami, Foam City' video -

http://www.fubiz.net/blog/index.php?2008/04/14/1531-sony-foam-city

_Miroslav Sasek

_Sasek's work is something I discovered in a thrift store while travelling in Miami last summer, and i immediately fell for it, since then i have aimed to buy the 'This is' for whatever city I am in at that time. lovely illustrations, lovely books.

_Biography

Born: 16 November 1916, Prague, Czechoslovakia
Died: 1980, Munich?, Germany
There are few other details about his personal life, other than that he was married with one son, Dusan Pedro.
Education & career

According to cover notes in Stone is Not Cold, Sasek trained as an architect in Prague because his parents didn't approve of him becoming a painter. However he studied for some time at the l'Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He escaped from Prague in 1948 and settled in Munich (he claimed he would be happy anywhere and ended up in Munich because his wife's work was there). From 1951-57 he worked for Radio Free Europe before starting on the This Is series, with This is Paris.
Works

_Books

He produced 18 books in the This is series, as well as three other books which he wrote and illustrated: Benjamin a tisíc morskych dasu Kapitána Barnabáse (1947), Stone is Not Cold (1961) and Mike and the Modelmakers (1970). He also illustrated at least four other books: Eduard Petiska's Sedm mamlasu (1950), Willhelmina Femmster Jashimski's Letters from Pompeii (1963), Max Colpet's Zoo ist Das Leben (1974) and a 1967 pamphlet by Effie Lee Morris called See the city! A beginner's guide to San Francisco.

_Magic Chanel Box

_So, I haven't seen the movie 'Fifth Element' in about four years, and when it was on TV the other week I had a great time watching the incredible Luc Besson movie, aswell as the unbelievable Jean Paul Gaultier costumes, this piece being one of them - an electronic Chanel branded eye mask, that when placed over the eyes, completes full make up.

_Pure genius.
If anyone has contact with Karl and would like to get him to create this piece, I would really like one.

_He's Back

_So everything has been crazy of recent, final year all comes to an end in 3 weeks (the above image pretty much displays my life over the last three weeks), then the magazine launches at the begining of june, and then, well, then, a career? (hopefully)

Who knows?
firstly, a summer of travelling one thinks.

But back to the blog, I kinda feel like Im needing to get perspective on my final year, so im going to try to blog at least one thing everyday for the next few weeks, well, try at least