Fashion Whine

There's an old saying that goes 'the more fashionable the party the more unspeakable the drinks'. Well there isn't, but there should be.


In fairness, fashion shows are about clothes so the drinks are probably an afterthought.

The white wine at the L F Markey Show was so utterly, totally inoffensive and completely forgettable I've forgotten what it's called. Imagine if it was the same for their clothes? Then I had a fashion moment...

Of course, the wine's perfect!
Later on I met some very nice people at Digitaria's end of London Fashion Week party.



One of them suggested visiting the basement for a spot of graffiti and a snifter.... of a strange Thai drink they'd got their hands on. How old school Soho is that!

Mine came with lime and the warning, "That's lethal". It had the weirdest taste. I couldn't quite put my finger on it... then I remembered....

Years ago I was staying at a friends house in the wilds beyond Brecon. We were off to a 16th birthday party and, as we headed out the door, his mother, a hippy type, said, "Now boys, will you have a glass of something to get you in the mood, I've just brewed it". It tasted utterly odd but I managed to drink it without gagging. As we left I asked her what she'd made it from,"Mushrooms my love" she replied...

Thankfully, weird taste aside, Mekhong did exactly what it said on the bottle, nothing more. Wonderful party, super, gorgeous, fabulous, talented people.... mmm, maybe it did do a little something after all.

Click here for Digitaria

Click here for some Mekhong cocktail recipes

Old fruit...

College fashion shows can be hit or miss affairs, and sometimes they're a hit entirely unintentionally. I'll never forget a show at the Glasgow School of Art, held in an intimate auditorium, packed with students, family and friends.  As the show got underway it transpired the theme was Adam and Eve. One of those brilliant ideas that should have remained just that. Suspending disbelief for art students masquerading as models is one thing, but when they start acting as well...

It was brilliant! Side splitting hysterical scream out loud funny and we had to hold it in for thirty minutes. Tantric laughter!

This year Cardonald College staged its end of year bash at the Old Fruit Market in Glasgow's Merchant City. We were late arriving after a cock-up on the cocktail front. 

The venue should be great for fashion shows, but they had a stumpy catwalk, so along with the majority of the crowd, we were miles from the action. 

Now, in a previous blog I'd said the most unfashionable thing you can ever think of is simultaneously the most fashionable... it appears there are exceptions...

A man in a kilt and a Canadian woman compèring for one. They had to read off cards... and couldn't. At certain points, accompanied by keyboards, they'd belt out songs like "I'm every woman". 

Who on earth thought this was a good idea? It was excruciatingly naff. The students must have been raging. I was, and the £4 gin and tonic with no lemon in a plastic glass didn't help.

Afterwards we popped into Black Sparrow for a debrief and drink. Overall the consensus was, this year, the Art School Show won... unfortunate circumstances mean I've no pictures of that.

Corona's back on my radar. They must have a push on because it's everywhere again. It's the perfect beer if you're thirsty and don't fancy a beer. But you simply, absolutely MUST have a wedge of lime! And this summer, Brazilian Limes are THE limes to be seen with.... they're just so fabulously, adorably... yellow.

Black Sparrow

241 North Street,

Glasgow

0141 221 5530

Che Camille Fashion Show

It's hard not to be impressed by Camille. That it took a New Yorker to do what she's doing is telling. In return for a commission on sales, Camille provides space, equipment and marketing for a select group chosen from the creatives flooding out of Scotland's art schools and colleges. Fashion's the main business but she also associates with various artists in most mediums. 

Her latest venue, many floors above Argyll Arcade, doesn't have any signage and the lift is erratic. So when we turned up for a fashion show on Saturday it wasn't just the anticipation that had set my heart pounding. Still, no pain, no gain.........

Over the years I've noticed a few things about fashion.....

For example, at any one time the most unfashionable thing you can possibly think of, is, simultaneously, the most fashionable.

Also, fashion too often lacks any sense of humour, finding it as hard to laugh at itself as others find it easy. 

No such problems for The Niallist seen performing here. His tongue was planted firmly in his cheek, and I'd wager, by the end of the night he was hoping it'd be planted in a few other cheeks too.

One of the designers 'Rabii' makes made to measure denim. The emblem's a small embroidered silhouette of himself in his trademark cap. Recently he secured a rather spectacular order to make jeans for the Man Utd team. Just before the show he told me he'd been, not surprisingly, a bit nervous at the prospect of measuring Ronaldo and Co. But when the time came, bizarrely, the soccer stars were just as awestruck.... "No way, you're the actual guy on the jeans!"

Walking home after the show I spotted a young chap in some incredible get up. As they say on Project Runway, "Very fashion forward".

In the years after Communism, via telly and travel, we got to see what the ordinary people in those countries actually looked like. Isolation had left them ten years behind the times with a unique take on western styles. Into the mid 1990s men sported perm topped mullets and patterned jumpers that even M&S, by then, would have been ashamed of.

Well, that was 'the look' that walked past me, and I've coined it..... "Sarajevo Chic". 

If you think that's a bit tasteless, well, to quote Julian Macdonald.... and you must read this in a camp haughty Welsh accent, "This is fashion, and fashion has no mercy".

Che Camille

Floor 6

Argyll Chambers

Glasgow

G2 8BD

0141 221 9620

(It's first on the left as you walk in off Buchanan Street)

The Niallist

somewhere in cyberspace