After the Rain Came

He had slightly curly hair. I can still see his
silhouette against the setting ochre sun. His back was to me. I
would not have been able to make out his features because of the
angle but I knew he was beautiful. I could feel his eyes, though
I could not see them.

He sat oozing melancholy, deep in thought, observing a softly
pulsing sea. I sat in the same way, but observed him instead. In
his presence, I seemed to forget altogether that the sea
existed. 

A flash storm had five minutes prior forced the other
revelers from the beach and to their vehicles - long journeys home in 

seats made damp by wet bikini bottoms and shorts. 
We were the somber duet who remained - he because he was too sad to
move, and me because the thought of leaving him made me shudder. 

 
Not realising I was nearby he began to hum aloud, and it was not
long before he started to sing. His voice was like a Sunday
spent wrapped in dirty sheets, and his lonely lyrics brought
tears to my eyes. 

He stood.
 
The fear that he could be leaving brought my insides to my
throat. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall from his
frame. His broad shoulders and muscular back curved like a tunnel 
wave to a waist cinched by intensive
daily workouts. He stood facing the sea, poised, as if he
was facing an opponent in a duel; fists clenched with resolve,
but with shoulders weighed down by anticipated defeat.

He moved slowly to the waters edge and continued onwards.

I stood.
 

 
Once the water reached his waist, he fell forward and began to
swim at a pace rarely seen on those lazy Sundays. I began to run
and then entered the cool water and swam to where he had been. Panic
overcame me as I dropped below the surface in a desperate
search. I wanted those curls to tickle my cheek. I wanted to
touch that back that curved like a wave, not unlike those of the
sea that had seemingly swallowed him up.
 
My arm brushed his leg.
 

I surged down to the sea floor with a strength I did not know
I had. His hands were gripping a boulder and were determined not
to let go until all feeling diminished. His tears, and mine,
mixed with the sea - a salty soup.
 
His eyes found mine.
 
My hands found his.
 
Finger by finger I pried him from the unyielding stone and we
floated to the surface, buoyed by the few last breaths in our
lungs. Dusk had brought calm to the waves which delivered us gently 

to shore. We stared for a long time over frothy water and sea beaten stones

worn round.

He smiled.

I knew at that moment I had saved him from the sea, from his sadness, and would forever after, save him from himself.

Christopher Shannon - Express Yourself

Liverpudlian CSM MA Menswear alum Christopher Shannon really slathered the icing on the big fat fashion week cake for me this season with a collection that could as easily be seen in a glossy high end commercial magazine (gasp! sorry for using the c word) as it could in Dalston or as it could be seen flashed on CCTV on the back of a looter in Tottenham. Shannon has stated in the past that he is a music geek who spent a lot of his youth watching music video's and reading Smash Hits, and this influence, as well as his inspiration for this collection, Leslie Winer's Witch album, was highly apparent and easily felt.

The pieces are extremely well balanced, strong and stern but with this sort of attitude that says "F*#@ing rights I'm wearing tassels." If his strength of versatility and ability to appeal to a myriad of varying types of stylish young men remains with him, he is set... Not many designers can manage to be well respected and relevant and still be considered cool. And yet Shannon has wholeheartedly managed it.

The mix of formal edged tailoring and texture in the shorts and trousers sat smashingly against the loose Americana style sweatshirts, and technical nylon fabrics. Navy and white tassel details, navy and orange square cut patterns and varying degree's of brightly coloured collage prints all cut across the body at different points throughout the collection. This moving line, not unlike water rising and falling in a tank, provided an interesting variance across the pieces and tied the collection together in a purposefully obtuse sort of way.

A bag that looked like a jacket tied around the waist and multicoloured handmade hair comb pieces in collaboration with Craig Green fastened to the models heads were the perfect accessorial accompaniment to his expertly produced designs. Working in partnership with footwear company Swear, each look is finished with raised platform, two tone soled brogues.

As I said... Icing on the cake. CAAAKE! I just love a bit of cake! I just love it I do!!

Pandora's Thoughts - Making Waves

We don't lead particularly "regular" lives so none of our weekends would be classed as normal - but one weekend a couple of weeks back was pretty random - even for us! We had a shoot planned based on an old piece of our writing and needed the sea as a prop (as if there could ever be a better prop than the sea...) so off we headed to Brighton to stay with our friend Cliff who we met on safari years ago and has since remained one of our best friends and favourite people ever!

Cliff is a managing accountant and your typical mans man who has always been supportive albeit a bit perplexed by some of our more artistic endeavours. To have models, make up and hair artists, piles of clothes and jewellery fill up his flat around him while he attempted to watch rugby must have been something unlike anything he has ever experienced!


The weather was doing just about everything except what we wanted to, we needed it to look a bit cloudy and end with the light looking like dusk, all while having the models and me in the bitterly cold English sea! Cliff made everyone hot tea and coffee and brought it down to the beach where we were shooting and we prepared for the freezing cold doom.

Mel doing her thing!

Just as the light became right I jumped into the water to get the first few shots of our male model Phil. As I went to take my first shot a wave came and completely bowled the two of us over! The wind had picked up and the waves became absolutely furious!

Mel and I had to rethink the shot's and came up with an alternative ending that didn't require anyone to have to go too far into the sea. Though Phil and our female model Jordana (yes you read correctly - it was so weird... Every time Mel would say "Now Jordana could you just lift your chin a little?" I was thinking why the hell is she telling me what to do with my chin!?) did have to experience the terribly cold sea pour over them on the beach - ouch.... Talk about professional!

We managed to get all of the shots for the story on the day but decided to head back out first thing in the morning to get a few photo's of the beach and the water (admittedly quite hung over from many glasses of wine drank over debates about politics with Cliff). We got quite close to the edge and another large wave came and completely soaked us. As we were on our way to return the wetsuits we hired we figured - well, we are wet anyway so why not put on the wetsuits and go in?! Yes, always a great idea to go into the wild sea when you have wine brain and no one is around to drag you out of the water!


Once we fought our way back out of the sea we laid for a long time and watched the waves before walking the distance from the Marina to the Pier to return the wetsuits. Neither of us had been clever enough to bring any money or cards and we were so thirsty after swallowing 6 litres of salt water each that we spent the entire walk back listing what drink we would have if we could choose any on earth.




Mel: Snapple - any flavour


Jordanna: Sicilian Lemonade


Mel: Iced cold Coca Cola


Jordanna: Diet version of the above




and so on and so forth..... We had an amazingly crazy time and still think the sea is beautiful - but next time we won't anger it by calling it something insignificant sounding like a "prop".... Maybe something more like  - Goddess Queen Perfect Powerful Amazing Please Don't Swallow Us Up Next Time We Go Swimming Sea?


Much better....


Please keep your eyes peeled for the shoot which will be up this week!








Credits:
Male - Phil Smith
Female - Jordana Power
Make-up and Hair - Jodie Watts
Coffee and Tea - Cliff Hedley

Her: Top - Vintage Charlotte Halton, Skirt - Vintage, Sunglasses - Gianfranco Ferre, Necklace - , Shoes - Tods
Him: Top - Armani, Shorts - ASOS, Shoes - Tods