Tentacoooool.

Since I started this blog, I have definitely changed tastes. Sure, I discovered I quite enjoy asparagus and octopus, but also style-wise. In an attempt to be the kind of chilled, sophisticated and relaxed person I will never be, I’ve recently approached fashion from a modern and minimal angle. 

 

 

 

 Le Specs sunglasses. ASOS REVIVE backpack. Lord & Berry lipgloss

I need something else to clean.

I was reading Oyster magazine today, and an interview with Julie Verhoeven and Something Else designer Natalie Wood particular piqued my interest. Verhoeven noted that she never stops making lists and “would be at a complete loss without one.” Wood also added that “full completion of my lists never happens; there is a definite roll-on effect.”

Hopefully this kind of intense list-making always means that you’re also creative and destined to become rich, because I never have less than three different lists on the go at any one point. Even just now, I have an incredibly comprehensive list of what I’m doing over the next month or so, what I’m wearing for said events, and what I have to bring. This same information is also in a different format on a list-making website, as well as some other tasks (it’s not uncommon for me to have 70+ items to complete). I don’t actually need any form of writing down because my brain’s constantly reminding me to bring my phone, wallet and some back-up lippy to that friend’s birthday dinner.

In fact, I probably spend an hour or so a day solely on making lists. Ironic, considering most of the tasks on these lists could be completed in the time I take to jot them down multiple times. My organizational skills must just be too good.

Anyway, being busy doesn’t mean a messy final product. In the case of Something Else, Wood’s frantic schedule and tendency to be disorganized doesn’t reflect in the collections. The A/W 12 collection, Metamorphosis, has me drooling. It’s fresh, modern and minimal but I know that the designers have gone through hair-tearing moments of stress like me to make it happen.

I think there is a part of everybody that enjoys a list though. I like to think of myself as Monica from FRIENDS – my military-style cleaning and desperate planning make me charming... sort of. I mean, who else prepares for the big one-eight by vacuuming their room?

Raf Simons says.

I’m lost in the fashion designer world. Sure, I like clothing and put great thought into what I’m wearing, but if you take me to a high end arcade and ask me if I’d prefer to browse at Costingtons or Overpricior, I would flee.

Basically, I know what designers exist and what are making it big at the moment, but I don’t want to. That whole sector freaks me out. I read articles about designers of the moment, realise what I’ve just looked at, drop the magazine, and run for the hills. I like the look of things in said magazines, but I wouldn’t have a clue how to put something nice like that together. I shop at Lowes for god’s sake.

That’s why Raf Simons is my god. I like minimalism in fashion because it is clean, modern, eternally in vogue, and it’s just bloody easy. Black or white, short or long. No ‘layering’ (curse the word), mullet skirts or hideous prints that not even Nan can pull off. And personally, I think it looks better than all these high heels with flames on the back and the oriental ‘trend’ (see, I’m in the loop. The dirty, frightening loop).

Raf Simons studied industrial design (he could have whipped up some of those snazzy chairs I’ve mentioned) but has worked as a fashion designer since 1995. The Belgian designer is strictly menswear, but that’s the appeal. It’s neat, sharp and will always cover your thighs.

Don’t let the minimalist approach fool you – his early shows were eccentric and alternative, allowing the models to run, and to wander around car parks and studios. In April this year, he became creative director at Dior, which is almost as swanky as Overpricior.

So while I’m still not 100% sure what area of journalism I want to enter, at least I know wherever I end up, hopefully, I’ll be sporting some Raf Simons. When all else fails, reach for the black blazer… and black shirt and black tie and black shorts and black bike pants  and black socks and black shoes. Ahhhhh.

Coming clean... always clean... lovely and clean...

I’ve recently noticed that I’m a bit of a minimalism junky. This isn’t new – for months now my room has been entirely white, grey, silver, and impeccably clean, with a place for everything and every electrical cord. The layout is thought out, I’ve informed myself on clean, modern colour schemes, and invested the time to make it swish.

Though out? Informed? Invested? This sounds like a case of investigative journalism! Although Ross Coulthart pondered, “Isn’t all journalism investigative?”, this week’s JOUR1111 lecture clarified exactly what it is.

While my room has been described as creepily stark but somehow welcoming, investigative journalism is described as a method of discovering the truth using any medium – finding out what somebody somewhere wants to suppress. In my case, dust.

I don’t know if I have a talent for linking random subjects together or if my life is weirdly based on this course, but the cleaning of my room is a lot like I.J – critical and thorough and of a substantial effort.

I can draw a line though. While I’m one of the most pessimistic people you will ever meet on my off days, to be a great investigative journo you have to be skeptical, NOT cynical. Bollocks.

I still have a fighting chance though, as we were told that investigate journalism understands the hidden agendas of messages and doesn’t just act as a channel for them. I doubt everything, including media! The press lives by disclosure, so investigative journalists should take nothing for granted.

This week we were asked: what do many investigations have in common? They changed the world, and it is this in-depth reporting that actually reveals important news. We came to the conclusion that Wikileaks is not itself an investigation, as it’s just data – just stuff, meaningless until categorized, like the objects in my room. It needs journalists to go through and analyse it.

Investigation thrives on interaction, through interviews, observations, documents, and hell, if it comes to it, trespass and theft.  Yet it is threatened, oddly, by the online phenomenon and, not oddly, by the growth in PR. Investigative journalism could be big, but citizen journos are too afraid to put themselves out there. Nowadays if you look at someone the wrong way they’ll sue you, let alone if you reveal their shocking secrets.

We were asked what kind of journalists we wanted to be, and the furthest I could really go was to say I favoured print. Now I’m skeptical though. How am I to put anything out there without it being either drivel, or make me jail meat? I figure if I keep my work like my room – clean, emotionless, and dimly lit – it might be total crap but at least I won’t have a law suit on my hands. I hate formal wear.