It was something less than a year ago when Dazed & Confused popped the question: “Is East London Dead?“ . The time for the Olympics was almost there and the once talent-blooming district was weathering. Dazed, made a great attempt to keep this memory alive, and that stuck in my head for the next nine months. 

The magical thing I experience every time in London is that, without really knowing, the streets lead me where I need to be; so my walk on Brewer street led me to Machine-A. I got in. It was conceptual. It even smelled conceptual. I wandered around a bit. I saw Mugler, MCM, Simons. And then I saw the neoprene whisperer Peiran Gong & Tigran Avetisyan, Central Saint Martins’ wunderkind among others. Machine-A was not just another urban shop; it was a boutique of a high-leveled sartorial curation.

Fun(ny) fact: While I was blabbing with my friends about how very, absolutely much I wanted to reside forever in Machine-A in greek, the owner & Creative Director Stavros Karelis joined the conversation: it turned out he was a compatriot. 

We had a small chat about the general fashion scene in Greece and the fact that he knew what was missing from it, made me understand a bit more deeply & instantly his passion for innovation that shares with his team: co-director & awesome stylist Anna Trevelyan, Ashley Smith & Ella Dror from Ella Dror PR.

What I also found out was that Machine-A counted only two days on Brewer street, since it relocated. So, relocation brought reinvention, along with fashion’s most promising East talents.

What Karelis accomplished with Machine-A lies in the fact that it’s a non-restricting platform that creates -not only gives- the stance to go against the flow. Innovation just for the sake of innovation is one of our generation’s plague with no actual contribution. Agi & Sam, Sibling, Alex Mattson, Ashley Williams speak with their promising talent & their desire to make a statement, not just be fashion.

But not only the boutique’s designers stimulate this conceptual interaction, but the boutique itself since it will be a host to other forms of art, so that the current perceptions of artistic expression will be expanded. 

I can’t say that the Dazed review is stuck in my head anymore. East London’s creative pulse has not stopped beating - in fact, it’s more alive than ever. 

Take a walk to Machine-A to see for yourself.

13 Brewer Street
London W1F ORH

Image collage: Eau de Style

One thing that people are constantly looking for -subconsciouly, most of the times- is something to relate to. A triggering of memory & senses every once in a while, when they know they need it and when they don’t. Serendipity of emotional attachment, if you prefer. 

While my visit in Tel Aviv, one autumnal evening, designer Naomi Maaravi & I met. Her boutique was a warm little place where it was evident that she’d personally put pieces of her life into it. I wanted to get to know the story behind. Little did I know that Naomi was a storyteller herself. Of the sartorial kind.

She has the rare talent of redesigning old clothes that bare a story with them, into shiny & new ones. So, their story goes on & gets enriched by new adventures.

After a couple of months & some more later, Naomi & I had a chat -some may call it an interview too-  about memory, style & stories so you can see into how many shades inspiration can be unfolded. 
(Spoiler: Much more than Grey.)

Take a look!

On the beginning & identity

I am a Dutch designer studied in the Netherlands fashion textile and theater costumes. I have an extensive experience in the world of clothes without boarders: in theater, dance (Bianca van Dillen), music (Candy Dulfer) and fashion from underwear (Delta for ck, Hugo Boss, Polo Ralph Lauren etc.) to outerwear (NafNaf, Mexx etc.), from baby (Shilav) to wedding, from Holland to Israel through Milan & Paris with love and passion through work and through life.

The story began 12 years ago when I made my first piece for my daughter. It was a dress I created from a pair of jeans my husband had worn out. My father did that. He never threw anything away, never ever. He created a new world out of items the were considered having no value anymore. Milk bottles became lamps. Strings and ropes were made into carpets or seats. Combinations of old bikes, appliances and garments became interesting, new, useful or just lovable objects. My father taught me that every item has value, no matter how old or broken up, everything has a soul, an identity. Behind every object there is a story.

As a result of my father’s teaching, I considered that every garment has a personality, something that makes it unique, individual and precious. Like the person to whom it belonged. I give the stories their continuation. I re-use my own collected high-end materials or the emotional & valuable personal materials given to me by my clients to create new stories, new garments, different & unique. I put my heart in every piece I create like a writer puts something of himself into the story he tells.

My memories, events, happiness, sadness are all parts of the material I use, blended to create unique garments with stories of their own. I worked in several companies but it was my husband who gave me my life present, to realize and fulfil my dream in all its facets, emotionally, technically & by belief. [The fact] that I have a store (laboratory) today is because of my husband who wanted so much to fulfill my dream - he was the one who said “quit your job”; he was the one who came home one day and said “I found you a place”; he is the one who made my dream tangible.

Images by Naomi Maaravi

Edit by Eau de Style

One of the things that bug me the most, is how my short stay in the geology department has accomplished the unthinkable: me, detecting elements of mother Earth every-fuckin’-where. Fresh example: my latest article for Twelv magazine. And even though I enjoyed writing it to the fullest, I knew I’d opened the Pandora’s box.

Yes, horizons ‘n all are broadened but you see, this post was originally intended to touch on the critical issue of“Prints, taking over the streets & runways –have we had enough?”

Then one day while having  a break from studying, my dear friend Alex dropped by, saw some (pretty cool I must admit) images of microscopic ore deposits and he uttered something that stuck in my head: “If I were you, I’d use them on the blog somehow”.

After I’ve killed off my intentions for a printless article; after the RTW F/W 2013-14 presentations are over and the break of the designers’ majority from massive prints was evident, here I am puzzled about  what’s next.

One of the collections that will be unlikely for me to forget is Pedro Lourenco’s  Pre-Fall 12;  a wonderful feeling of icy minimalism came through. Don’t know if it was the general icy white set or his prints, inspired by the spectacular landscapes of Patagonia. 

My memory of Alex & Lourenco (and a bit of Mary Katrantzou F/W 13) gave a possible answer to my above question:  since designers never get tired of infusing hints of nature into their creations, why not take full advantage of it & search beyond the obvious and beyond the images our eyes can meet anytime.

(That way, maybe geology will come in handy after all. You know, besides playing a critical part to our evolution, duh).

Collages edited by Eau de Style

Lately I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. The overexposure to purely scientific knowledge has rapidly grown a need inside me for purely philosophical questions - from myself, answered by my schizophrenic self. You see, there’s an exquisite confusion in trying to find answers in a non-practical way, that I can’t help but allow myself to give into.

The first stimulus for this brainstorm was Eau de Style’s new look & more precise perspective. The affair of fashion & art has always been triggering me, but things have got to start from somewhere to get in line. And I just didn’t know where the hell this starting point was.

The answer came the oher night while I was scrolling down the I Love You magazine site & Ride of the Valkyries was on. Literally, it was a Holy-Dove-shits-on-my-head kinda moment when I finished an interview of the magazine with artist Ayse Erkmen, titled: 

“How deep should the artist penetrate the work with their identity — How important is the artist?”

Ayse Erkmen talked about the many egos that are required for an art piece to be perfect, about the importance of curators, about the art-fashion interweaving & of course her own works.

It was a real surprise to know that she, as a creator, is always open to suggestions & instructions from others in order for her work to be a perfect one, and therefore pleasing to the eyes of its viewers. Then creative directors popped in my mind. Artists, apparently are not afraid of losing their identity to the ego of a technician or the curator,and the final result ending as a hodgepodge of numerous contributions. But in fashion things work a little bit differently.

You see, designers have to have a signature to put out there for all the world to see. And preserve this signature that made them stand out in this ocean of designers we seem to be floating , for two or three collections per year, every year. That’s a pretty damn hard task you know. But as the restless human beings that we are, we tend to answer this calling of re-defining ourselves every now & then, and if we’re privilleged enough, we can have the luxury of doing so through our work. That’s the point where, I conjecture, there is a notable turn in designers’ signature and when the fashion world is torn. There have been reviews that even question  the designer’s right to do so, therefore creating this dillema in my -and your- mind if it’s a matter of a good thing or a bad thing to shake things up when it comes to branding oneself through their collections. The flexibility of re-building the image might actually be one of the dividing lines between designers & artists.

One thought that crossed my mind at this point was the lack of a collection’s curator. The designer has a dual nature of both the creator and the curator at the same time. No outter egos are welcomed, the spotlight is always on one & only person. The dominant ego here covers all the others & the final result is affected by no one else. So Erkmen’s point that “the curator is someone that can make the work perfect” is invalid in this world. Now if it would be a better outcome with a curator’s help, is a question that, at least for now, will remain unanswered.

However the depth if identity penetration can be bargained? In the art world, there is time for this debate, since the frequency requirements for a project delivery might not be as demanding as those for collections’ delivery. Thing that makes sense since the “Who you’re wearing” became more important than “What are you wearing”.
Classic case of collection, interrupted.

Ayse Erkmen was also asked about the distance art should keep from the other creative fields, such as fashion. Martin Magiela’s name came up saying:

I think Martin Margiela is a very important name in conceptual art. Perhaps, because he is a fashion designer, he may not think this but he uses the basis elements of conceptual art very well. He does not strive to make beautiful clothes — rather he uses elements of tailoring itself. Although the result may be fashion, in the end the important thing for him is to get to the center of things with questions such as

“What is fashion? What is art?”

So, for the relief of my soul, we are free to put the art sticker on creations as practical as clothes, and as long  as we’re aesthetically stimulated, everything will be just fine.

Read the full interview here

Images of Ayse Erkmen as found on I Love You magazine
Image collage by Eau de Style

You see what I’m doing here, right? Breaking the mold, going against the flow, grabing the chance to post a forotten outfit shoot -that gave me a very remembered cold that specific day- and NOT retroscoping on the departed-to-be year. Not my NY’s resolutions, not my NYE outfit.

Nothing wrong with that, on the contrary spreading wishes & positive energy for new starts is quite a noble cause. Thing is, lately I’m in deep thought of any topic or action that gets a massive exposure: action that leads to the most mainstream word - mainstream itself. It’s really troubling me, the question of why can’t we be innovators? Why do we have to wait for a truly unique idea to appear until the previous get oversaturated, and why that perpetual cycle is so well-preserved?

On the antithesis of that, we cannot be all innovators. For one idea to be catchy, it takes people who have never thought of it themselves, appreciate it & embrace it. Heck, I even have a blog while the internet world is full of them. I am in the fashion industry while zillions of girls & boys wanna join for a spot in it, too.

I’ll get back to that with a proper -and not wedged- post.

So maybe I myself am mainstream too in the way that none of us can avoid being mainstream. And in that way, a few hours before 2013 joins the gang here in Greece, I’ll say from the bottom of my partly-minstream heart: 

Happy, promising & inspiring  New Year darlings.

After my last reflections for the ‘12, back to this post’s main theme: It was another celebratory day; the 100th anniversary of mycity freedom from the Ottoman sovereignty. So to honor this day, historically & aesthetically significant buildings & monuments were open to the public to wander around in them & see first-hand the architectural evolution of the last century. The event was called “Open House” &  along with Veronique, our last stop was my favourite: Thessaloniki’s Music Hall. A masterpiece of minimalism made out of marble, granite & glass. 

Enormous, so that you can get lost in it, raw, sharp & structured; that’s why only my new Maya Negri sweater dress seemed appropriate. Back in November, when I was still in sunny Tel Aviv, we payed a visit to Maya Negri’s boutique, having an unforgettable [goodbye :( ] party along with a prive presentation of her latest collection. I left with this dress added to my wardrobe. “Airport outfit” as Rumi named it, and rightfully so: beyond cozy, beyond versatile & uber sexy.

Just how I picture 2013.

Maya Negri