Fashion blogs Review

The first fashion blog that I took a look at was The Style Scout.
The blog is about London Street Fashion & focuses more on clothing from the areas around London such as Brick Land to Portobello & Notting Hill. From Cold Brick Lane to Old Spitafields Market It's London's most famous street fashion blog documenting London street Fashion across the City.
I really liked some of the Photographs I saw in this blog, I liked how everyone had such different looks to the way they dress and how uniquely they chose their garments.
My Favourite was a Picture of this girl taken in Old Spitafields Market. I really liked the flower design on her boots (Dr Martins).

The Second Blog I took a look at was "Boy Meets Fashion" which is a blog launched in 2010 by a London Born called Jai'me Jan. He launched boy meets fashion Purely as an outlet to express his fascination with fashion & styles. He attended many fashion events at the time and was told by many close friends to start the blog.“Boy Meets Fashion” has been featured in The Telegraph, Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan magazine and Harrods to name a few. In 2011, Jai'me was named 8th in the Daily Telegraph’s “Top 50 fashion insiders on Twitter”. I enjoyed viewing this blog cause I learnt alot about how people view fashion through their perspective.





The 3rd blog I took a look at was "Fashion Bomb Daily".
It was created in August 2006 by journalist Claire Sulmers. The Fashion Bomb provides daily doses of chic to savvy stylists.
Readers view the blog for its fresh take on fashion news and stories, along with its boutique spotlights, magazines scans, fashion show reviews, trends, wardrobe advice, celebrity looks for less and tips on how to break into the industry from the best in the business.
With 2.4 million monthly visitors, The Fashion Bomb made Ebony Magazine’s 2011 Power 100 List, while Claire was named Black Blogger of the Month by Black Enterprise, and was dubbed Blogger of the Moment by Teen Vogue. Well respected in the industry, The Fashion Bomb has been referenced in New York Magazine, featured in Glamour, and quoted in Time. Claire is a regular contributor to Essence.com and Vogue.it 

Girl in the Lens

The 4th blog I took a look at was "Girl in the Lens"

Girls in the lens is a fashion blog created by Natasha and is a beauty and photography blog featuring her favourite designers, photoshoots, outfit posts, blogs she loves, beauty tips and more.Since starting the blog in late 2011, Girl in the Lens has grown far beyond theire expectations, and feel privileged every day for the opportunities it has given them and the fantastic people they've met through blogging. They are honoured to be shortlisted for Cosmopolitan’s Best New Fashion Blog in 2012, and hope to continue to grow their blog year on year. 

The last blog I took a look at was "Frassy".

Frassy is created by Audrey leighton Rogers, who was born in America but lived in Europe most her life. She is now settled in Paris.

She works has a Photographer, Freelance writer and also a blogger. I find her style very fascinating and interesting.

Her blog is very different from the others I viewed only because of the simplicity and the interesting layout. Its the small detailing that makes the blog interesting.

All blogs were very interesting to read and all have its own uniqueness.

Its amazing how different people view fashion and how the way one dresses defines them as a person.

I enjoyed learning about other peoples perspective and they're way of reaching high in the fashion industry. Going over fashion blogs really does help ones confidence with the way they look and how good you can feel no matter the size of a person. It really does boost confidence.

Surreal Movie Reviews

The Phantom of Liberty

The Phantom of Liberty is one of the most audacious and unconventional films, directed by Luis Buñuel. The Phantom of Liberty may very well be the most accomplished, ambitious and surrealist work of his 54-year film career. 
The film surely challenges traditional narrative conventions and at the same time, the film deals with a variety of limits imposed by the law and presents an intense criticism against social institutions. 

The devoted surrealist Buñuel acknowledged in his films the presence of potent subconscious forces of a violent & sexual nature.
The Phantom of Liberty show how these forces, which represent the true human nature, are affected by moral, religious and social points.
The Phantom of Liberty, there are virtually no social institutions left untouched by Buñuel’s ironic and surreal criticisms.

The most striking feature of The Phantom of Liberty is its unconventional narrative structure. The film comprises roughly 12 distinctive episodes with separate protagonists. These episodes are linked together in a unique way. For example, the film opens with some events that take place at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Then, we discover that a nanny is reading these events from a book. The nanny works for a bourgeois gentleman’s family, who is having hallucinatory dreams. The Phantom of Liberty resembles a relay race, where the narrative’s center of attention is passed, baton-like, from a character in one sequence to a character in the next.

Un Chien d'Andalou

Un Chien Andalou was the calling card of two desperate, unknown Spanish artists. It “came from an encounter between two dreams.”
The film illustrates Buñuel’s awesome ability as a fledgling filmmaker and served as a calling card for Buñuel and Dali into the elite club of the surrealists. After just over seventy years, the remarkable opening sequence still retains its power: “Once upon a time.” 

This is a first film by two relatively young intellectuals and it is striking. Yet for all its critical and financial success, it never truly achieved its aim of outraging or affronting middle-class sensibilities. Although there are reports of disruptions of screenings, these seem to be based on false memories of events surrounding the release of Buñuel’s next film, L’Age d’Or (1930).
Un Chien Andalou was, as were many of Buñuel’s later films, a huge success amongst the French bourgeoisie, and a parallel can be seen between the careers of Buñuel and Chabrol. Chabrol is a self-confessed bourgeois who hates the complacency of his class. His films are deeply critical of the bourgeoisie yet his films have always benefited from the patronage of the middle-class. The same can be said of Buñuel. This can also be seen in Buñuel’s uneasy relationship with the Catholic church.

n Chien Andalouillustrates Buñuel’s obsessions and is replete with references to his upbringing. Recurrent reference points are surrealism and religion, as already mentioned, seasoned with violence and a willingness to shock. Images from Spain appear regularly throughout his work as do images of the poor and suffering. It was Buñuel’s only silent film and perhaps for this reason appears more dynamic than his other works. Along with L’Age d’Or and Las Hurdes (1933), the film is very explicit and confrontational.

Surrealist Wonderland

Surrealism! What is it? 
 Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for its visual artworks and writings.Surrealism developed out of the Dada activities during World War I and the most important center of the movement was Paris. From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film, and music of many countries and languages, as well as political thought and practice, philosophy, and social theory. 
How did it begin? 
Surrealism was largely founded by artists and writers who had been part of, or influenced by, the Dada group. Both were essentially reactions to the irrationality and destruction of WW1. Many of the social structures and normalities of pre 1914 Europe were seen to be breaking down and many artists started questioning the nature of "reality", the Surrealists by exploring dreams and sub-conscious thought. You'll get more detail by searching "origins of Surrealism" or something like that, I'm just relying on memory. 

Who were the main contributors?
The worlds most famous Surrealist painter was Salvador Dali. However the person who founded Surrealism was Andre Breton but he was a surrealist writer. Some famous painters included:
Man Ray, Rene Magritte, Yves Tanguy, Francis Picabia, Salvador Dali, Georgio De Chirico and Max Ernst.Disdaining rationalism and literary realism, and powerfully influenced by Sigmund Freud, the Surrealists believed the conscious mind repressed the power of the imagination, weighting it down with taboos. Influenced also by Karl Marx, they hoped that the psyche had the power to reveal the contradictions in the everyday world and spur on revolution. 

What are the Elements of Surrealism in movies? 
I notice that most Surreal Movies have unusual weather patterns. Also, I notice that most of these Surreal Films have dream sequence that the protagonist seems to be aware of the dream state.
Surrealist (Rene Magritte)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO5zKbnjbsk



Tim Walker

Tim Walker is one of the most visually exciting and influential fashion photographers working today. Extravagant in scale and ambition and instantly recognisable for their eye-opening originality, Walker’s photographs dazzle with life, colour and humour. His recent work is drawn from the pages of the world’s leading magazines: British, French, American and Italian Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and The New Yorker among many others.

Surrealist Wonderland?

Tim Walker Moving Image (video, watch)

Tim Walker’s photographs have entranced the readers ofVogue, month by month, for over a decade. Extravagant staging and romantic motifs characterise his unmistakable style. After concentrating on the photographic still for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film.

On graduation in 1994, Walker worked as a freelance photography assistant in London before moving to New York City as a full time assistant to Richard Avedon. On returning to England, he initially concentrated on portrait and documentary work for UK newspapers. At the age of 25, he shot his first fashion story for Vogue and has continued to work to much acclaim ever since.

Tim Walker Exhibition

Tim Walker: Story Teller showcases 175 of Walker’s most fantastical works from the pages of the world’s leading magazines: British, French, American and Italian Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and The New Yorker among many others.

Returning from Tim Walker newly opened Story Teller exhibition at SomerSet House I enjoyed aspects of the exhibition and thought the overall of the exhibition pulled me into that fairytale emotion that surrealists create. Walkers images are amazing in colour and lightning and his ideas are superbly thought through.Walker is an editorial photographer working for global fashion magazines so his work was quite commercial. The exhibition space inside Somerset House was simply thrilling dotted with surreal props from Walkers shoots.As a recent review of the exhibition in The Independent said “It’s a world where magic exists and, though darkness threatens, it is never ugly. Beauty rules here, because it is fashion, after all.”

Fantastic Voyage: Great Moments in Surrealist Fashion

In the 80-odd years since the broadside was issued, many free-thinking designers have looked at clothing through a twisted, unexpected lens, including Elsa Schiaparelli.Surrealism is a movement in art and literature that flourished in the early 20 century. The attempt was to change perceptions of the world by expressing imaginative dreams and visions free from conscious rational control. Salvadore Daliwas one of the most influential surrealist artist.

I am a huge fan of him and I absolutely adore his art; no matter in which format –his painting, his sculptures, his interior design, his fashion, his performance… To me, he is the Godfather of Surrealism. I also truly believe that a true artist has a playful spirit inside, that makes them so full of imagination. Dali has made him such a popular art icon by his eccentric way of expressing himself. It showed through his work of art. I also love his “logo”  – the mustache!

From the 20 century art movement to today’s perception of reality. What began as a fashion experiment with a contemporary-art movement has become a source of inspiration for ready-to-wear and fast-fashion labels worldwide.
Surrealism is a fantastic way to interpret the way you feel, emotions through clothes. It makes the garment stand out more & its good to know that surrealism is in everything, such as fashion and just not in art paintings.