Louche woman

For more than a year the twisted Soul Sister Sue Kreitzman and Caroline Smith are hosting the "Monty Pythoniesque night Louche Women 

"A  wickedly funny club night and growing community that addresses the issues facing older women. Through events, poetry, music, performance and discussion, Louche Women makes the experiences and opinions of older women visible in a provocative and entertaining way." http://louchewomen.com/about/

I AM Louche, "disreputable or sordid in rakish or appealing way", lacking respectability in character or behavior or appearance.

 My style is dubious, sometimes bad taste borderline. I adorn myself with gaudy colours and maximalist kitsch and showy accessories. 

By Anthony Lycett 

Even the artist Gavin Turk said my jewellery "are very weird but in a good way 

I am messy, unpredictable, uncontrollable  the kind of girl boys don't like because I am not so sweet and quiet.  The kind of girl that scare men but fascinate them at the same time.  I defy people who want to put a label on me, even if somehow I still belong to a category determined by precise socio-economical background.  

I am not always politically correct while trying to stay polite and unconventional as long as I don't infringe the freedom of another (unfortunately some narrow minded people will take eccentric look as a visual aggression and I can do nothing for this hopeless sad grey people).  

The kind of girl that never follow Women press patronising advice or girly "youtouber" or mainstream fashion blogger  and don't feel  guilty about it. 

In Middle Age times,  I am the kind of woman people would have taken for a witch and   have burn alive. 

I could never been part of the popular girls in school, not the pretty one, or the sporty one…but   I am proud to be part of the louche tribe.  "I am one of us" a glorious freak.  

At the Lights of Soho picture by Peter Wallis 

Because the Night happen in the Poetry place in the heart of Soho, and it was for the "Sex edition" I decided to create a Sexy Soho dress that I style with my favourite Piers Atkinson hat attempting to revive the old Soho spirit slowly but surely by Property developer and the closing down of world renown clubs like Madame Jojo.  

Sulphurous Soho know as the red light district, with its outdated sex shop, colourful neon lights . The world of endless parties, glorious drags, sequins and glitters.  

The nipple tassels remind the burlesque scene of Soho. They are quite an ironic statement, diverting the erotic function as they are usually sticked on the bare skin and not stitched on a dress. 

A glorious casual encounter, the flamboyant Alexandra Bravoure, dress in Alexander MacQueen style  matching with her Royal Poodle headpiece just to "have a tea", the kind of character you can only meet in Soho 

At Louche Women with Deidre Macken came specially from Dublin to celebrate her birthday in London. 

She asked me to make a headpiece, she has an amazing vintage shop Lycy's Lounge  in Dublin that I wish to visit one day. 

The louchest of the psychedelic babe, the amazing performer and artist Gaffy Gaffiero. 

With one of the fellow my Louche women, one of her most faithful and glorious member, the inimitable wearable art maker Diane Goldie. Sometimes we meet with Sue after Spitafields market.  This crazy bunch of colourful ladies make a tourist attraction for curious onlookers  and  9 to 5 City worker on their lunch break.  

This kimono is designed between tradition and modernity.  It is a traditional silk japanese fabric  with printed flowers and birds that I embroidered over with beads.  But it also refer to the kawaii and hyper japan of manga words with  hand-stitched moshi monsters.   

by Anthony Lycett 

I styled it with my colourful rubber dress that I worn for the Vaslpar advert. 

To immortalise this psychedelic pagan priestess look, with Anthony Lycett,we  decide to shoot it in front of a stone circle in Dartmoor in Devon, famous for its  mysterious stones bronze age. 

This series of pictures is part of a larger scale photographic project, a collaboration with the photographer Anthony Lycett taking picture of my costumes in natural British landscape all over UK, maybe will be turned into an exhibition… stay tuned! 

By Anthony Lycett 

As in experimented tourists from London, we were naively thinking we can just find the stone circle, but Dartmoor National Park is huge and we didn't have a map.  We walked for 6 hours around the Heath carrying photographic equipment and 15kilo of costumes. After coming back to the visitor centre, we found some stones but disappointedly small so we decided to take the picture in front of a Neolithic former settlement.  

By Anthony Lycett 

J'ai deux amours: art & fashion

picture by Anthony Lycett 

Sue Kreitzman  opened my eyes on the beauty of african fashion when I went with her to the African fabric market in Spitafields. She uses a lot of this amazingly detailed colourful beaded necklace as base for her own art.   Before I had this vision of "primitive" art associated with tourist fake wooden sculpture  incrusted with plastic shells next to a Bob Marley t-shirt on market stool.   

The headpiece was commissioned by Deirdre from Lucy Lounge vintage shop in Dublin, with some customised tribal baby face and reason feathers kept by Mum grandmother from my uncle hunting.  

African style coming strong this few past seasons mingling with more western aesthetic, adopted by festival looks for his colourful patterns, eco-fashion connotation   mixed with other tribal and ethnic inspirations.  

Like in this editorial for Vogue where the african ethic fashion is styled on a white model.  

My idea was to create an African aesthetic necklace inspired by colourful folk african fairy tales of my childhood.  With a naive touch in a good way,  but trying to avoid any "colonialism" or "primitive art" connotation.

picture by Anthony Lycett 

   I glued a lot of rhinestones on savannah animals to give them a bit of glam and bling, with this necklace you are ready for a chic safari trip! 

 My Mum found two figurines of the sorceress in Kirikou a French cartoon, I knew Sue would like this strong powerful woman character, half goddess, half witch

 

Sue Kreitzman, pensive surrounded by her art with my African style necklace on her blue mannequin.  

I always feel really privileged to meet an artist and they have always been very generous with me. When I met John Baldwin in his studio,  he gave me a lot canvas he wanted to to get rid of.  I could have just stick them on my wall as they are so beautiful but that wasn't the purpose of it.  

picture by Anthony Lycett 

I've done some experiments with paint and garment before in interactive performance (read the article about it) But I've never used someone else paintings in my work before.  

Aiming to make "wearable art" I've always been interested in the link between fine art and fashion.  How something that should be "Art for art's sake" could be "downgraded" (according to Platoon theory on art)  into something useful, with a precise function as being worn? Could you be a walking painting or is art meant to stay on the wall?  

 I don't know a lot about print making.  At fashion school  degree shows,  I am always fascinated by experimental techniques that student use in order to create new pattern.  

But what could be better than a master painting?  This dress is the first experiment of I hope a larger scale one.  I had to tame the rigidity and tackiness of the canvas  to work with that suppress the smooth flow of a garment and make the shape more contrived. 

picture by Anthony Lycett 

I also met the pop artist Marthy Thonrton who gave me this "My little pony Burger" that he made during the horse meat scandal. I turned this witty piece into a fascinating. What could be best than wearing a art piece as a headpiece?  I like to think that lot of the accessory that I am wearing have a meaning, a deeper concept than just being cloth, a sentimental and artistic value.  

picture by Anthony Lycett 

I've already made a lot of dresses with baby faces in the past. But this time I wanted to push the experiment further by painting the face with arcylic paint, primary colours and the mix of 2 of this colours.  I wanted to create a kind of pop art baby dolls face…why?  just for fun.  

I worn it for the Art car boot fair where a lot of artists come to exhibit  and sells their work in Bricklane, far from the pretentiousness  of the white wall gallery but more in spirit of a  a sunday market.  Wearing a wearable piece of art, I felt more legitimacy mingling with the artist and it was my way to contribute to the event.  

I feel so honoured to strike the pose with the amazing Molly Parkin.  You can see theses people on TV and the net day have your picture taken with them, this is the magic of London.  

picture by Anthony Lycett 

I grant it to you, shooting in brick lane is a bit overdone. I watched this programme on BBC  about the artists Tim Noble & Sue Webster who own a building in Shoreditch saying that if she got one pound for all the photoshoot down in front  of her building she will be another millionaire .  

But I particularly like this wall washed out with colours as if they were dripping from the paintings as the expression of a overflow of creativity.