...[things that make you go AAAAAAARRRRRGGHHHtwat]...

fashion and music have always gone hand-in-hand and yet abhorred each other at the same time - well, the "serious" music community is known for its distaste where fashion is often concerned, while fashion takes many of its cues from musical icons - debbie harry, lou reed, the new romantics, and countless others. meanwhile on the street, kids divide themselves over music and fashion; "trendies" are despised for their love of high street clothing, while rock fans endure taunts for their "freak" clothing. fashion and music love, despise and need each other in equal doses. that's fine. nothing wrong with that. what i'm annoyed about, is luella bartley.


...[disclaimer - if you hate fashion, this rant may well bore you. switch off now.]...


fucking luella bartley. it's quite difficult to put into eloquent words just how much this woman irritates and confounds me. it isn't that she's a fashion designer; i love fashion, i spend as much time poring over the fashion press as i do the music press, i don't confine myself to the dress code of one faction or another, i love to experiment, and there are a hell of a lot of fashion designers that i have immense respect for. what it is, is that she's just plain irritating. her "creations" [read tacky, uninspired 2nd-rate clothing] irritate me; what is stylish about ugly white denim jackets sprayed with lurid neon paint, and then systematically pounced on and reproduced by every store on every high street across the country and hailed as "sassy" and "punk" and "revolutionary"? fuck all, that's what. inexplicably, every fashion magazine in the known world has wanked over her "designs" for the past, ooh, nearly 12 months, if not more. WHY?!?!?!?!?! as a designer she's blatantly not fit to lick the soles of stella mccartney's shoes.


i also loathe her because she seems to be one of the key figures of the despicable hoxton brigade. the hoxton scene annoys me. notting hill had its irritance factor, but at least it had a feeling of glamour and style about it. hoxton... eurgh. it just feels like a crowd of wannabe-somebodies swanning around, seeking out the ultimate in consciously-leftfield, oh-so-angular fashion, parties and people. it's the fashion equivalent of the musos who seek out the most obscure bands they can find, snubbing any band who manages to satisfy both the alternative fans and the general public, and throwing in destiny's child to piss off the alt-fans and display their oh-so-cool credentials [fair enough if you actually like destiny's child but it isn't the case for certain people]. and it sickens me.


and now the music bit. to me it just feels like she's trying to ingratiate herself into the current music flow. now that's fine. i'm not writing this to tell ms bartley what she and her friends may or may not listen to - ain't up to me, and i don't really give a fuck to be honest. but.. it just stinks of scenism. it's not about what she listens to. it's about what she's telling us is cool. excuse me, luella dear, but why should i take you even remotely seriously when you tell me that the strokes are "the coolest band ever"? really, why??? if you think they're good, great. [i don't, but hey, each to their own.] but don't fucking tell me they're cool. i have the fashion press telling me what i should and shouldn't wear. [and much as i love fashion, i don't give a damn what i *should* be wearing - just let me know what's out there, show me beautiful clothes, and i'll take my pick, thank you very much.] i have the music press telling me what i should and shouldn't listen to. [ditto.] but it gets up my nose when a fashion designer tells me what i should and shouldn't listen to. like i said, fashion and music have always been intertwined. i love when fashion and music are influenced by each other. but this isn't about that. it's about luella bartley. listen luv - you can't even make an attractive piece of clothing. you've already done your part in kitting out the nation in your destestable, eye-straining clothing. don't you dare tell me what we should now be listening to. don't you dare assume that your opinion holds that much weight. scrawling elastica lyrics all over a jacket doesn't make you any more informed about music than the rest of us.


what it is, is that it annoys me that the strokes, who are NOT the most amazing band ever, are actually being praised as if they were - NME's words this week were something along the lines of "the strokes are the coolest band ever". i get annoyed that this somewhat average band - one decent song to date, i have "the modern age" on vinyl and it's hardly competing for the best single of the year [that one goes to the cooper temple clause]. it's bad enough that this band are being lauded beyond belief - front covers, salivating, brown-tongued praise from every music journo with enough agility to leap onto that there runaway bandwagon - while other, better bands are tossed to the kerb. but now they have the fashion pack unashamedly tottering after them, and not just the fashion pack - bloody luella bartley. it annoys me.


i'm wholly aware that this is coming across as elitist and bitchy. perhaps not very logical. indeed, incoherent. certain people are going to read this and get highly annoyed and impatient with me. i don't care. it's 2:30 in the morning, and i'm annoyed. i don't write this column to please the masses. i write it to get annoyances off my chest. if people like it, great. but i'm not gonna change my style and my opinions to suit everyone else. luella bartley is EVERYWHERE. every fashion magazine, every shop in london, bears her name or her influence. i can't even get away from her in the music press, because apparently new york music and style are now cool, and she's cashed right in on it - and listen sweetie darling, teaming a pink satin tie with a skinny men's suit is not and never was "genius" as you so artlessly put it - it's been done and done again. she annoys me. she pisses me off beyond belief. i'd rather spend 287 hours in a room with daphne and celeste, the pair of them stoked up on red bull, than ever have to exchange words or breathing space with luella bartley. perhaps it's quite illogical, but that's the way i feel, and i really felt like moaning about it. so there.


and anyway, trail of dead are a hundred times cooler than the strokes. IN MY HUMBLE OPINION...

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