Archive for the ‘News’ Category

Ab Fab Returns

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Patsy, Eddy and the rest return for another debaucherous event

It’s been 20 years since the first Absolutely Fabulous episode aired on the BBC. And in celebration, Jennifer Saunders, Joanna Lumley and the rest of the cast have reunited for a 3-episode anniversary special. Two episodes have already aired (one on Christmas day, the other on New Year's day), and the last is expected in late July. The show, a classic example of self-indulgence and fashion gone awry, paints a hilariously destructive and irresponsible picture of two middle-aged (though we suspect Patsy is even older) women stuck in their partying youth. Unable to function without each other, Patsy and Edina are co-dependent BFF’s who just can’t get it together. And that’s exactly why we love it so much.

In celebration of the 20th Anniversary Absolutely Fabulous special, we give you some of our favorite fashion moments from the long-running British series below. “Right. Cheers. Thanks a lot.”

Flashback episodes of the 60s and 70s always showed Eddy and Patsy in their best-dressed years. Despite desperate efforts, they never fully made it in the  modern fashion world.

Pre-beehive Patsy just doesn't look like enough of a mess. And Eddy's wild style was almost acceptable.

What's a ski trip without a case of wine, ten cartons of cigarettes and over the top getups?

Though not her best fashion moment, Patsy still managed to look half decent after surviving a fire she caused in Eddy's kitchen.

How could Eddy get through a season without donning a hideous track suit or Patsy without a hateful sneer at small children?

Eddy's early 90s "Pump Up The Jam" outfits are legendary and continued well into the 2000s.

Patsy's stint as soft porn star "Boobarella" is hands down the best Ab Fab fashion moment. How could it not be?

Gone Too Soon

Monday, October 31st, 2011
Legendary producer J Dilla is one of the 6 artists BBC is honoring in the series Gone Too Soon For a limited time, BBC Radio 1Xtra's online player is hosting a series of episodes dedicated to hip hop artists who died before their time. "Gone Too Soon" celebrates the legacy of 6 artists with a compilation of their most important tracks and interviews with friends, colleagues and family members. The last episode in the 5-part series pays tribute to J Dilla, a game-changing producer who passed away at 32 after battling lupus in 2006. He influenced hip hop's neo soul movement and left behind 13 albums, some of which are posthumous. His work has appeared on critically acclaimed albums by Erykah Badu, Ghostface Killah, A Tribe Called Quest, Common and Busta Rhymes. In the opening of "Gone Too Soon," BBC Radio 1Xtra's host, Benji B, declares that Dilla is his "favourite beat-maker of all-time, no question." Check out the audio documentary here or go directly to BBC Radio 1Xtra's iPlayer. It's available until the end of the week along with other episodes about Tupac and Biggie, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Jam-Master Jay and Aaliyah.

RIP Corinne Day

Monday, August 30th, 2010
On August 29th at 5pm, British fashion and documentary photographer Corinne Day died after a decade of treatment for a tumor in her brain. Her experience was recorded by her boyfriend Mark Szaszy in a documentary for BBC called, "Corinne Day Diary" but like any artist, it's the work she leaves behind that give us a sense of her aesthetic and approach to life. Intimate and bare (often literally), her subjects always seem oddly at ease despite being exposed to the world. Her most famous editorial was "The 3rd Summer of Love" in The Face. It's credited with both starting Kate Moss' career at the tender age of fifteen and popularizing the waif look of the 90's. In her 45 years she shot for every fashion magazine worth mentioning and exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Modern, Saatchi Gallery and the Whitney, among others. The Independent Film Quarterly, asked Day to discuss how her personal interest in documentary photography complies with the decadent photo shoots for Vogue and her response was simply, "I still believe that fashion can be pushed in new directions." Below are a few of the many Corinne Day photographs that we love. R.I.P. Corinne Day.

FAKE TREES

Thursday, August 27th, 2009
567kitty In a few decades, we could be living like Milla Jovovich in the Fifth Element, as an article in the BBC News reports that engineers are--amongst various projects--inventing fake trees to soak up carbon emissions. "The prototype artificial tree was about the same size as a shipping container and could remove thousands of times more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than an equivalent sized real tree," reports BBC. Initially this sounds a tad apocalyptic but we should look on the bright side. Firefighters will no longer be pestered to get sad cats down from trees and kids won't break any bones from climbing on real ones. And sans Douglas Firs, Christmas clean-up won't be a hassle. With science like that, who really needs real trees?