Latest 7 magazine

Katie decides that Kate Moss’s latest designs are perhaps not a worthwhile investment

Aren’t celebrities a creative lot these days? No longer just pretty faces, this year has seen the Heat brigade writing how-to books (cheers Victoria), farming cheese (way to go Alex) and even feeding their extended family on cheap frozen food without developing scurvy (we’re so proud of you Kerry!).

But in amongst all this extracurricular activity, it’s been the celebrity take on the world of high street fashion that’s made the biggest public splash. Whether it’s Lily Allen at New Look, Scarlett Johansson taking on Selfridges or Kate Moss designing for Top Shop, 2007 has seen the great and good busting out the Crayola sets to produce their own clothes ranges.

“True style icons inspire individual thinking, not slavish copyists”

On paper it’s a no-brainer. If the hoi-polloi are all too eager to snap up an over-priced perfume because it’s got a celebrity endorsement, they should be selling their grannies for the opportunity to wear a dress that’s been touched briefly by the hand of La Moss.

Unfortunately, in reality, bingeing on sleb-branded high street fashion is as unwise as buying up huge amounts of your mates’ homebrew at a discount price. After an initial buyers’ rush, there’s only a nagging headache to look forward to, plus an irritating feeling that you’ll be back for more.

The women who queued up earlier in the year to bag one of the carefully-rationed items in Kate Moss’s Spring/Summer collection should be familiar with the symptoms. Kate, of course, looked gorgeous at the launch, but as the wet British summer wore on it became woefully obvious that denim hot pants and weirdly cropped jeans look far hotter worn by a Croydon supermodel than when protecting the dubious modesty of my ass as I wobble down West Street.

And there’s the rub. However beautiful you are there’s no point believing that buying a glittery top that Kate Moss’s marketing people gave the nod to is going to shower you in supermodel sparkle by proxy. Before she even leaves the house Kate has an army of stylists to pick her look – whereas the rest of us have five bleary eyed minutes angrily wrestling with straightening irons and make up before bolting for the door.

As well as unrealistic expectations there’s also the feeling that celeb involvement is dumbing down fashion in general. True style icons from Audrey Hepburn and Debbie Harry right through to MIA inspire individual thinking, not slavish copyists. Surely a new generation of girls should be using Lily Allen’s mix of vintage dresses and street chic as a springboard into their own trademark style – not queuing up at New Look for a ‘Lily Loves’ branded bracelet.

Happily, a look down the North Laine at lunchtime reveals that Brighton’s home-grown fashionistas are just as thrillingly stylish and spectacularly daft as ever. Swing a Chloe handbag around Gardner Street and there are enough eccentrically attired arty types whose devotion to charity shop (rather than celebrity) style should keep the city’s Sue Ryder shop topped up with student loan cash for a few years at least.

Maybe by the time the new Kate Moss collection hits the bargain bins (and no, that piece of tinselly schmatte won’t look any better just because it’s half price) we should draw a line right under this celeb fashion thing.

After all, whether we plump for a glittery boob tube or a satin something-or-other, come Saturday night it’s far better to look like a first rate version of ourselves rather than striving for a third rate copy of Kate.

Photo from bigpicturephotos.com

Sandra Omo samples the model experience from the other side of the camera

This week, I had my first experience as a casting organiser. I have been very busy helping a friendly agency in London organise a casting for their 2008 calendar to be shot in Milan, in collaboration with M & P Models, Milan. We started out by putting out the casting call and the responses we received were unbelievable. I will tell you how unbelievable it was: there were over 300 applications after two days, and the organisers needed only six models to complete the line-up of twelve girls for the twelve months of the year. So the big work was sorting through over 300 applications to shortlist only 20 to attend a casting in London.

“There were three categories of pictures: the ones that made us laugh; the ones that vexed us; and the ones that got our attention”

I had the privilege to be one of the decision-makers during the shortlisting process and this was a real fun and eye-opening experience for me. Boy, I just cannot over-emphasise how important a model’s pictures are when applying for a job. Except when there is a divine intervention somewhere, your pictures are the only advantage you have over another model in the shortlisting process.

Read the rest of this article »

It’s been another fantastic year for North Laine Photography, with their gallery space hosting a number of top class exhibitions, as well as continuing to be the place to buy some of the most memorable images of Brighton, many of which have been taken by NLP’s founder, Nigel Swallow.

Among the exhibitors were Guardian stalwart and one of the most well known British photographers, Roger Bamber, 20 year-old flickr sensation Miss Aniela (this was her first exhibition), Dark Daze, Petrusco, Karen Neal and Sam Johnson, all representing diversity, originality and high quality.

Until January 2008, NLP will be exhibiting some of the best work from the aforementioned artists as well as new images from its 2008 calender.

Visit brightonphotography.com

Heather Mills-McCartney’s very public meltdown and parliamentary attack on the hostile media

Sussex is fast becoming one of the most talked about counties around for celeb gossip – take one week in the news for example.

Hove-based Heather Mills- McCartney (soon to become Mills again) literally blasted the media in a quite spectacular outburst while perched on the GMTV sofa (if you didn’t get to see it then you can log onto gm.tv – I promise you it’s worth it!). This of course caused unprecedented tabloid coverage on exactly what message Heather was trying to get across.

Heather is currently trying to pass a bill in the European Parliament to make the British press be more transparent about their sources when they print stories. She claims to be a victim of a hate campaign by the media as well – of course we all have opinions on the press in this country, but sometimes maybe it’s better to keep a demure silence!

Corrie killer latest victim of Scissorhands

Actor Brian Capron may not have lasted long on the current series of Strictly Come Dancing, but he has not been sitting around doing nothing.

Last week Hove based Brian was a guest punter on BBC3 show Celebrity Scissorhands where he was treated to a manicure and pedicure. I should imagine he probably needed a foot treatment after all that foxtrotting around!

Rickaaaay!

Also in the headlines was the welcome return of two sorely missed characters in BBC1’s EastEnders. Ricky and Bianca first appeared in 1993 and were played by actors Sid Owen – who has just moved to Rottingdean (where I live and consequently now see him all the time shopping in Tesco Metro!) – and Patsy Palmer, who lives in Brighton.

The couple had a traumatic break up, which culminated in a one-off special – having millions glued to the screen. Ricky returned to Walford shortly in 2002 but moved on again in 2004. In real life Sid learned how to cook, wrote a book and lived in France, while Patsy married and brought up three children.

The couple are likely to appear on screen later this year – we can’t wait!

Jo Brooks is director of Brighton-based PR company JBPR Ltd,
01273 622555, www.jb-pr.com