London fashion update: This weekend, the in the sweltering heat we braved the underground and its 110 farhenheit temperatures to see what was going on at this year's Clothes Show in London at Earl's Court

The exhibition area and the main fashion shows seemed a bit smaller this year probably in wake of the recession fever. However there were still a few cool brands to be found such as Glam-Net and Core Spirit and the main show was still great… I love the tokyo inspired stuff. Gaga would love LOL.

The main show featured George Lamb but he had no model co-host this year so he brought his dad instead LOL. The show had fashion capitals as its themes and our fav Max Rogers was in the show again this year.

Pictures from The Clothes Show London 2010

  more london clothes show photos after the jump

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Transformers actress, Rosie Huntington Whiteley is part of an all British ensemble cast for the new AW2010 Burberry campaign. Rosie Huntington Whiteley is cast alongside actor Douglas Booth, musicians Gwilym Gold, Rory Cottam, Samuel Fry, Seb Brice, and models Nina Porter, Sam Rollinson, Charlotte Wiggins, Caspar Smyth, and Thomas Penfound.
The brand has gone back to using models after it used actress, Emma Watson for its last two campaigns. The campaign was shot by photographer, Mario Testino. In addition to photographs the campaign also feature interactive online videos where the user will be given choices that influence how they view the product.

Burberry has always been at the forefront of technology, being one of the first brands to stream heir show online and the first to make their show available in 3d. Now they are  the first brand to make their  new campaign interactive and it will  serve as an extension of their runway show.

Christopher Bailey discusses the AW10 Burberry campaign

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Its no secret  that River Island is one of  my favourite high street stores. Although I love their summer collection I usually prefer their Autumn Winter collection. Here is a preview of their Autumn Winter 2010 collection that should start to appear in store in late August.This year they are mixing it up, with  a dash of ethereal princess meets military edge. I can see this collection selling fast when it hits stores  later this year.

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The London Eye is celebrating its 10th Anniversary  by  inviting 10 celebrities to design prints of the attraction, Henry Holland and Kate Moss are are among the celebs who  have created sketches. Kate Moss has sketched the skyline of London while Henry Holland has recreated the giant wheel using his House of Holland Logo.  Prints of their drawings will be available for £5.00 at the London Eye.

London Fashion Update: Is it true that one of my favorite lingerie and fashion brands is finally coming to UK shores? Well Limited Shores announced today that  Victoria's Secret will be opening a flagship store in the heart of London on the corner of New Bond Street and Brook Street. Perhaps they will get our own Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to open the store… that would draw crowds.. especially since she is going to be in the next Transformers movie. All great stuff! Only thing is we may have to wait till 2012! (sigh) I will be keeping my eyes open for more updates on this!
 

Here is part 2 of our interview with Fashion Photographer, Gene Kiegel.  Yesterday, I showed you the man behind the lens, now we look at his  work and let the photos do the talking. He discusses his inspirations, his views on the future of photography and  his experiences of shooting iconic celebrities ( Paris Hilton, Bai Ling, Ice Cube, etc.) and models.

3. You stated that you haven’t had formal training in photography. However, you are now teaching others about photography at Central Saint Martins. How does this affect your teaching style?
Well, to be honest, the amount of information I’ve researched over the years and keep learning every day is probably more than any school would ever give me.  Many teaching methods stress memorization and learning through practice, while I strive to understand the principles and theories behind what I do.

For example, when I teach about lighting, I teach people to understand how the light works and how to control it vs. standard setups.  I teach people to envision what they want to shoot and then shoot it.  I want to teach them to be picture makers and not picture takers.

Of course, with everything there is a great degree of discovery and most important is self-reflection.  It’s the moment after the shoot, when you go through your images and you analyze and make notes of what worked and what didn’t.  Learning from your mistakes is a must because if you don’t make mistakes you simply have nothing to base your experience on.  Some of mistakes can look terrible; some may give birth to your new unique style.

I also think of a photograph as a medium to transfer people’s energy.  And it is a photographer’s job to engage the person, bring out and capture that energy, so the viewers are then able to receive it and react to it.

I also stress the importance of understanding yourself and what you like as a basis of developing your style and visual identity.  Photography is about expressing yourself and everything that you stand for, you have to be true to your vision and not follow the latest trend of what you may have already seen in other photographer's work or publications or adverts.  Then your work would look like everyone else’s.  So, why would anyone want to hire you in particular then ?

I've been a huge fan of Gene Kiegel's work for quite some time now. I've always admired his work. One of my friends has coined the word Gene-ious to describe his skill with a camera.   At first I was a bit of a voyeuristic fan as I admired the work from a far but after Interviewing Sadie Phelps for the blog, I decided to  make contact with Gene as I knew that she had worked with him. So I set off to a cafe in East London to do the interview and what was initially supposed to be a short interview  turned into long and enjoyable conversation about Gene the man versus Gene the photographer. Today I share with you Gene the man and Tommorow I will share part 2 of this interview where Gene discusses his photography.

1.I’ve seen you putting a stamp-like character on some of your photos.  What is the significance of that?

Well, being originally from Ukraine, my first name is Yevgenii, or Zhenia for short, where “Ж” is the first Cyrillic character of the shorter version.  The character is quite unique and very graphic.  I made it into a stamp and often use it instead or along with my name signature for some of my personal and fine art work.

But you probably wonder, how did I get to Gene from Yevgenii in the first place.  Yevgenii is a name of Greek origin and means “born into nobility, noble”.  The English variation of that name is Eugene or Gene for short.   So, during the time of making my name “official” I went with Gene Kiegel for the ease of usage

2.You had many different career ambitions throughout your life (product designer, computer scientist, architect) how did you finally settle on photography?

Well, to be honest I’m still toying with the idea of being an inventor.   I think growing up in the environment where there are few basic things available but you wanted more, you were naturally forced to use your creativity to find ways to solve everyday challenges.  I think it really opens ones mind to work with what you have and come up with creative solutions to any challenges that come along your way.

I enjoy all sorts of creativity and I think that photography was my main and most natural outlet of that.  See, I never realized that photography could actually be a profession.  Coming from the socialist Soviet Union and being somewhat sheltered from visual adverts, I was never really exposed to the world of beautiful photo imagery.  I had seen some beautiful art and movies, but .. not photos.

When I moved to the US with my parents, I was 15 years old. The things that really struck an interest were movies and video games.  I won’t deny it, yes, I did think of going into acting as well and the only reason I ended up doing computer science and engineering at UC Berkeley was my love for creating the worlds of video games.  After two years of computer science I realized that creativity was not really something that graders were looking at.  They wanted solid answers by proven methods.  So, clearly, what’s the fun in that   I decided I needed to find something closer to my heart.   After some soul searching I ended up graduating in Architecture and took a few fine art courses along the way.  I love architecture and it is really one of the hardest and time consuming professions out there.  I have the greatest respect for people who are doing it.

 After finishing school I was tempted by the social myth of making money first and following your passion later, so I ended up back in Information Technology world.  I figured that from the funds I’d accumulate from my work I’d be able to start my own architecture practice in just few years.

To cut a long story short, at 25 I had a million and a half dollars stuck in stock options.  The timing wasn’t on my side though, as the stock market crash left me with virtually nothing.  I lost my job, my relationship was over so I figured to come back home to Los Angeles and have a fresh start.  

I got a call from one of my friends asking me if I’d like to replace one of their friends who cancelled their trip last minute to go to Brazil for Carnival.  I figured it couldn’t be a better timing.

Oh Brazil.. I think I owe so much of that experience to where I am today.  I still remember the exact moment I had my “epiphany”.   It was sunset at a beautiful beach in Bahia.  The tourists were long gone with the carnival crowd and I was all one on the beach watching the sky as it changed colours and I was just laying there with nothing on me but a pair of shorts and a capirinha in my hand.  For the first time in my life I felt contempt with myself.  I felt happy.  I realized that my ever-going chase for money or material things or career goals or being happy by social standards is nothing but a trap.  I’ve had the money, I’ve had the cars, and I’ve had the lifestyle everyone dreamed off, yet that never really made me happy.  There was always the next goal to set, the next milestone that I thought would make me happy, but it’s like a dog chasing its own tail.  This is not a route to happiness.  The key to it is to be happy now.  To be content with your reality, with your daily actions and your daily life.  It needs to have a purpose that material things would never replace.  That feeling really stuck with me and when I came back to LA, things started to slowly change the direction.  I just wanted to enjoy my life, and most importantly, to give it a purpose.  Naturally, all the decisions make its course and nothing happens overnight, so while searching for the next IT job in the dead market, I stumbled upon a part time opportunity of being a model scout.  Given the fact that I was recently single and also never really having a proper chance to party as I was studying and working pretty hard all along, this seemed like a perfect match.  My job consisted of scouting potential models and new faces while going out, partying and meeting new people.   

I soon realized that many of these models are completely new to the industry, and needed photos for their portfolio.  I had always done photography as a hobby ... I think from the age of six.. I really didn’t know much.. but I had a good sense of composition and since I’ve always been into painting or drawing, I learned to look at things differently and to find beauty in things.  So, I started giving out my “photographer” card along with the model scout card to offer them a very cheap photo shoot sessions.

Unfortunately, I found out the modelling agency was a scam and I cut ties with them but I still pursued my new-found joy - photography. I wanted to learn as much as I could.  For a number of reasons, I didn’t really see a point of going to school to study photography, so I would read books, experiment and visit the guys at the local photo store to bombard them with loads of questions.

I guess because I’ve never had any formal photography training, nor really any exposure to photography / fashion world, my pictures were different from people that were in the industry.  I got noticed by a few agencies at first and soon model agencies like Wilhelmina, Ford, Warning and Elite started paying me to do portfolios for their models.

Stay tuned to this blog as part 2 of this interview will be posted tommorow. In part 2 Gene discusses his inspiation, his style and th future of fashion photography.

Lady Gaga for Topman and Lady Gaga for River Island

Lady Gaga is the biggest thing in music and fashion. She seems to be monopolizing on that fame as her Haus Of Gaga brand has popped up in Topman and in River Island. Yep, Lady Gaga is in both of the UK's largest high street chains at the same time. No word yet on whether either  shirts i an official range by Lady Gaga.

Next Directory is once again looking for 2 new faces.The competition is open to all girls and guys aged 18 years and over who are resident in the UK or Republic of Ireland.

The 2 winers will  each receive  a 2,000 shopping spree at NEXT and the chance to star in a photo-shoot for NEXT, plus a special introduction to Select Models.

Last year the competition was won  by Kiren Modi and Dan Clarke. To be honest I haven’t seen much of them since they won.  However, Laurence Cope who was one of the finalists went on to win the Calvin Klein 9 Countries 1 man competition and he’ll be appearing in an ad for Calvin Klein and is now signed with Select Models.

Today was ladies’ day at Royal Ascot. the highlight of the day is usually the hats and Royal Ascot 2010 was no different. Among the hats on show were these two  made solely of blocks of LEGO.

The Lego hats were designed by Leicester College fashion student, Charlotte Samuel, and built by certified professional LEGO builder, Duncan Titmarsh.

Made from approximately 1,400 bricks the ladies’ hat, modelled by Sophie Gradon took 14 hours to build whilst the men's top hat is made from 1,000 bricks and was produced in eight hours.

VNY Models featuring Brit male models, Danny Schwarz and and Ollie Edwards

The 2010 World Cup is currently heating up,  but two weeks ago fashion and football collided when Vman held the first ever Vman Male Model World Cup. The event was the brainchild of  VMan editor Jacob Brown and model, Mathias Laurisden. Models from VNY, Request, DNA Models, New York Models, Major Models and Ford Models competed to see which agency had the best moves on the pitch. In the end the victors were Major Models, led by Oraine Barrett. The male model winners of the shoot will star in an editorial in the Summer issue of Vman.

Major Models

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Topman  has created a new range of graphic T-shirts that draw inspiration from historical events that have shaped  London into the city that we know today.  Each of the monochromatic T-shirts is printed in limited edition. A.D draws inspiration from specific times in London's  prolific history. past collections have deen inspired by Jack The Ripper and The Great Plague.

"This collection is inspired by the Great Exhibition 1861 A.D. The Great Exhibition was staged by Prince Albert and Henry Cole to showcase exhibits of Culture and Industry. The Koh-I-Noor Diamond Daguerrotype photography Ornate vignettes and the destruction of the burning glass structure which has hosted  the exhibition from the macabre yet beautiful  aesthetic of this limited T-Shirt range." – Topman

The collection is available in stores now. More Photos from Topman A.D collection after the jump Continue Reading

Karlie Kloss stars in the fall 2010 Aquascutum campaign alongside 3 British male models. The boys in the campagn are  Matt Benstead, Jacob Coupe, and Tristan Knights. The Aquascutum campaign was shot by Willy Vanderperre.

“For the campaign Aquascutum wanted to capture the mood and atmosphere of the stormy seascapes of J.M.W Turner’s paintings and the aesthetic of ‘The French Lieutenant’s Woman’; both inspirations for the autumn/winter 2010 Aquascutum Collection,” – Belinda Earl told Vogue.

M.I.A  is the new cover girl of Dazed and Confused July 2010. The issue launches this Thursday and the cover was shot by Rankin. Is it just me or is Dazed and Confused moving more in the direction of Magazines like NME? The focus seems to be moving more towards music than fashion as  recent covers have featured the XX and Courtney Love. In the issue M.I.A talks about her new album, //Y/. In the issue she talks about her baby, death threats and music.