Cotton candy

The tacky seaside connotations of my favourite London fashion week shows struck a resonant chord with me, being bred from the tacky seaside and overwhelmed with preteen nostalgia. Christopher Kane and Meadham Kirchoff's spring summer collections all had the syrupy, sickly sweet qualities of wearing your polyester Sunday best on a rainy day at the beach. Memories of eating candyfloss and it sticking uncomfortably to your face in the drizzle were summoned, along with my favourite Dreamlander, the beautiful Mary Vivian Pearce. With her candyfloss bleached hair and fake eyelashes she bears all the adornments of traditional girlishness in her roles as Cotton, Princess Coo Coo or Donna Dasher, but manages to become the antithesis of the fifties femininity she outwardly portrays in her sick and sullen characters. Though Kirchoff's models were wearing Courtney Love's wigs, it was Cotton in Pink Flamingos I could imagine flouncing down the catwalk. Christopher Kane's reference to "council estate" chic brought Pulp's Common People to mind, but it was Meadham Kirchoff's message that stuck with me most. Conveyed through frills and fluff and sickly pastels, the squeamish joy and pressure from imposed girly values and conforming to prettiness appealed to my sentiments exactly. Although these accents hark back to the stifling Marie Antionette feminine ideal, you can still be a strong woman whilst indulging in pink frilly socks.

Christoper Kane spring/summer 2012

Meadham Kirchoff

via Saga Sig

Mary Vivian Pearce

Over the moors.

We trawled the streets with the Friday night feeling of trying not to be losers, on one of those evening when the entire city seems to be having more fun than our own sad pavement party. After two hours of indecisive circling we walked awkwardly, in single file, through a pile of pizza boxes and the doorway of our chosen temple of student squander. We did the necessary routine of spending half an hour in the kitchen pretending to look comfortable and interacting with just one another before we decided to try out the living room. The word 'Ket' was written in duct tape to the wall, and a purple UV light dangling half-taped onto the other. You could see rows of smiling teeth and eyeballs, little baggies being dipped into, and dandruff from their itchy scalps flaking off onto hunched shoulders. An incredibly drunk being stumbled over to me, taking my hand into his with a look of sincerity in his drooping, dilated eyes. Through a layer of Geordie unintelligible even to my own native ears he told me that he had "something to express me to me that he couldn't do with words". He then fell backwards into a corner where he remained unconscious for the next hour or so, until a strong woman put him over her shoulder and carried him outside. I wonder what he meant to say to this very day, yet like all the best mysteries of the world, I guess I'll never know.