I Wore Only Slow & Recycled Fashion For One Week

And full disclosure: I don't own slow fashion shoes or lingerie yet, but thought it would defeat the purpose of this article to buy things I don't yet need. When they wear out, though, I certainly intend to make responsible, informed purchases. Transitioning to a sustainable slow and recycled fashion wardrobe doesn't have to happen overnight. It's all about taking it one purchase, swap, and dive at time.

Before I show you how I pulled this off for a week, I want to break down the terms fast fashion, slow fashion, and recycled fashion. According to Elizabeth L. Cline, fast fashion is "consumer products based on rapid changes in fashion that are engineered by corporations" at great cost to the environment and human rights. Zady founders Soraya Darabi and Maxine Bédat break down slow fashion as "a complete approach to retail that respects the environment, human capital, [and] the longevity of a product." Lastly, recycled fashion falls under the slow fashion concept in a different way.

The Year in Fashion

The Valentino couture show, held outdoors on a balmy evening in Rome, with its evocation and resonances of deep history and art reeling back through millennia, was one of the most moving experiences I’ve ever witnessed in fashion. Changing formats, breaking away from the rigid, numbing routines of fashion’s standard runway cycle can only be healthy. I don’t think for a minute that access to this new phase demands million-dollar budgets. In fact, I am already seeing that young designers and students still in college are using video, set-building, animation, and performance to communicate in ways the generation before them never could. Something else is coming. The grand fashion tour of 2015 is only a sign of it. It’s as if we’re watching the tired, old skin of fashion being shed and something different about to be born.

One thing’s for sure: 2015 has been like no other year I’ve ever lived through—a year in which we saw the age-old four-city map of the runway universe ripped up and fashion setting off on a nonstop round-the-world trip. The distance we’ve come since May! We’ve been to Seoul with Chanel; Palm Springs with Louis Vuitton; Cannes with Dior; Cambridge, England, with J.W.Anderson; Rome with Valentino; and Portofino with Dolce & Gabbana. Even during the routine marathon of the ready-to-wear shows in New York, London, Milan, and Paris, designers didn’t always pitch up where you’d normally expect to find them:Riccardo Tisci brought Givenchy to New York, and Anthony Vaccarello’s Versus Versace skipped over to London.

At Re-Fashion Show

Young designers make fashion apparel out of recycled materials for a show at Charleston Town Center. The event is organized by the Recycling Coalition of West Virginia, a non-profit environmental organization whose mission is to promote effective and sustainable reduction, reuse and recycling of materials that might otherwise be destined for disposal.

Katie Castellucci, 17, models a dress during the Recycling Coalition of West Virginia’s 13th annual Re-Fashion Show at the Town Center mall in downtown Charleston, Saturday afternoon. The dress, made from recycled West Virginia Living magazines, was created by Alexa Gerrard, who was in the audience during the show (far left). Gerrard said it took about a month and a ton of hot glue and tape to put the dress together. Castellucci was awarded second place in her age group and received a $200 gift card to the mall.

Hunger Games premiere fashion watch - Jennifer Lawrence dazzles in Dior

A Hunger Games frenzy grips London as the final instalment of the franchise has its UK premiere in London. Jennifer Lawrence, Natalie Dormer and Elizabeth Banks are joined by Julianne Moore, and others to celebrate The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2.

Lily Aldridge is wearing the coveted $2 million Fantasy Bra during this year's Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, which airs on Dec. 8 on CBS. The supermodel has walked in the Victoria's Secret show for over five years, so we're taking a look back at Lily's Victoria's Secret runway evolution.

Britney Spears’s “Overprotected” Music Video Brings The Flawless Fashion

When you hear the words “Britney,” “Spears,” “music,” “video,” and “outfit,” what’s the very first image that pops into your mind? Is it the Catholic schoolgirl uniform? The red latex catsuit? The flight attendant costume? The pink bikini and low rise jeans? The white turtleneck crop top? I totally support any of those answers. Every last one of those ensembles is totally iconic, totally stunning, totally life-changing, etcetera. But let us not forget about a certain underrated denim ensemble. The all-jean getup that should not be slept on for a second. And no, I do not mean that all-jean getup. I am talking about the embellished denim two-piece worn by Godney in the original “Overprotected” music video.

In April of 2002, the music video for the non-remixed version of "Overprotected" was released in the U.S. The Brian Friedman-choreographed, Bille Woodruff-directed clip is peak Danceney: Spears shimmies, chaines, stomps, arm dances, and body rolls all over the empty warehouse where "Overprotected" was filmed. This video also happens to be peak Outfitney: "Overprotected" features some of my very favorite Britney Spears music video looks (the denim two-piece is just the tip of the early '00s iceberg).

This Entire Outfit

Go ahead and take a moment to bask in this outfit's glory. You may say this is an embarrassment of denim riches, but I would have to disagree. It's just the right amount of denim riches. This is a perfect outfit. I've only just begun singing its praises.

First Of All, The Sleeves

Oh, what have we here? Sleeves made up of studded patchwork denim? We are not worthy.

Fashion, Finance And Coco Chanel

It would be easy to think that with all the crises in the world today – economic stagnation, wars with ISIS, refugees from Syria to name three – that there’d be some diminished enthusiasm over the just-ended Fashion Week in Paris. But you’d be wrong on two counts.

First, there’s the French attitude towards fashion and beauty, succinctly put by Gertrude Stein in her seminal work, Paris France, published on the eve of World War 2, when she resided here with such other artistic ex-pats as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald (Note: the punctuation below is famously Stein’s)…

Leading Export

And so it is interesting to note that the person whose shows are the most coveted, whose fashion leadership is alive and well today is someone who has been dead since January 10, 1971: Coco Chanel. Not to disparage 77-year-old Karl Lagerfeld whose helmsmanship rescued the line from becoming moribund when he took over the reins in 1983; but it was Chanel who led the revolution and set the groundwork for the modern woman. She did it by creating the “look” for her own life…and it is a life worth examining.

2015 Emmy Awards Fashion: Red Carpet Best And Worst Dressed Video Recap

The biggest night of the year in television has come and gone. Yes, we're talking of course about the 67th Primetime Emmys Awards, held Sunday, Sept. 20 in Hollywood. The night's big winners were HBO with many awards handed out for "Olive Kitteridge," "Veep" and "Game of Thrones;"Jon Hamm, who finally won a "Best Actor" gong for his role as Don Draper in "Mad Men" and the wonderfully talented Viola Davis, who made history by becoming the first African-American woman to win an Emmy for best actress in a drama series "How to Get Away with Murder."

Meanwhile a contest of a different sort had already taken place earlier outside the auditorium, yes, that's right, the winners and losers of the red carpet. From Sarah Hyland's elegant Zac Posen gown to Laverne Cox's sexy Calvin Klein number, most A-Listers brought their fashion A-game. But of course, there are always a few who miss the mark!

Giuliana Rancic Says She Never Considered Leaving ‘Fashion Police’

“I didn’t. I think once the real story got out and the true intentions came out, everyone understood the story,” E! host tells Meredith Vieira

Giuliana Rancic revealed that she never even considered leaving E!’s “Fashion Police,” during an appearance with her co-hosts on “The Meredith Vieira Show” on Monday.

She continued to say that during the show’s hiatus, fans on the street would plead with her, begging that the show stay on the air.

The comedy-talk show returned for new episodes last month, after the dramatic departures of Kelly Osbourne and Kathy Griffin earlier in the year.
Osbourne quit “Fashion Police” in February, following backlash over remarks made by Rancic about actress Zendaya’s dreadlocks hairstyle at the Academy Awards. Griffin left shortly after, forcing E! to put the show on hiatus in March.

Rancic, and co-hosts Melissa Rivers and Brad Goreski dodged the question about whether or not there was any hard feelings with Griffin and Osbourne.

David Beckham rocks edgy leather

He recently landed a starring role in pal Guy Ritchie's new movie - and it seems that David Beckham has caught the acting bug.
The father-of-four has just been unveiled as the face of Belstaff's new campaign and stars in a short film for the fashion brand.
The international style icon, 40, joins Harvey Keitel, Katherine Waterston, Cathy Moriarty in the film, which is called Outlaws and was filmed in Mexico.

Gentlemen, if you ever find yourself in a style rut, just ask yourself, 'what would David Beckham do?'.

Not the David of the sarong era but David the style icon. He always nails it, whether he's suited and booted or rocking a more casual laid back look like this one. The jeans aren't too baggy but are NOT skinny, the boots are battered with a lived in feel and the biker jacket fits like a glove. All these elements come together to create an incredibly well put together man and we guarantee the ladies love it.

David's leather jacket is of course by Belstaff. Founded in 1924 the British brand has been worn by legends like T.E. Lawrence as well as more modern stars like Sarah-Jessica Parker (yes they do womenswear too).

If you feel the need to reinvigorate your look then can we suggest taking direction from Mr. Beckham? You can't go wrong. Start with his quilted biker jacket (click right) and work backwards.

But if you haven't got the budget to spend it like Beckham then get the look for less at Sandro, Asos and Burton.

Men’s Fashion Is Headed for a Gender-Bending Moment Unseen Since the ’70s

In January, Gucci’s menswear runway collection was an eye-opener. It wasn’t because the brand had just fired its nearly decadelong creative director Frida Giannini in December, or even because new designer Alessandro Michele had pulled the clothing together in less than a week in his new role.
It was because the men on the runway looked ... like women.

In fact, some of them were women—an increasing trend in menswear shows. Models of both genders—waifish male models and boyish female models alike—were wearing silhouettes, fabrications, and items of clothing that traditionally appear in womenswear collections. Michele’s deliberately ambiguous outfits featured massive pussycat bow blouses, shrunken jackets, and low-slung, wide-leg trousers—on willowy models with matching soft features and lengthy, undone hair.

And just like that, this change in creative direction became symbolic of an industrywide trend—and Michele the movement’s unofficial leader. A shift toward androgyny has been building over the past two years, and with Gucci’s new experimental take, it has hit its stride. (It's worth noting that the recently slumping Gucci just reported its first sales growth in two years, a 4.6 percent increase for the second quarter of 2015—up from a 7.9 percent decrease in the first quarter.)

Gender-bending is nothing new in fashion or pop culture. But in large-scale, high-end fashion, the theme has not been conveyed as loudly or as frequently since, well, a young Mick Jagger, David Bowie, and Marc Bolan toyed with feminized looks in the late 1960s. But today, thanks to a troupe of contemporary designers—such as Rick Owens and J.W. Anderson—this theme of gender-neutral dress has been reimagined.

American Androgyny

“The concept of androgyny comes up from time to time in fashion,” says Nancy Deihl, director of the costume studies MA program at New York University. “In modern fashion history, two of the most notable examples are in the 1920s and in the late 1960s into the 1970s.”

Deihl notes that both were periods of social upheaval, which reflected an empowered youth culture.


“The post-World War I generation and the 'baby boom' that created the young population of the 1960s represent times when young people had a lot of economic and cultural influence,” says Diehl. Hello, millennials.

Fashion Items That Change The World

NEW DELHI: After starting a business-tobusiness ecommerce site, Walmart Stores is now eyeing the sale of fashion products directly to Indian consumers. Walmart is exploring the possibility of selling its 'George' brand of clothing and home products on third-party ecommerce sites, according to a person familiar with the development. "Walmart is in a very early stage of exploring the market for George," the person said, asking not to be identified.

"George is Walmart's largest private label and is a more than $2 billion brand." The person said the world's biggest retailer wants to capitalise on the growth of the fashion market in India. George is owned by Asda Stores, the UK retailer that Walmart acquired in 1999.

"I'm afraid I don't have any details to share. We're constantly reviewing markets where we believe George will perform well, but there's no more to it than that," Jo Newbould, a Bentonville-based Walmart spokesperson, said in an e-mailed reply.
Walmart, which posted consolidated net sales of $482.2 billion in fiscal 2015, is trying to get a toehold in India's ecommerce market, where its biggest US rival Amazon is making waves. India's e-retailing segment has been growing at 56% a year, swelling to Rs 13,900 crore annually in 2012-13 from Rs 1,500 crore in 2007-08, according to Crisil.

Last year, Amazon announced it would invest $2 billion in India as its fights for leadership with domestic rivals Flipkart. com and Snapdeal.com. Walmart started a pilot project in Lucknow and Hyderabad in July last year allowing members of its Best Price Modern Wholesale stores to buy products online through its website www.bestprice.in.

Walmart has extended the B2B ecommerce service to all 20 of its Best Price outlets. Walmart is now preparing to add another cash-and-carry store in Agra in August, after a gap of about four years.

The company had put its expansion on hold in India after an internal probe to check whether Walmart's India unit flouted US anti-bribery laws. Walmart plans to sell not only George branded apparels but also toys, baby products and home products online in India, the person said. Walmart sells George products in countries including China, Argentina, Mexico and Japan.

The White Album: Wimbledon 2015 Fashion Aces & Faults

The lily-white fashion edict at the All England Club leaves a lot of on-court
                     

attire cramped for originality and uniqueness. Even so, some looks among the men's and women's contenders do stick out from the herd, for better and worse. Here, the Daily Spin's annual roundup of Wimbledon style points.
 Ace: Venus Williams' dress from her eponymous EleVen by Venus label is a simple frock with a complicated back. Even if the materials over her shoulder blades look like a mess of cords sorely in need of a surge protector, the Spin says it's a win. No-nonsense business up front, party in the back.
  Fault: If anything about Tomas Berdych's H&M look seems interesting, it's likely a wrinkle. That's a bummer on the heels of some striking conversation-starters to date in this fashion marriage.
  Fault: Andrea Petkovic should have declared her mesh-y skirt at the border before entering the United Kingdom. WTF, Adidas. (As in, what tacky fashion.)

Festival Fashion Theme Returns

One of the special features of the 2015 Emancipation and Independence celebrations is the return of the Festival Fashion Theme. This was
                                                 

unveiled in an exciting and colourful fashion show at the launch of activities for Emancipation and Independence celebrations held recently at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel. The Fashion Theme for the 2015 Festival season is 'Bandana wid Dem Denim ... Ketch the Fashion Riddim'. Local designers had the opportunity to showcase pieces that could be worn by male and female adults, as well as children.

Merchants are encouraged to stock up on bandana and denim material as members of the public are encouraged to wear the designs of the fashion theme. Dressmakers and designers are also encouraged to design and showcase their creativity utilising the fashion theme and have their pieces on sale.

Members of the public are also encouraged to adorn themselves using the fashion theme. There will be a special fashion show during the Emancipation and Independence celebrations entitled Fashion Greets Music Festival. This will be held on Monday, August 3 at 8 p.m. at the Independence Village, Ranny Williams Entertainment Centre, Kingston 10.

Fashion Greets Music Festival is a musically infused fashion show that will match the fashion of the time with the corresponding musical era and will feature various well-known Jamaican personalities and performances by some of the country's top musical acts.

Officer in Texas pool party video resigns

McKINNEY, Texas — An officer whose actions at a pool-party disturbance Friday were spotlighted in a YouTube video resigned Tuesday from the force, the police chief said.

                                                

Cpl. Eric Casebolt, a 10-year veteran of the McKinney Police Department, had been placed on administrative leave after a 7-minute video gained traction on the Internet. The video showed him pushing a bikini-clad black girl to the ground and brandishing his gun at other teens after officers responded to complaints about the party at a community-owned swimming pool.

"The actions of Eric Casebolt are indefensible," police Chief Greg Conley said, calling the officer "out of control during the incident."

"I had 12 officers on the scene, and 11 of them performed according to their training," Conley said. The original video of the incident in this city about 35 miles north of Dallas has been viewed nearly 9.5 million times.

It's not fair actresses are expected to go topless, moans British star of steamy new show The Affair

Her latest role involves numerous steamy scenes, but Ruth Wilson says it's unfair of TV bosses to expect actresses to appear topless.
                                 

The English actress, who stars in American TV show The Affair, which is about be aired in the UK, said male and female actors are treated differently when they film sex scenes – and it is the women who are expected to provide the titillation.

The 33-year-old added that she has a 'big concern about how women are treated in the industry generally'.

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Her latest role in The Affair involves numerous steamy scenes, but Ruth Wilson (pictured with Dominic West) says it's unfair of TV bosses to expect actresses to appear topless

Miss Wilson said she accepted the sex scenes in The Affair because they was justified by the plot, which follows an intense extramarital relationship. But the actress, who won a Golden Globe for her role in the series, said she is appalled by the focus in her industry on women's bodies during such scenes.

She said: 'It's assumed that women will get their breasts out and have to get their breasts out and I baulk at that. It's unnecessary and it's unfair.'

Gangsters, geezers and guns: the men behind Britain’s booming low-budget crime-flick industry

Darren, sales manager at a plastics firm in Milton Keynes, is a force to be reckoned with in the British film industry. In part, he’s the reason why British crime cinema – low-budget, morally dubious and about as disreputable as it’s ever been – is the genre that refuses to die. At least, Darren would if he actually existed. Darren, it turns out, is a theoretical construct; an audience archetype identified by Jezz Vernon, managing director of distribution outfit Metrodome, the people who released recent examples of the form such as The Guvnors, St George’s Day and The Fall of the Essex Boys.

“We always talk about the buyer of a film,” says Vernon. “For someone like Darren, there’s a certain boredom about his existence, and the attraction to gangsters or football hooligans has a certain aspirational element to it. It might sound worrying, but we liken it to music: the mainstream in UK music has always liked poetic thugs, from Byron to Liam Gallagher. People like the paradox; both the masculinity of it, and the denial of it.”

These are the films about top boys and bent cops, where blaggers are tooled up and hard men mugged off. Poster artwork invariably spotlights major-league violence: either a massive ruck, or heavy weaponry, or both. Largely London-based – and more specifically, the eastern half of the capital, stretching out to the Essex suburbs, they are suffused with suppressed rage and a fierce commitment to clan honour. Vernon points out that the hooligan movie is, as a micro-genre, distinct from the gangster movie, but they are connected by “very tribal, geographically based consenting violence between two opposing groups”. Many films, however, force a connection between the two, with the likes of The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan making a direct link between football terrace shit-kickery and large scale organised crime. The auteurs of this world are people such as Nick Love and Julian Gilbey; it nourishes its own acting stable with the likes of Frank Harper, Alan Ford and Craig Fairbrass.

Vinnie Jones in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Photograph: Allstar/HANDMADE FILMS/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

The existence of a solid, hardcore audience who keep watching means that, on some level, this is a self-perpetuating, self-funding sector; evidence in its rawest form that a British film industry does indeed exist. They don’t get anywhere near state-disbursed funding, and nor, you suspect, would they want to. In some cases, the figures are staggering: two of the original hooligan films, Green Street and The Football Factory, sold well over a million DVDs each, while The Business, the 80s-set Costa del Crime saga that shot Danny Dyer to fame in 2005, shifted more than 800,000. Not every film can achieve that, and Vernon says that DVD sales have declined rapidly in the past year or two; but even a small-scale release, such as the Glasgow-set The Wee Man, can muster 100,000.

That makes the economics of the low-budget crime movie attractive even if, as Vernon is the first to admit, “they don’t export well”. The culturally specific argot, the narrowly British concern with football, and the genre’s fascination with certain key crimes – notably the notorious Rettendon murders in 1995 – mean that unlike other areas of the British film industry, little concession is made to what overseas audiences, particularly in the US, will make of it all.

Quite why the Rettendon murders, in which three drug dealers were found shot dead in a Range Rover in a small village near Chelmsford, exerts such a grip on film-makers’ imaginations is bit of a puzzle: by Vernon’s count, eight films have been made about it, including Essex Boys, Rise of the Footsoldier, Fall of the Essex Boys and Bonded by Blood. Other “clusters” in the genre include the recent tweak in which older-generation hoolies and hard men scrap with hoodie-wearing youngsters, a clash-of-subcultures hybrid amplified in The Guvnors and We Still Kill the Old Way.

But what distinguishes these films from the cheap-and-cheerful thrillers of earlier, hokier eras is the sense that, somehow, they bear the imprint of the real thing. Authenticity is the watchword; the current flood of films was anticipated by, and to a large extent based on memoirs published by a media-literate generation of lawbreakers, anxious to secure what Vernon refers to their “legacy”. It is a central irony that the trigger for it all, the door-opener if you like, was the arrival in the late 90s and early 2000s of “mockney” films such as Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and Love Honour and Obey, in which Primrose Hill types rubbed shoulders with proper hard-men such as Lenny McLean. Since then, the films have, in general, got more dour, nastier, and more self-justifying, if equally celebratory.

The Fall of the Essex Boys. PR Photograph: PR

A key player in all this is Cass Pennant, a former member of West Ham’s infamous Inter City Firm, who turned his dramatic life story into, first, a memoir – called Cass – and then a film, also called Cass, released in 2008. Now 57, and still a physically imposing figure, Pennant is set up as a film producer, operating from a room above a pub just off Great Portland Street in London’s West End. Pennant’s credibility with what he calls “the in-crowd” (not, it’s safe to say, the bearded asymmetrical haircut types) means he is regularly called on as an on-set consultant, as well as to act as a negotiator between film-makers and the hard-men they want to involve in their movies.

Pennant says his film-making activities go all the way back to The Firm, Alan Clarke’s ground-breaking hooligan film starring Gary Oldman, for which he acted as an uncredited adviser. But his real reverence, and acknowledgement of a foot in the film-making door, is reserved for documentary-maker Ian Stuttard. Pennant says Stuttard agreed to spend a year gaining the gang’s trust before they allowed him to complete the now-seminal Hooligan in 1985. (“He got footage no one could ever dream of getting.”) Pennant got his first taste of film-making by demanding a seat in the editing room (“certain faces couldn’t be seen”). On the back of his book success – and eight subsequent titles, including Top Boys: True Stories of Football’s Hardest Men and 30 Years of Hurt: A History of England’s Hooligan Army – Pennant first set up a publishing imprint and then began trying to interest the film industry in his stories. He had a brush with Guy Ritchie (Pennant and his co-writer Neil Bowers sued Ritchie over contributions to the script for Snatch, and settled out of court), before getting Cass off the ground and a credit as co-producer.

He invested a lot of effort in The Guvnors, easing the way for a scene that featured a gathering of former streetfighters: to the uninitiated, it looks like a group of ordinary middle-aged men watching a football game, but in fact they are veteran top boys from Hartlepool, Nottingham, Birmingham, and of course, West Ham. Twenty years ago there would be no chance of them being in the same room without chairs flying, but these days passions are somewhat spent. Even so, Pennant still has to phone ahead to warn “a city” he is coming up for a meeting.

Pennant, and presumably his in-crowd compadres, sees the films as a way of preserving the values and reinforcing the mythology of a certain era – “respect” is a word that still gets bandied around a lot– but, interestingly, for him race is not a foreground issue. He is much more concerned with the class barriers that, in his view, corral the film industry for the well off. “Film is purely owned by the middle classes. Only the middle classes can make the films, but they can’t have those lives. They belong to the working classes. The stories belong to the East End. It’s like a marriage.”

The Wee Man … Scottish gangster style. PR Photograph: PR

The 50 or so titles that Pennant issued as a publisher – a considerable chunk of which are other hardman testimonies – now act as leverage for Pennant’s move into production. His company, called Urban Edge (Stuttard is his partner) released its first effort in 2011. Not unsurprisingly, it was a youth-culture documentary called Casuals, which played to Pennant’s two main strengths: 80s street fashion and football violence. He does, however, have bigger ideas: emphasising that Cass was as much about “identity” as violence, he is planning a film about the 2Tone movement, through the story of a mixed-race girl who, oddly enough, ended up running with a terrace gang.

Could this be an indication that the British crime thriller is running out of legs – or, at least, is looking to adapt to survive? Other recent examples – such as the Andrew Hulme-directed Snow in Paradise – have tried to recalibrate it, by introducing more spiritual elements and calling attention to the genre’s not-entirely-invisible racism. This week, another low-budget number, Hackney’s Finest, aims to do a Tarantino on the British drugs thriller – again, based on real life material. (The writer, Thorin Seex, was discovered by director Chris Bouchard in his mum’s writing group.) In some ways, Hackney’s Finest is the absolute opposite to the likes of Cass; Bouchard’s background as a VFX artist at the Framestore effects house means the film has a surface flash few others could manage, and the film has a bloodsoaked, black-comic tone that is fundamentally unserious. (Plus Bouchard is an unlikely figure to be trying this sort of hyperviolent, gun-infested malarkey: a soft-spoken type, he’s best known for the Tolkien fan film The Hunt for Gollum, which went viral in 2009.)

But there is a connection there: the hard-men thrillers that Pennant promotes, and Vernon sells, are fan films themselves, in a way. The intimate relationships between the subjects and participants, mean they operate as both description and fantasy: they both simultaneously criticise and glamorise – which you suspect, deep down, is the way Darren likes it.

Hackney’s Finest is on release from today.

Appropriate Behaviour - video review

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In this excerpt from the Guardian Film Show Henry Barnes, Peter Bradshaw and Benjamin Lee review Desiree Akhavan's comedy about a second generation Iranian bisexual throwing herself into the New York dating scene following a messy break-up. Written, directed by and starring Akhavan, Appropriate Behaviour is out in the UK now

Fashion Formal Dresses Video

A coral formal dress can be worn a number of ways, and with many different accessories. Depending on the occasion and your own personal style, you just might have found your true color. They do not have to be authentic, and chunky, off-white beads are a casual, fun alternative to this look. If you want something a bit more refined, the deep blues of the sapphire gemstone look absolutely lovely with a coral dress.

However, those with a bluish, or very pale skin tone, may or may not look as stunning in a coral dress, especially because an already pale skin tone may be further washed out by bright coral. Dark haired, dark eyed brunettes look best in coral, but blue eyes can be highlighted in this color. If one is used, it should be solid black, and not too flashy. A thick black cinch belt does wonders for a bulging tummy area, and adds luscious curves that are only accentuated by the outfit's strong colors. Black shoes can pull together the coral dress look, however, nude heels create a classic look that tame the whole outfit. A lot of hype regarding bandage dresses and whether they are still fashionable or not. In a lot of people's opinion, they are now out of style, but since many celebrities and models still wear bandage dresses, What many celebrities prefer are open toed shoes, as they are very sexy and flattering.

Although the bandage dress looks hot in open toed heels, you could also just wear a wedge, as they are more comfortable. You can go for a mixture of colors, so that you don't get stuck in looking the same color. Just make sure that it looks different but still goes well together. One thing you could try wearing is big earrings that dangle, as they could help in catching people's eyes from afar. If not, then it is better to choose another one. Also, plus size clothing such as formal dresses needs to compliment your color, features, length and overall look. Aside from that, make sure that your dress goes with your accessories, hairdo
and make up for the specific event.