Tara Starlet

For fabulous and feisty vintage inspired fashion with a heavy 1950s vibe, you need look no further than Tara Starlet. Tara Starlet is a boutique fashion line offering classic, timeless attire, with a special focus on glamorous, chic skirts and dresses. Inspiration is taken from 1950s’ silver screen idols such as Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor, resulting in clothes that are sexy, vibrant and vivacious, whilst retaining a significant edge of class and subtly. Think rockabilly fashion meets Betty Boop meets 1950s’ pip-up paintings, and you are along the right lines. 

These clothes have a decisively fun edge to them. They are certainly beautiful, but they are also robust and well-made enough for everyday life. There are playsuits for picnicking in the park, dresses for rolling in cornfields, blouses for frolicking on the beach, and lingerie for seducing. These sartorial choices are not simply for looking pretty – they are for enhancing and enabling natural feminine allure and vigour.

Tara Starlet is now predominantly run by Tara Scott, although her mother, who is still involved in the company, initially set up the business. The timeless ethos of the company’s clothes has been with them since inspection, and goes far deeper than brand marketing. Tara Starlet’s clothes intend to make strides against throw-away fashion, instead taking further literal influence from a era when clothes were valued and cherished - where buttons were sew back on if they fell off, where “make do and mend” had real meaning. As well as making clothes to a very high standard to ensure each item will last, Tara Starlet recycle where possible, use end of roll fabrics, and re-use original buttons and trimmings for that extra snippet of authenticity. Clothing is often made from original patterns, and are produced on short-runs, making items borderline original. Put it this way, it is highly unlikely anyone will be wearing the same item as you on the bus or train! Finally, all clothes are designed and made in London, so each item has a low carbon footprint.

Tara Starlet have an online shop, and are stocked at various boutiques across the UK and Europe. A small selection of their line is also available in the concessions department of Topshop’s flagship store in Oxford Circus. Items can be a little pricey, but as always, you can pick up some excellent bargains in the sales. It is also important to remember that these items are so well made and classic that you could still be wearing them in 10 - 15 years time, and are therefore worth a bit of extra investment.

http://www.tarastarlet.com/index.html

Moshi Moshi

Moshi Moshi is one of the hippest and innovative record labels active in the UK today. Set up in London in 1998, Moshi Moshi specialise in sourcing and nurturing alternative, experimental indie music, with enough humour and lightheartedness to be accessible and enough intelligence and depth to be creative. Much of the label’s focus is on discovering and developing new talent, and then introducing them to major commercial markets. In the past the label have broken Friendly Fires, Bloc Party and Florence and the Machine, releasing their debut singles, and sometimes debut albums, as well as supporting all the preparatory work for such significant artist, including developing image and artwork, supporting tours and such. The label also distribute for a lot of key US indie artists, especially those from the Brooklyn scene, including The Drums and Au Revoir Simone.

Like any good indie label, Moshi Moshi take the presentation of their releases very seriously, and focus a significant amount of effort onto offering high quality, astute artwork with each item, whether single or album. They also work on offering new ways for consumers to buy their music, challenging and innovating the traditional music industry model. Two ways in particular that the label does this is through their AAA Subscriptions Club and their Singles Club concept. The subscriptions club focuses on offering all Moshi Moshi releases in any given year (which usually equates to at least two dozen releases) for the princely sum of £30. They also release a new single each month by a key Moshi Moshi artist, which is available for digital download or as a 7” single. These marketing methods benefit consumers, artists and the label itself, and demonstrate new ways the music industry can work and make a profit.

Moshi Moshi are currently supporting Slow Club, CasioKids, Trophy Wife, The Wave Pictures, Idiot Glee and Hot Club de Paris amongst many other exciting new artists. They really are a veritable sonic gold mine of exciting new music, so if you want any easy way to keep your finger on the emerging music pulse, I suggest you subscribe to their AAA club pretty sharpish.

http://www.moshimoshimusic.com

Oh Comely

Oh Comely is a fantastic independent magazine that has been in circulation for just over a year. The vibe of the magazine is one of subtly, creativity, beauty, curiosity and intrigue, and the whole magazine is executed with these ideas in mind. Every two months the Oh Comely team release a new issue filled with hip, quirky, and visually divine content that entertains, encourages and informs in a wonderfully friendly and positive manner.

Recent issues have included instructions on how to make your own shoes from scratch, recipes for homemade marshmallows and Turkish delight and instructions on how you make you own pinhole camera (which I recently completed, though we’ll have to see how the pictures turn out still!). They feature lots of work by illustrators and photographers, interviews with musicians such as Emmy The Great, Frank Turner and Beach House, fashion pages full of independent designers and kooky high street finds, and insightful, though-provoking articles and essays.

 

It is fair to say that the magazine is predominantly aimed a women and creative activities that women will enjoy. And I must say, I really is nice to see a magazine predominantly for women that encourages creativity, artistry and beauty rather than gossip, or quasi self-fulfilment through clothes and anti-aging creams. Don’t get me wrong – I love Vogue, but you know what they say about variety. And whilst Oh Comely is essentially aimed at women a fair amount of the time, there are plenty of items in every issue for men to enjoy too, providing the man in question has an interest in exploits such as indie music, photography, and interviews with interesting people. The craft section even had an item recently on making your own boat – what’s not to love?!

Oh Comely is released bi-monthly and cost £4.00 per issue. It is available online through their website, and is also available at most WHSmith stores and select boutique stores and newsagents. You can also get a yearly subscription, which gives you six issues for £20. I would highly recommended getting a subscription once you have check out the magazine for yourself – having Oh Comely drop through my door every other month is like having a mini treasure chest of creativity and ideas to enjoy and explore, and I really look forward to its arrival.

  

http://www.ohcomely.co.uk/