Indie Magazine

Photo's by Britta Burger

Styling by Hannah Logic

Cooler Magazine

Photo's by Aza Shade
Styling by Hannah Logic

Text and photography by Hannah Logic for Cooler Magazine
 

This weekend, for the first time ever, Melt Festival’s main headline sponsor was BENCH, a British streetwear label that claims to take all its inspiration from music  (which I learnt from the Bench reps whilst blagging free clothes. The guys were great, they even interviewed my new band Zoetrope…thinking we were famous.)

 

Or at least I made sure that everyone else was at my level…

Vice Style

  

Vivienne Westwood for Lee

If you know anything about the Gang of Four you'll have noticed our shoot didn't reference the band, because it was intended to mark the Vivienne Westwood Anglomania for Lee Jeans collaboration, out this month. OK, so fashion doesn't need to be culture disrupting art, it does all sorts of other stuff for self-confidence, attractiveness, sexuality and employability, that yes, if we weren't all so in thrall to materialism we might be able to do with out, but everyone I've ever met is.

Westwood when punk was gonna destroy society, not a womenswear micro trend for fall/winter 
 
But when people's clothes scream rebel, that makes me want to give the individual concerned a big kiss. No living, historically documented beings, turned as many people on to rebellion as fashion or used fashion, to change culture as extensively as Vivienne Westwood and her other half Malcolm McLaren.

On those terms Vivienne Westwood's label is the greatest fashion line on earth. Trouble is, even buying something from Westwood's diffusion lines will burn a rent-sized hole in your pocket. Hence the announcement of Vivienne Westwood's Anglomania for Lee Jeans, a line of denim, accessories and archive bits and bobs for boys and girls, means that if you're any sort of normal person, Westwood apparel is actually affordable for like the first time ever. Obviously the Melissa stuff is quite cheap too, but they're plastic high heels and would look rubbish on boys.

FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY: AZA SHADE
STYLIST: HANNAH LOGIC
TEXT: DARYOUSH HAJ-NAJAFI

Vice Style

  

PHOTO'S : AZA SHADE
STYLIST : HANNAH LOGIC

Vice Style 

Darren Cullen is from Leeds but says he lives in London because he's shit at fighting. He also makes these mildly thought provoking, but attractive pop art t-shirts and can talk for hours and hours and hours, and people who make clothes you can talk about for a long time make much better interviewees...

Vice: I really like your sense of humor and I think the supposedly hidden, but actually pretty blatant subversive messages your t-shirts carry are pretty deep, you know.
Darren: That's not a question, but thanks. I only know about things that get me mad, really. Anger is a great motivator. I originally went to art school to study advertising but as I learned more about it, its techniques and what it does to people, I realized the whole business is essentially an industrial-scale human misery machine. I thought I'd rather make art and be ignored than make some advert on prime-time TV that slowly erodes the happiness of people I've never met.
Yeah, but you're selling t-shirts dude.
I know. I could be accused of commodifying anti-consumerism with these t-shirts, but I like recursion; the idea of buying something that tells you not to buy things. It's not like I'm completely against capitalism either, it's just the idea that buying things can make you happy or can define who you are. These t-shirts won't make fuck-all difference to your happiness in the long run. The only thing they'll do is help me pay my web hosting.

Can you explain why your favorite saying is "Genitals of the Universe?"
Okay then, er... I really like the theory that black holes are the genitals of the universe and that the singularity of each one is like an egg that can potentially start a new big bang and a new universe. It makes sense to me, although there isn't any evidence for it at the moment.

You said these t-shirts are meant to subsidise your web hosting, for what exactly?
I have a website Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives where I put all the guff I do, mostly drawings, and then there's the science blog I do called Brain Meat.

Do you remember that comedown when I was terrified that my entire existence was meaningless and I decided I should just fuck having a career or a family. You told me every existence was meaningless and we only exist to carry genes. I was devastated.
Well, we do add our own meaning to existence, but it doesn't mean that existence is taking any notice. But I find it hard not to think about those type of things. We aren't alive for an infinitely long period of time and then all of sudden, here we are. The most important thing we could ever do is find out why the fuck any of this happened. But it wasn't God, I mean no one gets to be agnostic about Zeus, because he's so blatantly made up.


PHOTOS: JESS COLE
TEXT AND STYLING: HANNAH LOGIC

Vice Style

For some time now I have been meeting up with strangers who claim to have bizarre fantasies. One evening while sitting in a bar I met a man whose name I later changed to Lucie. Before long, I realized he was unbuttoning his shirt a little more than I was comfortable with. It was hard not to notice that he was wearing a bra and his shirt was actually sheer silk.

I wasn’t disgusted, nor excited, but intrigued. I knew exactly how to respond, “You’re wearing a bra,” I said. “Do you like it?” he asked. I noted how close the fellow customers were before I told him I couldn’t really see it properly and maybe he could undo his shirt a little more.

This is Lucie’s secret, one that he sort of wants to be discovered. This man enjoys women’s clothes. He enjoys the way they look, the way they move, and the way they make him feel. He likes to wear them in public, but not necessarily for everyone to see. Lucy isn’t a tranny or a drag queen—the latter try to express their deal with women’s clothing. Lucie does it secretly—either under his clothes or in private, solely because he enjoys humiliation. See how much here.

You have a girlfriend, right?

Yes, I do. I actually still have the first ever text message she sent me. I was married too; I was working all over the world and it wasn’t an easy or realistic marriage but we always remained friends.

But this thing you have, this fetish for women’s clothing, you don’t think it has anything to do with unhappiness?

No, this all started when I was 14. I had a very happy childhood, so this isn’t connected. Though I do enjoy self-punishment.

Do you feel sexy in women’s clothes?

It’s escapism. I was in a high-flying job when the firm I worked for decided they could get my job done for a lot less, and for months I had to defend myself, dress my best, and it was generally a stressful time. The thought of going home and taking off my tie, shirt, shoes, and changing my character made the whole thing with the job seem silly and unreal.

But why women’s clothing? You could have tried to transform your appearance in any number of ways.

I like soft, feminine materials. At the moment I’m wearing a pair of jeans and a thick cotton sweatshirt, but I do have some very soft pink knickers on underneath.

Do you put that kind of thing on all the time, or are you just wearing it now because you knew you were coming to meet me?

All the time.

How does dressing in women’s underwear make you feel?

Naughty. It’s the thought that for some reason, somehow, someone might find out. Maybe in a changing room or walking out of the bathroom, or if something happened and I had to be taken to the hospital, maybe the nurse would see. Well, to be quite honest, I’m sure they’ve seen it all before. In fact I know they have.

They know? How so?

Well, take eBay. If you look on sites like that you see women’s lingerie advertised as “perfect for him and her” and they further qualify it by saying they cater for all lifestyles. Based on that, I’d say there’s a lot of us doing it.

What style of underwear do you go for?

I like clothes that I feel women of my age might wear. I like polyester, silks, satins, floral, sheer, nets, and frills. I have literally bags and bags of negligees that I have collected over time.

So other than eBay, where do you shop?

I like vintage shops. There are so many, all over London. I do enjoy going into the shops and trying on the dresses, as long as the shop assistant is a woman, but I’m quite happy to shop online. I get a kick out of the actual shopping part too.

You’re definitely straight?

I’m totally straight. I do have a feminine side, which I am quite happy to explore and enjoy, but I have no interest whatsoever in going to bed with a man. I have loads of men in my life; I adore my male friends. We have beers together and watch football together—we do man things, but we don’t do sex.

So you talk about sex with your guy friends?

Yes, we say things like, “Out the window, over your shoulder,” and “Look at the tits on that.”

Do they know about the cross-dressing?

Sort of, but I turn it into a joke. I think they know I cross-dress, but they’ve never seen any evidence. I don’t like it when they try to embarrass me in front of women and warn them to stay away.

If men know about this, does that turn you on?

No, this is a strictly women-only fantasy.

Do you think it excites some women?

There must be women out there who like to dominate men–I’d like one to piss in my mouth, but I don’t think there are women who are turned on by the dresses themselves, no.

And you wear women’s clothes to bed?

No, I sleep naked.

If you were the last person left on the planet, would you still wear women’s clothes or do you do it because they’re forbidden and it’s humiliating?

Women’s underwear is just more comfortable and makes me feel good. Soft things are comforting. When I come and see you, Hannah—at your work or when we go out for dinner—and I wear a skirt, I feel comfortable. Even standing on the street having a cigarette, people don’t seem to notice, but as soon as I’m on my own I feel totally self-conscious.

Is the fetish the self-consciousness or is it the feminine fantasy?

I went to a cross-dressing club in Kings Cross and I changed clothes when I got there. It was full of transvestites who were trying to look like girls. I never try to look like a woman, I just wear women’s clothes. The club wasn’t much fun, so it must be the self-consciousness.

What looks good on girls then?

Those swishy skirts in the summer and the way the fabric moves from side to side—that’s very sexy.

Thanks for dinner, Lucie.

WORDS: HANNAH LOGIC

PHOTOS: BABETTE PAUTHIER

Vice Style
I remember, even at nine years of age, me and my best friend Daynah wore make-up and short skirts, talked about boys and music, and thought we were sexy in some kind of weird, abstract way. I'm told that's pretty normal; girls just think faster than boys. They look to the future and plan. We girls unintentionally map out the whole reproductive cycle. That's why we're given baby dolls and prams to play with at two-years-old. At 22 that now seems pretty fucked-up.

What do you expect a child to do? You reiterate from day one that soon she'll have a baby too. It's just some sick circle of love. Is having a baby when you're basically child, biologically sick but fundamentally beautiful, or biologically beautiful but fundamentally sick. The point is I don't know. I don't know because I got as far away as I could.

My childhood ambitions were to drop out of school before I was 13, lose my virginity before I was 14, leave home before I was 15, go on to have at least two children before I was 18, be vaguely sure of who their fathers were, and have my own flat on the Newington council estate.

When you grow up you do retarded things to try to impress people. You see someone that is older doing something and you mimic it hoping to achieve maturity. Then when you actually become mature you look back and think, “That was a little immature wasn't it?” Still, all those dumb things are exactly what made me who I am today. But while I moved on, wanting to live the life Kate Moss and Pete Doherty did in pages of Hello before I could have a child, Daynah's childhood dreams came true.

Photos Jess Cole
Styling Hannah Logic
Hair and Make-Up Xabier Celaya
Stylist's Assistant Marsida, Coco
Models Daynah Bissett, David Bissett