Sounds of the summer

Music lovers predict their sounds of the summer.

Ellie Goulding: Lights

Upbeat but chilled out, this will definitely be on my playlist this summer. I’m normally into more folky music than this but the lovely warm tone to her voice makes me feel soothed and ready to dance at the same time.

Caroline O’Donoghue

Abram Wilson: Life Paintings

Trumpeter Abram Wilson's album, Life Paintings, hits all the right spots - memorable self-penned tunes, immaculately played by talented young musicians and perfect summer listening. A jazz diamond from a player we'll hear much more from in the years to come.

Rob Hodgson

Goldfrapp: Head First

This stands a good chance of getting played everywhere if it’s a sunny summer. It’s got a big job to do as a follow up to Seventh Tree which was one of the all-killer-no-filler standout albums of 2008, in my opinion. I’ve only listened to Head First once on Spotify so far, but there are at least two tracks – ‘Rocket’ and ‘Dreaming’ - that made me want to, ahem, “bounce up and down”, and I reckon there are probably at least a couple more that have the potential to turn into summery earworms.

Tamsin Hemingray

Chris Wood: Handmade Life

Rich vocals, guitar, cello and trombone evoke a variety of warmths, from Spitfires soundtracking Kentish skies and Darwin’s stop at Tierra del Fuego to a different kind of heat, like that prevalent in Stockwell, summer 2005. So subtle, intense and deep I’ll be listening all year.

Mark Dishman

Dirty Projectors: Bitte Orca

This is essentially a pop record filtered through the mind of an experimental rock guitarist, which means you get soaring, feel-good melodies combined with weird syncopated rhythms, unique musicianship and inventive arrangements.

It’s an album that’s hard to pin down, genre wise, and that’s probably why it’s so good. It shifts from a straight pop record, through folk to alt rock in the blink of an eye, tied together by the uniqueness of the band’s take on each style. You’ll be singing ‘Stillness is the Move’ in the shower for months to come.

Daniel Pomlett

Yeasayer: Odd Blood

Yeasayer’s second album is a more varied and poppier offering than the first and is spot-on for summer. ‘Ambling Alp’ kicks off the run of memorable up-beat tunes before ‘O.N.E’ and ‘Rome’ rove into 80s Euro synth-pop territory with joyful exuberance. The mystical ‘Strange Reunions’ will provide the perfect soundtrack to a hazy sun-kissed day and ‘Madder Red’ is guaranteed to be one of my most-played tracks of the summer for the simple reason that it’s one of the more interesting and multi-layered tracks I’ve heard in a long while.

Jo-ann Hodgson

Caribou: Swim

‘Odessa‘, the first single from Caribou’s upcoming album Swim, released 19 April, sounds a bit like Erlend Øye crooning over a shaggy monster of club bass and raw enthusiasm. If the album follows the track’s sound I can imagine it being his most widely played yet – I’ve already heard Odessa on the BBC’s F1 coverage.

Simon Handby

IMAGE by Flickr user mindfulness

Pixie Lott interview

You may or may not know that I write the Lipsy blog - you do now - and as Pixie Lott is launching a collection with them, I went to interview her last week.

Pixie's two looks, 'festival' and 'party', launch on 28 April and there are a few great easy-to-wear boho pieces in the festival range that even I, on the wrong side of 25, could pull off.

So anyway, Pixie was very friendly and accommodating and seemed totally un-phased by the madness of the press day, perhaps staying grounded thanks to the presence of her parents and friends who sat and watched as she was interviewed.

Hard to imagine having her lifestyle at just 19!

Read the interview here.

Travelling through time

I found it: my ideal suitcase. Merci's Liberty print vanity case re-ignited my vintage suitcase obsession earlier this month, so when I came across this old-school travelling companion in Brighton's Snooper's Paradise, I was delighted to find that it was in full working order. It closes snugly, has pleasingly chunky buckles and is generally in top-notch condition. I suspect that this is because it's actually quite new - just designed in a retro-style - but this matters not to me, and £15 was a bargain price for such an essential piece.

It'll do me for my annual Cornish holiday and my Canadian honeymoon, and I've become quite defensive when it comes to questions of its practicality. "I'd never buy a suitcase like that; it doesn't have wheels", the girlfriend of a male colleague shared in the queue. No one's asking you to buy it, random rude girl...."That's going to accomodate nearly two week's worth of clothes?" Irish asked sceptically. "No, it's going to hold my flowery dresses. The heavy stuff will be going in your wheeley suitcase, darling".

It looks damn cool, alright, and I'm not planning on taking it trekking up Kilamanjaro. I just can't say no to Mad Men bags...

Supermarket sweep

So, Tesco – Tesco’s cool right? Well, actually yes, it would seem so. Not only is Clothing at Tesco now an official sponsor of London Fashion Week, it also has a pretty hot new blog, featuring fashion editor and fashion blogger picks, street style and behind-the-scenes posts. Looks like they’ve been learning from fashion’s social media front-runners.

The website has many fashion-focused bargains on offer too. Not only is it home to the supermarket’s signature F & F collection, which includes dirt-cheap summer staples such as an all-American denim dress, floral sun dress and studded leather jacket, it also boasts a number of other exclusive ranges.

Its more high-end fashion offering, Liquorish, is described as a “hip east London based label” and has already proved a hit with celebs - Emma Bunton wore the mini spot dress on Dancing on Ice. The range’s spring/summer collection features some pretty floral playsuits and cute architectural and embellished shoulder dresses.

Adding another string to its bow, Tesco launched its exclusive ‘ethical’ clothing range by From Somewhere in March. The ethical design house, founded in 1997, uses recycled materials and the Tesco collection was inspired by the street markets in Sri Lanka that sell apparel industry refuse and the fabric on which manufacturers try out designs. There are a couple of scary body-con pieces in there, but also a lovely ‘mix and match’ material dress which conjures up images of French milk-maids - for me anyway.

Oh, and somewhat surprisingly there’s a gem within Misha Barton’s range of bags, also available on the site: The Doctor’s bag is the perfect summer satchel for that Alexa-inspired ‘Brit’ girl look.

Tesco is greeting the fashion world with open arms, and no doubt bargain-hunting fashionistas will, in return, greet Tesco with open wallets.

Dress date

Speed dating with the week's dress crush

Where are you at the minute?
What? Sorry, I can't hear you over the steel drums

Where are you?
I'm on a beach, in the Bahamas, enjoying the sun, sea and sand.

What's your favourite drink?
Ha, rum of course - dark rum. Have you read The Rum Diaries by Hunter S Thompson? It's great. He wrote it whilst working on an English newspaper in Cuba in the early 1950s. It was all about the rum and the burgers back then - before he went insane in the membrane. It's being made into a film starring Johnny Depp - who else - this year. Perhaps we could go and see it?

What's your pet peeve?
I tend to slip down when dancing. It's more annoying than embarrassing - I don't mind showing a bit of cheeky flesh...

What do you look good in?
Anything. But I love a good white straw hat and I look damn hot in these strappy tan beauties - they're not to clever on the sand though.

Who's your favourite pop princess?
Love Lily Allen - she knows how to have a good time and doesn't care what anyone says of it. Rihanna's pretty cool too.

Where can you be found?
You can find me anytime at Topshop.com. Come take me home - we could have fun.

What Misha Makes

Marvelling at the tiny trinkets on Misha Brigemohane’s stall at Brighton’s Upper Gardner Street Market a couple of Saturdays ago, I could feel that it was a love affair in the making. But Irish was becoming impatient – there’s only so much time he can spend riffling through dog-eared books whilst waiting for my magpie impulse to wear off – so I took down her e-mail address and voila, we has words on the topic (and a few pictures too):


How long have you been making and selling jewellery?
I started making charm jewellery two years ago just as a hobby to begin with, but by the following year I found I had so many pieces that the only thing for me to do was to see if anyone else out there would enjoy wearing them. Suggested by a friend who is also a crafter, I set up my etsy page, www.mishamakes.etsy.com, in January 2009 and did my first stall in May.

Where do you take inspiration from?
I take inspiration from everywhere - memories, eras, film, music, art and current fashion trends. I draw a lot of inspiration from trends on the high street - they help me notice more themed charms. I also love anything that looks vintage, even if it's not and love Victorian style.

Where do you source your materials?
I collect things from all over the place - buttons, beads, anything small enough to go onto a necklace or ring. I'm a bit of a hoarder! They could be from car-boot sales, antique shops, flea markets, haberdasheries to the deep realms of the internet. Most of my charms these days are from the internet as I don’t have as much to hunt around as I did.

What are proving to be your most popular items at the moment?
Every week is different from the week before. At the moment I've sold a lot of ‘Drink Me’ necklaces inspired by Alice in Wonderland which is incredibly popular now the film is out. I also always sell lots of tea themed items like tiny tea cup and saucers on rings and necklaces - everyone loves a cuppa!

What are the top trends in jewellery design at the moment?
Vintage styled jewellery and trinket charm jewellery have a really strong presence within design at the moment and have done for a while, but I honestly don't pay much attention to current trends in jewellery design, I tend to just go with what I want to do and what I like and hope for the best!

Do you find it difficult to create original designs when there are so many independent jewellery makers trading on etsy and similar sites now?
Not at all, I have so many designs that I want to create and will never have enough time to make them all! I make jewellery because it makes me happy to create: it's my hobby and so it doesn't matter how many other similar sites there are. Whatever I sell is just a great bonus and so far I've been pretty lucky to sell enough to continue with my hobby!

How often do you create new designs?
My weeks are pretty full but I love creating - making jewellery is my therapy. When I get home from work I make two or three pieces of jewellery in the evening while there's a television programme on in the background.

Do you make much money from selling your jewellery?
Well I still have a full time "day job" – working five days a week in a boutique in the North Laine - but I make enough money to pay for my stalls and for more stock and that's enough for the time being. I'm gradually building up my reputation and setting up my own website, so we'll see how it goes!
Do you sell your jewellery any where else?
I recently set up a new page on Folksy.com which is pretty much the British alternative to Etsy.com - it's less vast than Etsy which can be overwhelming. I'm also part of a collective of crafters called Handmade Cooperative, a group of crafters who make handmade items. They hold an indoor market every other month at the Komedia and are currently about to open a new shop on St James's Street, Kemp Town, with the same idea. All crafters get their own space to sell their wares. It should hopefully be open by mid April and I'll have my own little section in there which is so exciting, I can't wait!

Look at the prettiness…see the things that are smaller than they are in real life…you want these trinkets to make you happy? You will find them here:
www.mishamakes.etsy.com
www.mishamakes.folksy.com
www.mishamakes.bigcartel.com

Green for ice cream

This season's sun dresses take inspiration from the floaty feminine styles of the Fifties and Sixties, but why get a copy when you can have the real thing? Traid in Brighton is currently in the midst of one of its legendary dirt-cheap sales and I picked up this beautiful pleated skirt dress for just £4!
What really put the cherry on top of this particularly tasty bargain sundae was the colour - a gorgeous pistachio/mint green, my two favourite flavours of ice cream and a perfect fit with spring/summer's pastel trend. And as luck would have it, I spotted a pair of stud heeled courts in a similar shade in Dorothy Perkins, reduced from £30 to £12! So that's my favourite summer dress-up outfit sorted for the mighty sum of £16. And to accessorise? I think a mint and pistachio cone or five will set off the look perfectly.