I don't get serenaded by middle aged men in body paint nearly often enough, I've decided.
I was delighted to be invited backstage (as a guest of Illamasqua) at the House of Blues AW2010 fashion event at London Fashion Week recently. An opportunity to get to see Alex Box work at close range was an offer I simply couldn't turn down, and after reading this interview with Johnny Blue Eyes on Helen and Sheenie's Nice Things the other day, I knew that this was going to be a day to remember! Believe me when I tell you that I haven't laughed as much or been quite that embarrassed in a very long time.
After meeting up with Helen, Sheenie and MizzWorthy, we had a brief Fashion-off (a competition I sadly lost in spite of my sparkly Converse) and then headed to the Freemason's Hall to find out where the action was. We were thrust straight into the thick of things, and greeted with the words: "ARE THESE MY BLOGGERS? COME HERE, TALK TO JOHNNY! ASK ME ANYTHING MY DARLINGS, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW?"
(Johnny Blue Eyes is the only man I've ever met who speaks in capitals. Imagine Brian Blessed with a hint of Julian Clary, and you'll be - somewhat - on the right track. For the sake of my sanity though, and your eyeballs, I'll render the rest of his conversation in proper grammar from here on)
Having been nudged to the front of the receiving line - Johnny was having his hair done at the time - I rather sheepishly asked what we could expect from the show, and the answer was rather surprising (apologies for this in advance, I'm writing this bit from memory), for me, at least.
"It's about colour, it's about peace, it's about love. It's a reaction to the lack of colour in the world, the recession, natural disasters. Why should winter collections be dull? I'm bringing colour - like the colour of your eyes darling, that's an amazing shade - to the the world".
Pulling myself together a bit, I asked if he was deliberately giving people the opposite of what they'd normally expect from a winter collection, and his answer was yes, and deliberately so, what he was trying to do was "democratise fashion, make it for everyone. I'm a 42 year old man, and I'm surrounded by love. All my models here today are real people, they're my friends, they're all shapes, all sizes, all ages, all sexual orientations, we're all people, and we're all the same, so I want to include everyone in this show, it's ALL ABOUT LOVE".
At this point, I moved onto have a look around the - crazily chaotic - room, and spent some time watching various makeup artists doing their thing:
I found out that the models were all made up with the same base Illamasqua products:
Cream eye shadow in predator was used on the faces, which were then highlighted with both liquid metal in Solstice and pure pigment in furore. The cheeks were contoured with a fushia pink cream blusher in Dixie and the lashes used were no9.
Then, once she had a chance to take a breather from creating Johnny's rather dramatic look for the show:
And once we'd all had a chance to recover from Johnny's rather, erm, "colourful" call to arms to the women in the room (seriously unrepeatable here!), and I after I'd recovered from being serenaded (pic above) by Johnny himself (about the most embarrassed I've ever been), I had a chance to chat with Alex Box herself. We discussed colour, and style, and beauty blogging. I've long been a fan of her work, and this was an amazing opportunity.
