Leeds Street Style: 15/02/2011

Grace

Top: Topshop

Coat: Vintage

Shoes: Russell & Bromley
Bag: ZARA
Scarf: Primark
Tights/ Socks: H&M

 

Grace's favorite Leeds shop: Aqua Couture

 

John

Top: Rebel8

Bottom: Nudie Jeans

Jacket: Crooks & Castle

Shoes: Vans SK8 HI

 

John's favorite Leeds independent shop: Chimp

 

Alara 

Coat: Vintage Gap

Bottom: H&M

Shoes: Gap

 

 

My Notes: 

I love both girl's oversized coat/ jacket, because of the fit it really shows off how tiny they are. 

The other day Vintage Wardrobe's Kieran asked me if I found wearing oversized vintage clothing difficult? And like I said in previous Street Style post, I thought the easiest way is to show neck, wrist, legs, or ankles to steady the proportion. 

Women can use layers, jewellery to create different looks. Men, on the other hand, should care more about the quality of the clothes their wearing. 

Introducing: Sam Ward

As the people who follow our blog will know already, we are big fans of independent fashion and designers. We love projects that showcase this talent and scene, and although the catwalk show and the magazine photo-shoots are the things that catch the eye and write the headlines, the people behind the scenes that make things happen are the driving force behind that end result. We recently sat down with one of those very people: Sam Ward.

Sam has been heavily involved in the 'Leeds Scene' for a number of years. This is based in both personal and professional roots - She is friends with pretty much every cool indie designer and store owner in the city and she has worked for Leeds Guide and Harvey Nichols in the past, something she looks back on fondly:

"The Leeds Guide, was possibly the most fun you could have at work. Everyone talks about how great The Leeds Guide is, and I still love reading it now – there’s nothing like it in the North, they’re a great bunch of people with a true passion for the city, being independent themselves, they have this hugely balanced view of what Leeds needs. From there, I fell into the Press and Marketing job at Harvey Nichols. I was well out of my depth and learnt a lot of very harsh lessons very quickly. Luckily, I had a great mentor who pushed me right over the edge – I needed it in order to prove to everyone (including myself) that I could do that job really well. I miss the store every day – it has this really eclectic mix of people engulfed in this crazy fashion bubble – I love it!"

We got to know Sam last year during two Marketing Leeds projects: Leeds in Vancouver and Leeds in Barcelona. The Barcelona project gave a taster of the fashion talent Leeds has and the Vancouver project showcased that talent in a huge way to an international audience. Sam was one of the main players in the Vancouver project and we asked her how it had come about:

"I think we were all a little stunned with how it came about. I knew that Lisa Chadderton (who used to be Marketing Manager at Corn Exchange) was working on Vancouver Fashion Week and thought it would be a fantastic opportunity for James (Steward). I spoke to Marketing Leeds very briefly about what a fantastic opportunity it was for not only the designers but to promote Leeds as a city on an international stage, put a proposal together overnight and crossed my fingers. I was a bit teary when we got the go-ahead as I knew it was such an exciting project for everyone involved.

My primary role was to build relationships with international media, and maximise every opportunity to promote the designers and our wonderful city. In reality, I looked after everything from writing the press releases to dressing models on the day – it was an overwhelming experience, and in spite of a couple of hairy moments, I wouldn’t change it for the world. I also had some fantastic support over there from Katherine Busby – she is now the Events Manager at Harvey Nichols, having previously worked as Marketing Manager for Marketing Leeds – we had never worked together before, but made a fantastic team and it would be great to work with her again in the future."

We followed the project with interest back here in the UK. We always believe in the talent from our home city but to receive international acclaim and recognition is proof that the belief in well placed. We asked Sam to talk about the reaction to the show:

"Everyone has been unbelievably supportive and positive about the project. I think it changed many people’s perceptions about Marketing Leeds, and rightly so. It’s not easy for them as an organisation to keep everybody happy, and this was a fantastically creative way of promoting Leeds as a leading retail destination.

I wrote guest blogs for The Guardian which was a major highlight, and the comments on there were amazing – it was just good to see that so many people believed in what we were doing. My Dad told me that my three blogs were like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy – great start, a bit confusing in the middle but with a cracking final chapter. I was like, ‘Cheers, Dad’! I added all the blogs to my Facebook and people who I went to school with  15 years ago were messaging me to say how amazing the project was. The best feedback was from Leeds innovators and those pushing for change in the city – they have a completely different approach and it was great to see that they were just as excited as I was.

James and I have some very exciting plans in the pipeline which we can’t really talk about just yet. It’s been such a whirlwind since we returned from Vancouver, and we’ve gone from spending every second either together or on the phone to each other to having a little bit of time out. We’re working on a list of target boutiques, talking to manufacturers and getting some fantastic advice from Marketing Leeds on how best to take the James Steward brand to the next level. I’ll continue with my day job – I’m very lucky to work with a team of incredibly talented people; it just means that I’ll be burning the midnight oil for the foreseeable future!"

As we have said in lots of our 'introducing' posts, we are developing a number of projects at the moment, working with some of the city's most interesting talent and influencers. We actually had our first 'official' meet in December. Team Hebe are very excited about some of the projects coming out of this group of people and Sam feels the same:

"I’m excited and humbled to be collaborating with so many talented individuals on upcoming projects. When Lee sent through the introductions e-mail I couldn’t believe I was going to be working with all these amazing people. I’ve followed Bangs and a Bun for ages; she’s nuts but I just love her – she’s straight talking, and that’s super-important in a project like this. I think there can be times when influencers meet and talk a lot, without saying anything at all – that won’t happen with us – I can see us all having an opinion on everything, and leaving each meeting with a list of action points as long as our arms – and that’s definitely a good thing!

In terms of how it can help the city, having a team of highly creative, dedicated individuals who are all pushing to challenge perceptions of our city can only be a good thing. I think we all know from experience that a project doesn’t have to be big budget and ‘jazz hands’ in order for it to be successful – all you need is a lot of people who want to make it happen."

We agree 100% with Sam and are looking forward to working on things with her this year. She is one of the most important cogs in Leeds' underground and provides brilliant support to some of our best talent. Keep up the good work Sam!

More 'introducing' posts here:

Introducing: James Steward

Introducing: Marc Leaf

Introducing: Muireann Carey-Campbell

Introducing: iCallShotGun

Introducing: Bethanie Lunn

What if Leeds... The Hebe View

Yesterday I attended a meeting to discuss the findings of the What if Leeds consultation. I left the event with a strange feeling: On the one hand I agreed wholeheartedly with some of the things put forward but on the other felt like I did not connect with the new proposals, some of the people who spoke and most of those who attended. I thought it maybe be useful to give my honest feedback on What if Leeds and then some suggestions of how we can help.

A Little Background

To give a little background to Hebe Media for those of you who do not know: We are an ideas factory. A collection of young professionals with one simple mission: to create interesting, cool, fun projects. We do this primarily in the creative industries. We produce projects, create brands, put on events and lots more. Over the past year we have worked with some of the world's biggest brands, cool cities and interesting people. We report on trends, create international communication strategies and lots of other things it would take far to long to explain. So our angle on Leeds is exactly that: our angle, our view on the city and what it is like for a young (the average age of our team is 27) creative business. We also have a Leeds network online which is close to 50,000 members including the 42,000 strong Leeds Facebook page.

To give a little background on a personal level: I am Leeds through and through. Born in Seacroft, raised in Whinmoor. My father is one of 13 children and my mother is one of 8, and virtually all the family and the zillions of cousins and second cousins I have, still live in Leeds. I have seen the best and worst of the city both professionally and personally so feel I am well positioned to give a balanced view. 

What if Leeds... Key Issues

I really liked the points being made about the transport system. Both Tom Riordan and Kieran Bradford (the 15 year old star of the show) emphasised the need for a dramatic improvement in this area, this is something we agree with strongly. The need for more green space in the centre and environmental issues is another issue we fully support. The 'community spirit' issue is of course important but is a complicated one. Leeds does have a great platform to start from - people are passionate about the city and their community, the challenge will be to harness that into something productive and sustainable.

Obviously as with any meeting like this, everyone goes with their own 'agenda' and a desire to hear something relevant to them. The last two points on the 'key issues' list were particularly interesting to us on a personal level. These points were - "Jobs and work for young people" and "greater recognition of culture and arts in Leeds". Again from a personal point of view I would have loved more discussion of the creative industries and how Leeds can develop it's own businesses and talent in this area. I firmly believe that in the future, Leeds (and frankly the whole of Europe and America) will become more of a creative economy. We can name this differently, 'Knowledge economy' or the 'Cultural industries' etc, but they all float around the same basis: ideas, intellectual property, brands will be our economic future. The UK Dept for Culture and Sport lists the creative sectors as:

• Advertising
• Architecture
• Arts and antique markets
• Crafts
• Design
• Designer Fashion
• Film, video and photography
• Software, computer games and electronic publishing
• Music and the visual and performing arts
• Publishing
• Television
• Radio

We are currently directly involved in projects that cover at least 8 of those areas, so going back to the original point: this is something I wanted to hear something about at the What if Leeds event. We are a new business growing very quickly and we made our home in Leeds. However in the future, what will stop us moving our company elsewhere? What can the city do to support businesses like ours to grow here? What benefit is there to staying in Leeds? It seems initially that this is not a priority moving forward for Leeds. I see all kinds of bodies/ groups /organisations that claim to represent people like us (either because of our age, 'industry' or location) but speaking honestly, they really don't represent us as individuals or as a company at all.

What we would love to see

There was a video at the event which you can see here. One of the comments that really stood out to me was "What if Leeds could be the next Berlin?" ...we would love it if Leeds was even considered in the same creative league as Berlin! We are currently planning a project there and it is definitely one of the coolest cities in the world right now. Four members of our team have at some point lived in Barcelona and this is another city we should look to take inspiration from. Of course those cities have a different political and social history from which they can draw inspiration, but we can definitely adopt and embrace some of their attitudes and inspirations. 

We need to have more of an open mind in Leeds and not try and measure something immediately. Some of the best projects I have seen in the last few years in cities like Berlin and Barcelona start small, they appeal to niches and they inspire either something that can take the concept to new markets or in some cases inspire a 2.0 version that is even better then the original. Usually in those cities, the first thing you hear is "how can we help?" rather then "you can not do that because..." and this makes a massive difference.

"Jobs and work for young people"

There was a lot of talk at the meeting about the level of unemployment among young people in Leeds. Councillor Wakefield in particular spoke about his despair at the current situation and his and the council's desire to change this. This issue is a massive one for the UK in general not just Leeds and is something we talk about regularly in the Hebe office. We have a really firm viewpoint on this which is based in both small scale research and our own personal experiences. For a lot of people university fees and student loans etc are not the thing that stop them entering further education, it is the fact that some people just don't want to. 

Some young people do not grow up dreaming of studying economics or becoming a lawyer, they want to be a footballer, a singer or a entrepreneur / mogul like Jay-Z! How can we channel those ambitions and passions into something? We firmly believe getting young people involved in real-life projects about the things they are passionate about can help develop other skills. Some do not want to listen to a 60 year old guy in a suit, they want to talk to the people who's names are on flyers, people who appear in music videos, fashion magazines... people they want to be like! 

What can we do? 

In every single project we create we try to implement some kind of learning and development for both our team members and also offer opportunities to young professionals and freelancers. In some of the projects we have coming up this year we are taking it further and including talented young people from high schools in Leeds. This will give these young people first hand experience of talking to, learning from and being around the people they look up to and respect and will hopefully fuel further creativity and lead to them developing some amazing projects of their own over the coming years. 

We will also be submitting plans soon for something that could be major advancement for the city in this area. We have learned a lot working with forward thinking people in 'education' like Hyper Island and have consulted with some of Leeds' best creative talent and everyone involved is passionate about helping the next generation and 'giving something something back'. More on this project soon...

Conclusion

What if Leeds produced a number of issues that we agree are very important to the city. The massive challenge now is developing a plan that addresses those issues, and not just a plan for the next year... a plan for the next 20 years. Getting the right people onside will be key in the early days. There is some wonderful talent in the city which is under-utilised, either by choice or because of lack of awareness but that needs to change. 

We at Hebe are more then willing to help where we can and contribute to this city's future. In 2030 I will be 48 and want to be able to look back at this period as the time when our input was heard and we helped shape the future of what could be one of the best cities around. The thing stopping us moving to another city right now is the potential in Leeds and the room to create something special that we can be proud of in the future. I am sure there are more like us, we just have to create a strategy that people can identify with and get behind. Not one overall strategy has to 'fit all' we can all develop lots of new things and hopefully the sum of those parts will produce something exciting and sustainable. 

A Trip To The Thackray Medical Museum

 

Hebe's Shang Ting and Stacey set off for another one of their trips in and about Leeds and headed off to the Thackray Medical Museum to see what it was all about.

Officially

A museum that acknowledges the Leeds of long ago when disease and death was rife. It’s a journey through medical history.

Unofficially

You begin by selecting a character with a certain illness and lifestyle and throughout the museum you discover everything from your character's dwelling to the cure for their illness, which is so interesting. The first part of the museum is a reacreation of the streets of Leeds which are eerie and smelly but this only adds to the atmosphere. The whole museum has a interesting and educational atmosphere but it was a bit scary as we were the only two visiting the museum at the time. The journey through the whole musuem takes time and requires concentration at times. You can either browse through the museum or take time to read into each poster and exhibit. We did a bit of both :-).

The surgical section towards the end has a real life video of an amputation which made us a bit squeamish. We cringed a little bit while watching a video of the doctor saw through a patient’s leg in one of the first painless surgical procedures. There is also a theatre in the museum which shows a staged video of an amputation before anaesthetic, the Hannah Dyson story. The story is based on Hannah Poynton who trapped her leg in some machinery in 1823. It is definitely not for the fainthearted.

The sections on disease are still a bit creepy, especially with the strange crazy-eyed mannequins. The section on how the body works or the ‘life section’ was great for kids unfortunately we ran out of time as we didn’t expect the museum to take more than two hours but it did and we didn’t even read half the boards, books and items that were on offer. We would definitely go back again as we missed a lot of it towards the end(and we could as we were given free return passes after we paid, which was a nice touch).

Stacey says 'I honestly felt like I was a child again learning so many things about history that I learned when I was young. The interactive parts of the museum were so much fun although some parts were quite gory! It's amazing to see the medical advancements of the last century. We have come so far and we should feel lucky at how easy we have it now. Ouch!. My favourite part was seeing Shang Ting try on the pregnancy belly; she nearly toppled over :-).'

STP says 'I actually like how creepy it was, what other feeling can you expect when you going to a medical museum, right? Afterwards I read from the book Haunted Leeds by Kenneth Goor which says that the recreated Victorian street sections are the most haunted within the whole museum because the ghosts supposedly recognized the street scene and think they are still alive. Glad I didn't know this before I went!'

Turn Up The Style, Turn Down The Heat.

In one of my cool-hunting blog post's we talked about proportion being important when you're going for a vintage style because some of the vintage clothes you find may not come in your size, which, for me, is most of the time. Or there's always another option to make sure the vintage item you get is one of a kind and the right fit. Renewal designs.

I was at ReMade in Leeds last night for Global Cool's first stop of their tour Turn Up The Style, Turn Down The Heat. We were greeted by cupcakes and tea, and after we picked a jumper provided by Blue Rinse, owner of ReMade in Leeds. Lizzie told us some simple ways to add a bit of spice to a plain jumper. We had various vintage materials to use, so while creating new garments we were also recycling. In the end, I (with the help of the designers of the shop) came out with a green jumper customised with a chain necklace made from Ribbon. 

 

The vintage scene is definitely bigger than ever, and you can start to find many renewal sections in high street brands like Urban Outfitters, Miss Selfridge and ASOS. I'm sure many of you have already been doing bits of renewal with your clothes, jewellery, and other things. But for the ones who haven't started yet, why not try to make something old, something new.