The Hebe Week In Pics

Always nice to see the results of lots of hard work - The new Hyper Island catalogue Last week we caught up with the Leeds In Bcn crew @ Marshall's MillAnd the beers flowed!Graham looking cool with his tea cup ;)Warming up for the 10k Race For LifeSprint finish, ooooosh! Great atmosphere at Temple Newsam, LeedsBig thumbs up to everyone who took part in the RFLTransformers piece in Selfridges, Trafford CentreAs if this isn't our very own Simon from Hebe!
Shang Ting drinking a 'Shang Ting' in Mojos!Crepes at Granary Wharf Waterfront FestivalGiant Jenga at Out of the WoodsLive music in the sunshine :)The water taxi! We need to have this on all the time!

Team Hebe hits Manchester for a bit of KOL

Graduate Fashion In Leeds, London & Antwerp

Leeds
Anna BrowningDaniela MarchettaShamin SultonAnna BrowningKate O'bryan TearKatrina Lee
Claire GreendaleFaith BunceSophie Broadhurst

A couple of weeks ago the Hebe team headed down to the Graduate Fashion Show by Leeds College of Art. We always love to see new talent emerging and and imagine how they might develop in the future.

Each student was required to showcase three pieces, a mini A/W collection. There were some refreshing elements in many of the students's designs, but for some of the students a lack of coherence was a problem, which is an important factor to think about when building a collection. Some students managed to get this coherence though. I particularly liked Rachael Broadhurst's creations, very feminine, and for my eyes, the most complete collection at the event. Crystal Padmore's way of connecting different materials was skilful. Lauren Crowe made a collection that's trendy right now, using plenty of fringe and leather. I noted down that I liked Sharon Banga's good fabric choices. I also liked Anna Browning's square jacket shape. Faith Bunce's hunting inspired works were very memorable and stood out.

Overall, I do think there's an issue of the students being too aware of what's trendy right now, instead of looking for something that's never seen before. If you can not let loose and do something 'out there' when you are at college, when can you, right?

London

University Of Salford catwalk show. Design by Nicola Bream. Earls Court, London

My good friend and partner on the UK Observing Diary, Chia Wen Liu went to the London Graduate Fashion Week. And this was one of her favorite outfits. She thinks this year's designers were of a good standard, but the event itself seemed to lack some of wow factor of previous years. Perhaps the change in sponsor (River Island to George) and/or a smaller budget had something to do with this?

Chia Wen filmed this video of best and awarded designers this year. An you can see a very noticeable character in the crowd.

Antwerp

And finally, let's take a look at the legendary Royal Academy Academy of Fine Art in Antwerp. You can read more about it at Vice Style. 

MANON KUNDIG (Photo courtesy of VICE) MANON KUNDIG (Photo courtesy of VICE)MINJU KIM (Photo courtesy of VICE)

Leeds in Barcelona: The Showcase

Last month we headed out to Barcelona for Leeds in Barcelona: A Creative Encounter. Here we concentrate on the second part of the project - Leeds Taylor which was a showcase event of creative talent from both Leeds and Barcelona. (You can check out the first part of the project here: The Conference)

Leeds Taylor was held at the amazing Hotel ME in Barcelona. The idea behind the event from our point of view, was to showcase Leeds creative talent to massive audience of international opinion leaders and, more broadly speaking, further develop ties between the two cities. But rather then just go to Barcelona and try to 'sell' we wanted to create an experience that was more of a collaboration, something that was a one-off special project. To do this we teamed up with Marketing Leeds and our good friends LeLook and set about creating a platform where Leeds and Barcelona creatives could be seen together. For the fashion talent involved in the project this was in the form of a photo-shoot and catwalk show. 

Photoshoot at Hotel MECatwalk featuring Dom Dick & HarryA piece from the latest James Steward collectionDom Dick and Harry and Nicholas DeakinsJames Steward A/W

The soundtrack for the event was supplied first of all by Barcelona DJ and all round superstar DJ Mustache. Then followed a live performance from Leeds band ICS and they absolutely smashed it! Their performance included material from their new EP mixed up with some really cool covers including Nelly - Ride With Me, and Tinie Tempah - Pass Out. Then the showcase moved up to the 6th floor where the sounds of legendary Leeds club BacktoBasics and more specifically Dave Beer and Tristan Da Cunha kept the 1000 strong crowd entertained for hours more.

ICS left a lasting impression on the Catalan crowd

The showcase attracted more then 1000 people

The reaction to the event in Barcelona was amazing. Loads of people from the Barca creative scene now want to visit Leeds and hook up with designers, artists, bands and DJs here. The directors of the European Institute of Design want to travel here this summer and discuss ways we can collaborate further. Spanish national television will feature the project in a show later this month, introducing millions more to what we created and drive more interest and awareness of Leeds as an interesting international creative city.

Over the coming weeks we will report back on further fallout from the event including some of the next steps people are taking and we will post a copy of the spot on Spanish television. Discussions are taking place involving the talent featured in the project and we are sure that in the immediate and long term, some really cool things are going to emerge from this project.

The Hebe Week In Pics

We headed over to Manchester for the Hyper Island launch partyThe Hebe Team taking a stroll around the Northern QuarterShang Ting and Stacey the tourists!In Hyper Island, Can you guess who's shoes they are?Inside Printworks, ManchesterShang Ting goofing around in Papa G's, ManchesterShang Ting is snap happy in the train station; no more trains for us, train drivers suck!Shang Ting and one of our old friend's art in Manchester Papping the Papper!Back in Leeds, yesterday it was Mentos central! This was a Mentos train dancing in the street!And the streets were filled with musicians!Spotted: New Pizza Express on Albion Street, what do we think? A nice view of Round Foundry and Temple Works

Creative Cities - Leeds in Barcelona Conference

This video, posted on LeLook's website earlier this week, captures the energy and direction of a panel discussion between a group creative people, brought together on the first night of this year's Leeds in Barcelona, as part of a conference hosted by IED (Istituto Europeo di Design).

Chaired by our very own Lee Hicken, the conversation centred around the idea of a "creative scene", comparing the current situation in Leeds and in Barcelona, and reflecting on the conditions necessary to realise the potential of a city's creative people.

Despite popular myth I wasn't playing DrawRace on my phone throughout the discussion and was listening intently and making some notes... I just happened to be making them on my phone... long live Evernote! I've published them below, to give people an overall sense of what was said, but this is just an interim thing until the edited recording is ready to be published - this should be ready in the next few weeks.

Chair: Lee Hicken, Director of Hebe Media (Leeds)

Host: Jürgen Salenbacher • Academic Director at IED Barcelona

Panel:

• Imran Ali • New Technologies Expert, Consumption trends
• Juan Antonino Ávalos • Spanish Fashion Designer
• Chidy Wayne • Spanish Fashion Designer and Fashion Illustrator
• Dom, de Dom Dick & Harry • English Fashion Designer
• Giuseppe De Luca • Singer of ICS (iCallShotgun), visual artist

- Introductions

- Jurgen reflects on creative cities

- Creative economy needs creative education

- Reflecting on what has happened in the economy, the crisis is also a transformation of an economy driven by machines to one driven by ideas

- Creatives helping to develop new forms of economy

- Providing a platform for creatives to develop their ideas

- Technology supporting creativity

- Without the right circumstances it's impossible

- Imran talks 'bleeding edge' emerging technology, post-digital economy and the city is a platform for new technologies

- What some people think of as distractions are the real business of the city

- The city is a lab for creativity, enabling efficient prototyping of new ideas

- Through non-conferences cities are developing a digital cultures along side the creative ones

- Dom on life as a fashion designer in Leeds - Leeds is not London or Paris and this enables a level of safety with which to experiment

- Cross fertilisation of ideas between music, fashion, art that is underpinned by the social scene

- Diversity breeds creativity

- Tolerance is an important factor in collaboration

- The economic transformation - from industrial to knowledge economy

- The need for accountable creativity - in economic terms (emphasised by a drop in employment, in Barcelona)

- Technology as a way of spreading ideas

- Cities and their unrealised potential

- It is important that support comes from all external forces, not just education

- Talent moves where the opportunities are

Conversation moves on from creative cities to creative education:

- Lee asks some questions about training

- "You learn to learn - when you crack that you can teach yourself anything."

- Not about going to school - it's about motivation

- Positive thing about a design school is the infrastructure, the resources, the test-bed (safety, low risk space)

- Need to update and optimise education to meet skills needs in industry

- Imran talks about Orange and MIT Lab as a template for a new kind of education

- Imran talks about user designed 'bar camps' as a useful tool / catalyst

- Sustaining connection so when you want people to cohere you only need to make a phone call

A full recording of the conversation, along with other material from Leeds in Barcelona 2011 will be posted here soon.