Grazia's Melanie Rickey

We descended on the school to join students and scholars to watch ‘Dress Up’, a film was put together by students on the MA Fashion and Film course. 

The film explored consumption and celebrity, and how we are influenced by modern media. 

We were in excellent company, as the evening included a panel of industry experts, with Melanie Rickey, Grazia’s fashion editor, Tamar Jeffers Thomas, author of Hollywood Catwalk, and fashion blogger Coco’s Tea Party. 

The film didn’t include much dialogue, and told the story of a young girl who meets a guy who plays for a lesser-known football team. The influences of modern culture lead her to get caught up in the ‘WAG’ culture, only to be brought right back down to earth at the end. 

After the film had finished,  Pamela Church Gibson, Course Director, MA Fashion and Film kicked of a discussion between the panel and the audience. 

Melanie Rickey had a lot to say on bloggers. One audience member asked how she felt about bloggers, more notably the recent twitter episode where a Grazia editor posted a photo of her view at a New York show. Sat second row, what she tweeted was a photo of 13 year old blogger Tavvi, wearing a huge bow, or rather the back of her head. Under the photo was the line, ‘so this is what it has come to’. The post sent many bloggers into a frenzy, questioning why she looked down on bloggers. Melanie Rickey said bloggers had ‘too much freedom’, and although their opinions are valid, they ‘haven’t put the work in to earn that front row seat, so why should they get it?’. 

Interestingly, blogger Coco’s Tea Party echoed these views, saying she would feel ‘not worthy’ if sat in Tavvi’s position.

Blogger Coco's Tea Party

As well as bloggers, ‘celebrity’ designers were a hot topic, particularly Lindsay Lohan’s recent shambles at Ungaro. The question asked was how did she get the gig, and more importantly was she qualified? Did people want Lindsay Lohan telling them what to wear? The answer was a resounding no, and Melanie said she was ‘concerned’ that more focus was being put onto the face of the brand, rather than the quality of the designs. 

One audience member asked the panel about the future of magazines – does it lie in online? Obviously, we were interested to hear what they had to say. And print editor Melanie felt print would always have the edge. 

‘If something is online, you can’t touch it, you can’t feel it, it doesn’t belong to you. Online maybe more instantaneous and accessible, but in the same way e-books will never eliminate paper books, the internet will never eliminate print. It just won’t happen.’ 

Interesting. 

The film itself, though a little silly, raised some excellent points, and really got the juices flowing when it came to the discussion. We found the free wine afterwards, and left feeling a little wiser and definitely as if we had learnt something. Who said fashion was superficial?