Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?  Does art inform fashion, or does fashion shape itself within the confines of life, practicality and the need to look flattering on the wearer?  A nice pretentious couple of questions with which to kick off this entry – guaranteed to make you sound incredibly intelligent or your money back*.  Confused?  Don’t be.

*No, I’m afraid you can’t have that in writing.

The battle between fashion as art, and fashion in the accessible, commercial sense, has been an ongoing saga.  The outré wonders you see gracing the catwalks obviously aren’t designed to suit the slimmest of wallets, or the fattest of bottoms – that’s up to the hoi polloi of the high street, thank you very much.  Sure, there is always plenty of demand for the latter, but it’s just never gelled with fashion’s illuminati.  Whether it was Anna Wintour insisting that Oprah Winfrey lost weight before she was to be photographed for the cover of Vogue, or fashion insiders criticising Gok Wan’s work as merely cheap psychotherapy for fatties, fashion has always been a battleground when it comes to standards of beauty.  And while high fashion might not be designed to cater for every size of backside, what about those awkward times when it disappears up its own rear end altogether?  I remember doing a soundbite at a magazine about what the – mostly heterosexual – male employees thought of the latest trends, in terms of the sex appeal they gave off.  It was around 2006-2007 when billowing tunics and tulip skirts were in full bloom, causing even the  most svelte of wearers to look like Violet Beauregarde, when she turned into a giant blueberry, in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. “What’s she trying to hide under (her clothes)?” they all asked, “is that supposed to be a maternity dress?”

It’s said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and not everyone has the same taste, or concept of what would flatter their form. (See Snog Marry Avoid) Anyone who has seen a blue-legged waif in a mini-skirt wandering the streets in late November, or an orange-tinted urchin in a half-shirt exposing a not-overly-toned stomach, would know what I mean.  However, it’s the sculptural hourglass female form that artists and designers alike have revisited, timelessly, over the years, when the penny drops that we women want to feel – and look – sexy.  In these lean times we know how important it is to make the most of our assets, and such is the silhouette for next season that, according to Vogue:  ”The motto? If you haven’t got it, fake it – not (thankfully), in the silicone sense, but with extra fabric bullet pleated for greater bust potential, or bottoms given the same treatment by full skirts caught into soft bustles across the back.”  Ladies and – perhaps even – gentlemen, I give you Prada’s bosom-bastic new collection.  Enjoy:

Total Cost

About £33 with the materials I used

Save It!

Unfortunately, I have yet to see the exact price of the original, so, I’m afraid, I can’t give you an exact comparison. That’s why I chose the next best thing to compare it to – something which also draws attention to and very much enhances the breast area: getting implants. I have it on anecdotal authority that this procedure costs about £5000, a hundred and fifty times the price of this Chic Cheat dress.  That’s a saving of £4967.  You know it makes sense.

Difficulty

Medium

Fortunately, this one’s not too demanding or time-consuming.  It just requires a bit of technique, care and fabric-coaxing.

You Will Need…

• A black or grey tunic. I found a tunic at Peacock’s, available in black and in grey herringbone
• 1/2 metre of black or grey fabric to match your dress, which should cost a maximum of £5
• Black or grey lace trim, which costs about £1.30/metre, available at all good haberdashers.
• Black or grey bias binding, available at Hobbycraft for £1.79 per roll.
• Needle and thread
• Fabric scissors
• Pins
• Sewing machine
• Tailor’s chalk
• Set Square
• Compass and pencil

Let’s Frock!

First, you have to try your dress on and mark out, with your chalk, where the bottom of your bust is.

Use your compass to draw a curve between the side of your bust dart and the line at the bottom of your bust.

Cut 5 strips of fabric at a 45 degree angle to the side, which you can measure out using your set square.  Make sure that they are about the same size and at least 40cm long.

Hand-stitch loosely about 1cm from the bottom, pull  your thread so that it has a drawstring effect and the fabric ruches.  Knot it in place at the end.  Repeat this process with the rest of your strips of fabric.

Sew your lace trimming to the top of your strips of fabric.

Sew some bias binding along the line you marked out at the bottom of the bust, top-stitching it 1mm from the edge on both sides.  Now add your ruched strips of fabric, starting along the top of your dress and working your way downwards.  Pin them in place with bias binding along the bottom, covering up the raw edges, and top stitch the bias binding 1mm from each of the two sides, as before…

…And you should have something which looks like this:

Why not try…

Inserting pleats in a U-shaped area, like with this Prada top, below, and a dress I customised?

This entry is all about a heavily-decorated, high-maintenance clutch bag, but enough about Blair Waldorf, Gossip Girl’s scheming “Queen Bee” (What?  I thought that was what her character prided herself on!) The reason for my choice of title was twofold – “Ooh, handbags!” was a phrase my classmates and I used back at school in response to any abrupt and unexpected bitchy comments, and because the star of this here show is in fact the “Samira” pasha clutch by Amanda Pearl, spotted in the hands of mademoiselle Waldorf on Gossip Girl episode 3.21 – Ex-Husbands and Wives (Hooray for internets!)

Difficulty

Easy

Easy as falling of a log, only less painful – unlike listening to Blair’s gob!

Total Cost

The bad news is even my Chic Cheat solution is relatively pricey, totalling £25…

Save It!

…However, the good news is that it’s still a lot less than the $1598 price tag of the original.  That’s about £1028, according to the beautiful shiny currency converter on my computer desktop (yes, I really am that sad) which means this entry could save you £1003.

Hours

16 or thereabout

You will need…

• A clutch bag or small handbag – I’d recommend picking one up at your local charity shop.  The colour doesn’t matter as you will be completely covering it, but if you can find one with gold purse clasps at the top, then bonus.
• 20cm of green and turquoise jacquard silk My quest to find a decent match took me all the way to London, where I found a fabulous fabric that fitted the bill and set me back £11.  Jacquard silk £55/metre, Soho Silks, 22 D’Arblay Street, London W1F 8EP Tel: 020 7434 3305

• A tube of green, gold and brown beads, a string of pale green pearls (code BP25-4) and a string of green glass beads (code GPR12) costing a total of £4.50 including VAT from Creative Beadcraft (trading as Ells and Farrier in London, 1 Marshall Street, London, W1F 9BA  Tel: 020 7734 1982)  I also picked up £4 worth of assorted beads and green pearls from Beading Crafty (Beading Crafty Ltd, 25 The Square, Kenilworth CV8 1EF  Tel: 01926 858442)
• Glue gun
• Needle and thread
• Fabric scissors
• Ruler or graded set square
• Metallic gel pen

We’ve got it in the bag…

…And, so can you, if you:

Start by cutting two pieces out of your fabric big enough to cover the sides of your handbag.

Pin one of your pieces of fabric to the side of your handbag, folding the excess fabric underneath, along the bag’s seam line and at the top.  Slip-stitch it to the bag.

Repeat this process with the other side of the handbag and at the bottom of needs be.

Mark out a line 2-3cm from the top of the handbag, on both sides.  Glue your beads inside that area between the line and the top of the bag, ensuring you cover the whole area.

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Just what every teen queen wants – Acne!

Image: The CW

…Or, rather, the  Force Dress by Acne (you might see what I did there) worn by the lovely Ms Lively as Serena van der Woodsen in Gossip Girl, in an episode called The Empire Strikes Jack.

Image: acnestudios.com

Difficulty

Easy

…And, I hope you like hours of hand-stitching, because that’s what it takes to get through this one.  However, on the positive side, this dress is not only dead easy to make, but cheap as chips – only unlike chips it’s actually quite slimming!

Hours

I’d say a maximum of 8 hours.

You Will Need…

• Black long-sleeved dress.  A three-quarter sleeve dress will do.  I found one costing £11 at Primark.
• Half a metre of dark grey lycra or jersey prices will vary but mine set me back about £3, from the Fancy Silk Store in Birmingham (27 Moat Lane, Birmingham, West Midlands B5 5BD tel. 0121 643 7356)
• 1 Metre of black bias binding about an inch in width.  Mine cost 50p, although prices may vary.  Available at all good haberdashers.
• Pins
• Fabric scissors
• Black thread
• Tailor’s chalk
• Sewing machine

Total Cost

Within the region of £15 depending on the cost of your fabric and bias binding…

Save It!

…Which works out at – literally – a tenth of the price of the original, which currently retails at £160 on the sale!  Last season it sold for £400.

Let’s Frock!

First of all, let’s kick it off with a bit of sartorial vandalism.  You need to cut out the shoulders.  Fold the dress in half, down the middle, to make sure that your changes are symmetrical, pin it in place, if necessary, and cut away oval shapes at the shoulders.

Fold your bias binding over the raw edges.  Pin it in place and then machine sew it.

Fold your dress in half again , and use your pins to draft out a wiggly shape down the sides (which should be one on top of the other) like the grey one on the original.  Notice how it curves inwards at the waist and outwards around the bust and hips.  Try to mimic that. Then, draw down the lines of pins on both sides using your tailor’s chalk, making sure your line is as clear as possible.

When you have finished, take your pins out and unfold your dress.  Either the back or the front of your dress should have two lines of tailor’s chalk down both sides.  Put pins through these lines, as before, to mark out your lines through the two layers, turn your dress over and use your chalk to draw out the lines, as before.

Now to add your grey jersey.  Cut two long strips which are easily wide enough to cover the areas at the side that you used your chalk to mark out.  Pin them in place, along the line, folding under any excess fabric.

Now for a spot of elbow grease in the form of slip-stitching.  Stretch fabrics require a certain type of this invisible stitch which is like so:

Bring your needle out of your  grey fabric and into the edge of the black fabric, going backwards trough a few strands of the material.

Now bring your needle forwards again to start your next stitch, and put it backwards through a few strands of the grey fabric.  Repeat this process stitching alternately through the black and grey fabric until all the sides are stitched down.

This just in… we’ve seen proof that if you follow these instructions you should have a new dress which looks like this…

…You know you want to, xoxo

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We’ve got the style of a pop icon down to a tee!

African summer – a heat wave from the outset.  Indian summer – a belated heat wave setting in close to the autumn when you thought all hope was gone for the present year.  British summer – disappointing, rainy and chronically overrated  misnomer scheduled between May and September, for which we wistfully brave the punishing elements in shorts and t-shirts, as if it genuinely were 3o degrees in the shade… or is it?  Not if this year’s anything to go by.  Perhaps, then, there is a God, who acknowledged that we are still plodding our way out of recession and have had all manner of travel impediments, most of them involving volcanic ash clouds, so he/she gave us a jolly nice summer, right here, on our blessed homeland.  It’s been uncanny.  It’s worked out much cheaper than a holiday, not to mention less hassle, and the first time, since pa fell off the bus, that I can grace fair England’s streets in a summer frock without feeling like a human experiment for outdoor cryogenics.  Oh, what it is to step out in style, and to step out of the tawdry British tradition of lamenting the weather, instead savouring the cocktail of sizzling heat and sultry idyll with which we have been provided.  So much  so that I thought this called for a sultry and sizzling pop reference.  Who perfectly encapsulates the two?  It could only be, Kylie Minogue.  All The Lovers… of stylish t-shirts must surely have noticed her Jean Paul Gaultier number from her recent single, and, here at Chic Cheat HQ, we couldn’t possibly overlook it.

Total Cost

About £3-£3.50… probably about a hundredth of the original price!

Hours

About 3 hours.

You will need…

• A white t-shirt, available for as little as £2 courtesy of Primark
• 20cm White stretch fabric anything from jersey to lycra, as long as it stretches.  Synthetic fabrics tend to be cheaper, and there’s no need to push the boat out on this one.
• 1.5m white bias binding – I say 1.5 to b on the safe side, but in most instances, I’d say you’d be fine with 1m.
• Pins
• Scissors
• Sewing machine… I say this is a £3  project, because that’s the sort of price the raw materials come to.  However, you are going to need one of these, and if you do need to buy one, this exercise may prove to be something of a false economy!

Method

Cut away the middle of the T-shirt so that there is only an area of fabric about 10cm wide on each side.

Cut tour stretch white fabric into strips about 20cm long.  You will probably notice that if you cut your strips one way, across the width of the fabric they will fray and disintegrate, whereas if you cut them across the length of the fabric, they can stretch without fraying.

Cut trial strips in both directions and, when you find a way that works best, cut 15-20 strips.

Pin your strips at the edge of the fabric so that they go across the middle of your t-shirt, forming X shapes around the bust and towards the bottom.

When you’re happy with the way you’ve pinned your fabric strips, fold your bias binding in half and pin it over the raw edges.  Machine stitch it in place and you should have a t-shirt that looks something like this…

…And that you hold now, in your mortal hands, the clothing of a modern-day Aphrodite.Wear it with some black hotpants and a bandeau bra to look like the real McCoy and you’ve got it – wow wow wow WOW!!!

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With luxurious embellishment, textures and detailing on the fabulous menu for next season, where better to start than a nice snuggly jumper!

Difficulty

Would have been…

… reasonably easy, but it proved to be…

… a difficult one in this particular instance.

The reason?  Interfacing – or lack of it.  That’s right readers – despite my many years of sewing experience, believe it or not, I still have my off days and am subject to the odd bad idea and/or naive mistake.  What I should have done was to use interfacing.  Interfacing is the name given to a thin white textile you attach to the wrong side of your fabric – or, in this case, garment – that is, the unseen side of the garment, the side you choose not to exhibit to the world and parade to all and sundry.  You can attach it by stitching it on or, as I prefer, ironing it on.  This, in turn, makes the fabric of your customisable jumper easier to sew and embroider your design on, by preventing it from stretching out of shape. Everybody’s free to use interfacing.   The benefits of interfacing have been proved by scientists, one presumes, or at the very least by seamstresses, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering.  If you’re reading this wondering what the random allusion to scientists vis-a-vis interfacing was in aid of, wonder no more. It’s a reference to Baz Luhrmann’s spoken word – ahem – classic hit single, Everybody’s free to wear sunscreen.  Eleven years ago to this day, this shameless plagiarism of Chicago Tribune columnist, Mary Schmich’s wisened prose read out over a background of innocuous elevator music , courtesy of Mr Luhrmann, reached number one in the UK charts shifting a respectable 206,000 copies (thank you, Wikipedia!).  I can only feel old in the light of those eleven precious years flying past, because I remember said event like it was yesterday…and I feel even older because this time around, I actually find myself identifying with the lyrics.  And so, to mark this momentous commemoration, examples of note from the speech include:

“Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth…, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now … how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you imagine”  If, like me, you look back at said photos and don’t feel any less ugly in them than you did the first time around, and, furthermore, dread where the future will take you in the looks department, one word remains for me to say:  Photoshop!

“Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.”  I wonder if the the possibility ever once idly occurred to anyone that air travel might someday grind to a halt on account of a volcano almost 2000km away… or that the up-and-coming generation of graduates would have their future sabotaged, as from 2008, by the worst recession since records began, for reasons way beyond their control and with nothing whatsoever to do with them – oh no, hang on, that one did, to Vince Cable.

“Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.”  I’d imagine so, especially if the loss of said knees entails an unfortunate run-in in a dark alley in Peckham, Moss Side or Norris Green – ouch!

“Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…” Nuff said – insert your own gag, if you wish!

“Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.”  How times have changed.  Simple response to that one:  Facebook!  Quick – before they all un-subscribe!

“But trust me on the sunscreen”… Amen.

Enough of this hypothetical hullabaloo, for now – we’ve got fabulous new looks to recreate… just trust me on the interfacing!

Hours

Round about 20, give or take.

Number of expletives shouted at sewing machine

Ball-park figure?  About 50.  Again, during a complex part of the method, owing to the lack of interfacing.

Total Cost

Mine set me back £18 but you’ll need interfacing, so methinks you’re looking within the region of £20.

Save It!

…Making it exactly £900 cheaper than the original.

You will need

• Jumper in dark red, deep wine or maroon. Charity shops would be your first port of call for bargains under a fiver.  Mine set me back £4.50.
• Shiny rayon Gutermann thread in:

£1.99 ea. at Hobbycraft

• Gutermann Light blue top-stitch thread, similar in colour to the light turquoise reel £1.35.
• Scalpel
• Half a metre of marbled brown, orange and blue fabric -satin or chiffon will do, synthetic is fine and tends to be cheaper.  Mine cost £3.
• Sewing machine
• Needle and thread
• Unpicker, known sometimes as a seam ripper, but we won’t be ripping any seams for this, not today.
• Tailor’s chalk Available at all good haberdashers, especially if you ask Taylor nicely.
• Iron, it might help if you’ve also got an ironing board.
• And, lest we forget, half a metre of iron-on interfacing

Method

Turn your jumper inside out, cut your interfacing so that it covers most of the front and iron it on.

With your interfacing on the “wrong” side of the garment, turn your jumper right-side-out again.

Cut a flame-like design roughly as wide as the jumper and about ten small petal and butterfly-shaped pieces about 2-4cm in length.

Tack stitch (i.e. roughly hand-stitch) your flame design near the bottom of the front of the garment, with the butterflies rising from the top, like those on the original.

Image: Firstview

Load your sewing machine with the brown thread.  Set your sewing machine onto a zig-zag stitch, the wider the better, and if you could get your stitches to be as close together as possible, that would also be an advantage.

Go around the flame design and your petal-shaped pieces.

Repeat this process with the zig-zag stitch going around the butterfly shapes in your light turquoise. You can also do some butterfly shapes within your flame design.  Take your tack-stitching out.

Now for the butterflies’ “bodies.” I find it helps to mark out a shape with tailor’s chalk on each butterfly. Load your sewing machine with your orange thread, set it back onto a straight stitch and run your machine, stitching back and forth along the space until the area is covered. Repeat this on the rest of your butterflies.

You might like to add some blue onto the wings of your butterflies with your top-stitch thread.  Stitch, again, with a straight stitch covering part of each “wing” until your thread runs out.

Finally, for the yellow flecks.  Draft out some small ovals about 2cm in length with your tailor’s chalk, on the edge of your petals and in your flame.  Fill them in using the yellow thread, covering the area by machine-stitching, as before.

Follow these instructions and you should be left with something looking like this:

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As much as I love to keep up with the trends – and, of course, celebrate them in this little blog of wonders, one fad of the age I very much resent is the advent of text speak.  I’m not saying it shouldn’t exist, being the slowest texter in the history of mankind I need to abbreviate anything I can when texting, but that’s just the point; text speak – clue in the title – is a convenient means of shorthand expression for text messages only.  It’s not a natural evolution of the English language, and nor should it be treated as such because, if anything, it’s a devolution.  Much as I love to embrace modern technology, Microsoft excepted, I found myself at a loss as to whether to laugh or cry  the other day, when I came across a line of grooming products called OMG.  What will they think of next, I can’t help but ponder, a line of incontinence pads called PMSL?  This would be a good cue for your gran to question what the world is coming to now that our beloved tongue has given way to lazy, incomprehensible gibberish, and she’d have a point!  A trend your nan possibly would more likely approve of, though I wouldn’t, would be those charming “vintage style” floral prints all over the high street.  I don’t have an issue with florals per se, I just feel like floral prints on the high street have become like a mild-but-irritating cold.  Even when you expect them to have gone away and rationalise that you and everyone around you is over them, they just seem to hang around and never entirely shift.  Simply put, I just feel like florals have reached a boring, predictable cul-de-sac.  Time to inject some inspiration from the couture crowd, methinks, work some Chic Cheat magic and bring it to the masses.  I found the perfect answer and the very kick up the arse the floral trend has been crying out for in Christopher Kane’s brand spanking new collection from Fashion Week, spanking being the operative word.  No pansies in floaty frocks for his latest, oh no.  He teamed intricately embroidered floral designs with curve-gripping lace and body-conscious armoury of leather panelling, reworking the look and striking the perfect balance between sexy and girlie like a sparkling pink riding crop on a trussed-up rump.  Oooh, behave!

Harry Potter star, Emma Watson has already rocked the unique Kane-bound trend, and now it’s my turn.  Watch and learn…

Difficulty

Hard

…Well, I say hard.  It’s mostly pretty straightforward and self-explanatory but it really helps to be skilled at embroidery for this one.  The “hard” verdict was given mostly to cover my arse in this particular instance – something you might want to make extra sure the back panel does for this risqué frock!

Hours

Here’s the bad news – we’re looking at about 50 – what with embroidery being the mission that it is!  That’s about 2 weeks worth of evenings, a social life on the backburner, blood, sweat, tears… but for a potentially fabulous result.

Total Cost

About £40

Save It!

£40 is still just over a forty-fifth of the price of the original.  That’s a saving of £1735!

You Will Need…

• Black lace dress- mine cost £28 from New Look
• 1 metre black silk satin – synthetic will do.  I know the original uses leather, but try embroidering through that by hand and I can guarantee it’ll be a nightmare!  I got mine from Hobbycraft at £2.99 per metre
• Skeins of embroidery thread in the following colours, 85p/ea from Hobbycraft.

• Black thread
• Fabric scissors
• Sewing machine
• Beading and embroidery needle - like this one.
• Embroidery hoop – the bigger the better.
• Metallic gel pen whose ink is visible on dark fabrics.
• Pattern paper
• Sewing pins

Let’s get Kaned…

First of all you have to cut your lining out of your lace dress if it has any, if you want your version to look authentic – and you dare to bare as much!

Now to draft out your pattern pieces. I got mine by pinning my fabric paper to the front of the dress and folding it into the right shapes, like so…

Your pattern pieces should look something like this…

…For the front and back panel.  And this…

…For the side panels.  Fold your satin and cut out four side panel pieces, and two front/back pane pieces.

Fold your fabric back by a centimetre at the side of each of your satin pieces and top-stitch it at the edge, so that there are no raw edges.

Now to embroider your flower design.  I copied the original by drawing it out before embroidering.

Which I turned into this…

…By getting the following textures:

To cover an area, simply stitch back and forth across it like so.  Make sure your stitches are as close together as possible so that there are no nasty gaps.

You can also stitch back and forth to cover small areas.  This, in turn, can build up quite a nice texture…

…And speaking of texture, you can build it up by doing one set of horizontal stitching on top of the other, like in the picture above.

You can also outline an area by stitching around it.  After you do a stitch and you’re about to do the next one, bring your needle back out halfway through the last one, like the stitches in the above pictures.

You can also use the technique of starting each new stitch halfway through the last one to create a rough texture, like the one on the yellow leaf above.

45 crafty hours later, after you’ve embroidered your beautiful design, you’ve just got to sew your side panels onto the side of the dress, starting at the bottom, and your front and back panels to the centre of the bottom – and there you have it!

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Time for the human skull to make a cameo appearance…



Image: Moe Jackson

Alexa Chung.  Model, presenter, TV personality, fashion icon and, of late, skull-bearer – of the porcelain persuasion.  Who could not love her delectably individual style of designer-meets-vintage …especially when they can get the look for £5.  Yes, 5 of our British pounds – a fiver, or less, if you’re lucky with charity shops.  Intrigued?  Read on – and all will be revealed…

Alexa’s necklace was one among the many masterpieces of the Italian Jewellery house, Iosselliani.  Its gotta-have-it cachet, I’d say, is down to its ingenious part-glamour-goth, part-vintage, part-precious-costume-jewellery originality (and 18k yellow gold to boot)… not sure if it’s worth the asking price tag, though.

Difficulty

Easy

A piece of cake, in principle, but it helps if you’re good at modelling – with clay I mean, so modelling of the 3-dimensional variety, not the catwalk one.

Hours

About 2 or 3 of them – hours, that is – required to make a cameo skull necklace, tops.  This has to be one of the simplest Chic Cheat projects I’ve taken on since starting this blog.

Total Cost

I made two necklaces, one of whose raw ingredients cost me a total of £4 and the other a total of £6, so a fiver per necklace, on average.

Save it!

The Iosselliani original will set you back – wait for it – £850, I kid you not.  Vogue can’t be wrong, after all, can it, dear fashionistas?  That, in turn, makes it 170 times what the Chic Cheat solution would cost you, thereby making getting creative 170 more sensible!

You will need

• A necklace with a plain stone pendant - ch-check out your ch-ch-charity shop for some good bargains.  My necklaces cost £2 and £4 respectively.
• Classic white Fimo clay About £2 from Hobbycraft.
• Blue Ink (optional)
• Contact adhesive
• Narrow pallette knife like the one pictured below:

You kneed it in your life…

Cut out a blob about 3 or 4 mm thick out of your slab of Fimo and kneed it to get it soft enough to work with.  What I find helps, at this awkward beginning stage is pounding it hard and slamming it against your desk until it softens… No, of course I don’t harbour violent or sadistic tendencies!

When your clay is nice and soft, cut it into a flat skull shape, about 2mm deep or thereabout, and no wider than the stone you have to fit it onto.  You can also use your pallette knife to sculpt the sort of textures that the skull in the original has.

You can dab it with blue ink to make it look like the skull on the original necklace, but be very sparing or it may look cartoon-like.

Bake your clay skull in the oven, for however long you’re instructed to – ahem – stick it in.  If you get the Fimo I used, that’d be half an hour.

Finally, after leaving your skull for about five minutes or so to cool down, glue it to your pendant with contact adhesive.

And you should have something which looks like this:

…Or this:

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For some hot fashion rocks, check out the following ankle boots from Alexander McQueen’s latest collection:

Want to know how to make some?  Of course you do.  Please read on…

Difficulty

Medium/ Easy

I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by promising an easy-as-falling-of-a-log outlook, but I’d say this one was pretty straightforward.

Hours

The work itself is doable in an evening but you may have to allow longer for the paint to dry at the beginning.

You will need

• Chunky black platform ankle boots mine cost me £15 from Raid
• Tiger eye stones
• Gold spray paint
• Clear lacquer - about £7 from Halfords
• 2 Broad gold chains - I cut some off hair bands I found on sale at £1 each in Miss Selfridge
• Black plaited leather rope - about 40p/metre from my local haberdashery
• 2 carrier bags
• Parcel tape
• Glue gun
• Newspaper

And this is how we do it…

Cover your shoes with the carrier bags, except for the heels and bottom of the soles.  Secure the carrier bags in place with parcel tape, making sure you go right up to the edge.

Spray paint the bases and heels of your shoes gold, and also most of your tiger eye stones.  I suggest you do this on your newspaper to avoid damaging any surfaces.  Leave to dry.

After your gold paint has dried, spray on your clear lacquer.  This might well take a day to dry.

Using a glue gun, stick on all of your stones  for about an inch around the ball of the foot of each shoe.

Now for the chains.  If, like me, you used the aforementioned ones from Miss Selfridge, you need to cut away the ribbons and elastics.  Then, you have to take your black leather cord, cut it in half and weave it in and out of your chains.  Secure it with glue at either end.

Glue your chain in a spiral around the heel of the shoe and end it so that it covers the top of the heel.

And there you have it – creative problem solved- it really is that simple.

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Cut to the Chic Cheat chase, already

On searching for latest newsworthy fashion reports, I was hoping to find something major, like when and where this year’s Fashion Rocks will take place.   No news online so far, which is perhaps to be expected if the event’s not likely to take place until around October, but there is a reason for me mentioning it here, and how it’s all about the inextricable connection between fashion and modern popular music.  As we all know, a good pop star needs an image and a good designer needs a muse.  K D Lang pointed out in Versace’s Fashion Memoir book, Rock and Royalty: “As part of a performance fashion must be thematically in sync with the vibe of the music.” (written in tall red type, rather confusingly, over a picture of Madonna.)

Well, here’s some fashion news I bet you never knew about.  There’s another pillar of contemporary youth culture whose influence seems to have inexplicably wormed its way into fashion’s consciousness – and there’s no denying the connection.  Yes, fashion feeds off music… and computer games.

Bonkers as it may sound, you’ve only got to look at the evidence to hear the connection scream louder than the winner of a Drag Queens’ Beauty Pageant:

Exhibit 1: Balmain and Call of Duty series

Take Balmain’s Spring/Summer 2010 show, for instance.  A massive critical success, the show and its military aesthetic of bullet-riddled textures and colour scheme more than echoed the look of hit computer game from the same quarter, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  Could the cyber-combat of Call of Duty have heralded a call of beauty among the fashionable illuminati?  Well, the game’s predecessor Call of Duty: World at War, has sold more than 11 million copies as of July 2009 – the perfect time to inspire and lead up to a hit fashion show, non?

Exhibit 2 – Beyoncé and Cammy from Street Fighter

You’ve only got to look at the leotard, the endless blonde locks and the – dead giveaway – knuckledusters, and you’ve got yourself an unlikely fashion icon, as we were to find out 16 years afterwards.  Okay, for the pedantic among us, Beyoncé might have plumped for a half-ponytail instead of plaits and a beret, stiletto heels instead of army boots and a one-shoulder leotard instead of a halter neck, and yes, Beyoncé’s knuckle duster is gold, but fads like that were different back in 1993.  How prophetical Cammy’s creators were.  I even remember seeing her in Super Street Fighter 2 at the age of ten and thinking “Wow, she is cool!”  What can I say – I knew a fashion icon when I saw one.  I liked Cammy.  I should have put a ring on her, shouldn’t I?

Exhibit 3 – Alexander McQueen, Versailles and Soul Calibur

…And now for an artist I’m actually into – insane Japanese metal band, Versailles.  Notice the opulent black and gold-braided coat sported by frontman, Kamijo… now notice the similar black coat on Soul Calibur’s Raphael… and finally compare it to the black cloak on the right from Alexander McQueen’s last collection.  Can you spot the difference?  Didn’t think so.  Versailles Trivia:  Despite their appearance in the above picture, believe it or not, they’re actually all blokes!

As I said, the contents of Exhibit 3 have to be my favourites out of the bunch, and, for some hot fashion rocks, I particularly like the following ankle boots from the collection:

Want to know how to make some?  Of course you do.  Please read on…

Difficulty

Medium/ Easy

I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot by promising an easy-as-falling-of-a-log outlook, but I’d say this one was pretty straightforward.

Hours

The work itself is doable in an evening but you may have to allow longer for the paint to dry at the beginning.

You will need

• Chunky black platform ankle boots mine cost me £15 from Raid
• Tiger eye stones
• Gold spray paint
• Clear lacquer – about £7 from Halfords
• 2 Broad gold chains – I cut some off hair bands I found on sale at £1 each in Miss Selfridge
• Black plaited leather rope – about 40p/metre from my local haberdashery
• 2 carrier bags
• Parcel tape
• Glue gun
• Newspaper

And this is how we do it…

Cover your shoes with the carrier bags, except for the heels and bottom of the soles.  Secure the carrier bags in place with parcel tape, making sure you go right up to the edge.

Spray paint the bases and heels of your shoes gold, and also most of your tiger eye stones.  I suggest you do this on your newspaper to avoid damaging any surfaces.  Leave to dry.

After your gold paint has dried, spray on your clear lacquer.  This might well take a day to dry.

Using a glue gun, stick on all of your stones  for about an inch around the ball of the foot of each shoe.

Now for the chains.  If, like me, you used the aforementioned ones from Miss Selfridge, you need to cut away the ribbons and elastics.  Then, you have to take your black leather cord, cut it in half and weave it in and out of your chains.  Secure it with glue at either end.

Glue your chain in a spiral around the heel of the shoe and end it so that it covers the top of the heel.

And there you have it – creative problem solved- it really is that simple.  Only one question remains and that is whose collection World of Warcraft is likely to inspire.  Answers on a postcard to the usual address.