Background Information Pack

Studio TX: 14:00 – 14.30, 19/04/18. The Maidstone Studios, Studio 2

Presenters

Adeline Close

Age: 22

Location: Maidstone

Experience: Previously worked as an actor, extra and a model

Presenting experience: Pageants and charity events

Fun facts:

-       Her style is “fairly classic and feminine. Audrey Hepburn and Megan Hess are her fashion icons”.

-      She loves Chanel and all its history

-      Alex Perry and Carla Zampatti are her favourite Australian designers

-      She loves seeing Bora Asku’s designs at London Fashion Week

-       She has 8,026 followers on instagram

Alfie Garston

Age: 30

Location: Bromley

Experience: Previously worked in student films, music videos, presenting, radio & theatre, TV & voice over

Trained for 3 years at a musical theatre college

Has done a bit of presenting for University projects working on location and in studios – has used talk back and auto cue

Fun facts:

-       Appreciates looking at fashion in magazines and in entertainment articles

-      “I’m not really a ‘fashionista’”

-       Went to Paris then Tokyo to work at Disneyland, has done a lot more acting and performing

Studio Contributors

Model 1

Sofia Mayers

Age: 18

Location: Ashford

Information: Her inspirations are 90's inspired, psychedelic, Morden. She works part time in retail for French Connection, this enables her to then work on developing her modelling career. In her spare time she compete in pageants and came runner up in Teen Face of the World. She has recently got her mum involved in competing at the age of 50, so they are going in May to the national semi-final for Miss Diamond UK. The winners will then fly to Las Vegas to compete internationally. She is also a keen photographer and also supports various charities.

Model 2

Sonja Wilson

Age: 50

Location: Tonbridge

Information: Sofia’s mum. Recently started participating in pageants with daughter Sofia. Owns and runs her own business, about eco-friendly washing. As a business woman, she often dresses in smart casual business wear, however, since starting pageants she has started wearing more colourful, pink, sparkly clothes, like her daughter.

Model 3

Harry Evans

Age: 20

Location: Sittingbourne 

Information: He has done some photographic modelling, but not a lot. Full time job is a professional musician, composer and arranger. Doesn’t tend to do much outside of music, as it takes up most of his time, but it’s essentially his hobby as well as his job.

Doesn’t tend to keep up with fashion trends - tends to wear a lot of androgynous outfits! Big fan of Dr Martens - with every outfit! Go-to style is very tight jeans, Dr Martens boots, and some sort of androgynous top / full androgynous outfit.

Model 4 & dad trainers model

Kevin Stones

Age: 64

Location: Deal

Information: Day job is an actor - with 25 years’ experience in film / TV / commercial / photoshoot modelling.

Hobbies include gardening, cooking, listening to Queen/Bowie Music.

“As for fashion I am my own man, I like a tweed waistcoat, 3/4 length jackets, cravat, gold watch chain, various glasses I wear....anything to make me stand out in the crowd...which I do.”

Independent seller (Etsy)

Bonnie Arpino

Age: 40

Location: Maidstone

How many items she can bring in: 5 items of clothing (one worn, one on mannequin, accessories on table & photos on screen)

Her story:

“Me and my husband have 2 children and the plan was for me to return to work when our son turned 2. By the time my son was 18 months old, we realised that he wasn't developing and was actually regressing. By the age of 2 he had lost the ability to speak as well as many other skills. He is severely autistic and still non-verbal (he's now almost 7). It was very obvious that going to work was no longer an option.

Fresh Air and Buttons was born out of the need to pay for speech therapy. I started out by just doing babies bibs and travel change mats. Over time, I added children’s clothing and next year will launch an adult range under a different name.  Sewing served as my escape from the world of special needs parenting that I had suddenly been plunged into and continues to be a wonderful therapy for my soul. “

Her fashion inspiration:

-      Enjoys quirky and alternative styles of clothing

-      Loves rock music, often has nods to this in her personal design choices

-      She loves the updated vintage style as it’s incredibly flattering on all body shapes and sizes

-      She’s heavily influenced by my time spent living in India and their over excessive use of colour

-      She feels liberated when she uses a lot of colour

-      She keeps an eye on current high street trends but tries not to be swayed too much by them

-      She has a definite weakness for desigual and their style of mismatched fabrics and colour blocking

-      She is inspired by indie pattern designers (most are on Etsy) and has been able to test new patterns for a few of them

-      Her favourites are currently Halla patterns and Mother Grimms Patterns 

-      She tend to be inspired by the fabrics first

-      She buys fabrics that she loves with no idea what they will get made into

-      It then becomes more about what style of garment is going to do justice to the fabric rather than the other way around

How her style changed over time:

“I was part of the alternative music scene from my mid-teens. I was usually wearing DM boots, heavily ripped jeans with striped tights underneath, band t-shirts (often of local bands) and a black leather trench coat. Most of my clothes were black.

My twenties were a little more colourful and I wore a lot of cammo combat trousers and really, really wide leg jeans. I enjoyed t shirt designs that were graffiti inspired.

We moved to India when I was 29 and moved back when I was 34. This was a bit of a change point for me and I wore a mix of typical hippy beach clothes (wide leg harem pants and Indian inspired vest tops) and very traditional Indian clothes (saris and salwaar kameez suits). All very, very colourful and often heavily embellished. India is such a colourful place and people take such enjoyment from it - that has definitely stayed with me.

On our return we had our second child so 35-40 has been about practicality and colour for me. My everyday 'mum uniform' is converse style shoes, boyfriend or straight cut jeans and a vest top/t shirt that I've made (usually geek or fangirl fabrics....I'm a huge marvel fan) or a quirky a line skirt, long sleeve top and either biker boots or knee high canvas converse style boots. If I'm going somewhere fancy then I usually make myself a 1950's style tea dress.

My style has changed over time influenced by my surroundings or circumstances. The lines of my clothes have become simpler as I've got older and my fabric choices have definitely got wackier! My 30s were incredibly liberating for me and I started worrying less about what other people would think of my choices. I started to make more of my own clothes when I realised that I could make them to suit my personal body shape - my classic pear shape is definitely not who high street designers have in mind and shop bought clothes never fit me well at all.”

Drag act

Connor Mckie aka Sapphire Stonee

Age: 19

Location: Lydd, Kent

Work / story:

- Watched RuPaul for years and took inspiration from that

- Wanted to be able to operate fashion, hair, makeup etc

- Likes different eras and the different styles - mixes fashion from different eras - might have a 20's outfit but 60's hairstyle

- He dances and lip-syncs to songs, stunts etc

- Doesn't like to sing because he has a low voice and it would be odd to have a deep voice accompanying a female body

- Will do his own hair and makeup on the day

Audience participants (Fashion Fails)

Dave Joslin

Age: 53

Location: Longfield

Story: Dave works with computers. He has given us a photo to use in the show of when he was younger wearing a bright yellow floral shirt with a matching tie, which his mum probably dressed him in.

Date of photo: 1970s

Nikki Hargood

Age: 25

Location: Gravesend

Story: Orders clothes online and receives the wrong item regularly. She is an estate agent. The chosen dress in the photo was a really bad material and the underskirt was very short, meaning you could see through the dress.

Date of photo: 2017