An informal chat with Nicola de Main

- A few lines on your profile

Nicola de Main; a rising name in the London fashion scene now in her 7th season, having  shown the past 2 collections at London Fashion Week the label has come of age.
Known for her simple and well cut clothing,  where colour, print and retro styling are key elements. Nicola’s vision is to create catwalk fashion, which is luxurious and desirable as well as wearable, this design ethic has gained her some of the most prestigious and luxurious national and international stores.
Trained in Leeds, Nicola took her first job at internationally acclaimed fashion designer Hussein Chalayan.
Nicola has gone on to work on projects with other leading fashion names Jane How, Jodie Barnes and Adele Clark and also works on her own styling projects, clients include; Razorlight, Urquell Pilsner and Nokia. 

- A few lines on the current collection / inspiration and stuff

The collection intended to simulate the wonder and magic experienced as a child, was inspired by fairy tales seen through the eyes of illustrators such as; Aubrey Beardsley, Mucha, Alastair and Tony Angell.
An overview of the collection sees an almost cartoon like quality which was magnified in both the show and shoot with a playful youthfulness, feeling reminiscent of a child’s dressing up box. 

- What inspired you to pick S***R shoes for your catwalk show?

S***R shoes were an obvious choice for this collection, they have always been able in my mind to be able to create shoes that are full of contradiction, cool without pretension/girly without sweet/ fashion forward without being mainstream. 
Our mission statement when putting together the final look for the collection was " cute but tough"  and swear lived up to this with heels that stomped down the catwalk with eat me attitude!

- Your views on the brand …

James Dean.
: )

For more info visit http://www.nicolademain.co.uk/

Dave Anderson is an artist and filmmaker whose career is more a development of the rude drawings in the back of his maths book than anything ever done in the front. His scathing, ironic wit has seved him well, taking him to Philadelphia, Miami, London and Berlin, and he has worked frequently with Bermuda Shorts, Start Creative and Shifty Disco Records.

‘The slender, entwining, Rennaissance forms of some of the recent work I have done for Swear were partly to reflect the company’s sense of history. However I found myself wearing my pair of Swears in a small, isolated pub in Wales. A ruddy-faced local piped up from across the bar and pointing at their distinctive shape, piped up ‘look at those medieval shoes!’.  I think most of the ideas stemmed more from this incident.

I got thinking about time, the past, the present, the future, life, death, the decline of the hovercraft. So of course the enduring childhood memory of one of our oldest ancestors, a chimpanzee, urinating on a Widlife on One cameraman, had to be represented.

Dave Anderson

A winning combination!

What do you get when the definitive cool Britannia footwear company S***R joins forces with directional sports fashion brand Hummel? I S***R by Hummel: an innovative capsule footwear collection that combines high-tech with street elements.

For owner Christian Stadil, Hummel’s philosophy is to focus on the grey area between fashion and sport. ‘Our designers get just one brief,’ he says.  ‘Change one thing only.’  It is this focus and his beatnik-style love of collaborations and S***R’s injection of energy that has resulted in this exciting new line. The collection has six styles; two are based on a Hummel original handball shoe, the Bee S***R Low and the Bee S***R High. The rest of the collection’s styles are based on S***R’s classic Dean shoe and are named after Allen and Arnesen – high-profile Danish handball players who Hummel worked with in their sporting heyday.
The colours are clean and sharp with a tight palette focusing on strong primaries – blue, red, black, white, light blue and metallics, with patent finishes as a variation.

The collection is available from today! Run for it, run...  

We asked them how they found the experience: ’we’ve talked a bit about collaborating but this is the first time we actually have! It was really enjoyable, and we would love to do it again,’ says Angela. We then talked about the brief and how they approached it: ‘Our brief was to decorate the window for London Fashion Week and Valentine’s Day. Wanting to side step all manner of red hearts and teddy bear tat, we started doodling and thinking about Serge Gainsbourg records, Art Deco/Nouveau typography and flowers and colours, old ornate birdcages, psychedelic band posters, etc. And the Bon Jovi lyrics were a twist on the generic schmaltzy romance theme.

So what does the future hold for the girls? They’d like to rule the world and dress a few more windows together. As for the shoes, they LOVE the red patent boots!

DIE FOR SWEAR SS08

I SWEAR BY HUMMEL SS08

JIMMY SS08

JACK1 SUEDE BEIGE

GENE3 WHITE

GRANT21 BLACK