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15.05.12
Great British Fashion stamps
These Great British Fashion stamps are launched today in the UK. Following the success of the Great British Design stamps of 2009 (which looked at a cross-section of design and featured Mary Quant’s mini-dress), the brief was to find a way to sum up 60-odd years of fashion alone.
The main challenge with this subject matter is that it’s hard to make clothes look interesting if no one’s wearing them - on a tailor’s dummy they seem flat and lifeless. On the other hand, we didn’t want models or celebrities to distract from the designs. For example, there’s a great photo of Ringo Starr wearing a classic Tommy Nutter suit in the 1970s, but you just think, ‘there’s a great photo of Ringo’ and don’t look at the suit. 
The compromise was to shoot the clothes being modelled for real, but then digitally remove the faces and hands. First, we had to get hold of the precious artefacts, which meant a long process of persuading the designers or their estates to loan them out for a few days or sourcing them from obliging vintage specailsts (a task that took over three months). A two-day photo shoot took place at photographer Sølve Sundsbø’s London studio, then judicious cropping and retouching was used to bring out the lines, textures and movement of the garments.
Here are the 10 ten stamps in more detail. 
Hardy Amies
Sir Edwin Hardy Amies KCVO (1909-2003) was born in Maida Vale. He became managing director of Mayfair couture house Lachesse in 1934. After World War II he opened his own fashion business in Savile Row. Amies was the first major European fashion designer to venture into ready-to-wear and in 1955 received a royal warrant as dressmaker to the Queen. Other commissions have included clothing for the 1966 England World Cup squad and the 1972 GB Olympic squad and the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The outfit shown on the stamp dates from the late 1940s.
Norman Hartnell
Sir Norman Hartnell KCVO (1901-1979) was born in Streatham. He opened his first couture house at 10 Bruton Street, Mayfair in 1923. In 1940 he received a royal warrant as Dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth, then subsequently as dressmaker to HM Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
The stamp shows an outfit created by Hartnell in the 1950s.
Granny Takes a Trip Granny Takes a Trip was a boutique opened in February 1965 at 488 Kings Road in London’s Chelsea, by Nigel Waymouth, his girlfriend Sheila Cohen and John Pearse. The shop, which was acquired by Freddie Hornik in 1969, remained open until the mid-70s and has been called the ‘first psychedelic boutique in Groovy London of the 1960s.’ The jacket shown on the stamp was designed by John Pearse using a Morris & Co. furniture fabric print called Golden Lily (1899).
Ossie Clark, print by Celia Birtwell
‘Ossie’ Clark (1942-1996) was born in Warrington, Lancashire. He was a major figure in the Swinging Sixties scene in London and the fashion industry in that era. Clark is now renowned for his vintage designs by present-day designers and compared to the 1960s fashion greats Mary Quant and Biba. He has influenced many other designers, including Yves Saint Laurent, Anna Sui and Tom Ford. The outfit shown on the stamp here dates from the late 1960s and features a print by Celia Birtwell.
Tommy Nutter
Tommy Nutter (1943-1992) was born in Barmouth, Merionethshire. He recreated the Savile Row suit in the 1960s. In 1969, he joined up with Edward Sexton, to open Nutters of Savile Row. Nutter combined traditional tailoring skills with innovative design. His clients included Mick Jagger and Elton John. Nutter was most proud of the fact that he dressed three out of the four Beatles on the cover of the LP Abbey Road. The suit featured on the stamp was originally designed for Ringo Starr and was recreated especially for the photo shoot.
 Jean Muir
Jean Muir, CBE, FCSD (1928-1995) was born in London. She worked briefly in a solicitor's office before taking a stockroom job at Liberty & Co in 1950. Despite her lack of formal art college training, she was given the opportunity to sketch in Liberty's ready-to-wear department, which led to her gaining a job as designer for Jaeger in 1956. Her own label Jean and Jane was launched in 1962 followed by Jean Muir Ltd in 1966. Famous clients include former Muir model Joanna Lumley, Charlotte Rampling and Maggie Smith. The outfit featured here dates from the late 70s/early 80s.
Zandra Rhodes
Zandra Rhodes CBE (1940-) was born in Chatham, Kent. She was one of the new wave of British designers who put London at the forefront of the international fashion scene in the 1970s. Her designs are considered clear, creative statements, dramatic but graceful, bold but feminine. Rhodes’ inspiration has been from organic material and nature. Her approach to the construction of garments can be seen in her use of reversed exposed seams and in her use of jewelled safety pins and tears during the punk era.
With her bright green hair (later pink and sometimes red or other colours), theatrical makeup and art jewellery, she stamped her own clear identity on the international world of fashion. Rhodes designed for Diana, Princess of Wales, and continues to design for royalty and celebrities. She notably designed several outfits for Freddie Mercury. The early 80s gold ‘Royal’ dress shown here comes from Zandra Rhodes’s personal collection.
 Vivienne Westwood Dame Vivienne Westwood DBE RDI (1941-) is largely responsible for bringing punk fashion into the mainstream. In the mid-1970s with Malcolm McLaren, Westwood created clothes drawing inspiration from bikers, fetishists and prostitutes, which McLaren sold from his Kings Road boutique. When McLaren became manager of the Sex Pistols, the band wore Westwood and McLaren's designs. The ‘punk style’ included bondage gear, safety pins, razor blades, bicycle or lavatory chains on clothing and spiked dog collars for jewellery.
Westwood’s work includes the adoption of traditional elements of Scottish design, such as tartan fabric, and the reinterpretation of 17th-and 18th-century cloth cutting principles.
Her first catwalk show was presented in 1981, featuring the collaboration of Westwood and McLaren. The first major retrospective of her work was shown in 2004–05 at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The 1993 Harlequin dress shown here was famously modelled by Naomi Campbell.
Paul Smith
Sir Paul Smith RDI (1946 -) was born in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. He left school at 15 with the ambition of becoming a racing cyclist. A cycling accident put an end to his cycling hopes, and during the six-month hospital stay that followed Smith made some new friends. After leaving hospital he arranged to meet them at a local pub that was popular with art students. It was then that he realised he wanted to be a designer.
Smith took evening tailoring classes with Gordon Valentine Tipton, who showed him how to cut cloth as well as teaching him all the basics. Later Smith joined Lincroft Kilgour in Savile Row, where his designs were worn by celebrities, including George Best. He opened his first shop in 1970. In 1976 Smith’s first menswear collection was shown in Paris, under the Paul Smith label. In 1998, he showed his first women’s collection at London Fashion Week.
Paul Smith remains fully involved in the business, designing clothes, choosing fabrics, approving the shop locations and overseeing every development within the company. He has showrooms in London, Paris, Milan, New York and Tokyo.
The suit on the stamp dates from around 2003.
Alexander McQueen
Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (1969 – 2010) was born in Lewisham, London. He was a fashion designer and couturier best known for his in-depth knowledge of bespoke British tailoring, his tendency to juxtapose strength with fragility in his collections, as well as the emotional power and raw energy of his provocative fashion shows. He worked as chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001 and founded his own label under the name Alexander McQueen. His achievements have earned four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA’s International Designer of the Year award in 2003.
The piece shown on the stamp is ‘Black Raven’ from McQueen’s Horn of Plenty 2009 collection. You should be able to buy them in a British Post Office from today. You can buy stamps and presentation packs online here. There’s also a slideshow from Saturday’s Guardian here.
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10.05.12
A Pecha Kucha for Japan
We’re putting together a Pecha Kucha for Japan, which will take place in 2 weeks time on the 23rd of May. Just over a year after the tsunami sent shockwaves through a country and around the world, in conjunction with D&AD we’re gathering a collection of the design and communication world’s greatest stars to share stories about Japan. The idea is that we’ll hear about their visits, their projects, the influence of Japan on their work, and why it’s a place like no other. Some of them may talk about their work, some of them about how to find the best tempura. Some of them may talk about Tokyo taxi drivers or show their collection of treasures from Tokyu Hands (a famous and frankly bonkers Japanese department store). Some speakers will talk about how the tsunami has affected or is influencing their work. Who knows. But the star of the evening is already decided - Japan, and the special place it holds in so many creatives’ hearts. The format is the now world-famous 20x20 Pecha Kucha, invented by Tokyo-based architects Klein Dytham. Each speaker has 20 slides, each slide lasts 20 seconds. 6 minutes, 40 seconds, then it’s over. The ultimate presentation level playing field (well, in theory at least). Our confirmed speakers so far include: Andy Altmann (Why Not Associates)
Jonathan Barnbrook (Barnbrook)
Fred Deakin (Airside and Lemon Jelly)
Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham)
Kathryn Findlay (Ushida Findlay)
Ryohei Kawanishi (fashion designer)
David Keech (Keech Design)
Michael Marriott (Michael Marrriott)
Michael C Place (Build)
Timon Screech (Professor of History of Art & Archaeology, SOAS) and we’ll be announcing more names in the next few days.
Host and additional speaker for the evening will be D&AD past-president Michael Johnson (johnson banks), and the location is the Logan Hall in Bloomsbury, London. Through Creatives Unite for Japan, all profits from the evening will be donated to the ASHINAGA organisation to help provide Japanese orphans with educational and emotional support.
As well as updating on the final speakers, we’re going to showcase some of the speakers over the next few days. So it seems best to start with Mark Dytham of Klein Dytham, the man who hatched the idea of the Pecha Kucha format (it means ‘chit-chat’ in Japanese) in order to stop his architecture students from droning on for too long. (To be fair, most creative types can take a while to get to their point, not just architects). 
This is what his web-site tells us:
‘A child of the 1960s but ever a man of the contemporary moment, Mark Dytham was born on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, a postwar British ‘new town’. A fascination with the potential of building “the new” was instilled in him from an early age, and he pursued an education in architecture to the level of a Masters at the Royal College of Art (where he met Astrid).
In the late 1980s, Japan was the country furthest in the future. Mark was determined to see what it looked like. The urban energy and willingness to experiment that he and Astrid found in Tokyo convinced them to base their practice there, despite hard economic times. 
Mark’s entrepreneurial energy kept things afloat during the early years, and his services to British design in Japan was honored by the Queen with the MBE (Member of the British Empire) medal in 2000. Mark is a sought-after speaker, and has participated in numerous design- related events around the world. He has also taught at a number of universities within and beyond Japan.’ 
What the blurb doesn’t tell is that go anywhere with him in Tokyo and about three hundred gaijin will stop to say ‘konnichiwa’, and if you ever have the pleasure of doing a Pecha Kucha at the home of it all, Superdeluxe in Roppongi, you’ll quickly learn that he’s a rapid-fire MC as well. Anyway, here’s some more stand-out projects in case you didn’t know the work. 
Watch this space for more info on the event. You can find out a bit more here, and most importantly book those tickets here with prices from £5 to £15 depending on membership/student-ness, etc. If you’ve read this and have a sensational idea for a speaker, tweet us @johnsonbanks, #LondonPKJapan. If you’re a sensational speaker who already fits the bill and can’t believe we haven’t yet emailed, email info (at) johnsonbanks (dot) co (dot) uk and put us straight. There’s still time to fill those last slots…
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04.05.12
Coming soon: more logo mash-ups
Just a brief thought to say: we’re working on some more logo mash-ups. Here’s a little taster: what happens when a retro skate brand decides to become a social network. Full set to come next week (with luck).
These are older examples, in case you’re wondering what we’re on about - this is the original set, this was the follow-up
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03.05.12
The perils of unintentional endorsees
This week we learned that Osama Bin Laden, even whilst laying low in his Abbottabad compound, liked to make use of ‘Just for Men’ hair dye to keep up appearances on the occasional video to the troops. 
That follows on from the bizarre and widely covered story recently in the British Press of an MI6 officer found dead inside a red North Face holdall and the equally odd news that mass murderer Anders Breivik has a preference for logo-specific sportswear, specifically Lacoste sweaters and t-shirts (as ‘modelled’ at the top of this post).
From a purely branding perspective, it’s hard to see that this can transfer into good news or increased sales for these products. Do middle aged and slightly vain men really want to see Bin Laden looking back at them in the mirror? Does Lacoste truly want the kind of column inches Breivik is keen to supply them? At a stretch, you could spin the North Face story into something that matches the North Face brand – going into dangerous territory/adventure/pushing yourself to your limits... Well, perhaps not. 
The ‘all publicity is good publicity' argument surely breaks down in the face of this kind of endorsement. Burberry may not have been too overjoyed at C-list British celebrity and alleged coke fiend Daniella Westbrook being seen constantly in public in head-to-toe-to-buggy-to-baby Burberry. 
Abercrombie & Fitch were (allegedly) so aghast at Jersey Shore ‘star’ The Situation (real name Michael Sorrentino) constantly wearing their overpriced trackies that they started paying him NOT to wear their stuff and go to Hollister* instead. In an ever-present environment of product placement, brands jostling for the public eye and ‘spun’ stories, you can’t help but grimace at some of these unintentional gaffes. With overpriced consumer goods constantly chasing our attention and eyeballs and pursuing positive celebrity endorsement, perhaps it’s no surprise that sharp-eyed journalists are going to chase these negative stories, when they get the chance.
*Joke: also owned by Abercrombie & Fitch
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26.04.12
Going Grotto in Margate
During a recent trip to Margate to visit the Turner Contemporary and check out Tracy Emin’s old stomping ground, one of the johnson banks team happened upon the far more intriguing shell grotto. Tucked away down the appropriately named Grotto Hill, in the sloping streets set back from the sandy beach, is what seems like a café with gift shop. This however fronts a small museum and the entrance to an amazing underground grotto, covered in sea shells, forming mysterious patterns and pictures.
Covered in 4.6 million shells (to be more precise), this Grade I-listed structure has an enigmatic history. Discovered by a family in 1835, while allegedly digging a duck pond on their land, and opened to the public a few years later, nobody has ever been able to say when, why, or by whom the grotto was built. Difficult to carbon date due to the shells being lit by gas lamps during the Victorian times (which is also why they have a monochrome appearance now) there is no mention of it in any document pre-dating the grotto’s discovery. 
There are various theories surrounding the grotto’s origin ranging from the Romans, through the Tudors, to the Victorian family who ‘discovered’ it themselves. But one of the most convincing arguments is that the Phoenicians, way back in the first millennium BC, created this shell extravaganza, which appears to depict the journey from birth to death. 
Whoever created these winding passageways and for whatever reason, the art on show here is as much worth a visit as the Turners in the gallery by the harbour. 
The shell grotto is open everyday 10am-5pm in the summer season, and at weekends during winter (November to March). Find out more here.
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