Yuletide Greetings!

A Christmas Treat at WAH nails, Dalston, London

Nail art for Christmas? Yes please! I have been wanting to visit the cult nail art salon in Dalston for ages but have never got round to booking an appointment. Until yesterday when my friend and I decided to take ourselves off and get sparkled up for Christmas!

Wah nails is a revolutionary new nail art bar (opened for just over a year) in East London making nail art cool with their up to date styles influenced by the latest fashion trends. It has completely taken off as the latest 'must have' and they have now opened a boutique in Topshop and more to come. The brainchild of Sharmadean Reid, who is a stylist and fashion editor and has always had a passion for nail art. Sharmadean wanted to create somewhere that not only was a professional creative nail bar but also a community space for girls, where artists can display work, and girls can hangout and drink tea! The name 'Wah' comes from an expression of attitude, it is also the name of her online magazine.

I decided on studs whilst my friend Famie went for Chanel c's both on black!

BLACKLOG EDITORIAL #2: Karen Walker S/S 2011 A Perfect Day by Yasmine Ganley

Karen Walker's Spring/Summer 2011 collection made a colourful splash at New York Fashion Week in September, and with summer upon us, what better to shoot as our second Blacklog editorial. Black fashion director Rachael Churchward mixed a selection of super cool desirables from the range with Karen Walker accessories, shoes by Beau Coops and Pointer - both for Karen Walker. Yasmine Ganley captured new face Liza @ August.

Photographer: Yasmine Ganley
Fashion Editor: Rachael Churchward
Hair & make-up: Natalie Dent using M.A.C cosmetics
Model: Liza @ August Models
Fashion assistant: Helle Weston

Eco Bottles - Where It's At

The forward-thinking folk at ESP (EcoUsable South Pacific Ltd) have teamed with Huffer to create a drink bottle for your entire summer. No point in buying thousands of plastic water bottles that could end up in a swirling maelstrom in the middle of the Pacific when you can buy one, stylish, reusable one. They say that this is the bottle that puts sustainability in your hands. Nice line. To add another, Huffer's Dan Buckley says, "Eco bottles are where it's at, buying plastic bottles twice a day for your water supply isn't where it's at." We've been trialling one and the other valid point is that it tastes better too as after a couple of refills the plastic ones taste, er, plastic. The bottles are on sale at Area 51 stores nationwide and online at The Huffer Store.

Pearly Queen of Mulberry

Two queens and a jack

Those of you that have read the latest issue of Black will have noticed the story about our London Correspondent Lucie Marquis (above left) and her foray into creating 'walls' of fashion in various locations with Supermarket Sarah and designing t-shirts and jewellery as one half of the Pearly Queens. Lucie is a talented designer and plans to launch an eponymous label in the future. In the meantime she started work this week as a senior designer at Mulberry, suggesting the British label knows talent when it sees it. Very proud of her and can't wait for the Lucie bag!

BLACKLOG EDITORIAL #1: Ann Demeulemeester @ Wunderkammer by David Shields

As mentioned in a previous post we are going to shoot and publish editorial specifically for Blacklog. For the first of these we shot a selection of current and recent Ann Demeulemeester at the Wunderkammer showroom. David Shields took the pictures and Rachael Churchward teamed Ann D with Wunderkammer Jewellery. Thanks to Mark and Zora for letting us have the space for an afternoon and letting us play amongst the many things of wonder within.

Photographer: David Shields
Fashion Editor: Rachael Churchward
Assistant Fashion Editor: Mark Crane
Hair & make-up: Natalie Dent using M.A.C Cosmetics
Models: Taren Cunningham @ 62 Models, Jason Kramer @ Red 11
Fashion assistant: Helle Weston
All clothing and jewellery available at Wunderkammer, Ponsonby Road

What a Rekkit!

We really like the look of a new club night happening at Auckland's superbly-tucked-away venue, Tabac. Rekkit is the brainchild of one of Auckland's musically knowledgeable young impresarios Dylan Cherry, and launches on January 14, 2011 with the talented (but nervous) Pikachunes supported by Mellow Grave, Forest Spirits, The Be Cool Experiment, Brian Foster and Strange Beast. According to the snazzy opening night video animation, entry is free if you dress as a Pokemon and they may even buy you a drink.  Rekkit was of course a great 1997 tune by Death In Vegas. Auckland's emerging, intelligent, alt. generation. Love it.

If only...like Deadly Ponies

Deadly Ponies' Liam Bowden has given us his three remaining scarves - as per this image from Black 13 by Stephen Tilley & Rachael Churchward - to give away to Black Mag FB page or Blacklog readers. All you have to do is fill in this sentence in a comment on the post on our Facebook Page to be in to win one:

If only..................like Deadly Ponies!

We'll choose the three most interesting ones this Friday. Offer open to anyone, anywhere...here's a pic of the scarf itself....we have one of each colour: beige, mint green and rose...

Helle's Fine Feature

Photo: David Shields

As we are about to publish our first Blacklog editorial, shot last week by David Shields at the Wunderkammer showroom here is a shot from the day of Helle Weston who was on the shoot for work experience as a fashion assistant. We were quite taken with her style close to the ground; wicked tattooed feet by her boyfriend Luke MacPherson housed in a pair of Costume National heels - the stylish Mallard duck was impressed too. Luke has been a tattoo artist for eight years in Auckland, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Prague, Tokyo and Los Angeles. You can contact Two Hands Tattoo in Ponsonby for bookings and more info in 2011...

Play It Again, Strangeways

Strangeways Radio music library from A Fine Frenzy
 to Zwan (below) is extensive and growing quickly 

There is no shortage of good radio here in NZ, the BNet stations for example would all rank highly on a global standard of good radio, but a recent proliferation of online radio stations means that there is even more opportunity to streamline your listening tastes to suit any given mood. One such station, Strangeways Radio, will be of interest to indie fans as an alternative option, although 'indie' is too generic a description. Strangeways sounds British, partially because it is the name of a famous Mancunian prison, but also because much of the station's sound could be described as British - "dreampop, trip hop, Brit pop, shoegaze, electronica, indie pop, indie rock, post punk, dark wave, alt. classics" - the genre tag on the station's front page announces. Strangeways Radio is based in the USA, the brainchild of one DJ Mikey and is only 6 months old but is gaining traction fast with shows by the likes of Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins), Detroit indie legend Darren Revell and Matt Sebastian, founder of legendary college music blog 'Slicing Up Eyeballs.' Highly recommended...

Kia ora Santiago!

This morning we discovered in the admin insights on the Black Magazine Facebook page that we have reached the not insubstantial number of 500 fans that reside in the beautiful Chilean city of Santiago. That puts the city up with New York, Sydney, Paris and London and ahead of the next best South American city Buenos Aires on 416. We are unsure why so many people from Santiago have gravitated towards our page but we are really happy about it. Maybe we should talk to LAN Chile about a trip over there.... In the meantime we will buy a nice bottle of Chilean wine to celebrate. Thanks Santiago...

Naveya & Sloane's romantic jewellery

Photo by Daniel Max

It's no secret that we are big fans of jewellery here at Black Mag and there are an increasing number of local jewellers to be excited about. Rachel Sloane's Naveya & Sloane is one of these. Sloane was womenswear designer at Huffer for three years before working as a patternmaker for NZ's longest running and most loved TV show, Shortland Street. Whilst creating one-off pieces for "The Street" Sloane started to sketch jewellery designs on her pattern paper and her first range is now realised a little over one year later. Sloane describes herself as "a hopeless romantic," and her sentimentalism is inherent throughout, including in the genesis of her thinking; "a notion of a parachute falling from the sky and into my hands." The parachute motif appears on most of her pieces, usually within the clasp, and she pulls no punches on the fab packaging - large, magnetised glass boxes that give many a luxury brand a run for sheer desirability and usefulness - ours now houses a special piece of crystal - but of course, is just as useful as a safe place for the jewellery. Naveya is a fictitious character created by Sloane as a muse for her design and branding, we love the stories and thinking behind the collection which is broken down into four parts; Tulipa, Stain Glass Secrets, Miss Me and Killed By Kisses. Naveya Sloane is stocked at Platina and Steve Haywood.

Blacklog Status Update

There have been a few changes lately on Blacklog and over the next few months you will see many more as we ramp up the quality and quantity of content that we create specifically for Blacklog. Black Magazine publishes twice a year so there is plenty of time in between to publish blog specific fashion shoots, interviews, profiles and stories. Over the past couple of weeks we have published lengthy interviews with James Dobson and Kevin.Murphy style master James Furness, several more are in the pipeline. Yesterday we also shot our first Blacklog editorial; Ann Demeulemeester and Wunderkammer Jewellery with photographer David Shields. Black fashion director Rachael Churchward worked with Wunderkammer's Mark Crane to style Taren Cunningham @ 62 Models and Jason Kramer @ Red 11, hair & make-up by Natalie Dent using M.A.C Cosmetics. We'll post that shoot shortly.

Our belief in the value of both online and offline platforms for independent publishers dates back to 1995 when we published Planet Magazine here in NZ. We decided there and then, when most people didn't even have email, that we would publish Planet online - we could see the future. The only problem was that we were too far ahead of our time, it took over a day to download one large picture, so an image heavy online magazine, despite being a great idea, has only recently become a reality due to the advent of broadband. Interestingly, the photographer for the main shoot of our first online issue of Planet was none other than Paul Empson, who is right now in Sicily with June Nakamoto and crew shooting for Black 14. So please do click the wee tab on the right and 'follow' us or 'like' us over on our Facebook page, if you haven't already. Your support means a lot to us....have a swell day...

Grant & Rach

TalkBlack with Kevin.Murphy's style master James Furness

50's is good!

Kevin.Murphy style master James Furness was recently in Auckland to educate and spread the good word about the fab Australian hair brand. Grant Fell and Rachael Churchward sat down with him to discuss his path from opening United Notions salon in Ballarat at age 18 through to the K.M products like Powder.Puff and Motion.Lotion that are taking the hair world by storm. All photos from the Stephen Marr, Department Store event by Stephen Tilley.

Thank God it's sunny...

....because in England it's freezing. Here is a pic from our London correspondent Lucie Marquis yesterday. As the Pohutakawas blossom and the cicadas start to sing here in NZ, the snow falls in London. Both scenarios, beautiful...

High St. Guild's Lucky Christmas Shop

Love this idea from the enticingly named High St. Guild. Opening on Dec 9, High St Lucky Christmas Shop is a pop up store held within a venerable High Street location, downstairs at 33 High St. The sweaty, low-roofed, strangely-angled space formerly known as The Box, arguably Auckland's greatest nightclub, is set to become an enchanted forest of mystery gifts. The gifts are already wrapped but will include donated goods from High St. retailers Workshop, Zambesi, Kate Sylvester, Hotel De Brett, Cassette #9, Pauanesia, Rakinos and many more. Best of all though, all proceeds go to the City Mission, who offer so many with so little, a better Christmas. As the invite says, "the surprise is in the giving..."

New Face: Liza @ August Models

Photographer (among many other talents) Yasmine Ganley worked with Black fashion director Rachael Churchward and hair & make-up artist Natalie Dent to shoot Liza, a beautiful new face from August Models on the weekend. Liza is of Ukranian descent, and ticks all the right boxes effortlessly - definitely on our Blacklist of new faces to watch for 2011. Liza wears: Dress by Kate Moss for Topshop, brogues by Pointer for Karen Walker, vintage hat.

Jess Grubisa's otherworldly glamourous 80's African Queen

A Jessica Grubisa creation

All backstage photos by Matt Benns

When Whitecliffe's third year fashion student Jessica Grubisa designs a collection she always does so with one woman in her mind. This year, her fantastic collection entitled 'More Money, More Problems' was built around an "otherworldly glamourous 80's African queen," that basically, "jogged in Chanel." To accessorise her signature pieces Grubisa busts a move with high top fade afro headpieces and black full-face make-up, creating a classic hip-hop (think BDP, Schooly D) vibe entrenched in the mother continent. "The headpieces are my interpretation of a high-top fade - the birth of hip hop in the 1980's - everybody donned high, flat afros. I love this look and wanted to have a bit of fun with it," says Grubisa.

M.A.C AIDs Fund milestone in NZ - $1 million raised this year

Today is World AIDS Day, a day that is close to our hearts on Dec 1 every year, and this year, there is something special to celebrate here in Aotearoa. One million dollars raised in NZ for the M.A.C AIDS fund purely from the sale of M.A.C Viva Glam lipsticks, a significant milestone for the visionary make-up company and more particularly the NZ team headed up by Jodie Matthews and Tatum Savage. To date $190 million has been raised for the cause through the Viva Glam programme so $1 million in a calendar year from a country the size of NZ is a serious achievement. We were honoured to have been invited to a luncheon yesterday with media and members of the Body Positive and Positive Women organisations - both of whom spoke eloquently and openly about just how important the donation from M.A.C is to keep these groups going - it is literally the most important source of income in growing these support units for people living with HIV and AIDs related illness in NZ. It was fantastic to see a team of M.A.C make-up artists acting as waiters and assisting in the cause as they do on a regular basis, there is a genuine partnership at work here, and around the world, between the cosmetics giant and the many organisations dealing with one of the world's most deadly diseases. M.A.C NZ announced a further $70,000 in extra support for the Positive Women foundation in Auckland - utterly admirable and heart warming. Congratulations to all concerned including those who buy the lipstick and retailers who take no margin...you can wear a ribbon to mark or at least talk about the subject but as they say at M.A.C, "Every day is World AIDS Day."