Freak Out: The Body as a Canvas

Style expert Susan Muncey looks at the trend for extreme body art, which has entered mainstream fashion design and culture... A far cry from bespectacled, retro-inspired geek chic – or the homogenized 'normcore' look, is the trend for increasingly extreme tattooing and body piercing. Although tattoos have been around since Neolithic times, and 5000-year ... Read More...

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty

Susan Muncey reviews the major Alexander McQueen retrospective at the V&A and marvels at the late designer's constant creativity... Commercial yet contrarian, Lee Alexander McQueen CBE (17 March 1969 – 11 February 2010) inhabited a parallel world to most of those around him. Being so rapidly catapulted from council house kid to multi-millionaire couturier ... Read More...

‘A man with no talent should have a tailor’ – Sebastian Horsley’s Red Sequinned Suit

  Susan learns the story the striking red suit worn by the late, lamented, notorious artist Sebastian Horsley... The star attraction at this year's Visuology Lecture, which took place at Viktor Wynd’s Museum of Curiosities (apart from innumerable specimens of taxidermy, twisted ephemera, macabre and medical memorabilia), was Savile Row tailor, Richard Anderson. One of the ... Read More...

Recycled Candy Kitsch

Resident style guru and trend-spotter Susan Muncey looks at the garish world of candy kitsch... Candy kitsch is a trend that won’t go away. From the 1960s to the ‘80s, American toys like Barbie, My Little Pony and Care Bears transformed the colour palette of the young wardrobe. During the 1990s, when many international brands ... Read More...