Club of Friends (Featured on Alternative London)

Pablo Picasso said: "Art is the lie that enables us to realise the truth."

When we escape to that world of imagination and mystery, and let our mind run free, we create something which reflects who we are our and our story. We create art. Behind what may often seem obscure, abstract or even indistinguishable, there's a message. There's a story about life and circumstances, and expressions of pure delight and deep struggle.

Timur Novikov, a non-conventional artist from Russia, along with his friends, were compelled to communicate their discontent with the rule of the Soviet Union and did so through their art. 

Their message was heard. The truth was realised.

This story has been featured on Alternative London. 

Sergei ‘Afrika’ Bugaev (left), Georgy Gurjanov (middle), Oleg Kolomiychuk (behind) and Timur Novikov (right) holding a book gifted by Andy Warhol at the ASSA gallery, 1986.

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Fine art meets youth culture, alternative music, pirate video, risqué fashion and daring performance.

This is the work of the New Artists - the experimental, fluid and sexually expressive group of artists from St Petersburg in Russia – who during the 1980s and 90s, rebelled against the Soviet government through colour, shape and stroke.

Ideologically opposed to conformity and structure, Timur Novikov (a Russian philosopher and art theorist) joined with his friends to form the New Artists group and began to make art to express their dissatisfaction with their country’s rule.

In Shoreditch at the Calvert Gallery 22, there is an exhibition currently showcasing the exclusive pieces of Novikov and his eclectic group known as the Club of Friends, curated by Ekaterina Andreeva.

Exhibition and Event Organiser Lily Hall said: “They were not formally educated in art and had no access to materials. They instead used anything they could get their hands on. Their mother’s shower curtain, stumps of charcoal, old clothes, embroidered patches, ribbon, film, plastic. Anything.”

Wear it #insideout (Featured on Alternative London)

I am stoked to be writing for Alternative London; a tour group in London's East with a social conscious, unearthing London's cultural, creative and community gold, and the gold I speak of today is big. It's revolutionary. It's Fashion Revolution Day in fact. 

Today we remember the innocent victims of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh last year, which highlighted the critical need for landmark change within the fashion trade.

We're talking fashion and creating a global movement to turn the industry upside down and inside out. To expose its falls, broken kinks and defunct systems that is more concerned about the dollar amount than the wellbeing of its workers and the state of the environment.

But most all, we're talking about sustainability. A lifestyle and way of thinking that honours social and environmental values first and foremost. I talk with fashion boutique 69b from Hackney in East London on what is means to be ethical and sustainable in an industry which thrives on competitiveness, greed and power plays.

Read on for the story here …

Who made your clothes?

A simple question but one that customers, retailers, and even the brands themselves have difficulty answering.

This very enquiry reveals a lot. It bares the story of a fashion supply chain that is broken because there is a lack of awareness of whom is the face picking the cotton, preparing the leather, dying the fabric, collecting the seeds.

It exposes an industry that is premised on serving the customer with cheap and evolving choice at the expense of the health, wellbeing and quality of life of its workers. A trade where we are more concerned about the dollar amount and the value for money than the human narrative behind the article.

This is at the heart of what 69b stands for; a local women’s fashion boutique on Broadway Markets in Hackney, East London, which prides itself on delivering directional, ethical and sustainable fashion.

Started by Merryn Leslie - stylist and fashion editor for big names such as Vogue, Missoni, US Harpers Bazaar, Michelle Lowe Holder and Sandy Dalal - she wanted to do something much bigger in the fashion industry. She wanted to make a difference so decided to launch 69b, which exclusively stocks designers engaging in sustainability.