Posts with tag England

Apparently the influence of vampire slayers lives forever, at least in England. Joss Whedon's beloved cult tv show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which ran from 1997 to 2003, is now being "blamed" for droves of women leaving the Church of England for Wicca.

According to the New York Post, Buffy's themes of female empowerment appeal to young women. Ladies find the Wicca religion, which they apparently just discovered on the show, attractive because women play a central role in the rituals.

Women who lead? What a groundbreaking concept! Leave it to those Brits to ferret out Whedon's "secret" avante garde gender and religion politics, and only five years after the fact. Brilliant!

No word on whether the his n' her's purple robes with gold embroidered pentagrams play any part in the Buffy/Wicca recruiting process, but we'd join just for the chance to make out with Willow.

As Kyle recently pointed out, Brits somehow rule when it comes to pulling off the ol' headgear. Perhaps it's centuries of tradition, or the fact that they don't limit their choices to ball caps -- probably a combination of both. Still, whatever the reason, it seems that citizens in Yorkshire might soon have to fight for their right to wear hats (in bars).

Yes, as stupid as it sounds, Yorkshire police are asking barkeeps to make their customers remove their hats in order to make sure that security cameras can get a good look at them. Apparently, the local cops just want to make sure that they can identify the perpetrators if any funny business goes down. To us here at Styledash, that sounds like a hard pill to swallow. You give up your hats and then what's next? Jackets? Boots? We believe the right to wear a hat, however tasteful or hideous, shall not be infringed.

[via HauteConcept]

Do you see better fashion on the ride to work than you do in Vogue magazine -- or are you stuck with JC Penny's, and dreaming about H&M? While it's certainly possible to be stylish anywhere, the fashion-forward tend to flock to a few choice locations around the globe. But where?

Forbes magazine has recently ranked the "World's Most Stylish Cities," and while some of them -- like New York, London and Paris -- are obvious, there's a few on the list that might surprise you. Here's the top 10 -- did you city make the cut?

[via Haute Concept]

Madonna is a bra-burning, blasphemous crucifix mounting sort of a feminist. So nothing about this story really surprises us. Madonna used her maiden name to buy a $7 million dollar Central Park apartment in N.Y.C., which just adds fuel to the fire -- are she and Guy Ritchie and the rocks?

Red Hot Ruby is a UK based store that offers ethically produced t-shirts for men and women. They encapsulate the "kitsch appeal good old British seaside with a little bit of 1950s Americana thrown in for good measure."

If there is one thing that we love as much as fashion it's conservation and corporations that believe in it, that's why we were happy to find The Natural Store.

This is what they say about themselves:

The Natural Store is a different type of Department Store – dealing only with suppliers who operate on a Fair Trade basis, have high ethical and moral values, or who try to minimise their impact on the environment. So whether you're after individually made organic chocolates endorsed by the Soil Association, sensual underwear in organic cotton and hemp/silk or a wind-up radio so you can tune to your favourite station, we're the natural choice.

Amy Winehouse isn't the only Brit squandering away her talent and good looks on drugs and alcohol. It seems another celeb from the other side of the big pond is always having some trouble staying away from the dark side. Agyness Deyn is reported to be doing a crash detox in order to save her good looks.

Katie Price, aka Jordan, British model extraordinaire, known for her massive cleavage extraordinaire, has her own lingerie line for George at Asda at The Worx in London. Try saying that six times fast, what a mouthful! And she decided to use the girls from her fan club to show if off. She chose women of all sizes to strip down and bare it all.

Katie, who recently underwent a breast reduction said, "I decided that I wanted girls from my fan club to model [the range] with me in front of the press so I got them to write in and then I chose six girls."

I think this was a fantastic idea! It shows that her underwear and bra's actually work on real women and it's certainly generated some press for what might have otherwise been a line that nobody was talking about. Browse through the gallery to see Katie and her fans showing off their bodies in all their glory at the collection's launch today.



Via The Daily Mail.

In the grand tradition of all things British, officials at Wimbledon -- the world-famous tennis tournament at the height of sartorial pretension -- recently spent an inordinate amount of time fretting over the decency of a player's outfit.

But it's not like someone was trying to wear an offensive t-shirt, or advertise for their sponsor by plastering logos all over their tennis gear. In fact, you could say the problem is a case of a few stodgy old people getting their undies in a bunch.

Tatiana Golovin wanted to wear red underwear -- she felt it would make her "strong and confident." Normally people get to wear whatever undies they want and no one is the wiser -- but since it's tennis, and all that running around makes the players' miniskirts fairly pointless, their skivies are usually on public display.

Golovin knew that the Wimbledon dress code stipulates that players wear "predominately white" outfits, so she asked in advance if her deviant knickers would get her trouble. After much deliberation, judges finally ruled that because the garment stopped "above the hemline," that they are "underwear and not shorts," which means they can't be officially regulated by the tournament (presumably because it'd be inappropriate for stodgy old English people to even think about, let alone regulate a lady's nether-garments).

Phew. For a moment there, I thought hundreds of years of tradition was about to come crashing down. Good save, Wimbledon. Good save.

When I first skimmed through and glanced at the information on British designer Jenny Packham, I was interested because she is the deisgner reposnsible for dressing a number of the Bond girls in the 007 series, including the most recent, Casino Royale. I was interested because Bond girls are basically super-models with ninja skills and this designer has obviously done her job. However, when I made it through to Jenny Packham's website, I was more than interested. Her collections are beautiful, glamorous, flowing, and lady-like in a dangerously sexy way. Just like the Bond girls. Of course, I was shaken, not stirred, when I saw her tuxedo for her Fall collection.

If you live in Los Angeles, Jenny Packham's designs can be found at Kitson and H. Lorenzo.

[via: StylePhile]

I've heard of an egg toss and a water-balloon toss. I've even been involved in an impromptu watermelon toss. But when I heard that the residents of Lyme Regis participate in "dead eel tosses," I almost couldn't believe it!

But it's true. Lyme Regis (for those of you who missed it on your last trip across the pond) is small fishing village 155 miles outside of London. For the past 30 years, the town has had a tradition of conger cuddling. Conger cuddling is a lot like human bowling, but instead of a ball, you use a dead eel.

Unfortunately, this year's conger cuddling was tabled, after an animal rights activist threatened to draw negative attention to the tournament because the practice "did not respect the dead eel."

The events surrounding Lyme Regis' dead eel toss highlight two major style fouls.

The first:

• Dead eels are not stylish. They are gross and should be avoided.

The second:

• Threatening anonymous emails are not stylish. Get some jojones, and use your own email account, buddy!
  

That said, I'm sure that everyone in Lyme Regis is disappointed with the way things turned out. But honestly, I think that ending the tradition is probably for the best. After all, do you really want to be known as the town with the dead eel festival?