Archive for the ‘PAMFLET PRESS’ Category
Que es Pamflet en Espanol?
Last month we were e-interviewed by Sofía Ruiz de Velasco (muchas gracias) for the fashion blog on the El Pais website and the write-up – ‘moda, arte y feminismo’ -went online this week. If you can read Spanish, then check it out here and if you can’t, well have a look anyway! I still like to think I’m vaguely familiar with Spanish (a now rather ancient A-Level, topped up with near-yearly holidays where much food and drink vocabulary is utilised) but it’s not good enough to translate a journalistic piece. Needlesstosay from a scan through plus readings from key experts (better qualified Spanish-speaking friends) it’s about us and Pamflet and it’s nice!
***we can’t currently put accents etc in our blog titles – lo siento – we know they should be there (above).
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2011: the best bits
Gracious, it’s been an eventful year for Pamflet; we’ve had lots of adventures and made some amazing new friends, so pour yourself a glass of sherry, crack open that third box of After Eights (what?) and revisit some of our highlights with us.
The birth of the Pamflet salon
At the beginning of this year we decided we wanted to reconnect with readers in the way we used to when we threw a party to launch each issue of the zine. The Pamflet salon was also born out of our book club, where we found we’d spend as much time eating, glugging wine and talking about our careers, dreams and aspirations as discussing the poor paperback. The salon is a place where women can meet, share their experiences, talk about books, fashion and anything they want and also listen to an inspiring speaker. 
We couldn’t believe it when Luella-freakin-Bartley agreed to read from her Guide to English Style at our first salon to a rapt audience that included her mates, Katie Grand and Stuart Vevers. Holy crap. Popping up on Love’s Twitter feed and appearing in Style was a pretty spectacular way to launch the newest bit of the Pamflet empire.
Kiss that Grrrl
In April we were invited to attend an intimate live show by the lovely Kate Nash at Bush Hall in west London. We’ve been fans of Kate since back when P interviewed her for Glamour and A-M bumped into her on the tube back to Harrow (true story). A brilliantly original musician and now right-on campaigner for more girls in rock (with her own all-girl live band), she’s a popstar we can properly believe in. AND WE GOT TO GO TO HER AFTERPARTY.
Nice day for a Royal Wedding
In April the entire universe watched Kate Middleton marry her Prince Charming in a heartstoppingly beautiful McQueen gown designed by one of our ladies of the year, Sarah Burton. We gathered friends to watch the ceremony and one of our delightful guests, super-stylist Rebekah Roy, documented the event on her blog, Styliststuff. 
Union Jack hankies on heads, waving flags, shedding tears, roaring Jerooosalemmm, stuffing in Eton Mess, glugging Pimms and climbing trees, it was a wonderful day. Now what will we do for the Diamond Jubilee?
Can we come round for dinner?
TV chef and author Gizzi Erskine champions the kind of delicious grub that we actually want to (and can) make again and again and has an intriguing backstory. The ex-body piercer, occasional DJ and expert beehive whipper-upper is not your typical daytime telly personality and we love her for it. She was the perfect guest to talk about her food/music/style passions at our June salon.
PORT ELIOT
One of the highlights of our summer (or more like the DECADE) was a trip to the countryside with our boyfs and friends Jen and Sharon for Port Eliot Festival, the St Germans’ annual literary/fash/fizz knees-up on the picturesque Devon/Cornwall borders in late July. On the friday we talked zines and indie publishing with Craig Taylor (author of Londoners) on the Five Dials stage and had until Sunday to psyche ourselves up for hosting a day-long salon in the Wardrobe Department. We had to miss Kate Winslet doing a reading (and breakfast) to set up, but over the afternoon we welcomed some wonderful visitors to our makeshift bedroom complete with feminist bookshelves and leopard bedspreads. Susie Bubble, Katie Kitamura and Jazz Domino Holly all hung out on the cushions as did local Devonites Isabella and Ellis Taylor. In the absence of any musical talent whatsoever, our weekend at PE with our ‘artist’ wristbands is the closest we’ll ever get to being rockstars. #dreamcometrue.
After meeting Jazz Domino Holly (whose intricately crafted quilts graced several stages) at Port Eliot, she was a must-book for our autumn salon and joined us (accompanied by her grandmother!) to discuss her debut hardback Queen of Crafts to a soldout audience. Oh, and we also played some songs at her booklaunch at Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club. Thanks Jazz xx
We watched: ALL ABOUT EVE, POTICHE, THE WOMEN, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, BLACK SWAN, BLUE VALENTINE, WHO TOOK THE BOMP?…
We read: NOTHING TO ENVY, STASILAND, HOW TO BE A WOMAN, LANDFALL, GIRL READING, THE LONG GOODBYE, ALICE MUNRO, DIARY OF A PROVINCIAL LADY, THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, WHY BE HAPPY WHEN YOU CAN BE NORMAL?…
We listened: I’ve always liked joke genres and have embraced the idea of witch house almost as much as I did electroclash in the 00s. This year my fave spooky ladies Zola Jesus, Austra, The Kills (50% lady), Creep and PJ Harvey all made music that I’ll still be listening to even when the words witch house are only uttered at Halloween. Now that LCD Soundsystem have finally, tragically split, seeing their DFA labelmates and brothers-in-electropop Holy Ghost (spooky by name, not by nature) on my 30th birthday in Paris eased my loss (symbolic and actual) and felt like a very good way to get old. (a-m)
All our salons have been hosted by the lovely Kristie and Coralie at their vintage emporium/tearoom/crafty hangout, Drink, Shop & Do. We admire their spirit, style and business-savvy skills at running this flourishing spot with such success. So much so, in fact, that they were able to expand into the next door sex shop’s basement space, transforming it into London’s hottest new club, Drink, Shop & Dance. We were honoured to be invited to the gala opening night (nice trumpet playing!) and to revive our beloved Pamflet parties with a Christmassy, cava-fuelled bash. As well as taking to the decks, we handed over control of the music to a new generation of Pamflettes – Georgina Langford, Kelly Morris, Verity Douglas and Georgie Okell.
Out of everything that’s happened this year, the best bit has definitely been making so many new friends – super-smart, funny, fiesty young women who are discovering what feminism means to them and putting it out there. Being part of that has been a privilege. Honourable mentions also go to our chief cheerleaders, confidence-boosters and spirit-lifters Cate Sevilla, Sarah Drinkwater, Rebekah Roy and the members of the Pamflet bookclub.
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friday bits and blogs
Blogs>>> The week started with an evening at the January edition of the Oh My Blog workshop on Mastering Social Media hosted by Bitchbuzz.com‘s editor Cate Sevilla and guest mentor the Twitter/FB expert Mauricio Samayoa at the TechHub near Old Street roundabout. Cate and Mauricio each did slick, friendly presentations and there was an informal, supportive atmosphere (mmm wine) amongst the 20 or so bloggers in attendance meaning that everyone was happy to share their questions and knowledge with each other. I was scribbling away throughout, but the one thing that Mauricio mentioned that I remembered without looking at my pad was TweetStats, a tool which analyses your activity on the site. It’s a good way of checking how useful/effective your tweets are by collating data on your top @s and RTs. Made for some slightly terrifying stats when I checked ours but nothing unexpected!
After the workshop wrapped, we headed to the pub across the road for some proper chats and old fashioned social-networking (facetoface!). I’ll definitely be at the next Oh My Blog and have major respect for Cate – both for launching the fabulous Bitchbuzz and for sharing her expertise and connecting internet peeps through OMB.
Bits>>> Last year Phoebe and I were interviewed by Jade Warne, a features writer for Australian fashion magazine Shop Til You Drop about style zines and the piece has just appeared in the new issue of the mag. It’s always flattering to be included in zine features even after all these years, so thank you to Jade for contacting us. I’ll post the scans shortly, but in the meantime you can read them at Girl With a Satchel.
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Phoebe on girls-dressed-as-boys in TWIN 3
We’ve been fans of TWIN for ages and so I’m thrilled to have a story in the third issue of this biannual ‘art, fashion and feminism book’. Features Director Aimee Farrell has been a staunch supporter of Pamflet for years – in her Vogue guise she got our humble pink publication onto the pages of that illustrious fashion bible.
When I told her about my fascination with les garconnes – the Parisian women in the ’20s who dressed in masculine clothing to subvert social norms (and inadvertantly kickstarted one of the most enduring looks ever – the androgynous style beloved of everyone from Marlene to Madonna, Gaga to Katharine Hepburn), she asked me to write about it for TWIN.
I was more than happy to oblige and began researching the subject further, with the photo by Jaques Henri Lartigues (top) as my starting point. There’s surprisingly little out there about these fascinating women who ran the spectrum from Parisian socialites to suburban secretaries, but while playing detective I interviewed all sorts of cool people – Garance Dore for her take on the modern garconnes in Paris, the London College of Fashion’s Agnes Rocamora and academic Vike Plock to make sure I had the literary side of things covered.
But I’m not going to reveal too much – visit the TWIN blog for daily cool stuff and to find out how to purchase issue 3 featuring moi! //phoebe www.twinfactory.co.uk
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ABSOLUTELY NO REGRETS.
above: pamflet details in the acknowledgements in fanzines
above: description of pamflet on our page in the book
above: pamflet 1 alongside journalist leonie cooper’s 2005 mag revolution (which i contributed to) and other noughties feminist zines. this might be the only time i’ve wished that we had a cover. why don’t we have a cover?
we are honoured that pamflet issue 1 is featured in the LCC’s Teal Triggs’ new book on the history of fanzines. i don’t think that either of us could have ever imagined while scribbling away the pieces that would make it into pamf1 on post-it notes at deadend temp jobs that we would ever be a part – however small – of zine history. COOL.
i couldn’t wait to pick up my copy of fanzines at a D&AD event in Soho last night where Teal had invited Cathy from Arty mag, Alex from Fever Zine, Laura from Savage Messiah and Neil Boorman of Sleazenation and Shoreditch Tw£t to each do a presentation on their publications. I was particularly intrigued by neil’s place on the bill, having collected issues of his hipsterSCN rags [twa>t and sleaze] during their fin de siècle, hate-filled heydays and read his anti-capitalist-breakdown-plimsoll-memoir the bonfire of the brands.
i was glad that i got a comfy seat on the floor as the zinesters crammed through the door on berwick street because neil’s presentation was completely unexpectedly bloody hilarious. he remembered the tw?t [which ran out of 333 on old street as a glorified listings leaflet for the club] as an ‘outpouring of self-hatred’ on the part of its various illustrious contributors who ‘questioned what was cool’ and admitted as his presentation drew to a close that he was glad that they finally ended it around the time of the notorious guardian weekend pastiche issue because: ‘SHOREDITCH TWAT DESERVED TO DIE’. although he claims to be a recovering hipster, neil continues to have excellent hair, shoes and (unbranded) clothes.
hmm anyway, so was shoreditch tw!t, with its blatent ads and barely disguised uber-marketing agenda even a zine? i wondered as i perched on a cushion and flicked through fanzines. in the book – and last night too – teal’s remit as an expert and collector is broad and she’s collated hundreds and hundreds of publications which document subjects as diverse as periods, football, philosophy, pets and american sorority culture to tell the zinestory.
what links all of these pamphlets, manifestos, magazines, leaflets and fanzines, is that they each existed outside the mainstream, speaking for individuals, friends and communities with shared-interests rather than companies and advertisers.
they didn’t need a brief, a house-style or rules.
so fanzines/independently published mags/printed out from yr work PC and photocopied in yr at the weekend then stapled together/punkpublishing/whatever – fanzines made me hope that print is NOT dead yet.
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Pamflovin’
"It makes me feel less despair to know that somewhere deep inside the Jordanization of modern Britain there are still a few angry feminists out there." Zadie Smith
"Pamflet is the photocopy-quality soapbox for two young, sarky post-feminists from London who want women’s rights and the right to wear pretty things, and want it, like, yesterday." Sunday Times Style
"They’re funny and honest and write about fashion with feminism so I’m obviously all over it." Tavi
© Pamflet 2016
