Stylist Biki John on Styling Fashion Darling VV Brown!
Stylist, Biki John tells Glossy about her experience styling music and fashion sensation, VV Brown
It’s a bit hard to miss VV Brown these days as she has added the title of ‘new M & S girl’ to her already crammed list of accomplishments. Somehow, she managed to find the time in between promoting her debut album, ‘Travelling like the light’ to gain major fashion kudos by- setting up her own vintage clothing store online (www.vvvintage.com), featuring in notable fashion magazines like Pop, Arise, Volt and Vogue, establishing herself as ‘Ashish’s muse’ and taking part in a Naomi Campbell charity fashion show where she modelled with the likes of Tyson Beckford and Daisy Lowe.
I had the pleasure of meeting and styling her for a Clash editorial which seriously put me through my styling paces. Reason being, I got ‘the call’ about the job the day before the shoot, as I was struggling down Carnaby street carrying multiple press bags for an editorial I was doing the following week. However I stepped into ‘super stylist mode’ and took this job on as well, as I love to work with musicians. What made this job so challenging was the fact that I only had a day (without an assistant!!) to call in all the clothes, jewellery, shoes and other accessories for the shoot and still had to fit in the time to do major research to find out all I could about her, so that I would be well prepared for the shoot. For this job, VV Brown was to be pretty much representing herself and not playing a character for a fashion editorial- so I knew that everything I brought to the shoot that day had to be ‘her’, not who I wanted her to be (which is often the case when I style models).
On the day of the shoot, VV was such a pleasure to work with, from the second she walked into the studio it was clear that she looooved fashion, was open to experiment with new looks and was very confident about her body. So confident in fact that she suggested that we take a few racy shots of her, which I gently had to discourage. During the shoot she kept everyone entertained and in fits of laughter by regaling us with stories of her musical journey thus far as well as bringing us up to speed on what I was really interested in- her love life!
Her favourite looks of the day included an Ashish denim jacket covered in retro 80’s badges, an aqua blue harem pantsuit from Topshop, a table tennis jewellery set by Tatty Devine (she was particularly excited about this because she is an avid table tennis player) and a black multi-coloured zebra swimsuit from Beyond Retro. And from a completely vain point of view, I totally loved the fact that she was so enthusiastic and vocally happy about everything I had got for her to wear. Styling musicians is not always easy due to all the factors one has to take into consideration, so it was great to work with a musician who was only to happy to show that- Fashion Rocks!
(Pictures of the actual Clash editorial can be seen in the ‘Personalities’ section of www.bikijohn.com)
