old is new...

Here's the fashion forecast for the winter months.
It's time to get back to nature people, let your
inner tree hugger dance free and get your hair looking
a wee bit more natural.
monkmenagerie declares that it's time for nature to
fight back! Let your colour stand out with a style
that has solid lines, mix the old with the new and 
just remember no one does colour better than Mother
Nature...

mini homes...

 

Seriously who really needs a monsterous prison sized 
home when there is only one or two of you living under 
the same roof! Cut down on cleaning costs and look to  
the homes of the future... Live mini! 

Tindersticks, The Something Rain...album review

Thank God for the Tindersticks! A band that you can honestly
say conform to no persons ideas but their own, and after reforming
a few years back have finally released an album that lives up
to their almost spiritual first. The Tindersticks have their 
drive back, they still make beautiful music and no one can
deny their musical chops but there is an intensity to 'The 
Something Rain' that hasn't been present in their previous few
outings. Stuart A. Staples is singing with the darkness in 
his soul and i think the new band members have finally 
understood what makes him tick! Few bands achieve the melancholic
dread that appears in this mini masterpiece, it kind of reminds
me of Nick Cave's Let Love In and that's a huge pat on the back.
What more can i say than to compare them to the great man's 
seminal masterpiece... Sit back, turn it up loud, pour yourself
a nice red and be swept away in the joyous darkness that is the
Tindersticks returning to fine form. 

Female style icons of now...

1. Julia Sarr-Jamois 2. Abbey Lee 3. Dree Hemingway 4. Taylor Tomasi Hill 5. Tilda Swinton 6. Chloe Sevigny

artist profile...Lucian Freud

James Vincent McMorrow...

The Master And Margarita review...

i find it hard to review this Russian classic by 
Mikhail Bulgakov because i don't have a fundamental
knowledge of communism and how it affects society,
that being said this is an awesome example of the
imagination run wild and what is possible within
the written arts. Firstly let me say that The Master 
And Margarita was written in the early 1930's but 
was banned under Stalin's rule and wasn't published 
until 1967, the premise is brilliant! Satan makes an
appearance in Moscow with a few of his best buddies
and causes all sorts of mayhem. I love seeing the 
devil as a trickster and not the all evil figurehead 
of doom the western society believes him to be, and 
his sidekicks are hilarious particularly Behemoth, a
six foot tall black tom cat that drinks, totes tommy 
guns and rides public transport. sounds interesting
doesn't it, well it is. Probably the closest thing i 
can relate it to is Alice In Wonderland (written around
the same period).
Blasphemous, challenging, sensual, sexual, hilarious,
devastating are some of the words that spring to mind 
when thinking back upon the book, i won't tell you about
the plot because my feeble mind is still trying to sort
it out, but read The Master And Margarita i promise
you that Behemoth is destined to become your favourite
fictional character...

female style icons of the past...

1.Audrey Hepburn 2.Deborah Harry 3.Twiggy 4.Marilyn Monroe 
5.Patti Smith 6.Coco Chanel

male style icons of the past..

so i thought since i am a hairdresser by trade i 
should do some shameless self promoting! Here is
the first in a series of posts about people who
i think have shaped the term style icon...

1.Prince 2.David Bowie 3.James Dean 4.Quentin Crisp 
5.Steve McQueen 6.Marlon Brando

Alexander McQueen... we miss you

Dear Alexander, 

we at monkmenagerie hope all is well and that you have finally found peace but know that the world misses you. Since your passing creativity shines less brightly on the catwalk, it's pretty boring in all honesty. Please send someone that creative spark that fashion sorely needs and say hello to the big boss in the sky for us...

Best regards, 

your friends, monkmenagerie.