Burberry Beijing: shaky home videos in a hi-tech age

Burberry has been making waves when Christopher Bailey dropped into town on Wednesday (with Keane in tow!) to stage a 3D hologram show of his F/W11 collection. when the invitation said 'Beijing Television Tower' we were all a little confused, but I guess it was all a bit too high-tech for your bog-standard five-star hotel. So I tagged along with A, who told Du Juan it was their mission of the night to get me in, but honestly how can anybody stop you if you're walking in with a supermodel clad in a spiked mini-dress (weighing in around 4kg) and a fierce leather jacket?

Walking into a cavernous black studio with projections on all surfaces around you, I think for me, pretty much defined the concept 'surround sound' and completely placed you in a Burberry plaid-filled alternative universe. The experience was too good for photographing, and I went along with this hi-tech thing by making my first ever iPhone 4 videos. they were hilariously shaky (due to problems of juggling clutch, phone and not spilling your champagne on Du Juan), and reminded me of the videos I used to watch on that 90's TV show You've been Framed. I tried to play it cool, standing a bare 1m away from Bailey himself, but then the junkie 'I was there' feeling in me totally had to be fulfilled that night. There is of course a much better video here of the actual thing, along with Keane's amazing set. Not that many people knew them, because I guess they never quite made it that big in China, and I hadn't heard much of their new stuff, but they obliged by playing a selection of their greatest hits from my teenage years.

My only gripe of the evening was that Bailey timed his appearance in the rather crowded VIP with Keane playing the song I'd been waiting for (Somewhere Only We Know), and I was too preoccupied with trying not to stand in the way of his photo with celebrity x, that I barely had time to focus. As for the show itself, I think we were all pretty stunned. The models looked a bit fuzzy around the edges but apart from that looked so real. I had a major debate with my friend the next day who was convinced they had been projected onto a screen. That would have been pretty self-defeating, and obviously too technically challenged to know how 3D holograms work (how many different projections does it take to cast a 3D person?) but they were definitely walking about/disappearing/morphing in real space, not on some flat surface.

bright lights, big city

neon dream // so many menus, so little time // fish balls + beef curry // more neon appreciation // how can Belvedere + coffee + kahlua ever equal bad things? @ The Pawn // vertigo @ The Upper House // LKF hills // harbour views // 70's style trams + Jil Sander S/S 2011 // french toast HK-style + steamed milk pudding

If I had to pick the one thing I love most about Hong Kong, it's the utter satisfaction the neon-light lover inside me gets from roaming the streets at night. Having spent a good three months in Beijing though, there was that feeling of travelling in from the sticks to a place where taxis from the airport cost a whopping 400 HKD (making me pathetically thankful I lived somewhere else), where tipping is de rigueur, and it's just not cool to holler at a waitress from the opposite end of the restaurant. Things to click a massive 'like' on (the consequences of having finally just watched The Social Network): fish balls (with curry or otherwise), trams, discovering the existence of crunch cake (@ Sevva), outdoor decks on tall buildings, The Pawn, exciting pineapple drinks in 7/11, Zuma, Lane Crawford on practically every corner, British nostalgia re-lived in Pizza Express, sea-views and glorious Cantonese French toast (which may take the prize for best cultural hybrid ever). I lugged my camera around only to take sporadic pictures, but the one constant in the background is the amazing Jamie who I blindly followed as she led me from backstreet diners to endless shopping to Saturday night LKF-escapades in true top-host style.

before Peter Lindbergh

The sad thing about public holidays in China is that they usually make you come in on the weekend to counter-balance the fact that you finally managed to score two extra days off work. Thankfully this Saturday, Peter Lindbergh swooped in and saved the day by giving a seminar up in UCCA along with VC, which meant we got to grab food sitting in the sun before listening to a fascinating two hour conversation between Lindbergh, Angelica, Jerome Sans, and Franca Sozzani, who just happened to drop by because she was in town. Sozzani and Lindbergh's collaboration has spanned over 20 years, and they had some hilarious and fascinating anecdotes about some of the greatest characters in the business.

On Helmut Newton; who would apparently, only ever take three snaps of anything, and when Sozzani complained about the horrible shot of the beautiful actress/model he was meant to be photographing, Newton would reply nonchalantly, without any qualms, 'but darling, she was awful'.

On Steven Meisel; 'there's only one fashion photographer for me - Steven Meisel, the others are photographers who shoot fashion'. (Franca Sozzani)

For Lindbergh therefore, it is the woman, not the fashion, which is of importance. As he said quite plainly in the talk, 'fashion is made for woman, woman is not made for fashion'. His best editorial work from the 1980s, 1990s, really showcase this as they feature women clad only in white shirts. His first cover for American Vogue in 1988, was not only a career-defining moment for Lindbergh, but eventually, as he recalls, came to signal a more seismic shift 'from rather formal women, quite perfectly styled and concerned about social integration and judgement, to more outspoken and adventurous women who controlled their own lives and were independent from masculine protection and social rules'. It is no coincidence of course, that this was also Anna Wintour's first cover for American Vogue. She had famously found Lindbergh's photographs buried in the bottom of a drawer, and saw exactly the statement she wanted to make: confident, powerful women and Christian-Lacroix-couture-with-$40-jeans.

Vogue, November 1988, by Peter Lindbergh