2013 Review

Huge long blog post with tons of pictures alert- read only in cases of extreme boredom!

I decided to go back over my last year of blogs and pick out just three highlights from each month to summarise my year.

Some months it was hard to pick just three as there was so much going on, but I tried to be strict! I think it might help to see where I'm going if I can see where I've been.

Plus, it might be nice for any new readers to my blog to get caught up on what sort of things I post about :)


January

1.  Had my first photo back (I think) from a shoot in my newly redecorated 1940s style silver bedroom:

Photographer: Jim Nemer | Hair & makeup: me

2.  Had some lovely black and white nude work:

Photographers L-R: Chris Lord and Callan Tham

3.  Was on the cover of The Societies' 2013 Show Guide

 Photographer and hair stylist: Faye Yerbury | Makeup: me

Liam and I also celebrated our anniversary with lunch at the Dorchester followed by the London Eye at sunset ♥

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February

1.  Kaori's Latex Dreams editorial in Rebelicious magazine

Photographer: Julian Kilsby | HMUA: me

2.  Posted pics from Asian Couture Week, where I was a guest of Nick Knight's SHOWstudio :)

3.  Posted backstage pics from a Torture Garden fashion show for Jane Doe Latex

Nina Kate and me

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March

1.  Saw Nina Kate's husband's band, The Defiled, at Brixton Academy, along with Ghost and Gojira

2.  Full page ad for EctoMorph Latex in Skin Two magazine, as well as a fashion editorial.

Photographer: Darren Birkin | HMUA: me

3.  Photo shoot with one of my best friends, Amy Colwell, for Lady Allura

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April

1.  Toured Asia again, which probably accounts for my lack of posts; too busy shooting to write about shooting!

2.  Read The Kama Sutra and Lola Montez: Her Life and Conquests

3.  Bought lots of fully fashioned seamed nylon stockings with Cuban heels!

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May

1.  Back cover and editorial in Riot Vixen magazine:

Photographer: Luci Phillips | Styling: me

2.  Was invited to my first of many of Perou's Clownface parties

Dan and me scaring people on the tube

3.  Posted photos from my amazing trip to Cambodia

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June

1.  Fulfilled a career-long dream of shooting with Perou ♥

2.  Shot with my good friend Phine Ka

HMUA: me

3.  Shot at this amazing location with Magpie Tommy for Lady Allura, about a week before it all got knocked down

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July

1.  Went on a tour of the Tudors at the V&A followed by cocktails with Ivory Flame

2.  Lost my shit over the proposed internet porn law changes

Photographer: my long-suffering bf

3.  Shot for Fabulously Fetish with Phine Ka

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August

1.  Had a crazy time in Belfast seeing NIN

2.  Was featured in Jessie J's music video for 'It's My Party', which has had nearly 8.5 million views on YouTube alone so far.

3. Celebrated the imminenet publication of Roswell Ivory's steampunk novel with her, lots of dim sum and some free "congratulations" champagne from the restaurant, Ping Pong in Soho

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September

1.  Experimented with hair colour

Photographer: Pete Maca

2.  Got a funky new haircut by Simon Pinto

3.  Shot for Beyond Burlesque bridalwear with Dave Kai-Piper

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October

1. Lady Allura's Latex editorial in Freque magazine

Photographer: Adrian Jones | Makeup: me

2.  Fabulously Fetish launched their new website, with a whole gallery dedicated to me ♥

3.  I was offered sponsorship with Bare Skin Beauty, an all-natural raw organic skincare brand that I love.

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November

1.  Published in British Vogue, in a wedding advertorial, with Chloe-Jasmine Whichello, wearing Beyond Burlesque couture.

Photographer: Dave Kai-Piper

2.  Coincidentally also published on Vogue Italia's website

Photographer: Marcus Jake

3.  Decided to get a boob job; then decided not to, after all.

Photographer: MrGlen | HMUA: me

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December

Well, after a whirlwind rush through a year in the life, here we are getting ready for January again. December isn't over till it's over so I don't want to list three highlights just yet ;) Although visiting both the National Galleries in the same week was definitely one of them. I also represented my latest sponsor, Anathema Designs jewellery, at Collective 159 Christmas Party on Camden High Street last night, which was a lot of fun. You wouldn't believe the amount of free cake and wine I was simply FORCED to consume!

My agencies have some potential exciting jobs still lined up for me this month, but I don't want to jinx it in case I don't get them! My main focus this month is really doing things like this, reviewing my life, taking stock, reflecting, recuperating and preparing for a hectic 2014.

Thanks for joining me on the journey and see you next year ♥

Anita xx




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nine inch nails at belsonic :D aka i wear my sunglasses at night

long blog alert!!!

I don't know what happened to the capitalisation in this post; i'm feeling really sleepy today and just letting the ipad put them in wherever it thinks :p

just got back from a mental 36 hours in Belfast with my boyfriend, our photographer flatmate dan and our lighting engineer friend john! We left home at like 5am so we could be in belfast early to check in at our party hostel and get the drinks in before seeing NINE INCH NAILS!!!

We went to a bar called voodoo for vodka and soda with lots of lime wedges for me and beer for the boys that was like a dark red cave inside with a voodoo shrine behind the bar :) it's fun to be the only girl sometimes :) then to the hostel for makeup and further vodka and then to custom house square for ****NIN!!****

People kept coming up to us on the way because john looks like kerry king :)

i wore the same outfit i wore in the jessie j video: black fishnet top over black bra with comfy canvas bondage trousers, but my old steel toe-capped dms instead of 5" heels because i knew we were in for a long night of running around being silly in belfast :D

red lipstick and my giant round sunglasses all night because i left my normal prescription glasses in london so needed my sunglasses to see!!! I looked like a right fake rockstar with sunglasses + bondage pants + battered red leather biker jacket, lolllllz. Too many people at the after party tried my sunglasses on.

Anyway the gig was AMAZING. LITERALLY THE BEST SHOW I HAVE EVER BEEN TO. SO VERY FUCKING HAPPY ABOUT THAT :D :D :D Sooo worth the flight!

The crowd was small and everyone was super friendly and the light show blew my mind. It was super trippy and perfectly expressed the music and the band were perfect as always! Trent is so hot these days too!! We just raved solidly for the whole set, which was good and long!!!

last song before the encore ('hurt')! we were actually way closer to the stage but this video is far enough back that you can see all the pretty liiiiiiights woooooooo!!!

After the gig some people were going to some club called limelight (NOT slimelight, haha!) but we veered off to this pub/ club doing an ebm after party called hudson's, which was definitely the right choice as it was awesome music and awesome people! apparently they were expecting about 80 people as it was midweek but hundreds turned up :p

Dan went to bed, liam and john roamed the pub together occasionally bumping into me but i was off on my own chatting to people for the most part about lots of random things, not that i can remember all of them, lol.

the dj (fritz) played revolting cocks for us at the end of the night, and actually mixed it in so the hardcore of ebm dancers didn't notice, lol. he then got into some weird long-winded discussion with me on the way out about blade runner, which was all very confusing and mysterious O.o

I do remember chattering away to this irish guy who looked like trent reznor/ flea from the chilli peppers about god knows what (i only remember the look of fear on his face) when john came bounding up with the crucial information that his mate knew somewhere nearby where you could see a family of wild seals. WILD SEALS!

English kerry king running towards us raving about local seals scared irish flea even more, he was well relieved when his mate came back from the bar, LOL. Amazingly they did invite us back to their hotel suite when hudson's shut at 2am but i had to say no as irish flea had to be up at 7am for work... Craziness!

 photo from my shoot in brighton i had two days later inserted here to break up all the text :p new dress, new red-soled shoes!!

I asked the bar staff but apparently nowhere in belfast is open after 2am so we were like LUSH now where the fuck are we going to go?? Then john remembered that our hostel supposedly had an all-night common room/ bar so we headed back. Apparently everyone else staying at the hostel who wasn't ready to sleep had the same idea so we had our own little after after party. We don't need other people to have fun!!

I went to bed at like 5 so i could get a couple of hours' snooze before spending a horrible day lurking in the darkest, quietest pub in belfast until it was time to slope back to the airport with our sunglasses on and fly home.

Despite drinking GALLONS of water, i still wasn't really sober and got the right eye from airport security! We did look like a bunch of deep fried freaks: zombie crew in weird black clothes we'd slept in with crazy hair, and sunglasses indoors.

I got the full pat-down because of the 90 million buckles on my bondage trousers setting off the metal detectors and they went through my handbag with that drugs microphone sensor thing as well! No dice, suckers! I'd have to be a pretty dumb drug dealer to actually LOOK like a burnout when carrying drugs! If i was really going to be a drugs mule i'd dress like a fucking librarian!

Anyway, we got on the plane okay, fell asleep, got on the train from gatwick into london, slept on that, slept on the tube, got home, made kim snyder's detox tea, just about managed to drink it all before more beauty sleep for shoot in brighton the next day!!

All the water, sleep and detox tea paid off because i looked fine for a latex/ alt fashion shoot on location on brighton pier and in an old-fashioned sweet shop the next day :) the photos look really good, yay! here's an outtake from the sweetshop in lady lucie latex (apologies if you already saw it on facebook!):

 

i love my life!

The photographer, sean mccormack, was awesome, and we were even joined by one of his photographer friends part way though who was also super lovely. I also needed to repair my bank account a bit so the shoot was good timing ;)

on brighton pier in my new dress :D

On saturday i met up with the gorgeous roswell ivory for dim sum and flowering jasmine tea at ping pong soho (mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!) for her birthday and to celebrate her getting her steampunk novella published! Will be getting a signed copy of that when it's out, yep!

Ping pong gave us free champagne to celebrate with! :D

 celebrations with roswell ♥

Then we did a bit of shopping in liberty/ selfridges/ h&m (where everything is 90s now, even the dj)/ primark. I bought two my little pony tops for some reason :p one is going to get customised and worn with bowler hat and leopard print leggings for my next clubbing outfit i think, hmmmmmMMMMMMmmmmm! i think my next clubby outing will probably be to see the bug in shoreditch!

love modelling, love fashion, love latex, love doing my own makeup, love nighttime adventures and music and running around on trains and planes in various states of intoxication for all the fun times :D

*MWAH!*




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The making of Jessie J's 'It's My Party' music video (new single)

In case you hadn't already guessed from me suddenly RT'ing Jessie J last month, it was her music video I was shooting, I just wasn't allowed to say at the time ;) Now it's been released, I can blab, blab, blab!

I got picked up from my house at 4 am and driven to Malcolm Ryan Studios to shoot the video. We weren't even allowed to tweet our location in case we got overrun by a flash-mob of Jessie fans, but it just so happened that my friend Perou was shooting a billboard ad for a new Fox show upstairs, which was a nice surprise. I'm not sure us playing 'It's My Party' a million times at a million decibels for 16 hours was a nice surprise for him, though :p

Wardrobe liked the outfit I wore to the audition so much that they asked me to wear it in the video :) It's been a while since I teamed a black fishnet top with a dog collar, but turns out, it's like riding a bike ;) I did get a cool biker jacket to wear in one scene, in fact, so I could give it to Jessie at our punk party :) It's a gorgeous jacket, but I was glad to be rid of it; it was SO hot to rave for hours under the boiling hot studio lights in a leather coat!

Jessie's professionalism genuinely blew my mind. She had 100% energy on the first take, 100% energy on the second take, 100% energy on the nineteenth take, and every shot of her (from what I could tell) was perfect and looked effortless, although she must have been even hotter and more tired than the rest of us as she had to shoot a separate solo scene too.

Jessie was singing to herself in between takes when shots were being set up and so on, and my gosh, her voice really is amazing. It has an absolutely pure sound, and trickles completely freely and naturally, like running water, yet is held in perfect and light control. I don't think her records really show what she can do, maybe because then they'd be a bit much for the average pop fan to handle ;) I bet she's good live, though.

Here's a pic Jessie posted on her Instagram of the director and crew filming us in our little party rooms:

 Sorry to go on like a bit of a fangirl, but Jessie was also one of the nicest and most genuine/ down-to-earth people I've ever worked with. I'm pretty sure she'll never read this, I'm just saying it 'cos it's true ;)

Anyway... here's the actual video for 'It's My Birthday' :) Hope you like!

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