In each issue of Suit Yourself, Creative File goes behind-the-scenes to talk with Bristol creatives in their own working space. Zuleika Gregory is a seriously multi-talented woman working here in Bristol involved in aerial, theatre, performance and design. We caught up with her at her home workspace in Montpelier.
10 ways Bristol has changed over the last 10 years
Riots, job-cuts, awful fashion and a royal wedding! We’re quantum leaping like it’s 1999 again. Why? What’s the fascination with retro-reminiscence? 10 years ago I was scooping sick out of my pockets and I remember thinking at the time ‘I really don’t want to be back here again. Thank god for the relentless future when all this will be lost to alcoholic blackouts’ and yet here we are again, reliving the past - like that’s somewhere good to go. Were the days before these days really so good that we all want to go back for a day out or is Bristol at its best now?
Since 2007, E4 drama Skins has captivated young audiences across the country. Best known for its steamy sex scenes, adolescent drinking and drug taking, is there any wonder it’s caused a bit of controversy over the last few years? But, with help from the lovable characters and storylines that have you waiting desperately for the next episode, it’s not surprising that the programme has done so well (the opening of the forth series brought E4 nearly one million viewers). With the new series that hit the small screens in January, bringing with it a new array of crazy characters, we look a little bit closer into the success and the impact Skins has had on Bristol, the city in which it’s filmed.
Stokes Croft is changing. The arrival of Cabot Circus nearly three years ago had everyone fearing the worst and we grimly expected Bristol’s cultural quarter to become whitewashed with highstreet garbage while yuppy flats were squeezed into every square inch going but in actual fact, the biggest change we’ve seen in the area has been the creation and renovation of more independent cafés and pubs than you can shake an organic, Fair Trade carrot at! New venues have popped up like The Canteen and The Arts House, old venues have been transformed like Leftbank, The Social and The Bank, and now, alongside old favourites like The Pipe And Slippers, The Bristolian Café and The Croft, the community café to end all community cafés, Café Kino, has been given a facelift and a new home too.
Read the rest of this entry »
Often there really is nothing better than meandering around the independent vintage shops and boutiques of Bristol. Whether emulating Mad Men’s early 60s Betty Draper, 80s Debbie Harry, or 90s Kate Moss, to purchase an original item from the era you are in love with is a thrill. What’s more it can take you from copycat to real McCoy, leaving you smugger than a contented ginger tom pummeling an inordinately fluffy sofa. This delicious pot of sardines just keeps growing too with new vintage boutiques popping up around Bristol all the time so now that garment of gorgeousness could quite easily be a mere whisker away! Enough of the kitty analogies, let’s pull back the dusty sheets and shine the bright lights on Bristol’s vintage boutique parade!
Bookshops are special places that exist in a dimension other then that which you and I exist within most of the time. I’m not talking about Waterstones, WHSmith or any other high street chain, no, I mean the sort of shop that upon entering time slows down as you are hit by the heady smell of ageing tomes and texts, and the cloistered rows of books impose themselves upon you. Such bookshops are dotted around Bristol but by their nature are usually tucked out of the way. If you don’t know about them, they can be hard to find although stumbling upon such a shop by accident is like finding a tenner on the street. The atmosphere is unlike anything you would find in a chain store; you invariably warm to the ambience and can lose hours poring through the volumes on offer. There’s no rush, you can dip into texts and spend ages aimlessly browsing. If your love affair with books is anything like mine, you’ll find an endless supply of delights.
1. Stand somewhere BRACING, like Clifton Suspension Bridge or by lookout at the far end of the Downs. BRAAGHH! It’s INVIGORATING ya know!!
2. The woods are always an ethereal place when the wind blows. Leigh Woods’ enclosed trees and woodland flowers work in perfect contrast with the exposed expanse of Ashton Court. Walking from the wide green space to the tree cover is like going into nature’s bosom, the branches whispering stories as they rustle in the wind.
In each issue of Suit Yourself, Creative File goes behind-the-scenes to talk with Bristol creatives in their own working space. This issue, we’re chatting with local graffiti, illustration and design duo Richt and 45rpm at Richt’s home studio in the centre of Bristol.
So what do you do exactly?
If you’re creative you want to try everything, so we do. One week it can be editing and the next designing. It’s good to jump about and keep things fresh.
How did all of this start?
The crew started in 2002. We met through a mate, realised we were into the same style of work so collaborated from then on. Working as a crew means you can bounce ideas off each other and push your work further.
Read the rest of this entry »
Winter is here people and apart from the fact that it’s bloody freezing, it’s also constantly dark. No-one likes leaving for work in the morning, feeling like its still the middle of the night and returning home under an identical veil of darkness but its not all doom and gloom - try and see the bright side! Yes, shorter days can be miserable and depressing, but there are ways that you can make the lack of sunlight seem worth while.
The first benefit is using the darkness outdoors as an excuse to really indulge in your indoor slobbery. Everyone loves becoming surgically attached to your pyjamas and slippers for entire evenings and in these winter months, if night has already descended out the window, you suddenly feel much less of a bum doing it.
Read the rest of this entry »
You’ve seen the same article published in the final pages of weekly magazines sold at supermarket cashpoints for years now – “A New You For A New Year!” Apparently we should all be so happy from the Christmas buzz, the snow, the gifts and the mulled wine that we want to translate this positive energy into a New Years Resolution List.
Read the rest of this entry »
Help save our sausages! and keep SUIT YOURSELF MAGAZINE Bristol's No.1 independent magazine
Copyright © 2008 SUIT YOURSELF MAGAZINE ONLINE - A TRUE VOICE FOR BRISTOL™ Designed by COMMON SENSE MEDIA
