Lily Allen: From Riches to Rags by Nick Bryans

Passions for Fashions

Here at Shouting at Cows we’re seemingly waging a war against daughters of the affluent. Following of from articles on Georgina Littlejohn, Peaches Geldof and the prevalence of nepotism itself within the media, the latest daughter to come under the scrutiny of our cross hairs of justice is Keith Allen’s daughter, Lily Allen. Now this means one of two things; either that we at fort Shouting at Cows are Trotskyite class warriors, or we’re massive sexists. You decide.

Lily Allen is a slightly different case, because a large percentage of the country thinks she is a genuinely talented singer/songwriter. The premise of her new show is that she’s had enough of singing, and wants to open a vintage clothes shop in London with her sister. Which may I say is an inspired idea; London definitely doesn’t have enough vintage clothes shops. This is going to revolutionise the capitol. It will be like bendy buses all over again, but with more public approval. The niche that their shop will have though is that you can rent out clothes if you can’t afford them, adapting the ‘Blockbuster Video’ business model, but for garments.

Imagine this, but in a figure hugging size 8.

Just to get the obvious out of the way, this show is essentially an hour long plug for Lily Allen’s new shop. It’s like the best advertisement in the world; ‘we’ll give you an hour long ad on prime time TV, and pay YOU for it!’. The program is that, mixed with a pseudo-lifestyle feature. Half the show is spent talking about clothes, the other half just chronicles Lily’s relationship with her sister, pit-falls of the pop industry and just how bloody edgy she is. I lost count of the gratuitous shots of her being edgy. They start off a bit trivial; showing them both standing on sidewalks smoking for no apparent reason, her sister trying to carry 4 beers at once, close-ups of piss-poor, unimaginative tattoos, etc. But some just take the piss, including a soft-focussed zoom-in on an ashtray. Why? Who knows; it was a shot so dreamy it would make a porn director jealous. The greatest moment though was a clip of her on stage, lamenting ‘I’d like to dedicate this song to David Cameron – It’s called fuck you!’. If her finger was any firmer on the pulse, she’d break it.

What starts as an air-headed scheme to sell 2^nd hand clothes to the dwellers of Covent Garden, turns into a logistical nightmare that ends with Allen in tears and later storming out of a focus group meeting. At the start during the buying stock phase, she loves it. They rope in Jess Morris, with 15 years experience in the retail industry, to make up for their lack of knowledge in this sphere.  She turns up wearing deep red Dungarees and knee-high heeled boots, so I can only assume that ‘perverted tradesman’ is the current look amongst fashionistas. The two of them spend £55,000 on stock (double their initial figure) and take their business model (sic) to Mary ‘Queen of Shops’ Portas. Now, Ms. Portas is another woman that has felt the wrath of out rapier wit. But on the subject of retail, this woman knows her onions. They present her with the scheme which is one of the most retarted things I’ve ever heard. I’ve seen more sensible things written in shit on mental asylum wall. Basically, they will rent dresses to people at the prices of £80, £100, £300 for 3 days. They will have to pay the full amount up front as a deposit, and if the dress is damaged they will lose the money.

Lily Allen; personified.

Now let’s dissect this for a bit; firstly, if you’ve got the money to spent £300 to rent a dress, why wouldn’t you just buy the thing? Secondly, who the fuck is going to hand £2,000 over as a dress deposit then have the confidence to wear it out, despite the fact that if someone inadvertently knocks a glass of wine or some food on it, she will be £2,000 out of pocket. Furthermore, if you haven’t got £2,000 to spend on a dress, where are you going to rustle up the cash to afford the deposit? And finally, if people haven’t got the cash to buy expensive dresses outright, what makes you think that they will have no issue with spending £100 to wear it once? I could go on for an hour, but I’ve probably lost most of you already.

They present their case to Portas, who looks at them like they just claimed that 90s pop sensation Bros and former Norwich FC winger Ruel Fox were behind 9/11. It transpires that they’ve done no market research, and the basic ideology for their shop seems to be ‘I’m Lily Allen, people will love to buy clothes off me’. She asks them if they are actually serious about this, or whether it is just a crack-pot idea. She also adds that their pricing is fucked and no-one will spend £300 to rent a dress. Lily Allen claims that ‘I’m completely deluded – I have earnt lots of money of the past few years. I would spend money in a shop that most people would gasp at – not everyone is like me’, and with statements like that, who couldn’t help but fall in love with Lily ‘not everyone is like me’ Allen?

This theme of Lily’s utter delusion becomes a prominent tenet of the show. A common theme is the different trajectories of the sisters, with one working as a nightclub manager, whilst the other being a professional Lily Allen. Lily’s utter irresponsibility with money is well documented, stating ‘I rarely speak to my accountant, I avoid my bank manager like the plague’, and when quizzed on her frivolous attitude to money, she retorts that ‘It’s my money. I earned it. Why can’t I spend it?’ For someone that claims to hate Conservative ideals so much, she doesn’t half come across like a Tory twat. Her sister on the other hand portrays herself as some sort of Cinderella figure, who had to scrimp around for cash whilst her sister toured the world, despite this being under the caveat of her working as a nightclub manager where she ‘partied her way through two decades’. Hmm, I guess earning sub-40k a year passes as a ‘hard-knock story’ in Primrose Hill.

'It's got this cool boho, alt-culture, zombie vibe that's just so in right now. Probably get about £900 for it.'

Portas states that ‘At the moment we have a Lilly concept. We don’t have a business model’ which essentially sums up the whole thing. So with countless items of clothing that no-one can afford, they go to a focus group to see how appealing their ‘Lily Concept’ is. They’re shown some clothes and explained the rental concept, of which there is a mixed reaction. When explained that this shop will be owned and run by Lily Allen, the response ranges from slightly daunted, to looks of utter apathy. This causes Allen to storm out, I can only assume because she thought that the chance to own something that Lily Allen has briefly handled would lead to people re-mortgaging their house to buy. They weren’t savaging her or anything, they just weren’t particularly bothered.

The lasting impression of the show is just how unattached Lily Allen appears to be with the average person. She seems to have no concept of the spending habits or interests of mainstream society, thinking they’d be taking out loans in order to rent something off someone famous. They had no knowledge of the retail industry, had done no research on market trends, and seemed to be pursuing the idea under the inspiration of ‘If we build it, they will come’. It had this horrible hipster-aesthetic of how piss easy it is to open a little twee shop of sorts, and that there would be a steady flow of people sauntering in to spend £600 on a dress. What struck me was how shocked Lily was when anyone disagreed with her on anything. Popping my ‘assumption’ hat on, the vibe I got from the show was that Lily had never had anyone say no to her before. She came across like a reasonably nice person that had been surrounded by yes-men for so long that the idea that she may have cocked something up appears utterly foreign. In an external interview, she claimed that she has changed immensely since the show was filmed a year ago. On this evidence, it would be hard not to.

Comments

1. Andrew Holmes says:

   March 17, 2011 at 4:14 pm

   if lily allen does 40 hours per week in a clothes shop i will eat my own (vintage) underpants!!!

Leave a Reply