20's Revival: Swing your way into the new year

It was 1930s America. The market had crashed. Alcohol was prohibited and unemployment was at a record high. The Great Depression may have brought our spirits low but a clandestine culture of speakeasies and swing music brought spirits to martini glasses, making this one of the most entertaining periods of the twentieth century.

Oscar de la Renta's homage to the Roaring 20s

What goes around comes around, fashion is cyclical. As trends from decades past come swinging around the corner it should be no surprise that they coincide perfectly with world events and public feeling from that infamous first time around. 

Hence in this time of global recession, 20s and 30s revival is everywhere. Flapper dresses and drop-waists are all over the runways and art deco design is having a comeback. Most exciting of all these renovations is the growth of the electro swing genre. 

Swing music is undeniably the perfect antidote to depression great or small. With a rhythm that leaves you no choice but to dance, recessional blues can be swept off the dance floor making way for those who choose to dance their troubles away like its 1929.

The likes of Caro Emerald and The Asteroids Galaxy Tour (The Asteroids Galaxy Tour – The Golden Age) invite us to indulge in the rich sounds of a big brass band and get you tapping your feet in a matter of seconds. The allure of the Jazz Age is soaked in gin and fun, everything from dresses made to move, to the thrill of a covert club. So why not recapture the exuberance and excess of the swing music from the time. This is more than gangsters, this is about lavish parties and dresses dipped in sequins and bristling with fringe; a little less Bugsy and a little more Gatsby.

You could say this fascination with the jazz age has been brewing for decades, but with the explosion of the electro swing genre, the upcoming release of Baz Luhrmann's film interpretation of The Great Gatsby and the drop-waisted embellished dresses gracing both couture catwalks and high street shops, this is the moment to embrace the fat cat lifestyle for the sake of a little escapism from the brutal reality of this recession.

In the interest of keeping january blues at bay I see no reason not to explore the thrills of electro-swing music, it has certainly brightened up my month already. I suggest you dip your toes into the likes of Caravan Palace and Club des Belugas. Not forgetting my personal favourite duo, The Correspondents. They will blow you away by perfectly colliding swing samples with dub-step and dance beats, there is no end to the variety of their influences and Mr Bruce is possibly one of the best front-men I have ever come across. Get involved, you will not be disappointed.

The Correspondents - Myspace

The Correspondents on Spotify

New Year New You?

Has anyone ever literally turned a leaf over? If its the kind of leaf that we find whilst on the obligatory New Years Day walk then in my experience the other side is either grotty and covered in mud and other unthinkable things, or it is nearly identical to the first side. Is this cliche really what we want to peg our hopes for the coming year on? Does the reality tell us something about the nature of a new leaf?

I am starting to see the pessimism involved in the inevitable desire to re-make ourselves, kick those annoying habits or finally go for that radical haircut. Everyone has had one of those days when we feel like changing everything about ourselves. We see a role model or friend who seems to be 'doing' life better than us and then feel the chill as that sickening feeling of jealousy and dejection grows as we realise this is who we want to be, but aren't.

Appearances are deceiving. Unfortunately this fabulous person sitting across from you is probably battling their own insecurities, possibly rooted in how gracefully you just dealt with an awkward situation or the way you never seem to say stupid things like they do. We look for the good in people, we envy them, we are experts at spotting someones attributes and yet we are terrible at doing the same for ourselves.

Although this feeling, this need for reinvention can spring up on us at any moment, but I can't help noticing that we make life particularly difficult for ourselves in January. I won't go on about all the fabulous indulgence that comes with Christmas and New Year festivities, mostly because you all know exactly what I mean and have probably been talking about it in disbelief for days. "I ate x many mince pies?!"  We might think every year that next year we'll do things differently, or at least that we won't eat enough to feed a village in Somalia, resulting in a food-coma on the living room floor. But we do. Because when it comes to indulgence, things don't change.

So it is inevitable that if I continue on with this sweeping generalisation, condemning everybody in western civilisation of being stuck in their gluttonous festive ways, I will conveniently introduce my contempt for new years resolutions. January comes swinging around with a bad hangover and fluffy memories of an over priced and underwhelming New Years Eve. Self-confidence in tatters as a result of munching more mince pies and mulled wine than we care to remember, apparently this is the moment to focus on our flaws and shortcomings? The timing could not be worse.

The pessimism of new years resolutions, sounds like I'm about to harp on about how nobody ever sticks to their new rules for living so why bother. However, as ever I am waving the flag for optimism and telling you that if you are sure this is a change worth changing then you can achieve anything you want. But are you sure it is a change worth changing? Really, what I am lamenting is the pessimism and self-deprecation involved in picking a resolution or several. Dwelling on the negative is no way to start the gloomiest month of the year. I've established that we are to harsh on ourselves and melancholy January is certainly not the time to focus on our hang-ups.

January is gloomy enough (more on that later...), so in my humble - eternally optimistic - opinion, lay off the resolutions to lay off the chocolates. There are ways and ways of reinventing yourself or giving yourself a new outlook on life. Surely with a resolution to cut out chocolate or snacks or your favourite bad habit you will only set yourself up to fail (because lets face it that habit is a habit for a reason). Yet it would be better to focus on new things to try or explore rather than depriving yourself of your favourite vices. In other words, a new years resolution to learn to cook, learn a language or go somewhere new could change your life (yikes that's cheesy) and maybe give you a fresh perspective.

I have probably contradicted myself here. If you really want to change, then I believe you can do it (this is impossible to say without sounding like a special k advert, sorry) but the likelihood is that you will break a restrictive resolution. So instead of focusing on whatever flaws you think you have, remember you're awesome and then try something new, or be sucked in to the pessimistic jaws of january.

In the meantime maybe my favourite gypsy band Molotov Jukebox can cheer you up on this windy and grey day in January...