‘Fashion Is Theatre – An Experience’

[This article will date like last weeks banana and tuna sandwiches left out in the sun, but we’ll leave it up because it will get funnier the more it dates] Very occasionally we may have something important to say: LemonBelly was born out of years of working in a creative environment with actors, musicians, set designers, writers, prop makers and too many more to mention. If you’re not familiar with our brand; we bring the performance of stage and screen to our customers. Our customers literally get to submerge their selves in the set of a Diva’s dressing room and try on the clothes that were once costume on stage. All this creativity came from the theatre and it was made by humans. However, all that is about to change. At the risk of sounding out of date by the time I stop typing, I will give just a few examples of creative jobs that were viable only 2 years ago which are literally disappearing into an AI puff of smoke. If you studied and graduated as a graphic designer maybe you had a job 2 years ago… not so much now. Gone! If you were a copy writer….Gone!  If you were a junior coder… Gone! If you were starting out in marketing… Gone!  Finance… Gone! So many jobs are just disappearing and in particular entry level jobs are just not there anymore. If you just consume creative content then maybe you’ll be okay, but didn’t you notice the writers’ strike a little while ago in Hollywood and the actors coming out in sympathy for them. You must of noticed, Netflix was like a dessert; I started watching the Sopranos again from the 1990s and MadMen from 15 years ago. However, these creative types could see something very bad coming their way… An existential crises; they were literally fighting for their livelihoods. From a business point of view, why bother to pay an author or screen writer for a script when you can get AI to do it in 30 seconds for virtually nothing. This is terrifying. Or you may think it was all these liberal types getting their knickers in a twist over nothing. Maybe, as Charlie Brooker predicted in Black Mirror, you’re actually looking forward to the Netflix special featuring you (I mean you reading this), that has been generated from every single photograph of you on social media and every single message you sent any one ever. And it will all be done in one spin of a buffer wheel on your Netflix home screen. Don’t think I’m walking up and down outside my shop in Brick Lane with a sign that says “The end of the world is nigh”. I don’t need to do that anymore because we have Reddit for that kind of thing now and in any case some of our younger readers won’t even get the reference. Yes. I don’t need to prophesize doom because only last week the stock markets around the world done it for us and started selling off tech shares and it’s important to note it was tech not AI. Investors realised that the tools that we once used every day like accounting software like QuickBooks or all the legacy software that created anything artistic like the entire creative suite of Adobe that is used to make anything from stock motion to CGI to the credits at the end of a film or the text that you sprawled across your last Instagram post; they are all being sold off. The reason is because the investors have realised all these software packages have one thing in common – they are operated by humans. And humans are expensive. The stock Market sell off was sparked by Anthropic the makers of Claude AI, when they innocuously launched some new “plug ins”. What these new plug ins do is bypass the need for the humans. We are getting to the point where we won’t be using accounting software or creative software as a tool but we will instruct AI to do all these things for us. You won’t need someone to learn how to use Adobe Illustrator to make your sign for your shop, you can just tell AI. This article is getting out of date before I even finish my sentence because you know that already but what is happening now is we will be giving AI some background information and then give it an objective; how’s this for an example:   “I want to start an online shoe company with a strong brand that identifies with 18 to 24 year olds. Give the brand an identity, make the trade marks, file the trade marks, come up with a marketing strategy, generate social media content from beginning to end, create a schedule for this content. Don’t forget to register the Domaine name and vacuum up all the social media handles that we might want to use. Also, put together a pitch for finance investors with projected growth and give me some research for the demographic of customer I would like to sell to. And do it in the next 2 minutes. And don’t forget, find me some suppliers and negotiate the best price. And while you’re at it can you figure out all the postage rates for every country in the world and factor that into the price point” Don’t be silly…. You won’t have to give Claude this much information, it will just know what to do. Maybe you could just say “Claude, make a shoe brand that makes me loads of money”.  Regardless of the exact wording, we are now moving from using software and machines as tools to just giving AI an Objective to fill. So, if Claude can’t do that perfectly right now, by 2027 it will. So if you have a whole pile of money why the hell do you need anyone in-between you and your ability to make even more money. Yes… Elon, I’m talking to you. I must admit. I have been a little biased towards all the white-collar professionals and forgotten about the blue collar workers. That’s because the white-collar workers spent years training to do what they do and most of them got into debt trying to do it. Whereas, some and only some, blue collar workers may of only spent a couple of weeks learning their jobs. For example, I spent 9 years driving a bus in London and it took me 2 weeks to learn how to do it. To be more nuanced would be to say…. to become a good welder, it would take maybe 2 years and to be a real expert maybe 5 years. So, if you’re just  starting out it’s a very interesting time to be picking your profession to ensure it will still be relevant by the time you’re starting a family. As business owners we may reap the short term benefit of AI but we also have a family: Collectively our children want to be an engineers, writers, and teachers. What will AI have in store for them? Our children all eventually left our business as who wants to spend every waking minute living and working with their Mum and Dad, and they were continuously embarrassed by every idea that we ever had, and consequently didn’t do as they were told, which is a problem when you’re running a business. But now, we have some very keen shiny new humans who want to pursue a creative career in fashion and the arts and subsequently they are also ashamed of some of the things we want to do creatively but we’re their Boss, so they have to find more inventive ways of not doing what we ask rather than just telling us to our face that we are stupid. All jokes aside, we worry about them too. Just the other day I told one of my younger colleagues they need to use AI as a tool and not be replaced by it. To which the response was something along the lines of “I hate it, its killing the planet” which is true but I said if she hated it so much she needed to go away for an hour and ask it just one question: “This is what I want to do with my life, how do I get there? and give me the plan” My young colleague came back after an hour and was obviously not told by AI to immediately quit her job and get a job somewhere else where she didn’t have to dress up in a Ginger Bread Man costume as part of her job (it’s a costume shop, if you hadn’t realised). But seriously, I worry that all talented young people are being thrown under the bus and they need all the good advice they can get, even from the evil entity that is trying to replace them. The young talented people are about to be replaced, the middle management are about to be replaced. Even in London as of this year in 2026 they are introducing driverless taxis which will replace all the people that didn’t train for years to work in a profession. What will everyone do? Stay home and binge on Netflix with a drama about themselves being unemployed and not being able to afford their Netflix subscription. The answer is NO. It was about the year 2001 when I could afford my first computer, so if I’m typical of the average adopter of new technology, then the “grand upload” of all human thought, learning and skill has taken 25 years to complete where we have given the internet enough data for the newly formed AI to know everything about us and copy us and ultimately be better than us. So what is going to happen? Its not going to be everyone sitting at home learning a foreign language and an instrument like we all thought we would during the pandemic. That never happened, and it won’t happen this time either.  I predict a riot and I’m not talking about listening to the Kaizer Chiefs, I mean full on riots. I’m not sure If I’ll be getting a driverless taxi to the riots but what I will be doing will be ensuring that I have skills, I will create, and I will ‘make’ and what is more if it’s at LemonBelly I will ensure anyone who works with us has the opportunity to be creative and learn and if we use AI it will be as a tool and not as a replacement of human creativity. Sure… I know we have used AI a bit and we’re sorry but we have woken up like when people woke up and realised cigarettes aren’t that good for them back in the 1950s. Sure, there may be the odd image here and there that we’re responsible for, but we know that now. We’re not Nieve and neither should anyone else be. People shouldn’t expect that all of human knowledge is going to swallowed up in 25 years and then given back to them for free on a plate. It’s virtually free now and it will be for a few years, just long enough for everyone to deskill and be useless. Then just as your favourite drug dealer gives you your first few hits for free, your dealer will ramp up those prices as you will be hooked and have nowhere else to go. So, as my young colleague said to me the other day “AI is killing the planet” and I said “well…. In the meantime….” My idea was to take it while it’s still free and not being taxed; because we need to stay skilled and keep on being creative because one day our creativity and our skills will be in short supply and the only other vendor in town apart from AI will be you. We hope to stay true to this principle at LemonBelly and it shouldn’t be impossible, After all, we started this business with the idea that we make money in order that we can design and create, not the other way around;  or even worse, copy and sell to make money. We hope our authentic belief in creating and celebrating something original and human made and making money second is something that our customers can see and they will stick with us at the dawn of AI. Stay Strong. We will survive and we will prosper.

Anyone that is a fan of the works of the film maker David Lynch, cabaret, or the out-of-the-ordinary, will find something up-their-alley at the Double R Club. ""As the night goes on, you can tell that the host savours the power he has over the audience and is truly passionate about the acts of the night—acts that will, as Louche put it, “arouse, amaze, and amuse” the audience.""  

Attending your first festival this year and feeling slightly overwhelmed? Don’t worry, we have you covered: I have some useful strategies and some real life hacks learnt from years of jostling to the front to see the headline acts or how to get the best view a bit further back if you prefer to be a bit chill. We’ll share tips on how to make sure you don’t miss a thing, looking your best and staying totally calm and serene.  First: About 6 months before the festival, open your dating app of choice: Then look for someone...  anyone at all, that is 7 foot tall. It doesn’t matter if you’re not that in to them, remember: They just have to be 7 feet tall… You can change your personal preferences to suit and you have to be single minded and goal driven when it comes to festival weekend….. Did I mention that they should also be keen on going to the gym and should be able to lift about 80 to 100kg for 5 hour stretches at a time. We’ll talk more about this later….  I’m sure seeing the headliners is what we’re all most excited about and the main reason we bought those ridiculously expensive tickets in the first place - yikes! However, by no means does that mean the other acts should be neglected. In fact, the smaller acts are usually what make your time there worth it, since not only do they take up the majority of your day, but discovering artists you’ve never heard before for the first time and listening to them live is becoming a lost experience that cannot be beat; there’s never a better, more authentic way to discover new music than to hear it live and let it resonate with its community and the message the musicians carry through their stage presence. Wow that was deep…. My top tip to get the most out of your experience and to discover new music, would be to use the app that the organisers have made. For example: Reading and Leeds festival have an app and so do a lot of other big festivals: Get yourself and everyone you’re going with to ‘like’ all the artists you definitely want to see. This way you can ensure you all prioritise your fave artists and plan out timings of when to meet so that you don’t miss them; it also means that you can see where you have gaps in your day and decide which artists you might want to give a chance.  Another misconception for festivals is that you always have to be as close to the front as possible in order to have a good time and this is simply just not true. Of course, if you’re determined to get barricade spots for your favourite artist then by all means run for that place babe! This does however inevitably mean sacrificing seeing a bunch of other amazing sets that you may have wanted to see, since you will be saving your place the majority of the day (especially if they’re headlining). If you do decide to wait around and save a spot for 8 hours in the sun or the rain then you will have to stand around and listen to sets that are just boring while you wee yourself rather than lose your place. Anyways.... Often the back of the crowd is where it’s at anyway as there’s much more room to dance and jump around - plus this is what your 7 foot tall date was for. You can now sit on their shoulders for a better view! And remember they have to be your date and no one else’s, because only you get to sit on their shouders because you have been prepping them for six months now and spotting them at the gym and counting their bicep curls and telling them how ripped they look. So now we have your day planned and your view sorted we can now talk about the most important part of the festival: Your Outfits! (There is absolutely no bias to the fact we run a costume and festival shop… Promise.) It doesn’t matter if you’ve not managed to wash or shower properly in three days, as long as you sparkle that’s all that matters; although deodorant still might be a good idea. Remember…Festivals are a place where you can wear your wildest outfits without fear of judgement, and if someone is judging then they’re just jealous and definitely don’t look as cool as you. That’s okay though, just tell them to get down to us (blatant marketing) and we’ll sort them out. They’ll come out looking so bedazzled, decked out in full sequins head to toe, they couldn’t possibly be sad enough to carry on being a hater. You also can’t forget one of our iconic fans that we design to wave in the crowd, not only do they help with the heat but you will look super slay and may even get noticed on the big screens or even better, the artists on stage! (Editors Note: That plug was not subtle, but neither are we) Ultimately, if you apply these tips and make a trip to our LemonBelly stall in Brick Lane before your festival, there’s every chance you will have a great time as well as being the best dressed there – I mean who could possibly say no to sparkly jackets and disco helmets??!  BTW: Everyone hates packing their tent up and some animals just leave it there for someone else to deal with. Handy life hack: Instruct your 7 foot tall festival date that they should pack your tent away while at the same time slipping your backpack over your shoulder and carrying a black bag and mutter something under your breath about going to the bin. At this point leave the campsite and then proceed to change your name, change address and seek plastic surgery. And bingo! There you have it… You managed to have the best festival weekend ever, you looked wonderful, you listened to some great music and you got a great view and if that was not enough you got someone else to pack your tent away. Just don’t forget to leave all text messages from your giant festival date on unread until next year when you need a good view again. By Rose (LemonBelly)