BEX has been a busy bee since our feature in issue 57 of Devolution Magazine. She’s been hard at work creating fabulous new clothing as well as writing and performing new songs. So a catch-up and new photo shoot were definitely needed. Here she talks to Gary Trueman about what she’s been up to both as a fashion designer and as a music artist.
It’s not been long since the previous interview and shoot you did for issue 57. We know you were very keen to return. How much inspiration did you get from that initial feature?
“Loads. It was really nice to see my clothes in a professional shoot setting. I’ve never seen that before, to show case my fashion properly working with a proper photographer using proper backdrops and nice lighting. It made me look at the clothes more and enjoy and appreciate them. It made me feel proud.”
Looking at the items we’re shooting today and picking a couple out in particular and where you’ve taken inspiration from for them and what your train of thought was. Let’s start with the gingham dress, it’s very retro but also retains your punk edge too.
“That one actually came about when we were on tour with Nova Twins. We were talking about different eras and how I’ve been trying not to pull all my inspiration from the late 70s and early 80s. We were talking about the 50s and being a housewife. Me and my mum were talking about aprons and how I could make a 1950’s apron dress but the Bexify it and make it more modern and wearable. I only finished it yesterday (in time for the shoot). I’ve never even tried it on so I hope it fits!”
You’ve got an accumulation of those BEX outfits we know you for with all the patches on but you’ve also customised some more girly apparel this time round too.
“Yes, I’ve made a lot of A line 60s dresses that are less Bexified, but because I made them they’re still BEX outfits. The sleeves are more puffy and they’re more girly and pulling more from all these different eras. I’ve really honed in on sewing the initial product first. Then when you’ve spent so long making a perfect A line dress you don’t want to attack it. So the union jack dress is a denim A line dress with left over denim in red and white to build the union jack on the front. It has a little pocket at the back, that’s for my in ear pack when I’m playing live. Because I’ve spent so long crafting the shapes and silhouettes of the outfits I don’t want to over attack them.”
Interesting you should mention the pocket. Why is it that women’s clothing generally doesn’t have pockets? It must be annoying?
“It is annoying. Even school clothes don’t have pockets. The female trouser pockets are sewn up, they’re all fake. I’m pretty sure the logic behind it all these companies are trying to sell women handbags as well as clothes. If you don’t have pockets you’ve got to have a handbag. They don’t market bags much for men.”
Let’s talk a little bit about colour, you always have colour schemes that work. Have you got go to colour matches that you like and have you got colours you’ve tried that maybe haven’t worked?
“I stick mainly to bold primary colours, I like red, white, blue and green and don’t venture very far from them. Every now and then I throw in a bit of brown or pink but that’s pretty rare. It’s easy and simple to stick to the primary colours, they all go together.”
We know from our previous chat that you source most of your materials locally but specifically with fabric types what is the best to work with and what is more difficult?
“I hate working with denim, but I always go back to it because it looks cool. My machine hates it. I hate working with leather and honestly, I don’t think it looks that cool, I’ve grown out of that rebellious I’m going to wear everything leather phase. I will never sew with leather. Anything stretchy I like working with because it morphs into place even if the product is wonky, it just works. I use a lot of stretch polyester fabrics for printing which are offcuts which have been sent to the local market. The easiest fabric to work with is 100% cotton. It’s a sturdy fabric, it doesn’t move and it doesn’t twist. Things like silk and fake silk are awful to work with, they do move and twist and then the product hangs wonky and just looks wonky.”
Do you therefore sometimes see someone wearing something in say silk and it’s really well made and just nod approvingly at it because you know how tough it was to create?
“You know I’m just the opposite, I’ll go in to a shop and be like ‘this is terribly made, I can’t bring myself to buy this’. Even like shoes, I’ll pick up a pair and think they’re badly made. I do tend to pick out all the flaws.”
Moving on to music now, let’s talk about touring with the Nova Twins. You got some great reviews from that and gained more fans. How was that tour for you?
“It was really good and way too short. It was over and done with so quickly but it was so much fun.”
What sort of reception did your show get from the Nova Twins fans?
“Really good, they loved it. The thing I found so interesting was that the fans were so mixed. Sometimes you’ll play a show and it’s all men or all teenage girls. There was no specific type of fan just a broad range of people which was nice.”
You played Takedown Festival recently where there were issues with the sound, but people have been saying how professionally you handled what was a difficult situation with a lot of ad-libbing. Do you think it’s the times when things don’t run smoothly that can highlight the maturity of a performer?
“I think it shows experience because if that had happened on my first gig I would not have handled it well. I have gotten used to things going wrong, but it is also like a wake up call to say right I need to get my own sound engineer now and stop relying on in house because it is one of those things that as a band we can control. It’s not happening again if we get our own sound person. It’s not only about experience though, I think it shows comfort at being on stage because it doesn’t bother me having to talk to the crowd while the sound man is trying to do his job. If I hadn’t experienced this a few times before it would have been more awkward, but I just try to make a joke out of it.”
The festival was still great though wasn’t it?
“Yes, it’s a very cool festival. It’s very well organised and the security were very nice. The food was edible too, which is good for a festival. We played another festival the next day and the food was absolutely vile.”
You’ve been taking the opportunity with these shows to play some new material as well. Are you looking to record and release anything new soon?
“It is all ready, it’s all done. I’m just waiting for everything else to fall into place before I start releasing it.”
All the admin stuff people don’t see.
“Yes. All the boring bits. It’ll be an EP and it will come out this year.”
What about the rest of the year gigs wise? Another tour with someone else, or a headline tour?
“I’m thinking about doing a headline tour in October. Nothing is set in stone right now. Hopefully someone else will take us on tour too. We’re doing Kendal Calling too.”
Is there anything you’d like to say to anyone who has come along to see you recently who were singing along to those new songs?
“Thank you for surviving the Takedown set. I promise we don’t always sound like that and you should come back again.”
A few people did comment recently that you could do a stand-up routine.
“I get that a lot. But if you wanted me to be funny now I couldn’t do it. I’m funny when it’s the most inappropriate time to be. To just crack a joke, it wouldn’t be funny. Ha-ha!”
Interview and Photos by Gary Trueman