A TRIBE CALLED NEXT GIRLS
A Tribe Called Next is a website like no other. Since it's launch in March 2008, it has been hyped as "one to watch" by the Guardian no less. Consisting of ten bloggers, all from various corners of creativity, ATCN has leapt into the heart of the blogosphere keeping us informed on all that’s cool. The Tribe girls are in a league of their own; all beautiful, intelligent and unpretentious. They entertain and enlighten whether discussing politics or nail polish. Here they let us into the secret world of the Tribe...
Name: Phoebe
Age: 21
Hometown: London Town
Now Lives: London Town
Name: Specks
Age: 22
Hometown: Birmingham
Now lives: Highbury
Name: A Book
Age: 22
Hometown: Islington
Now lives: Islington
Name: Shenanigan
Age: 28
Hometown: London
Now Lives: London
Name: Mr W
Age: 22
Hometown: Philadelphia via Ipswich
Now lives: Brockley
P: I always wanted to be an actress. Which is bizarre, now that I've grown up to be a staunch realist and probably the shittest liar you've ever met. I didn't even like playing imaginary games as a child.
Sh: Probably a fashion designer above all the choices. Or a singer, dancer, artist or actress, I was lucky enough to touch on some of them.
Sp: I always knew I wanted to be creative in some way. I loved everything, from play dough to art at school. More so, I wanted to make the ideas I saw in my head look just as amazing on paper. I was always a bit of a geek at school so art was a great way to express myself and remains a huge passion of mine, but for the meantime, I’ve put the pens and pencils down.
A: Taller. I can actually recall always wanting to be taller. Other than that, it was all the cliché’s in the book – actress, Cinderella or one of the stuffed animals from Sylvanian Family. Then it was a doctor, then an astronaut.
M: I wanted to be a singer when I was a kid, I thought I was gonna be the next Whitney Houston. But when I realised that I couldn’t sing, I decided to be a Diva.
Some of you are students - tell us about your career path - education, internships, first jobs?
P: Started on the internship path early at Elle Girl at the tender age of 13. Since then I've interned for Elle, GQ, TRACE (NYC), Ocean Drive (Miami) and a few other magazines. I've also worked as a researcher for various film production companies. My most formative working experience came in Summer 2007, when my good friend Magdi gave me a job at his sneaker store Slammin' Kicks. I’m now completing a history degree at UCL.
Sh: I studied Art and Design and told my tutors I wanted to be a stylist so they put me in photography? I suppose then they were not sure what a stylist was. I studied at The Surrey Institute of Art and Design and majored in Fashion Promotion and Illustration but then skipped to fashion journalism. I worked as a columnist for Touch magazine but my heart was in styling. I remember just starting off by telling people I was a stylist and did my first test with a photographer, it was then exhibited in a gallery and the rest is history. Now I just enjoy baking.
Sp: I have just graduated this summer from university. I literally spent my four years at university bumming around and living the student dream. I spent my third year of university studying at the university of Toronto and kind of just made the most out of being a student while I could. As a result, I’ve got zero work experience and am currently trying to beg, borrow, steal a more impressive CV. it definitely feels like I’m at a career junction. Anybody interested... give me a shout.
A: Secondary school I was a bit of a 'boffin', College pretty much consisted of playing pool in Progress Bar in Tufnell Park. As to not repeat that travesty I took a gap year out to work and travel, and then a year later I went to university. In terms of jobs I've been working in fashion retail since the age of 16 but only from the 2nd year at university did I do any internships - one was with Relative PR where I worked both AW08 & SS09 fashion week with some pretty cool designers; that was great but at times very vacuous. At present - I've just received my results and graduated with a 2.1 in BA Creative Advertising Strategy.
M: My first job was pretty much working for my families large textiles business making clothes for various designers including Burberry and Vivienne Westwood. I worked there sewing, cutting patterns, etc, up until I went to Goldsmiths University at 18. At Uni I studied education and culture and society. I'm currently a Personal Assistant.
How did you each get involved with A Tribe Called Next?
P: I knew Reg from when he used to come into Slammin' and one day he put a bulletin up on MySpace about needing contributors for a blog he was setting up. I was already reading approximately 4 million blogs a day so I thought ‘yeah, I could do that!’ What was then POZ Blogs later evolved into ATCN and here we are today.
Sp: I met Reg back in 2006 out in New York over late night pancakes, peppermint tea and a bunch of good friends. Reggie's vision for Tribe was to bring together creative talent, he somehow skipped out on my services [read talent] first time round for the now defunct POZ Blogs and gave me a shout for ATCN. I got given the name Specks quite some years ago due to the fact I've been cursed with slightly impaired vision and have had penchant for plastic frames since childhood.
A: I joined the Tribe via the We Wore What blog last August with Sideshowblack. Reg had a vision of expanding ATCN with more facets. Where ATCN was about opinions and commentary on various topics, WWW was about our opinions and commentary on fashion, trends, designers, things we saw. With the New Year came new visions and the site re-launched with WWW merging with ATCN.
Sh: I’ve known Reg for a while but honestly...I saw the name and being a massive Tribe Called Quest fan had no idea what it really was, I just wanted to be a part of the movement.
M: I’ve known Reg for a few years and saw what he was doing with POZ Blogs, but I didn’t think it was as good as it could be. One night I broke it down to him and we stayed up until about five in the morning planning this amazing blog. And that blog became A Tribe Called Next.
M: (To Shenanigan) you get love, you get mad love.
Sh: Nah, Phoebe and Specks
M: Yeah you guys get mad love as well.
P: You have to learn to take hate and there’s been plenty of hate to counter act the love
What’s that like, receiving negative attention?
P: Well yeah, but I mean there’s nothing I can do; I’m powerless. Because even if I can see this persons IP address, I can’t trace it. So even though I think I know who they are (PAUSE) I can’t prove it.
Sp: It definitely affects you for a day or so. Some thing’s that have been said, there’s too much information. You either know me or you’ve got some magical powers.
P: Yeah, when it gets personal, it’s nearly always someone that knows you and that’s what’s more disturbing about it. You start looking at everyone like “Was it you?”
A: There’s this preconception though that just ‘cos we write, they think that we think that we’re high above everybody. They have that preconception and they wanna take us down a notch. But come one, we’re human beings, we have feelings too.
M: With Tribe, I feel like, this is gonna sound real arsey, but fuck it. I feel that we’re the best out there and people are hating because a lot of people had the ability to do it but they just never fucking did and we did. But yeah so, we do take a lot of criticism, we do, but at the same time, I really do feel like we do work on it, we do work on peoples suggestions.
Sp: I think one of the nicest things was when we were in The Guardian’s Guide, none of us knew about that, Reg didn’t know and a friend of a friend called Ginger Kid up and told him and we all ran out to the shops and that was just nice. It’s nice to get a bit of recognition.
When you run out of ideas and there’s nothing to blog about, what do you do?
M: We have a trick but we can’t tell you.
P: We go on BNTL (Laughter) and we steal their shit. Nah I’m only joking. What’s good about Tribe is that there’s 10 people so even if you’ve got brain freeze for weeks on end, which often happens to me, you’ve got 9 or 10 other people that are willing to pick up the slack for you.
M: I think we all inspire each other. God, cliché.
P: Can you put her name under these quotes?
Sh: We’re definitely a family and Reggie’s definitely the dad.
M: And Ill Sun is…
P: …The evil stepfather.
M: …the really evil uncle. I’m only joking; this is the relationship we have. We’re definitely a family.
P: We didn’t really know each other before so I think the best thing about doing this is meeting a load of like-minded people that you’re doing something creative with. And not for money you’re doing it for love.
Sh: We’ve got the same sense of humour.
A: And we all love to party!
Was it a conscious effort to have an equal amount of male and female bloggers?
M: I don’t think it was conscious, but it was like Reg wanted a mixed bag of opinions and he knew that it was only going to come from both men and women. Also that’s the thing with POZ blogs, it was very male; it needed more fashion, more of a woman’s touch.
Are you ever surprised by the impact you have on some of your readers?
P: Things like the T-shirt competition allow you to gage the amount of people that are interested in you. People will go to the effort to create something to win a T-shirt with the blog’s logo on it. It’s very easy to sit in your pyjamas and think no one’s reading this.
Sp: I went to hand out some of the t-shirts to the competition winners in Birmingham, and basically they were mesmerised, literally, they treated me like I was a celebrity. In the competition we had winners from Germany, America, all over the world.
P: Both my flatmates’ 15-year-old sister and my 76-year-old great aunt read it. I mean, obviously my great aunt has a vested interest in me, but the fact that she does read it shows. All of my flatmates sisters’ friends are obsessed with it and they know who we are! Can you put insert heavy does of irony there?
M: We do want to be a brand, I don’t know if we’re close yet but we do want to be doing lots of things that we can all gain from. For me personally I have realised what I want to do.
Sp: I think a lot of good things have come from it. People have picked up on Phoebe being a good writer, she’s good at interviews and stuff and that’s where she wants to go.
P: I believe that even if the blog doesn’t go far, in ten years time, we will all be doing big things.
Did you picture it would be this popular?
A: Not this fast.
M: Reg is an inspiring person, which is why this has happened. You walk out from a meeting like “Yeah, I can do the damn thing!” And then an hour later, you’re like, “I’m 20something, I haven’t got the money. I don’t drive a BMW Z4, then speed off to my mansion like Reg!” (Laughter) He has great vision and he has confidence. He has confidence in every one of us.
You all enjoy travelling, what do you miss most about London when you’re away?
Sh: When I’m away I miss the food, especially fish and chips. Also, culturally, everything’s a bit more open and accepted in London.
A: I was away for three months recently and I was missing English humour and the food. Also, conversations on buses, I love getting on red buses. Plus the people in London dress good.
M: I’m originally from Philly so I go there a lot and one of the things I like about London is that people can dress! Lots of people in America can’t dress themselves.
Sp: I love London; it’s my favourite city. I like it more than New York and I spend a lot of time there.
P: I think there’s a tendency in our scene to be very New York-centric, anyone that’s into Hip Hop culture, it’s easy to see New York as this Mecca that you have to make it to in life but I agree. I love New York but its intense, it’s exhausting and London’s easier and more relaxed. I don’t think London’s more culturally diverse than New York but it’s diverse in a different way and I like the fact that there are all these different neighbourhoods. In New York, everyone’s in the same small area.
A: I’m into everything, mixing vintage, high street and a bit of designer.
M: I love street wear, my trainer collection at 9 years old was ridiculous, I had Jordans, Filas, Air Max’s. But now I’m less into street wear. If I could afford Alexander Wang, I’d wear him head to toe.
Sh: I wear a lot of vintage; it’s my main love.
A: Hand me downs are amazing too.
What brands do you admire?
A: Alexander Wang always, Christopher Kane this season.
Sh: I love Ashish; I used to stalk him because he lived near me. But I love Timothy James Andrew at the moment.
M: Yeah, I’m obsessed with the masculine look and walking bondage.
What kind of girl do you think reads the blog?
M: Genuine hot gyal.
A: Yeah, all our readers are fabulous.
Sh: She would be into art, definitely into clothes, opinionated.
Sp: A lot of our female readers are American, interestingly.
P: New people, we’ve got new people coming on board n September. There’s also going to be a site re-launch, quite a drastic redesign with new features.
M: There are more big things in the pipeline too but they’re top secret!
P: Also, exciting collaborations. Plus, Trading Places is coming up; the next one’s on Sunday the 5th of July.
Can you name your Top 5 right now?
P: Essie Nail Varnish: Neon Collection
Swimming
Bento Box at Yoshino
Nicholas Kirkwood heels
Guardian Weekend
Sp: DELS - fellow Triber, musician, creative bad man. Can’t wait for people to recognise how great he is.
BlackBerry Messenger – A late Crackberry addict. The thing sleeps on my pillow now.
Nike Blazers – A classic that never gets old. Summer, winter, it’s all good.
Prosecco – Credit crunch bubbles, preferably consumed in a sunny park.
My Camera.
A: Food - currently in form of BBQ's or picnics
Flushing toilets - 2 months of Slumdog millionaire wooden shacks...
Lazing in the park in the sun whilst my dog tries to shag some strangers arm
Graduation presents
Good company of friends of family
Sh: My back scratcher. It has a small ivory hand on one end and is finished with silver brass.
My black geometric felt tit tassels, no intention of really wearing them. They are just accumulating with others I have picked up.
The increasing availability of choc dips.
Baking. Eating, then baking some more.
The little charity shop by my house, the owner has no idea of the gems she stores!
M: Orange Ribena,
Max B & Frenchie
Festivals with Guinness punch!
Dreamin of Philadelphia 25th St
Alexander Wang
INTERVIEW BY LILY MERCER
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