A world where fashion ascends beyond the stars, inspired by David Bowie’s iconic space-themed masterpieces, channeling the spirit of songs like Space Oddity, Starman, Life on Mars, and The Prettiest Star, blending avant-garde aesthetics with celestial wonder. Rebel Stardust seeks to capture Bowie’s essence of individuality and cosmic exploration, showcasing metallic fabrics, iridescent textures, and futuristic silhouettes that defy convention. Each look is a tribute to his artistry, where fashion, music, and the infinite universe collide. Bowie’s was a galactic vision; otherworldly, bold, and timeless.
Concept & Photography: Kasia Guzik (The Mania) Stylist: Merelita Todd, Hairstylist: Alex Reis , Make-up Artist: Betty Gouveia
Model: Danni Location: Grand Jersey
Blazer, Benetton, £149. Shirt, Mint Velvet, de Gruchy, £31.50. Scarfs, Ralph Lauren, Voisins, £26.50 and £40.
Blouse, POLO Ralph Lauren, Voisins, £171. Gloves, DENTS, Voisins, £42.
Blouse, Max Mara Weekend, Voisins, £325. Guitar & Strap, Island Music.
Lucy Clark is a young entrepreneur from Jersey, specialising in all things sweater vest. She established Monty’s Club in the summer of 2023, balancing building her brand alongside her full time role as a training accountant. She told us what it was like to launch her business, delving into the ups and downs of becoming a young entrepreneur.
“In the Summer of 2023, I took a leap of faith and launched a clothing brand called Monty’s Club. It was a journey that not only brought bold and bright mohair sweater vests to life but also taught me invaluable lessons about starting a business. This is the story of how I turned Monty’s from an idea into something tangible, inspiring me to share this journey with potential young entrepreneurs in Jersey who might be considering their own ventures.
The idea for Monty’s Club began with my love for bold and vibrant colours. I had always been drawn to unique styles that stood out. Around the time sweater vests started trending among my friends, I found myself on a mission to find the perfect one. But every vest I came across was plain, prone to bobbling, and utterly uninspiring. I wanted something that screamed “main character energy”, something bright, fun, and unapologetically bold. When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, the idea struck that there was a gap in the market and therefore, why not create it myself?
The hardest part of setting up Monty’s Club was finding a supplier. I had zero experience and contacts. A simple online search returned thousands of options, which felt overwhelming. Eventually, I decided to prioritise a local supplier for reliability and ease of communication. I got lucky with the first supplier I contacted, who turned out to be fantastic and we still work together today. When I first spoke with them, they started talking about things like “tech packs,” and I had no idea what they meant. It was like learning a new language. I asked endless questions, researched extensively, and slowly pieced everything together. After two rounds of samples, I finally had a design I was proud of and took the plunge: I ordered 200 vests. That ‘order’ button was the scariest moment of all. I was committing to something big with no guarantee it would work. To ease my nerves, I remembered something from my business lessons at Victoria College which was to test the market first. I uploaded photos of the sample vests to Depop, clearly stating they weren’t for sale, to gauge interest. The response was incredible. That validation gave me the confidence to move forward.
The first photoshoot was an experience I’ll never forget. I envisioned a dreamy sunset at St Ouen’s beach, showcasing the fun and vibrancy of Monty’s. But reality rarely matches the dream. When the day came, it was freezing cold, cloudy, and windy. To top it off, I’d forgotten a speaker to play music, and I hadn’t planned much beyond. My three friends, who were helping as models, looked to me for direction, and I realised I needed to step up. Despite the rocky start, we turned it into one of the best days. We laughed, danced, and improvised our way through it – even being cheered on by lifeguards. We were able to capture the essence of Monty’s fun, personality, and boldness. Those videos became the foundation of our TikTok and Instagram presence, showcasing the brand’s unique personality. Social media was a game-changer. TikTok, especially, allowed me to incorporate Monty’s into everyday, relatable content. I learned that people connect more with brands that have personality and authenticity. Instead of polished, rigid reels, I focused on showing the fun, real side of Monty’s Club. It worked. Orders started trickling in, then flowing steadily.
The second scariest moment came when the stock arrived. Four massive boxes turned up on my doorstep, delivered by an expressionless DPS driver who handed them over without fanfare. Closing the door behind me, I stared at the boxes, a mix of excitement and sheer panic washing over me. This was it. Monty’s was real, sitting in my hallway, waiting to be sold. I officially started trading in late October, right after finishing my second round of accountancy exams. Timing was crucial as sweater vest season was in full swing, and I had to act fast to get the brand noticed. I began by following similar accounts on Instagram, which helped build a network and drew followers to Monty’s Club.
One big decision came during Black Friday. As a new startup, I was desperate to break even, but I also knew the importance of brand awareness. I opted to participate in the sales, prioritising exposure over immediate profits. It paid off.
Balancing Monty’s Club with a full-time finance job was challenging. My biggest fear before starting the business was whether I’d have the time. But I realised that with the tools we have today, everything is possible. My website, marketing, and advertising were all accessible from my phone, allowing me to manage the business during my commute, after work, and on weekends. It’s not easy, but it’s doable with the right mindset and a bit of organisation.
Competition was another hurdle. Over the course of the year, I noticed established brands launching similar products in bold colours, which was frustrating. But I’ve come to see competition as healthy. It means there is demand for the product. It more importantly raises awareness of sweater vests in general, which indirectly benefits Monty’s. I consciously decided to focus on what Monty’s is known for: bold, colourful sweater vests. It’s tempting to branch out, but consistency builds trust.
One of the most inspiring aspects of this journey has been witnessing the rise of young entrepreneurs on TikTok. Whether it’s due to the accessibility of social media or the creativity sparked by COVID-19 lockdowns, so many teenagers are starting their own brands. It’s proof that anyone can do it. Social media makes the process easier than ever, providing a platform to test ideas, build an audience, and market your brand without needing huge budgets.
The lessons I’ve learned along the way have been invaluable. I’ve learned that being clueless at the start is okay and that your willingness to learn and ask questions matters. It’s so important to lean on your friends and family when starting something new, and I can’t thank mine enough for their support. Whether it’s modelling for a photoshoot, helping to pack orders, financing or just cheering you on during tough times, their encouragement and willingness to help can make all the difference. Don’t be afraid to ask for their support, it’s amazing how much you can achieve together.
To anyone in Jersey (or anywhere else) considering starting a business, do it. The hardest part is starting and taking that first step. Monty’s Club has brought me so many incredible experiences: meeting new people, embracing my creativity, learning to make tough decisions, and understanding that while there are risks, the rewards in lessons, opportunities, and personal growth are far greater.”
Photography Evan dos Santos | Words Lucy Clark | Styling Rebecca Wrigley | Models Rebecca Wrigley, Cristabelle Jégard and Georgia Harland.
Would you take the red or the blue pill? When I posed the question to the gallery office, all but one said they’d take the former and escape the simulation, even if they didn’t know what was waiting for them on the other side. But what would people do if they did know? Are there any realities so bad that everyone would choose to stay in the Matrix?
For example, would you still take the red pill if it was 100% guaranteed you’d be the only one on the other side? Or what if you were allowed to take someone with you, but it had to be the person of your most regretted situationship? What if the real world was solely inhabited by 8 billion clones of Donald Trump, that never, ever, stopped talking?
What if you spawned in the real world only to find out that you were stuck floating in an infinite river of baked beans? Or that there was just one windowless underground room, starkly lit by an insufferable flickering light? What if the real world actually existed in 2D, and you were forced to side step your way through life, constantly stubbing your toe on unpassable objects you can’t turn your head to see?
The thing is, there’s a non-zero possibility that in the real world the air feels like sandpaper, or the atmosphere sounds like nails on a chalkboard, or you’re trapped in an infinite network of air vents. You actually have no idea what’s waiting for you out there, so are you 100% sure you’d definitely choose the red pill?
*If this sounds confusing, go and watch The Matrix. Only the first one though, the follow-ups are poor imitations. Then read the above.
Red Bull Rocket
Everyone’s heard that Red Bull gives you wings, but could they take you all the way to space? NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) is the only rocket that can send the Orion spacecraft, astronauts and cargo directly to the moon in a single launch. Fully fueled, this rocket has a mass of approximately 2.6 million kilograms, needing around 202.5 gigajoules to make it to space.
Seeing as there is only 195 kilojoules in one standard can of Red Bull, this means you’d need an estimated 1,038,790 cans to power the SLS. This takes into account energy wasted by heat, gravity and atmospheric drag (if not for these factors, you’d only need 405,128 cans). This may seem like a lot, until you consider that Red Bull sold over 12.1 billion cans in just 2023. For context, this is enough to launch around 11,650 SLS rockets into space.
Babybel Moon
On April Fools Day back in 2002, NASA confirmed that the moon actually is made of cheese. But what kind of cheese? Is it possible to turn the moon into one ginormous Babybel?
Working with the respective surface areas of both objects, you’d need the wax from around 753.5 billion Babybels to properly encase the moon. If purchased at wholesale prices, this would cost around £339 billion, which is enough to buy Jersey’s economy 51.5x over, or end world hunger for more than 11 years. This is without touching any of the leftover cheese, which weighs in at 166,118 tonnes, enough to give everyone on earth around 100 Babybels each.
Vodka Cranberry Swimming Pools
According to the most recent Alcohol Profile published by Jersey’s Public Health Intelligence, the average alcohol consumption per Jersey citizen (aged fifteen plus) is 12 litres of pure alcohol per year. But what is this, per week, in vodka cranberry?
To stay on par with the rest of the island, you’d have to commit to 23 vodka cranberries a week. Working on the assumption of a 6oz glass, this equates to around 4 litres per person every seven days. Bring everyone’s total amount together, and you get around 365,000 litres of vodka cranberry a week, or 18,982,600 litres a year – enough to fill around seven and a half olympic swimming pools.
2-for-1 cocktails and happy hours could be in your future, following government debates concerning updates to the 1974 Licensing Law.
17 year old Oscar is a bionic cat, renown as a medical sensation in the veterinary world. He recently celebrated his birthday.
4000 hours of work was logged by The Jersey Lifeboats Association, in aid of boaters in distress. This year, the JLA is hoping to be less busy, and is asking islanders to help by taking a free refresher on sea safety in a series of lifeboat parish roadshows.
3 new European destinations have been announced by Blue Islands, meaning Islanders will be able to fly directly to Bilbao, Verona and Munich later this year.
11,359 parking tickets were dished to drivers in town last year, according to statistics published by the Parish of St Helier in their ‘2024 Wrapped’.
15,000 was granted to five charities by the Ports of Jersey, in support of Healing Waves, Music in Action, Project Linus, Caring Cooks and the Oxygen Therapy Centre.
£48,500 has been raised by Rhona’s at the Beach in Gorey through the sale of her famous fish finger sandwiches. Over a period of nearly seven years, Rhona has donated all proceeds from this delectable cuisine to local charities.
After some 26 years, Waddington Architects have moved from a characterful converted Jersey granite warehouse to a 1970’s cool office. Designed by Taylor Leapingwell husband-and-wife architects, and originally the home of their own studios, it seems fitting to have architects back in the building. We caught up with Director, Mike Waddington, to hear all about it…
We’re on the 6th floor, which means we get spectacular views over the town rooftops, harbours and Fort Regent. We also enjoy incredible, and inspiring, ever-changing daylight and weather. At times it feels quite exposed, perched up here in storms and squalls, as we look out towards the Fort Regent Weather Station!
We have around 14 workstations for our team of 11 architects, technicians, interior and landscape designers, and the open plan studio is brimming with plants and greenery. It’s a collaborative workspace, which suits the creative work we do and allows everyone to tune into design discussions throughout the day, and this really helps us get the best results.
We’ve signed up to a nine year lease, so are here to stay, and couldn’t be happier with our location. We’re still equipped with our own in-house physical model-making facilities, as well as 3d visualisation software, these help us to easily explain our design proposals to clients and decision-makers. De-mystifying architectural design so that everyone can enjoy it is central to our way of working, as is having fun during the process, despite being quite serious about the positive effects that good integrated design can bring to peoples’ lives.
With two roof terraces and a shared garden at second floor level, we’re really looking forward to summer and the odd Friday barbecue and social!
After spending time studying foreign languages and living abroad, Cerys Griffiths is a nail artist now based in Jersey. Offering everything from extensions to BIAB, she can tackle any designs that are currently living rent free on your ‘nail inspo’ Pinterest board. Keeping in tune with the ‘red’ theme, we went down to try out Cerys’ unique cat-eye twist on a classic burgundy manicure.
When we found out the theme of this gallery edition was ‘red,’ we knew it was the perfect opportunity to experiment with some interesting nails. And who better to bring the vision to life than Cerys? Based in Capelli salon in St. Clements, Cerys discovered her passion for nails while studying French and Italian at university. After completing her degree and spending time abroad in Pisa and Belgium (she’s got some great travel recommendations), she’s luckily now back on island to meet all of our nail needs.
Cerys offers everything from extensions to BIAB and boasts the largest collection of polish colours I’ve ever seen. To prepare, I did the obligatory Pinterest deep dive, arriving armed with about 100 screenshots of nail inspo. After a quick consultation, Cerys mentioned that burgundy nails were the leading colour this season, so (like the sheep that I am) I decided to hop on the trend. Still, my desire to be ‘edgy’ craved something a little bit different. Following a chat about celebrity crushes (Ian Somerhalder from The Vampire Diaries if you’re curious), we landed on ‘blood nails’ – even though Halloween was already behind us.
Cerys started with a black base, layered it with silver glitter, and topped it off with a translucent red coat to achieve a lifelike, blood-inspired effect. To add an extra touch of magic, she used nail magnets to manipulate the glitter, creating a hypnotic cat-eye design. Watching her work was mesmerising, and I felt like I was in one of those viral New York nail TikToks, thankfully minus the $500 price tag. She finished with a deliciously scented strawberries and cream cuticle oil, leaving me smelling like my favourite Chupa Chups for the rest of the day.
Aside from the nails, the salon itself has an incredibly relaxing atmosphere. Big, bright and airy; it feels more spa-like than your typical nail spot, which for me, makes getting my nails done feel like even more of a treat. And the playlist? Absolutely amazing. If the nail game doesn’t work out, Cerys could easily pursue a career as a DJ.
The first thing you notice when you’re greeted at Island Wellness is the smiles. Tom and Cara, the husband-and-wife team behind one of Jersey’s newest chiropractic clinics, pretty much glow with a healthy, welcoming persona. There’s an inherent suspicion when you meet a bald hairdresser or a portly personal trainer, but these two look so goddamn well, that I defy you to want to drink the Kool-Aid. If they’re promoting chiropractic health as a method for ‘do as we do,’ I had to give it a try.
As you attend your initial consultation, there is actually a sort of Kool-Aid, in the form of healthy, tasty infused water that is offered to you as you sit down for your health assessment. I’d already answered a questionnaire in advance online, but Tom ran through my answers and got a sense of my problems, which are many and varied. Years of putting off attending to snowboarding and kiting injuries has left my spine in a subpar condition, and I’m thus pretty much up for anything that might help.
Following the written element, Tom got me to go through a series of movements to assess my posture and alignment. He also used an interesting device to conduct a spinal thermal scan, using heat to determine if things are amiss in there. The last time I had a neck scan, they told me I had ‘above average wear and tear.’ That’s fine when it comes to running shoes but not so good for your skeleton, so any kind of status check on that is welcome. Next was a physical assessment of my movement. I’m not the world’s most flexible, but I’m pretty competitive, so this process was a shameful reveal of how I should have been doing more work on my movement. One test has you close your eyes and run on the spot with opposite arms and legs in sync. If you’re well aligned, as the theory goes, you should stay still and maintain rhythm. I moved about a metre and was facing the other way, forcing the realisation that work is needed.
The initial consultation at Island Wellness is £149. Tom had a report ready the following day to go through with me. I also had a follow-up session that takes you through the anticipated course of action for your results—this would form the first session of your structured course of chiropractic treatment. I’ve not been to a chiropractor in some time and the historic familiarity as you lie on the bench and have it drop was a welcome sound, indicating a positive move towards betting things both metaphorically and physically straight. Tom also used an Arthrostim on me. It’s like a professional Theragun with a U-shaped head that presses in all the right places to wake up your spine. I was given some moves to practice and was reassured that there was hope.
Following the first session, Tom followed up with an email containing a link to the PracticeHub app. Once downloaded, the course of recommended movements and exercises to practice meant that guilt was now part of my regime too; ‘I have uploaded a few initial exercises into the app for you to get an idea of the exercises used in combination with care in the office. They help to build the fundamental stability you need in your spine and start to address the first layer of postural distortions’. OK, I’m in.
Contact Tom or Cara at Island Wellness to arrange your consultation on 07797953798 or visit the linktree at @islandwellnessjersey
Mr Sudip Ray, Consultant Vascular Surgeon at The Lido Medical Centre Jersey, explains why the 3 Ts will help your legs look and feel better when at home and on that summer holiday you’re about to book!
Trim up
On average we gain about 1% body weight over the festive period, perhaps less than you expect but not always easy to shed. Any excess weight increases pressure within leg veins and can lead to swelling, aching and the the formation of varicose veins. Keep up a simple exercise regime with regular dog (yours or a friends) walks or gentle gym cycling and both you and your legs will feel healthier.
Try Out
…a pair of elastic calf compression stockings whilst you’re still in winter clothing (daylong.co.uk). This will improve blood flow through the veins, particularly when you’re sitting or standing for long periods back at work, and reduce cramps, swelling and ache at the end of the day. And then keep them handy for those long-haul holiday flights.
Treat yourself
If you have visible or aching leg veins then it may be worth having them assessed by a specialist with a view to treatment. This usually involves a simple ultrasound exam first and then a keyhole treatment such as microsclerotherapy or microwave ablation now available on a walk in, walk out basis. It is always worth planning ahead of the summer as optimal visual improvement can take a couple of months after any procedure.
For more information or an appointment with Mr Sudip Ray In the Harvey Suite, Lido Medical Centre please contact Carly on 07797 817964 / endovein.co.uk
I started as a Saturday girl at 14 and discovered my love for hair, especially hair health, so I decided this was the industry for me. I then went to Highlands College at 16 and I’ve now been fully qualified for almost 3 years. I started at Studio Phoenix 2 years ago which has been an amazing salon to work in. My manager focuses on education as a priority, and gives us the freedom to be creative and specialise in areas, for me this was hair health with a more holistic approach to hair care.
What do you love about your job?
Helping people feel more confident in themselves and being able to guide them on what’s the best process and products for their hair. When I’ve seen a client for a few months or a year and they see their hair transforming, getting stronger and healthier, it’s very rewarding. I also enjoy getting to know each client.
What’s your favourite hair treatment at the moment?
Our hair-botox treatment is the best, I’ve tried many different straightening and smoothing treatments before and the hair-botox is fantastic. It is chemical free so the hair integrity is maintained. Frizz is reduced, damage is reversed, and it can help with hair-loss as it restores protein and puts moisture back into the hair. Clients leave the salon with manageable, silky-smooth hair. It’s so good. And I love how lots of my clients comment on how incredibly relaxing the whole process is. We also have a mini express version which is a great alternative – although it’s not as strong, it’s a more affordable, faster option.
BeforeAfter
What are your favourite hair products?
The Kevin Murphy range has the ethos of ‘skincare for your hair’. The range is extensive to meet every hair type, I love supporting clients to find the right products for their hair and lifestyle. My top two Kevin Murphy favourites are:
The Hydrate.Me Wash and Rinse, which intensively moisturises the hair and scalp. Perfect for dried out, or coloured hair. They’re packed with antioxidants which gives the hair a healthy glow and stops the hair from losing any more moisture.
For styling, it has to be the lovely Young.Again Treatment Leave-In Oil, as this acts as both a heat protector and a serum. It is weightless and enriched with immortelle extract to counter the hair ageing process.
