Ciao Bellissima!

Ciao bellissima! Italian Vogue came to Bexhill this week to recapture the mood of seaside mod glory from its heyday in the 1960's.

Photographer Phil Poynter, who is from Bexhill but now lives in New York, arrived with a team of models, stylists, make-up and crew to spend two days shooting beginning at the Sovereign Light cafe and working towards Galley Hill.

There were two female models plus six males who posed on pristine Vespa scooters loaned by the A259 South Coasters Scooter Club against the backdrop of the cafe.

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Asked why he chose Bexhill for the shoot, Phil said: “This is where I am from.”

He spent his teenage years down here before leaving for London at age 18 where he became one of the founding members of hip magazine Dazed And Confused.

He says it took him some time growing up before he began to appreciate Bexhill and its particular appeal.

“The south coast is so beautiful. i started to look around and re-evaluate what was beautiful. I am a fashion photographer and travel the world week in week out to the most beautiful coastlines on the planet, to the Tuscany coast, the Greek, to South America, to Buenos Aires, and I have stayed on some of the most beautiful coasts on Earth. But I still come back to Bexhill and find it the most beautiful of all. I grew up here. I spent my formative years looking at this scene.”

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He added “It is lovely to be back. You do what you know the best.”

Phil, now 38, comes down when he can to visit his mother who lives on West Parade, and said: “I love my time here. There’s nowhere more glorious for me than Bexhill.”

He approved new planting along the seafront but did not like the new wooden shelters.

Phil added: “I don’t mind change but I don’t like these. I think change is good, that modern architecture is amazing, but I’d hate to be one of the people who live opposite and have to look out on those. They are too big, and too high.”

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The shoot turned into a family affair because mum Geraldine was there, as was sister Deborah Nurse and her two daughters Rebecca and Harriet, from Battle Abbey school, who were watching proceedings for educational work experience.

Stella Brennan Wright, who runs the Sovereign Light cafe, was ready to provide bacon sandwiches and tea for the crew plus whatever the models were able to eat.

She said: “I think Phil chose us because he wanted an old-fashioned 60’s cafe.”

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