A girl named Sue

So this is Christmas – what tips does Sue Rose have for anyone planning to hit the fashion shops during the coming weeks? In fact, she has some unusual advice on the subject.

“When you’re a penniless musician like myself I think the best thing to do is to avoid leaving it until Christmas to do all your shopping. If you do that, then there’s a bigger risk that you’ll end up going to a party and finding that other girls are wearing exactly the same clothes as yourself, which is a total disaster! Lads don’t care about this but girls do! So the best thing to do to avoid a Christmas disaster is to keep your eyes open all year and pick up nice stuff when you can. You can then add in a few things at Christmas and mix the new stuff with the other things you picked up earlier. That way you’ll be able to dress up a bit more personal when the party season kicks off,” she reckons.
That said, she still likes the whole atmosphere around Christmas shopping. “It’s good to mix quirky things with normal stuff, but I’m pretty non-glamorous in my approach to fashion anyway. So the Christmas party season is a good excuse to dress up a bit and make an effort”.
But in what way does her non-glamour policy manifest itself normally? “Normally I’m very casual and tomboyish when it comes to clothes. I like runners and skinny jeans and t-shirts. I think my fashion outlook was influenced by people like Twiggy, Kate Moss and Audrey Hepburn. They all have great style without overdoing it. As you get older I think you want to go for a more understated style,” she says.
As for shops, she doesn’t really have any great favourites. “You can’t beat H&M for great quality and good value. But I always try the small shops. You never know what you’ll find in the bargain bins in little shops in the side streets. I once got an '80s top for e2.” When it comes to fashion labels, she reckons it’s far better to make sure that you feel comfortable in your clothes rather than worrying about the label.
She will admit to many unspecified fashion disasters in the past. “When I was in my teens I think I tried to wear curvy clothes like my mother, but they didn’t work,” she confesses, before swiftly changing the subject.
Her style with The Radio has undoubtedly helped change the overall image of the band. “When I joined the band about eighteen months ago the band uniform was black polo neck sweaters and black trousers or jeans. But since then, me and Caroline, the other girl in The Radio, have been branching out into more colourful attire to create a contrast with the guys. So these days we’ll wear coloured tights, skirts and stuff. The stage is a great place to try out stuff that you might not normally wear yourself and to take the odd risk and have a bit of fun with clothes,” she tells me.
Giving every impression of being about as low-maintenance as it can get, her favourite item of clothing happens to be a pair of skinny blues jeans. “It’s often hard for a woman to get a pair of jeans that really fit right, so when you find a pair you tend to treasure them.” Not that they were Sue’s best bargain ever. That prize goes to a pair of Ugg boots she picked up in a sale for half-price last year. “The best thing about the Ugg boots”, she believes, “is that they look great with either jeans or skirts.”
Her state of music-related penury means that she usually wears clothes out, so the option of passing them on or giving them to charity doesn’t arise too often, but the subject promotes a discussion as to why women will happily wear each other’s clothes, whereas men generally don’t. “I think it’s because women often study each other and what each other are wearing and we’re more conscious of clothes in that way. Men are more limited in their options. Like a guy can wear either a shirt or a jumper or jeans or trousers and I don’t think they pay as much attention to what each other are wearing.”
She could be right there.

The Radio’s album Charm Offensive and the current single ‘The Other Side of Life’ are available on Reekus Records