Brides The Show + Bonobos fashion challenge!

Hello!,

 

I hope, as usual that you are all feeling happy and well :0)

 

Today I bring you a post with a lot of lovely pictures in it! This is because this weekend I went to Brides- The Show, a wedding fair organised by the publishers of Brides magazine. I went with a friend- Graceypaste from www.stitchbtch.blogspot.com :) I was super excited for the catwalk which we luckily managed to get on the front row for due to being there for the earliest catwalk of the day which was not as full as anticipated (there were TONS of people at the later ones so we were happy we did everything early). The catwalk was decorated really nicely with real flowers:

 

 

They really put on a show- there was about 60 dresses! All gorgeously beautiful and interesting may I add. It's a bit impossible to show you them all (we would be here forever!) but here are some of my highlights, as usual I will let the dresses speak for themselves- there is such a range, from vintage looking to very modern:

 

LoVe! Very Roccoco- French- Marie Antoinette!- sorry I said I would let the dresses speak for themselves :P

 

 

 

(50's/diors new look style!)

 

Again Love- so different!

 

Hehe, I mostly let the dresses speak for themselves but I burst with love for some of them so it is hard for me to keep hush! :P If you are getting married and liked the look of what you saw above go to the Show site and check out the exhibitors list and pick up the dress of your dreams!: http://bridestheshow.co.uk/

 

Not only were the dresses that went down the catwalk interesting, but the ones on the different stands were just as fascinatingly cool, I mean look at this one:

 

 

This dress was made by three sisters who have just set up a bridal business (Arga-Arga Bridal). It is hand embroidered by them- with precious stones (responsibly sourced :) sewn into the embroidery too. Me and my friend had a chat with one of the sisters who was Lovely and told us more about the dress- we told her we could appreciate the amount of work that must have gone into it being both from costume making/sewing backgrounds.

 

And- Stop the press! I think I found my future dress! This Ancient Egyptian inspired on I saw on one of the stands:

 

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! I Am very much bursting with love for this one! Ancient Egypt serves as a constant source of inspiration for me, I love the golds and the opulent blues and emerald greens. I have never seen historically inspired wedding dresses before so this brand; Zaeem Jamal http://zaeemjamal.com/index.html, really caught my eye. Look at  these other dresses they had on show:

 

None of them are too much- Just so different and really stunning and fascinating.

 

After me and my friend had looked at all the dresses it was physically possible to look at in one day, we headed to the 'imagination room' to take part in a free cake pop decorating workshop. That was pretty fun (even though I had already eaten tons of free cake as samples from the different exhibitors :P):

 

Hehe, It was the second bit of cake decorating I did that weekend as Saturday me and my mum went on a cupcake decorating course- my birthday gift from my nan :) I think I did OK, here they all are:

 

I am giving my nan some this weekend- so she can try the Swiss meringue buttercream on top. I like normal buttercream better but apparently some people really love SMB so I will see if she is one of those people- my mums work colleagues loved her cakes, so maybe it is just me :P

 

The last bit of news before I go (and you get to go and have a lie down after this super long post!)...

...

I was contacted by http://www.bonobos.com/ the American Menswear company, after they had seen my blog, asking me if I wanted to take part in their Fashion Challenge! I was super excited and said yes of course :P They have sent me some preview pictures of their new upcoming collection which I have to design some womens wear outfits to go with them and complement them. I have taken a good look at the pictures and have got some inspiration flowing- so expect my Bonobos Fashion challenge post soon! :D

 

Speak to you all again soon, I better go get a good nights sleep so I am ready to go fabric shopping in London  for my college waistcoat project tomorrow!

 

Bye XxXxXxX

Feeling all bridal part 2

Hilooo, 

last week I finished my two week Bridalwear course at the London college of fashion that I mentioned and showed pictures from in another post. Today I bring you the rest of my snaps!

Here are some different pictures of my finished bodice which I designed and made :):

(It doesn't quite fit the stand as I made it to fit myself, but you get the idea)

Here is the internal corset which is inside the bodice (under the CB):

Neck strap and gem detail:

And then here are all the buttons and roleau loops down the CB:

And here a pictures of my fishtail skirt design toile:

There are a few ways you can create a fishtail shape but my design incorporated godets at the sides and a central shaped flared pointed panels CB and CF:

We also learnt about bias cutting, veils, draping and twisting and bridal wear business tips so it was a really comprehensive course!

I absolutely loved it- I Wish I could do it all over again :D All the ladies on the course (Including me :) do get to visit the tutor Christina Sesays Bridal boutique as long as we bring treats to share :p so I am excited for that day!

I am off to get ready for bed as I have a big day tomorrow-  me and my mum are going to Vodafone London Fashion Weekend!!!! :D I GET TO SEE FASHION CATWALKS!!!! I am sooo excited. I will of course do a post of all my london fashion week and VLFWeekend news!

Speak to you again soon, hope you are well! 

Bye xxxxoooxxx

Feeling all bridal...

Hi,

I hope you are all happy and well! Today I bring news on my bridalwear course I am taking art the London College of fashion.

I am absolutely loving the course, it is absolutely brilliant- I have learnt so much from the lovely tutor- Christina Sesay, who has her own bespoke bridal business (like what I hope to have one day :)

I have not quite finished my bodice yet (I will be done by friday) but here is what I have so far on the stand. It is boned, fully lined and lo has an internal corset to pull the bride in that extra bit more if she wishes. The design is all mine and it was lovely to see something I had imagined coming to life in front of me through all the new skills and techniques I had learned:

As well as bodices, we have also been working on some skirts, just as toiles. I will have a fishtail style one to show you all soon, but for now here is the draped front skirt with integral train:

This one is so interesting. I am enjoying working on skirts as these are something I have experimented less with compared to bodices and tops.

I better go now though as I have to go there now for day 3 of week 2! :-)

Speak to you all again soon,

Bye xoxoxo

A post that is bursting at the seams! (no pun intended :P)

Hi everyone,

I hope you have all had a brilliant week :) There is quite a lot in the post so I recommend grabbing tasty treat before you start!

First up I would like to apologise for posting about finishing my Kameez (my friend told me this is its actual name :) twice- I got so wrapped up in all the work I have got going on at the moment that I forgot I actually had already posted about it.

 

Now I actually have some NEW photos/news for you :P

 

First up here are the pictures of my finished early 16th century foundation wear (wheel farthingale, bum roll and petticoat) and corset, being worn by my lovely (and very patient may I say!) model:

 

 

This is effectively early 16th century underwear so wandering around like above in those times would have been pretty obscene, lol! But my model looks beautiful and I loved working with her on the project so thank you to her! XXX

I enjoyed my time of being a model too, I got to put on my pretty corset, bum roll and petticoat and prance about outside among the trees on campus in the sun- so fun!

 

Next point on this whistle stop tour of all my weeks news is my finished Mens period shirt:

 

 

 

This was the project we have been doing this week and are meant to do next week. I finished my shirt this week (like some of the other girls) so next week we will be making a period womens chemise. Hehe hopefully I will finish that too  :P

 

Now onto my last bit of news- The wedding fair catwalk show I got to help out at as a dresser!!!! I had such an amazing day- chilling backstage with the models (hehehe, I love saying that as it makes me sound really cool! lol :P), then helping them to change into each wedding dress really quickly before they had to head back onto the catwalk again :)

 

Here are the beautiful ladies in their finale dresses:

 

 

These were all the hardest ones to get them in as most of them were lace up and not zip ups!

 

Here was backstage all the space we had for the dresses, the 5 girls, me, and the bridal boutique owner and her daughter. It got pretty hectic :P:

 

 

We had to lay the dresses next to go on the girls on the floor like big meringues so they could just step out of their other ones and step straight into the new ones and we could them pull them up and zip them up quickly, before finding a veil or fascinator to match: 

 

 

Here are all the models in their 2nd wedding dress each (they had 3 wedding dressed and one bridesmaid dress each- times this by 5 and there were 20 dresses overall!):

 

And here they are coming off the catwalk:

 

 

We did two shows, one at 12.30 and one at 2.30. I think we did really well as there was only 3 of us dressing 5 models and we managed to keep a constant flow of dresses- the catwalk was never empty. Without a rehearsal this was really good. The models were so good and all really nice which helped as they got their walking routine and order of going down the catwalk sorted pretty much by themselves which meant we could focus on getting all the ensembles and order of dresses ready in time. I have been invited to help out at the fashion catwalk the lady who owns the bridal boutique is going to host when she opens her new shop- yay! I am sooo excited :D I can't wait to do it all again with all new dresses!!!!

 

Wooo, after that long post I think you deserve a rest. Thanks for sticking with it and reading all my news, I better let you go now and I better get in bed as I have quite a bit of work to type up this weekend for college, and also tomorrow me and my mum are going on a cupcake an macaroon walking tour of London and I would hate to be too tired for that :0)

 

Speak again soon,

 

Bye my lovely friends XxXxXxXxX

 

I finished my salwar (quite a while ago now :P)

Hilloo,

 

Just a quick post today as I didn't want to neglect all of my lovely blog friends but I just finished my corset and foundation wear project at college Pictures coming soon :P) and have been hard at work getting all of my written work ready for Tuesday when I hand it in and my presentation on Monday, but anyway enough of my business and cue the pretty pictures!.....

 

I remembered the other day that I had forgot to post up any pictures of my Kameez that I actually finished a couple of weeks ago now, silly me :P

 

I thought better late than never though so here it is:

 

 

I am really pleased with it and it fits me really well. I started scratch from looking at pictures in the magazines I picked up at the Asian wedding fair all the way through making the pattern and toiling to finally making it up in the final fabric so it was nice that it came out exactly as I had imagined it in my head :o)

 

A tiny bit of quite exciting news... If you remember the wedding fashion show I was invited to help at was cancelled before, well, this Sunday I have been invited to do another one- an even bigger one with a full dress rehearsal and two catwalk showings! I am supppeerr excited as it will be such great experience for me. I will post pictures and tell you all about it after. I can't wait :-D

 

I'm off to bed now to get a good nights sleep ready for the weekend- The Eurovision song contest (Yay!) Saturday and the wedding show Sunday.

 

I hope you all have a good weekend planned too,

 

Speak soon,

 

Byeee XxXxXx

 

 

Wackiness and weddings

Hi everyone :)

Sadly I can't bring you any pictures of the wedding fashion show as it had to be cancelled due to the organiser having a family emergency so my thoughts go out to her. The wedding fair did go ahead though so the lady I applied for work experience with said I could still come for an hour or so to look around etc. The building it was held in was really lovely and historic/period and when I got home I was in a bridal mood! I decided to finally start making some of the bridal headbands I designed ages ago. Here is a work in progress picture:

 

It will be interesting to see them fully done, they are coming along as planned so far :P

 

Hehe, talking about bridal wear and bringing me on to the 'wackiness' section of this post.... me and my brother went to Ripley's believe it or not in London this weekend and they had this exhibition of wedding dresses made from toilet paper!:

 

Hehe they are soo good! My dad said they are alright as long as it doesn't rain, which is very true! :P

 

In ripleys they also had these tiny shoes called lily shoes- they do really weird stuff to your feet but I just thought they looked like cute little pixie shoes:

 

They even seemed to have a pattern for them:

 

I may try it one day but a modified version as I don't want to squeeze up my feet to be all tiny!

 

In other news it is my friends birthday coming up this weekend and we are all going to Wahaca the Mexican restaurant to celebrate. I wanted to make her a little something to go along with the rest of her gifts.

 

(P.S if you are my friend whose birthday it is you should stop reading now to prevent ruining any surprises!!!!)

 

I wasn't sure exactly what but I knew I wanted it to be cute. In the end I decided to go for a panda and then just started making and Little Tall Panda was born:

 

 

He is a brooch. I called him little tall panda as he is small but his body ended up quite long :-)

One of her favourite colours is purple so I added the purple bow and buttons to make him look all snazzy and such-like. I hope she likes him :0)

 

And my last bit of this post is just an update on my corset! This week Wednesday to Thursday is the last 3 days we have to finish our corsets (though we may get a little bit of time later on if we finish our 2nd part of this project early). I am getting there with mine, it does resemble a corset properly now and all the bones are in it:

 

Just some more bias binding, putting the eyelets in and then all the tabs which will be the fiddly and potentially time consuming bits but I hope I will get it all done :-)

 

I am off to bed now to get my beauty sleep, lol :)

 

See you all soon and thanks for reading my lovely friends!

 

Byeeeeeeeeee XxXxXxXxX