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

Symposium! (and stuff :)

Hi,

 

Last week was a really good week for me as it was 'Symposium week' at my college. What this means is basically a week off of timetabled lectures with loads of fun and interesting workshops, talks and performances going on instead :D

 

I booked myself onto loads of the workshops including zumba (which was really enjoyable), dream catcher making, sword fighting (super fun!!!!!) and I did quite a few costume related ones, including 3 morning workshops about Kimonos :0)

The lady was really nice and knowledgeable and bought in tons of the kimonos from her collection from martial arts related ones to bridal.

 

Here are a couple of her most extravagant kimono over-robes:

 

 

And here is me (from behind so you can see my freestyle- tied

 obi which hangs down) dressed as a Geisha :) It was cool being dressed up- I learnt a lot about how it actually feels to wear the kimono as well as how to put it on properly:

 

The obi is done up so much more tightly than I imagined it was and there is a lot more padding than I thought there was underneath too :P Brian who is next to me was dressed up like a shogun (military warrior). The lady who ran the workshops also rents out her kimonos etc... and has a website- where there are more pictures of all the kimonos we all tried on at symposium: here!

 

Another workshop I did was trauma makeup. Hahaha, a lot of fake blood was used! and some cornflakes mixed with coffee, golden syrup and red food colouring to make stuff that resembled blood clots.

 

I warn all those who are faint hearted to LOOK AWAY NOW!

 

As the following picture of my work I did in the workshop although FAKE (of course! :) is very gory:

 

 

I think I actually did get it quite realistic looking thanks to the techniques of the tutor :-)

 

Another thing that made my week really good apart from symposium was finding out that I was the special winner of a free Royal School of Needlework day course from the draw I entered at the creative stitches and Hobbycrafts show at the excel :D I am soo excited and have chosen to do a course on 17th century design inspired metal/gold work button brooches- It sounds so interesting- that is in November so kind of like a great early Christmas present!

 

And if all that wasn't enough for one week me and my mum went to the John Paul Gaultier fashion exhibition at the Barbican Arts centre/Theatre in London which was fabulous.

 

It was really different to other exhibitions I have been to as they gave some of the mannequins faces using digital projection- they even talked! I thought this really brought the whole exhibition and the clothes to life a bit more.

 

Look at the amazingness of these dresses!:

 

 

Another thing that was cool and different was that they actually had a moving catwalk! All these mannequins were dressed and on stands that moved around the catwalk, again this brought so much more life and excitement to the clothes making them look even more spectacular than they already are:

 

Well, that's just about it for the catch up of my week...

 

.....No.... Wait! I have one more fabulous thing to tell you about :P The Chocolate festival I went to on Sunday with a friend from college at the London Business and Design centre  (I really did have a crazy fun week :oD)

 

There were quite a few different samples of yummy chocolate to try and lots of baked goods on sale. As a treat I went for this brownie:

 

 

It was sooooo delicious, it was called a 'buckeye' brownie. It was a normal chocolate brownie topped with Oreo cookie frosting and a layer of milk chocolate ganache mmmm... I want another one!

 

My brownie was from Batch bakery: http://batchbakery.co.uk/

 

My friend had a peanut butter brownie which she said was amazing from the Brownie Bar: http://www.browniebar.co.uk/

 

They do a really good price online delivery of brownies so I think I may have to get some of those sent to me in the near future as they looked good too but I couldn't fit a second brownies in after my Oreo- sugar overload one :P

 

I hope you are all well, and now I promise my post is officially finished :)

 

Don't forget to enter my Spring/Easter giveaway if you haven't already as as I found out last week you never know your luck!

 

Speak to you all again very soon,

 

Bye XxXxXxX

My trip to the UK wedding fair :)

Hellooo,

 

Last Saturday my mum took me to the UK wedding fair at the excel centre in London (To study all the pretty dresses with my costume making eye! :P). I was very excited as many of you will remember me blogging about how amazing the Asian wedding fair I went to was.

 

Hehe, Instead of waffling on I will let the pictures I took do the talking- this time I managed to get clearer photos as me and my mum got really good seats right at the front for the catwalk show:

Who said a wedding dress had to be white? This is one of the vintage dresses they showed, here is another one:

 

I love going to bridal shows as it is an area I may go into in the future, after uni. You Learn a lot from them and often pick up tons of contact info and brochures (with tons of pictures!!!) I want to got to an African wedding fair next so I work my way around the globe-wedding fair style! :P

 

I hope you all are having a good week so far :) This week is my last week in college working on my half scale kimono- it is going to be a challenge but fingers crossed I get it all done (it doesn't have to be finished, the project is more looking at good technique but I realllly want to finish mine!).

 

I am thinking of doing a giveaway soon, so keep you eyes peeled :D

 

See you again soon,

 

Byeeeeee XxXXxXxXxXx