Wish me luck, I’m off to Stylist magazine for a day

More exciting news for team Style & Then Some this week (following our feature on the Telegraph website last week) – I won a competition as part of Stylist magazine’s Made by you issue and I get to go and write for their website for a day. To celebrate the magazine’s 100th edition, virtually everything in the magazine that comes out on Wednesday 2 November will be produced by readers and they held a bunch of competitions to find writers, stylists, illustrators and designers for the issue.

For the online writer competition I had to write a top ten list like the ones they feature on the Stylist website. I chose a top ten of the funniest fictional Twitter accounts, featuring sample tweets from people like @Queen_UK. I also added to the email a list of five reasons that I thought they should pick me, so maybe that helped me stand out from the crowd. But it was still a huge surprise when Stephanie Wood,  Assistant Editor (Online), called me on Friday morning to say I was one of the two winners along with a girl called Stacey, who tweeted me later that day. Luckily, I recently reduced my hours at work to four days a week and my boss was happy to let me swap my non working day to Wednesday (she’s really supportive about my ‘extra curricular activities’ and was really pleased that I won). So I’ve got the all clear for my day at Stylist HQ and I can’t wait!

Stephanie says that I’ll be helping to write news stories in the morning and compiling photo galleries and lists in the afternoon. I’m really looking forward to seeing how a magazine production team works on a day to day basis, and getting some online writing tips from the pros. I’m also hoping I don’t make any major office faux-pas or somehow cause the entire website to crash. You can find out if that does happen by going to www.stylist.co.uk on Wednesday, and don’t forget to check back here later in the week when I’ll blog about how I got on.

Read about the Stylist ‘Made by you’ 100th issue.

A vintage-inspired All Hallow’s Eve

God Bless those Americans.  They don’t do things by halves.  And seeing as All Hallow’s Eve a.k.a Halloween is my all time favourite holiday (OK, I know it isn’t an offical holiday, but I am talking to my local MP about getting that altered), it was with great delight that when I was in the USA in early September, I had the opportunity to get my frightening fix of Halloween goodies much earlier than anticipated. 

So I was over the (full) moon when I came across these amazing vintage-inspired Halloween postcards.  Reproduced from 1920′s prints, not only are they utterly adorable, but they’re a far cry from the tacky, plastic image of Halloween – something that has become all-too prevalent nowadays.

I even found the cutest little Halloween chocolates thanks to Godiva….

So it just goes to show Halloween can be a more classy affair if you want it to be.

Heads Will Roll – Her Curious Nature

Hair accessories always feel a bit regal and unnecessary and that’s precisely why they’re almost never out of fashion. Place that flower behind your ear or a headband neatly over a messy bun and it feels like the only finishing touch you need. And since you’re always aware of them, unlike other jewellery and accessories, they can give you a sense of purpose or power.

I discovered Her Curious Nature on the ground floor of Topshop Oxford Circus so I’m not claiming to have found a secret with this one but I thought I’d share it all the same. They’ve got some absolutely beautiful headpieces from boho, flower garlands to evening, velvety headbands and the prices seemed to be around £25 from the pieces that I saw. They also do bespoke and made to order pieces which I imagine will cost a little more.

Wearing hair accessories is a bit like putting on your Sunday best – listen to these words of wisdom from one of my favourite musicals, Hello Dolly and you’ll see what I mean.

Russian Doll Syndrome

I don’t really know when I got hooked. Apparently it was my third birthday. Each present neatly piled on top of the next, ready to be decimated by the onslaught of another birthday. For me, it wasn’t so much what was held within the package – I wouldn’t spare a thought for the latest tropical Barbie or new Eternal single. It was the act of opening that held me in thrall.

Fast-forward twenty years and my ‘Russian doll syndrome’ resurfaced again when I saw these beautiful ornaments on the Heal’s website. In classic white porcelain, the objects had the facades of renaissance palaces etched onto them and were beautiful in their own right.

Imagine my surprise, then, when looking at the specs I realised that they weren’t just ornamental: when disassembled, the structures unfolded into a component of a beautiful dinner service. Palaces turned into plates: towers into tumblers. It was the kind of stuff that would have had my younger-self going giddy over.

Seletti – the clever people behind the range – apparently used the Renaissance and modular storage as inspiration. For young house-hunters it also has the bonus of doubling up as decorative and functional. Either way, this is already on my Christmas list. Boyfriends, take note.

Handmade music: Kirsty Almeida

I remember a while back when the ‘digital revolution’ was really starting to panic people. Everyone was talking about how musicians weren’t going to be able to make any money, and record companies were going to go bust. I must have been about ten, because I associate those debates with listening to my discman at school and wondering whether it was all just a bit melodramatic and over the top. They were right, in a way, but I was right, too. The music industry has changed dramatically, but it has survived. While CD sales have plummeted, and record labels have closed, some, like HMV have adapted. Wisely, they’ve realised that the big bread winner is now live music, and have started shifting their business plan towards ticket sales and organising events like the HMV Next Big Thing festival.

Kirsty Almeida, like pretty much all musicians of her generation, does not see the shift that has happened over the last few decades as a threat, but as a kind of liberation for artists, a tool to give them greater creative freedom; it is no longer entirely necessary to have industry backing in the traditional sense. This generation of young musicians are net-natives, using Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube and Vimeo in an organic way to express themselves and build and strengthen fan bases around the world. Perhaps Kirsty is an extreme example of this artistic adaptability, having grown up travelling from place to place, including Venezuela, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and Gibraltar, because of her father’s job.

I caught up with Kirsty yesterday when she was on her way to Glasgow to support her friends The Dead Man’s Waltz at their album launch. ‘I learnt a lot about story telling in songs from listening to country and western music,’ she explained. ‘I like to share with other musicians, and you can’t get that from anywhere else,’ she said, when I asked her about her own strong emphasis on live performance. This is something she has in common with a lot of other artists at the moment, and it is also something that music fans are increasingly craving. People might not be willing to pay so much to buy music anymore, but they are certainly willing to pay for a unique experience of seeing the artist live.

Kirsty’s voice is smooth and jazzy, but there’s also something very intimate and slightly vulnerable about it. She cites Aretha Franklin as an influence – in fact, her voice kind of reminds me of another one of Aretha’s fans, Rumer.

Having tried the more standard route, Kirsty decided to set up her own record label over the past year, and she paints and sews the beautiful album covers for her CDs herself. ‘I don’t necessarily think of myself as a musician,’ she said, explaining that she sees the process of making a website, writing some poetry or a short story and painting as all part of the creative, artistic process.

Kirsty’s single, If You Can’t Make Me Happy, is out on November 7th.

The Queen announces it’s officially Gin O’Clock

Did the photo fool you? That’s not actually the real Queen of England, it’s an imposter sent by the Queen of Twitter a.k.a @Queen_UK, the fictional monarch who has a predilection for gin.  The lookalike was on hand last Monday to deliver a speech to mark the launch of Gin O’Clock, the Twitter Queen’s debut book.  (Watch a video of the Queen’s speech below).

Easily one of the funniest fictional Twitter accounts, @Queen_UK has amassed more than 470,000 loyal subjects since she started tweeting  – about everything from life in Buckingham Palace (‘Queen fancy dress party in Royal household this evening. Charles has come as Freddie Mercury. Camilla has come as me.’) to international state affairs (‘One has banned Sarah Palin from running for President to save one’s American subjects from international embarrassment.’). Naturally, a book deal was sure to follow. Gin O’Clock is a diary of the events of 2011, delivered in the Queen’s typically dry tone. Obviously major occasions like the Royal Wedding and a visit from the Obama feature, but who knew the Queen was such a fan of the Brit Awards (‘Pencilled in Cee-Lo Green for the Royal Wedding’)? And she loves Eurovision so much she threw a themed party – ‘Beatrice and Eugenie came as Jedward, which was quite convincing, to be fair to them.’

Helen and I meet 'The Queen' at the Gin O'Clock launch

Gin features heavily in the diary (the contents of Her Maj’s handbag for the Royal Wedding are listed as ‘miniature gin, remote weapons button, reading glasses, iPhone, bag of peanuts) so it made sense that those gin geniuses Bombay Sapphire were enlisted for the book launch. They rustled up a special Gin O’Clock cocktail which Her Majesty heartily endorsed. ‘Any time is the perfect time for a Gin O’Clock cocktail,’ she said. ‘Goodness, it’s gone Gin O’Clock.

Gin O’Clock by The Queen (of Twitter) is available now from all good bookshops and to order from Amazon. RRP £12.99. Visit the Gin O’Clock Facebook page.

Eudon Choi – spotlight on the WGSN Global Fashion Award winner

One designer that we didn’t get chance to cover at September’s Fashion Week is Eudon Choi. The South Korean designer, whose label is stocked at boutiques like Browns Focus and Hervia Bazaar in Manchester, worked for All Saints and Twenty8Twelve before launching his own label in 2009. The nonchalance of those brands has stayed with his look, combined with his previous experience in menswear.

Choi has just won the Lycra Style Emerging Talent Award at the WGSN Global Fashion Awards 2011 but anyone keeping their eye on Vauxhall Fashion Scout’s schedule over the past few years will know that the Royal College of Art graduate was selected for ‘Ones to Watch’ in February 2010 and then progressed to Merit Award winner last September. Choi will now get consulting, marketing and technical support with his next AW 12 collection.

For SS12, Eudon Choi showed round frames on sixties sunglasses and long, loose pastel coloured separates. Playing to both feminine and masculine aesthetics, these were combined with graphic sports jackets, stripe motifs and the occasional jumpsuit. And it was all so wearable, we wouldn’t be surprised if we spotted a high street collaboration before long.

Eudon Choi at the WGSN Global Fashion Awards 2011

Stella Tennant and the Teapot Trust’s ultimate art cause

With our fingers firmly on the creative pulse here at Style & Then Some, it is never far from our minds that creativity is one of life’s most important emotional outlets.  We are taught from a very young age a variety of lessons through the art of drawing, painting, colouring in – even gluing ourselves to anyone and everything.  Yet many children who suffer from life-threatening illnesses are denied their fundamental right to creativity due to long stays in hospitals, and so forth.

So we are over the moon that the Teapot Trust, set up by John and Laura Young, who became aware how much art in hospitals meant to their daughter during her stays there, have enlisted the help of model extraordinaire Stella Tennant, to raise money for their cause.   Ms. Tennant, whose own children were at the school that John and Laura’s daughter attended, modelled this gorgeous pendant, designed by the Teapot Trust, commissioned by Lyon & Turnbull Auctioneers and made by Eric N Smith Jewellers Glasgow, will go on sale on November 30th.  The money raised will help the Teapot Trust provide art-as-therapy for children suffering from life-limiting illnesses at Edinburgh’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children and will be branching out to the RHSC in Glasgow and Yorkhill as well.

The image of Stella above was captured in Paris by Peter Lindbergh and may also be auctioned off in the near future.  So with such a beautiful cause behind it, and such a gorgeous, guilt-free necklace up for grabs, why not get bidding on the 30th?

The Tea Pot Trust Charity Auction will take place at Lyon & Turnbull, 33 Broughton Place, Edinburgh, EH1 3RR, on Wednesday 30 November 2011. See www.teapot-trust.org for more info.

Why I was disappointed with Midnight In Paris (SPOILER ALERT)

Everyone kept telling me I should go and see Midnight In Paris. A Woody Allen film set in Paris with appearances from literary and artistic giants Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds and Picasso, you would think it would be right up the street of a Paris-obsessed English Literature graduate. The truth is, I thought it was pretty bad. The script was poorly written and stumbled along as I cringed at heavy-handed stereotypes, caricatures and cliché after cliché. The concept was sweet and fun – not particularly original or anything, but it had potential. But, being relatively new to Woody Allen, I expected such a famous film maker to be able to at least… I don’t know, make a good film.

For one thing, he presented a very black and white view of Americans versus the French. In this world view, Americans (except for Gil, the protagonist, who one assumes is heavily modelled on Mr Allen) are obnoxious and don’t appreciate beauty and culture even when it hits them in the face. The French, on the other hand, are sexually liberated, sensitive and artistic people. From the start of the film, it was very clear that Gil’s fiancée and her parents hate Paris and don’t want to be there, complaining about the barbarism of French politics and turning their noses up in disdain at the thought of strolling around the city to see the sights. There was nothing sympathetic at all about Inez, Gil’s fiancée – she was a one dimensional character through and through, doing nothing but complain and belittle her fiancé the whole time. It was completely unbelievable that they would have ever got engaged in the first place. As Gil says at one point, the only thing they seem to have in common is that they both like pita bread.

But the caricatures don’t stop there. When you meet Hemingway, he quotes his own books, downs a bottle of champagne and then shouts ‘Who wants a fight?’ at no one in particular. We get it, Hemingway was a macho alcoholic. The most appealing characters were Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, and I found myself wishing they had been given more screen time. Or that it had been a film about them, instead of the dull, gormless Gil Pender who eyes up every woman who came in his vicinity but has the shocked look of an innocent puppy on his face when his engagement falls apart. Really, you didn’t see that coming? Really?

But what’s strange about this film is that all the critics seem to love it. Did no one at Cannes notice the awkward and clumsy script? It has been hailed as a return to form for Woody Allen; I’m far from an aficionado on the subject (I saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona and thought that was terrible too), but if this is a return to form, I dread to think what he is like on a bad day.

Want to make up your own mind? Midnight in Paris is in cinemas now. If you’ve already seen it, let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

ELLE and H&M Fashion Network Event

Last Wednesday Katie  and I were invited to attend the ELLE and H&M Fashion Network Event, held at London’s flagship H&M store over on Oxford Street.  We were also joined by our lovely blogger friend Jaime London Boy and enjoyed an evening listening to the pearls of wisdom that some of British ELLE magazine’s elite had to say.

With the focus on ‘how to get your dream job’, Anna Ogundehin, (ELLE’s Acting Executive Fashion Editor) took to the mic and addressed the importance of research, dedication and determination in order to successfully make it in the fashion industry.  It was also interesting to hear Anna explaining the many different aspects of her job, as well as how she came to be at ELLE.  Anna and her colleagues were also on hand to individually chat to guests and answer their questions on how to make it in the industry (Katie didn’t seem to want to let them go!).

With unemployment for young adults and University leavers becoming a serious headache for the Government at the moment, it was refreshing to see such huge fashion names bringing their collective clout together to organise this event.  We even got treated to a courtesy copy of this month’s magazine…for aspirational purposes I am sure.

Find out more about the ELLE H&M NETWORK here.

Do it like a dude – Tycoon Neckwear and this season’s androgyny

2011 has been all about androgyny – from Andrej Pejic taking star turns on the Paris catwalks, to the laid-back tomboyish style seen at Celine and Stella McCartney for spring/summer 2012.

There’s nothing I would love more than to curl up in my boyfriend’s old dress-shirts – or throw on a pair of cigarette pants and channel my inner Katherine Hepburn for the night. Yet every time I seem to trial the trend, I keep running into the same problem. Or to be more precise, two problems.

Having a sizeable bosom may have made me the object of envy at school, but I do not make a convincing tomboy. Here’s a few reason’s why:

1)    Braces – not the clown type, but a slim-line black pair teamed with a crisp white shirt. The desired effect: 20s dandy, by way of YSL. The reality: Someone has just paint-rollered black lines across my chest, and made it scream ‘LOOK, I have HUGE BOOBS!’

2)    High-Waisted Trousers – think Diana Keaton, circa Annie Hall. The desired effect: gamine tomboy. The reality: emphasises that my chest can double up as a bookshelf. Handy.

3)    Tails - nothing cries tomboyish nonchalance as much as a man’s tailcoat. The desired effect: Bright Young Thing. The reality: Slutty showgirl.

With my experiments coming over less Katharine Hepburn and more Katie Price, I was ready to draw a line under this trend. That was until the clever lot at the Nest Blog introduced me to Tycoon Neckwear.

The brainchild of Madelyn Somers, the company recycles vintage mens ties into bespoke bow ties and retails from £40 upwards. Her quirky designs may not be everyone’s cup of tea but they are gorgeous statement pieces, and have been snapped up by the likes of Janelle Monae and Spanish Vogue.

So simple and a confident nod to the tomboy trend. My two friends have never been happier.

Adorable accessories alert: Knit your own hedgehog mittens

I wore gloves today for the first time since last winter, which is kind of depressing, because that means I’m at the start of my annual four month long battle to try and stay at least moderately warm (my house gets so cold that last year I bought an electric blanket, and it was basically the best thing I ever purchased). But the cold morning air also gave me a little pang of excitement at the thought of all the thick woolen layers I’ll be able to pile on when it get’s really cold. Instead of my Primark fake leather driving gloves I’ve decided I want an adorable hedgehog on each hand. I found these mittens on the I Love Wool Facebook page (remember the amazing competition they ran earlier this year?). They’re by Australian wool company Morehouse Farm Merino, but you’re going to have to take up knitting to get your hands on them, or find a willing knitter, because it’s the pattern that’s for sale. For AUS$24.80 you get the yarn, pattern, and bead eyes, but no needles unfortunately. There are loads of other adorable animals like owls and penguins, plus kooky things like lobster claws. My personal favourites are the beehive mittens, because of my new found hobby, beekeeping. Would it be wrong if I bought my Mum the pattern for Christmas, just so she can make me some?

The Hedgehog Mitts KnitKit is available online from Morehouse Farm website. Check out the whole range of Critter Knits.

Check out Style & Then Some’s guest article on the Telegraph’s London website

Read the full article here: London’s best charity shops: stylish spoils and sweet charity

I’m really quite excited about this. Today an article I wrote for the Telegraph’s London website was published. It came about after Alice Revel from Running in Heels kindly recommended Style & Then Some to the site’s London Content Editor, John O’Ceallaigh. John got in touch and asked if we’d like to contribute an article about fashion in the capital. It was hugely flattering to be asked and jumped at the chance – I put five years of bargain hunting to good use and wrote a guide to finding the best charity shops in London. I trekked all over the city and came up with a top five areas to target, and I’m pretty pleased with the resulting article. More than that, I’m really proud that all of mine, Helen, Sophie and Sophie C’s hard work on the blog has lead to us being featured on the website of a national newspaper. So girls, next stop Vogue?

Mind and RSPCA in Highgate, one of the five areas I featured in my guide to London charity shops

Tomfoolery: Guilt-free footwear

I recently started a relationship with Tom and I think he’s a keeper.  He lets me walk all over him!  Ok, enough of the jokes.  I am of course talking about Toms footwear.  And yes, we are all aware any hipster/scenester/indie wonder kid worth their weight in roll ups own a pair already.  Actually I have two, although my scenester credentials leave something to be desired.

The thing is, Toms as a brand have created one of the strongest ethical identities with a ‘cool’ image in recent times.  As well as a perfect (in my opinion) product, which they have managed to successfully expand upon.  Most fans of the brand know that it was built under the pretence that for every pair bought a pair of shoes would be given to an underprivileged child (the ‘one for one’ campaign).  And now Toms are branching into designer sunglasses with the same focus on eyecare.  And with shoe collaborations with The Row’s Olsen Twins as well as expanding in to the wedding market (I’m not kidding, they now offer a satin pair for the blushing bride), it seems Toms is giving larger corporate companies a run for their money, whilst giving back to the community.  And hey, that might explain why you can now buy them all over the high street, from Office, Schuh and Soletrader.

But hey, they’re not for everyone.  However, I am already planning on adding about 5 different pairs to the old Christmas list.  I’m surely not the only one with a Toms addiction, no?

Culture department – Cornelia Parker’s edit of government art at Whitechapel Gallery

Craigie Aitchison, Portrait of Alton Peters (10 Downing Street)

For all the views you might have on the uselessness of government, it is an important art collector. And Whitechapel Gallery has invited various curators to bring this massive collection to life over the next year or so, with the Government Art collection.

First up is Whitechapel favourite Cornelia Parker, an artist, herself and her take on the collection can be seen until December. But we’ve also got Simon Schama’s picks (December to February 2012) and even staff from 10 Downing Street (March to June).

Parker takes the mnemonic Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain as her inspiration and the one-room show really will shake up your gallery visiting experiences. For a start she has chosen the simple idea – some would say gimmick – of arranging her favourite pieces by their main colour to make the whole collection work as one. It hits you as you walk in and slowly realise, turning from one coloured section to another what is going on.

And that’s the other thing, there’s just tons of art crammed onto the Whitechapel walls – it looks messy and I loved it. It’s just not something I’m used to seeing in galleries and I’d love to see more of it.

Andy Warhol, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom 1985 (British Consul-General's Residence, New York)

The locations of the pieces themselves, noted in the (free) booklet guide that accompanies the (free) exhibition, are really intriguing. Double Deathshead from the ‘Screen portfolio’ by the Chapman brothers is a screenprint with two skulls, one bulging 3D eye each on a blood-red background – and it’s come straight from the Cabinet office.

And Grayson Perry’s fantastic Print for a Politician etching, which details whereabouts in an imaginary settlement all the ‘wankers’, ‘blacks’, ‘students’ and ‘rockers’ live must raise a few eyebrows at the HM Treasury where it usually hangs.

Also worth a peek at the Whitechapel Gallery are the mini exhibition-on-an-exhibition Rothko in Britain upstairs and Josiah McElheny installation on the ground floor. It’s all free but the gallery asks for a £2 donation.

Find out more about the Government Art collection and other upcoming exhibitions on the Whitechapel gallery website.

Martin Creed, Work No. 253: THINGS 2000 (HM Ambassador's Residence, Paris)

In search of an hourglass figure: Roadtesting the Maidenform Pretty Collection

‘A package has arrived for you that has vintage boobs all over it,’ the text message from my housemate read. Oh, that’ll be the Maidenform samples, I thought. Last week, Helen and I got to grips with some pieces from the autumn/winter Pretty Collection to find out if the famed underwear brand’s shapewear could turn us into shapely pin-up beauties with curves to rival the likes of Christina Hendricks.

Maidenform Pretty Collection Bustier

Maidenform Pretty Collection Waist Nipper

Hendricks, or rather Joan, her Mad Men character, is precisely who we were trying to emulate because Janie Bryant, costume designer on the series that fashion mags love to replicate the most, is official Wardrobe Mistress for Maidenform, providing creative input for the brand. So how did we get on with a bunch of vintage dresses, a bustier and something called a waist nipper? We took to my roof terrace armed with Helen’s camera to document our experiments. Here, in typically melodramtic infomercial style, are the results:

Before

After

Let’s face it, even without our exaggerated posing, the Pretty Collection bustier (£32) did a darn good job of turning me from a skinny minnie to something more shapely. Now, I must confess, since I’m not really a 34B bust (far from it) there’s a bit of an illusion going on here. But under that slouchy green velvet dress no one has to know, right?

Before

After

Same for Helen’s clingy black dress – I think the sexy secretary look  gets added fifties authenticity when worn with the bustier. The other thing about this kind of shapewear is that the firm control fabric holds you very securely, so you feel so much more feminine. It really makes you sit up straight and think about your posture. Or, in the case of wearing the lace trimmed waist nipper (£28) under my extremely tight strapless blue metallic dress, I found it a little bit hard to breathe.

So the key takeaway for us is that sizing is all important when it comes to your intimate underpinnings. Get that right and you’ve got the foundation for an authentic pin-up figure.

Visit the Maidenform website to shop online.

Stationery, skincare and songs – why I have a crush on all things Australian

I’ve been noticing a common theme to a lot of my favourite things, recently. Natural skincare brands Jurlique and Natio, the beautiful stationery company Poppies for Grace, and the musicians Matt Corby (who I interviewed for Style and Then Some earlier this year here), Boy and Bear and Angus and Julia Stone all have a couple of important things in common: they are all great, and they are all Australian. Yes, that’s right, I have an Australian crush.

Everything at Jurlique feels and smells amazing on your skin, and the tinted moisturiser by Natio is so much lighter and just all-around better than any other I’ve tried (including a very disappointing one from Elizabeth Arden, which didn’t moisturise my skin properly and just made me look a bit orange). Poppies for Grace has been inspiring my idea of the ideal desk space recently with pretty notepads, sticky notes and letter writing paper. I have a little fantasy where I write everyone beautiful letters and thank you notes and such like all the time, and in this fantasy everything is from Poppies for Grace.

Poppies for Grace apple pie notebook

When I went to Melbourne in 2008 I completely fell in love with their Victorian wrought-iron terraces, art galleries, avenues of vintage shops and quirky little cafes and bakeries. It was the perfect, laid-back mix of European-style culture and an ideal kind of city life where everyone changed out of their suits and went surfing after work. With more sun all year round than us, and great expanses of open, wild landscape, it’s no wonder this country is producing so many great things at the moment.

Do you have a crush on a particular nation?

Next, I’ll be exploring all things Icelandic.

VIDEO: London Fashion Week SS12 – the Style and Then Some way

A model opens the John Rocha show on the second day of London Fashion Week SS12. And that’s how you feel when you first try and get into a fashion show as a blogger – the spotlight is on you, the catwalk has never looked longer and everyone else is cool, dark and … watching.

But after that initial moment of fear, the show can begin. Most of your audience are too busy looking dark and mysterious anyway and no-one wants the model to trip up.

Luckily we’re old timers now – apart from Sophie Caldecott, LFW newbie but ever the professional. I put together the video below from catwalk footage we managed to grab, with a few bits and bobs from in between shows. Everything was shot by the S&TS team and our photographers for the week Helene, Faraz and Katie Mogridge.

Image: Faraz Pourreza-Jorshari

LFW darlings Eudon Choi and Masha Ma up for WGSN Emerging Talent Award

Masha Ma at London Fashion Week SS12

WGSN is holding its second annual Global Fashion Awards next week on the 20th October and we’re planning to keep our eye on 2011′s new category: The Lycra Style Emerging Talent Award.

The trend forecasters will have the tough job of deciding between an exciting shortlist of relatively unknown designers which includes Eudon Choi, Raoul, Kirsty Ward, Timo Weiland and Masha Ma – whose show, inspired by the Palace of Versailles, we were lucky enough to report from in September at LFW S/S12.

Whose collections have caught your eye this season? And who do you think could benefit from an award like this? The winner of the WGSN award gets consulting, marketing and technical support with their A/W 12 collection. Check back next week to find out which designer will be catapulted onto the fashion radar at the ceremony in Gotham Hall, NYC.

Image: Faraz Pourreza-Jorshari

An [ethical] Affair To Remember

My Linda Mai Phung blue silk maxi dress arrived recently, to my great glee (and my dog’s surprise) as I ripped open the parcel with squeals of delight. It’s the one that I fell in love with at the Ethical Fashion Show in Paris last month.

I promptly wore it to a masquerade party last weekend. The compliments kept coming all night. There’s something so refreshingly simple about the design – it’s a flattering cut with a scoop neck line and a racer back which makes it feel a little understated and cool, and it’s a stunning electric blue. All in all, a recipe to make you stand out in just the right way.

I also have my eye on Phung’s gorgeous purple and pink silk ‘Annel’ jumpsuit. A friend pointed out that it looks every so slightly like a Star Trek uniform, but instead of putting me off, that only made me want it more (Captain Janeway was a big childhood heroine of mine). The only thing is, I found out that I got an amazing special 40% discount when I bought my dress at the Ethical Fashion Show, which explained it’s affordability. Her e-shop doesn’t go online until early next year, so at least that gives me time to save up for the 270 euros price tag. Having said that, though, non-sale Reiss and French Connection jumpsuits aren’t that much cheaper. It’s really not too bad then, considering you’re buying something unique, helping to save the planet and supporting a talented young designer all at the same time.

Annel jumpsuit (comes in black or dark purple and pink for 270 euros)

Adeline dress (comes in blue or black for 215 euros)

I think I’m onto something big. And with a Linda Mai Phung wardrobe, there’s not too much of a chance of someone else showing up in the same outfit as me, now is there? Not for the moment, anyway… whoops, my secret is out!