RosiePop

Low res fancy dress

Fancy dress genius over at Kinda Car Sick

Enchantment

It's that time of year again. I'm trying to organise a Mad Hatter's Tea Party for my daughter (4) for this weekend. She's going as Alice (obviously, being the birthday girl), and I'm going for a clashing poker print/heart print number. All parties in our house ends up themed with costumes, so it's great P is now old enough to really enjoy dressing up too. 

Whilst making the invitations I came across a brilliant illustrator, Anita Inverarity. Her pen and ink drawings have a vintage, fantastical, dreamy quality about them....

The bottom part of the invitation....

Now to turn the house into an enchanted paper forest...

I really am actually quite excited by....a sofa

I was innocently searching for party bags and small inexpensive (but not choke-worthy) toys to put in them, and I emitted (quite uncharacteristically) - a girly squeal...

...at the sight of this sofa at After Noah - a delightful establishment based in London and online. It is apparently covered in, "faded denimy cotton fabric all stitched together to make an enormous Union flag." How could you not love a sofa covered thus? The fact I adore Chesterfield sofas adds to my joy. AND there is an armchair version:

Protege

In our household, every opportunity is taken to instill a sense of style and broad knowledge of fashion. Therefore, when P. (age 3) on seeing a Helmut Lang ad in an old copy of British Vogue (circa 2003) cried, "MUMMY! LOOK!" (referring to her space hopper), I took the opportunity to frame said picture and hang it in her room. She thinks this is very cool indeed.

Space hoppers can be purchased from Hawkin Bazaar, home of toys you haven't seen in twenty years, unnecessary gifts, comedy tat and stocking fillers. 

Balls and Other Formalities

I had the very last minute pleasure of attending a charity ball yesterday evening. Formal events (weddings, races and the like) bring me out in a rash of rebellion and the need to prove to other attendees that you can have fun with your attire if you so wish and there is no need to be swept mindlessly along with the pastelly tide of dresses (I speak of weddings here), perhaps choking on a fallen feather from your pink fascinator (not fascinating) which has fluttered into your salmon mousse.

Thus I ended up wearing a Topshop mini green ball dress with 2004 Stella McCartney over the knee platform boots, ringleted circus hair, a mini top hat, gloves and a Christian Lacroix for La Redoute frilly trenchcoat over the top. It was fun. I felt borderline very silly (in a good way). I definitely need to get more hats.

LFW - Louise Amstrup

I'm glad Louise Amstrup was my first call at London Fashion Week. A sunny Sunday morning, my first ever fashion event and I already felt hit over the head. It wasn't like I just nipped down for the week - if I go anywhere for longer than a day, it's me, two small children and a ton of child paraphernalia. In the chaos which ensues before leaving anywhere it's easy to forget about yourself. Sure enough, I hadn't managed to pack anything I could actually wear, and my week's outfits revolved around a DIY necklace and three pairs of shorts (one of which I 'made' using a friend's scissors an hour before I left the house, the other - a pair of lace cycling shorts with the gusset cut out). Throw into this newbie nerves, a dicky borrowed camera and already sore feet due to no idea where I was going and platforms. You get the idea. 

Once focused on the clothes I felt reassured and completely in the right place. You can 'see' me getting more relaxed as the photos progress. I did struggle a bit with the borrowed camera - I really should have taken our SLR, but chickened out as I'd only just learned how to use it the week before and was feeling rather self- conscious enough as it was. I took it out the next day when I felt more orientated...

I was glad and relieved to have genuinely loved the collection. Whenever Louise is mentioned, the same facts are cited: her Danish-ness, her ability to create very wearable separates and her experience of working with other designers, notably, Alexander McQueen, Jonathan Saunders and Sofia Kokosalaki. She set up her own label in 2006.

She delivers in this collection: these are clothes easily worn, with an Amstrup twist. A buyer would have seen their saleability. I saw sheers, zips, sporty little numbers, a demure palette of nude/grey/black/off white, gorgeous (silk?) very nicely cut trousers, McQueen-y prints, reflective panels, and those spikey shoulders... All in all, elegant, sporty, universal and gorgeous. Sounds easy, but I suspect Louise is a stickler for detail, and hours agonising for her means reassuringly wearable separates for us...  

Dear Rosiepop...

Every so often I receive an email or message saying something along the lines of: "I've been reading your blog for AGES, really like it and....blah blah blah, fa, fa, fa...". That surprises me. Who ARE these people? If that is you (you know who you are) then HEY HEY come and make my day and say hi via the comments section below. I may even send you a heartfelt and witty reply back. 

LFW - LF Markey

Or, London, Destiny and a Ball

Because, being the creative spirit that I am, I went to London this fashion week on the back of one emailed invite. Others followed, and I followed them and suddenly there I was. If this makes no sense, then no - it didn't, but suddenly it did when I got there and felt utterly at home skulking around with my camera not knowing anyone at all. Strangely freeing it is, being a stranger (once the fear has subsided).

This wasn't the first presentation I attended, but was the reason I was in London in the first place. So Thank You Very Much Louise Markey of LF Markey. You made sure Cinderella got to go to the ball. And I had a Ball at your Ball. Showing a film with models playing basketball in ball gowns and such was genius. As was the stage lighting on your clothes which I could actually go right up to and stare at in my own time. This is the joy of presentations over catwalk/runway. Much more intimate, a longer time to showcase your wares at much less cost (or so I am told).

A few days later I read an article by Davina Catt in Let Them Eat Cake magazine entitled: Why Can't Fashion Shows be More Like Afternoon Tea? She makes the same point - the archetypal runway show needs something memorable, otherwise the designer is easily forgotten in the sea of all the other trotting moody models in all the other shows, in all the other countries. I am amazed how editors and buyers and other properly hard working fashiony types go from show to show, day after day, season after season. Do they go mad? Do they get bored? What makes one designer different from another?

I digress. I would go to a ball in the black and white striped gown. Perfection in its incongruousness. In fact, I will send a bunch of flowers and a pizza to the person who wears this dress to a Significant Event, because that would be very cool. What shoes would they wear?

Chain 'n' Leather

A qwik-e-post before returning northwards...

Fed up as I am of seeing Chanel and Chanel-likey chain bags - I do like them. They also make very good leathery and chain necklaces and the bags (not the Chanel ones obvs.) can be found in many a charity shop for 20p. (Maybe not in cities where prices are a little more 'vintage' than 'second hand', but certainly in my neck of the woods where the Mary Portas effect will not reach any time soon). 

This does involve the possible destruction of the rest of the bag depending in how it's been put together and how handy you are with a pair of of pliers. Maybe don't use an ACTUAL Chanel 2.55...

That's about it really. Take:

• 1 chain/leather bag (in my case - with a tassel).
• 1 pair pliers.
• Detach chain and tassel from bag using brute force/scissors/pliers/whatever.
• Using pliers, open necessary metal rings, link them together and squeeeeeze the rings to close them again. 

Wool, pixel, paper doll

Fashion and dolls go fabric in hand,

the material world goes round.

And everywhere that dolly went

*SHAZAM!*

was surely found.

1. Plan Toys modern furniture set for doll houses

2. Dress Coco Chanel at Stardoll

3. Fashionable knitted finger puppets from Rubbish

4. The delectable Fifi Lapin

5. Paper dolls by I Love Mel

6. Crocheted scissors at WooWork

7. Plasterdoll

8. Samantha Pleet for Dossier No. 4

9. Magnetic paper doll by Sasiko