Living in La La Land Launch

I walked in dazed and confused...

Dazed and Confused! They have one of my favourite magazines on a shelf and it’s the first thing that I see!

In the words of the orphan Annie “I think I’m gonna like it here”!

I am at the launch of a new independent fashion boutique in Glasgow’s West End which is coinciding with the launch of issue 6 of The Coveted Magazine. The editor Sarah Graham is also the owner of this new shop.

She is welcoming and took time to speak to everybody who came. A genuine, warm person who is evidently enthusiastic about her new venture. Well, when I say genuine, she is genuine about absolutely everything, except for her attempt to convince me that her father is the Satorialist!

Living in La La Land compliments her vision in The Coveted Mag; which is the support of the Scottish Fashion Industry. She supports upcoming designers as well as students and monthly will be stocking local student collections. The incredible support from a local boutique could be just the stepping stone for students and designers in promoting and establishing themselves and their collections.

The shop stocks magazines from the Fashion World and will be hosting a fashion magazine swap shop on Thursday 21^st October. (That explains Dazed and Confused!)

Amongst the stock in the boutique there is clothes, accessories and fashion props. I began considering what I would buy as Christmas gifts, the festive thoughts more than likely encouraged by the cute t shirt with the gold Christmas tree silhouette (to buy for someone to ‘borrow’ off them!). The clothing was mostly quirky tops which could easily be styled to ones individual look – my favourite was a white vest with a unicorn on it. Carried me to my own La La Land!

The jewellery currently stocked is Tatty Devine which has a worldwide following within high fashion to celebrities to everyday fashionista’s – impossible to go wrong with that!

Come to the store and have a look for yourself, soak it all up and let the boutique transport you to your very own La La Land of fashion!

Take some time to talk to Sarah and pick up a copy of the Coveted Mag while you’re there!

www.livinginlalaland.co.uk

www.thecovetedmag.com

www.tattydevine.com

www.gum.wordpress.com

The "Don't" Help Pakistan Campaign

I produced a fashion show in aid of the floods in Pakistan. The 'Fashion For The Floods' show complete with high street trends complimented by Asian traditional clothing and Henna artist decorating the guests opened with this powerful video.

The video is part of a campaign to help Pakistan by "house of glaMO". I found it incredibly thought provoking and reminded me of the reason why I was producing the fashion show and I needed to take my guests back to the real purpose of the show they had paid to attend.

It worked in reminding me that we need to keep helping and I can only hope it worked for them so they continue to donate generously to a country crucially in need of our assistance.

I hope it did the same for you.

www.houseofglamo.com/blog

ViP To Chouchou couture

Last week, we were invited to Chouchou Couture‘s “Cozy” sample sale. As far as intimate gigs go, this was pretty close-and-comfortable. Held at the designer’s penthouse quayside apartment with fabulous views over the cityscape through floor-to-ceiling windows, only a funky video installation featuring Chouchou‘s promo shots and some slick graphics projected against the back wall, and of course two rails of handcrafted garments set this apart from a house party thrown for a bunch of friends.

As the late summer sunlight streamed in through the windows, designer Sylvia Pellegrino greeted guests

with prosecco and peaches and her million-dollar smile, setting the mix of mates, journos, local designers and clients-cum-friends, such as a pixie-like chick for whom Pellegrino is designing a floor-length silk one-shoulder gown for what looks like a 21st birthday fit for a princess. A fairy godmother to make you the perfect dress?

Sounds sugar sweet to us!

Chouchou Couture is all about the person and the personable. The night had the feel of a party, even if we did manage to throw in an impromptu photo-shoot!

A designer qualified from CSM, Pellegrino designs her own collection but also provides a

made to measure service, working with the clients’ ideas as well as her own to make people’s dreams a reality. Not only that, she can turn her hand to any well-loved garment you might bring to her attention, and trim and chop to make any adjustments necessary to make what’s frumpy fabulous. Be it vintage, high street or even designer, she has the eye for detail and skills required to turn that dress you never wear into the centerpiece of your wardrobe with a stitch here or new detail there, or by sometimes taking the whole thing apart and starting again.

"It’s often so simple!” she exclaims, in her purry Italian drawl, describing garment transformations through the most basic of alterations. This is the fabulous fashion fairy who can throw a wand of new life over clothes.

A native of Rome, she has spent a considerable amount of time in LA, a city she continues to visit and draw inspiration from; in many ways she embodies these places in her sensual, sunny personality. Her current collection is for similarly bold-and-beautiful, body-confident women. Inspired by dancewear (Zumba is a personal passion of Pellegrino’s), there were synthetic bodys and leggings in fantastic colours as well as hooded dresses and embellished vests in grey jersey and printed wool fabrics, not dissimilar to the wares of that other LA-based sports-inspired brand, for whom Pellegrino worked over in Amsterdam. Yet of course, hers are of far more designy vibe, mixed with an Italian sense of sexuality with short hemlines de rigeur and a dash of leopard-print, as well as that perfectly polished thing our Italian cousins pull off with so much ease and grace.

Ever the international chameleon, she studied design in London as well as a brief but very happy stint at our own University of Glasgow as an Erasmus student. In her work, the quintessential British eccenricity is clearly present in her love of vintage and throws a spanner in the works to all that sassy ‘n’ sexy LA/Italian shit. Reusing forgotten textiles is a Chouchou speciality and printed silks range from pretty polka-dot to quirky candy colours and carriages. There are over-sized blouses and a fabulous tartan coat reworked into a jacket.

On a recent trip to LA, Pellegrino claims the Americans didn’t know what to make of the curveball in the colection, but here there is the swagger and sex appeal to carry it all off. One of our favourites was a super-shiny floral print high-waisted puff skirt that seems to combine the glitz and shape of the dancewear with that odd British sarotrial sense of humour. Also, a peach blouse had been shortened from a granny-chic dress to sex kitten status and would work a treat with denim hotpants and a mane of tangled, youthful locks at any Glasgow hotspot. But in the end we had to settle for the high-necked leopard-print softer-than-silk tunic top. We need some of Chouchou‘s Italian sex appeal – British quirkiness and frump?

Coming down with it, mate.

www.chouchoucouture.com

Chouchou Couture stockists:

We Love to Boogie Vintage www.welovetoboogievintage.com

Welcome Home www.welcomehomestore.co.uk

and in Godiva www.godivaboutique.co.uk

Photography: RN Smith http://handbagsandfaghags.wordpress.com

Kate Moss 3D - KM3D 1 - AnOther Magazine

Fashion at the Fringe

Article for GUMagazine

August 2010

Think Edinburgh Fringe, you would think performance rather than fashion. Che Camille, a design workshop based in Glasgow combined performance and fashion in staging the first fashion on the fringe in its opening weekend.

The eclectic performance aspects which the fashionistas were delighted with were slotted amongst the diverse displays of fashion from Scottish designers. They came in form of a ukulele accompanied song written for the woman of the hour (in the sixty minutes previous to the show) and “Rock The Shop” - a rap about the history and origins of Che Camille. (Check out the music video on youtube.com!) Naturally the greatest form of the entertainment came from the impromptu drag act from the hot mess that is Lady Munter for her own half time show.

Now, back to the fashion.

Continuing her support of the local, all fourteen designers exhibiting at Camille’s show were Scottish. The pieces played right into the hands of key trends for Autumn Winter 2010, regardless of which designers collections will have tickled your fashion taste buds.

Hibernate Design and Judy R Clark wrapped up their models in tweed to compliment Chanel’s Fall 2010 look. Hibernate Design also displayed knitwear that would do granny proud, although on the contrary Miss Dixie Belle would make granny blush with her eccentric lingerie flaunting corsets, nipple tassels, suspenders; the works. Granny might not appreciate, but it would certainly make us bitches and our boyfriends proud. Both Christina Beth Kean and MIA mocked the yawn recession gloom with funky gold pieces on the models, for the Christmas party anyone? Embracing the looks from McQueen to Anna Sui, the designers at Che Camille’s Fashion on the Fringe show covered every frosted base for the chilly season ahead.

What the fashion on the fringe provided was the designer trends without the designer price tag. So don’t go blowing that student loan on the high street, invest in affordable, unique pieces in which you will not only stand out in but also promoting those so often unfortunately neglected Scottish designers.

DESIGNERS: Claire Ferguson, Kristina Beth Kean, Nonchalant by Gemma Carver, Miss Dixie Bell, Hibernate Design, Hayley Kruger, Jayne Stephens, Jane Gowans, Pure by Catriona Garforth, Judy R Clark, MIA, Little Sister Lucy, Pea Cooper Millinery, Obscure Couture

www.checamille.com

Smokin' Hot Fashion

Who said smoking should not be used in advertisements?

Kate Moss certainly makes it look sexy (again) in this Isabel Marant campaign


Fucking the system brought to you by the best

Loving it!

Time for a Marlbro Light ...

Flower Power-Less

Betsey Johnson Spring Summer 2010

As one of those individuals who has self diagnosed with Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a phrase I am not likely to be heard uttering is “hurry up winter!” However I am finding myself gazing at trees with the notion of embracing my inner eight year old and climbing them to howl it from the treetops. The reason being?

Winters chilly arrival heralds the departure (less morbid word than death don’t you think) of most flowers. Fashion gods willing this will also include the departure of floral print.

Whilst I am guilty of possessing floral print clothing (a cute light blazer bought for a recent trip to Dubai), I can’t help but begin to detest it.

Personally I assume the trend was not intended for head to toe including matching shoes and bag to resemble what would happen if Amsterdam’s famous flower market exploded over plain clothing and created one single look. The floral is becoming a high street eyesore which is compelling me to ditch the summer look and pull out my vintage fur cape ready for the autumn.

In addition to floral prints being overdone on the high street, they have also been overdone at the summer music festivals where the flowers have been trampled on as the bleary eyed festival goers stampede from the venue in a partied out haze.

Please save us all from this eye sore and do this with your floral prints.

It’s about time for the autumn.

Capes at the ready!

Prabal Gurung Fall 2010