We had an amazing evening at the Union Chapel. What a stunner of a venue! The occasion was the Little Noise Sessions. This was the 5th year for the week long acoustic festival in aid of Mencap.
The Union Chapel, Islington
The event was expertly hosted by the very glamorous Radio 1 DJ Jo Whiley, and we had picked the night when Hurts were playing. We fell in love with them at Camp Bestival- what style, panache and those lyrics! Delicious.
Even though one half of the duo, Adam, had to bow out due to injury, Theo still enchanted us. I have to say that their theatrical streak maybe took a little step to far with the addition of a petulant looking lady seated on stage plucking petals from a few dozen white roses throughout the set, but the charming Theo managed to compensate with his sweet repartee and soaring singing voice.
Hurts play the Little Noise Sessions at the Union Chapel
We had only expected to be treated to night with Hurts and were delighted when we found out that they were to be joined on the bill by a few other acts, for us the most notable of which was the stunning Clare Maguire.
In a few short steps, even before we heard a single note, we had fallen for Clare. Her outfit was stunning. She seemed a wonderful Gothic heroine but also thoroughly modern at the same time. Perhaps a brooding, more introverted version of Florence? Our images don’t really do her justice, but the black lace, peignoir style maxi dress was lined in peachy nude and slashed from hemline to waist and neckline to naval, held in place by a dayglo orange belt. Enough of her look and on to the music- which was spine-tinglingly atmospheric and even more dramatic in the Chapel setting. A new favourite for ‘Blink” and a style icon in the making we think!
Clare Maguire plays the Little Noise Sessions at the Union Chapel
Clare Maguire at the Union Chapel
In this video I think she’s wearing the same frock… Beautiful.
Hello dear readers, my inbox has seen an influx of great shopping event invitations and I wanted to share the joy with you. If you are looking for unique Christmas gifts and to have lots of fun while buying them, then get these dates in your diaries…
Firstly we have the Kensal Flea. The inaugural boutique flea market takes place on Saturday 27 November at the Paradise by Way of Kensal Green, 19 Kilburn Lane London W10; from 12pm until 5pm. We’ll be looking out for some wonderfully stylish self gifting from our friends, Tallulah and Hope. There will also be vintage homewares and beautiful jewellery, delightful things for mothers and babies as well as the men in your life.
Once you have exhausted yourself in a shopping frenzy you can chill out in the bar or restaurant while listening to some great tunes from DJs Russ Cuban, Mark Rae and Barry Ashworth (Dub Pistols) and 6Music’s Shaun Keaveny is even hosting the charity karaoke room.
Next, on the 3rd December until 18th we have the Orange Dot Christmas Market at 54 Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury, London, WC1. A perfect place to find a gift for the arty members of your family and perfect for you if late night shopping, gallery viewing and mulled wine sipping sounds like the ideal shopping scenario! Orange Dot are dedicated to championing new talent so we’re sure there will be a great selection of handcrafted creations to suit all budgets.
There will be homewares, gifts and stationary from Biba’s Tea Party, clothing from Brat and Suzie as well as Monty O’s Curiosity Shop featuring vintage clothing, furniture, ceramics, art and much more! As well as the Christmas Market, screen printer and artist Joel Clifford has created a giant advent calendar that will be taking over one of the gallery walls. Each specially designed print captures a different place in London in the winter and every day we will be opening up a new door and revealing a new print which will be available to buy but they are in limited runs of 10 so don’t hang about!
Then finally, on the 4th December there is an exciting one off event hosted by Madame Geisha and Spindle magazine from midday until 5pm at 82 Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch. Shop until you drop from a selection of bespoke fashion creations from talents such as Brett Le Bratt, Jade Jagger’s Jezebel, Draw in Light and many more. There will also be loads of amazing original artwork for sale from some of Europe’s finest artists including Inkie, Ben Allen, Tommy Penton and Jewel Goodby.
Alongside the shopping will be the launch of ‘Sort Yourself Out Love’ which we just love the sound of! Mrs Jones (super talented designer and stylist to the likes of Scissor Sisters, Kylie and Rhianna) and her team will be available to customize your outfit while Victoria Saunders attends to your hair and make up. You will indeed be sorted out and ready to celebrate the festive season in style!
As if this wasn’t enough there is incredible music from Roots Manuva and Ricky Ranking with DJ Jawa. Wow! We’ll be seeing you there.
We were so delighted when into our inbox popped an invitation from the lovely ladies at Christian Louboutin. We were invited to the SS’11 press day and nothing would have held us back from those pristine new season red soles!
We were allowed to take pictures on one of the rooms, and below are some of our favourite styles. The ‘Dombasle’ is named after the beautiful french actress Arielle Dombasle. The ‘Eco Trash’ shoe has been constructed from recycled Louboutin office trash. We love the ‘Americano’ hightops. Trainers have never been so sexy!
Bold, bright colour and mixed materials are key statements for SS’11, and don’t relegate your studs and tassels just yet. They are still looking super hot in the new season Louboutin collection. Oh, and just in case you were looking forward to a season off from aching tootsies, forget about it. These babies are still sky high!
Christian Louboutin's 'Americano' heels and clutchbag
On Sunday we headed off to Somerset House to catch the Rene Gruau exhibition. It was the perfect way to end a hectic weekend. If you haven’t had the joy of seeing this exhibition yet, we’d say that it is £6 well spent on the entrance ticket. You have until the 9th January, so be sure not to miss out on this small but perfectly formed inspirational exhibition.
Before we start getting over excited about the very talented Gruau, we’d like to take a moment to congratulate the Somerset House team on yet another stunningly collated and presented exhibition. The Embankment Gallery space has been transformed beautifully yet again. A treat even without the joy of the exhibition itself.
On to the wonderful Rene Gruau, friend and collaborator of Christian Dior through a very formative and creative period in the famous fashion house’s development. As soon as I stepped in to the exhibition, memories flooded back of really inspirational images that I loved as a (very young) child in the 70′s. I also saw images from fashion illustration books that I had fallen in love with and aspired to replicate when studying fashion in the 90′s. I just hadn’t joined up the dots before and realized that this was all the work of one very hard working and incredibly gifted artist.
From his first commission with the newly formed house of Dior in 1947, when Gruau illustrated the first Haute Couture collection, right through creating an unmistakable visual identity for many of the Dior perfumes, up until the 80′s when Gruau produced his final images for Dior’s men’s fragrance ‘Jules’, Gruau worked tirelessly to develop his own handwriting, keep current with the times, challenge the growing use of fashion photography and inspire legions of designers and artists in the process.
I’m sure you will recognize some of the images below, and there are many, many more to be seen at the exhibition. If you couldn’t tell already, I really enjoyed my Sunday morning at Somerset House!
If you’d like to see more “Blink” events coverage, just click here. If you’d like to check out some more inspiration, just click here. Enjoy!
Reene Gruau and The Line of Beauty, at Somerset House
Our wonderful “Blinkette”, Asta, was out and about after the Louboutin Press Day (post coming tomorrow!) when she spotted this chic pair in Soho. We just love their looks. The great accessorizing, attention to detail and quirky individuality just sums up what is great about you stylish London ladies.
When we were mooching around the shops in Nakamegura we came across this little fella. He looked like he needed a good home so we made the purchase and now he has pride of place on the “Blink” pinboard. I tried to google ‘Sad Panda’ to work out who the artist is, as the signature is too tiny to read. I failed to discover anything, so if you know any more about this particular sad panda do please let us know!
We had part of Sunday away from the shops, visiting Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine which is surrounded by a beautiful forest- and all in the heart of Tokyo right next to Harajuku.
Not only is the shrine and forest beautiful and inspiring, we also happened to be there on a special day of celebration called ‘Shichi-Go-San’ which means Seven-Five-Three. This is when girls who are three and seven, and boys who are five, come to visit a shrine with their families to make wishes for a long, happy and healthy life. The children are dressed in traditional outfits, looking absolutely divine. Its a big occasion for the families to take photos, and luckily for us, they were more than happy for us to take some pictures too!
prayers left on special wooden tablets at the shrine
wine caskets at the Meiji shrine
The Meiji shinto shrine
at the Meiji shrine
at the Meiji shrine
at the Meiji shrine
at the Meiji shrine
at the Meiji shrine
at the Meiji shrine
at the Meiji shrine
We flew to Tokyo from Heathrow with Virgin Atlantic. Thanks to the Virgin Atlantic Twitter team for all their help with our plans. Thanks to all of the Virgin staff for making the long journey a pleasure!
Following on from the joys of Nakameguro, we wanted to tell you about Shimokitazawa. Quite the mouthful, but worth the effort! Just a few metro stops away from the absolute craziness of Harajuku, but a world away in mood and atmosphere. This collection of small, pedestrian streets feels like you have stumbled into an ultra cool residential enclave. Small, independent stores are interspersed with really lovely cafes.
One of our favourite stores was the vintage treasure trove called ‘Haight & Ashbury‘. A really great selection of retro menswear and womenswear, with a separate section of antique clothing too, all displayed around a bonkers knitted sculpture. We chatted with one of the staff members who very kindly let us take her picture. Its turns out that she bought her lovely coat at a vintage store in London! We also really like a womenswear store called ‘Fig London‘, which it seems actually has nothing to do with London but is lovely never the less…
If you were following us on Facebook or Twitter last week you’d know its been an adventurous time for “Blink”. We just returned from a fabulous trip to Tokyo. Its our biggest market for the “Blink” reports so we thought our wonderful agents, Taiyo Trading, deserved a visit. It was also a great opportunity to have a look at the Tokyo scene and gain a better understanding of who our customer is out there.
Well, if you haven’t been yourself yet we can tell you that its a ‘must’ for the thrill seekers amongst you. Its a crazy, hectic, amazing and bonkers place. You need to have a high tolerance for noise and flashing lights, and its not the place for crowd-phobics either! Having said that, we did discover a couple of corners of this energetic city that had a more low-fi feeling. These were our favourite spots as they included brilliant vintage stores, as well as providing a sweet respite from the sensory overload of areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku.
The first we’d like to share with you is Nakameguro. This area is very picturesque, with stores alongside a small river and then dotted between houses on small lanes branching off in all directions. Its a really perfect pace change, even though its only a few minutes walk from Daikanyama. Here we found some really inspiring vintage stores- particularly good for menswear inspiration. The vintage had a really American flavour mostly, with a little French flea market chic thrown in, which was really interesting to see even though we would have preferred to see at least some vintage kimonos dotted in along the way…
Here we are with the last of our five monthly reports for you. This one is actually a favourite of ours. At “Blink” we love a slip of chiffon, something lovely in lace and a slinkly crepe de chine number. Well, who doesn’t! This is the report were you’ll find all of those things and much, much more.
For the uninitiated amongst you, ‘Soft Wovens’ is a category that covers, uhm, wovens that are, oh, soft! Its about almost tailored, semi structured or ultra soft styles in really wonderful textiles. Beautiful blouses, shift dresses, unstructured jackets, and voluminous trousers. That kind of thing! Its a department that has gone from grandmama to hot mama in a few short years, and we have been there to track its stellar progress.
These few introductory pages were followed by almost 40 more stuffed with fabulously inspirational product shots, with lots of close up details too. In total there are over 100 product shots in each report!
So, if you are looking for whats hot, exciting and innovative in the British fast fashion womenswear market, you have come to the right place. If you’d like to see any of the reports in full, then why not drop us an email or contact your nearest agent? We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Absolutely Nothing to Wear
brilliantly insightful blog about all sorts of inspirational topics, headed up by fashion expert, Mel Moss.
DISNEYROLLERGIRL
one of our favourite fashion blogs, covering all sorts of inspirational stylish subjects. She knows her stuff!
facehunter
super cool street shots from around Europe
Fashion Blog News
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Garance Dore
blog from a chic French fashion illustrator and style commentator
Jak and Jil
Diverse fashion blog with a penchant for great shoes. Fabulous pictures.
Liberty London's blog
the brilliant blog from our favourite London store. Not to be missed!
Man Repeller
Genius styling and a wicked sense of humour. A really great fashion blog.
Shanti Sundays
when we’re off duty or making some yoga shapes, we pretty much live in this collection. Beautiful, relaxed and we agree with Shanti Sundays that ‘love is everything’
Show Studio
Nick Knight’s brilliant blog with lots of fashion insider info
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