Fresh off the press! H&M have just announced their latest designer collaboration, and it is no one other than Lanvin. This is huge. I. LOVE. LANVIN.
I’m not much for the designer collaborations, I find them more amusing than anything, but never end up buying. However count me in the queue come November 23rd, when it lands in around 200 stores worldwide. Instead of a huge show like they did with Sonia Rykiel, the collection will be launched through a film released on November 2nd.
Oh and there will be both womenswear and menswear. A Lanvin suit for every man in the country? Yes, my wildest dreams have come true.
Will you be buying???
A video of Alber Elbaz talking about the collaboration:
Some sneak peeks:
Design is Relevant:
Smart Design
So this is a pretty personal one, and it’s got nothing to do with fashion for once, but after what’s happened to me in the past few days, I decided that it would be a good thing to share this story with you.
As some of you may know, back in July I went to the dermatologist for a routine check. I’m pale skinned with lots of moles and freckles, so I try to get them checked out once in a while. I don’t tan much or use sunbeds at all.
I had a few moles on my face which I wanted gone, partly because of their constant exposure to the sun, but more for aesthetic reasons than anything else – I’m vain like that. Whilst I was there I showed the doc my back and he pulled a serious face and told me I had a few funny ones on my back he wanted gone. They were all in a spot where I couldn’t see them.
This wasn’t at all what I expected, but I had 2 taken out with a laser and the other one surgically, to have a biopsy done on it. The mere thought that something could be wrong shook me to the core. I cried my eyes out, prayed that everything would be ok.
A week later, we got the results and everything was ok, or so it seemed. I had my birthday party, had a blast, enjoyed the rest of my summer, forgot all about it, except for the annoying scar on my back. Then 2 days ago, I went back to the doc to show him the scar as it was bugging me a bit.
Doc had been on holiday for a few weeks and sat me down and said he was in fact just about to call me. A second biopsy had arrived whilst he was away and showed that it was in fact a malignant melanome after all. Had we not caught this and I’d been running around in my bikini all summer, things could have been slightly different.
I went home again, cried my eyes out once again and pulled myself together and realised how damn lucky I’ve been. This morning I had a second surgery to remove more tissue and now have about 20 stitches, but it was beautifully done by a plastic surgeon, so I hopefully shouldn’t have too big of a scar in the end.
I know I’m the luckiest person ever to have found this during a completely routine check. I had no reason to be worried, but I went anyway and I’ve vowed to have my skin checked out once a year to avoid ever having to be in this situation again. The C-word is too scary to even contemplate at 25 when it can be fully avoided.
Quite frankly, my biggest worry right now is not being able to wear the Erdem dress I especially bought for a wedding tomorrow and not being allowed to dance. And my anasthesia wearing off in a few hours. I know how lucky I was to have caught this in time by going for a routine check and not waiting until it was too late, so I’m going to be fine. I’m really not here to preach and tell you what to do, but this is what happened to me and I have a battle scar to remind me. Perhaps my story might inspire you to check your skin once in a while, even go for a check-up and avoid getting a massive chunk of your skin taken out for no good reason.
Lots and lots of love,
Alex
On Saturday I went to the first ever edition of Vintage at Goodwood. I was slightly apprehensive about the whole thing, as rumour was, the organisation was a big ol’ mess. I found the PR company very unhelpful, heard stories from people who went the day before, basically… it sounded like it was somewhat of an overpriced, overhyped new festival with no goods to back it up. But… I was wrong.
This was by far one of the best new events I’ve been to in a long time, and despite some teething problems, it’ll definitely be on the top of my list of things to do next summer. It started off bad. Upon arrival at Chichester station, there were no signs anything out of the ordinary was going on – except for the London train spewing out hordes of vintage clad men and women – there were no signs to a busstop, nothing. So far, so bad – perhaps the rumour were true, and only chaos was ahead. Eventually we hopped on the *overpriced* Vintage Bus, and arrived at our destination some 20 minutes later.
Already grumpy, I wanted to hate everything about it, but try as I might, I couldn’t. Walking through the front gate, we were lead through a path through the forest, lit up with fairy lights, and kids building camps on the side. No bouncers strip searching you anywhere – the friendliness started right at the door. The walk was breathtaking… Getting to the other side of the forest path into the festival grounds, was like walking back in time. A series of vintage cars and beautifully dressed people was the sight that greeted us, along with a sign that said “Welcome To The Festival Of Our Lives“. A very suitable sentiment.
My partners in crime for the day were Kate Baxter, Katie Antoniou, Natasha Bailie and Mr. Bailie. Basically, all day we just posed, took pictures, posed some more, took some more pictures – hey, we’re bloggers after all! And there was definitely no shortage of beautiful sights. The high street they built for the occasion was impressive, with restaurants, a bar, a pub, shops, and much more. Every step you took, there was something new to take in. The festival spans several decades, so at times it was a bit of a funny mixture, but it worked.
There were nice shopping stalls, with some old favourites, like Supermarket Sarah and Tatty Divine and plenty of new discoveries. There was a soul tent, a roller disco, a fair with plenty of rides, the Torch Club which had a full brass band, where you could learn to tap dance and swing and eat in style. There was an Eighties rave club, a Fourties war area full of pin up beauties, a salon where you could have your hair and make up done… I could go on. There was so much to do and see, it quite literally a feast for the eyes.
The people were my biggest surprise though. I had expected people to dress up, but the lengths some people had gone to was quite simply amazing. Any worries I had about being overdressed in my gorgeous Juno Says Hello dress quickly faded. It was wonderful to see the different eras mixing together, without judgement. Just in our group alone we spanned about 3 decades! I know the ‘real’ vintage crowd was frustrated by the decision to include the Eighties and Nineties, but I thought it worked. It was an eccentric crowd, but with a dedication to fashion and style. So no matter what decade is yours, that’s surely something that unites you, not divides you. I loved all the older people and kids too, all decked out!
A few downpours aside, it turned out to be a beautiful day. As we reached the end of the day, we decided to check out the music part of the festival. We caught a Motown band, then shook our booties to The Noisettes, who rocked. We got pretty close to the stage, but no one was pushing, shoving, nothing – just dancing, being happy. Safe to say, this was unlike any gig I’d ever been to before. After a heartwrenching version of Never Forget You, we regretfully had to leave the party to go back home.
As my train rolled back into London around midnight, I suddenly understood what Vintage at Goodwood is about. As I waited for the last tube home – getting lots of weird looks as I was still in my big, pouffy dress – then walked past a few pubs on final orders, I felt nothing but disgust. Drunk girls with their knickers on display, boys brawling, yelling obscenities – basically your average Saturday night. I just wanted to go back to the little bubble where things had seemed so peaceful, happy, stylish and beautiful. Suddenly it clicked and it all made sense.
See, the festival is not about clothing, it’s about STYLE and CLASS. It’s about going back to times where people went to festivals to enjoy themselves, not just to get violently drunk. It’s about getting a glimpse of the times where people just danced, drank nice drinks and ate good food. A time when women were ladies and the men were gentlemen. Not that I’m old enough to know what that was like, but that was a lesson I definitely learned at Goodwood – whatever era clothes I may be wearing.
So forget about Disneyland, for me, Goodwood is the happiest place on earth. See you all there next year.
Lots and lots of pictures… (this is after about 10 edits, believe it or not)
People
Cars, bikes, caravans, vintage delights:
Some of these pictures were shamelessly borrowed from Natasha and Kate. Thanks girls! x
Hi there. It’s me again. It’s been a while, I know…
I’d like to tell you I had a perfectly good reason for not updating in over a week, but I don’t. Recently, I’ve been suffering from a bit of a blogging burnout, wondering what I’m doing all of this for, why I put so much of my time and effort in it. I’m not complaining, not one bit – I know how lucky I am – but I think I needed to gather my thoughts on it all. It had stopped being fun. A few of you have told me they’ve experienced the same and told me to take a break, so I did.
Meanwhile I’ve been enjoying life, enjoying summer, going to festivals and meeting friends. Basically thinking about other things than blogging and fashion and readership and rankings and so on. This weekend a bunch of us are headed towards the new Vintage at Goodwood festival, which I’m covering for a magazine. I’m SO excited, but felt like a bit of a faker, because I’m not exactly a vintage girl. I didn’t want to rock up in my usual gear, I wanted to experience this festival to the full, so I asked my lovely followers on Twitter for some help getting my vintage look together.
So yesterday I was invited by the lovely Rebecca Rose to visit the Juno Says Hello studio in Clerkenwell, really close to my house, to try on some vintage dresses. Juno Says Hello usually sells the most amazing vintage dresses online, and about once a month they have an event at their studio where you can go and browse, try on, have a glass of wine, mingle with fellow vintage lovers.
I felt a little scared going there, would I be seen as a vintage faker? But Rebecca had asked me for my size the day before, and upon arrival had set up a full rail of clothes in my style and size. She immediately made me feel at ease trying on dresses that may be a little outside my comfortzone. Some of them worked, some of them didn’t, but that’s just the way it goes. The lengths, the shapes, the petticoats – this is new territory for me after all!
So it is with much, much, MUCH joy that I want to give you a little peak at the dress I will be wearing on Saturday. It is very Mad Men-esque and not for a minute do I feel like I’m wearing something from a dress up box. It may be different to anything I’ve ever worn, but it’s still very ME. I’m going to be styling it up, with hair, accessories, the whole shebang for Saturday, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to be wearing my princess dress! If you’re there, make sure you say hello (you know what I’ll be wearing after all!)
P.S. Look how beautiful it’s been wrapped! I don’t want to take it out… there’s even a lovely scented candle in there…
You may not have heard of KAGE before, because they’re still pretty new kids on the block with barely 2 seasons under their belt. But a sneak peek at their lovely AW10 lookbook should hopefully change all of that.
See, when I first got to know this Dubai-based label by childhood friends Arwa Abdelhadi and Basma Abu Ghazaleh a few months ago, they were all about the cute, girly, casualwear. The SS10 collection was filled with comfy T-shirts and daydresses – the sort of collection you want to fill your suitcase with for a holiday on the beach.
So when I met with KAGE’s lovely PR last week to see some pieces of their new collection, I was a little surprised. The KAGE woman seems to have grown up a bit, left the beach and walked straight into the office ready for some serious business. This new collection is feminine, sophisticated yet still full of quirky elements. It’s completely different, but a brand that’s willing to evolve is always a good thing in my opinion!
Unfortunately, I can’t post the whole lookbook, so I’ve picked some of my favourites. I particularly love their take on classic shirts. Their little cuff or shoulder details makes all the difference in the world, I now find myself craving a shirt for the first time in years! There’s also a cute video to accompany the shoot.
www.bykage.com, for stockists, check out their facebook page.
This lovely work-of-art-slash-scarf is what you get when you mix my favourite designer Erdem with one of the best museum giftshops in the world. The Narcisse Scarf is the result of a one-off collaboration by Erdem and the V&A, in celebration of their upcoming exhibition Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929.
From afar it’s quite obviously an Erdem design, with his signature use of colour, but if you look at the print up close, you can see that he incorporated original costume
designs by Léon Bakst for the ballet Narcisse dating from 1911.
The scarf is available from September, but knowing how popular Mr. Moralioglu has become, it’ll sell out fast, so I suggest you pre-order online now. Ok, so £185 it is a little expensive, but possibly the cheapest piece of Erdem you can buy nowadays. I actually think it would look beautiful framed on a wall. One for my wishlist!
I’m only all kinds of honoured to be Cocosa’s next Style Profile. I don’t consider myself worthy, after all the great people who have preceded me! But there you go, it’s the cherry on my perfect week, and they sure made me look like a very cool chick indeed. So for those of you who aren’t members, I’m posting it here!
I was invited to the first ever Cocosa press event which I was really quite excited about for a number of reasons. But before I tell you why, let me quickly explain to you newbies out there what the hell Cocosa is!
Cocosa is an invite-only members website offering amazing daily exclusive designer sales at discount prices. In easy terms, every day at noon, a selection of a few handpicked designer collection goes on sale for a limited time (or until it’s sold out) at discount prices of often 50%-60% off! Previous sales have included Alexander McQueen, See by Chloe, Karl Lagerfeld and Basso & Brooke – and those were just in the past 2 weeks!
As you may or may not know, I’ve been obsessed with Cocosa since finally buying my first bargain, the Bex Rox jewellery, which I’ve not taken off all summer! Just this Monday, I bought my second piece, a Markus Lupfer striped jacket at 50% off – the delivery of which I actually missed by going to the event.
So why was I so excited? Well for the past 2 months I’ve been emailing with some lovely people at Cocosa after they asked me to be their next Style Profile – which is going live THIS FRIDAY! I’m so excited, I’ve been buzzing all week! I was so happy to finally see the people behind the emails at last and to see what exciting news they had for us!
We all had to arrive at the beautiful venue, The House of St Barnabas, promptly as there was a presentation by the Marketing Director Kelly Kowan first. She gave us all some amazing facts and figures first – which blew my mind! For example, the 275.000 members are all extremely active and obsessed – like moi! Of all the sales opening at noon, 90% of the goods go in the first hour. Their quickest sale was Alexander McQueen, which was completely SOLD OUT IN 9 MINUTES! How insane is that?
Then on to their exciting upcoming news…
1: They’re launching an iPhone app soon, so you never have to be glued to your desk again at noon! Whoooooooo!
2: Anna Sui is launching an exclusive collection with Cocosa in September. This will hopefully be the first of more collaborations!
3: They’ve added 3 amazing creative forces as guest editors to their team: Richard Mortimer, Tom Stubbs and Susie Lau!
4: This is because they’re launching a new look website soon, which will focus on more editorial content, with their input, style profiles, etc etc.
5: They’re launching a men’s only website!!! I’m terribly excited by this, don’t ask me why. They do the occasional men’s sale and I’m always impressed, so this should be good…
6: For those international readers who’ve asked me about this before, I asked the team and they will expand beyond the UK very soon, so I’ll keep you posted!
7: Did I mention I’m their next Style Profile on Friday? Yes? Oh well.
After the presentation, it was noon and we were all led into the room next door where we were all given a laptop and encouraged to log in to the new sales going live (Karl Lagerfeld and Alexander McQueen, both scorchers – coincidence?), had a little chat with the team and went off on our way with a goodiebag filled with the most amazing custom-made for Cocosa Mawi necklace! Bliss, Bliss, Bliss!
PS. If you’re not a member yet, and then all you lovely Alex Loves readers can skip the waiting list by entering “alexloves” in the Invitation Code box. Now don’t say I never gave you anything!
Well I’ve finally recovered from my pretty epic and amazing birthday weekend. You’ve already seen the post about my bag – some of you have already even seen the bag (one of you even asked me if they could *smell* the bag…), so let’s leave that bit out, but I wanted to do a big post about the wonderful weekend I’ve just had, starting from Friday, ending with Monday on the actual day! I promise you this is the last you’ll hear about this!
Rather than tell you all about it, I thought I’d just put the whole weekend in pictures instead… Enjoy and to everyone who came, thank you so much, it was so lovely to see you! If the year goes on the same way it started, then I have a great year ahead of me! A big shout out to Jamie, Kate and Siska, without whose help I could never have had the weekend I did!
ps. note the fact that I have a glass of champagne in every single picture… it explains a lot. pps. If you’re wondering, my outfit is a vintage Georges Rech dress from my mom I recently had shortened and fitted for me, a vintage Hermès belt I stole from her (see a theme here?), Cynthia Rowley necklace, Metalskin and Balenciaga bracelets. No shoes.
FRIDAY
Going to buy The Bag, Toasting Going To Buy The Bag, Prepping the food.
SATURDAY
Party Day in Regent’s Park
SUNDAY
No pictures. No comment.
MONDAY
Well the bagpost you can read here. Spent the evening in Shoreditch House, lounging next to the pool (and one of those pesky Saturdays), drinking rose, lying on daybeds, admiring the insane view, pretending like we were in New York, occasionally stroking my new bag. It pretty much was the perfect night to end the perfect weekend.
End of.
So the day I’ve been going ON AND ON about has finally come. I’m 25. A quarter of a century. Mid-twenties. Officially grown up. I know I’ve been a birthday monster, but I have my reasons. I had the *best* party on Saturday, which will have a blog post of its own (tomorrow), but I quickly wanted to post about my gorgeous, wonderful present I got this morning from my parents.
As my loyal readers know, I’ve been in agony over which bag to choose for my present from my parents. Eventually, my mom chose for me after quoting my own line from this very blog. She said I had written the Classic Chanel is a bag every girl should have, and I didn’t have it myself. Last Thursday I went to the shop to go and get it, but promised myself I wouldn’t open it until the actual day.
This morning I finally got to open it – with my friends Jamie and Antoinette and some yummy Eggs Benedict – and it was as good as one could imagine. Just opening the bag, then the box, then the tissue paper, to eventually get to the grand prize was the best thing ever. I of course had the whole thing documented in pictures. I look tired as hell because I haven’t slept in days, but there you go… It’s the Classic Quilted Jumbo Chanel In Caviar Leather with Gold Hardware. Or it’s heaven in a bag.
Before I finish this post, I want to say another big thank you for the second best present I’ve had today… Minutes after getting my present and tweeting a picture of it, I got a link to this blog, Fashion Youth Indulgence – FYI in short – who wrote the loveliest piece on me and my blog AND my new bag. It was the loveliest surprise, so Brad, thank you SO MUCH for really topping off a pretty amazing day!
Thank you so much for the overload of birthday wishes on Twitter and Facebook and text and email and even… post! I’ll try to get back to you all at some point. But now… Toy Story 3!
Lots of love,
Alex
xxx
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