Madrid

A few
girlfriends and me decided to go on a weekend holiday to catch some autumn sun,
so we decided Madrid.

This is
actually the first tine I've ever been to Spain - Spanish islands don't count.
We were staying at a very Central location at Alonso Martinez, many things were
in walking distance so didn't require the Metro as much. 

The hotel
was very modern, having laptop, iPod dock & shower with 3 shower functions
but annoying it didn't have the basics of a kettle with free tea & coffee,
even though I don't drink it, it's the principle!

I was not
surprised this 4* Hotel didn’t have a phone in the bathroom as my friend was
telling me I need to look out for one, I really don’t believe why hotels would
put a phone in the bathroom, is it really necessary?

The museums were not bad, Del Prado reminded me of London's National Gallery- a lot of classic oil paintings all religious; interesting to see but wasn't my cup of tea. The Sofia however reminded me of the V&A as there was modern art from Dali and Picasso in the permanent collections, and I really loved the building itself made of glass & steel, the third floor with the terrace had such a lovely view of Madrid 




Going to
Ventas to see the famous Bullring was a good trip, shame we missed the last
fight before the end of season, which was the day before, but it was a
fascinating building to see and in Madrid hear history of. The largest park in
Madrid, the Retrio was a lovely stroll, passing people jogging, stunning scultptures
including statues in fountains. We also saw a man on roller-skates dancing
around was pretty funny! We also hired a rowing boat on the lake, was a 
very
good laugh in the sun; 45min for under €4 a boat pretty good (^.^)

We checked
out the typical Spanish touristy things - flamenco dancing at Casa Platas,
though we were expecting the more extravagant dressing and less acoustic
singing, it was so chilled we were falling asleep! Unfortunately this is not
worth the €32 we paid.


What threw
us off was by the markets, in this park/ square area there a crowds of people
trading card! All kinds as well, from Pokemon, Football even Hello Kitty, to me
it’s a very 90s Retro hobby, but these people were serious with their Yellow
Pages sized books of card collections! 
The
Botanical gardens were a nice trip for €2.50 but need to be in the right season
as the flowers were dying, vegetables were ready to be harvested unless you
fancied seeing some cactus :p

In La
Latina, which is quite a trendy spot for the locals for drinking in the
evening, but also good for The Sunday Flea Market. It was a good trip to look
around selling allsorts of touristy things like t-shirts, bags, jewelry, random
trinkets and bric and brac but there were also a few places that sold antiques
too!



So many things accomplished on the trip, the long weekend
was long enough for it ^.^ 
Will do a Madrid Food Porn post too!! -^.^-

Sorry the Text layout is so crap, I am not technical enough to work how how to lay it out nicely! >.<"


  

Fun of a night with a bit of fancy dress

My friend roped me to go along with her to an end of Season Dragon boating party; twist was it was fancy dress & the theme was "Back in Time" Last weekend (been slow on the blogging especially photo uploading! >.<¨)


Sometimes I really hate fancy  dress theme parties, because the themes are usually unimaginative, and tacky like Angels & Devils, Back to School, Playboy Bunnies - themes I really hate & would throw up over. 

It's also a shame that not all would dress up or would do a half arsed effort towards it.


With "Back in Time" I thought ok, can work with this as it's so broad, I wanted to keep it simple but effective; and of course use my creativity &; styling skills ^.^


So I decided to do an 80s feel with David Bowie as the muse- Bright colours especially with the make up & accessories -^.^-


My friend was having a lot of fun applying the bright make up on herself as it's so out of her comfort zone. Sometimes it's fun to experiment


I was impressed with how some people made effort with their looks though 30% of the crowd were dressed normal, though when the people dressed up, they made effort, particularly loved Adam & Eve in their flesh colour costumes with leaves covering the appropriate places!

Beyonce's fashion Label

To be honest I'm not that fussed about when celebrities decide to dip their hands into working in fashion. Was a bit sceptical when the Beckhams headed that way and have done well for themselves.

But I recently decided to pop into Selfridges with my friends before heading to the cinema, and right in front of us was the area with Beyonce's new fashion range, "House of Dereon" 

I thought ok quite a fair few viscose jersey pieces in the collection, nice shapes, print not bad, price started from £60 I suppose if you love It then it's ok for affordable celebrity fashion labels. 

However the thing that threw me off particularly making the garments really not worth that amount of money, is the quality!! Ok so I'm a garment tech, of course I would spot these flaws, but my friend she could spot how bad the quality was - uncut overlocking, loose uncut threads, the metal labels hanging off it was really poor make, probably from China. 

It is such a real shame to get garments looking like that. I did have a conversation with my senior about quality of clothes going to the high street; to be honest the cost of making the dockets and fabrics is getting higher now, and to be honest the consumer will just mainly care about how it will look on them and not nit pick about the type of fabric or workmanship, unless it was expensive labels from the high end fashion, then you'll give a damn especially for the amount you're paying for it

You can check out the other pieces of clothing she has on the below link

http://www.houseofdereon.com/home.html

Belle Sauvage Spring Summer 2012 Collection

Location was down at the old sorting office on New Oxford street. The place was previously part of the London riots and is the second down location for catwalks from the BFC Tent in Somerset House.

The location and space I felt was perfect fit the label, as the Vibe was so urban. Despite the place used to be a place where squatters lived and raved.

The collection was inspired by 1920s Hollywood era of the Silent movies, with the hair all sleek with a triangle shape of rolls at the back and the glamorous curls at the front.

I think because of the music and the feel and shapes of the garments it really made me think of the Silent movie "Metropolis"

Love the use of colours for the collection, mint greens, yellow, magentas; the use of their digital prints are very Belle Sauvage and the sweet details of embroidery into the garment made the styles quite girly, sophisticated and sweet.

The After Show Party for Belle Sauvage was held in Covent Garden's Bungalow 8

Good music from my friends who DJed the first set, however when Errol came on the music got crap!

Cocktails - a lot of rum!

Goodie Bag - Coco water and GHD hair products

Fashion week S/S12

So London Fashion Week kicks off, there's I feel there's alway a buzz with London compared to New York; probably the style is so different, London fashion is more eccentric and eclectic in style. Ranging from classic styles from brands like Burberry, Jaeger, Jonathan Saunders to more of a fresh out of the box style with the likes of Craig Lawrence, Belle Sauvage, Ann Sofie Back - many names with a different vision.   

But then again, fashion week is a good excuse where all fashion industry related people gather, catch up and get pissed!! (^_−)−☆ 

Friday, beginning of fashion week, being excited and suffered severe Friday feeling, I started off by checking out Muscat Veilma's presentation at W Hotel Next to Chinatown. 

Great central location ^.^

Very beautiful pieces inspired by armour and armodillo, mixing it with very soft colours shape tailored silhouettes. The Duo's use of pleating, panelling and tucks is cleverly engineered and the finishing of garments were so clean 

Drinks: Red/ White Wine, mineral water

Goodie Bag: Canvas bag, popcorn, face wash, Muscat Vielma's look book for S/S 12 ^.^

Welcoming Autumn with the Thames Festival

The weather has definitely changed this week, as Winds from a Hurricane somewhere are effecting the English water, so Britain's getting a bit windy lately, less daylight moving on to Winter ~.~

But I do love Autumn- leaves change colour, temperature gets cooler, light knitwear to layered styling and the weekend just gone, I decided to join my friends and check out the Thames Festival on Southbank:-

I haven't really explored it these past fee years, so it was something nice to see, and Mark Autumn arriving.

Fortunately we went out later as we wanted to see the fireworks in the evening, otherwise we had ALOT of time to kill!!

Typical of a festival, there were a lot of stalls selling assorts of things along the Southbank- clothes, ornaments, music, books and of course food & drink from around the world. It was nice to walk around Southbank, along the Thames in the evening, the feel was so relaxing and enjoyable, minus the congested crowds of where the food stalls were.

Other reason we wanted to go to the Thames Festival, we wanted to see the Korean section by the OXO Tower (^.^) 

There were quite a fair few stalls too and a stage for the Korean Culture performances including music, dancing and martial arts. Wish I checked the Korean area the evening before as they had a K Pop event!

Was quite surprised to see a stall devoted to K Pop Karaoke! My friends wanted me to do it, but I don't know all the lyrics, mainly the choruses to the songs they had! (^_−)−☆

They even had this song by Shinee on the Karaoke ^-^

We unfortunately missed the carnival parade as it was on the otherwise of the river, so wondered around to find a good spot to see the fireworks. Despite The fireworks being delayed by 15mins, we didn't see them let off till 10pm, Boris must have rambled lots of there was a speech involved! (z_z)

But it was a very enjoyable display, seeing the rockets so close let off from the tug boats on the river, was worth the wait (^^)

Good way to lead into Mid Autumn Festival (-^.^-)

Vanity of social photography

Most my friends know I enjoy taking photos of a night out. 

A friend last week laughed as she noticed I've still been using the same camera, that big with shutters that stick- my lovely Panasonic Lumix, 6x optical zoom, 6 years old, 4 megapixels and runs on AA batteries and has survived a lot, including a very sweaty Lost Prophets gig one Summer as well as being dropped from my clumsy drunken nights (^.^)  

 I replied to my friend, saying "if it ain't broke, no point in getting a replacement yet" which is true.

But last month I've taken photos at little partying social gatherings, and have had to delete up to 8 from Ye Olde Facebook; because friends said they look awful in them. Ok fair enough, but to be honest they weren't that awful.  

I am the type of person to do paparazzi styled photography- catching people in the moment, natural occurring scene. Can work at times, jolts people's memories, can be funny! 

I have seen photos of me friends have photographed and damn I did not look the best, oh well I get over it and carry on. But some people they just comment on the photo of message me saying "delete please". It is effort trying to find which photo they're on about.

Will put some photos on this blog when I get a bit more time! ^.^