Emerging Fervour

80% off just sounds too good to be true!! Actually it’s not, so make sure you head down to Cleo’s boutique!!

Last week I went to the opening of the Make Lemonade pop up store in London. Make Lemonade is a vintage brand and fashion blog, whose creators decided to take advantage of the pop up revolution and put their energy into setting up this delightful little shop on Chalton Street, in between Kings Cross and Euston stations.

On show and for sale are Make Lemonade’s vintage collection, along with their own remade label, along with press favourite Supermarket Sarah and young designers such as Tope Tijani, who we featured on Emerging Fervour back in October last year.

Supermarket sarah’s wall of joy

Tope Tijani’s new collection

Holly-an  for ML – hand printed cards and notebooks

A steamy opening night!!

The pop up shop is located at 24 Chalton St, London, NW1 1JH. It’s only open for just over a week so get down there quick, sharp!

www.make-lemonade.com

The most amazing crafts markets!!! And here are a few not to miss this starting this weekend:

Weekend Christmas Craft Emporium

When: Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th of December from 11am to 4pm

Where: William Morris Gallery, Forest Rd. Walthamstow London E17 4PP

Roll up, roll up for the greatest show on earth: a Christmas craft weekender showcasing the finest, most beautacious and delectable London based indie crafters! If you are there, make sure you check out Me and her perfect Xmas gifts!
Come and browse through a selection of designer hand crafted items and find that perfect gift.
It’s the kind of event that will have ladies fainting and gentlemen swooning for all things hand made!!!

Visit craftnation.com»

We Make: Christmas Craft wonderland

When: Saturday 4th December from 11am- 5pm

Where: Chelsea Town Hall, Kings Road, London, SW3 5EE

Browse and buy from over 80 fantastic designer/ makers. Find some unique Christmas presents.

To have a sneaky peak who will be there visit wemakelondon.blogspot.com/p/summer-fair-exhibitors.html But that’s not all as with Christmas Time, Panto Time is happening!!!

Last week we went to check out the 11th ‘Blickfang’ exhibition, where over 200 designers exhibited their collections in Zurich. From accessories, to clothing, to furniture, there was a bit of everything and the congress house was the perfect setting for it! This being my first design exhibition in Switzerland, I was over-excited to go!!

Walking through the stalls, there was a mixture for old and young. Some really quirky designs, especially when it comes to accessories but in the clothing range it did feel they catered more for the women over 50, who is a bit quirky and likes art, yet in a sensible way. Although saying that, if you looked careful, there were some amazing collections out and especially the emerging designers caught my attention – more on those to come though as I walked away with a bag of business cards of designers and there is too much to say about them!

We celebrated St Catherine’s day at the Brut club, Monot St, Beirut. on Monday night, prior to a week long public holiday – yes 1 week off! Every year there’s a theme and this year’s was origami. My plan was to create something subtle but detailed.  I spent roughly 5 hours creating and painting 10 cubes – the folding and shaping is as mundane as you’d imagine! – check them out:

Step 1 – create 6 of these >

Step 2 – ^ 6 of those creates one of these >

And 5 hours later I painted and wired 10 cubes together to create this hand-piece >

Rawya and I

And some more pictures of the night! Below is the winner of the origami outfit that night – love!

Rawya…

Sako…

Tatiana…

Zeina

The teachers below, mine are second from left, my pattern-drafting teacher  – Sarkis (Sako) Assadourian and the wizard with the gold hat is Antoine Kassatly, my illustration and design teacher. Love them ♥

Discovering innovative brands; meeting over 200 designers personally; testing products and buying them as well – does that sound like your kind of thing? It is so mine, which is why I’m going to check out Blickfang 2010 for you on Friday.

Blickfang is a showcase for furniture, jewellery and fashion from the young and international design scene. The designers themselves are on stand by to talk, answer questions and present the items that make life more beautiful! Oh I can feel my credit card being used… please give me strength!!

There is also a catwalk (and yes it’s included in the entry ticket!) which will showcase the talents of:

• Victoire Schlicklin & Caroline Cherbuin
• Sara Vidas
• Ly-Ling Vilaysane mit Ihrem Label Aéthérée
• Evelyn Huber & Ramona Keller mit Lyn Lingerie
• Maria-Xuan
• Emilie Meldem

Hurrah, I will finally get a full dose of fashion and the best bit, everyone can get it at a price tag of SFr 23 (~£15)!!

Curator Ria Hawthorne is presenting an exhibition at the Design Museum paying tribute to the big names in fashion illustration.

This exhibition showcases fashion illustrators at their creative heights: Georges Lepape at the beginning of the century, Gruau in the 40′s and 50′s, Antonio throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s, to current artists Mats Gustafson, Aurore de la Morinerie and Francois Berthoud. Film-clips, news reels, music and photography will sit alongside the original illustrations to reflect not only the spirit and the style of the decades but also the wider social and cultural changes of the century.

Le Pape

Francois Berthound

Mats Gustafson

‘Drawing Fashion’ also includes a rare collection of work from classic advertisements, vintage Vogue covers and illustrations from Chanel, Dior, Comme des Garçons, McQueen and Viktor & Rolf.

For information on tickets, check out Ticketweb. Drawing Fashion runs until March 2011 – I hope I’ll be in London before then!

For ticke

As Sara is sussing out the Lebanese fashion world, I’m starting off dipping my toes into the Swiss one. It started last week with my rant about the Zurich Fashion Days which I left well behind when I went to check out ‘Flashmobshop‘, their first ever pop-up store in Zurich. A 2 day exhibition for DIY-activists, designers, artists and small labels. A platform to show and sell objects & collections of emerging designers! Fabulous and just what I was hankering after!

The pop-up store was installed in a little shop where they usually sell trophies and the goodies were all around them – some a bit hidden but nonetheless gems! It was a joy to such uniqueness!

My favourite things were these dolls & snoods everywhere – the dolls are so funny and would be hillarious to have them plotted around and the snoodes, oh where do I start? So comfy, so practical (I keep being told how freezing it will get) and the options of different patterns & wool is endless!!

Bit short notice but this sounds like an amazing opportunity for emerging designers, actually anyone in the fashion industry!!

The company Blurb, which is known to provide all the tools you need to make your own photo book has launched their first ever pop up store today. They are not only offering free workshops but there will be guest speakers & special events. So not only will you get the opportunity to see how your collection could look in a coffee book (how beautiful would that be?!?!) but there are some amazing talks that are so relevant to you.

Event 1: Jumpstart Your Creative Enterprise – Friday, 5 November

The first one being this Thursday as Blurb is teaming up with Etsy and Moo to provide you marketing know-how for freelancers & small business owners. You’ll be taught why branding is important, even for the tiniest crafty shop. They’ll have workshops throughout the day on everything from how to take professional photos of your products to examples of creative, effective and DIY branding in action. And, of course, we’ll be giving a bespoke bookmaking seminar.

Since moving to Switzerland, I’ve kind of enjoyed the freedom of not having to keep up with fashion as much, as we all known the Swiss aren’t known to be fashion trend setters. Since coming back from London Fashion Week though, I have had a bit of whitdrawal symptoms as I am missing the buzz and the excitement that comes with this industry.

So you can imagine how excited I got when I was told Zurich is going to hold a Fashion Week! Well, not actually a fashion week but the Charles Vögele Fashion Days Zurich. Sadly my excitement didn’t last too long as I realised there was a price tag that was attached to it. A price that I am not really prepared to pay and I don’t quite understand the concept either… who would pay between £28 – £320 (yes that is £320) to see some catwalks? Catwalks where you see the next season collection that you cannot buy for at least another 6 month, would you?