La Di Da Secret Pop Up Warehouse Party: Gin Cocktails & Secret Passwords

For those of you who follow my Instagram stories, you will have seen what I got up to on Thursday evening. For those who don't, let me share my adventure with you!

I was invited to a secret pop up warehouse party hosted by La Di Da Magazine. I was invited by email and told to enter via a specific entrance with a black door. Once there I would be greeted by a man dressed in black and he would ask me a question. To answer this, all guests had to memorise a secret password phrase to gain entry.

From here we were lead to the NEXT store in a private section upstairs from the store. As the store is newly opened, this area of the 'back' of the store is still unfinished and sporting plasterboard. Despite the industrial, undone feel, the space had been transformed to the perfect party space. Furniture from NEXT was cleverly placed with distressed rugs, textured throws and beautiful occasional tables.

On arrival I was greeted with gin in a teacup. I repeat, gin in a teacup!  A pop up bar and DJ Stephen Love kept the vibe high and the drinks were just delicious. The bar was the handywork of Durham Distillery who distil all of their gin locally. The drinks kept flowing with different variations of drinks using some of their different flavoured gins!

Gorgeous teacups by The Vintage Tea Party

Catering was provided by The French Oven and was divine! The table was scattered with rose heads and the food was the perfect addition to the gin cocktails. Gorgeous finger food and gin, what more could you want on a Thursday evening?! 

Later on in the evening, once NEXT was closed to customers we were taken downstairs and told we could pick any item we'd like from the store as a gift. 

*OVERWHELMING CHOICES* 

The pressure of having to pick something you'd love from NEXT was intense. Limited on time, overwhelming range of gorgeous products and trying to pick the perfect thing was a lot to process! We were all frantically wandering round the empty store with disbelief. 

Fuelled with gin and food, I had a really good look around and spotted a few different key pieces which I liked. We were allowed to try items on and so I found the changing rooms. Not to be dissapointed, gorgeous, light space with velvet seating, gold drop lighting, plants and much needed huge mirrors. 

I ended up opting for a vertical stripe, classic 1950's style tailored, belted dress. This piece gives me nostalgia of the British Summertime, spent on beaches and eating ice cream. It's perfect to wear for professional occasions with its tailored cut but the belt offers the option to make it a looser silhouette ruching he top section over the belt to create more of a relaxed style!

After the gifting, we were then treated to more gin goodness. The Metrocentre train was also on hand for tipsy train rides. Just when you thought the surprises were finished!

Before leaving, each guest was given a goody bag filled with treats from NEXT & Durham Distillery which I will certainly make the most of. Thank you so much La Di Da for the invite and for hosting such a fabulous event! 

Hello 2018: What's New

Hello 2018!

New year brings fresh beginnings and with that comes lots of newness. 2018 is no exception.
You probably all know me for my jewellery design, but since purchasing the laser cutter I have been working in gifts too (which you can see here.) The new laser cut jewellery collection is now designed, produced and we recently had our product shoot.

 We are excited to share the final edits from the shoot, but in the meantime we'll share some behind the scenes snaps of our 1st official product shoot!

But first, a cup of tea... (much needed with all these festivities recently)

Stunning marble backdrops courtesy of Onmer Stone. 

The shoot took 3 days in total as we wanted to get the shots perfect. I'm working closely with Paul Gulliford Photography for these images and it's been a delight to share our similar ideas and vision to create something beautiful! His perfectionism and my eye for detail has made the process a dream...

We have our final meeting this week to review the images and then once I have the edits back the collection will officially launch. The excitement is building because this collection truly has been a labour of love and represents new beginnings, challenges and how we overcome them.

CREATIVE FUSE: Cake 13 Future Fashion

For those of you that follow me on instagram may have seen I was at the Northern Design Centre in Gateshead yesterday. I was there for the Creative Fuse Cake 13 Event. Every month, Creative Fuse host a Cake event (which of course includes coffee & cake), which covers a different topic each time. This time, the focus of the event and the speakers brought together was the future on the fashion and creative industry.

As you can see from our content and designs, we are inspired a lot by science and so this was right up our street! The guest speakers were Jen Barrett from This Is Creative Enterprice (TICE), Sally Smallwood founder of clothing brand Wreckreation and Raymond Oliver who is a chemical engineer and Professor of Interactive Materials at Northumbria University. 

Before the talk, there was an exhibition of a few North east creatives which we got to speak to. These included Trendlistr - a vintage online marketplace, Moth Studios - a taxidermy accessories & gift company who also run workshops, work by fashion students at Teeside University and Valeriia Savina - a fashion student at Newcastle College.

Jen from TICE spoke about how education can be evolved from the industries we now have to educating the youth as to what jobs may exist in the future when they are ready to into the working world. She was highlighting the important of ambient marketing and the fact that 70% of millennials would rather spend their money on an experience rather than a product. She also mentioned that with every trend the industries show, there is counter trends which are in turn a side effect of the original trend. With the tech fuelled lives we live lead now, we may try to resist and begin to lean to more heritage brands and things that encapsulate more tactile techniques and processes. 

Jen also highlighted the importance of cross collaboration for the future of the creative industry. Bringing events and experiences together and brands collaborating more is something we can be educating today's youngsters about. 

Sally was next up and she introduced her brand Wreckreation. Her brand creates custom built clothing for self proclaimed warriors. She strives to empower people through her designs and is inspired a lot by motor cross which can be seen through her colour ways, but she's also inspired hugely by philosophy and the way humans think. Her early sketches show the the muscle build up of the human form which was then translated into trouser panels. 

She has created the 'Super Charger' jeans which are panelled jeans that are lined with LED strips. The light reflects electrical impulses that we all carry inside our brains. She then explained that we all have this, so we have to power to shine outwardly and the Super Charger jeans were born. She collaborated with CPI to help make this design a reality! 

The last speaker, Raymond Oliver is a very inspiring man and mind. His background in chemical engineering is now fuelling his position at Northumbria University with a focus group of students he is working with. He spoke about fashion through the ages and in his opinion, fashion has no past or future but is relative to the present time. Neither is more advanced, as again, its relative to the time it was designed and produced. Interesting concept, right?! Raymond also thinks there shouldn't be a difference between the arts and science and instead should be working and collaborating more. We couldn't agree more!

He then went on to explain how, with the research in chemical engineering, it will be possible to create fabrics which react similarly to mad made fibres like elastic but with natural molecules from the sea etc. And apparently, sugar will also play a big role in this sustainability journey. This will allow the industry to create fabrics which can be reused and recycled. With today's culture of throw away fashion (playstation generation of tinder and fast food), we think this is much needed and so beneficial to the environment! 

After the talk, it was on to the cake part of the cake event. Of course, we obliged in this part (rude not to, right.) This gave us a chance to have a really good look around at the exhibition and network with some lovely people. 

We have known about Moth Studios for some time now and always see their workshop events on facebook, but never had the pleasure of seeing Sharene's work up close. But yesterday that changed! Gorgeous mix of colours, textures and attention to detail. 

It's great to see local designers doing their own thing and setting the path for others to follow! Moth Studio's is very unique and offers classes which I haven't seen anywhere else in the north east.