Last Saturday I went down to London for the Nuffnang 1st Birthday Party, as it’s just completed its first year in the UK. If you don’t know Nuffnang and you are a blogger, just get yourself onto their page and take a look, they’re great to work with and the nicest bunch you can ever meet! It was a great opportunity to meet the Nuffnang team again and see some familiar blogger faces, as well as getting acquainted with new ones! I took a few photos mostly with my phone – it doesn’t make for the best quality on the blog but it did make for better conversations. Sometimes it’s hard to worry about taking photos and hang out with people!
It was a lovely celebration, held at the rooftop bar at Netil 360, in the London Fields area. We had giggles, photos, lots of conversations, all set against a breathtaking view of London and filled with burgers, vegan tacos and glasses of Prosecco. Thank you Jesse and team Nuffnang for organizing it!
Vegan tacos and burgers by Club Mexicana – they were delicious! I’d never heard of pulled jack fruit before but became an instant fan… Moar!
On the way there I also did a few photos, as per usual. I hope you like them too.
Last Saturday I headed down to London on more time, for the first ASOS Insiders event of the year, this time a clothes swapping event, with talks about ASOS Marketplace and some of its vendors.
The premise was simple: you had to bring up to 3 good quality barely worn or unworn items, to swap with your fellow bloggers. There was also a selection of ASOS samples available for grabs. We were asked to fill in a tag for each item with our info and details about the clothes and place them on the rails. After that we were given some time to wander around and see what we liked. I put my eye on a few pieces and when the time came we all went for it. It was all very civilized and all of the 3 pieces I picked were on my ‘watch list’. After that we were told to just grab anything we wanted as they didn’t want any clothes left on there. I ended up picking up a few more items and came back with more than I brought in. Result! This was my first clothes swap event and I really liked it. I hope I can attend more during the year, as according to my resolutions, I’ll have to, if I want new clothes.
The talks about Marketplace were very informative – I had never really considered selling stuff on there but now I think it’s a really good idea. It’s better than Ebay because you can list up to 100 items, for a fixed price and you don’t pay anything to do the listing, only a commission when you sell something.
The first talk was by ASOS Marketplace’s very own manager, followed by Amy from Mod Dolly (what a surprise!) and Steve from House of Jam. The talks by the vendors were extremely inspiring and we could see how their businesses have been steadily growing organically.
As the event started early we were treated to breakfast and later a light lunch that was very delicious! I loved the mozarella and tomato skewers. Nom!
Sarah from A Million Dresses looked really cute in her Mod Dolly tartan dress and her apple shaped wicker bag but what really caught my eye were her nails. How sweet are they?
Laura from That’s so Yesterday, Siobhan from boutique Shop Floor Whore and yours truly showing off our crazy phone covers. We were clearly the colour brigade of the day.
I was fascinated by Shop Floor Whore goodies – reminds me a lot of the 90’s rave and club culture, what’s there not to like? A totally fun explosion of colour and glitter – right up my alley. More on Shop Floor Whore soon!
Mod Dolly’s rail at the event, with some of the items from the current collection, one of them my lovely dress that I wore on Christmas Day in Marrakech.
Here I am, posing for an outfit photo with Lucy from Lucy Loves, who I had already the pleasure of meeting at a previous event. She is so nice, I hope to hang out with Lucy again really soon!
(What I wore, in case you are wondering: Beret – Betsey Johnson, Cardigan and long sleeve black top – Primark, Dress – Sonia Rykiel for H&M, Pencil Scarf and black socks – H&M, Shoes – Portuguese designer Filipe Sousa at Eureka Shoes)
After the event Amy took Laura and I back to Dragon Castle for some dim sum. Delicious!!!
The lovely Charlotte from Crave Green Velvet made a video of the event – with great music to go along with it too (M83! Love them!). Make sure you watch it.
Thanks ASOS for organizing another fun event. We Insiders are truly spoiled!
(I’m adding this post to Patti’s Visible Monday, as it is outfit sharing time!)
Last week I was invited by Rainbow Club to attend an event in London, to design a pair of shoes for my Alter Ego. Rainbow Club specializes in bridal shoes and accessories and now have available The Colour Studio, where you can have any pair of shoes from their selection dyed to the colour of your choice. That got me intrigued.
The best Christmas tree in the whole world has shoes all over it.
We were all given a Colour Studio apron so we wouldn’t get our own clothes dirty and were invited to check out the embellishments available for our shoe.
After that we had to pick a colour (or colours), which had to be mixed especially. I picked a dark red as I already had an idea of who I wanted my Alter Ego to be.
After trying the colour on a bit of satin I decided it was good and proceeded to decorate my allocated shoe.
There was a competition for the best 3 shoes. I didn’t win but nevertheless I had a lot of fun! I enjoy trying out new things and this was a really good experience.
I also got to meet Diane Hassall, who is the head of design for the brand and learned that she has 25 years experience in the industry, which is quite respectable, I would say. I will be interviewing Di about her career and experience at a later date so stay tuned!
We called these rabbit tails as that’s what they looked like. I have no idea what they are called in reality. They were used to paint the shoe, after dipping it in the dye.
Here is the end result. Have you guessed who my Alter Ego is? Her name is Gigi and she is a flapper, partying away in the New York speakeasies during Prohibition. She likes to dance, drink bootleg booze and listen to Cole Porter.
I also got to pick a pair of shoes to bring home with me and I chose what I call Barbie shoes – pink and sparkly! They are the Desario model, dyed in light pink. I can’t wait to get an opportunity to wear them!
This is what I wore for the day: Turban – Lomography shop in Lisbon, Boyfriend Cardigan – Zara Lefties (outlet in Portugal), Stripy T-shirt – Zara, Cocktail Ring – Matalan, Black Velvet Dress – Thrifted in Florida ($1!), Lips Belt – Zara (on sale), Tights – Primark, Boots – Beau Coups (via Ebay)
Bonus: the Christmas lights at Regent Street in London.
I hope you enjoyed this, I know I did. I am joining the party over at The Style Crone for another Hat Attack as well as Patti’s Visible Monday!
Edit: Also added to Pick Me Up at Spy Girl! Get sharing!
I don’t know if you have noticed one of the buttons on the right hand side column on the blog page – I am one of the many bloggers chosen to be part of the new blogger outreach program by ASOS called Access All ASOS, which makes me an ASOS Insider. One of the perks of the program is to be able to participate in activities organized by the brand and last Saturday I headed down to London to attend Selfie School.
This came in the perfect time as the selfie is clearly having a moment – it was picked by the Oxford Dictionaries as the word of the year just last week. Like it or not, and no matter how narcissistic you might think it is, the truth is that it is here to stay, thanks to our ever present mobile phones and their increasingly better cameras.
As we were arriving, we were invited to try some nibbles and drinks – I didn’t eat much as my appetite has been ruined lately but the few things I tasted were delish! I also got to talking with a couple of bloggers and made acquaintance with Lucy and Katie, among others, who were really nice too.
We were separated into groups and under the guidance of Olly Lang @oggsie we were given a few exercises to experiment with – an emo photo (with dramatic lighting), a composite image (full body photo with details), a natural light photo and a mirror selfie, preferably not showing the phone.
I have a lovely phone, a Samsung Galaxy S4 that takes brilliant photos (a lot of the outfit photos I’ve been publishing on the blog in the last few months have been taken with it) but unfortunately the operative system decided to run amok and it had to go back to Samsung for repairs. Great timing, no? I had to fish my old Galaxy S from the drawer and took my tablet too, just in case. Despite the technical problems and shortcomings, I had a great time and managed to produce an image that won me a little prize in its category:
What I wore: Turban – Lomography shop in Lisbon, Pullover (with hearts on the elbows) – ASOS, Skirt – Zara (second hand), Boots– Dr Scholl (via TK Maxx), Bug Earrings – H&M.
I also took my Fuji Instax with me and managed to take a few snaps. I’m glad I did as they came out real cute.
I had a great time and it was lovely to meet Hannah and Sedge, with whom I’ve interacted with on Twitter before. I hope there will be many more events in the future! We were also given a quick tour of the ASOS offices and I loved it. I will be making a post dedicated to it on Wednesday.
After all this, I can finally take a decent selfie, don’t you think?
Last Thursday was a busy day! Work in the morning, hospital appointment at lunch time and road trip to Manchester for the rest of the day!
Filipa, Daniela and I got in the car and drove up North to attend the Company Magazine Fashion Forum. We had a laugh on the way there and got to see different landscapes – it’s flat as a pancake where I live and it was refreshing to see some hills.
We arrived a little bit earlier so we still had time to walk around and see the streets and do a little shopping – got myself some bargains on sale at H&M, woopwoop! The rain had also stopped just in time for our arrival. How lucky was that?
Details: Dress – Suncoo (via TK Maxx), Long Sleeve T-shirt – Primark, Cardigan– Vintage, FlatformShoes – Kurt Geiger (via Tk Maxx), Crazy Cat Lady Bag – Ahcahcum Muchacha (my current favourite Japanese brand), Jacket – H&M Trend (via Ebay).
After all this we headed to the event, held at one of the Manchester University buildings. It was full of young girls, some of them with their mums and that was nice to see.
Some of the other atendees. The girl in the pink hair was to me the most interesting looking girl there. I would like to know where her blog is as I think her style was quite individual. (I’m not being funny but I saw 3 different colours of the same H&M sweater in the same room).
The speakers were:
Kathryn Kenny – New Look – Senior Digital Content Manager
Victoria White – Company Magazine’s Editor
Oonagh Brennan – Company’s Associate Editor Fashion
Karen Jones Russell – Stylist
Jen Holmes – Blogger at A Little Bird Told Me and Freelance Writer
The conversation was quite interesting and I came back home with a few more ideas (and clearer ones) on what I want to do and what I should be doing to get there. I particularly liked hearing Jen Holmes talk about her work – I’d love to do the same thing! I’ve been working in the finance industry for too long and it’s about time that I move back towards a more creative field. I kind of owe it to myself!
That’s me, taking photos! Photo courtesy of Amy Jane Alice. Click on the link to see her detailed account of the event.
After the Q&A session we grabbed our goodie bags and drove back to the G. It was a very tiring day but I think that it was worth it.
