Who Stole My Thunder?

Stolen Thunder are a really exciting British jewellery brand that are getting lots of press attention at the moment. They are renowned for their quirky handmade wooden jewellery featuring slogans such as ‘I love chips’, ‘Pardon my french’ and ‘blah blah blah’ as well as allowing you to customise jewellery with your own messages.

As we head now into Winter months where we will spend most of our time covered up, it is nice to wear eye catching jewellery to embellish our look. Wearing unique items from innovative jewellery labels will help you to achieve this.

The Heritage Collection is the latest range from Stolen Thunder and is antique-inspired at affordable prices. The heritage trend is huge this season with a focus on tweed, earthy tones, blazers, capes and knee-high boots. This takes inspiration from a traditional British countryside, classic look. This trend is a result of  the world focus on Britain’s Royal Wedding and the upcoming Olympics.

This British countryside feel is very much reflected in Stolen Thunder’s Heritage Collection. Here are some of my favourite items:

This typewriter is £35 and dipped in 18K gold.  It would be a perfect gift for any budding journalist….(hint, hint!)

This ring is a symbol of strength and is £45. I really like anything nautical themed so this caught my eye.

An owl to me is a very ‘London’ symbol – I have never seen so many owl themed clothes and jewellery before I began trawling the capital’s markets. This charm necklace is £35.

This is my favourite piece in the Heritage Collection – it is romantic and elegant at £50.

This necklace is very, very cool – an eagle claw clutching a black Onyx stone. It is quite fantastical and powerful and is £45.

Lastly, I really like this classic wishbone shaped ring which again has a mythical feel to it. The love heart decoration is very ornate and dainty. This is £47.

There are variations on many of the designs with there being a wishbone necklace and a rose pendant necklace. Also, there are hedgehog and hare charm necklaces which you can view here. 

Stolen Thunder has many celebrity fans too including Jameela Jamil, Marina Diamondis and Eliza Doolittle. Their website is great, very personal. You can read blogs from all members of their team and also they write about clothing labels and trends they love so it’s also good for a little inspiration.

Lucky for us, they are offering a 10% discount to readers of http://www.seemywardrobe.com if you use the code ‘treat’ at the checkout. Maybe you could start your Christmas shopping early or just buy a well-deserved gift for yourself! Get shopping here.

In my wardrobe choice for today, I am wearing a Miss Patina dress, Zara blazer and Kurt Geiger boots.

Sarah xx

Blogger Buzz

I’ve been featured on London Confidential in a blogger Q+A. You can have a read here…

http://www.londonconfidential.co.uk/Fashion-and-Style/Blogger-Buzz-Sarah-Goodwin

Let me know what you think!

Sarah xx

At The Rookery

Here are a few  ‘behind the scenes’ iPhone shots from the Miss Patina photo shoot at the weekend.

We already shot the first half of the Autumn Winter 2011 collection in July but we needed to take the other half as there are some new items such as a party dress collection and we also sell one-off vintage dresses so there needed to be photographed.

So we went back to The Rookery hotel which is located in Farringdon.

This is a very beautiful and unique hotel. There is a real vintage feeling in its design – the rooms are all plush carpets, brocade couches, windy hallways, lots of dark wood and little antiques everywhere.

Our models were Christine and Natasha. Christine is my cousin who I thought would be perfect for the Miss Patina look. She flew over from London on Friday night – it was her first time here and I must say she did spectacularly well on the tubes without any help. Holly (owner of Miss Patina) spotted Natasha in Topshop and asked her to take part.

We booked the meeting room in the hotel which consisted of a lounge area, a board room and bathrooms downstairs for both days.

We needed plenty of room for the rails and rails of clothes!

Here are some shots of the new handmade crocheted vintage inspired collars which will be for sale on the website http://www.misspatina.bigcartel.com very soon. They can be attached to any dress or shirt to give it an instant update and I have a feeling they will be very popular.

The dress Christine has on here is vintage.

This shirt is also vintage.

We used the bar in the hotel to get some shots of these dresses from the party collection. The mesh is covered in black velvet polka dots – very big print this season.

Love this beautiful tweed coat.

Add a faux fur collar, a giant boho hat and a vintage bag et voilá! We are in the 70’s!

This is a real modern and classic take on a jumpsuit. The legs of it can also be pulled up in summer time to make them capri length.

Holly bought a big box of donuts to put in a shot and we spent the whole day trying to avoid temptation…

We eventually found a place for them in our outdoor shots in the garden!

This dress is vintage.

This is a Miss Patina dress.

As you can see from the photos, we accessorized many of the outfits with brogues, vintage bags and hats.

Here are some behind the scenes shots that Kemp our photographer took:

These dresses are so elegant – both are vintage.

Anne helping Kemp get the perfect lighting by using a reflector.

That’s me helping adjust the dresses.

It was a really good shoot – I think it must be hard for the models keeping up their energy all day and putting on lots of different outfits. I liked helping with the artistic direction of the shots – where they should be set and how the girls should pose. The Miss Patina look is very natural so the photos should look simple and show off the garment in the best possible way. We had to keep this in mind. Kemp took full length shots, portrait shots and then detail shots to capture the patterns and details on the clothing.

I would really like to do more work like this in the future – I really enjoyed it.

I hope you like these photos – feel free to comment.

Sarah xx

Christopher Kane Unstoppable

Christopher Kane was showing at London Fashion Week today attracting the likes of Kanye West, Eliza Doolittle, Julie Restoin-Roitfeld and Erin O’Connor to name a few and rumour has it the collection left some in the fashion world crying.

Kane is one of the biggest young designers in the fashion world and has become widely known by the general public due to his collaboration with Topshop on three collections – the last being in 2009. Sometimes when high-end designers collaborate with high street stores – the result is a clothing line that is way too ‘out there’ to be worn by the target audience. However Kane’s Topshop range incorporated that trendy Shoreditch look (very near where his headquarters are based) and gave us some serious statement pieces embellished with tassels and studs.

(Source: www.trendland.net)

Aside from that, Kane is famous for creating the Galaxy dress collection – this was so beautiful and original, it became iconic. It has been worn by Alexa Chung, Carey Mulligan, Claudia Schiffer, Rosamund Pike and even Samantha Cameron.

(Source: http://buttoncake.tumblr.com/post/7382773349/i-want-every-last-one-pure-joy-in-a-dress)

Another favourite of mine was his Spring Summer 2011 collection which used neon and leather together – sounds like a disaster…but no. His use of soft neon colours – nothing too blinding and contrasting leather with sheer lace to create a really romantic collection – was beautiful.

(Source: http://iwantigot.geekigirl.com/2010/10/05/christopher-kane-spring-summer-2011-womens/)

What I love about Kane is that he completely mixes it up so we never know what to expect. Some designers find a niche, stick to it and churn out safe collections each season that will satisfy their critics but Kane really knows how to astonish his audience. But we still know it’s Kane and that’s what’s so clever about him as a designer. Always edgy, always beautiful and always incorporating leather and embellishment somehow.

Anyway…back to today and Kane’s Spring Summer 2012 collection.

The colour palette was completely changed up again from anything he has ever done before and the emphasis was on metallics – gold, silver, blues, browns, purples and pinks. Lots of floral patterns with heavy use of brocade. The collection had an almost futuristic feel with unusual structure and diagonal cuts.

Note the footwear – rubber soled FLAT sandals. Very simple and practical in design but the metallic colours and embellishment make these very unique.

I am including a video at the bottom of this post so you can get a feel of the whole collection but here are some of my favourites:

How would you describe the Christopher Kane woman?

“She is a real individual and a keen follower of fashion. She maybe works in the industry or another creative field. Age doesn’t really concern me; I’m more interested in personality and the way a woman carries herself.”

(http://www.britishfashionawards.com/designer_profile_bfa.aspx?DesignerID=69)

Below is the video of the collection.

Enjoy!

Sarah xx

To intern or not to intern?

This is what I’m wearing today because I am going to meet with a magazine about an internship so I want to look smart but stylish – hope this is what I have achieved! I’m not a big fan of colour blocking – which was huge last season – it’s just a bit too in your face for my liking and has the possibility to go so wrong! But never say never, so here I am…colour blocking! The top is Topshop, the skirt is Pull and Bear, the belt is my Mom’s (Mom can you shed some light please?!) and the mid-heel suede boots are H&M.

I have mixed feelings about internships – working for free is a blow after spending five years in college – what was all that hard work for if you can’t make any money doing what you want to do?!

However, in particular industries – internships are a given and the media world is one of those. I appreciate that some internships do pay off (literally) as there is the prospect of a paid position at the end – however I know there are many companies who use unpaid internships as a way to avoid employing someone and once an intern realises this and leaves – they just advertise for another one!

I found this to be the case with a lot of internships advertised in Ireland and graduates are so desperate to keep their CVs busy, these positions keep being filled. It was really disheartening to see this happening and I think there should be stricter laws about internship

With fashion magazines here – internships seem to be the norm to get your foot on the ladder so I’m hoping to get one in magazines like Glamour, Company, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Elle…or Vogue! (I can dream right?)

I’m starting an evening course in fashion journalism in Central St. Martins in a few weeks which provides more information on how to get into the world of magazines so I’ll keep you posted with what they say.

London Fashion Week is starting today and fingers crossed, I’ll be there next year! 🙂

Talk soon xx

 

If you have any opinions and/or experiences of internships, please leave a comment.