Happy making, AND getting the message through.
“It’s not just about promoting diversity of race or skin tone, but really showing the full breadth of womanhood – we’re seeing this with models ranging in not just race, but size and age,”
BWT, I do include men in this doctrine.
For your chance to be as close as possible for (non celebrity fashionistas), to a catwalk show, a luxury goods atelier and a glimpse into the inception of one of the worlds most covetable fashion houses, get your mere mortal butts over to 180, The Strand, London WC2.
The Louis Vuitton Series 3 Exhibition, will take you on a journey through white tunnels, Parisienne streets, a luxury goods workroom complete with humans, a laser pattern cutting scenario and you will have front row seats at Louis Vuitton’s AW ’15 Fashion show.
Got to be said that here is the single most versatile item of clothing that I’ve bought in the last month or so. They are yours and mine very, very comfy, streamlining, all terrain encompassing, ( off road, on carpet and in the restaurant ) new best friend. Designer Tracksuits are the new tailored trouser. With a little bit of aplomb they can take you anywhere you’d like to go. I paid £45 at Adidas for the thrill of ownership, which you could say is quite a lot for tracksuit bottoms. But(t)…
This is the back cover of one of my old Model Composites. These composites are your business cards, and without one of these you simply can’t function as a model. They are your calling card, and must be left with the client after each casting. They not only give out all your vital statistics but should, by way of an array of photos, show your versatility as a model. Today Models can show their full portfolio of shots by means of an iPad , but what stays with the client is still the Model Composite. It is a vital currency in the Modelling world. A good one can gain you entry to castings by being sent by the Agency directly to the client, which sometimes gets you direct bookings i.e. you don’t even have to go to a casting because the client has chosen you, simply based on your photos. Conversely a bad one can just as easily leave you out in the cold!
My measurements were all achieved by eating entirely normally (for a rugby player), swigging Champagne and any other alcohol at whim, making eating ‘Tarte au Citron’ an Olympic sport, scoffing all kinds of sweets, pastries and a ton of bread. My point is that I was not abstaining from anything, so those measurements indicate my healthy resting weight at that time.
What I get up to when no one’s looking. I get all experimental and when I was recently in Paris, I took all three daughters to worship at the shrine found at 31 Rue Cambon. The Chanel flagship store. Whilst babies #1,2 and 3 were dillying around breathing in the sights and smells (money and perfume), of this inner of innermost fashion sanctums, I was in the cosmetics corner feeling mighty fine. I had found an Chanel’s Cils Scintillant Jazzy Blue Sparkling Top Coat Mascara. Credit cards to manual…
I am now grown up enough to wear elbow length gloves, and because I do love investment buying, my first port of call in the glove department is black leather. Timeless and could take an ordinary outfit over the edge and into huge sophistication and possible style icon territory. I have hovered between two words here to describe my raincoat, and those two words are ‘vintage’ and ‘old’. I’m going with old as I’m hoping that neither my coat or I qualify for vintage just yet. Anyhoo, fact remains that it’s not this season’s offering from Burberry. You can see that the sleeves are 3/4 length, which to me means that this coat needs accessorising in order to achieve real greatness. Enter my very spiffy ‘Kelly’ gloves
from Southcombe, a small very bijoux company based based in Somerset since 1847. I do love a heritage family business .
Here is the mascara that I have chosen to wear over Chanel’s Beaute Des Cils Nourishing base, previously mentioned. Although during my modelling career I have had my eyelashes slathered with designer mascara’s I’ve come to the conclusion that this is an area we are right to be circumspect about. Honestly I truly believe that with mascara you can circumnavigate the luxury label and go high street saving you money for far more exciting merch.
I don’t know if any of you remember the harmony involved between me and my wetsuit…? For those of you that missed it the first time, I’m attempting to put it on again this weekend in Cornwall. Why would I? Deference to a friend’s last hurrah to her 40’s. She’ll be happy that she invited me… Monday should bring you all the debrief.
I always miss ‘Throwback Thursday’ and invent my own day for inflicting ancient photos of myself onto you. Here I am mincing down the catwalk for Christian Lacroix. Had a thought. Wouldn’t that dress/tunic look pretty with a pair of skinny jeans and some high ankle boots and worn as a coat/jacket?
During my career, as an international Fashion model, I have clocked up a few miles on the world’s catwalks, sat in the make up artist’s chair for hundreds of hours, and been teased, backcombed and groomed by hairdressers for the same number of hours. I’ve been lucky enough to work as a model, for magazines, designers and directors in both beautiful, and mad places, shooting covers, and commercials. I am a style spy!
