New Addiction

Yes I must stand up and admit proudly I have become a Pinterest addict…. follow me here where you can see random pictures like the below and other lovely things I can’t get enough of.

Once upon a time in Oz…part 2

After finishing my time at Nicola Finetti I changed states to the lovely New South Wales and the fantastic city of Melbourne (I want to go there again so soon, it really is the most brilliant city!). I ended up living in the trendy / artsy area of town called Fitzroy very close to the uber cool Brunswick Street… it’s a bit like Shoreditch I should think…maybe a bit less grubby!

I did pick this area carefully as my next placement a couture shoe designer called Preston Zly was based there, so all I had to do was drag myself outta bed and walk down the street and spend all day helping to make shoes! Brilliant! As a thankyou I got a beautiful pair of shoes made for me!

Here’s a couple of my favorites from their Spring Summer 2012 Collection called Oceania

 These are from their AW11 collection called Empire, I had to sneak them in because they are just so gorgeous!

Once upon a time in Oz….

Whilst I was at University (which seems many MANY years ago now) I had the amazing opportunity to spend an entire year doing work experience abroad, the other people on my course went all over the world from New Zealand to Paris to Germany, I ended up in Australia. I love it down under, I’ve got a lot of relatives out there and had been out there to see them before, so I took this excuse to get our there again.

I had 3 different work placements whilst I was out there and I’ve always kept an eye on what they have been up too since I finished my work placements and thought it’d be nice to see what they were doing this season. The first designer I worked with was Nicola Finetti in Sydney

The gorgeous garments produced by this Italian born designer are loved by the Australian and International Stars, even my idol Dita Von Teese. I love the use of lace with bright colours in his Fall 2012 collection.

PRADA Spring / Summer 2012

I just love, love LOVE the Spring Summer 2012 Prada Collection. It’s all lots of lovely retro styling with awesome Americana / Rockabilly motifs…featuring prints of Cadillac’s racing around and flames creeping up from skirt hems, this then continued along with motifs of cherries, dice and lips splashed all over the accessories **SIGH**

I’m attempting to get my butt back into dress making this year and am currently working on a mini collection (it’s my EPIC CHALLENGE 2012) of outfits along the similar lines of this collection. The styling will also have 50′s/60′d vibe but it’s going to be an entirely black range with similar motifs, such as flames and cherries being used but either hand painted or embroidered onto the garments with super bright / neon colours. I’ll post more about this when I’ve got a bit more than a few scribblings in a sketch book to show off.

Anyway back to Prada, just feast your eyes on some of their advertising campaign, get a load of the frankly swoon-worthy flaming heels!

We’ll Take Manhattan!

I finally got around to watching “We’ll Take Manhattan” shown on BBC4 last week on the BBC iPlayer , which is a drama about David Bailey’s first prestigious photo shoot for Vogue in New York in 1962. It tells the story of his love affair with the model Jean “the Shrimp” Shrimpton and big fights and dramas with their fashion editor that almost got Bailey sacked and also how without realising it the two of them broke the mould of fashion photography forever.

It was a great programme and mad me want to fly of to NY head to toe in cute 60′s Dresses!

Here’s a few of the shots from the famous shoot, you can really see where so many photographers since Bailey have taken inspiration for their work

Moshi Moshi Japan!

I love Japanese culture, Tokyo is in my top 5 of holidays I must take! At the moment I can’t afford these mysterious things called holidays so for now it’s just on one of my many lists of things I must do.

In the meantime I am going to get my Japanese fix at Hyper Japan 2012 

Hyper Japan is the UK’s biggest J-Culture event with stands and shops selling and promoting all things Japanese, both traditional and contemporary!

Theres Japanese Holiday Tours and food, including Sake Tasting and the Sushi Awards 2012 are part of the event, films (including a showcase of Third Window films), books, comics, music, including performances by actress and J-Pop singer Natsuko Aso

 There is also going to be stalls selling Vintage Kimonos, Modern Street Fashion, Gifts and Home wares. I think this will be my favorite part of the show and I’m sure to spend a silly amount of money!

I can’t wait to see all the Harajuku and Lolita girls all dressed up! They put so much effort and detail into what they wear it’s so impressive, whislt on the subject of dressing up there will also be Cosplay events taking place over the Hyper Japan weekend. Cosplay is short for Costume Play, it’s a hobby where people make and wear costumes based on their favourite Anime, Manga, Film or Video Game Characters and there are competitions for the best costumes!

To get me even more excited and in the mood for some Japanese fun I’m going to watch the achingly cute but equally very strange J-Pop music video Pon Pon Pon by Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

 

 

Holiday Spoils!

After a 1000 mile round trip I have finally returned to my little East London flat, I wouldn’t quite say I had a restful Christmas Break but it certainly was lovely to see many of my family and friends.

Mine and Johnny’s epic journey started with no journeying at all, we stayed in London for Christmas Day along with my flatmate Angela. We had a tremendous “Wanstead Family Christmas Day”, making sure of course we ate and drank until we could no longer move! On Boxing Day we set off for the cute little village of Bassingham in Lincolnshire where my mother lives, then down to Cornwall for a couple of nights to see the rest of my family. Johnny’s family live in Sittingbourne in Kent, this was our next stop and as we were in the area we went to visit a big group of our friends that live in and around Rochester, ending in a very, very late Pre New Years Eve night out!

Hungover but happy we headed to Lower Halstow where our friends Tim & Amy live, for ACTUAL New Years Eve with a few of our close friends, indulging in several bottles of my specially infused for Christmas, Cinnamon Vodka. Awesome in both White Russians and with Apple Juice! We saw in New Years Eve in a messy but positive style and as tradition dictates a EPIC CHALLENGE FOR 2012 is set, this is a task set that you need to achieve within the year (it has to be creative or of an self-improving nature). My task is to produce a 6 outfit collection with a Retro influence, I’ve already bought myself a new sketchbook and am working on a few rough ideas and it’s only 2 days in! Anyway there will be more about this in the coming weeks and months I have no doubt.

For now here’s a little selection of my Christmas and New Year Photos…. I’ve not got a picture of it yet, but I did get a Slanket (which I am currently wearing) it’s not the most glamorous of garments but sure is snuggly!

Belly pork with all the trimmings for Christmas Lunch

A Present from Johnny - Hendricks and a teacup to drink it from!

A present from Angela - Sailor Jerrys-tastic!

Johnny and Young Stan in the jumpers they got for Christmas

ok ok I get the hint...I need to Bake more in 2012!

in the Nags for Pre NYE drinkies!

Oh Yeah and I bought this for myself from the Collectif sale.....

Chained to the Oven

Morning Ladies & Gents,

For those of you who actually had to go to work today and haven’t had the day off (jammy gits) I hope you enjoyed the quite empty underground carriages like I did this morning. I got a seat straight away, in fact I had a choice of seats! Lovely!

This week, as I’m sure most of you have been, I’ve been rather furiously trying to get myself organised in the presents department for Sunday. I have been getting to know my oven really, really well over the last few days and have produced what I think is borderline mass production of Christmas baked goods for my nearest and dearest.

I only burnt myself once! Which is actually pretty good going for someone as clumsy as me!

I’m also a little sad because for quite some time my kitchen counter has been graced with the presence of a classic Kenwood Mixer, in fact it’s just the same as the one my Gran had when I used to bake with her as a little girl. This Kenwood is not actually mine, it belongs to my good friend Rohini the writer of the smashing blog The Beat That My Heart Skipped among other things. Her and her fiance had to move a while a go to a place with a much smaller kitchen and there wasn’t room for the mixer so I happily to charge of it until they eventually moved somewhere bigger. Sadly that day is drawing closer as they’ve just bought themselves a gorgeous Art Deco apartment in Wanstead, it is actually just across the street from where they currently live, I fear Roh will want her Kenwood back soon. But looking on the bright side a shiny new mixer will be going on my 2012 birthday wish list!!

So far from the Kitchen of Morgan I have produced hundreds of yummy Gingerbread Angels & Stars. These are made from a really quite special recipe that I received from a total stranger called Becky….that’s rather a contradiction…. hang on let me explain, she was the person who sent me my Curiosity Project Box that I rambled on about in my last post and through the wonderous-ness of social networking she tracked me down on twitter ( @amberbewrong in case you didn’t know)

I’ve also attempted Cheese Straws for the first time, these are made with Gruyère and Cheddar and sprinkled with Cumin Seeds. According to my boyfriend Johnny, who loves a cheese straw or two, they are “humbling” which I think is a good thing….Next up was another first, Shortbread. With these I added some lemon zest to the mixture, without sounding to big-headed I think they taste really quite awesome. I was incredibly proud of how well they came out! I think Johnny, who’s now become my resident food critic as of today, agrees as he describes them as being “unparalleled in the modern age”… i think he’s attempting to be funny.

Still to come in the Christmas food making saga is Pesto Palimers and a Swiss Roll Ice-cream cake. That’s going to be the Christmas Day Dessert, it’s one of Lorraine Pascale’s recipes from her show Baking Made Easy. Then of course there is the Christmas Day Lunch, luckily there will be three of us (me, Johnny and my lovely flatmate Angela) to deal with all that! We are all rather excited about our London Christmas!

Curioser and Curioser

I took part in my first Curiosity Project this month and received my box on saturday. For those of you who don’t know it’s a brilliant idea thought up by a lovely lady called Tiffany who is a wedding planner and stylist by day and by night the orchestrater of The Curiosity Project . The project is a brain wave she had combining all the social media we use with the old childhood tradition of chain letters and the excitement of getting a parcel in the post (something I absolutely love too)

Each year there are a few different curiosity projects running, I’ve just completed the Christmas one and there will be another one starting in the new year, you sign up and submit a bit of blurb about yourself, then you are matched up with a recipient who is kept anonymous you then have to put together an wonderous box of goodies (the budget is £20 max) to send to this Curious stranger. You can make things, buy things, do whatever you want really, then package it up beautifully and pop it in the post. Meanwhile you have been matched up with another sender and after about a month you receive a box of wonders from them!

You take some lovely photos and email them to the Curiosity Project blog! It’s all very fun and exciting…Tiffany describes it better here

I got my box at the weekend and here’s some pictures of the AMAZING stuff i received from my anonymous sender, you can see the post on the blog about my box here

Doing this was really so much fun! I think I will sign up to the one that’s starting in January too!

Award winning costume-ing!

I’ve been at it again, rifling through the costume shed’s of the Woodhouse Players that is. This time around I’ve done the costumes for their Spring Double Bill consisting of “The Ruffian on the Stair” written by Joe Orton, Directed by the awesome Dan Uzstan and “Bobby Gould in Hell” written by David Mamet, Directed by the smashing Cathy Love.

At this years Waltham Forest Festival of theatre the Woodhouse players offerings swept the board in awards, including an award for Stage Craft which I am proud to say my costumes contributed to!! Woop!

Ruffian on the Stair is set in dreary, monochrome 1960′s and is a darkly comedic play that is an unsympathetic peek into the lives of Mike, an ex-boxer, and Joyce, a former prostitute.

Bobby Gould in Hell is a comedy about a Hollywood mogul who suddenly finds him self being interrogated by the devil, who’s been called back to hell from a fishing trip!