Tuesday 21 July 2009

Tea & Vintage

I went to visit Catherine in her Studio on Wednesday and was delighted by the treasure trove of vintage clothing and accessories that she has to offer. There’s a beautiful summer dress and a nice vintage print skirt that I am going to go back for. She says on her flyer that her prices are reasonable and it’s true, both the dress and the skirt are under £20 each (the dress alone would easily have been over £60 at the pretentious Hammersmith vintage fair).

Over a cup of tea I showed her my accessories designs ( flower brooches, fabric bead necklaces, petal necklaces and picture buttons)

and we had a good chat about the prospect of collaborating with each other and with other local designers. She also gave me a bagful of vintage scarves and other fabrics to play with,


it was really good to talk to her as she has given me some ideas to develop my designs and also gave me a positive feeling about trying to develop my own business and also a vintage/craft/fashion collaborative in Southampton. She was also kind enough to let me leave some of my postcards there for her customers to pick up.

Catherine is holding a sale at her studios in September and she has invited me along to sell my accessories. I’m excited about this as there is a much more direct and hands-on approach when you can talk to potential customers face to face rather than over the internet. She is also planning to hold a Christmas vintage/crafts fair somewhere in Southampton and hopefully I will be invited back for that.

I also bought a badge-it badge making machine off Ebay so the picture buttons are soon to become picture badges. yip yip

xxCandy

Friday 10 July 2009

Iron Fist


Awesome, My Iron Fist starter pack arrived today, I have two new t-shirts with typically cool Iron Fist prints on them, they fit well and are made of nice, high quality jersey so I think these are gonna be worn, and borrowed, a lot.
Also got a pile of stickers which are very soon to be adorning everything I own.

Still hankering after those Iron Fist shoes, one day they will be mine.....

Cheers Iron Fist

xx
Candy

Saturday 4 July 2009

Stationery and Vintage

Having seen how amazing Anna looked in her maxi dress I have printed the pattern and made some myself. I think I might remake the black and white one with a patterned top section to wear to a wedding reception in a couple of weeks. I altered the pattern slightly to include a back on the green and yellow one which I wore to London on Thursday for a trip to the bodyworlds exhibition and the Blur gig in Hyde Park. The blue one is made out of some amazing African Bird Print fabric and was for Sarah for her holiday. These are now available in our etsy shop


For the last couple of weeks I have been working on improving our stationery. I redrew the logo and then used this to make our business cards, I also designed some postcards to distribute at cafe's and bars, I'm still working on the design of the 'e' letter for the middle of these but they are nearly ready. My lovely hairdresser Guilaume, has also said that I can drop some of the postcards off at his salon. I have also updated our clothes label so everything matches which makes it all look a lot more professional. I'm really happy with how these have turned out.


Last night I went to see my friend Siobhan's work at the cut to the chase exhibition at the bargate monument gallery. I love Siobhan's work cos it reminds me of reading all the ridiculous stories in my favourite magazine - pick me up!

I took along some of my flower brooches to give to Ali for his two daughters, while I had them laid out on the floor for him to pick the ones he thought they would like, a lovely lady called Catherine approached me. Catherine has a studio in Queens Terrace from which she sells vintage clothing under the name Hepwrights. She said she often gets vintage frocks with awesome prints that have unfortunatley been loved a bit too much and have big rips or stain that make them unsellable, we are going to meet soon to discuss the possibility of me reclaiming this fabric for use in my flower brooches or indeed to reinvent the item into a wearble piece again. I quickly printed up a card to present the flowers on (as seen above). and hopefully Catherine will have them for sale in her shop/studio soon. Oh how I love fortuitious meetings and vintage stuff.

xxCandy