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Archive for February, 2010

London Fashion Weekend

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Only a few days to go until London Fashion Weekend! Control yourselves please…

This season it’s being held at Somerset House on the Strand… Perfectly grand surroundings for such amazing fashion goodies!  We’ll be bringing loads of brand new stock at a reduced price and some bargain pieces starting from just £20!!

Thursday 25th Feb 5-10pm

Friday 26th Feb 11-10pm

Saturday 27th Feb 9.30-7pm

Sunday 28th Feb 9.30-6pm

There is a small charge to enter LFW-END,  it’s so worth it tho!  Last year the girls at Alex Monroe HQ grabbed some lovely bargains.  Please check out the event web-site for all the details and some examples of what’s on offer :

http://www.londonfashionweekend.co.uk/

I can tell you now, that we will be bringing plenty of BEE’S!…

A swarm of silver bee's waiting for Fashion Weekend

...A swarm of silver bee's waiting for fashion weekend

Please pop by and say hello, Suzy A and the girls will be on stand to help and advise.

See you there,

Susie x


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London Fashion Week February 2010

Saturday, February 20th, 2010

Well, after a week of last minute preparations and a few panics, yesterday we were finally able to launch our new collection, ‘The Peacock and the Crow’ at Fashion Week!

We originally launched the range as a capsule collection at Liberty in November last year, which was a complete instant sell out! It mainly consisted of more dressy pieces, which were perfect just before all those Christmas parties, as anyone who saw, or the lucky few ladies that own pieces will know!

Alex has now built and expanded the range, so there are more wearable ‘everyday’ pieces, but this does mean more choice, and therefore more difficult choices to make……

Myself and Suzy A are working at the show, but making the stand look good has been very much a group effort, so thank you to everyone involved. Here are some pics:

Our stand.

As the new collection has a distinct glamorous and slightly gothic feeling, we really wanted to capture this, and set the scene on our stand.  To do this we needed lots of props, and luckily Alex’s friend Carol is an absolute genius with antiques so she found us lots of amazing pieces…..

Little pictures, glass decanter, peacock feathers and candlesticks....

Little pictures, glass decanter, peacock feathers and candlesticks....

A lovely old Chinese clock and some great candlesticks.

A lovely old Chinese clock, candlesticks, and Carol even managed to find the perfect chairs on the street!

And I suppose I better tell you about the jewellery too!

A real box of treasures!

Alex has really created two collections in one, with  rich gold Peacock feathers contrasted against jet black Crow feathers.

We have plated the Crow pieces with Ruthenium, which is actually from the Platinum family of metals. It’s an amazing finish, a really strong black colour and almost iridescent in places - perfect for glossy Crow feathers!

London Fashion Week gives us the opportunity to show our buyers all of our collections, so they can pick the pieces they want to have in-store.  Yesterday was really busy, and we took new orders from Indian Summer, EcOne, Madeleine Hamilton and Fenwick.  We also had some nice chats with the girls from KJ’s Laundry, Cerise and Austique, who all said the jewellery was flying out, which is great.

Orders placed at the show will be going into stores around June, so I’m afraid you will have to wait until then to see the pieces in the flesh.  We may launch a few pieces from the collection on-line before then, so watch this space….

For more sneak-preview pictures of ‘The Peacock and the Crow’ check out our Facebook fan page.

The stand is starting to get busy so I better say bye for now! Emma and Suzy A x x

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Marmalade

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Marmalade is one of the best things in the world, but there are a few rules;

1/ you have to make it yourself,

2/ eat at least a jar a week.

Curiously enough, although Japan is my food heaven, I’ve never had nice marmalade in Japan, so I’m posting this on my Japanese blog as well. Hmm, might have to ask Mayo to translate… (have a look here)

Anyway, it’s marmalade making time for the sad old  stay-at-homes (that’s me), so I spent last night boiling up my second batch. And may I say it’s one of the best ever. I used my Mum’s recipe, easy and failsafe. Here it is with translation into plain English…

Marmalade instructions

Recipe: 3lbs Seville oranges, 2 Lemons (plus anything else? Grapefruit, lime etc??) 6lbs Marmalade sugar. 1/ Scrub the fruit, put in a pan with 6 pints of water, boil for 2 hours, go watch some t.v., cool. 2/ Cut the fruit in half and remove the insides, pith and all, put insides into a muslin bag, tie it up. Cut up the peel thinly. Put peel and bag back into the liquid and boil for half an hour, more t.v. Cool. Remove the bag and squeeze it out as best you can. Chuck the rest away. 3/ Add the sugar, stir until dissolved, then boil very fast for about 15 mins or until the liquid begins to set when you drip it on a cold plate. Turn off the heat then leave to cool for 20 mins. Then pour into jam jars.

Boiling it up

Boiling it up

The finished product!

The finished product!

It doesn’t get any better than that!

Alex

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Free prize at Little 15

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Just to let you know, Jutta at Little 15 is running a competition, kind of a Prize Draw,for our upcoming Trunk Show. Just click on the pic below to enter…

Little 15 competition

Little 15 competition

We did a great press breakfast at Harrods this morning. All the gorgeous glam press girls and nibbles and chat. I looked suitably scruffy as usual, eating all the nibbles I could get, and stayed around for the ‘Meet the expert’ day. Bought some fab chocs for Valentines day from  Holdsworth. After trying a few (!) I couldn’t resist. Besides, they’re hand made in Derbyshire. We like hand made in the UK. Yummie.

Holdsworth chocs in Harrods

Holdsworth chocs in Harrods

Daniella behind the counter at Harrods

Daniella behind the counter at Harrods

Stopped off at Panter and Hall on my way back and bought this print. Couldn’t resist it.'Gus' by Helen Fay

(’Gus’ by Helen Fay)

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Little 15 Trunk Show

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Hello All,

Just a quick note to let you know that we’ll be doing a FAB Trunk show at Little 15 in the city on Tueseday 9th February (just in time for Valentine’s Day). We’ll be there from 12 ’till 3, but the Special Exclusive pieces will be there all day. Jutta is in charge at Little 15 (we’re old friends and she’s always chatting on our blog), so whatever time of day, pop along if you can and say ‘Hi’. We all take time to put together these amazing one off pieces for our trunk shows, our on-line trunk show shop has been going really well, but there will be a whole new selection of pieces in Little 15! Oh yes, if the boyf. has trouble knowing what to choose, send him this link of Emma on how to buy a gift…..

Little 15 trunk show

Little 15 trunk show

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