Yesterday (Sunday 28th April) I went to the second day of the Vogue Festival in association with Vertu at the Southbank Centre. For the occasion I decided to wear a pair of Zara leather leggings, an American Apparel top, H&M kimono and shoes and my Chanel handbag. I walked in and was immediately faced with my favourite things; coffee, a braid bar, dior smokey eyes and Garance Dore! After a quick hello to Garance, as after all her blog was the very first one I ever read religiously and still do to this day (five years and counting!) and a latte we settled into watch the first talk of the day…Victoria Beckham ‘My Fashion Story’ with Vogue Editor-In-Chief Alexandra Shulman. This was the only talk of the whole festival that banned photography and even threatened to kick you out if they caught you…weird but ok. VB came on wearing shirt and skirt from her A/W 13 line, the shirt wasn’t my favourite, a little sack like but the colour was a gorgeous mushroomy dove grey (not dissimilar to my favourite Barry M nail polish in Lychee) and the skirt fit beautifully, she had her hair up in her signature messy pony and her legs were teeny tiny and perfectly bronzed. She was affable and warm, joking about how “I know you all think I’m a cow, I promise I’m not! I’ve seen the pictures too though…I know how I come across”, and giving us little nuggets into her life such as “I stay up late at night because I have a baby and a 14 year old who wont go to sleep…Brooklyn” she said smiling at her eldest son who was in the audience, “I use those late nights to catch up on grooming like putting on a face pack and plucking my eyebrows”. She gave us an insight into her company and how excited she was to finally have her e-commerce site up and running. It was a good talk…my only criticism? Her answers were a little too slick, very media trained and I heard a few mutterings along the same lines as we all piled out of the Elizabeth Hall.
Next up I paid a visit to the Vogue braid bar where there was a menu of five different styles, I managed to persuade the lovely girl doing mine to go off menu by doing a ‘hairband braid’ as I call it with the rest of my hair loose. The Dior eye bar was also great and I went for the classic smokey look which I loved and only took five minutes to perfect, we were also given a little goodie bag full of Dior samples which I’m excited to try, we then saw Mario Testino in conversation with Lucinda Chambers who was self-deprecating, funny and insightful into the world of fashion photography. The next talk was on British brands with Christopher Kane and Anya Hindmarch which we decided to miss as our tummy were rumbling. After lunch we went to the ‘Too fat, too thin, will we ever be content?” with Christa D’Souza, Daisy Lowe, David Gandy and Patsy Kensit. It was an interesting talk with Daisy telling us how she had been sent home from fashion shows in the past for being deemed “too big”. Christa D’Souza put it bluntly “clothes look good on skinny women”. It was an interesting talk but not life changing, nobody spoke about truly leading a clean lifestyle, and they seemed to sit on the fence with audience asking questions such as “how do you get yourself to like yourself?” which lead to blank faces from the panel. David Gandy was perhaps the least impressive, as he mumbled incoherently about “inner beauty”…to be honest I don’t really know why he was on the panel..anyone?I suppose he was the only male and they needed a man’s perspective especially one in the fashion industry, but I’d personally have preferred someone with a bit more to say..someone like the next person I’m about to talk about.
Next up was the highlight of my day, Alber Ebaz the creative director at Lanvin in conversation with Alexandra Shulman. All I can say is that I feel completely in love with him, he was the most charming, funny and down to earth man leaving us with so many good one-liners that fingers everywhere were furiously tapping at iphones and ipads alike “I see you tapping away quickly….I hate twitter” he said which was met with roars of laughter. He said things like “I love first class….but hate the people on first class, I prefer the people on coach, I like nice fancy restaurants but I hate the taste and the portions..I prefer McDonalds”. He was an absolute (for want of a better word) babe and everyone, men and women alike fell into his charm. Learning about how he designs “I don’t design for fashion editors to put in the
magazines, I design for women, for women to want to wear”, and that he does, his dresses are so exquisite and timeless that they work equally as well on the cover of Vogue as on a beautiful woman out to dinner, he just gets it right and I’d love the opportunity to one day meet him properly…or just go and get some chicken nuggets and fries with him- Alber if you’re reading email me yeah??
After the high of Alber we then decided to get some food, after our quick carb fix at Wagamama we decided we were too tired for Donatella Versace’s talk (also I can’t say I’m her greatest fan) so we decided to head home..which is when I realized my car had been towed. Nightmare. Oh well, a sour end to a lovely day filled with ‘fashion bunnies’ (VB’s terminology), braids, sweet treats, streetstyle snappers galore and smokey eyes. What more can you want from a lovely Sunday?
I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.
Lots of Love
Tijan
xxx