Turning Leaf and Basso & Brooke launch at the Shop at Bluebird

Last Tuesday I was invited to the private launch of the new Turning Leaf/Basso & Brooke collaboration of limited edition designed Wine Bottles and Interior Homeware. You might remember a little while ago I wrote about the collaboration here, and so I was really glad to have the opportunity to see the collection for myself. It really is amazing:

Basso & Brooke are well known for their amazing prints and fashion designs, and seeing their eye-poppingly colourful style (with the Turning Leaf logo/illustration and colour palette cleverly intertwined) on throws, cushions, tables, lamps... pretty stunning. I would kill to have any one of those items in my house - certainly a statement piece if ever I saw one! They are all available to buy apparently (huzzah!) but I overheard a woman saying that prices were around £9000.... so....yeah, that's more than half my yearly salary. I don't think so. In my dreams!

And so the evening was rather in that vein for me unfortunately; everything was in my dreams and out of my price range! The Shop at Bluebird is beautiful and full of amazing designer clothes (all in size 6 from what I could see...) but not one single thing in there could I afford. Boohoo. Except perhaps some of the art books lovingly displayed on the tables. While I wandered through the room with my (free, yay) glass of Turning Leaf Pinot Noir staring longingly at the goods on display, I realised slowly that I was in the world of Prada, but wearing Primark. To be fair though, the evening wasn't really centered around actually buying anything (thank god), just admiring the collaboration and chatting with cool people. It was a shame because my friend got food poisoning and had to pull out, so I'm sure I would have stayed a bit longer if I wasn't there on my own, but I just felt a bit strange amongst it all. We would probably have stood there pretending to be dotcom millionaires and loved being in that kind of atmosphere, soaking up all the designer-goodness aura. But alas. I just wanted to stare at the pretty Basso & Brooke collection all night and if I did that, I'd have looked weird.

The beautiful people. If you look closely you can see ether Basso or Brooke (I don't know which is which... that's terrible of me, I do apologise) admiring their handiwork.

And here they are with their lovely wine bottles. Suffice to say, I did not take this picture. I did see them milling around but was way too scared to actually say anything. I would probably just have said 'omg, you're like, so amazing, eeee' and ran away so it's probably a good thing I didn't.

It was really lovely to be invited (thanks Turning Leaf!) and was great seeing the collaboration firsthand. You just can't imagine the level of detail in the artwork... stunning.

Basso & Brooke and Turning Leaf Interiors Collection available from 15th June at The Shop at Bluebird for June, July and August. They are running the Turning Leaf complimentary bar, every Thursday and Friday 5 - 7pm, from June 17th until 30th July (my birthday... maybe I'll go back!) at The Shop at Bluebird. Check it out if you're ever near Kings Road, it's worth a gander.

Coveting: Computer Arts Book of Inspiration

This is a fairly simple thing to covet - it's not out of my meager price range so will probably be in my happy hands in no time. I thought of waiting until then but I want to share it now - it looks so tasty. Computer Arts' Book of Inspiration:

 All images from Computer Arts

Looks pretty sexual doesn't it. "The Book of Inspiration is a new luxury volume from the makers of Computer Arts magazine, featuring 192 pages of the world’s very best digital art, design and illustration."

It's £14.99, and has interviews and work from some really inspirational people - James Jean, Non-Format, Neville Brody, Airside, Hort, Vault49... It's also got a  foil blocked and die cut cover, which is always a winner with design fetishists. Like moi.

I wouldn't say that it's particularly groundbreaking - I can't see any emerging artists there, just established ones with amazing work. Which is nice, but these people already have their work everywhere. Inspiration comes in many forms, and it is nice to have books like this to flick through. 

Once I've bought it, I'll tell you more...

Inspiration: Hannah Martin, Luxury Jewellery Designer

At a recent Immersion session we had a talk from Hannah Martin, who is a really talented Luxury Jewellery Designer. She works with silver, gold, diamonds, all kinds of expensive stuff, and produces work such as...

All quite expensive. I say quite. You can guess... gold and diamonds ain't cheap. But they are beautiful.


The thing that really struck me about Hannah's work is that each of her collections have a story behind them. Her first collection was called 'It's only Rock N Roll' and was based on the hedonism and raw masculinity that a rock n roll lifestyle produces. It's the perfect collection for aspiring (or real) rockstars, with pure sexual charge and excitement, she describes it as a collection for men that their girlfriends will want to steal. The silver spikey rings above are in that collection, and that first example, I simply love. I dread to think how much, but I would love to own something like that.

She really gets deep into the character and story behind each collection, and the current one is no different: It's called Vincent and is based on the character of an old-school gangster, or maybe a russian mafia type, but is so stylish and slick and cool. She really thinks about her target market with each collection, not only who they are bit who they aspire to be; after all, jewellery like this is such a statement of intent - not only your status but who you want to project yourself to be.

"An oligarch of the underground, a shadowy patriarch of a Russia imbued deep in the flesh of London society, Vincent is Hannah Martin's prevailing infatuation.

In a sinister world powered by the furtive dealings of presumed businessmen, his disquieting charm impeccably masks a cold and brutal core. He moves untouchable, wielding an enigmatic power over those naively daring to cross his path.

Infiltrate an unscrupulous realm of disquiet, to command allegiance amongst the fallen angels of a brutal empire." That's pretty cool. Take a look at the pieces:

Silver cufflinks, £335. Only 500 will ever be made.

Silver ring, £350

Silver necklace,  £995. Only 25 will be made.

£2995. Diamonds, Gold, Hand Cut Onyx. Only 75 will be made.

It's all pretty amazing. She graduated from St Martins and had work experience at Cartier for 4 months, then decided, after no-one would take her on to do what she wanted, she would do it herself. She said at times it had been tough, but it was all worth it, and every year gets easier, every collection gets more press and she's now trying really hard to get her pieces into places she aspires to sell in. She only ever works with people she admires and I think that's an important lesson.

Click here to go to her site, and if you have a few spare K, buy some amazing pieces of hand-crafted art. Then give it to meeeeee. Haha.

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SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution

"A major exhibition staged at London's Somerset House in Autumn 2009, SHOWstudio: Fashion Revolution is a retrospective of nine years of online innovation, invention and creation. Based around the themes of 'Process', 'Performance' and 'Participation', the exhibition showcases over twenty projects from SHOWstudio's archives alongside unique new films, artworks and live fashion shoots and events specifically devised for this groundbreaking exhibition."

This is an exhibition that I don't want to miss. It runs until 20th December, at Somerset House which is at the Embankment Galleries. There's photographic exhibitions, installations, live fashion shows and live projects to participate in too, like this interactive sculpture where you can draw on Naomi online. Quite fun. And this, called 'Taking more Liberty's' which says nothing except '5 — 26 October 2009, Liberty's Window, Carnaby Street'. Which is.... today, in fact! Get down there. It must be some kind of interactive store window. Sounds very exciting.

There's loads of different exhibits, split into Process, Performance, Participation, and Fashion Film. They all sound quite interesting, but the one that has intrigued me the most is 'Fashion Film', which deals with "Film’s capacity to show clothing as it behaves on the body, together with its power to capture the spirit of fashion at a specific point in time, means that it is perfectly in tune with a generation of young fashion consumers who look beyond the printed page to experience their world instantly, live and online. Fashion film is perhaps showstudio.com’s single most important contribution to the changing face of how fashion is experienced."
Something which I agree with actually...


There's also a film from Alexander McQueen, called "Transformer: The Bridegroom Stripped Bare" looks quite intense and destructive:


Also "Past, Present and Couture" by Galliano, which is a series of photographs that "illustrates clearly the relationship between designer and model, and between designer and photographer, to inspire and direct the shot.":

There's also a behind the scenes film of the shoot as well.

It all seems slightly 'the art behind the fashion' to me, not that that's entirely a bad thing, so I need to check it out properly before I make any judgements. Tickets are £5 but Topshop's Inside-Out Blog is giving out a code to get another ticket free when you book online. Nice.

So hopefully I can pop down to London soon and check it out. Although I don't have any friends that care about fashion down here. Could be a problem. Exhibitions with no-one to discuss things with are a bit dull =/