Priscilla Queen of the Desert (Best Day Ever Part3)

For all of you who have encountered my house any time surrounding Halloween or a Lady Gaga concert you know that it can be a whirlwind of rhinestones, glitter, and fabric. But even that cant hold a candle to the work that went into all the costumes for this show!!! My eyes were wide open looking at the stage the whole entire night.... maybe blinking a few times..... I guess I should back up and give you a little history in case you have never heard of Priscilla. This is a musical about drag queens that make there way from sydney Australia (drag capitol of the world) to a casino in the middle of no where to meet the main character's son. The actors were FAB-U-LOUS!!! And the make up was unlike anything ive ever seen, their lipstick looked holographic!!! Every single costume made me want to move to London and be a costume designer for this show!! (I really wish I couldve taken pictures but no luck :(

I also got invited to go up on stage however I had taken my heels off to rest my feet from the long day and, of course, couldnt get them on in time to make it up. I was really upset about this and in retrospect I should have just gone up in my bare feet, but at least Chelsea got to go up and live her dream on stage in the Palace Theater!

beautiful day....

Graduate Fashion Week (Best Day Ever Part2)

Graduate Fashion Week is a fashion exhibit and show put on by 20 different colleges from in and around London. We went to the show early to look at the designers collections, but what really intrigued me were some of the fashion marketing majors preview books. They had these in-depth books for show and they followed every part of the creative process from inspiration (anything from a field of flowers to a swatch of fabric) to the complete design of the garments and a marketing campaign for the line. It was so motivating but almost intimidating to look at these books and wonder if I could create works of my own that would even compare to these young designers and marketing majors.

Then we entered the runway show (we were 4th row!); the stage was amazing lit up in bright purple with green chairs lining the sides. A top designer was chosen from each school and did a collection of 5 pieces.... Every single collection was AMAZING!! My favorite was one that was all white with just simple, elegant garments (of course). There were other ones though that were more outlandish such as a collection of "hair inspired" pieces that had models wearing fur and even one that looked like human hair! I also have to give a shout out to my favorite model a man that was probably around 60 years old and was by far the most theatrical model!!

Lipsy London (best Day Ever Part1)

Lipsy is a brand just making its way to the States through Bloomingdales, but is making it big over here in London, its home town. The brand started 20 years ago as a small dress making business, the TopShop picked them up as a concession and that one fixture they were allowed in Top Shop led to Lipsy eventually being able to open up their own store 3 years ago. Now they have over 40 sites and 19 concessions. We got to sit down with Kristi the Retail Operations Director she gave us a tour of the facilities including the top secret design room and their celebrity fitting rooms! She told us that Lispy is all and glamour and style and that it is made for girls who want to be that next celebrity. In fact most of their PR comes from photographing celebrities with a Lipsy bag or wearing their designs. Kristi is one of the most lovely people I have ever met and has worked her way up to the position she holds now from a sales associate at miss selfridges (she's my idol basically). She had tea and cookies set up for us and even gave us goodie bags (yeay free stuff!!!) which included a t-shirt, headband, lipstick that lights up with a mirror, eyeliner and a little bag. :)

Chels painting her nails last minute to be ready for the show

Mommy Dearest and Harrods

The night before our visit to Harrods I got the pleasure of having a wonderful dinner with my favorite person in the world, my mom!!! Unfortunately she was only in London for one night but I'll take what I can get. Walking to have dinner with her Chelsea and I got to walk through the prestigious Mayfair district where we saw cars like Lamborghinis, a few Mazeratis, Aston Martins, a skyline and some brands that were unrecognizable to us!!!

Harrods is one of the most surreal places I have ever stepped foot in. It is a 7 floor high-end department store. But they just don't have your normal services you see in the states. For instance the have a full service cheese and fish monger, a market, 24 restaurants and a whole floor devoted to wine (you know that was my favorite)! The also have an exotic footwear section that features different animal skins including a 27,00 pound (British currency not weight) alligator bag, an evening wear department where they will make a gown for you and a made to measure shoe section which lets you design your own shoe from scratch! To put this store into perspective for my fellow express workers.... it is 1 million square feet the have on average 50,000 people walk through their doors a day and did one billion pounds last year (thats nearly 2 billion dollars) in one store!!! Oh! I almost forgot one of the best parts, a pet store on the 4th floor with anything ur little one could ever imagine including doggy beer and a 2,000 pound bed!

And then we had the classic red telephone booth photoshoot on our way home.... So touristy but it had to be done!

The Victoria Albert Museum

The VNA is by far the most interesting museum we have visited so far. Our tour guide gave us a custom tour which focused on how history has evolved from ancient times and how new collections are still being inspired by pieces created in ancient times. This museum was created to inspire people and students interested in fashion design and although we only saw a small part of the VNA we saw pieces that ranged from ancient China to a costume design gallery to a brand new Yohji Yamamoto exhibit that was to die for. This exhibit showed the best of Yamamoto's collection throughout his years as a designer and they were some of the most intricate pieces I have ever seen in person. I was so inspired by this exhibit that I asked for the special edition V&A book for my birthday!!

McQueen

Yamamoto exhibit

The British Museum

So Sunday we decided we needed to walk around the corner and explore the British Museum. It turned out to be a perfect day to be inside because it started pouring about a minute before we walked in. The museum is beautiful, but I definitely had a few favorite pieces/ exhibits. The plates to the left are from ancient Greece (if I remember correctly) but it was hilarious bc Chelsea and I both looked at them and at each other and exclaimed, "totally Tiffanys"! Then we got to my favorite exhibit MUMMIES!! I have been fascinated by mummies since I was

in 4th grade and yes I realize that may sound a little strange. So I was thrilled when i saw this huge mummy exhibit and it was by far one of the best ones I have ever seen.

This is another one of my favorite pieces. It is said to be the first sculpture of lovers ever made. I am not sure why I was drawn to it but the story behind the carving just made me like it even more.

The Bad Boys Club

The prestigious Savile Row has been around for hundreds of years doing custom, also known as "bespoke" suits for some of the world's most wealthy and elite men. However they are stuck in their old-school methods which has given a small store in Mayfair the ability to squeeze their way into this very difficult business. This store is called Tom Sweeney and their brand survives on the idea of doing very modern bespoke suits. They definitely cater to more of a young crowd than the traditionalists on Savile Row, but it works for them doing over a million pounds in suit sales last year. The store is very small and decorated with

framed photos of celebrities and even an old playboy cover. Chandeliers hang in the fitting rooms and patterns of suits line the ceiling. Matt, the young man who made our tour possible (they usually dont allow any visitors in the store because of their high end and often very important political clientele) showed us his work space which was just as tiny as the rest of the store. However it was amazing to see the gigantic shears and other unique tools the cutters and suit makers work with. It was very inspirational to hear him talk about his journey from Orange

Coast Community College all the way to a London Fashion School and now working for a consistently growing business that brings in clients from all over the world.