Fall Couture 2010 – So Far…

When couture gets it right, it’s everything I love about high fashion – outlandish, crazy, exceptional handiwork. Because everything is individually made designers get much more artistic freedom than ready to wear. And, it also means there’s no size limit. If you had the money everything you see below could be yours, no matter what size you are. (Yes, really!)

There are basically no words for Galliano’s latest. It’s just fantastic. The little picture here does no justice at all, so I suggest you head over to Jezebel who has the pictures in glorious high-res.

Givenchy was exceptional and breathtaking in a completely different way. Completely intricate and detailed, the collection had been reduced to 10 pieces.

Armani Privé’s collection felt a little more standard RTW fayre to me, but it was still sumptuous. I love the caped suit and 40′s glamour feel of it all.

I’m not particularly keen much of this collection, but since fashion tends to follow everything LOLerfeld does then it’s good to keep an eye. The cropped jacket/knee-length silhouette is pretty interesting – I reckon we’ll be seeing a lot of that on the high street soon. Plus size retailers, please take note!

Anything that catches your eye?

Simply Be plus model competition!

Hey all, just a quick bit of news from me for those of you interested in the modelling and glamourous side of fashion!

You may have seen on the twitter or blogosphere today but if not: Simply Be are hosting an extensive model search with all kinds of glamourous goodies and the potential to go on the books of 12+ Model Management. Exciting, no? The best thing about it for me is that there is no upper size limit. I’ll repeat that: there is no upper size limit! Anyone who’s seen Velvet D’Amour or Rosie Mercado understands that you can be a fantastic model at an extremely large size and it’s great that a retailer understands this too.

For more details on how to apply check out the Simply Be site here.

So, who fancies giving it a shot? Let me know if you apply, I’d love to hear how it goes!

Lauren’s Top 5 – Summer Sales

Greetings from a transitional layout-ed Pocket Rocket… Will hopefully be getting a sleek and neat new layout soonish.

Today’s post is brought to you with the following (paraphrased – the mag got thrown away) quote from Celebs on Sunday magazine this week:

Any woman can wear my designs, no matter their size, shape or colour. I am very proud that I am one of the few designers who can say that.

Guess who? None other than Julien MacLOLand, bitches! I’m assuming if you’re a size 14 wearing one of his designs in a room full of 8s, you better get the hell out?

Anyway… It’s summer sale time! In no particular order here are my picks – click on the images to be taken to the website. Happy shopping!

Note that you can get an additional 10% off orders over £40 using the code EVPOCKET until 6th July!

FYI: Very’s South range goes up to size UK24. So Fabulous! Is for sizes UK16 – UK32.

Goddamn, I need a job. What are you ladies buying in the sales?

Sonsi Full Figured Fashion Week

Hey everyone!

The Good…

Evans have reactivated my discount code – EVPOCKET – hurrah! This means if you spend £40 you get 10% off – AND, they have a sale on at the moment so get spending! Offer ends 6th July.

Also, I was lucky enough to be sent some lovely pieces from Torrid which I am going to feature very, very soon. There is one dress that I am utterly in love with and stomped around in all day yesterday!

The Bad…

I also have some super sad news: I’m unfortunately not able to make it to the YFF Conference next month. I am properly, utterly upset about this (I was going to represent the UK! Like in Eurovision or the Olympics!) but my life had to come first, and it’s in a bit of a mess right now. However, the fabulous Nicolette is taking my place, and I’m going to get up at a silly hour in the morning to live chat with everyone at the meet and greet. It really is going to be a fantastic event, I can’t wait to see it all unfold.

And the fabulous…

Speaking of awesome plus sized events, the second Sonsi Full Figured Fashion Week took place in NYC, yay! It gained a lot more media exposure this time around, with articles on the NY Times and Jezebel. Naturally, straight sized fashion fans derided and scorned the event, but I honestly believe the plus sized fashion industry is only just starting to veer into more adventurous territory.

From what I’ve seen of the photos there has been a definite improvement on last year, however I still felt it was a little hit and miss for me. That said, here are a couple of my highlights from the runway:

All images copyright Xtina @ http://musingsofafatshionista.com

L-R: Chan.nel Karama; Susan Moses; Monif C; Pheline

Obviously so much more went on than that! A few of my favourite plus bloggers attended and have given extensive write ups – it sounds amazing, check them out:

Musings of a Fatshionista
Garner Style
Fat Shopaholic
Curvy Fashionista
Les Petriries de Vanoue

The best bit though? Runway News has videos of all the shows here. It’s so much better to see the clothes in motion, as strange as that sounds. Here is the Susan Moses collection:

All in all I think it’s great to see this kind of event happening. What do you all think about the designs? I so wish we could do one over here, it would be awesome!

2 x OOTDs – Yes, Really!

…Because you miss my mug, right? These pics are special as they were taken by my lovely mum in our garden – so obviously I couldn’t get too Vogue. Apologies for the picture quality – you can click on the images to get the full size versions…

Lace overlay Dress: Simply Be
Shoes: New Look
Necklace: Wee Sparrow

I’ve been buying clothes from Simply Be since I was a teenager, so I was super excited when they contacted me – they sent me this gorgeous dress I’d been eyeing for ages, from their Frock’n'Frill range. Frock’n'Frill is my favourite range in Simply Be at the moment though they have collections by Mica Paris, Anna Scholz and Joe Browns. Unfortunately while the dress was the perfect length on Valerie and a smidgen too short on Dee, I had to lop a good few inches off the bottom! But I think it’s the perfect length now, and I love it so much. It fits like a dream! The shoes are also wonderful:

Vintage style courts from New Look’s Wide Fit section.

I recently won my first ever competition = $50 worth of jewellery from Wee Sparrow – I didn’t even realise I’d entered! But I chose some lovely necklaces and this is one of them.

Dress: ASOS Curve
Heels: Evans

Words cannot express how much I love this dress. I love the fact that ASOS Curve had the balls to make it in the first place – not only do you have the outrageous ruffle, but both the front and back are fully ruched -the detailing is incredible. And you know what? It’s made of thick jersey knit, making it one of the most comfortable dresses I own. I have no idea when I’ll get to wear it in public but I’ll make an occasion if I have to!

Also, on the subject of ASOS Curve you should definitely check out the lovely Vanessa‘s blog – she’s their fit model and has really opened my eyes to the laborious processes retailers go through. Though I feel she should be their actual model as well as the fit model, she’s stunning!

Totally in love with these shoes – again, not only do they look fab, they’re really comfortable! A++, ASOS Curve & Evans!

Lauren’s Top 5

Here’s my rundown of favourite fashion-y things this week:

1. Evans’ A/W 10-11 Preview

Courtesy of Evans' Fashion Fix

I am super impressed with what Evans are coming up with lately, and these pictures are no exception. It all looks so luxurious and glam – that fake fur coat WILL be mine!

2. The (admittedly rather glum) plus model at GFW

Courtesy of Christopher Moore - http://www.catwalking.com

Tokenism it may well be, and I may not be too keen on the outfit – but cheer up love, you look hot, and Onez Lau thinks so too! Graduate Fashion Week ended today, and a proper post about it is coming soon. I found it completely inspirational, and obviously, a bit bonkers.

3. THAT dress from ASOS Curve

YES, YES, YES!!!! Judging by the reaction to this dress and the amount of people I’ve seen buying it there really is a market for striking and edgy plus size fashion, despite craven retailers’ cries of the contrary. I’ve also bought this dress – it’s beautiful, and something as adventurous as this needs to be bought. We have to vote with our wallets, people!

4. Definatalie‘s pattern upgrade

The ever-amazing Natalie has taken a straight sized tea-dress pattern from BurdaStyle and attempted to scale up for larger sizes, and is looking for people to road test them. Go for it!

5. Simply Be‘s knitted black tunic

I’m especially interested in this as I wore a similar dress in a straight size in Topshop for my Vogue Curvy vlog a couple of weeks back. I understand that it’s harder for ladies of a bigger dress size than myself to walk into a store like Topshop and make things work – however Simply Be go from a UK12 – UK32, meaning anyone can get in on the action, you just need an obnoxious feather cape!

Fantastic Advertorial or Fantastic Tokenism?

ETA: The gorgeous Amy has alerted me to the fact that this is part of an entire issue that uses ordinary men in their photos as opposed to models, so this isn’t quite as simple as one big guy in a magazine. I’m going to try and hunt it down and see for myself.

Courtesy of Black Book (bbook.com)

It’s been noted before that the current wave of plus sized visibilty in fashion magazines has been 100% female oriented, with men’s fashion slowly emaciating itself. So it’s raised a few eyebrows that mens’ fashion magazine Fantastic Man used a plus sized male model in their new advertorial for H&M.

I have mixed feelings about it. First of all yes, I’m super pleased that a hot, husky dude is being used in a high fashion spread like this. But I am also aware that it is definitely tokenism, and doesn’t signal any specific change in the fashion industry the way plus sized female models are. It’s also worth noting that Fantastic Man is very much an avant garde magazine, and deviates from the fashion norm where possible. That’s not a bad thing at all – I’ve had the pleasure of reading through older copies and it’s a wonderful magazine – but at the same time, it’s never going to have the global reach of Glamour’s Lizzie Miller photo, for example. There’s nothing to be read into the photos – it is just a model who happens to be bigger than most.

But you know, variety is variety, and I am pleased that there is a spread out there featuring a bigger fella. I’ve noted for a while that male plus sized fashion is severely under represented in the fatshion blogging world, when there are definitely bigger guys who are as into expressing themselves fashionably as all of us. And from what I’ve seen, the choices for bigger mens’ fashion are absolutely dire. A few fellas spring to mind, such as my friend Dan Huntley, Nick A.K.A Mr Definatalie and the occassional sartorially daring big guy on Lookbook who manage to dress awesomely despite this conundrum.

What do you all think? And more importantly, if you’re a bigger fella who likes fashion, I’d love to hear from you! Send your (or your boyfriends/friends/husbands’) outfit pictures to lauren.darling at hotmail.co.uk (clothes on, please) and I’ll do a post showing how cool and fashionable you all are.

Topshop part II – Vogue Curvy edition!

After a few months of keeping schtum I can finally come clean to you all: I’ve been lucky enough to join the ranks of Gabi, Sakina and Nicolette by vlogging for Vogue Curvy! Oh my god it feels so good to say it loud and proud, haha! You can click the image to go to the page:

Look, that's me! On a Vogue website! Ridiculous!

To view the video make sure you select “Italian” in the drop down box on the top left of the page to view the video, as there’s an issue with the English language one. That’s being fixed as we speak though.

Oh, and I really really apologise for my hair – it was literally the hottest day of the year and my normally quite well behaved hair couldn’t cope at ALL. I do actually own a brush, I swear!

The point of these videos is to show that plus size women don’t have to be scared of going into straight sized stores, and that you are able to find stuff that suits anywhere. As you guys know I am only just starting out on my journey, so I’m pretty much learning as I go along. If you have any questions about the film do ask!

Love you all! xx

London’s Big Bum Jumble!

This summer is shaping up to be an incredibly exciting one for us fatshionistas – in London especially there are two awesome events happening. Some of you will know about the UK Bloggers’ Conference in July – more on that later! At the moment I want to talk about the Big Bum Jumble, taking place on Saturday 14th August. IT’S GOING TO BE AWESOME. Capitals necessary!

I interviewed the BBJ organiser, Kay Hyatt. Kay is one of the founding members of The Chubsters – i.e. one of the coolest gangs I have ever seen. I’m a bit in awe. On to the answers…

This will be the first Big Bum Jumble, what sort of revelries can we expect?
The BBJ is first of all a clothing sale. I want it to be a place where you can buy cool cool clothes at low low prices that fit fit fit! That’s pretty hard thing to find even by itself but the BBJ is going to give you so much more:

1. You’ll meet a great mix of people.
The BBJ is organised by mostly queer, medium-fat people with varying degrees of experience of fat activism but I want it to reach a much wider audience than that. I’m hoping to get fat folks and their friends, people from the queer/grrl D.I.Y. scene to people who have just come in from the street. It’s really important to me that I’ve done as much as possible to make sure that anyone who wants to can come to the BBJ. I’ve made a special effort to find a venue that is accessible. Stratford Circus is level access, near a tube station and a car park.

2. There’ll be more than just buying clothes going on.
I’ve got some great volunteers who are going to be working as personal shoppers/ encouragers. I’m hoping that the atmosphere of shopping at the BBJ will help people take fashion risks and try on something that they wouldn’t normally wear. There will also be a catwalk show of clothes from the jumble modelled by shoppers and volunteer models at some point in the day. I’ve also got the amazing and talented Unskinny Bop DJs providing the music and film maker and fat activist Charlotte Cooper will be providing projections as well as inviting people to be filmed privately if they wish. Hopefully I’ll also have some Bill Savage designed badges that you can take away as a souvenir of the day. There’s also a lovely cafe at the venue so hanging out with friends new and old will also be on the menu.

3. You’ll be supporting future fat events and activism.
If I make more than I need to cover the venue costs, I’m planning to make the pot of money available to anyone who wants to organise something for the fatties in the future. Free money for you, if you support the BBJ!

What prompted the idea to get this event going?
In 2008 I went to the incredible Fat Girl Flea Market in NYC. That year it was organised by Deb Malkin, of Brooklyn’s brilliant vintage and resale shop ReDress NYC. This event and ones like it have been organised as fundraisers for Nolose, the organisation for Fat dykes/ transfolks and their allies that I’ve been a supporter of for a while. It was a truly amazing experience. I’ll never forget the riot I had trying things on, encouraging others to try things on and hanging out with the rad fatties there. Since then I’ve been pining for a similar event here so I thought I’d better just get on with it and make it happen.

As someone who has been campaigning for fat acceptance and self expression for a long time, do you feel the current embrace of plus size women by the fashion media is a positive or negative thing? Do you feel that fashion could ever be positive for fat men and women?
I don’t really know how to answer this question. To be honest with you, I feel pretty alienated from fashion. I’m a short fat butch dyke and I can’t find hardly any off the peg clothes that I want to wear, I don’t have the skills to make my own and I can’t afford a tailor but still, I get by. I make my own style with the resources I have.

With the fashion media too, it kind of doesn’t matter to me. I’m always happy to see fat people looking amazing and I’m happy for any positive representations of fat people to exist, but I also think it is better for us to make our own stuff. I’d rather read a zine that somebody sneakily photocopied at work, or read a blog like yours than worry about whether or not there is a fat model on the cover of Vogue.

You didn’t ask me this but.. is there anything else I’d like to say? It’s true, I forgot!
Yes, The BBJ will be from 12-5 at Stratford Circus, Stratford London E15 on Saturday 14th August. Please come and see us, whether you want to buy clothes or not, you will have a great time.

Right now, I’m still after clothes donations, especially in sizes bigger than UK women’s size 22/ Men’s 3X. Please contact me at bigbumjumble@googlemail.com if you have stuff to give me.

Also, if you have a fat clothing business and you want to give me any kind of sponsorship in kind then I’m interested in talking to you too.

Dressing room raid

You have until TOMORROW to get 10% off orders over £40 at Evans with EVPOCKET!

Oh, it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these – a while since I’ve had the time to dedicate a whole day to shopping. But hurrah! Today was that day, and unlike before I was actually able to buy a few bits, too. Win all round. But enough of my waffle, and on to the photos, yes? Please note: I apologise for them being crappy quality iPhone photos (lost my SD card so can’t use my camera, hence the lack of OOTD’s too), I also apologise for my goofy face, lack of skirt and that one annoying strand of hair that keeps getting in my face.

Yours Clothing

Tulip hem dress. I’ve seen lots of different patterns of this, but this was the only one in store today. I love the shape of it though, and the pattern was gorge. SOLD!

I was so impressed with this! It’s from the Allison Hammond range, and it’s pretty much the only plus size garment that even hints at the Burberry Prorsum drapes from last year. Tried it with a belt too:

I pretty much love it (yes if I was to wear it outside, then there would be a skirt or leggings involved!). Was trying not to buy too much so left the top for another day. It will be mine though. And that fantastic belt: SOLD!

Evans

I hoped I’d be able to work this tunic as a dress, but sadly it didn’t look quite right on me. It’s beautiful though, definitely for someone much taller and with far ampler bosoms than myself.

Man. I wanted to love this so hard, but alas I seem to have a very different body to Evans’ fit model meaning that dresses never seem to look correct on me. Such a shame as it’s so cute and bang on trend. And in the sale if memory serves…

My khaki aversion is slowly being beaten down by the fashion business. This top isn’t normally my cup of tea but is definitely cute!

I think my face tells you everything you need to know here. Just when I thought all hope was lost, though…

Ahh, that’s better! Totally fell in love with this, despite not usually enjoying embroidered stuff. It’s delicate and pretty, but could be versatile, too. SOLD!

H&M

So I attempted to ‘make it work’ again! I believe the gorgeous Sakina has this jacket, and I thought I’d give it a go. This is an M, about a 10-12, but it is made of thick lovely jersey, the kind that feels like a nice hug when you wear it. Of course, it didn’t do up but there were no buttons anyway – it’s meant to be open! I really liked it, although an L would have been better I think.

(side view)

This skirt is also a size M. This looks like it belongs to Ulrika – to be honest I didn’t think I’d get it past my knees, but the stretch is ridiculous! It ticks all the boxes for me: flouncy, delicate, flowery… SOLD!

Attempting a mix and match. Not sure.

This dress was a size L, so 14-16. It fit but I feel these types of dresses are better when they flow. And, if I so much as put my head forward the back would ride up. Not bad, though!

New Look Inspire

Liked this cardigan on a lot more than I expected – I do like the buttoned at the top deal as it reminds me of 50′s twinsets. Here it is done up properly:

Not bad.

As nice as this looked, the material felt quite flimsy and as a result the top didn’t feel nice on. Which is a shame!

Similar to before, although the bottom half was made of a better material. I have to be honest though, I don’t understand why people would want bubble hemmed tops – dresses yes, but tops seems a little strange! This was sweet, though.

So there you have it! What is your fave item/look? I must say, I’m an idiot for passing up the Allison Hammond top as that with the belt is my favourite look, hands down. Next time!