Kipling and Silver Spoon Attire at Selfridges II

If you haven't had your bag customised yet, you've got one last chance during LFW: 17th September, John Lewis, Stratford, London.

Kipling and Silver Spoon Attire at Selfridges

On Saturday I was invited to Selfridges to have a sneak peek at the Kipling and Silver Spoon Attire customising event, which will be taking place in Manchester, Birmingham and London again over the next few weekends.

At each event, Kipling commandeer an area of a department store and set up a customising booth where anyone who purchases a bag from the Kipling Back To College range in-store on the specified day will be able to customise if free of charge.

Comprising of a brief consultation with the Silver Spoon Attire team - who have worked with the likes of Eliza Doolittle, Rhianna and Tinie Tempah - shoppers will be able to personalise their bag with a variety or pom-poms, tassels, pins, badges and varsity style lettering, all arranged by the team in any way you desire.

Check back in next week when I’ll post a picture of my very own customised rucksack!

30th July – Selfridges, Old Trafford Centre
6th August – Selfridges, Birmingham Bullring
13th August – John Lewis, Oxford Street, London
17th September, John Lewis, Stratford, London

Fresh From The Production Line: Kipling Monkey Mash-Up

Design by Susie Lau. Images throughout courtesy of Surgery PR/ Kipling

Mid-range leather accessories specialists Kipling have recently launched an initiative to invite their customers to create their own design for the brand’s iconic monkey mascot which adorns each product. Updating the monkey charm each season, this is your chance to give it an iconic make-over.

Design by Jessica Penfold

To ensure the project goes off with a bang, Kipling have teamed up with renowned style publication Dazed and Confused and have recruited three, young talented London ‘trendies’, challenging them to turn their creative hands to giving the brands iconic monkey an image overhaul. Susie Lau of international renowned blog Style Bubble, Alex Brownsell of colour salon Bleach and comic book artist and illustrator Jessica Penfold were all sent their own monkey to design however they wished, resulting in three highly unique and innovative monkeys, reflecting their individuals creative flair and talent.

Design by Alex Brownsell

To join the monkey madness and get creative visit http://www.kiplingmonkeymashup.co.uk/, where you can download the monkey template, create your own unique design and submit it to the sites’ gallery, where the designs with the most ‘likes’ will be put forward to the judging panel, resulting in one design being proclaimed the winner. The lucky designer will have their vision brought to life on one of Kipling’s 85cm monkeys and showcased on Dazed Digital as well as being displayed in Kipling’s Regent Street store window. If that wasn’t enough the overall winner will receive £500 worth of Kipling product, while four runners up will also receive a Kipling bag of their choice and their own mini Kipling monkey.

Design by Margot Bowman

Kipling will also be auctioning the three unique creations from Susie Lau, Alex Brownsell and Jessica Penfold along with mashed up monkeys from illustrator/ artist Margot Bowman, the Silver Spoon Attire designers, Paula Goldstein and Valentine Fillol - Cordier of Purple Magazine online from 14th June with all proceeds going to The Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity devoted to improving the lives of young people with cancer. Get creative and get behind this great cause.

LFW Diary AW11: Eun Jeong

In the heart of the famed Covent Garden Piazza for the second season in a row, the 2008 Fashion Fringe Award winner, Eun Jeong held her AW11 showcase with breathtaking results. As we waited for the second showing to start late on Friday afternoon, guests were more than happy to examine our Kipling and Cosmetic á la Carte goody bags whilst absent-mindedly tapping our feet to a variety of delightful speakeasy tunes which really set the scene and gave me instant visions of the latter years of the hot new HBO drama Boardwalk Empire. It was a pleasure to see the talented and serenely beautiful Iraina Mancini (of former pop group Mancini fame), manning the decks, and as we went to school together it was lovely to catch up after the show and hear all about her hot new band and plans for 2011 – all I can say is watch this space!

As the lights dimmed and the show began, we were treated to an artful collision of Jeong's modern and timeless aesthetic, emphatically displaying the designer's love of her craft – evident in her intuitive fabric choices and refusal to stray from her signature draping. Taking 30's tailoring and embellishment as her inspiration, Jeong deftly discovered ways of resurrecting the classic minimal silhouette, which originally came to international prominence with stars of the silver screen such as Marlene Dietrich and Joan Crawford wearing minimalist fashion in Hollywood.

Iraina Mancini

With an emphasis on neck lines and sexy structured bodices, Jeong's garments embodied a sense of empowerment rarely seen in a designer so young. Beautifully crafted intricate airy pleating combined with an unexpected injection of colour in the form of striking Art Deco prints created a look just as relevant in the 30's as it is today, some 80 years later. Simply blocked base colours of nude, beige and black were cleverly mixed with vintage gold and cold grey shades to create an air of elegant and youthful femininity. Offering a variety of textures and an assortment of skirt lengths to rival any high spec prêt-a-porter collection, Jeong perfectly encapsulates the spirit of 30's tailoring with this bankruptcy inducing collection, appealing to the modern working woman.

A genuinely great show and an amazing collection, I loved the little details such as lace and embroidered underskirts, hip bustles and who could forget the beautiful linear print that featured on the invitation and heavily throughout the collection – most noticeably on printed colour pop silk scarves worn in the models’ hair. Accessorizing with super-skinny belts and an assortment of black knee-high boots from Dune, it was little touches such as vintage inspired leather driving gloves by Sermoneta that really offset Jeong's period designs. Soft curls by Lock On Ego added to the drama as did seductive and smoky eyes by Cosmetic á La Carte. All in all, an incredible display of staggering attention to detail and genuine raw talent making this one of my top three shows of the season.

Kipling come up trumps for SS11

Yesterday I was kindly invited to Surgery PR’s HQ to preview the new SS11 collection by Kipling. Revered for their eclectic range of sport-luxe bags in a variety of eye-popping prints and block colours, Kipling are perhaps now better known for the iconic and cute Kipling monkey which gets a classy revamp each season.

Designed with the girl-about-town and festival goers in mind, the SS11 collection plays to its biggest strengths; featuring bags with lots of cunning attention to detail, including padded pockets to store valuables such as digital cameras, and cool pockets to keep your drink of choice on ice. Having seemingly thought of everything a woman could possibly want, lots of goodies on display caught my eye, in particular the mesmerising Scuba print (pictured below), which is available in a plethora of across the body bags, totes and holdalls.

Taking inspiration for the colour palette from earthy tones and fresh watercolours, the soft leather wet-look bags are perfect for adding bright splashes of colour to an otherwise drab outfit. As we all know the newly vintage 90’s are making a come-back so what better way to reflect that than by creating the Magali utility bum bag – an acquired taste on paper, a rather practical solution in reality.

Taking their lead from the amazing success of their collaboration for AW10, Kipling have once again collaborated on a capsule collection with the BFC/Elle Emerging Talent Award winners Peter Pilotto and Christopher de Vos. Embracing a youthful and retro vibe, the SS11 collection sees a Milky Way print perfectly marrying the aesthetics of both visionary brands, re-working styles from Kiping’s basic collection and re-introducing the mighty duffle bag.

"The desire for unique shapes and colour combinations pushed this collaborative project further for SS11. Our thoughts of the intergalactic traveller, or otherworldly nomad, exploring and discovering continued as inspiration for the collection. With this nomad in mind we looked further into prints that also captured a key element frequently present in our inspiration, the reflection of light. The result, some of our favourite galaxy prints interpreting beams of light made from Nebulas. Mixing these prints with interesting shapes and colour combinations unique to the collaboration was a key objective." Peter Pilotto