For some reason, it had never occurred to me to look at old books for my sewing inspirations. I usually just walk quickly pass book displays at antique stores (they just seem so overwhelmingly vast) and not give a second thought to the treasures those shelves may contain.
A couple weeks ago, on an antique shopping trip to Sebastopol, I found this book from 1939 — Fashion Drawing: How to Do It. It’s pretty wonderful. And though I’m not an artist and can’t draw, it’s certainly a great resource for learning
I have a lot of a soft spot for Westfield London. My other half Mary Portas helped launch it, and during my time as fashion news and features editor at Grazia I came up with the idea the we move the office in there for a week to make an issue of the magazine. It was a mad idea – and we had a total ball doing it. It took popping to the shops during the lunch break to a whole new dimension. We also won a Campaign award for doing it! As a result of all the Westfield involvement ( I was on site in a hard hat before launch, and live locally) I’ve spent more time than is seemly inside this wonderful behemouth of a shopping centre.
And yes, I like it.
So I was happy to say yes to working on a project with the Westfield gang this week. The project, as evidenced by the above photograph, is called “Big Fashion Wardrobe”. The location is the same spot Grazia built our very real working office, and it is there for fashionistas to have a deeper experience of shopping at Westfield. It is also rather good on the feet as it is all in one space.
