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Laura Ashley treats

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In the past few weeks I’ve been having what can only be described as a “brand love affair”. The brand in question? Good old Laura Ashley.

A few weeks back I was lucky enough to be invited along to their press day, and whilst there I entered their competition to “guess the year” and win a hamper full of Laura Ashley goodies. I ONLY WENT AND WON IT!

The hamper was ready and waiting for me when I got back from Glastonbury festival last monday and to say it was FILLED with delights would be an understatement. I’ve already got to work putting some of the lovely pieces to use.

The hamper itself is now full of vintage goodies that I have coming up for sale soon

The photo frame has already been put to good use with one of my all time favouirte pics.

The cake stand is currently doubling up as a perfect holder for my jewellery and nail polishes, the colour fits in rather well with all of my other vintage pieces in my bedroom.

The pots, jug and mug I won look rather fab in my Dad’s antique welsh dresser

I absolutely adore this archive print scarf based on one of their original designs. It is such a me colour!

And I think my highlight the Laura Ashley book. I’ve been devouring this book to say the least! Filled with both images that demonstrate Laura Ashleys prowess as a homeware and fashion brand. I’ve already noticed a few prints in the book that feature on garments I own. A post on my (albeit small) Laura Ashley vintage collection will be coming up soon, using this book as a reference point.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in interior design history and also if you have a soft spot for fashions of the 70s and 80s which the book primarily focuses on (there are a few images from earlier but I think the strength of the book are on those images from the 70s). It also gives a better insight into the life of Laura Ashley, a fascinating character whose love of history really inspired her design ideas throughout whilst allowing a fresh spin to be taken. Lady after my own heart really ; )

You can purchase the book here.http://www.amazon.co.uk/Laura-Ashley-Martin-Wood/dp/0711228973/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1373290551&sr=1-1&keywords=laura+ashley

California Cottons and debutantes!

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Back in May my lovely friend Holly asked me to shoot a few pics of her in some of her fabulous vintage dresses. Now, I am by no means a photographer, but I certainly enjoy taking some amateur snaps from time to time, I am sure over the coming months I will share more of these images, but today just one set featuring Holly.
Holly, like myself is a big collector of vintage, and her personal penchant is for California cottons. Here is Holly in one of her lovely California dresses.
Between the two of us we have not been able to ascertain too much information about the brand, apart from that it had roots in America (it looks like it might have been part of the larger conglomerate “The Great American Dress company” ), and dresses by the brand were being produced both in the UK and in New Zealand  It is interesting, though that the CC label is more often found in the UK than it is in the States.
There are a number of ad campaigns that feature California cottons to be found on the net, and most of these have an intriguing mix of American settings but using British models. The brand also had a tie in with the “max-factor” make up company.
On the day of the shoot there was a particular dress that we were both interested to shoot. This little number that fits Holly like a dream.
The dress features in a 1960 advert for California cottons. This whole series of adverts show both the continuation of 50s shape dresses into the 1960s and this America meets England aspect I mentioned.
The dress is modelled here by Henrietta Tiarks.
Tiarks is an interesting character, who I did a little more research on for one of my masters essays. Henrietta was a debutante, and “came out” in 1957. But Henrietta was more than your average debutante, and in 1957 was crowned “deb of the year”. Considerable press coverage surrounded debutantes at the time, and Tiarks epitomised the fresh face youthful ideal of the debutante. Brigid Keenan has suggested that in the period newspapers gave debs “star treatment”, and Tiarks is no exception.
If anyone does have any more information on the California cottons brand do drop myself or my friend Holly a message!

Laura Ashley press day and archive exhibition A/W 2013

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On Wednesday this week i was a super lucky lady and got invited along to the Laura Ashley press day. HUGE thanks to my lovely friend Naomi Thompson for getting me the invite to come along. It was an interesting day where I got to meet lots of fabulous people, and also a great chance to see pieces from both the Laura Ashley archive and their A/W 2013 collection too.

I turned up to the event wearing one of a number of Laura Ashley vintage dresses I own. I adore Laura Ashley dresses for their extremely good quality. I chose to wear one of my early 70s numbers, but I have quite a few examples from the 1970s and 80s. The one I wore is a novelty hunting print and exhibits Ashley’s love for Victoriana in both its design and use of print that has more than a whiff of the Bloomsbury set/ William Morris to it. I wore my dress with a Jack Wills jacket embellished with two Tatty Devine brooches.

As you can see I had to wear sky scraper high Office platforms with the dress, I think at 5ft 3 I was a bit too short for it!

This is the label in the dress. The bramble logo came in in 1972, and I assume this is an early to mid 1970s example of Laura Ashley. I’m always on the hunt for more Laura Ashley’s with either this label or the white label with Laura Ashley in black, so do get in contact if you have one you are looking to sell!

So back to the press day itself, we arrived and were greeted by some lovely ladies from the team who were excited by mine and Naomi’s choice of outfits (Naomi rocked an 80s dress by the brand). i had my picture taken…alot!

The Autumn winter pieces on show looked great. Their were two particular looks “field trip” and “homegrown” that I really liked. Top of both mine and Naomi’s wishlist was this gorgeous plummy burgundy riding jacket. There were quite a few jackets in this style in the collection which I think will be perfect for Autumn winter.

Another of my favourite pieces was a cute printed jumper (seen in the middle of the rail below).

There were also lots of pieces featuring the archive prints but using them in a fresh and modern way. I adore the way that the Laura Ashley brand regularly references their past without just re-creating it all the time. The monochrome pieces that took their inspiration from very early Laura Ashley were particularly forward looking.

The homewares too were pretty swoon worthy. I loved this chair that reminded me of an Art deco shell chair (it was also incredibly conformable)

And their were lots of gorgeous printed bed covers and wallpapers too. (The scented candles were ever so fresh…perhaps not what you would expect for Autumn Winter scents, but lovely nonetheless).

But, undoubtedly my favourite part of the day was getting to look at the pieces from the archive. I’ll be writing a more in-depth history post soon, but for now I’ll leave you with a few interesting snapshots from the mini exhibition. For such a small space it really was packed with information. With my background in design I particularly liked being able to see both the designs themselves and the finished garments. It really demonstrated how a company archive can be a living thing that is functional as well as keeping a record of the companies history.

This was my absolute favourite piece in the archive.

I felt that it really left me with a stronger understanding of where Laura Ashley was getting her design inspiration from. It also left me wanting to see more of the images that Jane Ashley took as a photographer for the brand. My sincerest thanks to the amazing archivist Angela for giving up so much of her time to speak to me too!