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Cooking Cocktails- The Breaking Bad Pop-Up Bar

ABQ London, a 3 month summer pop-up bar themed around THE best TV show ever, Breaking Bad, is where The Boy and I went for Date Night last week.This event (named after the US state of Albuquerque where BB is set) is the sweet brainchild of Locappy and the creatives behind pop-up Annie The Owl which hit London in the Spring, and it’s pretty ace. Parked up in a slightly random and derelict car park in Hackney is a massive American RV just like the one Walter and Jesse cooked Meth in, cue; EXCITEMENT. Once inside you have a small team in their yellow Hazmat suits helping you ‘cook’ blue cocktails in the ‘lab’; think glass beakers, dry ice, white powder and test tubes, all under the crystal meth coloured blue light. Fab. You get two hours in the van, around 20 people at a time, and you get two generous cocktails which you cook with your team. It was kinda kooky and a little low budget but that made it feel all the more authentic and like a great secret discovery. Given the brilliant idea of it AND the massive cult following of the show, I’m kinda pleased that it wasn’t done on a big grand corporate scale with mass coverage and big budgets, It was cool and had an off the radar charm to it. I can’t really think of how they could have made it better, we concluded that the only thing would have been a fake raid on the van while we cooked; alas, we didn’t get busted. We booked our tickets way in advance for this and it’s limited slots meant it sold out pretty quick, but, they’ve just announced that they’re releasing another batch of tickets very soon, so if you fancy playing at being a dirty Meth maker this Summer, get booking and cooking! abq10101abq3abq4abq5abq6abq8abq9abq-london-26

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Audrey Bored-rey?

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Now, I LOVE a good photography exhibition. If it’s about fashion and iconic women, I’m there, standing as a wide eyed pedestrian, my gaze fixed on glossy captures of beauty. And, when I say beauty, I mean life, in all it’s glamour, gristle, realism and fantasy, it’s all beautiful and photography shows us that better than anything. When I saw that there was an exhibition of unseen Audrey Hepburn photos at The National Portrait Gallery, I figured I’d pop it on my list. The website said to book ahead as demand will be high and so, even though it’s not something I usually bother doing, in an attempt to be organised and to force punctuality upon myself I dutifully booked myself a 1pm slot on a Tuesday for £10. Most galleries suggest pre-booking as it creates the idea that it’s gonna be popular but I never guess it really means it, but, when I arrived a little early on the day, goodness, it was busy! It was in it’s first week, and there was another big free exhibition going on but ooof, it was heaving and they were crazy strict with time slots, all the slots up until 5pm that day had already sold out, so in this instance I was pretty pleased with my pre-planning. When the clock hit 1pm I went straight into the exhibition and it was as busy in there as it was the rest of the gallery, so busy you could hardly get to see the photos, jeepers! I couldn’t believe just how many people wanted to get their peepers on the portraits. Obviously Audrey is lovely and very pretty to look at but, crikey, what made this so special? Well, I still don’t know. The pictures were nice, many were very small and there wasn’t any which I felt were anything new, it all kinda felt like I’d seen it before. I assumed that it would get more magnificent as I went round, it was all very beautiful and a sweet insight into Audrey, but, I have to admit, I was a little under-awed. And then, it came to an end, after 3 very small rooms! A nice selection of images of a great icon, but, meh, I was left wanting more. I like Audrey, she’s not one of my most favourite girls, but I appreciate her and enjoy watching her, but these images all seemed a little stale. Maybe because I go to so many fashion photography exhibitions, my eyes have gotten used to bigger things, I like my photos in galleries to be huge, so big you feel small in comparison, so big you can see every eyelash and every pore of the skin, so you feel you’re getting something that you wouldn’t get if you just flicked through the accompanying book. I like to see a character in the images, a change from one image to the next, I guess maybe the simplicity of Audrey and her image alone is the beauty of this exhibition. I know these are portraits rather than fashion photographs, I just think I hoped for more fashion and variety in them. And they were all so small! I didn’t love this exhibition, but I did like it. I just felt it was a little over-hyped. The cynic in me thinks that maybe the estate of Audrey Hepburn needed a boost as many of the images were on loan from the family, and I see that there’s a new Audrey Hepburn cookbook hittin’ the book stores by her son with all her favorite recipes. Totally fair play, if Audrey Hepburn had been my Mama, I sure would be shouting about it all the damn time.

These shots were the ones that stood out to me;

  1. Audrey Hepburn by Philippe Halsman for LIFE Magazine, 1954 (above)
  2. Audrey as Ondine by Philippe Halsman, 1954
  3. Wait Until Dark by Howell Conant, 1967
  4. Audrey for Vanity Fair by Steven Meisel, 1991

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Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of An Icon is at The National Portrait Gallery until 18th October 2015

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Alexander The Great

‘You’ve got to know the rules to break them. That’s what I’m here for, to demolish the rules but to keep the tradition.’ ~ Alexander McQueen

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It would be kinda paltry of me to approach this post as some kind of review of this exhibition because, quite simply, it’s amazingly good and surely everybody already knows it. ‘Savage Beauty’ at the V&A is pure brilliance. Curated to perfection, this is not merely an exhibition, it’s a sensory adventure, a visual wonderland and a superb retrospective of the work of one of Britain’s most enormously talented fashion designers. Alongside the theatricality, the grand scale and the amazement which it brings to the eyes, Savage Beauty manages to act as a stunning personal tribute to the man himself who died in 2010; Lee McQueen. His precise and traditional skill of tailoring, when blended with his eccentric, macabre imagination created the most spell-binding fashion which knew no limits. Unashamedly extravagant, this beautiful show is by far the biggest fashion exhibition that the V&A have ever staged and eeesh, did they stage it well! Following the massive success of this show at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the V&A set high expectations for themselves with an eagerly awaiting audience. They needed to find a way to make it feel more intimate and home-grown here in London, McQueen’s home city, and I think they achieved that. It felt like an exhibition which celebrated a great British talent, the pride was palpable. The narrative of the exhibition takes you through various rooms of his collections, some so dark it’s like entering a Ghost Train ride on foot, and others so crisp, clean and bright it feels like you landed upon a cloud in fashion heaven, the perfect formula to portray McQueen’s love of the ugly and the beautiful. The obvious centerpiece of the show is the Cabinet of Curiosities in which you can’t help but stand and stare in awe at the many fascinating objects, films and sounds around you. For me though, the most magical element by far was the room after that which housed a giant glass pyramid and …poof… inside it appears the most haunting, most delicate and most adorable ghostly hologram of Kate Moss- surely his most beloved muse- floating to classical music. It is breathtakingly beautiful.

The demand for this show has been so enormous that they are opening the museum overnight on the final weekend to allow everyone to get their eyes on this magic. Fashion exhibitions have slowly been becoming more popular, attracting a mainstream audience, and this one, well, it has catapulted fashion exhibitions onto an even bigger stage. McQueen; in his death we lost a great talent but this show reminds us just how much he gave us. Wonderful.

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Below is a video of the Kate Moss hologram, the title bears a mis-spelling of his name but…take a moment to indulge in this, it’s gorgeous.

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Prim Is Back In Town!

nfwWhoop! For you lucky, lovely people of Norwich, it’s that time again, time for fashion frolics all week long, it’s NORWICH FASHION WEEK! Hurrah, and this time, Prim is back on the scene! Since closing the shop and going online, we miss your pretty faces and so we’re very happy to be a part of The Vintage Show on Sunday 8th March at The Puppet Theatre! Tickets sell FAST for this wonderful show, so book yours now otherwise you may miss out and, then we shall all have sad faces! The event is always a really popular night and so much so that this year they have gone ALL OUT and are giving you TWO shows to make sure you get to see it; one at 2pm and one at 7.30pm, and, tickets are just £10, ooosh, what a heap of fun you get for a tenner! This beautiful event is brilliantly sponsored by Wex Photographic, who ran a very cool Facebook competition for fashion fans to win a photography workshop with photographer Paul Bayfield; and those lucky winners will be at the catwalk side snapping away! Sponsorship doesn’t get much cooler than that!

So, this week I shall be selecting what gorgeous dresses to showcase in the fashion show, with my list of all the very stunning gals who will be modelling! It’s always fun to choose a selection, deciding how all the dresses will sit together as a group whilst also trying to show off as many different styles, textures and prints as possible! Here’s some snapshot sneak peeks as I prepare for the show, will these dresses be included in my selection? The only way to find out is to COME ALONG and see us, we’re excited to see you!

Check out our Facebook page for your chance to WIN TWO TICKETS to the evening show! See you there!

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Oh Oscar! The Dresses Are So Divine!

As a girl who is ALL about dresses, I kinda can’t help but get a little giddy when it comes to the red carpet of The Oscars, that once a year date when us Brits can sit up late into the night wearing our pj’s to swoon at the glamour and beauty of Hollywood! Oh the prettiness! Dresses galore! And, the faces, the jewells, the hair, the shoes … it’s all so darn dreamy! For this years red carpet there was a delicious flurry of beads, sequins and embellishment, plunging necklines, and lots of white, pastels and golds. Reliably sophisticated and elegant. As it’s such a timely event it does seem a little stiff and straight and I keep my peepers out for the ladies who opt for something with a little quirk or attitude, but hey, I love classic glamour too… heck, I just freakin’ love a posh frock!

I find there’s always a handful of screen stars whose look I continually covet and am slightly bias toward, coz I just outright love everything about them; Marion Cotillard, Cate Blanchett and Emma Stone had it nailed for me before I even saw their looks for the night, I just know they will rock it. Every. Single. Time.

My most favourite 10 looks from The Oscars 2015 are these;

Scarlett Johansson- Atelier Versace

Scarlett Johansson in Atelier Versace. A great shape, the fabric looks almost like a vintage crepe, the green was a good stand-out choice and the beaded necklace is just damn perfect styling.

Lady GaGa-Custom Azzedine Alaia

I’m not a massive Lady Gaga fan but I love the texture and the exaggerated stiffness of the sleeves, she perfectly blended classic with a modern sharpness.

Rosamund Pike-Givenchy

Rosamund Pike in Givenchy, just, oh my, just so beautiful…that waist detail!

Emma Stone- Elie Saab

Emma Stone in Elie Saab, in my opinion, just about the most beautiful girl in the whole wide World, and this golden gown makes her glow, big time.

Marion Cotillard-Dior Couture

Marion Cotillard in Dior Couture, I ADORE this, Marion isn’t afraid to steer slightly off centre with her fashion choices, this is just divine.

Cate Blanchett-John Galliano

Cate Blanchett in John Galliano with Tiffany and Co. necklace, so fresh and minimal, her elegance is mesmerizing; a brilliant choice.

Hannah Bagshawe-McQueen

Eddie Redmayne’s wife Hannah Bagshawe wore McQueen, a faultless choice for a girl who is being catapulted into the spotlight with her new husband; simple but with signature McQueen detailing of feathers and jewells, standing out with an understated beauty.

Sienna Miller-Oscar De La Renta

Sienna Miller in Oscar De La Renta, so simple, I love the velvet ribbon detail, her make-up looks a little heavy on the contouring, but, she looks absolutely beautiful.

Jennifer Lopez-Elie Saab

Jennifer Lopez in Elie Saab is probably the most classic ‘Oscars’ dress of my choices, it’s pretty dreamy, there’s nothing I don’t adore about it.

Rita Ora-Custom Marchesa

Her usual style doesn’t make my eyes pop but, in this custom Marchesa gown she looked awesome, the silhouette is just superb.

Which dresses made your heart beat a little faster?

 

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