Wooden Fascination!

Last weekend I went to Made In Clerkenwell, a kind of open-day at two studio collectives in Clerkenwell where resident artists and designers were exhibiting and selling their products. Dominated as it was by jewellery of all kinds, with a sprinkling of baskets, garments, prints and photography, one artist stood out from the crowd. By miles!


Emma Yeo makes fascinators, and while you might be right in saying she is not alone in that craft (I myself have at least 3 friends with that skill) there is a nice twist to her work, if you pardon the pun!

Emmas fascinators are wooden! No, I don't mean as in boring, they are litterally made from wood! She works in the thinnest sheets of exotic wood I've ever seen, some coated in a resin, making them extremely soft and plyable. She then laser cuts the sheets into exquisitly delicate patterns of swirls and twists, some bent into wing like shapes, others layered to resemble flowers you might find on a desert. Her forms are backed in suede or the sweetest Liberty style printed fabrics, some are large enough to please Lady Gaga, others are a brilliant final touch to an evening outfit teamed with tan or brown leather accessories!
All of them beautiful and intriguing.

At her stall, Emma displayed some of the wooden wonders in white frames on the wall, perfectly illustrating how perfectly well they could work as art when not worn!
Well worth a look so visit her website andsee for yourself! I bet you'll be as amazed as I was, even if you wouldn't wear one you will surely appreciate the complexity of the design.



www.emmayeo.com

Note: this is my first blog post from the Pen Your Blog app, will add some images when at my laptop!Love as always, Diamond x

Nail varnish: Shimmering Anthracite

Recently I went shopping with my best friend Cookie, I was looking for matte black nail varnish, suitable for every day wear, as well as a few other trinkets but couldn’t find any! Eventually we ended up in the huge Boots at Piccadilly Circus, and I caved in and picked up a grey one from 17 called Smoke Signal. The same brand also did a black so I picked that, and a gorgeous peacock blue too! I’m going to write a separate post about that!

I was ready to pay for my new items when cookie found a crackle glaze in gold which I swapped for the black, and I will blog about that later!

Anyway, the 17 Smoke Signal looks ok on it’s own, probably not a colour I would wear as it is, but I tested it with the crackle glaze and it looked cool!

Grey on its own on pinky, ring finger has one coat of glitter.

Today however, I dug out a 2True Glossywear glitter varnish Shade 2 from my kit and after 2 coats of Smoke Signal I added a coat of glitter. On it’s own the glitter is iridescent clear with a hint of blue, but with the charcoal grey 17, it turned into the most gorgeous graphite anthracite colour! The camera won’t quite capture the colour but have a look!

There’s almost a lilac/mauve look to the glitter which can be seen in some of the pictures! I’m not a huge fan of lilac, but with the grey it looks stunning! I’d definitely try this combination again, for sure!

Kylie on a cupcake!

There's a place where you can get a little piece of heaven... with Kylie on top!



Cox Cookies & Cake (yes that is their name) had a special on Kylie cupcakes this weekend, in honour of the pint sized pop princess' shows at the O2 arena (last show tonight by the way!

The only bakery I've ever heard of opened by a shoe designer, Patrick Cox, had sparkling cupcakes adorned with images of Kylie, as well as some topped with glittering pink "K"s, and the shop playing only Kylie tracks.



Attention to detail is key, and the staff wear studded black leather aprons and black jeans, and the walls and floors are glossy black, shelves trimmed in bright neon strips! This is not your typical bakery, but more like a cake covered disco! Lush!

Should you find yourselves in Soho, make your way to Brewer street to sample the delights! Should the Kylie promotion be over, worry not, as their regular range is deliciously naughty, featuring black and red skulls made from icing, fizz whizz cola cakes and bling cakes with sugar diamonds. There is also an XXX rated range with boobs and bodies and biceps!

Cakes have never been naughtierwww.coxcookiesandcake.com

Rage against the machines!

Those of you who have experienced the London bus service might know about the ticket situation, but for those who don't, here's a short introduction:

Unless you have an Oyster card, to ride a bus within central London, you will need to buy a £2.20 ticket at the stop, from a little red machine. This machine will sell you a ticket for one journey only, it used to sell day travel passes, but I don't think they do anymore. Paying your fare on the bus is not an option within central London, but as soon as you are outside an invisible border of sorts, this suddenly becomes possible! Strange but true!

The other monday I was going home with my boyfriend, and I didn't have my oyster card on me so I tried to buy a ticket at the stop, but the machine wasn't co-operating.
Now, on the Saturday before I went to his place from the same bus stop and the machine didn't work then, but this time it did react to pressing the button by displaying how much to insert so I thought it had been fixed. But this was not the case! Somehow I ended up somehow putting abt £4.50 in the machine but it wasn't providing a ticket... and that's when the bus arrived!

So we got on the bus, my boyfriend had his Oyster card, and I told the driver the machine wasn't giving tickets even though it had taken more than the fare money, but he wasn't having it and said I had to buy a ticket at some other stop in the area. I repeated that I had used enough money for 2 fares and told him I wasn't going anywhere, and he claimed that since I couldn't prove this, I couldn't ride.

At this point, enough was enough, and we informed him that the defect ticket machine was not our problem and that I had paid and we were going to sit down... to which the driver reacted by shouting after me that he wasn't going anywhere till I had a valid ticket! And then he promptly stopped the bus!
So I got up, went up to himand asked him if he seriously wasn't going to drive the bus anywhere... to which he replied yes, so... I called the police!

Now this never happens when it's something serious, but as luck would have it there were 3 police men on the opposite side of the street and they came over. I calmly explained the situation and told them the outcome and the attitude that the driver had presented us with, even added that if there was a ticket control and I had no ticket I would be to blame and would have to defend myself. and they agreed with me and said he was being unreasonable, and even vouched for me! One officer quoted his badge number and told the driver to contact him if there was any further issues.

Begrudgingly the driver had to start the engine and keep moving "not to further clog up traffic" as the police officers said.

I'm not normally one to cause a commotion, but I know when I'm right and I won't stand down. TfL has set up this system which fails on a very regular basis, and buses are extremely infrequent in Central London. Personally I feel that if their system fails it is not the customers problem. If you have to buy a ticket at the stop in Central London the machines should be checked and serviced at least every day if not even several times a day. And, as a customer services person myself I find the attitude shown by not only this driver but several drivers on TfL buses shocking.

From that day I will stand up to any TfL bus driver who does not meet my expectations. TfL say they will not tolerate abuse towards their staff, so why should we, the paying customers tolerate it from them?

Feel free to share your experiences with bus drivers and the like with others here.

Love peace and justice, Diamond xxx

New Mini-series on YouTube: "Bearded Beauty!"

Hey kids,

so it would seem I am back with a vengeance... having not only posted 2 videos in as many days, but also have a couple more in the making! Yay! I'm so thrilled to be back, even if some of my YouTube subscribers might have forgotten about me or given up on me! LOL!

Yes, I cam up with the idea of doing a little mini-series, as I have a beard between each time I do Diamond, I thought I could incorporate this in my videos! Hence the "Bearded Beauty" series, and first out in this series is Tutankhamun, King of Egypt! Well, that was my inspiration anyway, take it as you like!

I looked up all kinds of images of King Tut, and obviously all you can find are pics of his sarcophagus so I took my inspiration from that. The eyebrows and eye liner is quite significant and defines the look, and I used mainly gold and orange and red with it on the eyes, all from my 88 palette! I used black eye liner and gold eye shadow on my lips, and a dark shimmery (cheap) bronzer from Superdrug on my face.

And then... I photoshopped the images to death! Haha!

There's barely a cm2 of skin in these images that hasn't been shopped, and that is what I wanted! This series is really less about the make up and more about the imagery! So please do not ask me how I got my skin to look like that! LOL!

Oh, and I am wearing the same wig as I did for my Tribal video, and a home made head dress in the style quite often pictured on King Tut!

See, I think it's quite likely that Tut had a beard at some point in his short life, and his sarcophagus shows him wearing some kind of beard wrap... so not so unlikely, this one! Just wait till the next one, much more unlikely!

Thanks for taking time to read, if you wanna see the video, it is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIQeFp7pcpw

Untill next time, beijinhos lovelies!

New video: contest entry for MakeupByGloria: Tribal!

Wow, it had actually been about 6 months since I last posted a video on YouTube, and it was about time I did a new one! Actually, I have made a few attempts in the last months, but Windows Movie Maker and FlashPlayer together decided it wasn't going to happen! But when I saw MakeupByGloria's contest, I knew I had to enter!

So, I sat down one evening after having gathered all my inspiration, did a look which didn't quite turn out as I had hoped.. so I altered it slightly... and ended up looking like a tropical bird! Haha!

So, the pictures stayed on the cutting room floor, as I started a second look!

I kept it very simple, almost too simple and slightly amateur-ish, and even though I am not impressed with the end result, I decided to post it anyway! Seeing as it had been ages since I posted anything, I just wanted to get back into it all again!

Well, so what did I do, you ask? Here it is!

I painted my forehead and eyelids red with 2 shades from my new 88 pallet as I didn't have any red grease paint, and the rest of my face with Screenface panstick in Almond and set it with a dark shimmery bronzer. I then applies a thick line of clown white from Ben Nye along the edge of the red and under my eyes, and some dots on my forehead and along the eyes. Finishing off with a line down the centre of my bottom lip.

Very simple!
I then donned a long brown wig, braided into two sections with two little braids at the side, and some choice accessories, and voila! Diamond has become a red indian clan chief!

I am under no illusion that I will win, but wow did it feel great to finally post another video on YouTube! Also, this seems to have dis-lodged whatever it was that was stopping me, as I have since then completed 2 more videos and am working on 3 more! Haha!

So I hope you enjoy my return to YouTube, please tell all your friends! ;)

The video for the contest can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oregi3tAHE0

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more from me in the future!

Kisses! Diamond xxx

Nude? Please get dressed, it's apparently racist!

I'd like to start off by saying that I started writing this blog post absolutely aaages ago, I think it was in May 2010, at the time there were comments in the media about Michelle Obama wearing a "nude" Naeem Khan dress. My post was going to be about the controversy surrounding the issue of "nude" being a racist colour description, as clearly the dress was not Mrs President's skin colour... but then I never finished or published it. Now, I have dug it out again as I feel I want to share it anyway!

Underneath is (a somewhat edited version of) what I wrote:

Some of you might know that I work in fashion/textiles, and ever day is a mass of brides to be, aspiring fashion students and wannabe designers, in addition to a great number of well known high street and exclusive designers.

It has been a complete nightmare to see how well this 'nude' trend has caught on this season, we have not been able to keep enough stock of anything flesh, nude, peach, oyster, mink or blush, as well as anything silver or pale grey. And don't even get me started on silk jersey!

As a matter of fact, for the last few months I have been ready to clobber anyone who asks for nude fabrics of any sort! Judging by the fact that 98.9% of all UK based fashion students* are solely using nude and silver for their current design projects and collections, we will be flooded by these garments by spring/summer 2011... a whole year after this trend was in fact a trend!

(* this percentage is purely my estimate from watching students at work!)

But enough about me and my work life (for now anyway)! I wanted to talk about the actual trend of nude colours in fashion. Firstly I would like to say that, being a trendsetter as I am, I pioneered the nude look on New Years Eve 2009-10 with a multi layered nude tulle frock, all hand beaded with crystals, that would have left you gasping for air... had it been any other colour but nude!

This gets us to my issue with the nude trend.. nobody but nobody looks good in a nude outfit. It is just not a very becoming colour, on anyone. Ok ok, I hear you, it looks great on the catwalk, and yes that is the only place it does. But so do a lot of garments and concepts you see on a runway that you would never in a million years wear in public.

Just recently, Michelle Obama stepped out in a hand beaded 'champagne' coloured gown by designer Naeem Khan. This somehow sparked a weird media discussion on racism. The designer, Naeem Khan explained that it was a 'sterling-silver sequin, abstract floral, nude strapless gown'.

However, when the Associated Press news agency, reporting on the event, referred to the colour as 'flesh', they were lambasted by one editor, who asked 'Whose flesh? Not Michelle Obama's'

In my opinion, Michelle Obama looked stunning in that dress, mainly because it wasn't the same colour as her skin. Had it been.. let's face it, a brown dress, it wouldn't have caused a racial stir, but it would have looked awful. She would have looked like she had been rolled in glue and tin foil! Not a great look!

2011 afterthought: This was as far as I got with it, so I'd like to add the following at this point.

I'm not going to comment on the racial issues as I don't see the point. It's about fashion, not politics.

To me, the pasty anemic 'nude trend' has lived its life, overstayed its welcome. Get rid!

Surely it is time for colour blocking now?