Rene Gruau

Last weekend we went to visit Chloe & Jamie and see our other friends in London. On the Friday we went to see a 12 piece band who play DJ Shadow's Endtroducing through from start to finish and do all the samples live. I was really excited about that and thought it was going to be super cool, it turned out to be super lame. Lewis likened it to when his teachers formed a "rock band" at school. At times it was toe-curlingly uncool. Shame. However, we did get to go to Koko, which looks like this:

Lovely!

Over the weekend we also ate lovely food, caught up with Lewis and Emma, did a bit of shopping at a vintage market and went to see a great exhibition at Somerset House.

The exhibition was of work created for Dior by the illustrator Rene Gruau. His work is so beautiful and luxurious I just wanted to live in that world. You can imagine it feels like silk and smells amazing! He created pieces such as these:

His illustrations are incredibly stylish, yet minimal, confident and sophisticated. I could've looked at them all day. There were some 80's influenced ones which didn't really work for me so much (airbrushed style faces and angular cheekbones etc), but the 50s-70s ones were so good that didn't matter. Even his signature is beautiful. Look:

Anyway, enough wallowing in the glory of bygone days.

Stuff coming up:

2nd Dec - Studio sale at I Dress Myself to say goodbye to Han & Pete. I still can't believe they're leaving Nottingham, and so soon! They'll be missed.

10th Dec - We Show Up On RadaR @ Spanky Van Dykes. This looks set to be a great show and only the 3rd time they've played with their full live band in Nottingham. Look for the event on facebook for full details.

16th Dec - Jumpers For Goalposts @ Tether - For the first time we're leaving our Alley Cafe home and venturing out into the big wide world for a special Christmas edition of Jumpers to help Tether celebrate their final night of the studios. This is going to be FUN.

I reckon there's probably loads of other good stuff coming up too, but I can't remember everything!

Bex
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Go West!

Yesterday after a slightly disappointing trip into Sherwood me and Anders ventured into Nottingham to find various birthday & Father's Day presents. Turns out WH Smith is pretty much on the money with books for Father's Day and Fopp furnished us with some good CD based treats for our respective Dads (Seasick Steve & that ole Piano Man Billy Joel). A bit more looking for birthday presents and we were ready for a bite to eat (Anders) and a sit down (me), so we made our way up to the West End Arcade, and this is the reason I'm writing this post. I just wanted to say that if anyone hasn't been up there for a while then go now!

Here are the reasons why:

- It's got really cool old 70's signage:

 - There are 2 record shops. Yes, two! One's alright (The Heavy Sounds), but doesn't tally exactly with our tastes. The second is awesome, because not only does it stock really good stuff (including local labels like Gringo & our very own Hello Thor), but it also raises money for charity - The Music Exchange should be your new favourite shop. Read more about it here.

- There's an awesome-ly bad new gallery shop. Sorry if you own it and you're reading this, but it really is awesome-ly bad. Sorry too if you're one of the artists featured. It's a really nice place for a gallery, lots of light, big square windows, a lovely little shop, but the stuff in there is random and incredible. I won't describe particularly bad bits, because I just won't be able to help being really rude, but you definitely need to check it out. Me and Anders wanted to buy a whole wall's worth, just because it's so amazing.

- Al's shop Recreation is great. This is it a little while ago, and yes there you can spot Nick, Tom & Anders goofing around.  

The shop stocks a brilliant mix of really desirable vintage pieces of furniture, ceramics, stereos etc alongside stuff made by designer-maker-craft people in Nottingham. I've bought a beautiful ceramic necklace in there before shaped like a moustache with a lovely blue floral print. It gets very positive reviews every time I wear it. I've also bought a couple of prints and some really nice T-shirts by I Dress Myself. I'd really recommend it if you want to buy yourself or a stylish friend a present.

- Finally, last but not least, there is the magical, magnificent creperie, Aubrey's. I can't say this strongly enough, GO! We've been for lunch a few times on a Saturday and it makes you feel like you're on holiday. It has only a few small tables, so you have to be lucky to get one, and serves delicious savoury galettes (with lovely garlic mushroom, olive tapenade, raclette etc flavours) and amazing sweet sweet crepes (with ricotta & berries, orange & cardamom and more). Plus the hot chocolate is the best in Nottingham, the crockery is vintage and makes you want to sneak it in your bag when no-one's looking AND they have the papers on a Saturday. What more could you want? It's well worth the walk up from Market Square and away from costa, nero, starbucks & the rest.

One more pic:

Hope you go soon!

bex

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Spring Fling!

Just wanted to mention that I Dress Myself are having a Spring Fling Studio Sale tomorrow! We're pretty lucky to have such a creative design & printing force on our doorstep, so I hope lots of people will come down and get bargains!


Here's all the info:

This Saturday, the I Dress Myself print studio is opening it's doors for our first studio sale, the Spring Fling. Jon Burgerman will be doodling on the day, Nicholas Saunders will be screen printing some limited edition posters, Norm from Waste will be screen printing some amazing tees and we'll be selling vegan cakes....oh, and lots of other stuff.


Back catalogue tees will be on sale for £10 each and we're putting together a bargain bin of test prints, misprints and random stuff for £5 each. If that's not enough, all our current products will be available for 20% off. All for one day only!


Come to the studio sale:

When: Saturday 22nd May 2010 12-4 pm
Where: I Dress Myself, 32-40 Carrington Street, Nottingham, NG1 7FG






PLUS! It's the final episode of Ashes to Ashes tonight. I haven't seen the whole series, but I'm sad it's totally ending. I love Gene Hunt. He's an amazing creation!


AND I'd like to say a very happy birthday to Mr Joe Wrigley, in case he reads this. See you on Sunday!


Love Bex
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