Goodbye Winter, Hello Spring

Thursday 26 April 2012

Hip Hip Hooray for the Circus!


The magic and rustic glamour of a small, rural circus inspired the star prints and frothy skirts of this season's collection. The most magical of them all is the wonderful Giffords Circus who tour of the South of England during the long summer months – they are kindly offering one of our gorgeous customers a FREE family ticket to one of their wonderful shows this summer. To enter our competition please visit our Facebook page.








Circus pictures courtesy of www.giffordscircus.com

Thursday 19 April 2012

Happy Birthday to our Queen!


Saturday 21st April is our Queen's birthday, Her Majesty will be 86 this year, the year of her Diamond Jubilee.

An exhibition at London's Victoria & Albert Museum features portraits of Queen Elizabeth II by royal photographer Cecil Beaton, celebrating Her Majesty in her roles as princess, monarch and mother and coincides with the 60th anniversary of her accession to the throne.

Jane, from our London office, visited the exhibition last week and gave us an ilovegorgeous review:

"Some of the dresses the Queen (then princess) and her sister were wearing in the photos of when they were younger are in star and butterfly prints/fabrics - so interesting that even then those were the motifs chosen. Our archive, current and forthcoming collections all feature star prints or butterfly prints - they seem to be perennial classics. 

The dress worn by the Queen's daughter, Princess Anne, at her coronation was really sweet - puff sleeves, short in length, frills and bow at the back: 


The dresses worn by her attendants have bodices similar in shape to the Jubilee dress in our current collection, The use of silver and gold embroidery on their dresses is very ilovegorgeous!


In some of the photographs of the Queen as a teenager, Beaton uses cascades of flowers, floral garlands and painted backdrops to set the scene - this really reminded me of ilovegorgeous shoots, are we influenced by photographic history or is this a timeless theme?

There is a recording of the Queen speaking on Children's Hour during WW2 when the announcement that children would need to be evacuated had been made. She was still young but so confident and reassuring.

It was so lovely to see family pictures, when her children were young and them together looking so natural/relaxed, just like any other family snaps.

The exhibition made me realise just how much change she will have seen during her reign - conflict, births, deaths, marriages, different prime ministers...

The sweetest thing was two little girls in the exhibition who were looking at the photos, wandering around singing their own version of God Save the Queen (so funny!)."

Thanks to Jane for visiting the exhibition and giving us her personal thoughts - with a nod to ilovegorgeous style!

The exhibition finishes in London on Sunday 22nd April - this weekend - and then goes on tour:

United Kingdom
  • Leeds City Museum - 8 May - 24 June 2012
  • Norwich Castle Museum - 7 July - 30 September 2012
  • Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne - 13 October - 2 December 2012
International
  • Fine Art Gallery, Ballarat, Australia - 25 February - 15 April 2012
  • Royal British Columbia Museum, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada - 1 June - 3 September 2012

Friday 13 April 2012

A treat for your beautiful baby

Here at ilovegorgeous we are big fans of the Cowshed range of gorgeous natural products for the bath, body, baby and home. So we are delighted to offer you a luxury free sample of their Baby Cow Organics Milky Body Lotion with all orders from our Baby range placed over the next week (or while stocks last).

And if you'd like to shop online at Cowshed, enter the code  ILG15 at checkout to get an exclusive 15% discount, you'll also get a free gift and free P&P if you spend over £45 with Cowshed, so what are you waiting for?

Mini Pinny, £39 see it on our website here!

Thursday 5 April 2012

Grow your own Cress Head!


ilovegorgeous has teamed up with Secret Seed Society for a fun Easter holiday project! If you place an order with us you'll get a free packet of organic cress seeds - or you could buy some from your local shop...

Now comes the fun bit! Find a pot - plant pot, yoghurt pot, or even an empty eggshell (seeing as it's Easter and all...) choose something you can draw on with marker pens. Now draw a face on your chosen pot. Fill the pot with your growing medium - this could be compost or even cotton wool - to within about 1cm of the brim. Now moisten your growing medium with a little water and sprinkle a fine layer of cress seeds over the top. Place on a warm, bright windowsill and wait for your little friend's hair to grow!

If you want to get really fancy, you could take an old pair of nylon tights, cut off one foot, sprinkle seeds into the toe then fill with cotton wool and tie closed. You can now pinch and tie noses, ears, cheeks...





 And when your cress has grown? Eat it, of course - you can put cress hair on a decorated pizza or muffin, or just enjoy a delicious egg-and-cress sandwich! Have fun!