The inspiration behind our new autumn/winter collection

by Sophie Worthington, ilovegorgeous co-founder

Every time we sit down to design a new collection, Lucy and I come to the table with a hotchpotch of loose ideas and inspirations that will eventually work their way into the collection and become the basis for our themes and colours. We never use trend forecasting, we prefer to just go with the flow of what we are feeling and what we fancy, the things we like doing, seeing, designing and ultimately what we would love to see your gorgeous girls wearing as well as our own…

We started work on autumn/winter 2012 in June 2011. The sun was shining and our last winter collection had been quite muted and subdued. We were loving colour and so we took our first major inspiration from the sights, sounds and colours of the Amazon Rainforest with lovely butterfly and bird prints realized in bright, vibrant colours – hot pink, emerald green, petrol blue and a softly contrasting mothy cream butterfly print.

As well as nature, we’ll often dive into the world of fiction and fantasy for ideas and for this collection it was Alice in Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts. The Queen of Hearts Dress combines a loosely interpreted Alice in Wonderland style dress in a geometric heart print.

Florals are a recurring theme in our collections and we find them in all sorts of wonderful places. This season it was a piece of vintage wallpaper found on Portobello Market and a much-loved Disney film. The tiny flowers that carpet the woodland floor in Bambi were brought to mind when we were creating the Bambi print for pieces including the Pippi and Winter Daisy. We were so taken by this idea that we asked our lovely stylist, Mary, to create a woodland scene for our winter shoot – which she did beautifully, carpeting the floor with twigs and pine and tiny red and white spotted mushrooms and even going so far as to procure an owl, some flying ducks and our very own Bambi. 

Memories always influence our design. The Rae and Julia dress (named after Lucy’s parents) was inspired by a 1970’s dress that Lucy recalls her mother wearing (her mother, Julia, is pictured on the left). The Ken Market Dress is based on our memories of working in Kensington Market as jobbing students in the early 80’s and the kaftan style dresses that were so popular back then. The Sid Jumper, Nancy Skirt and Chelsea Dress were all inspired by the gorgeous and glamorous Debbie Harry and NYC in the early 1980’s. The Oscar Dress came about because we wanted to design a proper red carpet dress and the 4.46 Dress was so named because that is exactly the time that it was when we finished working on the dress and needed to give it a name…

We like to think that every collection we work on is eclectic, diverse and interesting. We love what we do, we love the new collection and we hope that you will love it to…

A fabulous holiday project

© Rachael Glanfield 2012

Not long ago, a fabulous surprise popped into our inbox. A lovely lady from Australia, Rachael Glanfield, sent us a wonderful set of drawings featuring our entire Spring/Summer '12 collection. Not only had she hand drawn each garment and reproduced the fabrics so beautifully, but had also illustrated a couple of little models who could wear the collection. It whisked us back to our childhood, what little girl didn't love cut-out paper dolls with their tabbed clothes?

Rachael explained that as a child she spent hours designing clothes, recreating historical costumes and carefully making little paper dolls to wear her creations. And she gave us some advice on how to make the project successful: "What we always did with the figures themselves, was cut them out loosely as far from the outlines as possible, glue them to a thin sheet of cardboard (usually the cover of an old exercise book), then cut them out properly when they dried and make a stand for them from plasticine, blu-tack or just by clipping a spring clothes peg to the side of the base so they stood up."

We were amazed and thrilled to see such wonderful drawings - we're sure you will be too! Click on the link below to download a document to print out on standard A4 printer paper. And have fun! Download the full set by clicking here...

A summer of fabulous family festivals

Coral Festival Dress, reduced to £58

Festival time is upon us! There is a whole host of family fun on offer at this year's festivals. From the ultimate family friendly fest at Camp Bestival, 26-29th July at Lulworth Castle in Dorset to smaller, local festivals like Deer Shed in North Yorkshire, 20-22 July. Among our favourites to recommend this summer:
Latitude at Henham Park close to glorious Southwold in Suffolk, 12-15 July
Port Eliot  in Cornwall with its eclectic mix of music and culture, 19-22 July
Just So festival, 17-19 August, masses of fun to be had in this award-winning festival in Cheshire.





Festival Kidz is a great site to find out all about the season, there are so many festivals to choose from - read review, enter competitions, read guest blogs and even buy essential festival gear.

Check out our sale for some great savings on groovy festival wear:

Mini Mallow skirt reduced to £35.50, Palm jumper reduced to £34.50

Goa Print Festival Dress reduced to £58

Goa print Pom Pom Headband - reduced to £7

Plimsolls, £25 (not in sale)

Red Rose head dress, £15

Return to the circus... and read this book!

Remember our Giffords Circus competition in May? Victoria Hunter won a family ticket with her winning caption and had a wonderful time at the circus on 1st June. She sent us these fab pictures of their exciting time...

And while we're talking of the circus - can we recommend a wonderful book? The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. We guarantee by the time you to read the 'Anticipation' at the start of the book you'll be completely enchanted!

And finally - did you know our summer sale has started? Visit our website to take advantage of some great seasonal savings.

Is your girl a Daddy's Girl?

This Sunday is Father's Day, and what better way to say "I Love You Daddy" than with a hand-made card or gift.

A great source of crafty ideas, clip art and templates, MarthaStewart.com has lots to offer for Father's Day. Have a look at some of our favourites...

Cufflink card

Spinning picture card

And why not take a look at these fab ideas?
Father's Day Card
Printable Daddy's Girl button badges
Retro Father's Day printable labels

Father's Day button card

All pictures thanks to MarthaStewart.com

A dream fairy house in a tree...

We loved the sweet little hidden fairy doors in Chris Beardshaw's Furzey garden when we visited the Chelsea Flower show...

 

With a little pottering around the web, we've realised that with a few natural materials, a little bit of ingenuity you can make a house for the little folk like these brilliant examples - we love the pumpkin house! And if you're lucky enough to be on the East Coast of the USA this summer, why not visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens? There's a Fairy House Festival there in August.

There's even a calendar of these beautiful tiny houses - if you can't get to Maine, this might be the next best thing!

Fairy House calendar on Amazon

And this book may provide just the inspiration you need to create your own fairy des-res in your back garden!

Fairy Houses on Amazon

Gorgeously Girly ways to celebrate with the Queen

picture credit: Mail online

The Diamond Jubilee is upon us and the nation has decorated itself in red, white and blue!

We thought we'd ask some of our staff to share how they'd celebrate the Jubilee with their gorgeous girls - daughters, sisters, nieces...

Clare Sheen, (Sales) suggested: 

   - A bit of baking, of course!   

     - Duck racing  

     - Make a crown for their jubilee party

     - Fancy dress

     - Face Painting

   Anna Porter-Wright, (E-Commerce) came up with:

     - Do 'Miss United Kingdom' nails - Paint a union jack on every nail!
- Dust golden glitter across cheeks and forehead for a touch of essential regal glitz
- Play Queenie and write a speech together about what you intend to do for the rest of the  summer
- Get Daddy to teach her to Waltz - essential knowledge for all princesses in training.
- Pour fresh orange juice and lemonade in wine glasses for instant child friendly Bucks Fizz!
- Play potato Hula Hoop royal ring stacking. The first one to sneak a nibble is out!

  

   Jane Clucas, (Press & PR) suggests:

- Make some paper doily bunting to decorate your Jubilee party [pic attached]

- Make some REAL lemonade, there's nothing quite like it, all you need are lemons, sugar and water: delicious!

• 3 unwaxed lemons , roughly chopped
• 140g caster sugar
• 1l cold water

1. Tip the lemons, sugar and half the water into a food processor and blend until the lemon is finely chopped.
2. Pour the mixture into a sieve over a bowl, then press through as much juice as you can. Top up with the remaining water and serve with plain ice or frozen with slices of lemon and lime.

- Sing Land of Hope and Glory at the top of your voices whilst waving a Union Jack!

   Louisa Riggs, (our Admin Angel!) adds:

   - Make cupcakes and decorate in red white and blue icing or with a crown on, or make crown shaped biscuits

   And why not take a look at our 'Jubilee Inspiration' Pinterest board? We've added our favourite pins from the recent competition entries - there are plenty of great ideas, 'how-to' pins and tutorials on there too, so enjoy your Jubilee!