From Russia with Love...

Здравствуйте!
So it's been a mega busy week as I was doing a spot of work over in Russia! Myself and superstar stylist and Fashion Director, Alexis Knox, were invited over by Aurora Fashion Week Russia to cover the events for Notion Magazine. We jetted off to beautiful St Petersburg to check out their selection of awesome catwalk shows, trade presentations, altelier programmes and conferences. Aurora Fashion Week Russia organises a whole bunch of events and initiatives throughout the year including Fashion Week, exhibitions, White Night Shopping, a Fashion Film festival, industry conferences and Summer schools. It focuses on regional and federal politics within the Russian contemporary fashion scene as well as intergrating international designers and brands.

We shacked up in one of the oldest and most magical hotels in the city overlooking the magnificent St Issacs Cathedral which was a beaut of a view to enjoy over our morning, breakfast pancakes, or 'Blinis' as they are known in this neck of the woods! By day there was a series of 'Fashionomica' conferences hosted at the central AFW venue, 'Manege' exhibition hall, which is usually used as a centre for the contemporary arts, theatre and creative festivals set in a beautiful former horse guards riding school. Alexis churned out a hotttt presentation as guest speaker at 'Fashionomica' discussing the London design scene, economy within the industry and support structures for creatives available in the UK.


By night there was a string of back to back catwalk shows and various social events alongside static presentations, parties and press briefings. Aurora Fashion Week Russia presented the SS12 collections from designers around the world including Lithuania, Austria, UK, Ukraine and Spain alongside Russian designers hailing from St Petersburg and Moscow. Labels and shows included Tosha, Kute, Custo Barcelona, Arngoldt, Kamenskayakonova, Jana Segetti, Grazia Presents and Bessarion.
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There was also a trade show running throughout the duration which presented designers including Petar Petrov and Minna Parikka as well as an Alice in Wonderland style installation from AFW's official interior partner, Kare. In conjunction with Aurora Fashion Week Russia there was also the 'Ready-To-Read' Festival, supported by the National Library of Russia and Dom Knigi, offering industry specific publications and plenty of awesome fasssshhhion books.

Ok, so that's my basic rundown of why I was over in lovely Russia....I shall whack out another blog post all about the shows complete with a few juicy catwalk images in the next few days as this entry is almost turning into a novel!
All and all our time in St Petersburg was so much fun and great to be introduced to so many new brands and an entirely different fashion scene....the city itself was like nowhere I've ever been before with pretty buildings aplenty, piles of Russian dolls, cherry dumplings galore and an abundance of spectacular, curly cathedrals! My full report on Aurora Fashion Week will be out in the next issue of Notion Magazine available at WH Smiths and the likes so keep an eye out for that!!!

In other news my brand new collaboration with handbag designer, Helen Rochfort, launched at retail today....woooo....the piece is called 'Schnitzel Time' and THIS is a direct link to her webshop....but I shall blog about that properly ASAP!! Also....some copies of 'Paper Magazine' arrived all the way from New York this morning with my juicy feature in so that was a nice suprise!
Ok, so that's all for now...and a whole bunch of random photos from the trip!!!
Love and Sparkles,
Emma
www.emma-bell.com
xxx

Mino Movie & Elevator Jingles!

Konnichiwa!!!
So one of the guys from the team at the project I did in Japan came across a little movie of the exhibition that I did called 'Let Momo Eat Cake' at the 'Mino Washi Museum' and kindly shared it with me. It features the series of work that I created during my time there alongside the work of my lovely, fellow artists in residence, Yoko, Kris and Lena. I especially love the cheesy elevator music that accompanies the montage!!! My stuff is at the end so check it out and don't ask me what the subtitles say as I can't speak the lingo!
For those of you that don't know about the project, I basically spent 3 months living in a small town called Mino, in Gifu Prefecture working with the 'Mino Paper Art Village Project'. I produced a collection of work titled 'Colourful Creatures are Often Poisonous' which you can peep at HERE if you like! We did a whole bunch of fun stuff from paper making to lantern workshops and I also exhibited a piece at the annual 'Akari Art Festival'. Iwas living in a real life Buddhist temple at the top of a hill and got involved in all sorts of antics ranging from almost being killed by a wild boar, dancing around in a Peruvian poncho and eating jacket potatoes with chopsticks. It was a weird and wonderful adventure with the chance to meet so many awesome people and I took about a million photos during my time getting down in the countryside!!! I haven't unleashed these pics on here before, so here's some snapshots from my stint in Mino!!!

I miss this place and the days of drinking an everlasting supply of Matcha latte!!!
Love and Sparkles,
Emma
xxx

New Collab at 'Pure London' NOW!!!

Hiya!!!
Just a quick one for those of you attending Pure London this season! My new collaboration with British handbag designer, Helen Rochfort, has just launched yesterday at the tradeshow, YAYYYY!!!! The new design is called 'Schnitzel Time' and will be available to order from Helen's stand, K65. Exciting stuff!!! The booth is geared around a 'vintage fairground' theme and even comes complete with a 20p-a-go deer ride!!!!LOVE IT!!! So yeah, there's a sneak peak above at the 'Hook a Handbag'...but watch this space for news all about our new collab!!! Also from our previous project, the 'Owl-a-Rama' bag is still up for grabs!!!
Love and Handbags!
Emma
xxx

Alexis Knox on 'New Look Style the Nation!'

Ooooooohhhh Hiya!!!
Fo the past few weeks I've been tuning into Channel 4's 'New Look Style the Nation' to watch superstar stylist, Alexis Knox, gracing our TV screens! With my beans on toast, I've been watching Knoxy in all her glory as a mentor on the show which sees her working with aspiring fashion stylists battling it out on the catwalk.
At the weekend we saw the final episode of the series and Alexis rocked out my striped 'Fish and Chips' printed dress!!! She looked hot to trot and here are a few pics of her wearing my stuff on the show!
Super proud of Knoxy for doing such a glorious job...what will become of Saturday mornings without her throwing out a few 'WOWZERS' on our telly?!?!!!!

Love and Sparkles,
Emma
xxxx

Taipei Times Feature!!!

Helloooo!!!
So last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the 'Taipei Times' for a feature in their style section all about my recent project that I carried out in Taiwan. It talks all about the different elements of my work over there from workshops to the collection, 'My Friend the Mosquito', and about my collaboration with a creative team over in Taipei in putting together the final shoot! The write up also features images from my project with photographer Ching aLittle.
Above is the piece that was in yesterday's paper and if you fancy reading it, you can check out the online version HERE!!!!
Goodnight!!!
Love,
Emma xxxx