hit me baby

we have boxing gloves and hit pads in our flat now , were boxing in the kitchen- fun times

photoshoot , grey squirels , ruby blue , penthouse!, attacked by promoters i was!

the squirels have turned grey its official winter is here and it is absoultly freezing.this we discovered in the most unpleasent of ways. thursday night we wnet clubing in london for my flatmates birthday (see photos on bebo and facebook) she knows a promoter who goes by the alias mike jones (seriosly) we went clubing leister square by china town which is a big clubing area and boy did i get a shock , attacked by promoter was innocent I!, the are sneaky people promoters they dress like average folka dn sorta grab u with this fast talking attampt to gte u into there club. luckily angie rescued me. we headed to the uber exclusive 'penthouse' club first which has the best bathroom ever. seriously there is a bathroom attendant and then there is like a store in there! candy! FOOD! every brand of cosmetics and hairspray! hair straighterners! 4 kinds! hair dryers! you want it - they got it! next stop the club ruby blue which is covered with paintings of bond girls - very cool. we were her etill about four and couldnt catch a train till 6 so we went to get food at a really cool american style dinner where we got very expensive food - but it wa sok we justified to oursleves because we got in for free to two very expensive clubs. around 5 we bussed (still love the double decker- not yet over it) to victoria station and waited in teh frezing cold in dresses and tights for it to open. then to our dismay or trains were - DELAYED - cry i was actually frozen i swear i had hypothermia ive never been anywhere near as cold as that in my entire life. we got starbux and mc donalds for brekfast in a attempt to warm ourselves up - no such luck it just wasnt gunna happen. finaly got a atrain back around 7 and got home at 8 for a total of 45 minutes sleep before our first lecture that morning , so for the second week in arow we were slightly tiddly at friday morning lecture. sunday night we had a pre pre pre christams party at love and denais - super yummi greek food. then worked hard on alllll our manannanananany assignemnts-not cool. weds we had our photo shoots for our tailoring project- see photos which love and deani modeled for us , so much fun throwing leaves and doing hair and make up and dancing round to elvis songs! this time next week ill be in rome!!!

jesus, prince, tate and a crack - whats the link?

ive completly lost track of what happens when and if i have written about it, last wednesday we went to london thought and had "a rite ole time" made a start in berrick st (spelling probli wrong) the material mecca of london but also very expensive. get this ! 18£ thats like 48$ for a metre of calico. and this is not special calico just standard. i brought dupion silk for ten pounds a metre else where so it really says something. luckily we wernt buying just sampling . we then tried unsucesfuly for the most part part to take photos of designer shops for our research. i was wearing my new turban from h &M

yes u read rite- a turban!

and got nicknamed the turbanator for the whole day. luckily thought my self confidence was re ignighted when in issey miyake a super stylish merchandiser said he liked my hat. thats my 5£ hat from h&M when the guy was wearing thousands of dollars worth of issey miyake clothes (smug smile)
we stumbled across carnaby street by accident! somewhere i had been meaning to go but had typically forgoten about , naturaly the things you find by accident are the best! shoppping heaven retro boutiques galore and lots of up and coming designers , i had to use some serious restraint.
next lili and i headed off to the tate britan which is a absoloute snooze fest we left in about 5 mins. it advertises itself as free but has about two rooms which are not paid acces exhibitions. never mind i didnt have much desire to see stiff english men riding horses. the architecture is quite gorgeous though. next we headed to tate modern to meet up with vic and dervin. in comparison to its brother tate modern is absoloutly fantastic , i actually became quite emotional walking around the pictures i had seen my whole life and studied. i almost cryed in a wing dedicated to mark rothko it was just so overwhelming. i have to say the biggest let down was mondrains work , up close

the lines are not even straight

and its really not that great!. naturally we were all amazed by the crack! for those who didnt know its a instilation in tate moderns entrance and is essentially a giant crack in concrete running for about 100metres. aparanetly the museun keeps getting sued by people who twist their ankles. poor vic thought the crack had been caused by some natural disater and was disapointed to learn a few days later that its actually a art work. i supose then that nature is always the most amazing thing.
by now it was dark - at 4pm. thats right were living in darkness these days. we took a leisurly stroll in the freezing cold along the bank of the thames , past the milenium bridge, shakespeares globe theatre and the london dungeon. its moments like that when i feel i never want to leave london.
we went back to mine and lilis first love -

chop chop

the noodle bar we ate at in kings cross our first night here , its extremly cheap and the meals are huge, i took mine away -Da Bao(my new found multicultral side asked to takeaway in chinese) and ate laksa for 3 meals - food poising heaven but i have a iron clad stomach now from 2 minute noodles. anyway we had our wonderful meal in kings cross and headed back to victoria station. naturally some of the lines were closed because someone had fallen under a train. this is just casually announced on the speakers -

"the picadilly serive is not in operation due to someone falling under the
train, there will be no service on the picadilly line - please use other modes
of transport"

and then crudley writen up on the whiteboards at each station

victoria line - good service
central line - minor delays
picadilly line -
person under train - suspended.
thats london life for you!

thursday - extremly tired from wednesday i got up extra early to help vic with a photoshoot she was doing a styling exercise for peirre et giles and the model was our friend dervin.the concept was two photos one jesus and the other prince - or the artist formally known as.
hilarity ensued,
fisrt there was the styling of the loin cloth- no explanation needed. next as the unofical make up artist i needed to make dervin looked starved and dying so i was grotesquely makeuping dervins stomach to make it look like his ribs were protruding, convieniantly at this time when everyone is a bit akward about the almost naked man aspect the song

" we have to take our CLOTHES OFF"

-gym class heros came on and broke down the atmosphere. after jesus dervin was ready to become prince - in tights , pink tights. thankfully hes not at all self concious. we had a fun time dancing around to prince which the photographer convieniantly had on his laptop.
friday was my flatmate naz's birthday so we stayed up late and decorate dthe whole flat pink (her favorite colour) we got lots of danish pastries and crosonts and made a pink cake - pink confetti pink everything! she was really suprised it was super cute! she then had her first drink- at 21! good girl! anyway and we were all a little tiddly by the time we headed of to the mornings lecture.

the frustration of creativity

who would have thought i would be so hard to be creative as a fashion student. by our teachers definition the only way to be creative is to make something with no resemblance to a garment. then naturally you fail if its not athestically wearable. ive spent the last two days being critisised for making armholes or things that fit the body! im out of my league here ! i just wanna go party in brighton and never come back

http://www.myspace.com/mandibile

some of the best shoppig in london

im a fashion girl living in a very fashionable world. spent a lazy wedensday inlondon yesterday shop shop shoping mainly ind around conduict street , lts ofgreat retro or up a comig dsigner shops. on berwick street there are wholesale jewelery stores with cheap acsesories

yay! well worth a visit if your in london

Blue water and green which – fondly known as the adventures of Charlie and his angels

Blue water and green which – fondly known as the adventures of Charlie and his angels

A busy weekend for us kiwi girls here in England, Saturday we headed to bluewater which we had been told was the biggest mall in Britain. – Its not that big. We got told you can’t see the whole thing in one day. You can. You can see it all in two hours.
What they didn’t tell us was that there is an artificial lake outside with swans and a kind of amusement parks! We may have bigger malls in NZ but they do not have features like that. Nor do we have H&M my favourite UK shop, I went a bit crazy…….
Sunday myself lili and Victoria headed to greenwhich to meet Dervin , getting only “slightly” confused by the trains and being a little bit illegal and not paying .. Not our fault I swear we intended too but lili felt guilty all day I'm sure.
So we arrived in greenwhich and were hit with super freezing winds, most unexpected considering we have had a good spell of weather and so I was wearing my new H&M summer dress and a light jacket, we were all unprepared without our gloves scarves or hats and spent most of the day complaining about the cold and alternately buying hot food and drinks to try warm ourselves up. Nonetheless we had a fantastic day, I decided the day’s theme song was, “I went for a walk, on a winter’s day….all the leaves are brown and the sky is grey…….” Dervin (Charlie) our “tour guide” used to live in greenwhich so he showed us the ins and outs starting with the indoor (but just as cold) markets which have everything from “ye olde drinks” –cider, egg nog and many more, food stalls – we got yummy Danishes almond croissants sushi couscous salad and more! Lots of up and coming designer stores, (Dervin managed to sweet talk me and him some work experience from a local label) and all kinds of other market stuff. We visited a beautiful café called “George of England” which had a really cool interior lots of paintings from the Victorian era all crammed into the walls. Next we headed to the port where unfortunately the famous cutty sark burnt down earlier this year and so could not be seen, we had a little adventure in a tunnel that runs under the Thames joining greenwhich to central London. Climbing up those stairs gives exercise a new meaning! From the port we hiked up to the meridian line museum thingy visiting various fabulous vintage and quirky stores on the way. The meridian centre is located atop a hill in a beautiful park, we did the typical touristy standing in each hemisphere photos before roaming around the park for a bit being stupid , vic kept wanting to play hide and seek , something in the air this weekend has had us all wanting to revisit our childhood. From the park we headed to the queens house, I don’t know which queen lived there but she sure lived in style, gorgeous neoclassical architecture in the surrounding buildings. we created quite a stir posing for photos atop the columns as Charlie’s angels or climbing the ornate fences, a random Italian tourist openly stopped and laughed at our escapades. From this point in the day onwards we lost a little faith in our tour guide as he seemed set on killing us all, screaming instructions like, when I say cross, cross, cross!!!!!!!!!! And then we would all put our lives in peril, greenwhich may be a village but village roads it has not! And the roads are wider and scarier here than in central London -they make New Zealand’s roads look like the footpath. We headed back through the shops to more markets to get MORE food, I’m surprised we are all not huge the amount we are eating. After a lot more food and a lot more shopping at the outdoor markets (I’m still defrosting) we headed to starbux for crème Brule lattes which I feel start the Christmas season. Then we attempted to head home braving the complicated rail system. At least we paid this time but karma seemed to be taking its revenge and we had a few hiccups but arrived home safe and sound ready and waiting for our next adventure.

GEISHA GIRL PHOTOSHOOT- and other adventures

blog : friday 9th november.A crazy busy week for me , it started with all out panic monday to wednesday as we approached our deadline for uni so no sleep for two days came home wednesday at 4pm and sleep for 16 hours. thursday we had our photo shoot for practice styling our designer was john Galliano (lili had topshop) so we ha to try get a john Galliano look. i suggested - surprise surprise a geisha theme like he did a year or two ago , so managed to convince poor vic to model and be a geisha for us - having transformed my friend jessey peng into a geisha two years ago i had a vague idea of what to do but for john Galliano we had to do a more severe less pretty look so we decided she more like hirajuku geisha (vic said and i quote -"i look like a raped japanese prostitute" she was mortified to say the least but as a good friend she went through with it , horror of horrors in the middle of making her up the fire drill went of (epsom girls you should no its is even more frequent here than it was at high school) and there was not even a fire at all the purpose of vic's humiliation was to check everyone had their student IDs because our school has gone on High terrorist alert because there was some "intruders". typically i didn't have my ID its lost somewhere in my room so i was made to stand to a segregated group , but as i was in the middle of my assignment i gave in to the peer pressure (of vic and lili beckoning me to make a run for it) and made a mad dash. now we have to wear our IDs pinned to us at all times , its the height of shame but at least were all shamed together. back at the photo shoot vic was a excellent poser , our styling tutor yohanus had a few raised eyebrows at our creative direction which included instructions like "your a drunken harajuku girl- work it " and "your so vain" . i made helpful comments like "be lazy - i want a lazy geisha". its surprised vic managed to make a lot of great poses without getting confused by this - the mark of a model in making.
later that evening we went out with big group for a cheap dinner at our local "spoons" it was a big fun mix of people from germany , greece , cypress , england , bangladesh , india , new zealand , hong kong , singapore ,and Philippians. lots of fun :) i love my international friends !
mandi