Catwalk Genius News
<<Back to Catwalk Genius catwalk genius
Login
User name:
Password:
Remember me 
View Article  This season's key questions

Love fashion? Got 2 minutes going spare? Then we have some questions for you...


View Article  Calling all Models


Are you the next face of Georgie W Couture?


CG favourite Georgie W Couture is looking for models for two upcoming photo shoots in August, and a catwalk show taking place in September.  Casting is this Sunday, 9th August.

If you are a size 8-10 and at least 5 ft 8, send  2 images (headshot and full length) along with your vital statistics to
info@freshstrawberry.co.uk.  You will be contacted if you are successful in getting through to the casting stage.

Good luck models!






View Article  World on a Hanger


World on a Hanger has just launched new web-based software that sets out to revolutionise how fashion labels are run.

By connecting fashion labels, suppliers and buyers online the system speeds up handling orders, planning production and shipping products to customers. It monitors and minimises mistakes. Buyers can connect with fashion labels online.  Suppliers instantly receive up-to-date quantities and paperwork. The system makes sure that there’s always enough stock and materials available to keep up with orders.

The team at World on a Hanger believe that it shouldn't just be industry giants who benefit from powerful technology to run their business.

Sounds great doesn't it?  But is it easy to use?  Ari Helgason, CEO, says that ‘if you can use Facebook, you can use World on a Hanger. It’s that easy.’
 
You heard it here first.  For more info and a 14 day free trial, visit World on a Hanger.

View Article  Designer Funding Progress 30th July 2009

Chanel Spring 2009 RTW, courtesy of Style.com

Here are the latest chart positions:

Amount Invested  Shares Sold  Designer
£1100                           110                Georgie_W_Couture
£780                              78                 Love Cole by Samantha Cole London
£380                              38                 Fred Butler
£340                              34                 Plastikowy
£330                              33                 Kelly Love

£260                              26                 Marshall&Vox
£210                              21                 Tom Florian Atelier
£180                              18                 Daughter Earth
£180                              18                 Camilla Welton
£120                              12                 Tour de Force
£100                              10                 Pitchouguina
£80                                 8                 Clash&Refine
£30                                 3                  Chrysalis
£30                                 3                  Seraglia
£20                                 2                  PopRina
£20                                 2                  Anna Paola Pascuzzi Made in Italy
£10                                 1                  Minnehaha
£10                                 1                  Alisa Benay
£10                                 1                  Funky Homo Sapiens
£10                                 1                  Queerkinks
£10                                 1                  Sample Remix
£10                                 1                  Cristina Schamann
 
Why are some designers not clickable?
Some of the designers haven't got any products on sale at the moment and so their profile is currently inactive.

All shares purchased still stand and you can view them in My Account >
Designer Funding.
View Article  We're in Grazia..

Better get to the newsagent before they run out. I hear page 31 is particularly tremendous this week...

 

View Article  Fashion Bloggers at the Lee Showroom

On Saturday, Lyns and I toddled along to talk style and MJ conspiracy theories with the fashion bloggers of Dublin.

This time, it was at the Lee Jeans showroom, with champers provided by Fallon & Byrne. The disco beat came from Trenspot's DJ Colin Brady and some of us (ahem) only went and won ourselves a pair of FitFlops! Good times.

Thanks go to them and to Ireland's leading voice on fashion, Annmarie - for coralling us all together every month. See our blogroll on the right for some cracking style reads from this fabulous bunch.

 

View Article  Sophie Ellis-Bextor in Jojo and Malou

The lovely Sophie Ellis-Bextor clearly loves both great design and mockumentary, being as she chose to wear a piece by Jojo and Malou at the recent London premiere of Sacha Baron-Cohen's Bruno movie.

Looking good, Ms E-B! You can buy from Jojo and Malou's shop here on Catwalk Genius.

View Article  Tour de Force living up to the name

We spotted some great news on Tour de Force's blog the other day. Designer Camille has only gone and won the "Milli-naire" competition for hat design at Royal Ascot!

That's Camille in the winning design, plus Lisa Snowden who was dishing out awards. Nicely done, Camille!

You can shop the Tour de Force line on Catwalk Genius.

 

View Article  The Best of Graduate Fashion Week (in our opinion!)
Well 2009's Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) is now officially over.  We couldn't make it to Earls Court to see the creations for ourselves, but we have been keeping an eye out for our faves.  Here they are for your viewing pleasure:

Kate Hamilton, Kingston University


Jamie Russo, Birmingham City University

Lauren Champion, UWE Bristol


Yasmin Siddiqui, Ravensbourne


And the River Island Gold Prize goes to..
Myrto Samou, UCA Rochester


For a full list of winners, head to the Fashion156 blog or keep an eye out on the GFW site.



View Article  Surveys and free shares - thanks everyone!

If you took our survey recently, thanks very much. Everyone who left an email address should have a free share promotional code nestling in the inbox tonight. One of you has some info about a discount for £100 too.

If you have any problems, give us a shout.

View Article  16 questions = 1 free share

We know what you're thinking. This blog is all us, us, us.

What's about you? It's high time we found out a bit more about your lovely self.

So, everyone who completes our fashion & shopping survey will be emailed a promotional code for one free share in a Catwalk Genius fashion designer of their choice. Not bad, for 16 brief questions.

We'll also pull one email address out of a hat and that person will get a discount code for £100 discount on anything in our Boutique or Shop Floor.

The deadline for entry is Sunday 7th June. Remember to leave your email address, or we won't be able to get your code to you (they won't be used for spamming, promise). We'll contact winners with their codes the week beginning 8th June.

Take the survey here.

View Article  Scotland's Finest

The nominees for the 2009 Scottish Fashion Awards are in and they include three from the Catwalk Genius stable.

Laura Lees is nominated for Designer of the Year, along with Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders and Graeme Black.

The Spring/Summer 09 range from Laura Lees is now available - and it's rather stunning:

Also nominated is Alice Palmer, whose knitted wire accessories are available from our shop from £85.

Keira Thorley's gorgeous leather creations have also earned her a shout:

Keira and Alice are up for the Young Designer award, alongside Holly Fulton, Louise Gray, Graeme Armour and Iona Crawford. See the full nominee list here.

Well done to all - we'll be rooting for you!

View Article  Bulletproof

Image courtesy of  Fred Butler Style

'Bulletproof' is the next single from London based electro-pop duo La Roux.  These guys clearly have very good taste in fashion, as they featured Fred Butler's Dodecahedron Necklace in their latest video.

Check out their video below or if you fancy treating yourself, purchase the necklace here.



View Article  Design a Doodle!


If you like Ghulam Sakina and are a little bit creative then this may be the competition for you!

Ghulam Sakina are celebrating the launch of their new website by inviting you to 'Design a Doodle'.  Simply doodle whatever happens to be in your head and submit it to their studio.  You could win £750 of Ghulam Sakina clothing AND they will use your doodle in their new clothing or home range.

Pretty cool stuff.  Get full details on their blog and check out their new website too. 

Closing date is 31st May.



Images courtesy of www.ghulamsakina.com




 
View Article  Welcome Aimee McWilliams


The CWG line up is continuing to grow with some uber cool new designers coming on board.  Meet Aimee McWilliams.

Aimee spent her early years at Metropolitan Glasgow before moving to London and graduating from Central St Martins in 2004.  She won Designer of the Year at the Scottish Style Awards in 2007 and has recently been commissioned by a London Hotel group to create a capsule collection inspired by 5 hotels.

Now her pieces are available to buy right here at heavily discounted prices.  Cool huh?








View Article  The Perfect Protégé?


Graduate Fashion Week (GFW) has been running since 1991 and for those of you less familiar, it was launched as a forum to showcase some of the UK's best graduating design talent.  2009's GFW will take place from 7th to 11th of June and features over 50 of the top fashion and textile Uni's in the UK and overseas.

This year sees the launch of the GFW Protégé Project to help new graduates find work.  Graduating students can compete to win short term contracts to work with River Island, Mulberry, Asos, John Lewis, Peacocks and the Pentland Group.  The project aims to give graduates commercial as well as design acumen, which might just help them run successful businesses in the future.

Any initiative like this which can make things even slightly easier for graduating students, can only be a great thing for the industry.  Nice.



Jessica Au, Ravensbourne Graduate 2008


Poppy Dover, Kingston Graduate 2008
Images courtesy of www.catwalking.com



View Article  Fringe Benefits


Fancy your chances at re-invigorating the fashion industry in London?  Do you think your designs can make you a strong and viable business?

The Fashion Fringe was first launched in 2004 by IMG and is an annual project looking for undiscovered British designers.  If you win, you will gain access to experts and benefit from their mentoring, business advice and potential development grants.

The closing date for applications is 1st May 2009 so quickly check out all the details and get applying!


View Article  Saba, so good

The fashion bloggers had another brunchy outing on Saturday, courtesy of Saba - Dublin's most scrumptious Thai & Vietnamese restaurant.

The food was spot on - Hoisin duck rolls, veggie curries and an outrageously indulgent chocolate pudding.

The talk ran the gamut from life-changing decisions to clumpy mascara and the best methods for stalking Russell Brand. 

The goody bags contained enough ingredients to attempt to replicate the meal (a folorn hope, given my cooking skills) as well as some veg-tastic Yes to Carrots body lotions. Thanks to Annmarie for hooking us all up, as usual.



Image courtesy of Saba.

 

View Article  Tattoos sans pain

We love these swallow brooches by Tatty Devine:

Swallow brooches, £65 for a pair

All the rock and roll appeal of a tattoo, only temporary and pain-free. Sign me up!

View Article  Cave in Colin Henderson
Colin Henderson has arrived at CWG with some very cool exclusive tees for us.  Hand drawn, these tees are a must for your Summer wardrobe.



Our friend and photographer extraordinaire Alastair Strong, has recently shot the delectable Jethro Cave in some of Colin's knitwear.  Check out Alastair's blog for more shots.  Prepare for delight.



Jethro Cave in Colin Henderson Knitwear.
Image courtesy of Alastair Strong Photography.

View Article  Creative Liberty
 
Union Jack

Here at CWG we're all about helping up and coming designers.  Our 'Back a Designer' programme was born from the idea that there is just not enough support out there for new design talent.  So imagine our delight when we heard what Liberty had planned!

The lovely people at Liberty are holding an open day on Saturday 25th April, where budding British designers can bring in pieces they have designed, and in return get some expert opinions and advice.  It's not just about designing clothes, you could design a chair, a cushion, an umbrella - anything at all!

The best designers will get the chance to have their designs sold at Liberty.

For further information or to register your interest, check out the Liberty blog.

If you're a budding designer and fancy selling your designs through Catwalk Genius, here's how.


Designers designing.


View Article  Bright future for style on the Emerald Isle

A few days back, Lynsey and I pootled along to the Nokia Young Fashion Designer Awards, hosted by Brendan Courtney at the gorgeous old Habitat building on Dublin's Dame Street.

20 finalists had produced designs inspired by sponsor Nokia's Supernova handset. Impeccably dressed but presumably pretty nervous, the talented group looked on as their creations walked the catwalk, judged by some of fashion's finest.

The judging panel was made up of fashion blog-goddess Susie LauFashion Wire Daily European editor, Godfrey Deeny, Head of Menswear at Hermes, Brendan Mullane and Irish knitwear designer Tim Ryan (also the student mentor).

Donegal's Aoife Gallagher took home the top prize of cash, phone-based goodies and all the glory she could eat. Here's the lady herself, skipping home with the awesome winning design:

I must admit that my personal fave was one of the runners-up, LSAD's Ciara Glynn who showed us an Irridescent Space Warrior. Here it is, along with a design sketch. Yum!

 

Congratulations to joint runner-up Lyn Allen and to all the designers. Every entry betrayed a shovel full of talent and we're very proud of the strong fashion coming out of Ireland because of the likes of you guys.

You're all surely destined for great things - and if you'd like to get there via crowd-funding, give us a shout some time!

View Article  Marshall & Vox Limited Edition


'Coco' and 'Stella' tees by Marshall & Vox
 
 
After huge demand for the Marshall & Vox 'Stella' tee, the first batch has completely sold out.
 
There will be a very small second batch coming our way next week. If you'd like to join the waiting list for this exclusive tee, then please email us. [EDIT: All gone now - sorry!]
 If you can't wait that long, why not follow Helen's advice and check out the other designs available from Marshall & Vox.

All tees are exclusive to Catwalk Genius and available in very limited numbers only, so grab yourself a 'Wintour', or maybe a 'Halston' but be quick!
View Article  Dressed to Kilt
It's not just haggis and bagpipes that us Scots are known for.  Scotland has produced some great international designers of late, including: Christopher Kane, Jonathan Saunders and Deryck Walker.

This New York event aptly named 'Dressed to Kilt' will see a flurry of Scottish designers, celebrate Scottish fashion.  Some of the newest design talent from Scotland will be showing, including: Aimee McWilliams, Olanic and Bebaroque (fabulous hosiery!).

If you happen to be in the area, Dressed to Kilt will be showing at M2, West 28th Street, NYC on March 30th.  I only wish I could be there myself and share a whisky with my Scottish friends!



House of Holland AW08
Courtesy of Style.com

View Article  MySpace promotion ends today

Just a reminder: My Space Top Friends...

 

...is one way of getting some sweet prizes, including:

 

We'll be making the prize draw this evening, so add us now! Full details here.

View Article  Catwalk Genius presents Laura Lees 'London Calling' Autumn/Winter 2009


If you liked the pics Helen posted last week then you will love this!

We thought it was about time that we let you folks who couldn't come to the event, get a peep at the short film Laura showed in conjunction with us.

Here it is on You Tube: 

You'll also find it featured on SHOW Studio.

We hope you like it and Laura's new collection, available on Catwalk Genius very soon!

View Article  Designer Funding Progress: 4th March 2009

Ossie Clark AW09, courtesy of Style.com
Here are the latest chart positions:

Amount Invested    Shares Sold    Designer

£550                        55                    Georgie_W_Couture
£350                        35                    Love Cole by Samantha Cole London
£310                        31                    Kelly Love
£280                        28                    Fred Butler
£170                        17                    Tom Florian Atelier
£160                        16                    Daughter Earth
£160                        16                    Plastikowy
£150                        15                    Marshall & Vox
£70                            7                    Camilla Welton
£60                            6                    Clash&Refine
£30                            3                    Chrysalis
£30                            3                    Seraglia
£20                            2                    PopRina
£20                            2                    Anna Paola Pascuzzi Made in Italy
£10                            1                    Minnehaha
£10                            1                    Alisa Benay
£10                            1                    Funky Homo Sapiens
£10                            1                    Queerkinks
£10                            1                    Sample Remix
£10                            1                    Cristina Schamann

Why are some designers not clickable?
Some of the designers haven't got any products on sale at the moment and so their profile is currently inactive.

All shares purchased still stand and you can view them in My Account > 
Designer Funding.



View Article  The Best Reviews of LFW - Fri 20th

 

 

If you've reviewed a show from Saturday onwards and would like to put it foward for the next 'best reviews' section, leave us a comment or drop us a line.

View Article  London called, we answered.

Well, Friday rocked. In case you haven't been watching, we hosted a film screening and presentation in conjunction with Laura Lees for her A/W09 collection.

 

Soho House was the perfect venue, with a really cool screening room for the short films and incredibly good-looking/helpful staff (not shown - I was far too shy to ask for a pic!).

We met some magnificent people, hello again to you all - but particularly to Samantha who won the competition for VIP tickets. It was lovely to meet you!

If we didn't get chance to shake your hand on Friday, we are sorry and promise to make amends next time (Mal and I were the ones hanging around the general vicinity of the Mac that showed our SS09 sneak preview). Lynsey couldn't be there and we missed her lots. Lyns: we'll party twice as hard next time to compensate.

 

Laura's collection is more than a bit special and I'm hoping I'll be able to manage to get the vast majority into my autumn wardrobe. Here's a sneak peek:

 

A million thank-yous to Laura and her team for joining forces and to Sarah and especially Alyn for making it all come together so smoothly.

Thanks also to everyone who dropped by! We hope you all enjoyed the night as much as we did and that the rest of fashion week is treating you well.

View Article  London Calling

London Skyline by vemma (cc)

The bags are packed (after careful attention to Annmarie's advice), the schedule's printed and we're off to London for Friday's fashion week shenanigans.

It's not too late to throw your hat into the ring for a chance to join us at the Laura Lees presentation, otherwise maybe we'll see you in the tents.