Fabfrocks loves... Bundle MacLaren millinery

Hi guys,
So far this year I have three weddings to attend: and its only February! I suspect we have another couple of invitations to arrive! Spending every warm weekend at a wedding is one of the curses of being in your late twenties. But the plus side of this is getting to wear a series of pretty dresses. And of course, fabulous hats!

L to R: Splat £70, Ayshea £64

I love a good hat, and any excuse to wear one, so I was excited to be introduced to the Magpie and Olympia collections by Bundle MacLaren millinery. Bundle works from her home in Battersea where you can make an appointment to browse and try on the collections. You can buy pieces off the peg or she can make any design in customised colours to compliment your outfit. And the best thing is, every piece is handmade to order.

L to R: Natalia £80, Esme £216

Bundle MacLaren fills the gap between high fashion and high street. She caters for those wanting beautiful, statement headpieces at a refreshingly affordable price, and the new collection ranges from £40 to £350. OK to £350 is a little much for wearing once to a wedding, but the lower price bracket is massively affordable, especially for something bespoke that you can guarantee no one else would be wearing (and you can't say that about a £50 hat from Debenhams!)
L to R: Kinvera £170, Charlotte £152

I love the humour and the tongue in cheek nature of some of the hats: you know how excited I get about anything to do with food! My favourite though is the 'love' hat made from wire and tiny ditzy flowers. This would be just perfect for a romantic country wedding: in fact, I have a wedding in mind to wear it to!

To find out more about Bundle MacLaren Millinery, visit the website.

Love Tor x

New York Fashion Week: Some Marc Jacobs love

Hi guys,

Whilst i'm busying myself with London Fashion Week, I thought i'd post a review of my favourite show from New York Fashion Week: London Fashion Week show reviews should start tomorrow!

As always, I loved the Marc Jacobs show: it's such an important one, because the man has so much influence. So many of the trends we've all been wearing for the past couple of years have been defined by him.

I loved all of the leather: the midi length leather skirts, the oversized leather tees If soft leather is going to be in vogue again next autumn/winter then count me in! I'm a polka dot addict, so I loved all the polka dot details. The soft polka dot handbag was an especial favourite: what I wouldn't give to have a collection of Marc Jacobs handbags at my disposal! How wearable this collection would be, I don't know: the leather and rubber skirts which looked so great with their high shine were so tight they would be incredibly difficult to walk in; you would be making a real fashion commitment if you decided to give it a go!

One trend I can't see taking off is the little hats that topped off the majority of the outfits. With their high gloss nubs, they made some of the browner outfits look like acorns: not a good look! These vinyl berets were made by Stephen Jones: very dominatrix, which completed the severe look of the whole show. I really loved it, but on the whole I only covet the softer more wearable pieces, like the polka dot sweater for example : the more extreme pieces looked great on the catwalk, but they're not for me!

Love, Tor xx

Photos from Style.com

A/W10 at ASOS: Or things my heart desires

I know everyone is raving over the ASOS sale, and there are some great bargains to be had, but as the seasons have changed, all I care about right now is wrapping up warm in glorious winter layers. And when scanning through ASOS today pretending to look for sensible flat winter boots, I couldn't resist looking at some of their snuggly winter clothes. And I was amazed by how great some of their accessories looked: I want to buy them all!

(Knit headband £16, Fur snood £35, Rabbit ear hat £26)
Who could resist a fur trapper hat, complete with bunny ears!? I love faux fur accessories, which means i'm very lucky as they're everywhere this season! The contrast between the fur and the knit in the headband is great for the heritage trend, and is incredibly versitile: perfect for dressing up or down.

(Bright patterned snood £20, Fur cape £50, Knit snood £16)
The bold aztec pattern on the snood looks lovely, and would be a great focal point for a plain outfit or jacket. I love snoods both because of their modern style and their practicality; they're great for keeping out a draft and can be used to cover your head and your neck if you have a lack-of-hat emergency!

Sadly I don't need anymore winter accessories: in fact, i'm prepared to admit that my hats and scarves box is so overloaded I probably need to cull some so that it'll fit in my wardrobe. But it's such an easy way to update your winter look without having to buy an expensive new coat! My Isabella Oliver winter coat from last year is still in really good condition, so i'll be adding a snood and furry hat to it, and noone (except all of you, of course!) will ever know....

Love, Tor xx

HT Headwear: More hats on the lust-have list!

My love of hats and headwear in all it's many forms is well documented. I have more hats and hair pieces than i've been to weddings. So I always get excited when i'm invited to look at a collection from a designer i've never heard of: as Forest Gump once said, you never know what you're gonna get.

HT Headwear is Helen Talbot, a British milliner who only ever works with home grown British materials. I love the story about how the company got started, because it reminds me so much of myself (without the talent, and hat-making skills, of course)... "Not wanting something everybody else had, or having to compromise on style, she set out to make her own headpiece. With a degree in textiles under her belt and a millinery course taken years ago for a bit of fun, she was well equipped to design and make something unique to her that nobody else would have! After completing stunning headpieces for herself, her mother and her four bridesmaids, HT was hooked and now creates stunning unique headwear for private clients nationwide."

Because I have weddings on the brain, my immediate thought was how much I love the bridal collection for myself (yes, I know; selfish!) but there's so much more to these collections than that. There's something for my fashion conscious mum, something for a day at the races, and even little posies for garden parties or any other occassion you want to make the effort for. I am head over heels-edly in love with these simple flowers scattered through the hair: perfect with casual curls, and you could still put your veil over the top, and have great hair when you remove the veil for the evening do:

This is perfect for me because I want a dramatic veil and gorgeous evening hair, but without the fuss - i'm just not a sequins and tiara kind of gal! If I hadn't set my heart on a floor length veil, these bird cage veils are gorgeous; perfect for a 50s-style or city weddding.

Sorry, I know I keep sneaking weddings in here, but I can't help myself! Having said that, 'tis the season of merangue-like confectionary and wedding invitations, and if you have any nuptials to attend that it might be worth checking out HT Headwear: each piece is lust-worthy, and because they're bespoke pieces you don't run the risk of wearing the same Debenhams "must have" pieces as everyone else.

Love, Tor x

Fabfrocks loves Victoria Shearing Millinery

With the news of my sisters engagement spreading through the family camp like wildfire, all family talk recently is of weddings: what to wear, what she should wear, where, when......you get the idea!

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So it struck me as funny when a press release about Victoria Shearing Millinery Launching her Debut Bridal Collection landed in my inbox this morning. Out of curiosity I clicked on the link: One look at the designs and I found them so beautiful I knew I had to share:

I love the third one especially (the veil crown) which is very much to my sisters taste: the feathers and the flamoyance are more for me really!!

Victoria Shearing (http://www.victoriashearing.com/) creates stunning and unique couture head pieces, fascinators and tiaras for special occasions. Designed and hand crafted in her studio, Victoria uses her creativity and knowledge of millinery and haberdashery to create both seasonal collections and bespoke pieces.

All head pieces are hand blocked, individually hand trimmed and lined to a high specification not found on the high street.

I initially clicked selflessly thinking of my sister, but that didn't last long! I might have Victoria design our headpieces for the wedding, and then I (and other bridesmaid/sister Amie) can steal the show!! (Insert evil laugh here!)

Of course i'm joking, but if you do have a wedding to go to then I think you could do a lot worse than one of these beautiful handmade headpieces, for not much more money than a mass produced one from the highstreet!

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Love, Tor xx

A Force to be reckoned with!

I know i've written about the millinary wonder that is Tour de Force before, but another glance at the website forces me (oh humour, where art thou!?) to mention them again.

For those of you who missed the last piece, or don't read any of the other thousands of blogs that have featured her work in the past couple of months, here's the blurb: TOUR DE FORCE believes in offering feminine and flattering designs by creating innovative sculptural forms using luxurious fabrics and intricate detail. Inspiration is drawn from Performance Art and the manipulation of graphic line.

Camille Roman, designer and founder of TOUR DE FORCE graduated from Womenswear at Central St. Martins, and gained studio experience at Lanvin, Zac Posen and Johnny Loves Rosie before launching her own range of luxury accessories.

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I went to the website to gaze lustfully at the dada bells piece, which I am considering handing over some hard earned cash for as a "pay day treat." However I got far more than I bargained for: Why didn't anyone tell me that the lovely Camille also makes Couture pieces!?

Although obviously these pieces arent built for wearing to the office, or the supermarket, or on a night out or...well, you get the idea, aren't they structurally superb? And how do they stand up unaided like that? Hat engineers, I wait for your response with baited breath!

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Camille's influences aren't subtle (i'm seeing the statue of liberty crossed with king tritan, a rio carnival, a spring baby and Queen Victoria in mourning) but the results are astounding. And I would be thrilled to wear a smaller version of the tritan piece to my sisters graduation. Or one of the bows just about anywhere! It must be love...

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Love, Tor x

Popping on a party hat!

Tomorrow is my birthday. I have taken the day off work (which is naughty really, as I only went back today after last weeks sick week!) and plan to have a wander around Spitalfields with my boyfriend, eat a square pie, and maybe catch a mooovie. Then it's home to change followed by dinner out with friends. A lovely day, indeed! But what would be even more lovely is if, in lieu of paper party hats favoured by Christmas cracker companies, everyone turned up in a Lolitasummer tiny little mini-hat. Because, of course, it isn't really a celebration without a birthday badge and everyone wearing a hat!

Despite this being dinner rather than lunch, in these hats it would be like the prim-est, proper-est (these hats make me make up words!) little tea party and everyone would look like a porcelain doll! The maker of these fabulous hats claims to have a helpless obsession with Alice in the Wonderland. And it really shows!

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Although, there are only 12 designs for sale on the etsy page, that's more than enough for one each with a little selection for me!

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I don't know why I fell in love with these dinky hats so much; usually I crave something over the top, with colours and feathers flying out in every direction. But today, just this once, I would be truly happy with a little understated lace and button and pastel coloured whimsy perching bravely on top of my head. Who knows, maybe its a sign that my tastes are getting less garish as I age....but I suspect maybe not!!
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Love, Tor xx

PS - Is anyone else wondering whether you could DIY something this pretty and dainty at home? I have a sneaking suspicion I will be raiding my scraps and button boxes tonight to find out!!