dress me up in elber albaz

Those of you who knew me way back in November 2009 might remember how excited I was about the Dress Me Up charity thingy at Topshop. I posted on it a few times (for example: here). Our favourite celebrities and designers donated their dresses for charity, and people were able to rent them for their Christmas parties, with the idea that later, the dresses would be auctioned off.





Anyway, the auction is now happening, thru the wonderful Kerry Taylor Auctions. (The Christopher Kane 'Atomic Bomb' resort dress, for example, starts @ £50). By bizarre coincidence, I went to their Audrey Hepburn pre-auction viewing. Which I posted about a few times. I didn't realise that Kerry Taylor was doing the auction for Dress Me Up as well.



(I should add: Topshop doesn't get anything for this, and neither do I: it all goes to charity for Age Concern, and since we're all headed in that direction if we don't manage to get ourselves killed first, I feel it's a pretty good cause).




The auction is Tuesday March 16th at 10.30am, with viewing open to the public on Sunday 14th 12-4.30pm and Monday 15th 9.30-5pm. It's too large to be held in their Pall Mall space, so it's out in Dulwich at their warehouse: 40 Martell Road, West Dulwich, London, SE21 8EN
Just go to their site, or via Invaluable. Should be great fun, I'm going to try to make it on Monday, so maybe I'll see you there. If not, please spread the word!




As you can see I'm in a kind of sea green/nudes sort of colour mood today, altho I've shot a ton more than I'm showing here. From top to bottom: Patricia in Kate Moss's Lanvin by Elber Albaz, Nicola Robert's custom made tour dress, Olivia Palermo's Armani frock, Kimberly Stewart's beaded number by Antik Batik, Richard Nicholl's print dress + Christopher Kane's Atomic Bomb resort dress (starting price: only £50!!), Jourdan Dunne's Herve Leger, me trying to stuff myself into said Leger, and back full circle to Patricia in Kate's Lanvin dress.



No wonder she's smiling. I bet Kate's got plenty of happy memories in this dress. Have a lovely weekend, everyone. Hope you're busy making your own happy memories.

bobby

It wasn't just the stories of the clothes at the recent auction of Audrey Hepburn's wardrobe that fascinated me: each person I met had an interesting story, a connection, a reason they showed up that morning. Two people, male and female, flew in from Ireland for the day just for the exhibit (& didn't know each other). And I've just received the most beautifully written letter from Alex, who works for Kerry Taylor (which I'll post soon). AND from the woman from Ireland: fascinating story.



Or Bobby, shown here, who works nearby for the British Council (he's also in a band) and just felt drawn to the exhibition. It was kind of like Close Encounters of the Third Kind: all of us, seemingly so different, yet we felt compelled to show up.



He told me that his girlfriend, Imogen, love sixties style, and she & sells vintage sixties clothes. He then pointed to this dress and said 'she has a dress just like this one, in fact.'



Then later that day, he sent me this shot, which I remember seeing posted on a blog. I knew he looked familiar. Can't wait to meet Imogen & do a little shoot with the two of them.



I didn't realise we could ask to inspect the clothes, in this case, the Givenchy haute couture herring-bone tweed jacket, worn in 'How to Steal a Million', 1966.



Okay, that's probably enough Audrey style for one day. Well, just one more: A Givenchy 'haute couture silver and white brocatelle evening coat and bodice, probably Autumn-Winter 1966'. No story for this one, apart from Audrey's own memories. We'll just have to use our imagination.