Fall Designer Fair in Strasbourg

Finally, the designer fair time has come and gone ! It was in Strasbourg this week-end (in the East of France), which is a really nice city. I wish I could have stayed one more day to visit... and to see it in the daylight!

I did not bother too much about the booth, since it is all ready to set up now ! I just had to finish a lot of pieces to show there... The hard part about it was having to get there for 7 am in the cold ;o) It took us only 3 hours to set it up.

Many different crafts were exhibited there: painting, sculpting, metalworking... Made me wish I had a big house and enough money to buy one of each!

There weren't too many visitors on the first day, since it poured down all day long. This is how I realised the tent was waterproof... only up to a certain amount of water !

But the following day was great, it even almost felt like summer ;o) Luckily, there was two of us to welcome people on the booth, because I would never have coped with the crowd by myself ^-^

All in all, it was a tiring, but great fair. And now... I'm off to start all the custom orders!

Fall Fashion Sneak Previews

I'm currently being taken over by time... My next exhibition is in two weeks, and will take place in another beautiful castle, see by yourself...

Of course I am not totally ready, but now that September is beginning, I really feel holidays are over... So I'll start serious work tomorrow? I always want to make a gazillion new things before a show :)

Thanks for your comments on my look proposals! I relied a bit on it for my last photo session...
Here are a few sneak peaks of what will be next in my shop :-)

Runway show and designer fair

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the last designer fair I went to was taking place in this castle, near Nancy, in the eastern part of France.


I am quite pleased with the way my tent looked! By chance, I was under the same tent as a friend who makes beautiful jewelry, and has the same kind of "universe" as I do, so it really looked like both sides of the tent were really one thing. It got funny though after a few people asked "But how do you find the time to make ALL this???" "Mmmm... actually I only make the clothes :-)"







A big show was organised in the evening, to showcase all the talents reunited there, among which various dancers, costumed artists... here are pictures of the runway, where lovely models showed off Malam clothes. Some of them are pictured below...

(All pictures by Yann. )

It was a bit stressful to help the models into the clothes in the dark (because the light from the window of the castle would have been seen by the audience.. . so we had no light :-/ )

 but the result was great all the same!

 One of the dresses actually got sold right afterwards :-)

How to create an ambiance ... (Part I)

When I learnt I was going to take part in a fair in a castle, I thought...No way I was going to have plain white tent walls! I needed to have a castle-worthy decoration:-)

A few flea markets later, I had almost everything I needed:
- an old steamer trunk I fell in love with... The inside was all dirty so my mum and I made it like new again by gluing bluewallpaper inside, cleaning and varnishing the outside, sticking bits of old newspapers on the side...( and I glued back inside the old picture that was under the lid!)





- a second, smaller trunk because it was lovely too, and shone like new once revarnished
- a wicker folding screen my mum revarnished



- a round folding table
- a small chandelier to light up the scene.

I had the choice between two chandeliers, but I think I chose the best one :-) For what I needed at least! My mum made the second one on the right from an old lantern.

Oh, and I needed a better mirror than the plain one I had been using so far, and which would not have fit at all in the castle ambiance! So, from another flea market, came this easel. We made a mock up of a mirror with a frame that we had, and I planned to cut my plain mirror to the frame's dimension.


Rummaging in the attic, we found the rest of the necessary elements:
- satin curtains
- old frames
- a bronze vase
- a red carpet
- a candelabrum

I was told I would have a 9m2 tent to myself, so we did a mock up of the setting... I was quite happy with it! I had to refrain from preparing more decoration though, because... I had to fit the clothes racks somewhere :-)
This was a full week-end's work, but... It was worth it, wasn't it?