Dress Me Beautiful – Haute Couture Up North

Posted in Blogging, Fashion.

On Tuesday 19th October, I trotted along to Leeds City Museum with Miss Lucy for Leeds Fashion Show 2010. I was delighted to be invited along as I firmly believe the North needs more events like this – why should us Northern girls have to jump on a train (at a hefty cost, might I add) every time we need a fashion fix?

Leeds is a city jam packed with stylish, creative people, but with a lack of fashion-focused entertainment they flit to the Big Smoke without a backwards glance. Are events like Leeds Fashion Show enough to keep the loyalties of the fickle fashion set with their hometown?

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Leeds City Museum


The show was held in Leeds City Museum – somewhere I’d (shamefully) never been. I loved the location. It was lavish with a local twist – a map of Leeds on the floor.

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Accent’s collection was my favourite. These two dresses in particular really caught my eye.

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Loved both these jumpsuits – killer shoulders, cute hood!

The collections were a mix of so fabulous, so so and so not my thing. High fashion has never been my passion. If I can’t see myself wearing it walking down the street, I don’t get it. But the atmosphere, the music, the lights – you can’t help but get caught up in the moment, and I found myself trying to think of situations where a hooded jumpsuit would be appropriate attire (I couldn’t).

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I adore the simplicity of the two dresses

The styling of the models was fantastic – their hair and makeup was suitably dramatic, and I particularly loved the faux-mohawks as they came strutting towards me. Some of the models could’ve used a session with Miss J Runway Diva Coach Extraodinaire (TM), but overall the show was a fantastic night out.

Leeds Fashion Show can’t compete with its London counterparts but that’s okay, because it’s not trying to. We’ve got our own thing going on here – it’s style with a smile; fashion with a Yorkshire accent. And it only cost me £5.50 for a few hours in the car park. Take that, London!

22 Comments

Nicola

None of the clothes appeal to me. I find that when we try to do ‘fashion’ up here it’s all super edgy designs, and I’d really rather see more toned down stuff focusing on classic cuts and colour. The super edgy stuff seems to be overkill to me, it’s like a big “we can be as cool as London, look!” and it just comes off like a 12 year old dressing up in her older sister’s wardrobe.

Fab floor, though. 🙂

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Alice

Looks like a wonderful night! And great that it was held in Leeds.
The last dress looks stunning, though i’m not too sure about the hooded jumpsuit either xx

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Vintage Vixen

Loving the ruffled number in the penultimate picture. I enjoy the more ridiculous elements of catwalk shows, Jem and I were in stitches at LFW whilst all the youngsters were scribbling notes and taking it very seriously.
Nice to see some hot, sexy girls modelling the clothes rather than a miserable coathanger. xxx

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Pearl Westwood

It annoying how nothing ever happens up North, Ive been to a few fashion shows like this but they never come close to anything in London such a shame. I do like that hooded jumpsuit though!

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Jen

@Nicola – I completely agree about the designers trying too hard. Some of the collections just screamed WACKY!!!! when really I was looking for wearable pieces with a twist that was unique to the designer. I do genuinely like the pieces I’ve featured here though.

@Pearl – I agree, Leeds Fashion Show was nowhere near the scale of anything in London, but without the heavyweight designers it’s hard to imagine where they’d get the budget for that kind of show.

@Laura – I didn’t mention the auction because I actually left after the first lot. I found it excruciating (as I find most auctions!) and not in keeping with the theme of the night. But I didn’t stay for the whole thing, so didn’t want to comment in case it had dramatically improved (I guess not)!

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beatifnik

Great post, Jen. I’m with you, we need more fab stuff like this for us Northern fashionistas, even if it means doing it ourselves. Love the jumpsuits in this post! xx

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vint junky

Love the hooded jumpsuits, and in my opinion any occassion is ok to wear one! Life’s too short to be sensible!!
I have one and I wore it to work. you get some funny looks and it’s best just to return it with a scowl 😉

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Lucy

We definitely need more events like this in Leeds, everything is so London-centric. Thank you for inviting me hun. I had fun! xx

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Helen

Argh I am getting so fed up of so many fashiony/blogger events being in London! It ends up with all the London bloggers being BFF and us northerners feeling like smelly kids in the corner haha. I am jealous though.

People need to realise there is a world outside London!

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Kelly

I think Leeds sounds to me like it held it’s own. It’s a shame it’s all about London with a lot of events. I live in Bedfordshire and find it hard getting there etc, so can’t imagine how you northern ladies manage it.

xx

p.s Love the sound of the hair styling

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Laura

I love that Leeds has had a big part to play in making people realise that there’s more to fashion than London. I’m a mega Leeds fan and I’ve never lived more than 50 minutes away and I spend so much time in the city – and I literally just got a conditional offer to study at Leeds University! Might be staying around yet…

Laura
asifby-magic.blogspot.com

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Ayden

looks like a fabby night missus! 🙂 random location, looks like it worked though eh! I wish some of these events happened even FURTHER north, feel like not much goes on up here in scotland, in terms of blogger events too! 🙁

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Alex

Rothwell is in the first photo!! Yay!! My grandma and grandad lived there and I grew up round the corner so that little piece of floor art has made me really smile 🙂 Thanks Jen!

It was Liverpool Fashion week last week too – I didn’t get to any of the events but my dad’s sort-of-step-daughter was modelling in quite a few of them and had an absolute ball. I thoroughly approve of the Northern cities doing their own thing.

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