The Company Magazine Style Blogger Awards 2012

Last night, I attended the long awaited Company Magazine Style Blogger awards for 2012. It was a really fun night, and a brilliant excuse to catch up with a few of my wonderful blogger buddies. Although I didn't win, it was a genuine joy to see members of the blogging community recognised for all of their hard work and efforts - plus I've discovered some new blogs to add to my reader!

Here's the full list of winners for your reading pleasure:

Best "What I'm Wearing Today" Blog
Winner: 5 Inch and Up

Most Gorgeous Photography

Winner: Wish Wish Wish

Best Celebrity Style Watch Blog

Winner: Red Carpet Fashion Awards

Best Blog for Crafty Girls

Winner: Flossie Teacakes

Best "We Love Vintage" Blog

Winner: What Katie Wore

Best Street Style Blog

Winner: Face Hunter

Best Blog for High Street Lovers
Winner: LLYMLRS

Best Fashion Insider Blog

Winner: Style Bubble

Best Blog for Catwalk Coverage

Winner: Style Bubble

Best Overall Blog

Winner: 5 Inch and Up

While it was great to catch up with so many of my friends from the wonderful world of blogging, unfortunately not everyone could be there on the night. My beloved Natasha Bailie, who was also nominated and currently resides in Singapore, really wanted to join us but funnily enough wasn't able to make the commute. As I didn't have the money for a plane ticket, I decided to do the next best thing and bring her beautiful face along with me!

Natasha takes a close look at the Style Blogger Awards

The vintage crew catch up with their favourite Bailie

Carina of Carina 100, Maria of Ruby Cadillac, Reena of Fashion Daydreams and Kristabel of I Want You To Know

Reena gets Natasha liquored up

Natasha and I go head to head

How did she get up there?!

Fiona of Save Our Shoes and Lucy of Shiny Thoughts have a chat with the Bailie

Natasha, I hope you had a good night! I think I speak for everyone when I say it was lovely to see you.

I want to say a huge thank you to Company Magazine for nominating me and inviting me along on the night. I had a great time, and hopefully I'll be back again next year!

Much love,

Frankie

Swell Vintage

x

What the world needs now...

Unless you've been living in a cave with no access to news from the outside world for the last couple of days, you'll have heard about the recent tragedies that have taken place - the shootings in Norway, China's bullet train crash and, of course, Amy Winehouse.

If these last two days have taught us anything, it's just how very precious life is. Although I have been deeply saddened by all of these occurences, I've decided to take today to celebrate life and to tell the people that I love just how much I care about them. And that includes you, my dear reader.

Since I started this blog nearly three years ago , I have met so many new people and have made some great friends. Not just in the "online" sense either - I'm talking about real friends that I care deeply for, and that I am now very close to. Then Twitter came along, and it's allowed a lonely freelancer like me to converse with more wonderful people on a daily basis.

Just some of the great blogger friends I have made...I am a very lucky girl.

In short, I am extremely grateful for you, internet. And I love you. These last few days have reminded me of a quote from 'V for Vendetta'. Yes, I am a massive geek, but the sentiment is true:

I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the worlds turns, and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that, even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you.

So why not go and tell someone you love just how much you care about them right now? I promise you won't regret it.

Much love,

Frankie
Swell Vintage

x

Rocking it, vintage-style

Yesterday I attended the Rokit Vintage bloggers event at their warehouse in Seven Sisters, and you know what? It was bloody amazing!

I've always liked Rokit because they make vintage accessible for everyone, as it should be. Their prices are very reasonable, and I've always found their branches to be friendly and welcoming - not cold with hiked up prices like some vintage boutiques. They also embrace new emerging design talent with their Rokit Designer's Guild while still staying true to their proud sustainable ethos.

More than that, Rokit know how to have FUN with vintage! And fun was definitely had by at their event yesterday!




To say that the Rokit warehouse was like an Aladdin's cave of vintage is almost an understatement - it was more like a Haven of vintage! Boxes and sacks of vintage clothing and accessories surround the walls, stacked to the ceiling, while individual items hang from a network of rails spanning from wall to wall. They stock supply seems never ending, and makes me feel like much less of a hoarder!



We were treated to delicious afternoon tea, courtesy of the famous Vintage Patisserie. Everything was served on the most beautiful vintage china, and I have to say the scones with pink sugar were pretty damn incredible!

My chubby hand reaching for a cake...nails were done on the day by the incredible ladies at The Illustrated Nail - photo courtesy of Fashion Daydreams.

The best part of the day, in my opinion, was being allowed to try on ANY of their amazing vintage items. ANY of them. And as much as we wanted! I'm not sure Rokit knew what had hit them, but the afternoon bore a strong resemblance to a classic movie dress-up montage...but with a lot more laughing and jumping in the air.

Fiona of Save Our Shoes evoking some Kate Bush circa Wuthering Heights


Lucy of Snippets of Shiny Thoughts mixes her prints


Me wearing a floral number (that I know own) - photo courtesy of Fashion Daydreams


Sabina from Access Fashion was on a roll with her dress up look!


Kit of Style Slicker looked adorable in floral prints


Reena of Fashion Daydreams and Sabrina of The Science of Style rocking the varisty look - photo courtesy of Fashion Daydreams.


Nik, PR genius and founder of KARLISMYUNKLE does Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air (styled by Reena and I) - photo courtesy of Fashion Daydreams.


Me turbaning it out (geddit?) - photo courtesy of Fashion Daydreams.

As if the millions of photos weren't enough, I also made a (very) short video. I originally started filming because Reena of Fashion Daydreams decided to put on rollerskates, and I saw the potential opportunity to make £200 by sending the footage of her falling on her arse into You've Been Framed, but unfortunately it was not to be...


The video can be seen bigger and better on my YouTube page.

I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone at Rokit Vintage, in particular the lovely Imogen, for having us and letting us run riot in your amazing warehouse like kids in a vintage sweet shop. I also want to praise the efforts of PR legend and all-round handsome devil Nik Thakkar for organising a super-fun day.

Swell Vintage LOVES Rokit Vintage (oh look, we have the same surname!).

Much love,

Frankie
Swell Vintage

x

Blogger love, actually

On Friday I had the distinct pleasure and joy of meeting up with roughly 20 of my closest blogger friends at The Drunken Monkey in Shoreditch. I know it may sound a little strange to have blogger friends to some people, but I believe we have to accept that in this day and age the online world is fast becoming the key place to connect with others. Twitter in particular has introduced me to so many wonderful people that I am extremely proud to now call my friends, and I hope it continues to.

Dim sum was nommed, cocktails were drunk and good chats were in abundance. In short, it was an awesomely fun night. Here's the proof:

My one true love, Natasha Bailie, and I


The lovely Katie of London Plinth, Fiona of Save Our Shoes and Natasha


Alex of Alex Loves, Kate of The Fabric of my Life and Lira Leirner of The Portmanteau


Fiona and the beautiful brain behind Style East


The gorgeous Reena of Fashion Daydreams and I


Maria of mediacation, Mariana of Sketchbook Magazine, Kb of I Want You to Know and the dashing Nik of mediacation

It was geniunely a pleasure to spend the evening in the company of so many brilliant people, and I can't wait for the next opportunity to eat, drink and be merry with them all again. See you there?

In other news, the Motorola shoot went well! I've got behind-the-scenes photos, but I think it'll be better to wait for the final shots...tune in next week if you fancy a look!

Until next time...

Much love,

Frankie
Swell Vintage

Phone-a-face

Apologies for the quickie nature of this post. I hope you don't feel cheap or used at all.

I just wanted to say a HUGE "thank you" to everyone who voted for my face in the Motorola #hip2bsquare competition. Turns out I am one of the five lucky winners, and my photoshoot is taking place this very weekend - eeekk! Between you and I, because you're a good friend of mine, I'm absolutely terrified! I'm not a model by ANY stretch of the imagination, but I think the whole experience will be a lot of fun. Please cross your pretty fingers for me?! I'll need all the luck I can get!

Here's the sexy new Motorola phone that my face will soon be associated with:

Photo courtesy of Motorola

If you're nosey or bored on Saturday, you can see how the shoot is going by following me on Twitter (@swellvintage). While you're there, you should also follow the fabulous brains and stylists behind the whole shoot - Nik Thakkar (@nikthakkar), Matthew Zorpas (@prwonderland) and Alize Morand (@alizemorand).

In other news, I'm also very excited to be attending a brilliant blogger meet up on Friday, kindly organised by my dear friend Fiona of Save Our Shoes. I will be taking lots of pictures for your viewing pleasure. Hopefully I shall see you there, lovely ladies and gents!

Much love,

Frankie
Swell Vintage

x

Swell weekend

...and what a weekend it's been!

Yesterday Fiona of Save Our Shoes (my winner) and I went to London Fashion Weekend, courtesy of 3mobilebuzz, to take in some fashion and tweet with some other blogging ladies. If you were on Twitter yesterday, you were probably bombarded by our tweets throughout the day from our 3 mobile phones! I was given a HTC Hero, which took a little getting used to, but over all it's a very fancy phone. If you love a gadget, you'll love this phone.

(Fiona and I)

Fiona, Siobhan of 1000heads, Carrie of Wish Wish Wish, Katie of Unicorn Katie and Michelle of 1000heads.

Natasha of Natasha Bailie and Lindsey of Be Gorgeous

Armed with our special 3 mobile phones, we were ready to take on the day! The first thing we did when we all arrived was head straight to Luella:

I literally couldn't believe my eyes when we got in there - so many beautiful things for ridiculously low sale prices! It is incredibly sad that Luella is no more, so we decided to do our bit for this worthy cause...

(Part of) Carrie, Lindsey, Sarah from 3mobile, Fiona, Michelle and I

I'm head-over-heels in love with my new bag, and Fiona also managed to score a bargain


Natasha Bailie (who owns an awesome vintage shop, by the way) bought the most amazing vintage Christian Dior sunglasses!



After a bit of mooching around some incredible stands, we headed into the tent to watch some catwalk action.


I can't even express in words how much fun this (well, the whole day actually) was. All of these girls are absolutely amazing, and without gushing too much, I'm basically in love with all of them. The catwalk show was brilliant, but I have no doubt that it wouldn't have been as great if these ladies weren't with me.

Here are a couple of my favourite catwalk looks:

(It's Mecia, winner of Britain's Next Top Model!)

I really enjoyed Betty Jackson's pieces (bum ruffles are NOT just for children, FYI...) and all of the romance and floatiness that poured from the catwalk. Dreamy.

Basically I had the best Saturday ever! I got to spend the day looking at beautiful fashion with the loveliest people - what more could a girl want?! I want to say a huge giant THANK YOU to the lovely ladies at 1000heads and 3mobilebuzz for making our day so fantastic, and to all of my new gorgeous blogging friends - same time next year, ladies??

I think I'm rambled on and gushed quite enough for one day! Next week I'll be posting some photos of new designs (promise).

Much love,

Frankie
Swell Vintage

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