Karl 'n Paris

Back to Paris. One absolutely freezing day, we were doing some touristy stuff, but at the same time trying not to look touristy. Later in the afternoon, we were on a mission to find Colette. We were not that successful, we even resulted to using our infamous tour guide. FOUND COLETTE... Across the road from Colette, staring quite intently in the general direction of the boutique, all of us think why is there such a hustle and bustle outside the shop? So we cross the road, get close to the door, I'm standing at the back of my friends. I see some of them get pushed back.. Paparazzi everywhere, screaming Paris, Paris.. I was like why are they shouting where we're at. But I was mistaken it was only Paris Hilton. Yeah so we were trying to walk in the door and she was walking out. Really manic.





The more important part to this post is, when we got back from Premier Vision. We got back to our hotel. I needed to go to the Chanel store, I was on the hunt for some particular Chanel items. So my friends came along with me to the main Chanel store at 31 Rue Cambon, as I wasn't able to get what I was looking for in any of the other stores. When we were finished we went outside, as you do, when you want to leave some place, mind you I would never want to leave 31 Rue Cambon. I will be living above there soon. So we cross the road, as I wanted to have a good look at the fashion house. It was so pretty. We all stood there in a line next to one another. We were all looking in different directions around the place. We stood near this really manky Hummer H2, we were like I bet you the person who owns this jeep is in the Chanel store. I clocked a glass door, one of which wasn't for the store. I then just heard a door buzzer, I focus in on the door, which started to open. Out came KARL LAGERFELD, with some other people. He was walking towards the manky Hummer. He started to get into the manky Hummer, aaahhhh the manky Hummer was his. But lets forget about the Hummer. We were standing about 2 metres from him. He is one of my favourite designers and an idol of mine. Totally mesmerized, we were scared to say or do anything, even though we do regret this, but it was enough to see him. We were in shock for quite some time. When his car started to pull away, we got all giggly and I was like not in front of the shop, over there, over there, away from the shop windows and out of sight of any Chanel employees. We did not want to be dissed for what we did next, like a bunch of fan girls, standing in this perfect formation, we screamed, jumped and done a lot of OMG-ing, like the social networking whores that we are, we got out our phones and let friends, family and the Internet know what had just happened. It was much like a scene out of Gossip Girl, without any bitching, sleeping with friends and carrying a sewing machine around the streets, Miss Jenny Humphrey (Little J).



Coco

Paris Trip: Textiles & Celebrties

On a recent university trip to Paris, I learned the true meaning of what it is to be COLD. Living in Scotland, I’m no stranger to icy winds and cold feet, but Paris defeated me. Several times we thought about jumping off the Eiffel tower cause ‘heaven would be warmer’. We all arrived back in one piece however.

The main reason for the trip was of course fashion. We went to two textile trade fairs, Premier Vision and Texworld. We bumped in to two celebrities, one more infinitely exciting than the other. Which is a good way to describe the trade fairs too.

Texworld (let’s call it the Paris Hilton of trade fairs) was…fine. I love fabric, and when I started studying fashion I became a bit of a fabric snob, messing about with silk satin and linen and openly laughing at synthetics.. But. Texworld. If I’d been going as a buyer of fabric, or with some sort of souring mission, I think I would have enjoyed it. Most of us spent a large portion of time in the rest area, where there was large bean bag chairs.

There was some beautiful fabric though, and I think it’s a shame that some of it will probably never made it to fabric shops, giving the little people a chance to buy it. Minimum orders were sometimes not pretty.

Premier Vision (Let’s call it the Karl Lagerfeld of trade fairs) was really great. It’s HUGE, and I’m pretty sure if you can’t find it at premier Vision, it just doesn’t exist. I noticed that at the Indigo section the UK seemed to really dominate the printed textile market, with more companies from the UK than any other. A couple of university’s were showing there too, and I thought it was a real shame that The Scottish School of textiles wasn’t represented in anyway.

The indigo Section also had a amazing vintage section, where designers could buy vintage pieces as inspiration. So much of the vintage on show was devastatingly incredible, and if I had had a few hundred euro to spare, I would have loved to have bought something. Prices were very high, but so was the quality- these people are expert source-ers- so it was understandable.

I’m leaving it up to Athif to give you the low down on our celebrity sightings, and tourist times.

We got our picture taken by the organisers of Le Cuir Paris (the fur and leather section of premier vision)
From Left to right:






Frannie, Leanne, Me and Sam








Emily X