ILWF Next Top Designer Launch Party

ILWF Next Top Designer Launch Party

24.11.12

I was lucky enough to receive an email telling me that I'd won tickets to the LOVE (ILWF) party through Amy's blog, The Little Magpie a few weeks back (thanks Amy!). Yes, tickets - plural! So, I invited my housemate, Mandy, to come along with me for a trip down to London. We went to Leicester Square before hand for some dinner at Bella Italia, which was incredible! We both had pasta with chicken, mascarpone, lemon and (possibly) thyme - it was definitely as tasty as it sounds. We also paid a visit to the M&M World store - now, for me the smell in there made me feel a little nauseated... like the 'pumped out' smell outside Subway, but like inhaling the smell of a bag of freshly opened M&Ms over and over, blergh. But the inside of the store was pretty snazzy! Shamefully, I have no photos of that though.

A tube journey and a long walk later we arrived at the LOVE event after getting a bit lost! We were greeted by Mad PR and given some rather fan-dabby-dosy bags full of treats - from Nail Rock to Katy Perry lashes! We were also snapped as we went in! There were cupcakes, cava and sweets dotted around the studio - needless to say we took a few lollipops and drumsticks (I love retro sweets, nom!). We bumped into the lovely Lola from Pastime Bliss and had a natter - she runs a blog with her friend Fikki, if you haven't heard of it yet click that link now! You'll love it.

We pottered around and looked at some of LOVE's collection... but then we spotted the £10 rails, yeah, you heard me right! They were selling dresses, tops and so on for £10! I didn't realise that they'd be selling stock on the night, let alone at such a bargain price, so we had no cash on us to buy anything - pretty gutting. But Mandy has luckily been able to grab a couple from the sale section on the LOVE site for a similar price!

Inkwear Temp Tattoos were also there showing off their huge array of designs and so were Crown and Glory. We didn't really get to stay for too long due to having to travel all the way back to Nottingham that night, so it was a shame not to chat with either of these brands, but Crown and Glory were kind enough to send me one of the bow hair clips via post!

And, of course, the top 5 designs for the 'Next Top Designer' competition were modelled on the catwalk. I was genuinely really impressed by the designs, they all had a nice little quirky twist to them! Unfortunately we had to leave before the winner was announced but the winning dress (shown in the catwalk image) actually turned out to be my favourite! It will be sold on the LOVE website and potentially on the highstreet too - what an incredible prize for a designer with potential! We had a brilliant time  even though we couldn't stay until the end, so thanks to ILWF and Mad PR!