Tuesday 9th Sept: "Dimensions & Outlook" by night, Croatia

For full explanation of this end of Summer blow-out music festival set across two weekends and various locations of Pula, Croatia - please see previous post on Dimensions & Outlook.  

Majority of these photos by me and some stolen from my accomplice partner-in-crime Teo Connor's Instagram WProject.  

Here you can see Loren, Sara and Nell from WorkIt and new venture FAM agency, who represent artists that dj'd at the festivals - inc. Rivah and Siobhan Bell snapped in this group shot from the Lauryn Hill concert, supported by Andrew Ashong (silhouette above) and Fatima (also above, singing with Funkineven at the Eglo Records stage).

Tuesday 9th Sept: "Dimensions & Outlook" by day, Croatia

I began the year welcoming in and celebrating New Year's day by dancing under the stars and palms on the beach in Tulum at the Young Turks Music Festival.  Incredibly it has panned out that I started as I meant to go on, with more travel to follow and foreign festival antics.  Last week we made our Summer holiday as the second part to our Winter sun by re-grouping for a trip to Croatia for both Dimensions and Outlook Festivals.  Fort Punta Christo in the port town of Pula has become home to these consecutive events with stages set on the beach, sprawling to the ruins of an ancient fort in the woodland and back up to the main harbour's 2,000 year old Roman Amphitheatre.  Therefore I  had a myriad of different musical experiences including swimming in the sea at salmon-pink sunset listening to a set from Mo Kolours ................. to literally drowning in beats and a thunderstorm downpour whilst dancing to (the aptly named) Floating Points ............ to a magic twilight surprise of an unexpected 2nd appearance from Caribou in the forest clearing ............. to a gigantic stadium scale sound-system concert from Lauryn Hill in the amphitheatre .............

The only integral institution that I managed to miss was joining the daily boat parties which we did try to catch up with on recommendation of a James Bond style motor-boat out to track down the departed party, but funnily enough that vision didn't quite come into fruition .......... but that's another story!

Here are a mix of photos from general Pula sight-seeing, beach lazy days and dancing with our extended crew of the FAM network including CKTRL, BlackFoot Phoenix & James Massiah.   See the following post for images from the night-time perspective of the festivals..

Thursday 4th Sept: "Pack Mentality" in The Sunday Times Style

A year of running and a year of banging on about how it has changed my life via the space on this blog seems to have rippled out further into the running community and consciousness. Earlier in the summer I was approached by The Sunday Times to take part in their "Fit Not Thin" campaign as a face for the feature on women who run.  Here I am in snaps from the shoot day with fellow feisty females Emily Deyn, Claire Chanelle Bedford, Flossie Saunders and Elle Hankinson.  A few of us are coincidentally part of RunDemCrew and cast alongside fitness blogger Chouquette and SStyle journalist Flossie - all demonstrating in unison that its possible to fit time into our schedules for fitness.  Both Elle and Emily travel alot with their work but tie in running whilst away to discover cities and train for upcoming races, such as Elle's epic Ultra Marathon.  I'm currently abroad myself ( on holiday however) in Croatia so I haven't had a chance to read the report yet, but you can find the full article here, and Chouquette's Blog here.  I will refrain from repeating myself on the virtues of the urban sport as it's all in previous posts and I want to keep content fresh and fun, rather than slipping into potential preacher mode of this movement!........... but really, I can't recommend it enough!!!!!  LOVE IT!!!!

For the shoot I styled myself in my dream techno-colour combination of leggings by Primavera Fitness, Stripey top by Auria and shoes, windsheeter and sportsbra by NIKE. 

Saturday 30th Aug: Redbull Music Academy Notting Hill Carnival - Art Direction and costumes

Here are my photos from Carnival Day at the Redbull Music Academy Soundsystem party with Lakwena in front of one of her murals and the dancers in my costumes which I designed to echo Lakwena's visuals.  

Friday 29th Aug: Mentoring for Somewhere_to with Kay Davis & Shireeka Devlin

As part of the Summer of Somewhereto_ scheme I spent a day sharing my studio and mentoring skills with two up-and-coming designers.  The photos of Shireeka Devlin and I above were taken by Kay Davis - so there isn't a shot of herself, but if you watch the video from the experience you will see her beautiful colourful vision.  Here we are making pieces for the Carnival costumes, chatting about the industry at large and getting to know each other better in this one-on-one capacity.

If you are between 16-25, head over to the site to find out more about how you can access free studio space set up by the incredible initiative.

See my blog post from the launch here.

Thursday 28th Aug: Redbull Music Academy Notting Hill Carnival - Art Direction and costumes - the prep

Notting Hill Carnival is my absolute favourite weekend of the year and dreaming of it's arrival coming closer is the only thing that gets me thru the Winter months.  2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the festivities and luckily I got to work on in it via the Red Bull Music Academy Soundsystem.  Alongside Lakwena, we collaborated on the identity for the artwork of the party which ran across the posters ahead of the celebration to the awnings which decorated under the Westway on the day.   Lakwena designed the graphics for the pattern with reference to my masks, and I then in turn referenced her shapes to integrate into the costumes for the dancers.  The whole thing combined in full scale murals which Lakwena patiently painted by hand, including the press board backdrop for backstage.  Photos of all of this will follow in a 2nd post, but here is a sneak peak of the preparations that took place in making of the costumes............. including threading my own beaded fringing because I couldn't find one I liked.  Every detail was made in-house from bending wire frames to dying fabric and feathers to sewing bespoke measurement teeny tiny thongs from scratch.   I wish I could just glue-gun some rhinestones to a headband and be done with it, but unfortunately I always seem to end up with the most time-consuming laborious process to realise the most cosmic spectrum that I can concoct.