Momiji High Tea Party!

Hello everyone,

Just a little Couture Contest update. As you’ll probably know we were due to announce the winner on Monday but we’ll be bringing it forward by a day to Sunday 20th December as Royal/T are throwing a special Momiji High Tea Party in our honour to coincide with the unveiling of the exhibition. As this will take place on Sunday it makes sense to do everything at the same time.

The details will be on the main Momiji blog so you can expect to see the announcement early afternoon (UK time.)

Let us know if you have any questions,

Thanks again to you all!

Love

Momiji

x

p.s. we've sent this message to all entrants by email but have had a few bounce back...We'll keep trying xx

We'll be announcing the winner...

...on December 21st at 4pm on the Momiji blog. That's the day the exhibition will begin at Royal/T and the short-listed dolls will be unveiled for all to see.

Now that our new site is up and running we'll be putting all Couture Contest info up over there so make sure you check-in for all the news.

Big love to you all!

Momiji x

Photo credit http://www.flickr.com/photos/chelseaintal/

Judging

Hello everyone!

First of all we want to say how flabbergasted we were by your talent and dedication to the contest. It may sound cliched but we really were overwhelmed by the response. It's obvious that hours upon hours of love and dedication have been poured into the entries and we really can't thank you enough.

Just to give you an update on what's been happening since the closing date...the judging panel got together to study every single entry and awarded points to their favourites. At the moment we are finalising all the details (it's a pretty big job we had so many entries.)

Check back here next week for a timeline of what happenes next, we'll have lots more news then.

For now we'll leave you with a picture of the legendry Barbara Hulanicki at our judging meeting...

xx

Postal Strike: Closing Date Extended

Thanks for your emails and questions about how the postal strike might affect the Couture Contest. Those of you that don't live in the UK may not have heard that postal workers are planning strikes this week and are currently dealing with a large backlog of undelivered mail. While many of your entries have arrived safely at Momiji HQ (we'll send an email to the creators of all those dolls that we've received next week) we can't stand the thought of some dolls being stranded in a sorting office somewhere. We've decided that the deadline for entries will now be 5.30pm on Monday 16th November. We can't say for sure how long the strike will impact on deliveries but hopefully those extra couple of weeks should mean that everything makes it through the system. To keep things simple we'll also accept entries to the USA address until 16th November.

Thanks so much to those have you who have take then time to deliver your dolls by hand. It's lovely to meet you and we really appreciate your dedication.

If you have any questions just let us know.

Photo credit will wade

Two Weekends Left

Hello folks,

Hope your dolls are coming along well. Two weekends left now, which is plenty of time to devote to pouring a little love and creative genius into your Momiji. As a dose of textile eye candy we'll leave you with this fab photo by Astrid (we LOVE Astrid and her amazing blog & flickr stream.)

Have a wonderful weekend.

xx

Barbara Hulanicki

It’s not every day you get to sip cappuccino with one of the most highly esteemed names in British fashion, so when Barabara ‘BIBA’ Hulanicki found time during London Fashion week to talk with us, we were more than a little bit excited.

Settling down for a chat in the cafe at Liberty, she told us how entering a design competition had had a big impact on her own early career. Back in the 1950s her aunt had spotted a contest in the London Evening Standard. There had been three categories; evening wear, day wear and swim wear. Barbara’s aunt was sure she had come up with a winning idea and tasked her niece with drawing up a complicated ensemble which involved an outfit made from layers of silk which could be removed to reveal a cocktail dress. Despite not being particularly keen on the old-fashioned style, Barbara did as she was asked, however when she returned home she decided that she’d also enter her own idea for a playsuit. She recalls how several weeks later she heard that she had won and laughs at the trepidation she’d felt when faced with the daunting task of breaking the news to her aunt!

“It changed my life completely. It also taught me that I was right not to always listen to my elders and that I really should trust my own ideas.”

After studying at Art College in Brighton, Barbara began her career as a freelance fashion illustrator for newspapers and glossy magazines. Felicity Green, women’s editor for the Daily Mirror asked Barbara to design an outfit that the newspaper could offer its readers as a mail order offer. The result was a pink gingham dress which they sold over 17,000, it gained cult status and resulted in a British gingham shortage. Barbara’s husband Fitz, set off on a mission to fabric suppliers around the country in an attempt to source enough to keep up with demand.
Spurred on by their immediate success the couple went on to set up their own mail order business, selling their designs across Britain to fashion-hungry young women. Barbara talks about those early days with fondness but also remembers the chaos that often ensued as they tackled the overwhelming demands of being the nation’s coolest boutique.

It was only a matter of time before the mail order business expanded into their first shop. In 1964 the doors of a new boutique opened in Kensignton and the legendary BIBA was born, creating a completely new type of fashion retailing that would change the face of the British High Street forever.

We asked Barbara what advice she’d give to those starting out in their design careers nowadays; she stressed the importance of hands on experience;

“When we started BIBA we had to do everything ourselves. I’d say get as much knowledge and experience as you can. Learn the technical stuff too, the nitty-gritty. Work in a shop to see how people buy, learn how to pattern cut. Do as much as you can before you settle in a particular job. See what’s out there, find different openings; there will be things happening that you don’t even know about.”

We took along Coco, one of our newest Momiji as a gift for Barbara to take back to her home in Miami, “I love it, she’s adorable!” Chatting about some of the most memorable gifts she’d received she recalled the time Fitz had bought her a wooden armadillo! “I don’t know why!” she laughed “He was always terrified of giving me presents because I’m so difficult.”
With a career spanning nearly 50 years, Barbara Hulanicki is showing little sign of slowing down. Her recent capsule collection for TopShop, a collection of wallpaper for Graham & Brown and now even a documentary film about her life ‘Beyond BIBA’ mean that the creativity just keeps flowing. “I love doing new things, moving from one to another”

Finally, we wanted to know how she would approach entering the Couture Contest; if she were to make a Momiji that represented herself, what would it be like? “A little devil...a happy little devil!”

We’d like to say a big thanks to Barbara for being so generous with her time and her enthusiasm for supporting new talent.

If you’d like your creative skills to make it into the hands of a fashion icon then make sure your doll arrives with us before October 30th. Just under a month to go; it’s the final countdown.

For more information and a list of screenings for Beyond BIBA visit http://www.beyondbibamovie.com/

Pip McCormac

Entering the Momiji Couture Contest is a chance for you to get your work in the hands of some pretty fabulous folk from the world of design, fashion and textiles. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for interviews with some of the faces behind the contest; we'll be chatting with them about their lives, their careers and what they'll be looking for in the winning entry.

First up is Pip McCormac of The Sunday Times Style. We had a chat with the man responsible for the glossy pages of our favourite Sunday brunch-time reading.

Did you always know you wanted to work in design?
No – when I was very young I wanted to be a bus driver as I thought it would be a good way to always be meeting new people. Then I wanted to be a chef because I love eating, and finally I fell into writing about design because I just love a good cushion and I’m not fierce enough to write about fashion!

Where are your favourite places for shopping in London?
I love the atmosphere of Marylebone High St. It can be a thriving Saturday afternoon just five minutes walk away on Oxford St, but up there it’s always calm, serene, and gentle. Plus there are some great pubs and restaurants to end up in.

Do you collect anything?
Dust, mainly. My house is full of things that I love that I really don’t have space for, but that I’ve picked up over the years and can’t bear to part with. Candlesticks, vases, weird little horse-shaped ornaments….I’d love to be all minimalist, but I just couldn’t manage it.

What have you learned this year?
How to trust my instincts when I come to work. If I instinctively love a group of random objects, chances are they’ll look good together on the page. Of course, that could just be because there are geniuses working on my Art Desk.

What advice would you give to those beginning their design careers on how to promote themselves and their work?
So many young designers are pro-active these days – I often get emails from recent graduates with images of their work and a mini-bio. I’m so deskbound a lot of the time that I often have to rely on people to come to me. Of course, shows like 100% Design and Tent are great to be involved in, as it’ll get you massive exposure almost instantly, from both the press and the buyers.

What’s the hardest thing about your job?
Keeping on top of all the press releases and information and bits of paper that constantly threaten to overrun my life! I long for a paperless working system. Or even a filing cabinet would do nicely!

What’s your favourite part?
I love it when I put something on the page and then get a call from the stockist the next day saying they’ve already had a ton of orders. I know that my job isn’t exactly something that would lead to sainthood, but I figure that most people don’t have time to trawl every shop and website looking for the perfect vase to fill a spot in their living room, so I like being able to do that for them.

What possession could you not live without?
My Sky+ box. I love television, and I love being able to watch what I want, when I want. I’m about to go on holiday next week and freaking out that it won’t have enough memory left to record all the shows I’ll be missing, and I just can’t face deleting all those episodes of Property Ladder currently clogging it up. I do know some people would find this embarrassing to admit to, but I don’t think there’s anything shaming in talking about what brings you joy. And yes, I do know it’s only TV!

Friday nights or Sunday mornings?
Friday nights! I love the promise of the weekend stretching ahead of you. I’m usually far too hungover to function on a Sunday morning.

What will you be looking for when you’re judging the Momiji Couture Contest?
Bright and interesting use of colour. I like seeing palette combinations that I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of. I’m all about the bold and the beautiful.