Shangri La comes to London

The design team that are creative forces behind the friggin awesome Shangri-La at Glastonbury are set to work on a new project opening on 1st June 2012. The London Pleasure Gardens will be created on a dis-used 60,000sqm space in east London. It will be an arts and entertainment haven and if the setting is anything like Shangri-La it will be a visual spectacular too.

The space is set to include an outdoor event space, a multi-arts dome, a night gallery and dance arena called The Hub, a floating cocktail lounge and floating cinema, a boutique art hotel and restaurant and a glass café. Video mapping and large video game projections will provide entertainment during the olympic games at the space too.

Another reason to long for summer now, as if this cold weather wasn't enough.

Images of Shangri-La, Glastonbury from various sources

Glasto: The Round Up...

Yes, I'm back from my annual pilgrimage to the most magical and beautiful place on earth and I am slightly broken from all that fun.

I will try to keep my round up short and sweet as for those who missed the best event of the year, my ramblings may well make you a teeny bit jealous.

Here is a little snippet of who I saw...

Two Door Cinema Club, Wu-Tang Clan, Radiohead, U2, Rob Da Bank, Plump DJs, Jimmy Eat World, Pulp, Chemical Brothers, Shy FX, Laura Marling, Paul Simon, Beyonce and about a ton of great DJs.

I spent some beautiful time in the healing fields and had a massage avec hippie love. I chilled at the infamous Stone Circle as well as the highest point of the festival and basked in awe at the view.

Five much needed days away from the hustle and bustle of my hectic, London life has sorted me out completely and as soon as I get my voice back I will  be feeling 100% better.

What I wore...

For those of you that have been, you will know that there is far too much to see and do to worry about your look the whole time. Therefore you will not be getting infinite outfit posts from myself from Glasto. Here is a little taste of my festival wardrobe though.

Where's it from?

Look 1: Hat, fox tail, bag and t-shirt: vintage, leather jacket: Warehouse, leggings: H&M

Look 2: Top: H&M, cycling shorts: Primark, bag, tail and jacket: as before.

Sunglasses (both looks): Vintage.

Highlights...

My highlights have to be U2 (yes a surprise for me too), Chemical Brothers, Beyonce (another surprise for me), Plump DJ's, Pulp, finding Strummerville and my beautiful morning in the healing fields.

I will be posting another visual diary before the week is out so stay tuned.

Glastonbury Visual Diary #1

A few shots from my favourite time of year...

It's Been A While...

Sorry my wonderful readers for my lack of posts. I have been off living the life at Glastonbury. I'm getting some much needed rest today but will do my up-most to bring you the thrills and spills from my favourite place on earth tomorrow.

Smiles and hippie love for now...

A recap of 2010...

So 2010 has almost drawn to a close ( I can't quite believe that another year has gone by and I am getting older and older) and whilst fretting about my outfit for tomorrow night (still not sure what I shall wear yet), panicking about party plans (still not confirmed everything yet) and hap-hazardly thinking about resolutions (still working on those) I have taken time out from all of the above to have a little reminisce of 2010.

Here goes...

JANUARY

January saw the country grind to a halt when we received a large amount of unexpected snow...

I also discovered the work of artist Alex Cave and managed to pin him down for an interview...

FEBRUARY

February brought fashion week once again and I hit the Elle Style Awards...

We also lost the truly wonderful Alexander McQueen...

MARCH

I was lucky enough to be photographed for Company magazine and penned a few words on the blogging world...

APRIL

April saw trendies going mental and rioting at the American Apparel sample sale...

MAY

I went elephant hunting in May...

JUNE

June saw my annual pilgrimage to Glastonbury. Read some highlights here, here and here...

JULY

The iTunes festival hit The Roundhouse, Camden for the entirety of July. I was lucky enough to get tickets to see The XX, Faithless and Underworld (thanks James)...

AUGUST

August saw two wonderful friends tie the knot, congratulations to Nick and Becca (check out Becca's immense heels)...

It also saw me make a huge life change, after three years of working in PR and marketing at a highstreet giant I took the plunge and went freelance. This was a huge decision and a very difficult one, although so far so good and I have not looked back.

SEPTEMBER

I was shortlisted for the Next Generation, street style blogger competition on Vogue.com...

And of course, I attended fashion week. Read my coverage here, here, and here...

OCTOBER

October was a month for events, a memorable was the Matthew Williamson book launch at Somerset House...

NOVEMBER

The end of the year saw me cementing new loves, November is when my love affair with Mary Katrantzou began...

DECEMBER

As you would expect December has brought the usual festivities, Christmas shopping, sale shopping, gin & tonic, Christmas get togethers and food. It will also see a carefully thought out NYE outfit (post to come in 2011- if I ever figure out what to wear).

I will take this moment to wish you all a Happy new Year readers, thank you for reading, commenting, returning and tweeting.

See you next year!

Glasto 2010: The Highlights: Pet Shop Boys

To continue with the running theme of my highlights from Glastonbury, I will today speak of one hell of a Saturday night - Pet Shop Boys. The group was divided on this one with some going to see Muse, some to see George Clinton with Parliament/Funkadelic and the rest to Pet Shop Boys (this is common at Glasto, too many amazing acts, not enough time).

The set was packed with all the oldies which gave us the chance to have a drunken sing-song. Incredible lighting and visuals along with outrageous costumes and dancers proved that the boys have still got it along with proving that they were the perfect choice for a Saturday night headliner. I've always respected their music but after that set I am a fully-fledged fan...a true Glastonbury moment and so much fun.

I'll leave you with their encore (and my favourite track), West End Girls...

Glasto 2010: The Highlights: Florence & The Machine

Today's snippet of my hazy Glastonbury memories will come from the mighty Florence & The Machine. As avid readers will know I love her. I have loved her since last year and this year's performance has confirmed my love even more. Firstly she looked beautiful. In her effortless style she was natural, somewhat angelic and down right fabulous. Secondly she had such character on stage, far more than when I caught her at Lovebox last year- hey, that's the Glastonbury vibe for you. She was loud, euphoric and had great crowd interaction.

Every track was superb, The Lungs album was fully played along with a few new tracks and a very special cover of Fleetwood Mac's The Chain.

The most memorable for me was Dog Days Are Over, enjoy...

Glasto 2010: The Highlights: Slash

I'M BACK!

Yes readers, after six days of hedonistic fun, two days of sleep and a lot of take away food, it's time to share the highlights of my favourite time of year: Glastonbury Festival.

This world famous festival has a huge place in my heart and this year, like every year was spectacular. It was even more special this year as it was it's 40th anniversary, therefore expectations were high, the line-up was packed and my crew were more on edge than ever before. We left London at 4am on Wednesday morning and by 12pm we had the camp pitched, beers in hands and we were ready to rock!

With the sun beating down solidly for the entire time and not one single drop of rain it made it the hottest Glasto on record which if possible, made it EVEN better than last year! Over the next few days (or probably weeks), I will be sharing my personal highlights of this year's mind-blowing festival.

Today, it's Slash.

As a true 'eighties hair band' fan, Gun and Roses are of course up there on my top five of all time bands. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw GnR's guitarist, (and all round personal heart-throb) Slash was on the line up. Sunday afternoon saw the boys head off to watch England play their last game of the world cup (bad luck), whilst the girls went to swoon over this man god.

Still as sexy, nonchalant and down right talented as he always has been, Slash, who played with Myles Kennedy singing, absolutely made Sunday (and Glasto) for me.