sending a little sunshine to wherever you have gone and to your Loved ones left behind.

Thank you for being an inspiration brimming with intellect, soul & truths. Thank you for touching on a sense of beauty deeply felt & making our paths more graceful & just.

R.I.P.

No better way to start the New Year but with a poached Egg – just look at it! Egg yourself, lovers & the people who you would like to egg with this perfect little treat. Thanks to ‘Delia’ we know how to poach the perfect egg. So here it goes.

Firstly – “This method is not at all frightening or hazardous, but bear in mind that for successful poaching the eggs have to be really fresh – less than four days old. The key to a well-poached egg is to keep the water at a bare simmer throughout the cooking. Place a suitably sized frying pan over a gentle heat and add enough boiling water from the kettle to fill it to 1 inch (2.5 cm). Keep the heat gentle, and very quickly you will see the merest trace of tiny bubbles beginning to form over the base of the pan.

Secondly – Carefully break the eggs, one at a time, into the water and let them barely simmer, without covering, for just 1 minute. A timer is essential here because you cannot guess how long 1 minute is.

Thirdly – After that, remove the pan from the heat and let the eggs sit calmly and happily in the hot water, this time setting the timer for 10 minutes. This timing will give perfect results for a beautifully translucent, perfectly set white and a soft, creamy yolk. Now remove each egg by lifting it out of the water with a draining spoon and then letting the spoon rest for a few seconds on a wodge of kitchen paper, which will absorb the excess water. As you remove the eggs, serve them straight away.”

Finally – sprinkle with crushed pepper & rock salt, add in a couple of essential! soldiers and ‘perfectomundo’ your treat is ready.

Happy New Year to you all & well of course, thanks to Delia! YUM!

1st January 2010

After a seemingly insatiable 30hrs sleep I am back on home turf with
my eyes peeled. Someone asked me how India was? Honestly…

It deserves a new addition to my vocabulary. Sitting there in my mind shimmering full of sense & nonsense, lavish & unassuming that it makes Jaipur – The Pink City look as pale as milk. My impressions flow like lucid dreams glazing over with the sunshine of Mumbai, candy coloured wedding garb, street children far from marble flooring, designers ‘bare’ rebellion or glitzy Bollywood-stream, history explosion turned Verve, Gaba trousers & plaits, hallucinating block prints & Masala Dosa, Bombay Electric contrasting educational establishment and the stream goes on.

The traffic never stopped – it only changed colours. Dusky Jaipur looked exquisite from my window frame and the block prints covering the walls of Gempalace inspired my own private ‘Darjeeling Limited’ that would do Wes Anderson proud – for sure.

The buglike cabs turned black in Mumbai and besides little me in a ***** Taj – they gave me the biggest joy since funfair rides. Riding along in these little bugs I screamed with joy inhaling heaps of cosmopolitan air wearing Little Shilpa & Nachiket Barve creations, enjoying a Fairtrade Melange, Masala tea with Bollywood ‘Maholtra’ supreme & a stroll through a sweatshop factory some place else that smelt very close to home.

Mumbai – Ahmedabad…all blending into one…Full of spicy mirrors woven into textiles, ‘candy-floss’ yarn strung & coloured by roadsides for spools to go with kites for local kids’ fun, food from stitched banana leaves & hundreds of nut crackers so beautifully bronzed they made you cry. A Calico Museum stuffed with textiles from all around Planet India living inside a private paradise garden decorated with Mosaic terraces only to be graced by the bare feet of elves. And finally! I get wrapped in the wealth of Sari by Shaymal & Bhumika…oh my!

NOW I understand the need for Princesses & Gempalace jewellery! Bollywood please take my humble hand. In fact NOW my home – ‘Whitechapel High Street’ – galvanised with its mini sari palaces & miniature Gem Palaces makes sense. Underpinned with rationale IMG ‘databank’ Vikram Raizada and graceful Verve intelligence – I am left with the odd glimpse of what will be my INDIA, what will crystalise in time to bind itself around my heart – exciting enough to be future.

Thanks for an unforgettable & infinite inspiration to my creative juices – Planet India.

December 2008

The UK Young Fashion Entrepreneur Award is the latest edition to the British Council Young Creative Entrepreneur programme, which focuses on design, screen, music, publishing and fashion.

So off we go to India tomorrow for two weeks! Along with five other finalists I will gain precious insight into one of the world’s fastest-developing and most dynamic economies on this specially-tailored tour opening the door to India’s fashion industry. We will meet leading figures from India’s fashion industry and their peers, other Indian young entrepreneurs from the sector and find out more about the industry’s infrastructure, the market and how to do business in India. On our return we will be re-interviewed to assess what we have learned from the opportunity and how we might take the experience forward. A winner will be chosen and announced at London Fashion Week in Feb’09.

If you care to join me on my journey to India over the next two weeks I will be sharing my impressions on the BLOG every few days. I cannot wait to have my eyes filled with India & discover a few new CHOOLIPS’.

**NESTA is the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts. Its mission is to transform the UK’s capacity for innovation. With the largest portfolio of early-stage businesses in the country, it is a leading authority on how to grow new ideas. We also stimulate imaginative solutions to pressing social issues and shape policy to help the UK meet its national innovation challenges. www.nesta.org.uk

November 2008

…Its an infatuation with shapes, colours and comfort, but most of all having yummy shoes provides me with the sense that my feet are a delicious part of me. All the shoes I have stay with me too…they stay and they get worn! And when I have worn them out the memory of our walks fills me with joy.

This time I found them…
I remember the first time I saw them was on www.terraplana.com
They struck me with a deep excitement and I knew they were the pair for this year! Some days later a friend met me for coffee and she was wearing them! … They looked even better on the feet…and NOW they look even better on MY feet. Thanks to my dear friend for sending a pair in the post! These are by far the most delicious pair I …psssst, don’t want to insult my other shoes… they are so light and more comfortable than any trainer I have ever worn. My feet are in fluffy world… they are looked after by an utterly stylish and comfortable… VEGGIE???? Incredible… these are a VEGGIE LEATHER SHOES! I have never bought into Veggie shoes. I am sold! What other colours do these come in? Lets have a look… www.terraplana.com

May 2008

This time last year I was recovering in snowy Germany after a hot December spent in Ghana working with Global Mamas on making my award winning ‘Design 4 Life Ghana’ dresses a FAIRTRADE reality for retailer TOPSHOP. I slept for ten days, tugged inside the blaze of African sun and pure joy of Ghana’s people. I snug away holding onto visual feasts and touches of conversation that will grip me for a life – time – since preserved and cherished as my muse.

Juliana, a Batiker with her workshop outside her home on top of a banana tree plateau and Florence, a Seamstress with her workshop inside an old shipping container by the roadside in Cape Coast, joint forces to produce my coffee bean dresses. We worked long hard days exchanging gifts of knowledge, stories and future dreams while refining methods for printing & assembling dresses. The knowledge exchanged laying strong foundations for potential future projects. I drifted inside a haze of a shared dream taking shapes of reality while listening to gripping life stories and feeling the drenching warmth of hope and beautiful gratitude to Natures gifts. I returned to Europe for a dip in the snow and flew again to Ghana beginning of February’07 to add final touches to production methods. We were exhausted and excited by the work and future prospects. My haze only lifted when dipping forks into spicy African stews and eventually when the dresses arrived at TOPSHOP’s flagship store in OXFORD CIRCUS in April. I stood bewildered in front of the window display, people passing & reading our story. Drifting inside the store about midday the first order of dresses had virtually flown out the store. Our Ghanaian ladies had earned themselves 13times the average wage and most of all more orders!!! Most delightful, Juliana, the Batiker, has now expanded her workshop and doesn’t need to fetch water in buckets anymore. She has been able to lay a water pipe providing fresh water access necessary for the batiking process.

There has been much talk the past year between myself & other ethically minded movers thinking about how to shape up a fashionable future. With all this future talk I have turned to producing more work with my Batiker.

The air around me remains filled with the colourful life of an African township, the breeze of the ocean & the substantial knowledge of the impact a few pretty dresses can make in ethical ways.

January 2008

My eyes are filled with future…Besides having won over a versatile selection of eagle-eyed judges…see for yourselves www.design4lifeghana.com, it appears that TOPSHOP were particularly impressed on the final judging day. In fact so much so they agreed to stock the winning designs in selected stores in the Spring /Summer collections 2007.

‘Melanie and I could not believe the amount of effort that went into the winning designs and the designers attention to detail. Coupled with how amazing the quality of the fabric and the printing technique done by the Women in Progress team, we are really excited about selling the product in Topshop, we think it will fly of the shelves as its perfect for our customer’ Clare Hamer: Top Shop Buyer & Melanie Frame: Head of Quality Control Top Shop

This directly impacts on Women in Progress, the Ghanaian company that made my prints reality, by creating major positive changes to their lives & business. It is also a major achievement for ethical fashion. It is an opportunity for fashion which owns a pulsating conscience to set foot into TOPSHOP and therefore into mainstream fashion. As a designer I only see a future in sustainable business that takes into account our environment plus the working and living conditions of all individuals in the production chain. This will bridge cultures and resources thus function globally and enable the production of innovative & commercial fairly traded products. Producing ethically will enable fashion to contribute paramount steps towards a mutually respectful, healthy and pulsating future for our planet and our children. Ethical fashion sounds like the NEW GOLD to me.

And it doesn’t stop there. Shortly, I will be travelling to Cape Coast in Ghana to visit Women in Progress. Tabeisa, the organisation behind the competition www.tabeisa.com will be administering the trip. I will be teaching classes for Women in Progress passing on all knowledge about the production of the winning designs. In exchange the women will let me into their precious Batik artistry, share a glimpse into their lives & history and let me savour African sun.
Where will it lead from here? My eyes are set on collecting African textile traditions in Cape Coast for these to be absorbed into my first kimono collection ‘Kimono – fly in African skies’. It will speak of ethical trade and ancient techniques as much as contemporary fusions of African, Japanese and British textile traditions and much much more…Enough!!! I will write more as and when there is more to tell…

October 2006

So…over the past month I have seen my prints come to life & created the dresses I had dreamt up. All three dresses celebrate & highlight Ghana’s rich natural resources and its local textile traditions. There are coffee beans & fish scales that playfully combine African traditions of dressing in vibrant fabrics. The fabrics are printed in colours plucked from Ghanaian landscapes and simply wrapped, folded, tied, tugged & pleated. My designs take these elements and celebrate them in a marriage of silhouettes, colour schemes & print layouts popular in the UK. The silhouettes mirror much of fashion seen in the 50’s colonial Africa and will be no strangers to a Ghanaian eye and certainly not our local wardrobes. However the detailing reaches beyond uniting the spirit of Africa & UK culture by displaying Far Eastern Origami traditions, which echo the African wrap, fold, tie, tug & pleat playfulness.

At the end of this week all three afro- brit creations will be setting foot onto a Parisan catwalk @ Ethicalfashionshow – www.ethicalfashionshow.com

I am tingly all over with excitement for all things to come. But most of all I am at peace having stepped a little closer to where my future visions are carrying me. Please enjoy for now. There will be more to see upon my return next week…

October 2006