Anna Scholz Blog

Earlier this month, Anna Scholz and the designer’s long-term stockist, Beige, came together to create a special fashion event for the Autumn-Winter 2010 season.

The Beige team– lead by shop owner Leanda– gave personal styling advice and customers had the chance to meet Anna herself.

Customers enjoyed champagne and canapés while browsing a special selection of the new annascholz Autumn-Winter 2010 collection at the shop’s New Cavendish Street location in London.

Leanda and the Beige team pulled out all the stops, creating a beautiful window reflecting the “Putting on the Ritz” theme Anna conveyed in her Autumn-Winter ‘10 photo campaign.

Chris, Leanda, Anna, Bev, Darren, Jonathan

We were delighted so many customers came along and bought from the collection. As you can see, there was something for everyone.

A big thank you to the team at Beige. Anna really enjoyed meeting the customers and seeing her collection being “ooohed” over.

Leanda Works a Few Glam Looks

If you missed the event, Beige always have a great selection of annascholz in store. There are two London locations:

44 New Cavendish Street, W1, 020 7953 999 and 8 Hallswelle Parade, Temple Fortune, NW11, 020 8455 1122

During our trip to New York last month to show the collection, our friends Erica and Aimee from the Madison Plus blog, helped Darren and me to organise a customer, stockist and blogger event. It was a fantastic opportunity for us to meet and reunite with customers, shop owners and bloggers, who are all so vital to the fashion industry.

We sipped some bubbly, caught up on the gossip and tried on lots of clothes! It was great to see so many beautiful women in different shapes, sizes and ages in our dresses.

The gorgeous Nikki Gomez won our raffle and chose our cool stretch tailoring black zip dress as her prize.

Jessica Svoboda offered her fabulous jeans and fellow designer Monif C stopped by too.

Our stockists, Jaclyn from Voluptuous Vixen, Liz from Fresh Ayer and Laura from Lola & Gigi showed their support and struck a few poses. Everyone really brought the Spring-Summer 2011 collection to life!

–Anna

Anna, Erica & Aimee from Madison Plus, Darren

Nikki's a winner!

Aimee, Laura from Lola & Gigi, Jaclyn from Voluptuous Vixen

Aimee rocks some Spring-Summer 2011 looks

Jaclyn from Voluptuous Vixen and Liz from Fresh Ayer

Monif C and the Madison Plus girls

The sun shone very brightly on a little corner of Berlin on Saturday July 31st. The very first annascholz store opened its doors!! It was very proud moment for all of us, as we saw the culmination of all the hard work over the past few months transformed into what everybody has said is a really beautiful shop….. We totally agree !!

annascholz Store - Berlin

annascholz Store - Berlin

A very big thank you to the great team at Respectmen in Germany – Dirk , Karin and Alfred - for all their inspiration and hard work and for being fantastic partners and thank you also to Angela

Dirk , Cliff , Anna and Karin

It was a really wonderful day and we hope that this is the first of many. Our friends , family and amazing customers made the day even more special and one that we won’t forget.

We would love to have our next opening here in London. – watch this space !

I recently attended a luncheon with my business partner Cliff for the UK Fashion and Textile Export Awards. Unfortunately, we did not win an award; however, the host of the event, actress Joanna Lumley, admired my dress when we ran into each other in the ladies room! (It’s one of our upcoming web shop exclusive styles– keep watching the website for it!)

Our stockist, Emma Plus, in Brighton recently held a fashion show extravaganza to showcase the new store.

The evening was a great success, Emma herself reported to us, and featured many styles from the Anna Scholz Spring-Summer 2010 collection.

“We really had such a fantastic time. It went so smoothly and it looked so professional. The models were Jaq, Kim, one of our customers called Ruth, and an old friend of mine called Sue. They looked stonking!

“Then, once the show was over, we moved all the furniture back and suddenly realized that we were incredibly busy. The customers who turned up were really serious fashion women, and the buzz of the show had really got them going! We could barely keep up with demand and it was really busy for hours!

“I think that it’s such a revelation for larger women to watch a fashion show, and then be able to try on the clothes in their own size straight away. We were selling the things that we had worn…people just realized how good things looked. “

We love working with you, Emma– and, yes, your model looks stonking!

Visit the Emma Plus website to see more of what the shop has to offer.

Also, check out Emma’s fab blog!

I visited the Big Apple in February to show the Autumn-Winter 2010 collection to buyers.  I also managed to take in a few sights, see some friends and get delayed on my return in the massive snow storm!  An epic journey overall. Here are some of my favourite photos (and a sneak preview of the upcoming collection).

Laura from Lola& Gigi, Me and Jaclyn from Voluptuous Vixen

It’s a pleasure to sell to women who have a passion for fashion!

Our beloved customers, Deborah Gregory and Shubhani Sarkar

Catching up with my dear friend Jessica Svoboda, the designer behind the eponymous Svoboda denim line.

Our press event

We had a lovely meeting with members of the press and bloggers. They all enjoyed feeling the silk jersey!

Aimee from Madison Plus looking lovely

Me with Erica and Aimee from Madison Plus

Lisa from Beauty Plus Power modelling our best-selling leopard wrap dress

Deb Malkin from Re-Dress rocking it in the digital print

To see more of my adventures in New York City, check out the “Anna’s Diary” and the “Anna’s Favourites” sections of the blog.

We’re very excited about Beth Ditto’s upcoming autobiography, Coal to Diamonds.  Published by Simon & Schuster, it’s due to hit shelves this autumn.

Beth is the super-cool frontwoman for The Gossip and the idol of plus size women everywhere!  She is talented, intelligent, original and fearless with fashion!

“As a 5 foot, 15 stone gay singer, Beth was never going to be ignored,” describes an introductory blurb on www.amazon.co.uk, “but her talent plus her exuberant opinions have made her a heroine for the alternative music scene.” amazon.co.uk continues, “Beth grew up in the Bible-belt town of Searcy, Arkansas as the middle child of seven. She says they were a classic trailer-park family, ‘crazy poor’, who sometimes shot and ate squirrels for entertainment. Beth realised she wasn’t cut out for a life of ‘teenage pregnancy or crystal meth addiction’, and after years of being bullied for being fat and loud, she managed to get away to Olympia, Washington State, where she immediately found like-minded people. It was this move that opened her eyes to another way of living – one where you were not judged for how you looked, but who you were, and where your talents were encouraged. COAL INTO DIAMONDS tells the full story of Beth’s journey to success and fulfilment. She has never forgotten how it is to be an outsider and shares her homespun wisdom as well as many wonderful stories of her misspent youth before her song ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ became an anthem for alternative music fans the world over.”

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coal-Diamonds-Beth-Ditto/dp/1847372163/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268412358&sr=1-1

The team at the website 100% People have launched a campaign to get body diversity into the fashion industry and the fashion media.

Their goal is to gather at least 10,000 signatures from women in order to persuade fashion houses and media outlets of the negative impact that unrealistic and airbrushed imagery has on all  women.

Please support them and sign their petition at www.100percentpeople.com

Also, take note of the great logo designed by up-and-coming talented artist, Becki Jones!