Anna Scholz Blog

We sent an e-mail out last week about our fabulous competition to win tickets to the V&A’s David Bowie Is competition. Here’s another friendly reminder to enter this amazing competition for your chance to win. This exhibition is selling out fast– don’t miss your chance!

We all know that the poses models strike in fashion magazines often just don’t make sense. Sometimes these contortions are just bizarre and don’t even seem to relate to the product at all.

Spanish artist Yolanda Dominguez created a series of photos called Poses in which she has ordinary women strike uber-modelesque poses in everyday life– standing in queues, sitting in cafes etc. The results are quite hilarious and definitely met with confusion by surrounding crowds.

See more of the artist’s work here!

Last month, Anna and Darren– our sales and production manager– traveled to New York City to show the Autumn-Winter 2013 collections.

Between appointments with buyers…

Anna Scholz showroom in NYC

Anna with Lydia of Boutique Larrieux

Anna with Dina of Gwynnie Bee

they also managed to see some friends…

Anna With Aimee Cheshire of Madison Plus

Angela O'Riley in the Fantasia print jersey sarong dress

Angela O'Riley in the Chameleon print jersey pleat tuck maxi dress

…and to engineer a totally cool photo shoot for Anna’s Autumn-Winter 2013 Black Label collection! Here are a few teasers–watch this space for more updates!

Darren and Katie, the photographer

Checking the shot

Katie does what it takes to get the shot

Anna with models, Clementine and Denise

Photographer and picture editor Tom Broadbent has set tongues and tails a-wagging with his photo series At Home With the Furries. On his blog, he describes “furries” as people that meet up, hang out, go for walks, chat online and in person – all in fur animal suits.

Most furries are animal lovers, but some just like to role-play or find wearing the fur exciting or fun. In the off-fur hours, the people inside the suits are seemingly ordinary folk– computer programmers, engineers, mortgage brokers, lecturers even fur suit makers.

“Over the course of a few years,” writes Broadbent, “I gained the trust of the furries in the UK and some of their members allowed me to visit them at home. These photographs were taken all over the country.” (The only homes where fur on the furniture isn’t a problem!)

The primary rule of being a furry is never to reveal your identity. So, as Broadbent says, “if you see any furries roaming around at a furry meeting or convention (outside of the designated fursuiters lounge) in suit but carrying their heads, they are not furries. Maybe a mascot on a tea break or something.”

See more of the At Home With The Furries series here!

This is the photograph of curvier mannequins in a shop in Sweden that has gone viral over the past few weeks. The full story of the wrongful attribution of this photo to H&M is interesting. Apparently, this photo is actually several years old and came from a display in the Swedish shop Åhléns. Despite all of the mis-information spread about this photo online, the positive reaction to a curvier mannequin was nearly unanimous in web readers.

Shops and shoppers are also keen for a change in the female figure represented by the average mannequin. For the past few years,mannequin manufacturer Displaysense has seen orders for size 12-14 fashion mannequins soar by 16% as shops ditch size zero in favour of a more hourglass figure. Contributing factors include the trend for embracing Forties and Fifties glamour in fashion and stars like Adele and Christina Hendricks making curves sexy again. Displaysense spokesman Jim Moody said: “Lagerfeld may want size zero on his catwalk but the commercial viability of the growing plus-size clothing market is being seized by high street chains and independent retailers alike.”

Displaysense believe “Staying relevant to your audience is essential and our order books show that sales of larger sized and bigger breasted mannequins…are undoubtedly on the rise…”.

On behalf of the online gallery Orso Major, the artwork of our very own sales and production manager, Darren Monaghan, will be on display at this weekend’s Startup Showcase at Somerset House (23rd and 24th March, 2013).

Sponsored by Doug Richard’s School for Creative Startups, this showcase is a two-day celebration of creative entrepreneurship in the UK. It includes a curated Marketplace featuring work from over 100 rising star startups in creative sectors from fashion and design to craft and fine art. Visitors will have the opportunity to shop and attend lectures and workshops.

Tryptique Cerulean Blue and Tryptique Down Pipe Grey by Darren Monaghan

Orso Major is an online gallery, which strives to bring affordable art by up-and-coming artists to one’s home or business. The Gallery offers limited edition photographs and prints, and a series of original charcoal drawings. “While we are an online gallery,” says Director, Gita Joshi, “we have plans for 2013 to mount exhibitions at various locations around London.”

Tryptique Lumo Lights and The Oblique Self by Darren Monaghan

Read more about the upcoming Startup Showcase here!

The latest issue of Vol.Up.2 magazine is now online, marking the publication’s one-year anniversary. This issue is called Simplicity and contains around 23 different editorials as well as original artwork and loads of other treats! It is produced by the talented Velvet d’Amour, who also takes most of the photos in the magazine.

Click here for a teaser of the latest issue (you can download the full magazine from there).

We don’t advocate the unnecessary humiliation of our feline friends, but this product is pretty hilarious. The cat in the photo must have been drugged!

The text on the package reads:

Your cat makes a show of being regal and in control, but you could turn all that around with this Inflatable Unicorn Horn for Cats. It’s a vinyl, 51/2” (14 cm) long unicorn horn with a four-point elastic strap system that holds it comfortably on a kitty’s noggin. Why have just a regular cat, when you could have a uni-cat?

Emma, the fabulous blogstress and fashionista behind Oh, The Places You’ll Go!, has posted a lovely review of Anna’s Spring-Summer 2013 collection.

She writes: In recent years – I’ve pretty much loved everything released by Anna but I’m going to go ahead and say the prints this Season are my favourite. They have taken my breath away – the dress [below] (in the Dandelion Print) is just unreal and completely beautiful.

I had the good fortune to see many of these dresses in the flesh last weekend at the BPSFW [British Plus-Size Fashion Weekend] event and they were spectacular. I always sit up and pay attention where Anna’s involved and one print in particular (which is like a magnificent, magical colour explosion) has wooed my heart completely:

Anna Scholz provides us with two designer ranges through her Black and White Label Collections. Every season – I feel grateful for Anna as a designer. I love that she provides something accessible through Simply Be – but also – I LOVE that she designs High End clothing with the best fabric, new prints and US in mind. We plus size girls DESERVE an indulgent, beautiful DESIGNER label like this.

Thank you, Emma, for your kind words. We loved the dress you helped to design for Simply Be! Emma, Laura and Lauren were asked to make their dream dresses (to debut in May) in collaboration with the Simply Be designers, buyers and garment technologists etc.  Read more about Emma’s design adventure here!

The truth is, we are all overly critical –especially of ourselves. We could all stand to be a little kinder to ourselves and more accepting of the bodies we were born with. Huffington Post recently published a series of quotes from various celebrities about body acceptance.  Take heart from the words of these women.

Jamie Lee Curtis: "The more I like me, the less I want to pretend to be other people."

Oprah Winfrey: "This is a call to arms. A call to be gentle, to be forgiving, to be generous with yourself. The next time you look into the mirror, try to let go of the story line that says you’re too fat or too sallow, too ashy or too old, your eyes are too small or your nose too big; just look into the mirror and see your face. When the criticism drops away, what you will see then is just you, without judgment, and that is the first step toward transforming your experience of the world."

Christina Aguilera: "I think that whatever size or shape body you have, it's important to embrace it and get down! The female body is something that's so beautiful. I wish women would be proud of their bodies and not diss other women for being proud of theirs!"

Tyra Banks: "Girls of all kinds can be beautiful -- from the thin, plus-sized, short, very tall, ebony to porcelain-skinned; the quirky, clumsy, shy, outgoing and all in between. It's not easy though because many people still put beauty into a confining, narrow box ... think outside of the box ... pledge that you will look in the mirror and find the unique beauty in you."

Drew Barrymore: "God made a very obvious choice when he made me voluptuous; why would I go against what He decided for me?"