Anna Scholz Blog

Aimee Cheshire is the owner and driving force behind Madison Plus, the blog and web shop for the fashionable plus-size woman. Madison Plus is an interactive and personalized shopping experience and guide. It offers shopping, style tips, trends and street style, info on plus models, the latest news in the plus-size fashion industry and celebrity news. Madison Plus has been a great source of information and inspiration for the Anna Scholz blog. We have done a little guest blogging for each other as well.

What is your favourite part of your body?

My lips and legs.

Where will you be in 5 years?

Running Madison Plus and maybe in the world of mommy-hood.

Who would be your dream date?

Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello. I have a crush.

What superpower would you like to possess?

Invisibility would be handy because I am nosey.

What is your favourite movie?

Amelie, and the original Hairspray. Tracy Turnblad showed me my shape shouldn’t matter.

What is your favourite restaurant?

No clue where to start but if I could do any meal again it would be the tasting menu I experienced at La Truffiere in Paris. It was full of all the decadent things I love in life: red wine, fois gras, bone marrow, and cheese. I live in Brooklyn so I am very lucky to have a good collection of restaurants at my fingertips like Rye, Fette Sau and Traif.

What has been your greatest achievement?

Being able to watch my dreams unfold with Madison Plus.

What has been your happiest moment?

Meeting my hubby– I knew immediately my world of dating was over.

What is your greatest fear?

Losing my support system of family and friends.

Which living person do you most admire and why?

Natalie Manhasset. I love that she has been able master the work/family balance while creating Net-A-Porter. I am all about working, but without a proper balance you end up losing your passion, drive and vision.

What trait do you most dislike about yourself?

I have the memory of a goldfish. I would like it to be more like an elephant.

What makes you sad?

When polar bears die.

How do you relax?

For immediate relaxing I love yoga, a book and a bottle of wine.

Who is your favourite designer?

L’Wren Scott. She doesn’t follow the trends and has an elegance that she adds to the pieces she makes. Now we just need to get her to do plus.

Heels or flats?

Flats, with a heel or two here and there. I am a casual girl at heart, but I know how to do it up when needed.

Black or white?

Black– I’m a New Yorker

Where would you like to be right now?

Mountain Lake, my family’s cottage, where I can totally disconnect from the world by rowing a boat, swimming, playing cards, reading and staring at the stars. It’s a good place to be.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

To persevere. When things are difficult and anything but fun, I keep the mindset that this is happening for a reason and all will be fine once it’s over. The greater plan always reveals itself.

How would you like to be remembered?

I hope that my work in the plus industry will make a difference and, of course, being the best wife ever.

What is your favourite song?

Such a tough question. I have so many favourites it depends on my mood, time of day….Here are a few from my top played on my iPod: The Constellations – “Setback”, Gogol Bordello – “Pala Tute”, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – “40 Day Dream”.

What has been your biggest disappointment?

I’ve had quite a few; don’t be disappointed if I don’t mention them.

Have you ever said ‘I love you’ and not meant it?

I am sure it’s slipped out a few times; sometimes you just can’t stop yourself from saying it.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Can I have more then one? If so, then I have at least a handful. Here is a selection pack: fois gras; a bottle of Chateau Rayas; an email-free day; bacon.

What is the worst thing anyone ever said to you?

There is a famous Hollywood actress I crossed paths with many moons ago who I overheard speak very badly about my shape. While it was far from the worst thing, it always stuck with me and then she became famous, and now I get to remember it every time I see her.

That being said, I am sure she is just lovely now. You’re not always at your best when you’re young.

What do you appreciate most in your friends?

Loyalty, humour.

What is your idea of happiness?

So many equations in life that will equal happiness. I know I experience happiness in its purest form when I am at home with my husband, friends and family.

If not yourself who would you like to be?

Renzo my cat; he leads a very relaxing and cozy life.

We’re loving the cover story photo shoot in the June 2011 issue of Vogue Italia, featuring curvy models Tara Lynn, Marquita Pring, Candice Huffine and Robyn Lawley.

Shot in romantic black in white by Steven Meisel at  New York’s Waldorf Astoria, the spread is sexy to the max!

The issue hit the stands in Milan on June 3 and should be available around the rest of the world soon. Just follow the puddles of drool to a newsstand near you!

There have been some wonderful and wacky developments in the world of shoes lately, which I just had to share. Here are some of the latest designs to tickle or torture your tootsies.

As part of his Autumn 2011 collection, Christian Louboutin will debut his golden lion paw pump. Definitely purrr-fect for the catwalk.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d be able to prowl very gracefully in these…and that’s no lion!

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Gotta have my Jimmy Cheese!

We’re all used to laying out a lot of bread for our shoe addictions, but not wearing it too!  Fashion student, Lisa Dillon from Bath Spa University near London, designed these mules out of stale bread and West Country cheddar as part of a competition to promote the region’s dairy industry. More melted and “molded” cheese makes up the embellishment on the toe of the shoes.

We can think of a better complementary accessory to Lady Gaga’s famed meat dress than these little numbers!

(Incidentally, another group of fashion students from Bath Spa University spent 1,000 hours making five dresses from one ton of British cheese.)

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Lady Gaga was cock of the walk on American Idol in her black platforms with clear plastic penis heels by the British Label Void of Course.

Not sure how she got those by the censors and why she passed up the opportunity to pair them with her meat dress (yes, everything relates back to the meat dress).

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I also read recently that the Company United Nude has created a DIY shoe that looks as uncomfortable and hard to assemble as Ikea furniture!

United Nude created the shoe as part of an art project about space travel and the possibility of humans living on the moon in the future. The shoe collapses for compact lunar travel and the upper parts are interchangeable for customizing.

Have you seen any pretty or preposterous pumps recently? Do tell– bare your sole!

Here at Anna Scholz, we celebrated the Royal Wedding in our own way by offering customers the opportunity to win a £500 online shopping voucher in a prize draw.

The crowned winner of the draw is the lucky Regine Collee from Germany.

Congratulations, Regine– we can’t wait to see what you spend your voucher on. Whatever you select, you’ll be camera-ready for all of your public appearances. Now you’ll always be poised and stylish, even when the paparazzi catch you unawares. (Sorry we can’t help you with what fork to use for salad at that important state banquet though–we’re not very up on our etiquette…and we’d really struggle with that rule about having to stop eating whenever the Queen is finished with her food…I mean, what’s up with that? Anyway, enjoy your voucher!)

Customers, stay tuned for more such offers in the future. You never know what we have up our sleeves.

Amanda sent us this photo of her in Anna’s crepe jersey jumpsuit and lace crop jacket.

There have been a number of artists who have grabbed and presented compelling images from Google’s Street View, but I really enjoy Jon Rafman’s selection.

Here are a few of my favourites from his Nine Eyes of Google Street View project. Some of the images are funny. Some are disturbing, some are poignant or haunting. They remind me, as I sit at my desk, that all sorts of things are going on in the world at any given moment.

As everyone is by now aware, several years ago, Google started a project called Google Street View, attempting the gargantuan task of photographing every single street in the world as an additional feature to Google Maps. Google sends out fleets of cars, each vehicle armed with a GPS, three laser range scanners and nine cameras on a single pole. Every ten to twenty meters, the nine cameras take a photo of whatever happens to be within their frames. Computer software then links the photos together to create a panoramic image. This allows Google Maps to provide access to 360º horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic views of any street on which the Street View car has cruised.

Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful;” but Rafman’s fascination is with the Street View camera as a “systematic pursuer of fleeting moments.”

Though their identities are blurred, most people captured in Street Views seem to tolerate or even enjoy being caught on camera. Rafman reckons that it’s quite a recent development for online surveillance to be not mistrusted by people, but almost welcomed as a friendly invasion, a little taste of fame. Street View photography, writes Rafman represents our search as humans for a sense of “connectedness and significance” in an “uncaring, indifferent universe.”

Rafman also was attracted to the immediacy and rawness of the Street View images and how the Google cameras are impersonal and so seem to genuinely deliver fragments of captured reality.

Jon Rafman is an artist who lives and works in Montreal, Canada.

To see more of Rafman’s Street View images, visit http://9-eyes.com/.

To read his essay on his Nine Eyes of Google Street View project, click here.