Women Fashion Power exhibition at the Design Museum

Women Fashion Power exhibition at the Design Museum

Zaha Hadid's Prada cape

Fashion has finally come out of the closet in a fantastic new exhibition at the Design Museum. 
Women Fashion Power includes interviews and outfits donated by 26 high-flying business women arrived at via a 'corridor of power' containing paintings of historical figures, such as, Joan of Arc and Boudicca, as well as photographs and quotes from those who didn't take part, like Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel. Contributors include Natalie Massanet, architect Zaha Hadid (who designed the exhibition), Human Rights lawyer and director of Liberty Shami Chakrabati and broadcaster Kirsty Wark.

Camilla Batmanghelidjh the founder of the children's charity Kids Company loaned the multi-coloured dress created by Magbule Mulla (above). Next to it, is one of my favourite outfits (the Georges Rech black blazer and pants and stripy silk scarf), belonging to Anne Hidalgo the current Mayor of Paris and first woman to hold office in the French capital, who also opened the exhibition. C'est chic, non?

Photo: Elle

From the Suffragettes to Katharine Hamnett's Protest and Survive, the exhibition offers highlights from 150 years of the women's movement, alongside key fashion moments. And yes, a lot of this stuff we've seen before, but Women Fashion Power is presented in a way that feels quite fresh and celebratory. I had chance to have a quick chat with co-curator Donna Loveday about the exhibition,
'For a long time, dress in the workplace was thought of as frivolous but now we have more choice over what we wear to work and we feel freer to express ourselves through our clothes. Women USE fashion in their professional working lives. I think this is incredibly empowering and sends out a really positive message.'

Archive Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking

Archive Vivienne Westwood bondage suit

Influential business women discuss how they feel about fashion and how fashion makes them feel. The 31-year-old chartered mechanical engineer Morwenna Wilson chose a Carven map print jacket and explained, 'Jackets are very important to me because I am petite and a woman, yet one with responsibility and authority working in a male dominated industry, often with a team of people older than me.'

Morwenna Wilson

Archive Roger Vivier slingback

Kirtsy Wark's red Katharine Hamnett jacket and skirt, from 1988

Broadcaster Kirsty Wark photo: Sunday Times

Women Fashion Power is proof (not that we needed any) that clothes matter and it's OK to talk about them seriously. This is an exhibition for fans of fashion and feminism - because we know now that the two can exist together.

Women Fashion Power is on at the Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 until 26 April 2015. And I know what I'll be wearing to the beach next summer...

1930s beach pyjamas

6 Restaurants & 4 Cakes

6 Restaurants & 4 Cakes

Monday 20th March

A day working from home, as we try to aim for Mondays means lunch on Main Street! $15 Lunch at Mother Dough. We had the mussels & cherry tomato linguine. Seasoned with salt, pepper and garlic. The mussels were fresh and juicy, average sizes, while the pasta was a bit chewier than I prefer, but fine apart from being too salty for me.  

Matt Preston's Nutella Pie-ish Cake

• Chocolate but not very sweet
• Not overpowering sweet - asian friend. Not anywhere as sweet as I thought! 
• Fresh strawberries brings it to life, as all 3 components compliment each other
• Bouncy texture like thick custardy jello/firm. Oh yes it reminds me of pie!

Experimenting in the kitchen we made a three ingredient cake! Well two, but we like to add vanilla, even though it seemed to make no difference in this recipe... To share a recipe my rule is that it has to be just right, and made at least twice. This one's ready. 

Tuesday

It's $16 pizza night at Sugo! Delicious and reasonably priced we can't wait to return!

Over to the Astor we saw a movie set during the war, tis alright and depressing, no dress or hair porn though. No where as uplifting and amazing as 'Hidden Figures' the last movie we saw. As depressing as the choc top was disappointing, with the stale cone.

Wednesday

A revisit to Huxtaburger Hawthorn, it's completely different from last time where service wasn't great and it was ran by asians. Think of the city kfcs that only hire international asians.

Britney $14

Grilled chicken, avocado, aioli, cheese, lettuce and tomato.

Delicious as always though Betty's is on par, perhaps better than Hux?

Beauty & The Beast - Girl's Night Out Event

Checking out the showbags. Sadly no program/postcard/flyer or any relevant merch, but there's food (stuff you can buy at Safeway) and some sachets of beauty samples and eyeshadow. Kinda disappointing after the amazing one at the last event we attended. Granted it was years ago (we saw the Devil Wears Prahran) - oh I just realized we saw that back home. I suppose it's more guy friendly? :P We were hoping for cookies/macarons and little edible treats.

The movie was great! Not as stunning as the french one, but magical in its own way!  We loved the dinner song and Gaston in particular, his best man/servant. LeFou is the original Elder Cunningham and Olaf the Snowman! The beast looks more like a goat/Krampus than lion... 

1597 was when shakesphere published romeo & juliet, though there's a 1750s roccoco style castle. Set during the Georgian era but after Victoria with Shakespeare (these two do boarder each other). At the castle time froze but the village people, some of them were related to the cursed servants? Why did the enchantress live as an outcast in the village?

It was set in France, they moved to the country because of the plague in Paris, though back Belle's family appear to have been poor. That or attics are as expensive as they are today in the city. 

The ball at the start was stunning! With all the powdered white wigs, so when the curse broke they were white but for the end party they wore black wigs??

Overall it was great and the beast gets a song too! They bonded over their love of books, being mother-less and Belle being the only girl in the village who could read, also her desire to travel. Highly recommend! We loved H has Belle, who's just as bright and brave!

Quotes
She's the prettiest girl in town, that makes her the best! XD
Screw your courage to the sticking-place - Gaston/Lady mb

Plot Summary

Thursday

The ABCs of time management. Gosh I wished we did this stuff at school! Sure I can plan, but then I get overwhelmed or one thing runs late making everything else late. Eg. Someone got hit by the train, even though I was to arrive at the theatre 30mins early but didn't make it till intermission. Trains were frozen, boom gates down and cars were at a stand still. No one was going anywhere tonight on this side of the city.

Me - I have a cape!
Him - Don't you already have one?
Me - Not one that's a blazer hybird. And it was $50 on sale.

One of the last ones I tracked when I saw the post, posted 20mins ago. It was meant to be as there was only one in my size in the city! Don't you love it when that happens?

Tip - If you see something you like go try it on and be certain of your size. Then add it tp your bookmarks tab, use java to email you when the page/price is edited. Using this I rarely ever pay full price. 

"...when they are pulling your teeth out it sounds like chicken bones snapping and you can hear the crackle of the tooth giving way and splintering. They grab your head and they really pull hard. It's all manual and very physical. A horrifying experience to say the least!"

". At one point the nurse was holding my head in place while he went to town with the pliers/cracker thing."

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2014/05/23/the-survival-guide-to-getting-your-wisdom-teeth-removed

I chickened out and moved it to next month...

Instead of the dentist we had dinner at Angliss.

Friday

So close but so far, I'm starting to think it's display only...

Meetings, a stop by goodwill, to the closed bookshelf at the tram, to the house to make a cake (well pie, nutella pie), cleaned then to dinner. We were going to a bar but it was dark, loud and overwhelming so we took a stroll and picked somewhere random. Discussions of which point when it [life] all started to go downhill.

Work in progress, twice in a fortnight, that's about as much cake as I can handle. :P

My first HSP (because they don't make them in kid size servings, like that size at LOTF, but I hate fake meat). This one's $15 from Hellenic Bite, meat (chicken and lamb) on chips with garlic, bbq and chili sauce. It was delicious! We also had a $6 salad which was average and not particularly recommended with Coles on the same block (their potato salad is the best). It was very hot inside the eatery, oddly so.

Saturday

Too many events, too little time!

10.30 for 11am start. Damn I thought it started at 10.30am, as it clashes with my 11am. On the way we discovered a book exchange, in the beauty garden. Ironic location isn't it?  XD No beauty and the beast books though. Fruit and hot dogs for brunch? Something the boys would like, and not the usual cakes it was a bit on the diy side. Over to a makeup demo, 3 looks 15 mins each using 5 or less products. Chatting up a model on her fav off duty pieces, relating to the audience though the limited travel wardrobe. Too mainstream for me.
Lunch at Rice Workshop. Teriyaki chicken ramen $10.50. The broth was rich and creamy. Most of the chicken wasn't chewy. Springy noodles maggi sized though not taste.
Good basic if there's no ramen places in the area.

At Sacca's Fruit World we found $6 trays of strawberries! 8 boxes, so around 75c each. On their way out, still good for jams and smoothies. We sorted, washed, cut and froze them. Got a large pot of the first round ones.

Up to Camberwell from the french fete, for the kids it wasn't my thing. It's your first started food festival with a petting zoo, games, auctions/raffles, food, music and the likes. No snow cones sadly, but there was a pre-wrapped bake sale. I was hoping to get an assorted plate of classic Australian party food but they didn't have that. We Had the jam drop cookies, too soft and retro inspired with the custard yellow. I was after chocolate crackles, real rum balls and honey joys. But they didn't have any of that, unless you're after enough to serve a family of 10.

Back at the house to pack before going out to a concert, we crashed. Turns out I can't do a morning and evening event on the same day... and lesson learnt: always choose music over fashion.

Sunday
6.30 start, leaving at 5.45am we made it! The moon was still in the sky, peaking 28 at 5pm?! Peaks are normally 10am. We volunteered, meet some awesome people and had a lovely view of the school from across the river! Lots of parrots/love birds and pretty little birds. at the end of the line we have magpies and noisy minors, sometimes pigeons

As we were close by, by north taking a fork in the road we visited my favorite cake shop, green refectory. Look for lonely hearts $2, yesterday's cake. Tastes just fine, even better at $2! When does it happen? I'm not sure, normally it's just muffins, but today there were three slices! We bought two pavs and a mars bar cheesecake to share, as we're going home

To the left is St Vincents, so many colourful dresses! Alas the one I like wasn't my size. A fancy one though just $12. We didn't get a picture as it was too crowded. Apparently people steal from goodwill, as the dresses were tied to the rack! Also of interest was this cookbook/picture book! We used to love Huey, sadly that was until we met him.

How was your week?