It’s that time of year again. Birmingham NEC is taken over for the weekend by the countries beautiful and fashionable - the Glastonbury of the fashion industry with less mud and better hygiene, I hope anyway. This is my first time at the Clothes Show Live, I’m not sure any flash sale could prepare me - and my student loan - for this.
After a painfully long three hour journey I was more than excited to be greeted by the familiar brands of Paul’s Boutique and Superdry in the bustling blue area. The never-ending queue outside Paul’s Boutique was enough to send me searching through the smaller “shop” this area had to offer, which to my delight did not disappoint from the sheer velocity of beautiful clothes from the floral tea dresses of Oh My Love to the cheeky Topshop outlet - yes, it felt wrong buying from there - but none the less exciting. I think my highlight of the area was the buzzing Pretty Polly stand, with the latest Jessie J for Henry Holland advert displayed with those legs. It was in fact, enough to persuade me to part with £10 for two pairs of limited edition Bones Henry Holland tights, my favourite purchase of the last few weeks. Tea & Scandal, selling vintage jewellery were also one of the best stalls in the chic boutique with the sweetest accessories. Most exciting to see was the less well-known brands like Oli Sykes’ ‘Drop Dead’ holding their own in this area, although their reception wasn’t quite as welcome from the fashion pack as spunky neighbours David & Goliath’s.
It seems the bright colours and cartoon faces of David & Goliath have also transferred to the beauty area known as the pink zone, and pink it indeed was. The nauseating smell of fake tan from brands Fake Bake and The Only Way Is Essex’s ‘Lauren’s Way’ were enough to send me veering away, into the minefield of screeching sales assistants flogging goody bags in your face of high street make-up stands Barry M, Rimmel and Benefit - although I was pretty impressed with the Rimmel bag I picked up from the less-in-your-face sales assistants Rimmel had at their bright orange stand - a lot of this area seemed to be bright orange from the stands to the assistants to celebrity guests Lauren Goodger. After avoiding the fake tans samples - who in their right mind would strip off in front of all those people and have a spray tan?! - I managed to check out the ‘Stop and Chop’ hairstylists working their magic transforming some of the Clothes Shows’ visitors looks, giving visitors a glamourous feel to accompany all their fabulous bargains. Result.
The bustling screams seemed to travel into the Style Show area with Xbox 360’s kinect stand, where the enthusiastic staff are harassing innocent passers-by to join their Just Dance 3 demo, a definite sight to see in the area, which I luckily managed to escape the humiliation of. A more sophisticated feel came from the Book and the City launch, the perfect stand for any Carrie Bradshaw wannabe to feed her fantasies with the latest fashion books at great offers. The designer pavilion was yet another crammed area, and for good reason with the beautiful accessories enough to have me quivering onto the next area clutching my debit card.
Luckily, the distant sight of floral bunting is enough to calm me down, and the vintage stalls of the purple zone are for me, the hit of the shopping area. The quirky jewellery stands are a definite hit with shoppers, Sour Cherry being one of my favourites with vintage style wildlife jewellery - their hedgehog hair grips were so cute! Cutie Pie were another definite hit of the area with their vintage inspired rings, the fairytale ring was enough to make me feel like a princess. Handmade jewellery was the main source of squeals from shoppers in this area, that I could have quite easily spent the whole day exploring.
While I spent my time digging through the vintage fair and the cardigan festival that was the Oxfam stall, my friends were enticed by the pole dancers that were demonstrating in the red zone. After a rather cute assistant - which Clothes Show, I am fullly aware you used to make me spend more money, and yes it worked - tried to make us all have a go ourselves on the pole, we ran off to see the experts doing it properly on the dance wear and dance college stalls, with many a Jack Wills lookalike brand lurking, it was time for us to escape into the glorious Suzuki Fashion Theatre for the show.
Now I had been forewarned how much fun this show was, and told I would leave wanting to marry all the male models. Oh how true this was, as Bruno Mars’ “Marry You” played, the most pure ivory dresses flowed down the catwalk with a grungy twist of black court shoes on the arms of the classic cut tuxedo clad men. The department store theme took me to all levels of excitement, from the vibrant prints in womenswear, the neon Lycra and extreme shapes in menswear to the dark fetish featured in underwear sent all viewers hearts racing. Hosted by George Lamb and Grace Woodward with performances by Alexandra Burke and Kimberley Wyatt this show was definitely doing it’s bit to “keep fashion live.”
The spectacular end of the catwalk spelt the end of my first time at the Clothes Show. From the pole dancers, to the kitsch vintage stalls and orange fake tans I have to admit i’m officially a Clothes Show fan. With my purse empty, new Henry Holland tights and some cut off Oh My Love t-shirts to my name I left the NEC exhausted. I’m already counting the days to see what they come up with next year, and of course to see those beautiful shirtless male models again.
